HOMICIDE SANITARIUM

I

Killer at Large

I put down the newspaper.

"It's about time," Kit said.

I stood up. "Right, honey. It is."

Her big brown eyes got bigger and browner.

"What do you mean, Eddie? I just meant you've been reading that blasted newspaper for hours and hours."

I glanced at the clock. "For eleven minutes."

I sat down again and motioned, and she came over and sat down on my lap. I almost weakened.

"It's been a nice honeymoon," I said. "But I am a working man. I thought you knew."

"You mean you're taking on another case?"

"Nope," I told her. "One of the same ones. Paul Verne."

"Who's Paul Verne?"

"The gentleman I came to Springfield to find."

She looked really shocked. "You came here to . . . Why, Eddie, we came here for our honeymoon! You don't mean you had an ulterior motive in choosing Springfield."

"Now, now," I now-nowed.

"But Eddie--"

"Shhh," I shhhed.

She cuddled down in my arms. "All right, Eddie. But tell me what you're going to do. Is it dangerous?"

"Get 'em young," I said, "treat 'em rough, tell 'em nothing."

"Eddie, is it dangerous?"

"The world," I told her, "is a dangerous place. One's lucky to get out of it alive."

"Oh darn it, I suppose you are going to do something dangerous. I won't let you!"

I stood up, and she had to get off my lap or fall on the floor. I walked over to the bureau and picked a necktie off the mirror.

"What are you going to do, Eddie?"

"Answer an ad I just read in the paper."

"You mean an ad to go to work?"

I nodded, and started to put on the necktie.

In the mirror, I could see Kit studying me.

"The idea of a pint-size like you being a detective," she said.

"Napoleon wasn't so big," I said, over my shoulder.

"Napoleon wasn't a detective."

"Well how about Peter Lorre? He's no bigger than I am."

"Peter Lorre was shot in the last two pictures I saw him in," Kit said.

She picked up the newspaper I'd put down and started scanning the want ads, while I was putting on my coat.

"Is this the ad?" she said. " "Wanted: Man with some knowledge of psychiatry, for confidential work'?"

"What makes you think that's it?" I countered.

"I know that's it, Eddie. All the other ads are routine sensible ones for salesmen or dishwashers or something. But why get dressed up to answer it? It just gives a phone number, and there's a phone right on the table there."

"That reminds me," I said. "Use that phone to call Information, will you, and get the listing on that phone number. You'll find it's the Stanley Sanitarium, I think. But I might as well make sure."

She made the call.

"You're right, Eddie. Stanley Sanitarium." She looked at me with respect. "How did you know?"

"Hunch. There's an article on Page Three telling about a new sanitarium for mental cases being started here. A doc by the name of Philemon Stanley runs it."

"But why can't you phone from here about the job?"

"From a hotel? Nix. I've got to give myself a local background and a local address. I go rent myself a room, and then use the landlady's phone. That way, if he's going to phone me back or write me a letter, I can give him an address that won't sound phony."

"What's phony about the New World Hotel?"

I grinned at her. "Ten bucks a day is what's phony. People who stay at a hotel like this don't apply for jobs that probably pay less than their hotel bills would be."

I kissed her, thoroughly, for it just might be the last time for a while if I had to follow up on the job right away, and left.

Half an hour later, from a rooming house, I called the number given in the want ad.

"Ever had any experience working in an institution for the mentally ill?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "Two years at Wales Sanitarium in Chicago. They didn't handle really bad cases, you know, just mild psychoses, phobiacs, chronic alcoholics, that sort of thing."

"Yes," said Dr. Stanley, "I'm familiar with the work at Wales Sanitarium. What were your duties there?"

"Attendant, male ward."

"I believe you would fit in very nicely. Not--uh--as an attendant, however. I have something in mind of a different and--uh --more confidential nature."

"So I figured from the ad, Doctor," I said. "But whatever it is, I'll be glad to try it."

"Fine, Mr. Anderson. I'd like to talk to you personally, of course, but if our interview is satisfactory to both of us, you can start right away. Would you rather have that interview this evening or tomorrow morning? Either will be quite satisfactory." I thought it over, and weakened. After all I had been married only two weeks and I would undoubtedly have to live at the sanitarium while I was on the job. I told him tomorrow morning. I went back to the hotel and Kit and I went down for dinner to the New World dining room. Over a couple of cocktails, I told her about the phone call.

"But suppose he should phone the Wales Sanitarium to check up on you?"

"They never do."

"What kind of confidential work would there be around a booby hatch, Eddie?"

"I don't know," I told her. "But as long as it puts me in contact with the patients, I don't care. Anyway, it isn't a booby hatch, honey. It's a sanitarium for the idle rich. People who go slightly screwy wondering how to spend their money. That's why I used Wales as a reference. It's the same type of joint."

