Death and Letters Read online

  “Mrs. Glendon’s bags are in your car, sir.”

  “Oh, thanks, that’s fine.”

  More handshaking, and then the three Coldfields went back down the hall while Agnes held open the door. Zelma Smyth had picked up her raincoat from a bench, and was behind Gamadge when he reached the car. He turned in surprise.

  “You going already?”

  “I ought to. My brother’s alone there, and he has to work. I ought to tidy up for him.”

  “Let me run you down.”

  “Oh no, I can easily walk it. It isn’t far.”

  “All the more reason for taking the lift.”

  “But it’s out of your way.”

  “I’m in no such hurry as all that; I just didn’t want to get involved in some game.”

  “Well, it’s awfully nice of you.”

  He went around and opened the car door for her, and she settled herself. He came back, got under the wheel, and started off up the drive. The black route glistened wetly, there was a chill in the air.

  After a silence, she said: “I hope it didn’t look as though I was showing pique. That’s so childish.”

  Gamadge kept his eyes on the road. “Pique? Why?”

  “Because they didn’t wait for me, things like that.”

  “Perhaps they’re used to your independent ways.”

  She glanced at him quickly and looked away again. After another silence, she said: “I shouldn’t have come. But Jim wouldn’t understand it if I refused to go places with him and Susie; we’ve gone around together all our lives. But I don’t think I will any more.”

  “That’s right,” said Gamadge. “You’re not a parcel. He can’t take you out with him and then forget about you.” He added: “Funny thing about men, they can’t see why they shouldn’t keep old friends on very nearly the old terms—after they’re committed elsewhere, you know.”

  “Women do,” said Zelma dryly.

  “Ah, but they know what they’re doing, don’t they? Well, everything fades at last.”

  Silence; her face was turned away. Presently she said: “We turn down here, Mr. Gamadge; it’s terribly steep.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  As he made the turn, she said: “They’re furious at Grandpa. Why did he run out on them like that? He wasn’t meaning to go off for the week end. He took the car.”

  “I suppose a doctor—”

  “This was just a visit.”

  They were descending a hill. She said after a minute: “Left here, please,” and they entered a wide, dark street.

  “Third house on the left. Don’t bother to drive in, Mr. Gamadge, I—”

  “Never dump a passenger.” Gamadge drove between wooden gateposts, and stopped in front of an old frame house with a dim light showing through the fanlight above the grey door.

  They got out. Zelma looked up at him to ask: “I suppose you wouldn’t care to come in and meet Sam?”

  “I’d like to.”

  She smiled. “You’d had enough of the party up there, too!”

  “Enjoyed every minute of it.”

  Zelma rang an old bell with an iron knob. She said: “Perhaps it was silly of Sam and me to have a party, anyway. But Grandpa almost never goes away, and Sam and I wanted to do something.”

  “If we can’t return hospitality, our position in the social scheme is precarious indeed.”

  “Ours is anyway,” she said, laughing.

  The door was opened by a thickset young man in slacks and a somewhat ragged cardigan. He was dark like his sister, wore spectacles, and carried a heavy book under his arm. He had some of his sister’s good looks, but his reddish-brown eyes were without any particular lustre.

  He said: “Throw you out, did they?”, saw Gamadge, and stopped.

  “Never mind Mr. Gamadge,” said Zelma, “he saw them do it. He was very nice and brought me home; he’s on his way to New York.”

  “Did you tell him he was headed for Albany? Of course there’s the Bear Mountain Bridge, if he wants the ride.”

  “Don’t be silly, Sam, he might like a glass of beer.”

  “I was going to knock off and have one myself,” said young Smyth, looking at Gamadge. “Thanks for giving the kid a lift.”

  They entered a dim hallway; Gamadge and Zelma hung their raincoats on a hatrack, and followed Smyth along between sad-colored walls to an open doorway. Zelma led the way into a small study or library; a lamp with a green shade cast a circle of light on papers, notebooks, and a rounded object that looked like a grey old stone.

  Zelma said: “Not that brain again. Take it right away.”

  Sam wrapped it tenderly in a cloth. “Such a good one,” he protested, “I think it must have been donated by the owner.”

