Puzzle for Fiends Read Free Page A

head so that I could survey the whole room. It was as luxurious as I had imagined it to be from the part of it that had already come into my field of vision. Beyond the fantastic, rococo vanity, stood a chaise longue upholstered in pale green satin. On it, thrown in a careless tumble, was a shimmering white negligée. There was sunlight everywhere and the colors of the room brought their own sunlight too. The pink roses by the bed were only partly responsible for the perfume. There were vases of flowers everywhere—more roses, massed yellow tulips, tall irises and spikes of white stock.
    Slowly my gaze moved from object to object and returned to the white negligée on the chaise longue. I stared at it as if it had some secret which had to be puzzled out. A woman’s negligée. The whole feeling of the room was feminine too—frivolous, vivid, individual. Was that the secret? That my room was disguised as a woman’s room?
    I couldn’t make much headway with this thought. The harder I struggled with it the more elusive it became.
    “Gordy Friend,” I said out loud. “Gordon Renton Friend the Third.”
    The door opened. My mother came in. I could feel her without even turning my head—feel that presence, mellow as ripened wheat, intrude upon the spring freshness of the room.
    She was at my bed. Her tranquil hand was on my forehead.
    “I’ve brought Dr. Croft, dear. He says we’re not to worry. It’s the result of the concussion. It’s something he expected.”
    A man moved into my field of vision. He was in the early thirties, very dark. He was dressed in tweeds that were expensive and casual. He was standing casually too, his hands in his pockets. My sensibilities, as unnaturally sharpened in some particulars as they were dulled in others felt that it was more important to him than anything else in the world to look like any one of a hundred impeccable young members of the most exclusive country club of his neighborhood.
    I’ve just dropped in after a round of golf, his stance said. Quite a good workout today.
    But in spite of the conforming camouflage, he didn’t look average at all. His dusky face was far too handsome to be unobtrusive, and his black eyes, beautiful and long-lashed as a Turkish dancing girl’s, gave the lie to the successful-broker tweeds.
    “Hi, Gordy,” he said. “How d’you feel?”
    I looked up into his white smile, feeling faintly hostile.
    I said: “Are you someone I’m supposed to know too?”
    His hands still in his pockets, he rocked gently back and forth on his heels, studying me. “You honestly don’t recognize your mother?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Well, well. What a state of affairs. We must fix this up.”
    “He thought I was a barmaid.” My mother smiled a shy, girl’s smile that brought rose pink to her cheeks. “I never realized it before but that’s always been my secret desire. A pint o’ bitter,” she called in a hoarse, cockney voice. “’Urry up with that ’alf and ’alf.”
    A certain rigidity in the young man indicated that this vulgar pleasantry made him uncomfortable. A new personality was forming in him. He was the serious young doctor getting down to business.
    “Well, let’s see what we can do, shall we?” He turned a professional brisk look on my mother. “Perhaps I should be left alone with the patient for a while, Mrs. Friend.”
    “Why, of course.” My mother threw me a coaxing smile. “Do try to be good and helpful, Gordy. Dr. Croft’s such a sweet man and I know you’ll be remembering everything if you just do what he says.”
    She started for the door, turned, came back for the be-ribboned box of candy and, rather guiltily, carried it away with her.
    As soon as we were alone, the young man became affable efficiency personified. He brought a chair to the bedside, swung it around and sat on it back to front. I was feeling clearer in the head now and something in me, without conscious identity, was