“You mean a sanatorium, don’t you? A sanitarium is a nut foundry.”
He smiled and nodded his blond head.
“That’s it exactly: a nut foundry.”
I closed my eyes. Thinking was difficult, but I made the effort. It took me several minutes to remember the swish of a descending cosh, the man in the scarlet sweatshirt, and Maureen’s wild, terrified scream. A sanitarium. I felt a little prickle of apprehension run up my spine like spider’s legs. A sanitarium!
I sat up abruptly. Something held my left wrist, pinning it to the bed. I turned to see what it was. A bright nickle-plated, rubber-lined handcuff gripped my wrist. The other cuff was fastened to the rail of the bed.
The blond man was watching me with mild interest.
“They think it’s safer for us to be chained up like that,” he said. “Ridiculous, really, but I have no doubt they mean well.”
“Yes,” I said and lay back. More spider’s legs ran up my spine. “Who runs this place?”
“Why, Dr. Salzer, of course. Haven’t you met him? He’s quite charming. You’ll like him. Everyone does.”
Then I remembered the man in the scarlet sweatshirt had said he would hide me away where no one would ever find me. An asylum, of course, was a pretty fool-proof hiding-place. But Salzer didn’t run an asylum. His place was a retreat for the over-fed: Nurse Gurney had said so.