Deadly Nightshade (13 page)

“Trifles, nothing you could read. ‘Leaves From the Casebook of a Country Doctor'—that sort of thing.”

“I imagine I could easily read them.”

“They go pretty well, nowadays; seem to be the fashion. I do them to avoid complete atrophy of the brain. Mine, you know, is the saddest of all cases,” and he smiled, not at all sadly. “My character was ruined early, and forever.”

“How was that?” asked Gamadge, also smiling.

“Well, I graduated rather well from medical school, lots of promise; but a friend of mine had a rich father, with arthritis, who owned a yacht. He signed me on as traveling body physician, and I went all over creation with him, in the most luxurious manner. When he died, I had acquired the tastes of a multimillionaire, some skill at bridge and poker, a smattering of European languages, and a knack for mixing salad dressings. I had lost all desire to fight my way up in my profession, and I was completely out of touch with it.”

“But he must have paid you pretty well for your services. Didn't he leave you anything in his will?” Mitchell was interested.

“Yes, to both questions; but like a good many other people in those dear old days, I went on the market. The fall of 1929 saw me back here in Oakport, figuring on how to pay the taxes and keep the old roof mended.”

“Didn't the feller's son help you out?”

“Unfortunately, he also had gone on the market; or stayed on it, rather. He didn't bear up as well as I did; shot himself. But the Bartram family stood by, I can tell you. The mills were having one of their periodical slumps, but Carroll tided me over, just the same. I started practice on that, and on my father's reputation, and here I am; perfectly happy.”

“It takes experience to teach you what you can be satisfied with,” said Mitchell.

“It does. I hope poor old George won't have to learn the lesson; he wouldn't react favorably.”

Mitchell thought for a moment, seemed to decide against whatever he had contemplated saying, and relapsed into silence. Gamadge said:

“I should think you might find the Bartrams' Annie a subject for inclusion in that casebook.”

“Annie? Why? Senility isn't particularly interesting.”

“It seems to be taking a curious form with her. She's convinced there is an evil influence—supernatural, I gather—working in this vicinity. Why does she insist that there's a curse on the place?”

Loring seemed to take this seriously. He said after a pause for thought: “I believe her mind has been tending in that direction ever since that bad time we all had, seven years ago last May. It really was a bad time, you know—very bad. Ironical, too. When this last calamity arrived, I suppose she considered it a sort of fulfillment of doom. I'll get her out of here as soon as I can; Monday, if possible. If she's in for a general breakup she may as well have it in the old country, where she wants to be. Her son's there, you know.”

“I heard that he was.”

“Yes. She's never been right—what I call right—since the troubles in Ireland. But about the trouble at Bartram's—back in 1932, that was. About a year after old Mr. Bartram died, Carroll got married to a perfectly charming girl, just the type for him; Caroline Hardwick. George had escaped to Holland by that time; I say escaped, because the Boston atmosphere never did suit poor George. He got out of it as soon as he could, and you saw this morning what sort of type
he
prefers. Nice little woman; but of course not in Caroline Bartram's class at all.

“In the winter of 1932 old Mrs. Bartram had a slight stroke, and when she was able to move she wanted to come up here to the old place. As it happened, Carroll and his wife were more than willing to come too; Julia was on the way, and Carrie was none too strong. They settled in—cold, stormy weather it was, for May. Annie came along as resident cook, and they got outside local help for the rest of the work. I engaged Miss Ridgeman to look after Carrie, and keep an eye on the old lady; regular battleship of the old school, she was; wouldn't have a nurse, didn't need help going up and down stairs, all the rest of it. She was the sort you can't control until you get them helpless in bed.

“Miss Ridgeman came on that train that gets in at about seven thirty. She was unpacking in her room, when suddenly she heard the most fearful thumping in the hall. Old Mrs. Bartram had had her second stroke, and fallen downstairs; and Carrie Bartram had seen it happen. When Miss Ridgeman got there Carrie was half out of her wits, trying to lift the old lady, who weighed a ton. Bartram got hold of me, and I grabbed Serena Turnbull. Among us, we got old Mrs. Bartram to bed in a room on the ground floor—‘parlor bedroom', you know.

