The Flesh of The Orchid by James Hadley Chase

grunted. Now he had recovered from his fright the picture Carol made, bare-footed, in the white silk pyjamas, her red hair loose on her shoulders, fired his blood.
    “She’s a looker, isn’t she?” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “What a shape she’s got!”
    Steve made an impatient movement. He was puzzled, wondering what the girl was doing, pacing up and down out there.
    Suddenly Carol paused, looked in their direction as if sensing she was being watched. The moonlight fell directly on her face, and both men saw a change in her expression that startled them. The muscles in her face seemed to tighten, the lines contort, giving her a sly look of animal cunning. There was a nervous tic at the side of her mouth and her eyes were like pieces of glass and as soulless. Steve scarcely recognized her.
    Spot howled miserably from his hiding-place across the yard, and Carol turned swiftly to look in that direction. Her whole bearing was as quick and lithe as the movements of a jungle cat, and as dangerous. Then, as Spot howled again, she disappeared through the open window of her room.
    “What the hell do you make of that?” Roy asked uneasily. “Did you see the way she looked? Did you see that expression?”
    “Yes,” Steve said, worried. “I’d better find out what she’s doing.”
    “Take care she doesn’t scratch your eyes out,” Roy said with an uneasy laugh. “She could do anything the way she looked just now.”
    Steve pulled on a dressing-gown, took an electric torch and went down the passage to Carol’s room. He opened the door quietly.
    Carol was in bed, her eyes closed, the moonlight on her face. She looked as lovely and as serene as she always did, and when Steve called to her, she didn’t move.
    He stood for a moment watching her, then quietly shut the door and returned to his room.
    He slept as badly as Roy that night.
    *     *     *
    Sam Garland and Joe were cleaning an ambulance in the big garage at the rear of Glenview Mental Sanatorium.
    “Don’t look now,” Sam said, polishing away, “but that news hawk’s heading this way.”
    Joe showed his two gold teeth.
    “I like that guy. He’s persistent. Think we could bite his ear for a few potatoes?”
    “Idea,” Sam said, stood back to admire the glittering chromium headlamps.
    Phil Magarth, lean, tall, carelessly dressed, sauntered up to them. He had been around for the past week trying to get some worthwhile information about the patient who had escaped from the sanatorium, but apart from a short, useless statement from Dr. Travers and a curt “Get the hell out of here” from Sheriff Kamp, he had got nowhere.
    Magarth, the local reporter for the district as well as a special correspondent for a number of Mid-West newspapers, had an instinct for news, and he was sure there was a big story behind the escape if he could get at it. Having tried every other avenue for further information without success, he decided to see what he could learn from Garland and Joe.
    “Hello, boys,” he said, draping himself over the hood of the ambulance. “Found that loony yet?”
    “No use asking us,” Garland said, resuming his polishing. “We’re just hired helps, ain’t we, Joe?”
    “That’s right,” Joe said, winked at Magarth.
    “I was reckoning you boys knew something,” Magarth said, jingling his loose change suggestively. “Who the dame is, for instance. My expense account is fat with inactivity, if that interests you.”
    Both Garland and Joe lost their indifferent expressions.
    “How fat would it be?” Garland asked cautiously.
    “Well, maybe ‘fat’s’ the wrong word. I should have said bloated. If you know anything don’t be scared to open your little mouths.”
    “We won’t,” Garland said, looked cautiously over his shoulder. “A hundred bucks would buy it, wouldn’t it, Joe?”
    “Just about,” Joe said, rubbing his hands. “A hundred each.”
    Magarth winced.
    “I guess I’ll try that blonde nurse.