  “Dissection?” asked Gamadge with polite interest.

  “Oh no, I’m not as backward as all that,” said Sam. “I’m a third-year guy. Pathology.” He walked to the door, his bundle carefully balanced on one arm. “Be right back with the beer.”

  Zelma asked: “Did you wash up?”

  Sam turned. “Scraped and stacked till tomorrow.”

  “That will make us popular with Goldie!”

  “Forget it.”

  Gamadge said: “I know how your sister feels. Let’s all—”

  “I wouldn’t let you; but it would only take me a few minutes,” said Zelma, looking apologetic. “If you really don’t mind?”

  “You know we figured it out that I’m not in a hurry.”

  Zelma laughed and went out with her brother. He came back carrying two open cans of beer and glasses. He poured, handed a glass to Gamadge, and said: “Why not sit down to it.”

  “Why not? Thanks.”

  Smyth lowered himself into a chair behind the table; Gamadge sat across from him, lighted a cigarette, and looked around him: old chocolate-colored walls, a Franklin stove in the old fireplace, a hole in the brown rug.

  Smyth was watching him and smiling. “How do you like it across the railroad tracks?” he asked.

  Gamadge raised his eyebrows. “Comfortable all-year-round old house,” he said. “What’s the matter with it?”

  “You’d soon find out. Personally I like it fine, only I have to do a good many repairs in my spare time—whenever that is. Too bad the kid’s upset; she used to be a nice girl till they ruined her disposition for her. Did they treat her very rough up there?”

  “I thought the older people were rather rude; the others were oblivious.”

  “Zelma can’t learn.”

  “I think she did tonight.”

  “I ought to have gone, I know it; somebody to pair off with down in the laundry.”

  “Where?”

  “They call it the game room now; took out the stationary tubs and the gas stove and painted it blue, pink and green. Venner put in a good week end at it.” Something amused him, but he repressed it. He said: “Trouble is, Zel and I ought to dress up more; then we’d look more like hangers-on and less like rugged individualists.”

  “Your sister complained that she hadn’t time tonight.”

  “No, they came and swept her away. I dug my heels in—enough is enough. That foursome broke up for good.” He looked up at Gamadge: “I seem to be talking somewhat frankly to a friend of the family, but from what Zelma said I got a kind of idea you were an onlooker.”

  “I am. I only came up to get Mrs. Glendon Coldfield’s things.”

  Smyth now raised his eyebrows. “The mental case?”

  “Sylvia Coldfield isn’t a mental case,” said Gamadge, looking surprised. “Far from it.”

  “That so?”

  “I drove her down to New York last night. She’s been with my wife and me—she’s moving to a hotel. Charming person,” said Gamadge.

  “Yes.” Smyth was regarding him steadily and with interest. “Grandpa slipped up on the diagnosis, did he? And is that why he took the car and beat it up-river as if the devil was after him? Well, he’s a good family practitioner, but he knows even less ab
out psychiatry than I do, and that’s mighty little.”

  Gamadge said nothing.

  Smyth, frowning a little now, went on: “Of course she was at the Dalgren place, but that needn’t mean anything; it’s used as a rich rest cure by people that can afford it—all the time. They go up when they’re tired, or want a change from their families.”

  “So I understand.”

  “I always liked Mrs. Glendon, mighty nice woman. I’d have said she was a well-balanced personality, too.” Smyth went on looking at Gamadge, his brows drawn together. “I didn’t get the idea that there was any question of an accident with those capsules. Great Scott, don’t tell me you think there was a mix-up in the prescription? There never was a word of anything like that.” He added: “And Grandpa didn’t have anything to do with that, anyhow.” He went on slowly: “Zelma was there that evening—they were all having a quiet game of something in the laundry, they’d just had the bereavement, you know; you can’t play anything really rough after there’s been a bereavement.”

  Gamadge returned his smile. “No.”

  “The maid started yelling and screaming, and Zelma called the house here, and I got the message to Gramp. He was up there in a few minutes—in fact I drove him. I didn’t go in.”

  Gamadge nodded.

  “So of course the only place for her was Dalgren’s.”