“By that time Carrie was in a bad way. We got her up to bed, Serena standing by downstairs. Julia was born that night, and early next morning Carrie died. I said something about irony, didn't I? Carrie Bartram died; but old Mrs. Bartram did not. We fully expected her to; the man I got from Boston didn't give her a week; but she came around like a hardy perennial, moved back to Boston in a month, and remained in her old house there, bedridden, half-paralyzed, but perfectly chipper otherwise, until last June. Is that irony, or am I misusing the word?”

“No, I don't think you are.”

“Carroll Bartram doesn't expose his feelings to the public gaze, but he goes under—pretty deep. It was young Julia that saved him from a crash then; I think that little gypsy may just possibly do the same for him now. You know something?” and Loring looked very alert and artful. “I believe I'll smuggle the kid in tomorrow.”

“Good for you. But the George Bartrams won't like it,” said Mitchell, archly.

“I don't care whether they like it or not. Miss Ridgeman can put him on the top floor, out of their way. They're going Monday, anyhow.”

“Annie will lament over him,” said Gamadge. “She doesn't consider the place safe for children.”

“I'm not at all sure that she'll need to know he's there. She can't climb stairs. I'll get her off on Monday, too. Leave it to Miss Ridgeman. She's so thankful to do anything for Bartram, she'll deal with the whole boiling of 'em; Annie, the Georges and all. Carroll was inclined to blame her, at first; but I made him see how confoundedly ungrateful that would be. He owes her a good deal, and she's heartbroken.”

“Have you any opinion to offer us on this nightshade business, Doctor?” asked Gamadge. “I understand you don't much care for the gypsy theory.”

“I have an open mind on the subject.”

Mitchell looked surprised. “I thought you were dead against it,” he protested.

“My dear man! If Carroll Bartram is to take in this little—what do they call him?—this little Elias, he mustn't have it dinned into him that the boy may have unintentionally killed his own child.”

“You have no theories on the subject of these poisonings, then?” persisted Gamadge.

“I'm inclined to think it may have been the work of an irresponsible. I can let you see my casebooks, if you like,” he said, smiling quizzically at Mitchell. “You'll find enough oddities in them to set you off suspecting half the county. That's what I wanted to speak to you about; I'm going to get a man up, man who knows his subject, to give my doubtfuls the once-over. I don't want you policemen sending all the dim-wits in the neighborhood out of what poor sense remains to them.”

“You think they're harmless, do you, Doctor?”

“Yes, I do; but I'm not qualified to dogmatize. I shouldn't in the least recognize the symptoms, if some hitherto well-meaning eccentric took it into his or her head that the time had come to impersonate the angel of death.”

“We'll wait for your report before we start on your casebooks. Do you take any stock in that idea of a grudge?” asked Mitchell.

“I boggle at it; all that kind of thing seems pure insanity to me. Ormiston, for instance—he's an exhibitionist, but I doubt if he's insane.”

“Do you think he could be a swindler on a big scale?”

“The Vermeer!” Loring threw back his head to laugh. “I'm sure I don't know; but if he is, I doubt if you'll catch him at it.”

“Well, we'll go up there and have a talk with him. That money old Mr. Bartram had, and then didn't have; there might be a lead, there. What do you say, Mr. Gamadge?”

“We shouldn't be justified in ignoring the possibility; but it's all a long time ago. We may not turn up anything.”

“Well, best of luck.” Loring stood waving to them until Mitchell had turned the car, and driven off to the northeast.

“I didn't like to say anything about George Bartram,” said Mitchell, relieved to observe that Gamadge had not again brought out the Torquemada puzzle. “I wanted to; but I have a kind of a feeling that Loring wouldn't keep a thing like that to himself. He'd tell Carroll Bartram.”

“Tell him what?”

“Well, tell him we knew George had time to go back, after he left his wife and little girl at Ford's Center, Tuesday morning, and hand around that nightshade.”

“It would be worth telling him, if he would tell us what George Bartram's motive could have been. I myself can see no motive whatever, unless he means to exterminate his brother, too; not to mention little Elias, now that Carroll Bartram thinks of adopting the boy.”

