The Book of the Dead (5 page)

“How does it?”

“Well, look at the situation up there in Vermont. Pike was the drug peddler who supplied Crenshaw from some distant source. If Crenshaw was frightened when Pike's car came into sight that time, he was afraid that Pike hadn't the consignment. Or he was afraid the supply mightn't be satisfactory in quality—perhaps it hadn't been, the last time. I understand that owing to war conditions bootleg drugs are much weakened by adulteration, so much so as to be practically useless to the addict.

“The addict is completely dependent on his source of supply. Crenshaw wouldn't let Pike see you because Pike wouldn't approve of his making friends; he might betray himself to them, or he might confide in them—you never can tell what an addict will do. Discovery would be a serious matter for Pike—drug traffic is a felony.

“Then look at the marked passages in the Shakespeare—this theory explains them, too; for such is the peculiar construction of weak human nature,” said Gamadge, who was talking slumped down in his seat, his eyes fixed on nothing, “that it often blames the pander to its weaknesses. Crenshaw wouldn't be grateful to Pike; he'd even hate him. He'd despise him, but he'd also despise himself. Pike is born to be hanged, he himself is a monster of weakness; credulous, too, if Pike has overcharged him or deceived him about the quality of the supply.

“One day the supply doesn't come, or is useless. Crenshaw is on the point of collapse; they must pull up stakes and rush to the source—presumably New York, where a distributor has headquarters. But Crenshaw collapses at the apartment. Pike, terrified, must get him a doctor; explaining, of course, that he, Pike, is only an attendant, paid to keep Mr. Crenshaw off the stuff, unable to prevent him from getting and concealing it.

“The doctor puts Crenshaw in hospital. The hospital won't tell what Crenshaw's trouble is; the doctor won't tell, especially if the doctor—but I mustn't let my imagination run quite away with me, must I?” He looked at Idelia, smiling.

“If this is the truth of the matter,” he went on, while she stared at him with round eyes, “Crenshaw didn't of course meet Pike originally in Unionboro; he brought him along from California, or picked him up in New York. Well, we have Crenshaw's isolation explained, we have Pike's terrifying quality explained—an inherent criminality that you felt rather than consciously saw—and we have the explanation for the sudden flight to New York and the isolation here. And we can understand Crenshaw's absent-mindedness; in that state he would forget his Shakespeare—and his friend.”

Idelia interrupted at last, and with feeling: “You didn't know Mr. Crenshaw. He wasn't a drug fiend.”

“Well,” said Gamadge, “I didn't say that this theory does explain everything. Nor does the theory that Crenshaw was an alcoholic.”

“He certainly was not!”

“You can't always tell by looking at them, you know.”

“He wasn't any kind of an addict.”

“Is Stonehill dry?” asked Gamadge, ignoring her protests.

“As a bone.”

“Pike might have had bottles in that car. On July the third, Crenshaw has the beginnings of an attack of D.T.s. Pike writes to the apartment in a hurry—I wish you'd preserved that envelope; if he's a bad hat we might like to have a specimen of his handwriting—and gets the patient to New York before he crashes completely. From the sixth of July on, Crenshaw is flat on his back; acute alcoholism is no joke. Doctor, hospital, lack of bulletins to callers—all as I suggested before.”

“I suppose,” said Idelia with some disgust, “that alcoholics read
The Tempest
?”

“I don't know why they shouldn't. It would take them right out of this world, into a place where strange, hollow, confused sounds are mild phenomena, and mopping and mowing the order of the day.”

“He wasn't an alcoholic.”

“Then there's blackmail,” continued Gamadge, half to himself. “In that case Crenshaw was forced to keep his blackmailer on the premises; support him as well as pay him. But we know so little; we haven't the financial picture.”

“I don't believe there's anything to blackmail Mr. Crenshaw
for
,” said Idelia in a kind of desperation.

“But you know that he considers himself weak, morally weak. Weak people incur blackmail, weak people submit to it. But an idea strikes me.”

“Another one?” asked Idelia dryly.

“Would Crenshaw underline passages reflecting on Pike's character with Pike at his elbow? Or didn't Pike mind knowing that Crenshaw thought he was born to be hanged?”

