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Brush had seen to it that our socks were changed, I took Geddes on for a game of billiards. We had just finished when Jo Fogarty came in to take me away for my pre-lunch workout.
    As we started operations in the physio-therapy room, he began to talk about Geddes and what a nice fellow he was. He said he liked the English, and that Geddes was a typical Englishman. He'd been in London in '29, when he beat up the British wrestling champ, and all the guys seemed to look like Geddes. He rambled on about the other male patients. For some reason of his own he didn't approve of them. Fenwick was limp and soft as a girl; Billy Trent was musclebound and hard to handle.
    Muscles always brought him back to his favorite topic, himself. With excusable pride he started in about his own strength and how he was a better wrestler than any of the framed phonies who were now disgracing the mat. There was a lot more concerning his bouts with the London women, but I wasn't listening very hard. Usually I found him amusing, but just then I couldn't think of much else but the girl with the sad eyes and the Russian cap.
    As soon as it was decently possible, I brought the conversation around to her. Fogarty's pleasant, bull-dog face grinned knowingly.
    "Yeah," he said, "she's a good looker all right."
    "But what's her name?"
    "Pattison. Iris Pattison. One of those Park Avenue dames, Her father lost his dough and threw himself off his penthouse roof garden. The girl saw him jump. That did something to her. And then when she found she didn't have more than a few grand to her name, and her boyfriend had given her the air, she went cuckoo. They brought her here, and she's been here ever since."
    There was a pause while he pounded my back. Then I said: "What's wrong with her?"
    "I never get onto the fancy names they use. It's something like melancholy."
    "Melancholia?"
    "Sure. She sits most of the time and don't do nothing. Mrs. Dell over in the women's wing tells me it gives you the creeps. Sometimes that girl don't say a word for a week on end."
    Poor Iris. I felt frightfully sorry for her. And I realized with a sort of shock that it was the first time I had felt really sorry for anyone, but myself, since Magdalene died. Maybe I was picking up.
    "But you heard her today, Fogarty," I insisted. "What did she mean about Laribee murdering her father?"
    Fogarty had muffled me in a warm towel now and was rubbing me up and down vigorously.
    "She may be nutty, but that makes sense all right." he said. "Laribee and her father were in a sort of stock pool together. Laribee got out while the getting was good and left the others holding the bag. It was on account of that old Pattison committed suicide."
    I was putting on my bathrobe when Fogarty said cheerfully:
    "D'you know, Mr. Duluth, you've got a pretty swell physique for a guy who's been soaking for years."
    I thanked him for the doubtful compliment and he went on:
    "How about me teaching you a couple of wrassling holds? Maybe when you're out, you can do me a good turn, too, and get me in show business. That's where I belong."
    It seemed a rather one-sided bargain, but I agreed, and then Fogarty began to initiate me into the mysteries of the half nelson. He had twisted me up somehow with my hands behind my neck when there were footsteps in the passage outside.
    The door was open and we were standing near it. I felt pretty foolish when Miss Brush appeared. It pricked my male vanity for her to see me helpless in the grip of a great baboon like Fogarty.
    But she didn't seem to feel that way. She paused and watched in interest. Then she smiled that bright, fixed smile of hers.
    "So you're learning to wrestle, Mr. Duluth. Next time you misbehave you'll be harder to deal with."
    I couldn't have felt less hard to deal with, but she added suddenly:
    "How about teaching me that hold, Jo? My jujutsu's a bit rusty and I want to meet Mr. Duluth on common ground next time we come to grips."
    Fogarty let go of me like a hot