The Horror in the Museum (50 page)

Sophie kind of sniffled, the loungers whisper, but didn’t seem to take on much. Thorndike didn’t do anything but smile—perhaps at the ironic fact that he, always an enemy, was now the only person who could be of any use to Thomas Sprague. He shouted something in old Dr. Pratt’s half-good ear about the need of having the funeral early on account of Tom’s condition. Drunks like that were always doubtful subjects, and any extra delay—with merely rural facilities—would entail consequences, visual and otherwise, hardly acceptable to the deceased’s loving mourners. The doctor had muttered that Tom’s alcoholic career ought to have embalmed him pretty well in advance, but Thorndike assured him to the contrary, at the same time boasting of his own skill, and of the superior methods he had devised through his experiments.

It is here that the whispers of the loungers grow acutely disturbing. Up to this point the story is usually told by Ezra Davenport, or Luther Fry, if Ezra is laid up with chilblains, as he is apt to be in winter; but from there on old Calvin Wheeler takes up the thread, and his voice has a damnably insidious way of suggesting hidden horror. If Johnny Dow happens to be passing by there is always a pause, for Stillwater does not like to have Johnny talk too much with strangers.

Calvin edges close to the traveller and sometimes seizes a coat-lapel with his gnarled, mottled hand while he half shuts his watery blue eyes.

“Well, sir,” he whispers, “Henry he went home an’ got his undertaker’s fixin’s—crazy Johnny Dow lugged most of ‘em, for he was always doin’ chores for Henry—an’ says as Doc Pratt an’ crazy Johnny should help lay out the body. Doc always did say as how he thought Henry talked too much—a-boastin’ what a fine workman he was, an’ how lucky it was that Stillwater had a reg’lar undertaker instead of buryin’ folks jest as they was, like they do over to Whitby.

“‘Suppose,’ says he, ‘some fellow was to be took with some of them paralysin’ cramps like you read about. How’d a body like it when they lowered him down and begun shovelin’ the dirt back?
How’d he like it when he was chokin’ down there under the new headstone, scratchin’ an’ tearin’ if he chanced to get back the power, but all the time knowin’ it wasn’t no use? No, sir, I tell you it’s a blessin’ Stillwater’s got a smart doctor as knows when a man’s dead and when he ain’t, and a trained undertaker who can fix a corpse so he’ll stay put without no trouble.’

“That was the way Henry went on talkin’, most like he was talkin’ to poor Tom’s remains; and old Doc Pratt he didn’t like what he was able to catch of it, even though Henry did call him a smart doctor. Crazy Johnny kept watchin’ of the corpse, and it didn’t make it none too pleasant the way he’d slobber about things like, ‘He ain’t cold, Doc,’ or ‘I see his eyelids move,’ or There’s a hole in his arm jest like the ones I git when Henry gives me a syringe full of what makes me feel good.’ Thorndike shut him up on that, though we all knowed he’d been givin’ poor Johnny drugs. It’s a wonder the poor fellow ever got clear of the habit.

“But the worst thing, accordin’ to the doctor, was the way the body jerked up when Henry begun to shoot it full of embalmin’-fluid. He’d been boastin’ about what a fine new formula he’d got practicin’ on cats and dogs, when all of a sudden Tom’s corpse began to double up like it was alive and fixin’ to wrassle. Land of Goshen, but Doc says he was scared stiff, though he knowed the way corpses act when the muscles begin to stiffen. Well, sir, the long and short of it is, that the corpse sat up an’ grabbed a holt of Thorndike’s syringe so that it got stuck in Henry hisself, an’ give him as neat a dose of his own embalmin’-fluid as you’d wish to see. That got Henry pretty scared, though he yanked the point out and managed to get the body down again and shot full of the fluid. He kept measurin’ more of the stuff out as though he wanted to be sure there was enough, and kept reassurin’ himself as not much had got into him, but crazy Johnny begun singin’ out, That’s what you give Lige Hopkins’s dog when it got all dead an’ stiff an’ then waked up agin. Now you’re a-going to get dead an’ stiff like Tom Sprague be! Remember it don’t set to work till after a long spell if you don’t get much.’