“I don't believe that that Pike ever looked at a book, much less Shakespeare!”

“I have to take your word for so much,” complained Gamadge.

Idelia looked out of the window. Gamadge, watching her stern profile, realized afresh how much her friendship with this older, literate, cultivated man must have meant to her. To defend it she had stepped right out of character. She was, Gamadge thought, the last person in the world to presume on an acquaintance and force herself where she wasn't wanted; she was convinced that Crenshaw would not have dropped her unless he had been coerced or in extremis. She was determined, in spite of her natural reticence and her acquired social humility, to find out whether he had been coerced, whether or not he was a free agent now.

Crenshaw had probably been the most interesting adventure in her life; if that was the case, Gamadge feared that her life had been and would continue to be a flattish one.

The bus, stopping for lights, stopping at every fourth corner to take on and discharge passengers, had climbed the hill and descended into the succeeding valley; now it was climbing again. Idelia turned: “We're almost there.”

The bus stopped; they got out and walked through the steamy twilight along dark streets. At last they reached a corner where huge old sycamores hung their branches over a brick wall.

“I don't remember ever having seen this old place before,” said Gamadge. “Or if I have, I never noticed it.”

“The front entrance isn't on this avenue,” said Idelia. “It's down the street.”

“Shall we walk around the block first?”

“You like to start with the outsides of things, don't you?”

“Think of the things
you
buy,” laughed Gamadge.

Perhaps Idelia did not realize that if they were now on very easy terms, she had Gamadge to thank for her lack of awkwardness. At any rate, she smiled up at him complacently enough as they followed the high wall up the avenue and into the next street. As they approached the end of the block they passed old wooden doors, painted green and padlocked. Within the grounds of the hospital could be seen the slate roof of a small detached building.

“The laundry?” suggested Idelia.

“Or the morgue. This must be an old foundation; Crenshaw certainly picked up an oldfashioned doctor.”

The big brick hospital filled the southeast corner of the block. It was a rambling Gothic structure, with high windows, a high doorway, and a high flight of stone steps. One of the oaken doors had a bronze tablet, with
St. Damian's Hospital
in Gothic lettering; the other door was open.

“Don't we
ring
?” asked Idelia, as Gamadge urged her through into a badly lighted hall.

“Ring? At a quarter to nine?”

“It might make them mad to have us walk in.”

“They'd be madder if they had to answer the bell. The hospitals haven't enough nurses at present, much less doormen.”

The hall was lofty and rather narrow, with paneling of shiny yellow oak and a floor laid with red and yellow tiles. There was a bench in an alcove along the righthand wall, and farther along in the same wall an office window. Gamadge left Idelia sitting on the bench, and went up to the window. A young woman sat in the rear of the little room reading a magazine.

Gamadge tapped on the ledge.

She got up and came forward. “Yes?”

“I called to inquire after Mr. Howard Crenshaw.”

“Crenshaw? Wait a minute. I just came on duty.” She turned to her switchboard, hesitated, and then began to rustle through a file of memoranda. She looked up. “You a relative?”

“No. I'm inquiring on behalf of a friend.”

She turned back to the file. “I remember now; here it is, I found it. Mr. Crenshaw died this morning.”

Gamadge looked back over his shoulder. Idelia, sitting forward on her bench, had followed the conversation; she sat motionless for a moment or two, and then sank slowly back to lean against the wall. Her face was expressionless.

Gamadge faced the receptionist again. He said: “I'm greatly shocked to hear that. May I see someone who could give me details?”

“Just a second.” The girl went into an inner office. She returned with a short, gray-haired man in spectacles, who came through a door in the partition and addressed Gamadge with interest:

“I'm really glad to meet a friend of Mr. Howard Crenshaw's.”

“Friend of a friend.”

“Perhaps of the lady who inquired before? Our receptionist tells me that she called last night and a week ago; described herself as a slight acquaintance, summer acquaintance.”

“That's right.”

