A Puzzle for fools by Patrick Quentin Read Free Book Online Page B

eagerly and asked rather fatuously whether she had enjoyed the evening.
    "Yes," she answered mechanically, as though I were a dull host, who had to be thanked, "I've enjoyed myself very much."
    There seemed no point in carrying the conversation further. I just sat and looked at her, at the exotic, flower face, and the shoulders thrusting like white petals from the sheath of her iris dress.
    Suddenly I felt an overwhelming desire to see her walk across a stage. There was something in that girl— something you see only once in a lifetime. A subtle curve of the neck, an indefinable beauty of gesture, the thing that every theatrical man from Broadway to Bagdad is looking for. My old enthusiasm started to tingle in my veins. I had to get out of that place, to take this girl with me, to train her. With the proper build-up she could go anywhere. Already my mind was five years ahead of itself. It was the healthiest feeling I'd had in years.
    Ideas were still tumbling over each other in my brain as I glanced back at the others. They were all there, patients and staff, gathered around Doctor Lenz and the bridge tables.
    As I watched, a man detached himself from the group. I didn't pay much attention at first. Then I realized it was David Fenwick, our spiritualist. In the black-and-white of his evening clothes he looked even more ethereal than usual. And there was something purposeful about the way he was making for the center of the empty dance floor.
    No one else seemed to notice him, but my eyes were fixed on him as he turned suddenly and faced the others. He lifted a hand as though for silence, and even at that distance I could see the gleam in his large eyes. When he spoke, his voice was curiously penetrating.
    "At last they have got through," he announced in a toneless chant. "At last I have been able to take their message. It is a warning for us all, but it is directed particularly toward Daniel Laribee."
    Everyone spun around. They were staring at him in a sort of fascinated stillness. I was gazing at him, too, but out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Miss Brush moving hurriedly forward.
    She was within a few feet of him when he spoke again. I suppose there must have been something about him that made her pause. For she stood there absolutely motionless as he said:
    "This is the warning which the spirits sent me. Beware of Isabel Brush. Beware of Isabel Brush. She is a danger to us all, and especially to Daniel Laribee. She is a danger. There will be murder —"
    The silence was tense. For a second, the two of them stood there like figures on a stage, Fenwick in a sort of trance, Miss Brush very pale and rigid.
    Then a voice suddenly cried out:
    "David ... David!"
    To my amazement it was Dr. Stevens who had spoken and who now sprang forward. His round face had lengthened to an anxious oval. He put his arm almost caressingly around Fenwick's shoulder and whispered something in his ear.
    As he drew him away, the spell broke and the room was in an uproar. Miss Brush disappeared somewhere in the milling, agitated crowd. Moreno, Lenz, Mrs. Fogarty, Warren—I had fleeting glimpses of them all as they hurried about trying to restore the polite veneer which Fenwick's startling announcement had so completely shattered.
    For the first time I realized how synthetic, how superficial was this built-up pretense of normal men and women brought together for an evening's social entertainment.
    That scene of half-panicky confusion was horrible and infinitely sad. As a symbol of it, I remembered Franz Stroubel, that small, distinguished man with the beautiful hands, standing in a corner, gazing serenely over the jostling crowds in front of him and moving his arms rhythmically, conducting with an unseen baton, weaving a pattern into the chaos.
    People were streaming past me, but I didn't see them as I turned toward Iris. She had not moved from my side, but her hands were covering her lovely face.
    "Murder!" I heard her whisper.