  “Yes. She got a clean bill of health there.” Gamadge dropped his ash into a tray, and sat looking down at the end of his cigarette. “You might know more about this kind of thing than I do, Mr. Smyth. A stay in another kind of institution—mental institution, let’s even call it by an old-fashioned name: insane asylum…”

  Young Smyth was sitting quietly, his cigarette burning unheeded between strong brown fingers, his red-brown eyes on Gamadge’s face.

  “A stay in such a place,” continued Gamadge, “following on the stay at Dalgren’s; that would run up the record for anybody, wouldn’t it? Even if the term of residence was temporary, the minimum thirty days? After that, the patient would have to be pretty discreet in word and deed, wouldn’t you think so? Any other course of conduct wouldn’t be taken seriously.”

  Smyth’s cigarette moved a little between his fingers.

  “I can’t for the life of me see any sense in that thirty day arrangement,” continued Gamadge thoughtfully, “except what I’ve said. And of course Sylvia Coldfield is no blood relation to the Coldfields, so why should the Watertons care about it? Nothing in the commitment to worry them.”

  Smyth ground out the end of his cigarette and sat up. “Listen,” he said, “take my word for it: the old boy—Gramp—would only go along according to his lights. Perfect good faith. If he made a mistake, that’s because these Coldfields have him hypnotized. He’d believe anything they said, he thinks they’re holy writ. He and Old Man Coldfield—these people’s father—were absolutely buddies—chips off the same block, too. If he ran out, well—he’s old. He’d be embarrassed. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Whatever happened, it’s all over now,” said Gamadge. “I mean Mrs. Coldfield’s sanity is conceded once and for all.”

  “No trouble about it?”

  “None whatever. Least said soonest mended.”

  Young Smyth sat back in his chair. He said after a minute: “That family’s been the ruin of us.”

  “I wouldn’t say so.”

  “That’s because you don’t know. Gramp made us keep in touch, when it was past a joke. It’s done a few things to Zelma, let me tell you, and I’m not denying that it did a few things to me. But I’m older, I have interests. Don’t get me wrong, Susie’s all right; that mother of hers never let her have a chance to make anything of herself,” he ended sombrely.

  “She’s very much in love.”

  “Yes, and Jim Waterton’s a nice boy. He’s stupid about human relationships, that’s all.”

  The doorbell rang. They heard Zelma going along the hall to answer it, and then a chorus of voices.

  “Don’t tell me!” Young Smyth looked at Gamadge, grinning. “We have a couple of cases of conscience on our hands now.”

  Zelma, Susan Coldfield and Jim Waterton burst into the room. They were all talking.

  “But I don’t know what got into you, Zel. We waited and waited down there—”

  “We thought you must be up with the family.”

  “And then they came down and we finished the game of ping-pong and Jimmie said—”

  “And Mrs. Coldfield said you’d gone home.”

  “Did we do anything?”

  Waterton had Zelma’s arm in his grip; he was shaking it a little. Susan, in a loose topcoat, her hair blown by the wind, appealed to Sam: “She wasn’t mad, Sam? Was she?”

  “Mad, no. Just came home to wash the dishes,” said Sam. “Are you two crazy?”

  Zelma got herself free. “I just took advantage of Mr. Gamadge’s invitation; he offered me a lift.”

  “Suffering cats,” said Waterton, “I was bringing you home myself.”

  Sam looked as though he was enjoying himself. He was standing against the wall, hands in his pockets, smiling broadly. He said: “Us Smyths can’t stay up all night, you know.”

  “But tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “Saturday means nothing to us Smyths. Don’t you know yet what it means to be in training for the medical profession? Zelma has three doctors to look out for, and I have a dozen.”

  Susan clasped Zelma about the neck. “Come upstairs, I want to talk to you.”

  “Forget it, Susie.”

  “No, but I want to talk.”

  They looked at each other a moment, and then they went out and up the stairs.

  “Sit down, guy,” said Sam to Waterton. “I’ll get you a beer.”

  “I’ll get it myself.”

  “Go ahead, you know where it is.”

  “I ought to.”