The spectacled man had no view of Idelia in her alcove. He went on: “The inquiry was filed and reported to the supervisor. Even last week—within an hour of the time Mr. Crenshaw arrived at St. Damian's—he was unconscious. His doctor sent down word that he could receive no messages, and as a matter of fact he never regained consciousness again. This Miss Fisher—the name is Fisher?”

“Yes.”

“We have her name and address. She left them here last week. Will you kindly inform her that Mr. Crenshaw died this morning at eight, and that the remains are at Buckley's? One of the best houses in the city. A first class undertaking firm. They are arranging to send the body up to Vermont early tomorrow, for burial there in the family plot. A little place called Stonehill.”

“I'll tell her.”

“We were instructed by Mr. Crenshaw himself; an unusual case, very unusual, but he was a most unusual man. I wish more were like him. Everything arranged beforehand, and paid for—down to the last penny. In cash. We have the itemized accounts, up to and including Buckley's charge for shipping the remains to Unionboro. I understand that the Stonehill people take over then. We are forwarding the accounts, with a small cash residue, to Mr. Crenshaw's bank, the Western Merchants; I understand that they have a branch, or are a branch of a bank in California. San Francisco. We notified them here at once, and San Francisco has no doubt been notified by this time.”

“Mr. Crenshaw's body wasn't cremated?”

“No, and that's the only thing I can possibly criticize in the arrangements—or could, if I wished to criticize. It would have been simpler, in these days of difficult transportation; but Mr. Crenshaw said nothing about cremation.”

“Who was his doctor?”

“Dr. Florian Billig. He has been associated with this hospital,” said the spectacled man, “much longer than I have. I'm night superintendent, by the way; Thompson. Billig's a very good man,” continued Mr. Thompson without enthusiasm. “A St. Damian's man all his professional life. General practitioner now, but at one time I believe he specialized in diagnosis.”

“What did Mr. Crenshaw die of, Mr. Thompson?”

“Oh—I thought you knew. Leukemia, acute leukemia.”

“Really…That's quite incurable, isn't it?”

“As yet. But you know,” said Mr. Thompson with a smile, “that medical science is never at a standstill. They're working on leukemia.”

“Dr. Billig diagnosed the case as leukemia?”

“Yes, just over three weeks ago. I understand that Mr. Crenshaw and his man—valet, something—arrived at Mr. Crenshaw's apartment on the afternoon of the sixth. Mr. Crenshaw had had a sudden attack of hemorrhage in Stonehill, where he was settling an estate. You know that hemorrhage is a symptom of the disease?”

“I didn't know.”

“It is. There was another attack when they reached New York, and the man was frightened; he rushed out and got the first doctor he could find—around the corner.”

“Mr. Crenshaw was lucky that he got such a good one.”

“Yes, indeed. Mr. Crenshaw refused treatment, wouldn't consider hospitalization until last Wednesday, the twenty-first. It's a curious disease; when he arrived here with Dr. Billig, in a cab, they tell me that he seemed quite well, except for general weakness. He settled all the affairs I mentioned, deposited the cash with us, and then—” Thompson raised his hands, and then lowered them, palms down, in a gesture of finality— “he seemed to give way. And when we did his first hemoglobin, Mr.—er—”

“Gamadge.”

“—Mr. Gamadge, we were only surprised that he had kept going so long. As I said, a strange disease.”

“So I have heard.”

“Such imperceptible degrees of decline, such quick collapse and death. But no two cases are alike.”

“From what you said about taking a hemoglobin, I gather that Mr. Crenshaw did have treatments in hospital?”

Mr. Thompson smiled. “A doctor is quite right to humor his patient, Mr. Gamadge—when the case is hopeless; but in a hospital we go on fighting for the patient's life, I'm afraid, until the end.”

“X-ray treatments, all that?”

“And blood transfusions. We never give up. But if we had done nothing at all, the result would have been quite the same.”

“Well, I'm infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Thompson—”

“I was going to suggest that if Miss Fisher cared to stop in this evening, Buckley's would be very glad to see her—to see any friend. They might be glad to have a little ceremony. Mr. Crenshaw was a lonely man; he had nobody. Rather a sad thing.”

“I'll tell Miss Fisher.”