The Book of the Dead (2 page)

Billig said gruffly: “I'm obliged to you.”

“The obligation is mine. I don't know,” said Crenshaw, smiling a little, “what Pike will do now. I'd be willing almost to swear that whatever he does he won't settle down. It's too late for him to change his ways; he's in the forties, like me. I couldn't change
my
ways to save me.”

Billig looked quickly at his patient, but the profile on the snowy pillow did not change; Crenshaw was not aware of any special meaning in his phrase. He went dreamily on: “He may have come down in the world, or perhaps,” he laughed, “subsided. But you can't always tell about these New Englanders; I don't know where they get the manner from, but the plainest of them often have it—very cool and grand.”

“Have you anybody up there to check on him, Mr. Crenshaw?”

“Everybody in town will check on him. They all know him. The real estate agent will keep an eye on the house, too, before and after Pike leaves it, because it's going into the market. Pike won't run off with Uncle's Franklin stoves. The house won't sell, of course; it will fall to pieces. Run-down farm and orchard, pump and no drains.”

“Well, you know your own business best.” The doctor stooped sideways, picked up his unopened bag and got to his feet. But he still lingered a moment. At last he said in a monotone: “Neither of us is a sentimental man; but let me say that when my turn comes, I hope I'll behave as well as you're doing.”

“Behave?” Crenshaw turned his head to look at the other, and then put out his hand to a little radio that stood on the lower shelf of the bedside table. He turned the dial. “Let me tell you something, Doctor,” he said, and waited until the record of a string orchestra began to play. He listened, turned the music lower, and then lay back. “There's one thing,” he said, smiling, “that I've been good at all my life; bowing to fate. Lying down on my face, if necessary. Well, here I am on my back. It might be worse.”

“It might indeed. I'll be around for you when the day cools off—if it ever does. Say five o'clock?”

“We'll be ready. Will they let me have those nice tablets of yours if I'm restless at night?”

“You'll get them.”

“Sedatives always make me feel like a rag in the morning, but I prefer that to a long night.”

“You'll have your phenobarbital.”

Billig lumbered out of the room, through the living-room and into the lobby. He came face to face with Pike, who was bringing a tray from the kitchen. It was set out with a delicate luncheon, at which the doctor glanced as Pike set it down on a side table and opened the door.

Billig asked, without looking at the manservant: “Has he really nobody?”

“Far as I can make out, not a soul. How long has he got, Doc?”

Billig did not raise his eyes to the inscrutable lean face above him. He said: “Perhaps two weeks. Can't say,” and went out into the hall.

Pike closed the door after him, and picked up the tray. He carried it into the bedroom and set it down. While he cleared the bedside table, Crenshaw, watching him, spoke:

“It's our last day.”

“I haven't much packing to do. I've been getting things together.” Pike's careless drawl did not change. He added: “But I can't find that book.”

There was a silence. Then Crenshaw said: “Stupid of me. I must have left it on the train.”

“Unless you want it, why worry about it? I could go out and get you another.”

“I have a feeling that I shan't be doing much reading from now on. Don't give me my lunch yet, Pike; call the bank. They can't send a man up with the money at a moment's notice.”

“That's so.”

“And I must have the check ready for him. Where's that checkbook?”

“On the desk.”

“What's the balance?”

Pike opened the checkbook. He read: “Four thousand five hundred and sixty-seven.”

“That ought to be enough, even if I stick it out longer than Billig thought. From what he said at first, it oughtn't to be much more than two weeks.”

“Don't worry.” Pike went across to the telephone, got the book, found a number, and dialled. He asked: “This the Western Merchants Bank of New York?” and after a moment: “Hold the wire, please. Mr. Howard Crenshaw will come to the telephone.”

O
N WEDNESDAY,
July the twenty-eighth, the heat closed down again; it was as hot as it had been on the same day the week before. But it never seemed really hot in Gamadge's library, which ran the whole width of the house in the rear, and had a through draft across the hall to the windows in front. Gamadge had an early dinner that night, so that his old colored servant Theodore could go to the movies. He sat afterwards beside one of the long library windows, drinking his coffee and smoking a cigarette.

