Then I remembered the man in the scarlet sweatshirt had said he would hide me away where no one would ever find me. An asylum, of course, was a pretty fool-proof hiding-place. But Salzer didn’t run an asylum. His place was a retreat for the over-fed: Nurse Gurney had said so.
“But I thought Salzer ran a kind of Nature Cure racket,” I said carefully. “Not a nut foundry.”
“So he does, but there’s a wing set aside for the mentally sick,” the blond man explained.
He walked two fingers along the edge of the night table. “It is not usually talked about.” He walked his fingers back again. “It’s so much more pleasant for relatives to say you are having a health cure than that you’re locked up in a padded cell.”
“Is that where we are?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. The walls are padded. They don’t look like it, but try punching them. It’s quite fun.” He leaned out of bed and hit the wall. His fist made no sound. “It’s rubber, I think. By the way, my name’s Duncan Hopper. You may have heard of my father: Dwight Hopper.”
As far as I could remember, Dwight Hopper was something big in the paint and distemper trade. I didn’t know he had a son.
“I’m Malloy,” I said. “Victor Malloy.”
He cocked his head on one side and regarded me fixedly.
“Who?”
“Malloy.”
“Are you sure?” He smiled slyly now. “They tell me your name is Edmund Seabright.”
“No; Malloy,” I said, again feeling spider’s legs run up my spine.
“I see.” He began once more to walk his fingers along the edge of the night table. He seemed to like doing that. “I wonder if you would mind if I called you Seabright? Bland calls you Seabright. Dr. Salzer calls you Seabright. Seabright is the name on your papers. I know, because I persuaded Bland to let me look at them. You are described as a manic depressive. Did you know?”
My mouth suddenly went dry.
“A—what?”
“Manic depressive. I dare say it’s nonsense.”
“Yes, it’s nonsense.” I found it increasingly difficult to speak and think calmly.
“I’m so glad. Depressives can be so tiresome. I didn’t think you were, and I told Bland so. But Bland is very stupid; a very uneducated person. He never listens to what I say. I’m afraid you won’t like him. He says I am a paranoiac, but that’s complete nonsense. We had a terrific argument about it this morning, and he lent me this book. It tells you about paranoia. Really quite interesting. But I haven’t one single symptom. There’s quite an interesting chapter on manic depressives.” He walked his fingers along the table edge before saying, “Do you have hallucinations?”
I said I didn’t have hallucinations.
“I’m so glad.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “But it is odd you think your name is Malloy, isn’t it? Or perhaps you don’t think so?”
I said very distinctly and slowly, “It isn’t odd because Malloy happens to be my name.”
“I see.” He reached for the book and began to flip over the pages. “Then if you are not Edmund Seabright why are you here?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, and it seemed to me to be suddenly tremendously important to make this blond man believe me. If he didn’t, who else would? “I am a sort of private investigator and I am engaged on a case. I have found out Dr. Salzer is responsible for the murder of Eudora Drew. It’s too involved to go into now, but because of what I have found out I have been kidnapped.” I don’t know how I got those last words out. It sounded terrible, but to save my life I couldn’t have put it any better. A little spark of panic began to well up inside me as I saw the look of polite incredulity on Hopper’s face.
“Dr. Salzer?” he said, and gave his charming smile. “A murder? That’s interesting. And you are some sort of detective? Is that right?”
“Now, look,” I said, struggling up in bed. “I know what you are thinking. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“Of course not, Mr. Seabright,” he said gently. “I don’t think anything of the kind. I know you aren’t very well, but not crazy: definitely and certainly not.”
I licked my dry lips.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Of course.”
But I saw by the amused sly expression in the deep-set eyes that he was lying.
II
Hopper told me that around nine o’clock Bland would come in to turn out the light.
“In about five minutes,” he said, consulting his wrist-watch. “Bland lets me have this watch because I give him a hundred cigarettes a week. My father sends them in to me, and, of course, I am not allowed to smoke. They seem to think I would set fire to the bed.” He laughed, showing small, even, white teeth. “Ridiculous, of course, but I suppose they mean well.”
Under cover of the sheet I had been trying to work my hand out of the handcuff. If I could once get free, I told myself, nothing, not even a machine-gun, would stop me getting out of this place. But the cuff was shaped to my wrist, and, short of cutting off my hand or having the key, there was no way out of it.
“What day is it?” I asked suddenly.
Hopper opened a drawer in the night table and consulted a diary.
“It’s the 29th of July. Don’t you keep a diary? I do. Tomorrow is an anniversary. I have been here three years.”
But I wasn’t listening. I had to think long and carefully before I remembered that it had been the 24th of July when Maureen had taken me to her retreat. Five days! Paula and Kerman would be searching for me. Would they think to look here? Even if they thought I was here, how could they get at me? Salzer had Brandon’s protection, and Brandon wouldn’t pay attention to anything Kerman said.
If Sherrill—and I was sure the man in the scarlet sweatshirt had been Sherrill—hadn’t been absolutely sure that no one could get at me here, wouldn’t he have put a slug through my head and chucked me into the sea? Why hadn’t he done that, anyway? Perhaps he stopped at murder. Stevens hadn’t been murdered. His death had been an accident. But Salzer didn’t stop at murder; unless Dwan had exceeded his orders. It might even he better, I thought, to be murdered than left locked up in a padded cell for the rest of my days.
Pull yourself together, Malloy, I said to myself. Snap out of it! All right, you have been bashed on the head and by the woolly feeling behind your eyes and in your mouth you have had a cart-load of drug pushed into you, but that’s no excuse to go off at half-cock now. Paula and Kerman will get you out of this. Hang on, and take it easy until they do.
The door opened suddenly and silently, and a short, dark man came in. He had a pair of shoulders you would expect to find on a gorilla, and his round red face was freckled and creased in a fixed, humourless grin. He was dressed in a white lap-over short coat, white trousers and white, rubber-soled shoes. He carried a tray covered with a towel, and he moved as silently and as lightly as a feather settling on the floor.
“Hello, Hoppie,” he said, putting the tray on a table by the door. “Beddy-byes now. How are you? Did you get any dope out of that book?”
Hopper waved his hand towards my bed.
“Mr. Seabright is with us now,” he said.
Bland—for this must be Bland—came to the foot of my bed and stared at me. The smile was still there: a little wider if anything. The greenish eyes were as hard and as cold and as sharp as ice-chips.
“Hello, baby,” he said. He had a curious whispering voice; hoarse and secretive, as if something was wrong with his larynx. “I’m Bland. I’m going to look after you.”
I found myself starting to clutch hold of the sheet, but I stopped that. Take it easy, I told myself. Relax. Don’t rush things.
“Hello,” I said, and my voice sounded as tight as a piano wire. “You don’t have to look after me. Where’s Salzer? I want to talk to him.”