Read Online A Puzzle for fools by Patrick Quentin - Free Book Online
Authors: Patrick Quentin
Tags: Crime
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me. Lenz explained briefly that I had discovered the body, and then continued with a discourse which my arrival had interrupted.
"As I was saying, Captain, I must make one point clear before there is any investigation in the sanitarium itself. As a citizen, I have an obligation to the State, an obligation to see that justice is done. But as a psychiatrist I have an even greater obligation, and that is to my patients. Their mental health is in my hands. I am responsible for them and I must absolutely forbid any kind of police cross-examination."
Green grunted.
"Any shock of that sort," Lenz went on, "could cause irreparable damage. Of course, Dr. Moreno and other members of the staff will do all they can in a tactful manner, but I cannot allow anything more direct than that."
Green nodded rather curtly and threw a suspicious glance at me. I suppose he took me for one of the sensitive patients in question.
Lenz seemed to read his thoughts. He assured him with a slight smile that I was a little different from the other inmates and suggested that I might prove useful.
"You can be perfectly frank in front of Mr. Duluth, Captain."
From the conversation which followed between the captain and Lenz, I gathered that Fogarty had been dead for three or four hours when I discovered him. He had last been seen when he left the social hall to go off duty. It appeared that both Mrs. Fogarty and Warren had already been questioned. They had had nothing to report and were able to account for one another's movements during the night.
Throughout this exchange of question and answer Moreno had preserved a cold silence. At length he leaned forward in his chair and said rather acidly:
"Isn't it perfectly possible that the whole thing was an accident? After all, we have no reason to believe that anyone would have wanted to murder Fogarty. I don't see why some practical joke—"
"If it was a practical joke," interrupted Green tartly, "someone around here's got a pretty queer sense of humor. If it was an accident it was a pretty queer accident And if it was deliberate murder, it's one of the cleverest jobs I ever came up against. Dr. Stevens here says it's impossible to tell when the man was put in that strait-jacket. It could have been done any time last night, and whoever did it could have established a hundred alibis."
"It's not only clever," broke in Dr. Stevens quietly. "If it was a crime, it's just about as brutal a one as you could imagine." His normally cherubic face was pale and contoured with lines. "The medical examiner and I believe that Fogarty was probably conscious up to the end. He must have been dying there in slow agony, maybe for six or seven hours. The gag kept him from calling for help and every movement he made to free himself only would have increased the pressure around his throat. It was the tightening of the towel rope, caused by the gradual constriction of his leg muscles, that eventually strangled him." He looked down at his hands. "I can only hope with Dr. Moreno that the death turns out to be the result of some unfortunate accident People have been known to tie themselves up."
"Yeah?" broke in Green impatiently. "And put a strait-jacket on themselves and then run a cord from their necks to their ankles? You'd have to be a super-Houdini to do that. No, sir. We're dealing with murder or else I'm about ready for a cure in this sanitarium."
He turned sharply to me and asked me to run through the events of my discovery in the physio-therapy room. While I spoke, he stared at me suspiciously, as though he expected at any moment to see me gibbering like an ape or climbing up the curtains. When I had finished he said:
"What did the patients think of Fogarty? Did they like him?"
I told him that the ex-champion had been popular with us all and that he was rumored to be especially popular with the ladies. He pressed me for further details and I mentioned his desire to get into show business, and also his pride in his
"As I was saying, Captain, I must make one point clear before there is any investigation in the sanitarium itself. As a citizen, I have an obligation to the State, an obligation to see that justice is done. But as a psychiatrist I have an even greater obligation, and that is to my patients. Their mental health is in my hands. I am responsible for them and I must absolutely forbid any kind of police cross-examination."
Green grunted.
"Any shock of that sort," Lenz went on, "could cause irreparable damage. Of course, Dr. Moreno and other members of the staff will do all they can in a tactful manner, but I cannot allow anything more direct than that."
Green nodded rather curtly and threw a suspicious glance at me. I suppose he took me for one of the sensitive patients in question.
Lenz seemed to read his thoughts. He assured him with a slight smile that I was a little different from the other inmates and suggested that I might prove useful.
"You can be perfectly frank in front of Mr. Duluth, Captain."
From the conversation which followed between the captain and Lenz, I gathered that Fogarty had been dead for three or four hours when I discovered him. He had last been seen when he left the social hall to go off duty. It appeared that both Mrs. Fogarty and Warren had already been questioned. They had had nothing to report and were able to account for one another's movements during the night.
Throughout this exchange of question and answer Moreno had preserved a cold silence. At length he leaned forward in his chair and said rather acidly:
"Isn't it perfectly possible that the whole thing was an accident? After all, we have no reason to believe that anyone would have wanted to murder Fogarty. I don't see why some practical joke—"
"If it was a practical joke," interrupted Green tartly, "someone around here's got a pretty queer sense of humor. If it was an accident it was a pretty queer accident And if it was deliberate murder, it's one of the cleverest jobs I ever came up against. Dr. Stevens here says it's impossible to tell when the man was put in that strait-jacket. It could have been done any time last night, and whoever did it could have established a hundred alibis."
"It's not only clever," broke in Dr. Stevens quietly. "If it was a crime, it's just about as brutal a one as you could imagine." His normally cherubic face was pale and contoured with lines. "The medical examiner and I believe that Fogarty was probably conscious up to the end. He must have been dying there in slow agony, maybe for six or seven hours. The gag kept him from calling for help and every movement he made to free himself only would have increased the pressure around his throat. It was the tightening of the towel rope, caused by the gradual constriction of his leg muscles, that eventually strangled him." He looked down at his hands. "I can only hope with Dr. Moreno that the death turns out to be the result of some unfortunate accident People have been known to tie themselves up."
"Yeah?" broke in Green impatiently. "And put a strait-jacket on themselves and then run a cord from their necks to their ankles? You'd have to be a super-Houdini to do that. No, sir. We're dealing with murder or else I'm about ready for a cure in this sanitarium."
He turned sharply to me and asked me to run through the events of my discovery in the physio-therapy room. While I spoke, he stared at me suspiciously, as though he expected at any moment to see me gibbering like an ape or climbing up the curtains. When I had finished he said:
"What did the patients think of Fogarty? Did they like him?"
I told him that the ex-champion had been popular with us all and that he was rumored to be especially popular with the ladies. He pressed me for further details and I mentioned his desire to get into show business, and also his pride in his
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