Good liquor, I thought, and, to make sure, had another pull at the bottle. Still very good. Then I packed the pint in a side pocket and moved to the door again. I was coming on.
As I opened the door, I heard footsteps. I stood quieter than a mouse that sees a cat, and waited. The hatchet-faced nurse came along the corridor, humming to herself. She passed quite close to me, and would have seen me if she had looked my way, but she didn’t. She kept on, opened a door on the other side of the corridor and went into a dimly-lit room. The door closed.
I waited, breathing gently, feeling a lot better for the whisky. Minutes ticked by. A small piece of fluff, driven by the draught from under the door, scuttled along the corridor apologetically. A sudden squall of rain lashed against the grill-covered window. The wind sighed around the house. I kept on waiting. I didn’t want to cosh the nurse if I could help it. I’m sentimental about hitting women: they hit me instead.
The nurse appeared again, walked the length of the corridor, produced a key, unlocked the main door before I realized what she was doing. I saw the door open. I saw a flight of stairs leading to a lighted something beyond. I jumped forward, but she had passed through the doorway and closed the door behind her.
Anyway, I consoled myself I wasn’t ready to leave yet. The door could wait. I decided I would investigate the room the nurse had just left. Maybe that was where Anona was.
I eased out the cosh, resisted the temptation to take another drink and walked along the corridor. I paused outside the door, pressed my ear to the panel and listened. I heard nothing but the wind and the rain against the mess-grilled window. I looked back over my shoulder. No one was peering at me from around the other doors. The corridor looked as lonely and as empty as a church on a Monday afternoon. I squeezed the door handle and turned slowly. The door opened, and I looked into a room built and furnished along the lines of the room in which I had been kept a prisoner.
There were two beds; one of them empty. In the other, opposite me, was a woman. A blue night lamp made an eerie light over the white sheet and her white face. The halo of fair hair rested on the pillow, the eyes were studying the ceiling with the perplexed look of a lost child.
I pushed the door open a little wider and walked softly into the room, closed the door and leaned against it. I wondered if she would scream. The rubber-lined door reassured me that if she did no one would hear her; but she didn’t. Her eyes continued to stare at the ceiling, but a nerve in her cheek began to jump. I waited. There was no immediate hurry, and I didn’t want to scare her.
Slowly the eyes moved along the ceiling to the wall, down the wall until they rested on me. We looked at each other. I was aware I was breathing gently and the cosh I held in my hand was as unnecessary as a Tommy gun at a choir practice. I slid it back into my pocket.
She studied me, the nerve jumping and her eyes widening.
“Hello, there,” I said, cheerfully and quietly. I even managed a smile.
Malloy and his bedside manner: a talent to be discussed with bated breath by his grandchildren; if he ever had any grandchildren, which was doubtful.
“Who are you?” She didn’t scream nor try to run up the wall, but the nerve kept on jumping.
“I am a sort of detective,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “I’m here to take you home.”
Now I was closer to her I could see the pupils of her blue eyes were like pin-points.
“I haven’t any clothes,” she said. “They’ve taken them away.”
“I’ll find you some more. How do you feel?”
“All right.” The fair head rolled to the right and then to the left. “But I can’t remember who I am. The man with the white hair told me I’ve lost my memory. He’s nice, isn’t he?”
“So I am told,” I said carefully. “But you want to go home, don’t you? “
“I haven’t a home.” She drew one long naked arm from under the sheet and ran slender fingers through the mop of fair hair. Her hand slid down until it rested on the jumping nerve. She pressed a finger against the nerve as if to hide it. “It got lost, but the nurse said they were looking for it. Have you found it?”
“Yes; that’s why I am here.”
She thought about that for some moments, frowning.
“Then you know who I am?” she said at last.
“Your name is Anona Freedlander,” I said. “And you live in San Francisco.”
“Do I? I don’t remember that. Are you sure?”
I was eyeing her arm. It was riddled with tiny scars. They had kept her drugged for a long time. She was more or less drugged now.
“Yes, I’m sure. Can you get out of bed?”
“I don’t think I want to,” she said. “I think I would rather go to sleep.”
“That’s all right,” I told her. “You go to sleep. We’re not ready to leave just yet. In a little while: after you’ve had your sleep, we’ll go.”
“I haven’t any clothes, or did I tell you that? I haven’t anything on now. I threw my nightdress into the bath. The nurse was very angry.”
“You don’t have to bother about anything. I’ll do the bothering. I’ll find you something to wear when we’re ready to go.”
The heavy lids dropped suddenly, opened again with an effort. The finger slid off the nerve.
It wasn’t jumping any more.
“I like you,” she said drowsily. “Who did you say you were?”
“Malloy. Vic Malloy: a sort of detective.”
She nodded.
“Malloy. I’ll try to remember. I have a very bad memory. I never seem to remember anything.” Again the lids began to fall. I stood over her, watching. “I don’t seem to be able to keep awake.” Then after a long pause and when I thought she was asleep, she said in a faraway voice: “She shot him, you know. I was there. She picked up the shot-gun and shot him. It was horrible.”
I rubbed the tip of my nose with my forefinger. Silence settled over the room. She was sleeping now. Whatever the nurse had pushed into her had swept her away into oblivion. Maybe she wouldn’t come to the surface again until the morning. It meant carrying her out if I could get out myself. But there was time to worry about that.
If I had to carry her I could wrap her in the sheet, but if she insisted on walking, then I’d have to find her something to wear.
I looked around the room. The chest of drawers stood opposite the foot of the bed. I opened one drawer after the other. Most of them were empty; the others contained towels and spare bedding. No clothes.
I crossed the room to the cupboard, opened it and peered inside. There was a dressing-gown, slippers and two expanding suit-cases stacked neatly on the top shelf. I hauled one of them down. On the lid were the embossed initials A.F. I unstrapped the case, opened it. The contents solved my clothes problem. It was packed with clothes. I pawed through them. At the bottom of the case was a Nurse’s uniform.
I dipped my fingers into the side pockets of the case. In one of them I found a small, blue-covered diary dated 1948. I thumbed through it quickly. The entries were few and far between. There were several references to ‘Jack’, and I guessed he was Jack Brett, the naval deserter, Mifflin had told me about.
24.1 Movie with Jack. 7.45.
28.1 Dinner L’Etoile. Meet Jack 6.30.
29.1 Home for week-end.
5.2 Jack rejoining his ship.
Nothing more until March 10th.
10.3 Still no letter from Jack.
12.3 Dr. Salzer asked me if I would like outside work. I said yes.
16.3 Start work at Crestways.
18.3 Mr. Crosby died.
The rest of the diary was a blank as her life had been a blank since that date. She had gone to Crestways
