Death and Letters Read online

  Gamadge said: “My client has lost her protector; she’s living among her relatives by marriage.” He bent forward and drew the crossword diagrams towards him.

  “Nice choice of words she has, don’t you think so, Macloud?”

  Macloud raised his eyebrows.

  “These pages came out of an English crossword book,” continued Gamadge. “London Times, Sunday Times. I had one. They’re tricky, and they require not only concentration and reasoning powers, but what amounts—for an American—to almost total recall. I mean the allusions wouldn’t be familiar to just any of us—streets, place names, cricket terms, politics. If Mrs. Glendon Coldfield likes to do these puzzles, she isn’t flighty or ill-informed or short on logic.”

  Macloud interrupted: “Things can happen to a good mind, Gamadge.”

  “Let’s see how she uses her mind now, what’s left of it. She had to compress her message into the space of two diagrams, because it couldn’t take up much room. I don’t know what that conveys to you; to me it means that my letter was probably an enclosure—enclosed in something she could send out. It was sent out on Monday, reached New York yesterday, and was forwarded on to me. Perhaps whoever found it enclosed thought it was there by accident.”

  Macloud said: “You’re getting ahead of me.”

  “I am? She says she won’t have another chance to communicate. That means that on Monday there was some combination of circumstances that will never be repeated again—in time. Surely one of the circumstances was a chance to send out a letter?”

  “You’re assuming—”

  “I’m assuming that she’s in her right senses. She gives me all the information she can, in few words: her address, the situation of her room, the one time of day when the nurse isn’t with her. She knows and says that the job she wants me to do is difficult; she freely supplies me with the information that she’s been a patient of Dalgren’s. She implies that I’m welcome to what he can say. She gives me what I suppose is a social reference, Mrs. Blagdon. But I’m not to involve them in this attempt at escape—I’m to act quietly.”

  “Yes,” said Macloud. “That’s the catch. Why not inform Dalgren?”

  “We don’t know. But if Caroline Fenway had been here—she’s in Europe with her father—I think this message would have gone to Caroline. They’re intimate friends, or Caroline would never have talked to her about me—that business wasn’t the kind of thing Caroline Fenway discusses with everybody. And they’re alike in one thing, anyhow—no publicity. Mrs. Coldfield won’t appeal to the law or the police, even if she can reach them.”

  “You still assume—”

  “Just look at the understatement here, Macloud,” said Gamadge. “It’s a chilling touch—I do not see the end. The more chilling in that she puts it so quietly. She’s up there in her third floor back, with the nurse, and she doesn’t know what’s being arranged for her downstairs.”

  “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. If she’s back from a sanatorium, and she’s had a relapse, the family can’t let her rave over the telephone to people, or”—he pointed at the diagrams—“send out such messages as that, or jump out of the window.”

  Gamadge sat back and smiled at him. “Yes, we’ve heard about such things; we read about them all the time. Somebody depressed; nurse turns her back, and the patient is out of the window. It’s a perfect set-up. Who’d ask questions? Is that what she means in this message?”

  “She’s certainly sold you on it.”

  “She’s certainly made me feel that it’s urgent.”

  The telephone buzzed. Macloud listened, said: “Yes, put him through,” and handed the receiver to Gamadge.

  Gamadge, holding it turned down, asked: “Want me to take it in Miss Murphy’s room? So you can listen in?”

  “I can listen here again, if you’ll hold it right.” He moved nearer.

  “Hello, Hamish,” said Gamadge. “Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  Dr. Ethelred Hamish was calm and deliberate in speech as in action, in or out of the operating room. He said: “Doctor Dalgren is to be found where he belongs, on his own premises. So is Bob Macloud, I presume. Is there going to be a lawsuit? I told Dalgren, as you wished, that the information was to be used, if at all, strictly in Mrs. Glendon Coldfield’s best interests.”

  “That’s so.”

  “Well, I’m rather glad Bob’s at your elbow.”

  Macloud leaned forward to ask: “Would you be glad to know that Henry’s elbow is in my ribs, Red?”

  “In a way, yes. You apply the brakes to him, and he balances the law’s delay. Where was I? Oh yes, the story. I’d better give you the whole thing, otherwise you wouldn’t quite understand about her. She seems an exceptional person.”

  “I’m sure,” said Gamadge.

  “Did I mention her by name? Very wrong of me. I shall refer to her after this as The Patient.”

  “There’s a good deal of business in this office,” Macloud reminded him. “Nobody’s listening in.”

  “How trustful you attorneys are. Well: that family lives under one roof for most of the year now, for economy or convenience or out of pure affection, I don’t know. It’s quite a mansion, Dalgren says. The couple you’re interested in did a good deal of travelling on and off—he was on salary in a family business, and had rather an easy time of it. He and the patient were devoted to each other—wrapped up. Very congenial.

  “On Sunday, January thirtieth of this year, he—the patient’s husband—was suffering from a recurrent attack of sinus; the attacks came every few months and were severe. Lasted for several days and kept him awake. His doctor here in New York—man named Goodrich—worked out an arrangement with him about sedatives. Man didn’t like them, didn’t like the way they made him feel. But after several bad nights, when he needed a clear head for business, he took one good dose of amytal, five grains.