"It didn't say that in the article in the paper."

"Sure it did. Between the lines."

"But Eddie, aren't you going to tell me why you're doing this?"

I thought out how I'd best tell it without worrying Kit too much. She'd have to get used to things like that, but not all at once. Not--right from our honeymoon--to know I was looking for a homicidal maniac who had killed over a dozen people. Maybe more.

"I'm looking for a man named Paul Verne," I said. "He's crazy, but he's crazy like a fox. He escaped three years ago from an institution in California. It's been in the papers, but you may not have noticed it, because his family had enough money and influence to keep it from being played up too much."

Kit's eyes widened.

"You mean they don't want him caught?"

"They very much want him caught. They offered a reward of twenty-five thousand bucks to have him caught and returned to the institution from which he escaped."

"But wouldn't publicity help?"

"It would, and there has been some publicity. If the name doesn't click with you, you just haven't read the right papers at the right time. But they held that down, and they've spent thousands circularizing police offices and detective agencies to be on the lookout for him. That's more effective, and reflects less on the family name. Every copper in the country knows who Paul Verne is, and is trying for that twenty-five grand. And every private detective, too."

"Twenty-five thousand dollars! Why Eddie, think what we could do with that!"

"Yeah," I said, "we could use it. But don't get your hopes up, because I'm just playing a long shot. A tip and a hunch."

Our dinner came and I made her wait until we'd eaten before I told her any more. When I eat, I like to eat.

"The tip," I told her, after we had finished dessert, "was Springfield. Never mind exactly how, because it's complicated, but I got a tip Paul Verne was in Springfield. That's why I suggested we come here for our honeymoon."

"Well," she said, "I suppose we had to go somewhere, and after all--"

"Twenty-five grand isn't hay," I finished for her. "As for the hunch--it's a poor thing, but my own. Where's the last place you'd look for an escaped loony?"

"I don't . . . You mean in a loony-bin?"

"Brilliant. What could possibly be a better hide-out? A private sanitarium, of course, where everything is the best and a patient can enter voluntarily and leave when he likes. I've made a study of Paul Verne, and I think it's just the kind of idea that would appeal to him."

"Would he have money? Could he afford a hide-out like that?"

"Money is no object. He's got scads."

"But why this particular sanitarium?"

I shrugged. "Just a better chance than most. First, I think he's in Springfield, and he isn't at any of the others."

"How do you know that?"

"There are only two others here. One is for the criminally insane. He certainly wouldn't commit himself there voluntarily--too hard to get out again, and too much investigation involved. The other's for women only. But Stanley's place is ideal. Brand new, takes wealthy patients with minor warps, comfortable--everything."

Kit sighed. "Well, I don't suppose it'll take you more than a day to look over the patients and find out."

"Longer than that," I said. "I haven't too much idea what he looks like."

She stared at me. "Mean you're working on this and haven't even gone to the trouble to get a photograph?"

"There aren't any. Paul Verne did a real job of escaping from the sanitarium out West. He robbed the office of all the papers in his own case--fingerprints, photographs, everything. Took along all their money, too."

I thought it best not to mention to Kit that he'd burned the place down as well.

"Then he went to his parents' home. They were away on vacation or something, and he destroyed all the photographs of himself, even those of himself as a kid. He also took along all the money and jewelry loose, enough to last him ten years."

"But you have a description, haven't you?"

"I have a description as he was three years ago," I said. "A guy can change quite a bit in three years, and if you haven't got a photograph you're not in much luck. But I know he's got brown hair, unless he dyed or bleached it. I know he weighed a hundred sixty then. Of course he might have taken on a paunch since then, or got thin from worry. I know he's got brown eyes--unless he went to the trouble of getting tinted contact lenses to change their apparent color."

I grinned at her. "But I do know he's within a couple of inches of five feet nine. He might make himself seem a couple inches under by acquiring a stoop, or a couple inches over by wearing these special shoes with built-up inner heels."

Kit grimaced. "So you'll know that any man you see between five feet seven and five eleven might be him. That's a big help. How will you know?"

I told her I didn't know.

"If it were just a matter of spotting him from a photograph or a good description," I said, "he'd have been picked up long ago. I can probably eliminate some of the patients right away. The others I'll have to study, and use my brains on. It might take longer than a few days."

"Well, then I'm glad you didn't go out this evening."

"This evening," I told her, "I'm going to study. There's a bookstore on Grand Avenue that's open evenings. I've got to pick up a few books on psychology and psychiatry and bone up a bit to make good my story to Dr. Stanley that I know something about it. I don't want to get bounced the first day because I don't know pyromania from pyorrhoea.

We got the books, and Kit helped me study them. Fortunately or otherwise, there was a Kraft-Ebbing in the lot and we spent most of the time reading that. But I did manage to read a little in some of the others, enough to pick up a bit of the patter.