“Sophie, she was downstairs with some of the neighbours—my wife Matildy, she that’s dead an’ gone this thirty year, was one of them. They were all tryin’ to find out whether Thorndike was over when Tom came home, and whether: findin’ him there was what set poor Tom off. I may as well say as some folks thought it mighty funny that Sophie didn’t carry on more, nor mind the way Thorndike
had smiled. Not as anybody was hintin’ that Henry helped Tom off with some of his queer cooked-up fluids and syringes, or that Sophie would keep still if she thought so—but you know how folks will guess behind a body’s back. We all knowed the nigh crazy way Thorndike had hated Tom—not without reason, at that—and Emily Barbour says to my Matildy as how Henry was lucky to have ol’ Doc Pratt right on the spot with a death certificate as didn’t leave no doubt for nobody.”

When old Calvin gets to this point he usually begins to mumble indistinguishably in his straggling, dirty white beard. Most listeners try to edge away from him, and he seldom appears to heed the gesture. It is generally Fred Peck, who was a very small boy at the time of the events, who continues the tale.

Thomas Sprague’s funeral was held on Thursday, June 17th, only two days after his death. Such haste was thought almost indecent in remote and inaccessible Stillwater, where long distances had to be covered by those who came, but Thorndike had insisted that the peculiar condition of the deceased demanded it. The undertaker had seemed rather nervous since preparing the body, and could be seen frequently feeling his pulse. Old Dr. Pratt thought he must be worrying about the accidental dose of embalming-fluid. Naturally, the story of the “laying out” had spread, so that a double zest animated the mourners who assembled to glut their curiosity and morbid interest.

Thorndike, though he was obviously upset, seemed intent on doing his professional duty in magnificent style. Sophie and others who saw the body were most startled by its utter lifelikeness, and the mortuary virtuoso made doubly sure of his job by repeating certain injections at stated intervals. He almost wrung a sort of reluctant admiration from the townsfolk and visitors, though he tended to spoil that impression by his boastful and tasteless talk. Whenever he administered to his silent charge he would repeat that eternal rambling about the good luck of having a first-class undertaker. What—he would say as if directly addressing the body—if Tom had had one of those careless fellows who bury their subjects alive? The way he harped on the horrors of premature burial was truly barbarous and sickening.

Services were held in the stuffy best room—opened for the first time since Mrs. Sprague died. The tuneless little parlour organ groaned disconsolately, and the coffin, supported on trestles near the hall door, was covered with sickly-smelling flowers. It was obvious
that a record-breaking crowd was assembling from far and near, and Sophie endeavoured to look properly grief-stricken for their benefit. At unguarded moments she seemed both puzzled and uneasy, dividing her scrutiny between the feverish-looking undertaker and the life-like body of her brother. A slow disgust at Thorn-dike seemed to be brewing within her, and neighbours whispered freely that she would soon send him about his business now that Tom was out of the way—that is, if she could, for such a slick customer was sometimes hard to deal with. But with her money and remaining looks she might be able to get another fellow, and he’d probably take care of Henry well enough.

As the organ wheezed into
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere
the Methodist church choir added their lugubrious voices to the gruesome cacophony, and everyone looked piously at Deacon Leavitt— everyone, that is, except crazy Johnny Dow, who kept his eyes glued to the still form beneath the glass of the coffin. He was muttering softly to himself.

Stephen Barbour—from the next farm—was the only one who noticed Johnny. He shivered as he saw that the idiot was talking directly to the corpse, and even making foolish signs with his fingers as if to taunt the sleeper beneath the plate glass. Tom, he reflected, had kicked poor Johnny around on more than one occasion, though probably not without provocation. Something about this whole event was getting on Stephen’s nerves. There was a suppressed tension and brooding abnormality in the air for which he could not account. Johnny ought not to have been allowed in the house—and it was curious what an effort Thorndike seemed to be making not to look at the body. Every now and then the undertaker would feel his pulse with an odd air.

The Reverend Silas Atwood droned on in a plaintive monotone about the deceased—about the striking of Death’s sword in the midst of this little family, breaking the earthly tie between this loving brother and sister. Several of the neighbours looked furtively at one another from beneath lowered eyelids, while Sophie actually began to sob nervously. Thorndike moved to her side and tried to reassure her, but she seemed to shrink curiously away from him. His motions were distinctly uneasy, and he seemed to feel acutely the abnormal tension permeating the air. Finally, conscious of his duty as master of ceremonies, he stepped forward and announced in a sepulchral voice that the body might be viewed for the last time.

