THE GIRL PRISONER
We left Nanette at home and Alan and I started for the Turber Hospital
about three o'clock that same afternoon.
Was this the girl of our visions, now the "victim of amnesia" at Dr.
Turber's Sanatorium? Or was it merely some other girl whose memory had
gone, and whose prosaic parents soon would come to claim her? Things
like that frequently happened. We determined to find out. Both of us
were sure we would recognize her.
From the ferryhouse on Staten Island we took a taxi, a few miles into
the interior. It was an intensely hot, oppressive afternoon--the sun
was slanting in the west when we reached our destination.
I found the Turber Hospital occupying a fairly open stretch of country,
about a mile from the nearest town. It stood on a rise of ground--a
huge quadrangle of building, completely inclosing an inner yard. It
was four stories high, of brick and ornamental stone; balconies were
outside its upper windows, with occasional patients sitting in deck
chairs with lattice shades barring the glare of sunlight.
There were broad shaded grounds about the building--the whole
encompassing, I imagined, some twenty or thirty acres. Trees and paths
and beds of flowers. A heavy, ten-foot ornamental iron fence with a
barbed wire top inclosed it all. A fence which might have been to keep
out the public, but which gave also the impression of keeping in the
inmates. The place looked, indeed, very much like the average asylum.
There was an aura of wealth about it; but, unlike most such places,
also a look of newness.
"Turber built it in the last eight years," said Alan. "He's doing very
well--rich patients of the neurotic, almost insane but not quite,
variety."
There were some of them about the grounds now. Off at one end I could
see tennis courts with games in progress.
"Spent a lot of money," I commented.
"Yes--they say he's very rich."
Bordering the grounds was a scattered, somewhat squalid neighborhood of
foreigners. We had crossed a trolley line and ascended a hill arriving
at the main gateway of the institution. I glanced back through the
rear window of our taxi. We were on a commanding eminence; I could
see across the rolling country, over several smoky towns to New York
Harbor; the great pile of buildings on lower Manhattan was just visible
in the distant haze.
The gatekeeper passed us at Alan's request to see Dr. Turber. Our taxi
swung up a winding roadway to the porte-cochere at the side of the
building.
"Will he see us?" I demanded.
"If he's here, I imagine he will."
"But you're not, even outwardly, friends?"
He shrugged. "We speak pleasantly enough when we have occasion to
meet. So long as he lets Nanette alone."
We were ushered into the cool quiet of a reception room. The white-clad
nurse said that doubtless Dr. Turber would see us presently--he was
busy at the moment. She left us.
It was a fairly large room of comfortable wicker chairs; Oriental rugs
on a hardwood, polished floor; a large wicker center table strewn
with the latest magazines. A cool, dim room; there were broad French
windows, with shades partly drawn and additionally shrouded with heavy
velvet portieres across the window alcove.
We had seated ourselves. Alan drew his chair nearer to mine. He spoke
softly, swiftly, with an eye upon the archway that gave onto the main
lower corridor down which the nurse had gone.
"I was thinking, Ed--when Turber comes--we've got to have some excuse
for seeing the girl."
"Yes, but what?"
"Tell him--I'll tell him you're a newspaper man. Some of them have been
here already, no doubt. We won't go into it--you won't have to say
much."
I was, in actuality, a pilot in the mail service from Bennett Field
down the coast to Miami. I was off now, these three summer months. But
posing as a newspaper man was out of my line.
"I don't know," I said dubiously. "I have no credentials. If he asks
me--"
"I'll do most of the talking, Ed." He jumped up suddenly, went to
glance into the corridor, and came back. "Come here, I want to show you
something."
He drew me to the windows. We pushed the portieres aside, and raised
one of the shades. We were some ten feet above the level of the paved
inner courtyard. Alan murmured: "Just look, Ed--queer construction of
this place! I've often wondered, and so did father."
Queer construction indeed! The quadrangular building completely
inclosed this inner yard. At the basement level it was all normal
enough. Windows and doors opening from what seemed engine rooms; the
kitchen; the laundry. And at this first story it was normal also. These
windows through which we were looking; and other windows and occasional
balconies in each of the wings. But above this first story there were
three others and then the flat roof above them. And in these three
upper floors so far as I could see there was not a window! Nothing but
the sheer, blank stone walls!
"What would you make of that, Ed? Crazy architecture--they said that
when the place was built. There are no courtyard rooms at all in
the upstairs floors--nearly half the building goes to waste. Turber
designed it--"
"But what did he say?"
"Nothing much, I fancy. It was his own business. Perhaps, merely that
he could afford the luxury of all outside rooms for his patients. And
look at that inner building--"
* * * * *
The courtyard was perhaps two hundred feet long, by half as wide.
