A Puzzle for fools Read Free Page B

heard her creak past my door.
    What a job, I thought, spending the night looking after nuts like us.
    After her footsteps had faded and the room was quiet again, I found myself thinking about old Laribee. I didn't have much sympathy for him, or for any of the Wall Street wizards who in 1929 had wizarded away their own money and, incidentally, quite a bit of mine, too. But it was pathetic to think of a man who still had a couple of million going crazy because he thought he was broke.
    And yet I remembered that Doctor Lenz had said he was making progress. A few stray words which I had overheard that morning between Miss Brush and Moreno passed through my mind. They had been talking about Laribee, about his improvement. "It's been weeks now since he's heard that ticker," Miss Brush had said. "Looks as though he's picking up."
    It had been weeks since he had heard that ticker! Why had he had this relapse? Was it perhaps due to what Lenz had called the subversive influence?
    Mrs. Fogarty must have given him something to make him sleep, because he wasn't whimpering any more. There was silence again; that deep, institutional silence which had scared me earlier in the evening, but which somehow held no fears for me now. I listened to the stillness, not expecting to hear anything. Then for the second time that night I had a shock. But this time it was a shock that intrigued me, not one that set me off blubbering like a frightened kid.
    I sat up in bed. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Too soft and muffled for Mrs. Fogarty's ears to have caught, but quite distinct, I could make out a quick, rhythmic ticking, quicker than a clock.
    Tick, tack — tick, tack!
    It came through the wall from somewhere in Laribee's room.
    Tick, tack — tick, tack!
    There were only two things for me to think. Either I was catching old Laribee's bug, or else there was something in that room ticking, something quite separate from the sinister sounds in Laribee's broken brain.
    Tick, tack — tick, tack!

4
    NEXT MORNING I felt pretty fair considering my hectic night. Jo Fogarty, one-time champion wrestler and now the night nurse's problematic husband, woke me at the usual, ungodly hour of seven-thirty.
    As I stumbled out of bed into my slippers, I noticed that the ones lent me by Miss Brush had vanished. The day nurse, too, it seemed, was an early riser.
    We all had our daily treatments and mine consisted largely of a thorough pepping up. Dr. Stevens, whose job it was to look after the patients' physical condition as opposed to their mental frailties, had prescribed an extensive course of physio-therapy and massage. He was a pleasant fellow and I didn't hold it against him, but I always felt injured at being dragged to the slaughter before breakfast. That morning I sulked as Fogarty took me down to the physio-therapy room and made me atone, once again, for my years of soaking, with the pin shower, the electrical camel and other outlandish exercises.
    Fogarty was one of those half-ugly brutes just past their prime with a sense of humor and a Tarzan attractiveness for the women who like that sort of thing. And quite a lot of them did, judging from the tales he told me. I couldn't help wondering sometimes whether he was equally frank with his grim-faced wife.
    For some reason he was crazy to get into show business; stunts and strong-man acts, or something of the sort. I think that was why he liked me, or, at least, played up to me. Anyhow, we had become quite friendly and he told me sanitarium gossip out of school.
    While I lay naked on the slab, waving my legs, he started to kid me about the night before.
    "Gettin' into Miss Brush's bedroom!" he said. "You’ll have old man Laribee after you if you don't watch out"
    "Laribee?"
    "Sure, he's nuts about her, asks her to marry him twenty times a day. I figured everyone knew that."
    I thought he was being funny, but he convinced me that he was serious. And after all, there was nothing particularly fantastic about