“You make it sound silly, but people have done such things.”

“I don't make it sound silly; I'm saying that George Bartram had nothing to gain—unless he's a mass murderer.”

“Carroll Bartram might marry again, and have half a dozen children.”

“He may, if he lives long enough.”

Mitchell glanced sharply at Gamadge, and said after a moment: “I don't know if you're serious.”

“Perfectly serious, but it doesn't do to be too serious. ‘Laugh or go mad'; isn't that the phrase? Well, well; here we are, again; on the dear old Tucon road.”

“What do you think the doc would do,” persisted Mitchell, “if I spoke to him about George Bartram?”

“Anything most likely to shield his friend Carroll Bartram from danger, trouble or anxiety.”

“Even if that meant withholding evidence—against a murderer?”

“Doctor Loring is no moralist.”

“He wouldn't even give the gypsies away, I don't think. I got an impression that he won't give away his patients, even if some of 'em are loony enough to poison a whole community with nightshade berries.”

“His point was that you can't tell whether they
are
loony enough.”

“I wish he felt like helping us. He's smart. But he won't even say what he really thinks about Ormiston.”

“No. We'll have to get on as best we can without Doctor Loring.”

To Mitchell's disgust, Gamadge again buried himself in his Torquemada puzzle.

Curious Personality of an Artist

T
HEY DROVE THROUGH
the settlement of Tucon, where shuttered windows and an absence of human life were evidence to the fact that its colony of artists and craftsmen had retired for the winter. Half a mile farther on the road took an eastward turn, and led them through a belt of dense woods to a wild and rocky shore. They drove northward, Gamadge lifting his eyes from his squares and smudges to gaze at a cold, dark-blue, white-capped ocean.

“Every month here seems to have its own smell,” he said. “This September one is the best of all; but I say that about each of them. Here comes a young fellow who appears to be making the most of a short holiday from the city. He'll be sorry.”

The young man in question, who was driving a coupé with the top down, had indeed acquired a violent sunburn. He wore a pepper-and-salt suit, his felt hat was on the seat beside him, and his steel-rimmed spectacles flashed in the sun as he turned his head to look at the passers-by. The look was a sharp one, from sharp close-set eyes.

“Didn't somebody say something, some time this morning, about a feller with spectacles and a suit like that?” Mitchell threw a glance over his shoulder, and again met the young man's interested gaze.

“The George Bartrams saw him at the cemetery, talking to Mrs. Ormiston.”

“Oh, yes. I remember. He'll know us if he sees us again.”

They approached Harper's Rocks, a string of weathered cottages perched on the rising cliff. “How unutterably empty and forlorn a summer colony does look when it closes up,” said Gamadge.

“Yes, it does. That's the trail through the woods to the Beasley road.”

Gamadge turned his head, and had a glimpse of a dark opening among trees. Mitchell drove on for a few yards, coming to a stop at the foot of a steep, grassy slope, where three conveyances were already parked; a big one which was much in need of a wash, a small two-seater, and the piano-like trailer of which Mitchell had spoken. A shingled cottage topped the rise. Halfway up the slope was a sand pile under a stunted pine.

They climbed with some difficulty, the path being little more than a beaten track. Gamadge paused beside the disorderly little mound of sand, in which a tin pail and shovel lay partly buried.

“I don't like people who leave little boys forgotten on sand piles,” he said.

“Tom was not a favorite child;

Only six, and running wild.”

Mitchell stopped, and looked back at him. “What's that you say?”

“I'm taking a high moral tone, and blaming people; that's what mankind invariably does, if it dares; they love to blame people when a misadventure happens; they particularly love to blame parents.

“Let's be thankful; someone gave

Tommy Ormiston a grave.”

Mitchell asked: “What's the matter with you, anyway? The boy's all right.”

“I was thinking of the might-have-been; or ‘ben', as the poet Whittier seems to wish us to pronounce it.”

Mitchell silently climbed the path,
Maud Muller
, Mr. Ormiston and the Bartram family lot churning in his brain. He and Gamadge mounted to a porch which extended around the house, and on the south side of which a lady and two children sat playing Chinese checkers.