In its center was an oblong brick building, a hundred feet by sixty
possibly--and not quite as high as the roof of the main structure. From
the angle at which we were gazing, I could see the full front face
of this smaller building, and part of one of its ends. It had not a
window! Nor a door, except one, very small, at the ground in the center
of the front!
"Turber's laboratory," said Alan. "At least, that's what it's supposed
to be. That one door--nothing else. It's always locked. Nobody has even
been in there but Turber, and his Indian assistant. Father once talked
with the builders of this place, Ed. That laboratory is nothing but two
small rooms at the ground level here in front. All the rest is just
four solid brick walls inclosing an inner empty space! What's it for?
Nobody knows. But people talk. You can't stop them. Turber's employees
here. And most of all, his patients--not quite sane. They talk--of
ghosts--things mysteriously going on inside those walls--"
People--not quite sane--talking of things unknowable. But I was wholly
sane; and as I stood there, gazing at the shadows of twilight gathering
in this inner courtyard; the blank upper walls of the large building
turning dark with night; the smaller one, standing blank and silent in
the courtyard--the whole place seemed suddenly ominous, sinister!
* * * * *
A step sounded in the room behind us. I started violently; I had not
realized how taut were my nerves. We dropped the portieres hastily, and
left the window. Turber?
But it was not he. A young man stood before us. He was dressed in
flannels and a shirt open at the throat. He carried a tennis racket.
"Well," said Alan. "How are you, Charlie? Been playing tennis? You
remember me, don't you?"
A good-looking young fellow. He said: "Do I? You were here once before,
weren't you? I saw you in here with Dr. Turber."
"Yes," said Alan. "Let's sit down, Ed. How are you, Charlie?"
We sat down. Charlie stood before us. "I've been playing tennis.
Is the doc coming here to see you?" His face clouded. "You're all
right, aren't you? My mother said--" He was addressing me. "My mother
said--but look here, don't pay any attention to your mother if she says
you're sick. Don't you do it! I did it, and my mother said I'll put you
in here and make you well. So look what happened to me--I'm in here."
I met Alan's glance. Alan said: "Well, that's fine, Charlie. And you're
better, aren't you?"
"Yes." He hesitated; then he added: "I'm better, and I'd like to help
you get better. I was thinking that, last time I saw you. I like
you--very much."
"Do you, Charlie? That's nice of you."
"Yes. You're a friend of mine--'Friends sturdy and true' I was
thinking--that's us."
He turned suddenly away. He took a step toward the window, and came
back. His face had wholly changed; a look of cunning was on it; his
voice low, quivering, dramatic.
"You were looking out there when I came in. Strange things go on out
there--but you can't see them in the daytime!"
"Can't you?" said Alan. "I was looking--"
"I've seen them--at night. I've got a way to see them any time I want
to. From the roof. If you get put in here--I'll show you--maybe.
Because we're friends."
* * * * *
It galvanized Alan into action. He jumped to his feet and gripped
Charlie.
"I'd like you to show me."
"Yes, I can do it. There's a girl came this morning. I saw her--"
"A girl?"
"Beautiful girl. She was beautiful--I saw her. They took her upstairs.
I know where."
Alan gestured to me. "Watch out if anybody comes! Charlie, tell me!"
I moved nearer the corridor entrance. Alan and Charlie stood by the
window. I could hear them.
"She's sick, but her mother didn't bring her. Men brought her--in a
taxi like I saw you come in."
"Charlie, if I should come here--"
"I've got a key to the roof. You're not allowed up there. Nobody's
ever been up there but me. I'm too smart for them--'Keys to open
Bluebeard's room'--you can't open anything without a key. Keys to open
Bluebeard's--"
"Charlie, stop that!"
"Well, I have. It's dark. Nothing ever happens in the light. You can
see it from the roof, because you're higher up and you can look down
inside."
"Inside what?"
"His laboratory. That's what they call it. 'Four walls to hide what
devils do'--that's Shakespeare. I studied it, when I was in school. But
mother said I was sick--"
"Wait, Charlie. That girl--"
"She's sick, I guess. We're all sick. But she was frightened, too. I'm
not frightened. I passed them in the hall. She looked at me--I saw she
was frightened. I said then to myself I guess I can help that girl. I'm
smart--I've got keys."
If Turber should come! But the corridor was empty.
"You know which room is the girl's, Charlie?"
"Yes."
"You've got a key to it?"
"Key? I've got a key to Bluebeard's closet--"
Alan shook him. "The girl's room--where they've got her now."
"Key to Bluebeard's room--don't get excited--I'm not excited." He was
trembling. "When you come to live here--"
"Charlie, listen! I want to help that girl--get her out of here. She
isn't sick."