  The big young man lumbered out. Sam and Gamadge exchanged a smiling look.

  “And that’s the way of it,” said Sam.

  “I’ll just be going—they’ll never know the difference.”

  “Don’t blame you for lamming out of this.”

  His host walked with Gamadge to the car, and watched him as he drove away.

  CHAPTER TWELVEReport

  CLARA AND MRS. COLDFIELD were playing rummy. When Gamadge appeared in the library doorway chairs went over backwards and a good many cards fell to the floor. Gamadge spoke over his wife’s head in mild surprise:

  “I know I’m late, but it was the only chance I had to look these people over. What’s the excitement?”

  “We were worried,” said Mrs. Coldfield briefly.

  “Your telephone call was so non-committal,” said Clara, shaking him.

  “It couldn’t sound reassuring, with a member of the family at my elbow. I wasn’t supposed to think they were a lot of gangsters,” protested Gamadge.

  Clara stood away from him. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not even thirsty—yet. They gave me a very nice dinner. I left your bags in the car, Mrs. Coldfield, in case you really were determined to check out of here tonight.”

  “I can’t make her stay,” said Clara.

  “Is it Mullins?” asked Gamadge, frowning. “Mullins the martyr? Pay no attention—”

  “She’s been very sweet,” said Mrs. Coldfield.

  “Henry doesn’t like her,” explained Clara, “because she said it wasn’t sanitary to have cats around children.”

  “I’m only afraid it isn’t sanitary for the cats,” said Gamadge. “I’m perfectly sure Martin caught that child’s flu once. Let’s sit down—I have my report to submit to you.”

  They settled opposite him on the chesterfield, and he lighted a cigarette and looked at the ceiling.

  “First of all,” he began, “your lawyer Bob Macloud will meet the Coldfield lawyer whenever you say, and tomorrow morning I’ll ring up and make an appointment with Bob for you. It’s your husband’s will—mere formality. You get it al
l, as you said. Nothing could be simpler or more sweet.”

  “I told you.”

  “Yes, money is no object.”

  “We couldn’t believe it when you said you’d been asked to dinner.”

  “They made friends as soon as I told them you withdrew the suggestion about homicidal mania.”

  “Oh—of course.” She was watching him anxiously.

  “And I said there’d be no trouble about all that. Oh—the doctor wasn’t there—had an engagement. His granddaughter was, though—later on—and she told me it wasn’t a sick call, he’d gone off unexpectedly on a week-end visit.”

  “We might have known.”

  “Well, I didn’t know him; but I can see it clearly enough now. He acted in good faith, trying to do what was best for the Coldfields, but he knew he was acting injudiciously, and he didn’t suppose he’d ever have to defend his position. When he found that he was going to have to defend it, and to a layman with unspecified powers and perhaps a violent character, he simply couldn’t face it. The Coldfields had got him into something, and they’d have to get him out of it as best they could. We can forget Doctor Smyth, I imagine.”

  “It’s all pretty much as I thought,” said Mrs. Coldfield.

  “As for what they were planning in your interests,” said Gamadge, “it seemed at first to present a problem: but I think I’ve solved it. You were going to be committed non-judicially to a private asylum, for the legal term of thirty days. After that your case would have to be reviewed by some kind of board, and they weren’t having any of that. You’d have been turned loose, none the worse for it—I don’t believe old Smyth would send you to any place of doubtful reputation.”

  “None the worse for it!” exclaimed Clara.

  “So they would choose to believe. Thirty days of rest, quiet, mild therapy, ‘observation.’ Now I don’t mean that all of them deliberately planned this to discredit you as a sane witness or balanced character for the rest of your life, I can’t sort out the degrees of responsibility yet; but I think one or more of them did.”

  Clara said: “It’s worse than murder.”

  “It’s a kind of murder, yes, and we mustn’t forget that one of them knew from the beginning that you had nothing against you—not even attempted suicide, which was the basis for the whole case. The murderer knew it. And let me assure you,” said Gamadge, “that the murderer is as happy as a king. Or a queen, if queens are supposed to be happy too. Not a tremor, not a twitch of the nerves; that character feels as safe as a slug in a cocoon.”