  “He wanted a clear head on Monday the thirty-first, so on the Sunday night he decided to take his five grains and go to bed early. He was taking the capsule in lemonade—thought liquor might not help his headache. The lemonade was sent up at nine, and his wife shut him into his room—they had a suite, two rooms and bath—and left him to his rest. Now don’t get impatient, you ought to have the picture.”

  “I’m not impatient,” said Gamadge. “I’m hanging on your every word.”

  “Good. In the morning he was found dead—overdose. He’d been given a box of six on Goodrich’s prescription, and the box was on his bedside table, empty. His wife didn’t think he’d had any out of that box before. He may have taken the whole six, therefore, but less would do the trick—four, in fact. There seemed no reason for suicide and many reasons against it, and the doctor up there—Smyth, his name is—fixed it up to be called an accident. But it looks as though it must have been deliberate.

  “Just one of those mysteries. It pretty well killed his wife, she was stunned—and it was very tough besides, not knowing why on earth he wanted to go. But Dalgren says she has lots of character. Be that as it may, on February the tenth she seems to have repeated the pattern—took an overdose after or with her supper, and if a maid hadn’t found her within half an hour she’d be as dead as he is. But Smyth luckily lives near them up there, and after a fight of it he saved her. But it was touch and go.

  “In a day or two she was moved up to Dalgren’s place—you can see why. She must have done it in an acute depression. She stayed two months, and Dalgren says he never saw anything like the way she came around; he never knew a more reasonable, better-balanced woman. Still grieving about her husband, but not morbid. She coöperated in every way. Only one queer thing, though. When she was able to have her first talk with Dalgren, and asked what had happened and why she was there, Dalgren says he could have sworn she didn’t know. He didn’t mention suicide, of course, wasn’t ready to, just said she’d had an overdose of her sleeping medicine. She said she hadn’t taken any sleeping medicine. But the empty box was on her bedside tab
le. Of course she might have been covering up—some people do after a failure of that kind—or she might just possibly have blacked out on it and forgotten the whole thing. Nobody knows what can happen in such a case. I haven’t much knowledge of psychiatry myself, but delayed shock can act in funny ways.”

  Gamadge asked: “Why did she have a box of amytal capsules?”

  “Oh—didn’t I say? When she got the prescription for her husband Goodrich doubled it so that she could take the other box along with them to Europe. They were planning a trip. Goodrich backs her up, by the way, on one point—she never so far as anybody knows took sedatives; never needed them.

  “Mind you, after she denied taking amytal she didn’t get excited about it or protest; she just let it ride. Trying to put the whole thing out of her mind? Dalgren says she improved steadily, even seemed cheerful when she was with other people, played bridge and walked. She evidently had lots of friends and interests, and he’d stake his professional reputation she was normal when she left.”

  “Has he heard since?”

  “Not a thing. He recommended the usual—plenty of exercise, cheerful company, travel, some kind of work or hobby to keep her interested. I know how you laymen like labels; get it out of your head that she was ever insane. You don’t, I suppose, think that attempted suicide necessarily implies insanity?”

  “No.”

  “Tell Macloud to let her make a will if she wants to.”

  “Well, Red, I’m infinitely obliged. Oh—do you know any details about the way she happened to be found in time—after she took the stuff that night?”

  “Matter of fact, Dalgren told me. It was Thursday, and the regular upstairs maid was out. The kitchen-maid brought up the tray. She wasn’t up to much that evening, and she asked for some light food, soup and salad, and fruit for dessert. And cocoa. The kitchen-maid brought it up to her in bed, all but the fruit. When she came back with the fruit, the patient had only taken soup, and was lying back against the pillows asleep. The maid, tiptoeing out, dropped her tray and some dishes with a hell of a crash. She looked to see if she’d scared the patient out of her wits, but the patient hadn’t moved an eyelash. Then the maid saw the empty capsule box, and remembered the other business. Tried to wake her and couldn’t, yelled the house down. Smyth found amytal in the soup.”

  “I see. Thanks again, Red, and I’m sorry I can’t explain why I was interested.”

  “I didn’t ask any questions.”

  Gamadge replaced the telephone carefully, and looked at Macloud. After a silence Macloud said: “They don’t know everything.”

  “I’m thinking of that set-up I mentioned. Why didn’t they consult Dalgren?”

  Macloud rolled his cigarette in his fingers. He said: “I could make contact legally, one way or another. Is that what you want?”

  “Could you do it quietly? And at once?”

  “It needn’t be noisy; it couldn’t be a secret. All depends on how her people react.”

  Gamadge rose. “All I want is for you to represent her if she needs a lawyer.”

  “Don’t know why I shouldn’t promise that. She certainly doesn’t seem to be getting what the doctor ordered. But why don’t we consult Dalgren?”

  “She doesn’t want anybody consulted.”

  Macloud looked up at him, frowning. “You’ll be taking a fearful responsibility, Gamadge.”

  “I only wish I knew how to take it.”