"_I_ can get out of here--but my mother told me not to. I've got a
key to the little gate in the fence behind the tennis court. I've
had it a long time. You know how to make a key? You take wax and get
an impression--I had a locksmith make the key when I was home at
Christmas. Mother thought it was my trunk key--but it wasn't. I thought
I might use it to slip out and go home some night. Only mother would be
angry. And I had Bluebeard's key made at the same time--that's the key
to the roof, where you can see things--"
From the door I caught a glimpse of a man approaching along the
corridor.
"Alan! Here he comes!"
Alan said vehemently: "Charlie, listen! Get this right! Tonight, about
ten o'clock! Can you have your keys and come to the tennis court gate?"
"Yes! Tonight--"
"Can you get there, alone? Tell nobody? Let nobody see you!"
"Yes. At night--dark deeds, alone." He heard Dr. Turber's step. He
added swiftly: "I'll be there--ten o'clock tonight! I can hide you in
my room. At eleven, they're all asleep--we'll go to the roof--I call it
Bluebeard's--"
"Not a word to anybody, Charlie! For the girl's sake!"
"Yes! And because we're friends--"
Alan pushed him away; and said, conversationally: "So you had a good
game, Charlie? That's fine--but you'd better go wash up for supper."
"All right, I will. Mother said never be late for supper."
We all turned as Dr. Turber entered the room.
* * * * *
I saw Dr. Wolf Turber as a man of about forty, obviously of
extraordinary personality. There are many men in this world who have
a power, for good or evil, which marks them apart from their fellows.
A radiation--an aura--a something in their unconscious bearing; a
confidence, a flash of the eye, all unmistakable. Dr. Turber was such a
one. Marked for big things--good or evil.
He was, to me at least, at once physically repellent of aspect. A very
heavy, powerful frame, with wide shoulders, thick and solid; a deep
chest; long powerful arms. Had he stood erect, he might have been fully
six feet tall. But he was hunched. Not exactly a hunchback; rather, a
permanent stoop which had rounded his shoulders almost to a deformity.
His head was massive, set low on a wide, short neck. Close-cropped
black hair, turning gray at the temples. A solid, wide-jawed face,
smooth-shaved, with dark eyes gazing through a pair of incongruously
dapper rimless glasses, from which a wide black ribbon depended.
He stood before us; stooped, but with the strength of a gorilla seeming
to lie hidden in his squat frame, masked by the dapperness of his
clothes. Pointed patent leather shoes; gray trousers; a dark gray
jacket with a white waist-coat, to which the black eyeglass ribbon was
fastened. He stood with a hand toying with the ribbon.
"He annoyed you, Tremont? Charlie's a good boy. A little off
mentally--like most of them here."
Charlie had been summarily dismissed. Turber added: "You do not bring
the charming little Nanette. Where is she? I would far rather see her
than you, Tremont."
Alan, from his six-foot height, gazed down at Turber. He ignored the
reference to Nanette, and said:
"There was a girl found in Central Park this morning. Amnesia case, the
papers say. Transferred here from Bellevue. My friend Williams here
does some newspaper writing--he'd like to see her."
Turber's face remained calmly polite. His gaze went to me. It made my
heart leap--his quiet, keen scrutiny, as though without effort he might
read my thoughts.
"A girl? Amnesia case? No girl came here." His glance swung between us;
but his wide, thin-lipped mouth was smiling ironically. He added: "You
believe what you read, evidently. You are trustful."
Alan's shortness of temper surprised me. "Then you won't let us see
her."
"No, why should I?"
"But you admit that she's here?"
There was no love lost between these two! Turber rasped:
"Why should I bother to let you cross-examine me?"
It quieted Alan. "I know she's here. What you mean is, I have no right
to demand seeing her."
Turber bowed ironically.
"I can get that fixed up," said Alan.
"Perhaps."
"Oh, I think I can." Alan was smiling now, with recovered poise. "In
the first place, she is undoubtedly a public charge until her identity
is established. Why Bellevue sent her to you, I can't imagine--"
"That, like everything else you are saying, is none of your business."
"But I intend to make it my business. They'll give Williams and me an
order to see her." Quite evidently Alan knew his ground. "Come on,
Ed--we're wasting time. Let's go see what they say at Bellevue. There
are a lot of things about this I don't understand."
* * * * *
Turber said abruptly: "If you come as a friend, Tremont--"
His imperturbable smile remained; but it was evident that Alan's
persistence was disturbing. I could even fancy, alarming. "But you
come, gruffly demanding--and you bring the power of the Press." The
faint inclination of his head toward me was a bow of mockery. "You
frighten me--"
"Why? Is it something mysterious?"
"It seems to be. Your sudden insistence--I have not seen you in a
year. I have had several amnesia patients here, all ignored by you."