He was alone, except for Theodore and the big yellow cat Martin. Clara was on Long Island; she had gone protesting, but Gamadge—choosing to consider her in a delicate state of health—had insisted on her renting a friend's cottage beyond Southampton. She had entrained in late June, accompanied by her chow Sun, the cook Athalie, and the maid Maggie. Gamadge was supposed to spend his week ends with her, but two appointments would keep him in town this week until Saturday.

The city was curiously still; as still, he thought, as it must have been long before he was born, when his grandfather sat in this same window after dinner smoking a cigar and drinking coffee from this same blue cup, or another of the set. His grandmother would have been taking the country air south-west of Albany, within sight of the Catskills. They would have been surprised at the changes in the house, the house to which they had come after their honeymoon; outside it was much the same, a modest three story and basement brick dwelling with a low stoop and white trim; but indoors it now combined business and living. The basement was given over to Theodore and Athalie; the drawing-room was Gamadge's office, the dining-room his laboratory, the pantry his dark-room. A little elevator—just big enough for two—had been installed behind the stairs; a dumb waiter rose from kitchen to library, where the Gamadges had their meals.

The laboratory apparatus was shrouded in dust-cloths now; Harold, Gamadge's assistant, was off somewhere in the Marines, and Gamadge's work was all war work, conducted with a certain discretion in a cubbyhole of an office that overlooked Bowling Green.

He now sat looking out at the big ailanthus tree in the back yard, his feet up on a chair and the radio going. But he heard the elevator stop in the hall; Theodore came to the door.

“Somebody to see you, Mist' Gamadge.”

This form of announcement meant that in Theodore's opinion, the caller was respectable, but of not quite enough importance to have a sex. Gamadge said: “Describe.”

“Young person, or anyway not over thirty. No card. No name. Says it's business. She's from the country, or was.”

“Selling something?”

“I don't think so. I'd say a school teacher, but she ain't used to telling people.”

“Office worker?”

“Kind of oldfashioned for that, Mist' Gamadge. I don't place her.”

“Why should I see her without an appointment?”

“She wouldn't come unless she had a good reason.”

“Oh; wouldn't she? I'll take your word for it.” Gamadge removed his feet from the chair, shook himself together, and went downstairs. Before going into the office he opened the front door a little and put it on its chain; then he entered the long room with its molded ceiling, and faced his visitor.

She had been sitting on the edge of one of the deep leather chairs; when he came in she rose, and stood firmly planted; a middle sized young woman, with a round, rosy face, round brown eyes, and wispy brown hair. The hair was covered by a turban, evidently home made, of brown ribbon; it was decorated with a pink rose. She wore a brown linen suit, and brown Oxford shoes that had seen wear. She clasped a large brown woollen handbag.

Gamadge thought: She's naturally self-possessed, but shy of this call. He said: “Good evening.”

“Mr. Gamadge?”

“That's me.”

“My name's Fisher; Idelia Fisher.”

“Sit down, Miss Fisher, while I get a little air for us.” He went to the closed window, which was fitted with an air filter. He turned this on, made a face at the resulting flow of warm air, unlocked and raised the window. Then he turned a chair to face her and sat down himself. “What can I do for you?”

“I don't know if you can do anything.” Her voice came through her nose, but it was too forthright to be disagreeable. She went on: “I know I ought to have telephoned and asked for an appointment.”

“Well, it's safer; I mightn't have been at home.”

“I know; but there might have been a secretary. I know how they are—I'm one myself.” She gave him a dry smile. “I couldn't have said what I wanted to see you about. It's bad enough to tell
you
!”

“Bad enough?” He returned the smile.

“You might think I was crazy.”

“I promise I won't.”

“I wouldn't have even thought of coming and taking up your time, only for what Mr. Macloud said last summer.”

“Mr. Macloud?”

“He said he knew you.”

“If it's Bob Macloud, the lawyer, he certainly does.”