Slowly the friends and neighbours filed past the bier, from which Thorndike roughly dragged crazy Johnny away. Tom seemed to be resting peacefully. That devil had been handsome in his day. A few genuine sobs—and many feigned ones—were heard, though most of the crowd were content to stare curiously and whisper afterward. Steve Barbour lingered long and attentively over the still face, and moved away shaking his head. His wife, Emily, following after him, whispered that Henry Thorndike had better not boast so much about his work, for Tom’s eyes had come open. They had been shut when the services began, for she had been up and looked. But they certainly looked natural—not the way one would expect after two days.

When Fred Peck gets this far he usually pauses as if he did not like to continue. The listener, too, tends to feel that something unpleasant is ahead. But Peck reassures his audience with the statement that what happened isn’t as bad as folks like to hint. Even Steve never put into words what he may have thought, and crazy Johnny, of course, can’t be counted at all.

It was Luella Morse—the nervous old maid who sang in the choir —who seems to have touched things off. She was filing past the coffin like the rest, but stopped to peer a little closer than anyone else except the Barbours had peered. And then, without warning, she gave a shrill scream and fell in a dead faint.

Naturally, the room was at once a chaos of confusion. Old Dr. Pratt elbowed his way to Luella and called for some water to throw in her face, and others surged up to look at her and at the coffin. Johnny Dow began chanting to himself, “He knows, he knows, he kin hear all we’re a-sayin’ and see all we’re a-doin’, and they’ll bury him that way”—but no one stopped to decipher his mumbling except Steve Barbour.

In a very few moments Luella began to come out of her faint, and could not tell exactly what had startled her. All she could whisper was, “The way he looked—the way he looked.” But to other eyes the body seemed exactly the same. It was a gruesome sight, though, with those open eyes and that high colouring.

And then the bewildered crowd noticed something which put both Luella and the body out of their minds for a moment. It was Thorndike—on whom the sudden excitement and jostling crowd seemed to be having a curiously bad effect. He had evidently been knocked down in the general bustle, and was on the floor trying to drag himself to a sitting posture. The expression on his face was
terrifying in the extreme, and his eyes were beginning to take on a glazed, fishy expression. He could scarcely speak aloud, but the husky rattle of his throat held an ineffable desperation which was obvious to all.

“Get me home, quick, and let me be. That fluid I got in my arm by mistake … heart action … this damned excitement … too much … wait … wait … don’t think I’m dead if I seem to … only the fluid—just get me home and wait … I’ll come to later, don’t know how long … all the time I’ll be conscious and know what’s going on … don’t be deceived….”

As his words trailed off into nothingness old Dr. Pratt reached him and felt his pulse—watching a long time and finally shaking his head. “No use doing anything—he’s gone. Heart no good—and that fluid he got in his arm must have been bad stuff. I don’t know what it is.”

A kind of numbness seemed to fall on all the company. New death in the chamber of death! Only Steve Barbour thought to bring up Thorndike’s last choking words. Was he surely dead, when he himself had said he might falsely seem so? Wouldn’t it be better to wait a while and see what would happen? And for that matter, what harm would it do if Doc Pratt were to give Tom Sprague another looking over before burial?

Crazy Johnny was moaning, and had flung himself on Thorn-dike’s body like a faithful dog. “Don’t ye bury him, don’t ye bury him! He ain’t dead no more nor Lige Hopkins’s dog nor Deacon Leavitt’s calf was when he shot ‘em full. He’s got some stuff he puts into ye to make ye seem like dead when ye ain’t! Ye seem like dead but ye know everything what’s a-goin’ on, and the next day ye come to as good as ever. Don’t ye bury him—he’ll come to under the earth an’ he can’t scratch up! He’s a good man, an’ not like Tom Sprague. Hope to Gawd Tom scratches an’ chokes for hours an’ hours…. “

But no one save Barbour was paying any attention to poor Johnny. Indeed, what Steve himself had said had evidently fallen on deaf ears. Uncertainty was everywhere. Old Doc Pratt was applying final tests and mumbling about death certificate blanks, and unctuous Elder Atwood was suggesting that something be done about a double interment. With Thorndike dead there was no undertaker this side of Rutland, and it would mean a terrible expense if one were to be brought from there, and if Thorndike were not embalmed in this hot June weather—well, one couldn’t tell.
And there were no relatives or friends to be critical unless Sophie chose to be—but Sophie was on the other side of the room, staring silently, fixedly, and almost morbidly into her brother’s coffin.