Beneath his bantering manner he was trying, no doubt, to fathom what
Alan knew.
Alan was silent. I said: "Well, I'd be mighty interested to write up
the case. But if we have to get an order from the Health Department--"
"We'll get it," said Alan.
Turber made an abrupt decision. "You may see her. You're an annoying
young cub, Tremont. I know you well enough to realize that."
"Can we see her now?" Alan demanded.
"Yes. But only for a moment. Her memory is gone. I was hoping, with my
routine treatment, we could get it back."
He led us into the corridor, stalking ahead of us with his heavy head.
"This way--she is upstairs."
He turned a corner. Alan whispered: "Watch where we're going! Try to
remember the location of the room! How old is she, Dr. Turber?"
"About twenty, apparently. A strange-looking little creature. I would
say, of a cultured family."
We mounted a staircase. Passed down another corridor. I tried to keep
my sense of location. I said: "Is she an American?"
"Probably not." He shrugged. "She is dressed very strangely. She
resisted the matrons at Bellevue who would have changed her robe. She
looks as though she might have wandered from some fancy dress affair
last night. But by now something would be known of it, I suppose. The
police have full details. I shall send her back to Bellevue--I'm not
looking for any bizarre publicity."
We passed occasional inmates in the halls; they stared at us curiously,
scattering and vanishing at Turber's glance. One was the young fellow,
Charlie. He appeared magically at my elbow, flashed me a swift, knowing
glance, and disappeared.
Abnormality was in the air, everywhere about this place. Heavy carpeted
hallways; dim, with lights not yet lighted in the afternoon twilight.
These patients--most of them seemed to be young men--free to move
about, in apparent health; indefinably, but unmistakably abnormal. The
whole place struck me as almost gruesome.
"This way, Tremont."
We were in the upper story, close under the roof. There was an elevator
in the front of the building; we had not used it, but had mounted three
separate flights of stairs, each remote from the other. I fancied we
were at the top of the wing across from the reception room.
Turber paused and took a key from his pocket. I had noticed as we
came along the halls that all the rooms opened outward; the inner
side facing the courtyard was always a blank corridor wall, with no
suggestion of rooms. But Turber now paused at a small, heavy mahogany
door--on the courtyard side.
"She is here, Tremont. I have her locked in. She escaped from
somewhere. It is often a trait of these cases--the desire to escape. If
she eluded me here, the authorities would have plenty to say."
He stood a moment, cautioning us in low tones. The girl would be
startled--she was startled at seeing any one. But to be mildly startled
might be good for her. He smiled. "Amnesia has been cured by a blow
upon the head. But I don't recommend it."
We were to do no more than stand in the doorway. For a moment only.
"May I talk to her?" I suggested.
"That," he said, "would be useless. She could not understand; and her
own words are wholly unrecognizable."
* * * * *
There was another door directly across the hall. It stood open,
disclosing a bedroom, into the windows of which the setting sun was
streaming. A man came to its doorway. Turber's Indian assistant, Alan
afterward told me; evidently he was here on guard. He did not speak; he
saw Dr. Turber, and moved back into the room.
But for that instant he was visible I think I have never had a more
startling impression. A man, clad in trousers and white shirt; of huge
stature, well over six feet. Straight black hair, parted in the middle;
a red-brown face, flat-nosed. But more than that. I saw something
about him which was uncanny. An indescribable impression of something
incredibly sinister. Something weird.
He had a magazine in his hand. If it had been a tomahawk dripping
blood, if his face with its broken nose had been streaked with ocher,
if his body had been bare of those civilized garments--it would have
seemed far more normal. He grunted as he met Dr. Turber's glance and
turned away.
Turber repeated: "I think I would not speak to her--but you may if you
like."
He knocked on the girl's door. He then turned the lock and pushed the
door inward.
We crowded at the threshold. It was a small, comfortably furnished
bedroom. Windowless. A wicker table, with an electrolier giving a soft
glow of yellow light. The girl stood like a startled fawn in the center
of the room. It was the girl we had seen on the television!
A creature, here in life, of fairy-like delicacy. Almost unreal. She
was not over five feet tall; slight and delicate of mold; a girlhood
upon the brink of maturity. A fairy creature, like a vision of girlhood
in a child's fairy dream. White-limbed; wearing a pale, sky-blue
robe--a drapery rather than a dress. Flowing hair, pale as spun gold. A
face, oval and small, exquisite, delicate as a cameo. Eyes, sky-blue--
They stared at us, those sky-blue eyes. Startled. But they were not
vacant eyes, nor confused; not the eyes of a person mentally deranged.
They swung toward Dr. Turber; and as momentarily he turned away they
came back to Alan. And in them I read--and Alan read--a mute, furtive
look of appeal!