“He has this summer place up near where my aunt lives in Vermont. That's where my family comes from—Stonehill, Vermont. I live in New York now, because I work here; I'm my uncle's assistant—he's a dentist. I go back to Stonehill summers to stay with my aunt, and Mr. Macloud drives over for cakes and turkeys.”

“But not this summer.”

“No, he wouldn't come because he couldn't use his car. But last year he came, and there was something in the papers about you—and your wife.”

“There was,” agreed Gamadge, grimly.

“Mr. Macloud told us about you.” She was gazing at him shyly, with a kind of puzzled speculation.

“Well,” said Gamadge, laughing, “Macloud's a lawyer. What he told you isn't likely to have been defamatory.”

“He said that when queer things happen you sometimes…” She paused, and was silent for so long that Gamadge at last prompted her:

“Yes, Miss Fisher?”

“Mr. Gamadge…” She brought it out desperately: “I haven't any money.”

“Oh. You mean for a fee?”

“Yes.”

“Don't worry about that. Tell me the queer thing. As Bob told you, I like them.”

“I don't know how I had the nerve to come. I haven't told my aunt or uncle; they live in Hartsdale. They'd think I was crazy. You don't know anything about me,” said Miss Fisher, more coherently than a pedantic listener might have been willing to admit.

Gamadge was not pedantic. “Any friend of Macloud's is a friend of mine,” he said, “and I don't repeat professional confidences to anybody. Has this peculiar thing happened here in New York?” He thought fleetingly of an oldfashioned dentist's parlor, in which the dentist's niece officiated without uniform, make-up, or intimidating technique. His own dentist's receptionist was decorated like an Ouled Nail.

“No,” said Miss Fisher. “Or at least it didn't start here. It started up in Stonehill this summer; on the twenty-first of June. At least it was outside of Stonehill, up in the old Crenshaw house. That's where I met Mr. Crenshaw. But he came down to New York on the sixth of July, and now he's in hospital, and nobody will tell me a thing.”

Gamadge waited.

“Mr. Gamadge,” she went on, “I never realized before. Anything could happen to a person in this town, and nobody like me could ever find out a thing—not a single thing.”

“Well, that depends; I think you exaggerate. However, I don't know the story.”

“It just came over me after I called at the hospital last night. A person like me can't get into places, nobody answers questions, and I never felt so helpless in my whole life.”

“I couldn't get information about a patient in a hospital, Miss Fisher; they don't give it out. You have to get hold of the doctor, or a relative or friend.”

“He
hasn't
anybody!”

“This Mr. Crenshaw hasn't?”

“That's what he told me. Nobody.”

“Except you.” Gamadge smiled at her, but she went on with her round eyes fixed earnestly on him:

“I'm not anybody. That's the trouble. They wouldn't tell me anything at the apartment, or last week at the hospital, or last night.”

“Did you come to me hoping that
I'd
get information about Mr. Crenshaw for you?”

“I just—just want you to tell me what you think.”

“I'll tell you what I think.” Gamadge took his cigarette case out of his pocket and offered it to Miss Fisher; he had expected her to refuse a cigarette, and she did so—by shaking her head.

“May I smoke?” he asked.

She was surprised at the question. “Why, yes.”

Gamadge lighted his cigarette. He was thinking: “She's not in love with this man Crenshaw. She may be romantic, but she's not the kind that loses her head. She's not flighty, she's not a fool.”

“I'll just explain the whole thing from the start,” said Miss Fisher. “I get a long vacation every summer, when my uncle and aunt go to the shore. I go up to my Aunt Julia's in Stonehill, because I couldn't afford to go anywhere else; I only have to pay board.”

These family arrangements, thought Gamadge, how greatly they depend on the Aunt Julias.

“It's nice up there,” continued Miss Fisher. ‘But there isn't much to do—Stonehill is just a village, up in the mountains five miles north of Unionboro; about all I do is take walks. The best walk is up beyond the old Crenshaw farm, two miles out. Old Mr. Crenshaw lived there until last spring, when he died. I used to go around back of his house and come out above, and follow the road on to where it ends; there's a nice view. This summer I thought I could sit in his orchard; since he was dead and the house closed, you know.