  CHAPTER THREELetter Answered

  GAMADGE STOOD IN FRONT of Mrs. Blagdon’s Class A apartment building, and admired it; just far enough uptown, just far enough away from the avenue, fresh as the April day from its ivied terraces to its blue-and-white canopy; the blue of the canopy and its silver rods were picked up by the buttons and the uniform of the well-groomed doorman.

  He went into a black glass and white marble lobby, where another man in uniform came forward to announce him. But when Gamadge asked for Mrs. Blagdon, the attendant showed what seemed strangely like reluctance. This was adequately explained within a moment of his taking the house telephone off its hook and getting into communication; Gamadge felt as if they had both instantly been whirled into a zone of furious activity.

  “Mrs.—yes, Ma’am,” said the attendant, his brow furrowed and his free hand clenching and unclenching itself at his side. “There’s a Mr.—yes, Ma’am, they came. No Ma’am, I sent those back, but—the piano. There were seven boxes of—she didn’t have the—it’s red…Mr. Gamadge is—I said Mr.—no, the upholsterer couldn’t…”

  Gamadge said, laughing, “Why don’t I go up? She expects me.”

  The man hadn’t even time to answer. He gestured vaguely behind him towards the elevators, and an elevator man who had been listening with some sympathy accepted Gamadge as a passenger and took him up to the fourteenth floor.

  “She just came back again,” he explained as they rose. “It’s always like this when they just get back.”

  “From Florida, I suppose?”

  “Oh, that was all over long ago,” said the elevator man. “She came back and went away again, south but nearer home. In a little while she’ll be getting off to Europe, though.”

  He stopped the car and opened the door on a small lobby, decorated with something from Mexico, something from Florence, something from China. Gamadge pushed a button beside the only door in sight, and the elevator man waited to see whether he would be passed in. A calm-looking maid took his name and passed him in, and he was shown into a big, bright, modernistic room. A gleaming metal statuette on a thin column met his eye, but he couldn’t approach it for the boxes and paper strewn on the hardwood floor.

  His hostess appeared from somewhere with a rush, her hand out and a friendly smile on her pink-painted mouth. She was tall and rather large, with straw-colored hair rather wildly done, a white, translucent-looking complexion shadowed faintly here and there with bluish-mauve, and cloudy pale-blue eyes. The high style of her clothes was so far beyond the common that they seemed odd and a little mistaken.

  She said: “Mr. Gamadge, this is so good of you; now I do hope you have something to tell me about dear Sylvia Coldfield, because I really know nothing at all except that she was very ill after poor Glendon—Walburg, we want something to drink.”

  The maid, who had waited for orders in the doorway, disappeared. Mrs. Blagdon had kept hold of Gamadge’s hand, and drew him down beside her on a sofa. Gamadge couldn’t for the life of him have said whether she was fifty or eighty.

  “It’s a shame I can’t ask you to stay for lunch,” she said with sincere regret. “But I have to go out. I’ve been terribly worried about Sylvia. I wrote from Palm Beach the minute I heard about Glendon—and wasn’t that sad? Do you think he did it?”

  “An accident, I heard.”

  “They always say so; and is it ever—but I mustn’t say that. Why on earth should Glendon Coldfield—I’ve known the Coldfields forever, but I didn’t know the wives so well. Charming, though. Georgette wrote back and said Sylvia was taking a cure. Then when I was in New York I tried to telephone, but I only got Ames, and of course he was sweet, he always is, but he said Sylvia was still keeping very quiet, and couldn’t come to the telephone.”

  “That was our experience,” said Gamadge. “My wife—”

  “Have you tried lately? I haven’t tried since I got back before. I’ve been so frightfully—”

  The maid returned with a large open box of assorted flowers.

  Mrs. Blagdon stared at them. “Put them…put them… Take them away.”

  The maid took them away.

  “I was devoted to the Glendons,” said Mrs. Blagdon, her eyes wandering back to Gamadge. “So intellectual. Not as intellectual as Ames, of course. Did you know he wrote?” The cloudy eyes expressed childlike awe. “Now Ira was my husband’s favorite; he would be, both of them business men. As a matter of fact it was through my husband I first knew the Coldfields. Before dear little Susan was born, and now she’s going to marry the Waterton boy—what a
catch!”

  “Those Watertons?” asked Gamadge respectfully.

  “I should say so; they’re neighbors up there. That’s how it must have happened, I suppose; Susan is lovely, perfectly lovely, but—well, you know; she ought to be able to get anybody, anybody at all, but you know they don’t.”

  Gamadge followed this without much difficulty. “The Coldfields haven’t so much any more?”

  “We all seem so poor now.” Her eyes questioned his wistfully. “I don’t mean they’re really hard up; but those Watertons! Well, I’m so glad Susie got him. They were brought up together, of course, but that doesn’t always work out so well. Does it?”

  Gamadge said: “You had me worried for a minute there. I hope Mrs. Glendon has plenty to see her through this breakdown. Those things run into money.”

  “Well, of course Glen had his money from his father; Ira took on the business, and Ames put his share into an annuity. So sensible, but a little dull, I always say. And Sylvia has something of her own. Not much. It saves them all a lot to have the old place to live in—they were left it share and share alike, you know. Such a good idea, if people get on. I never can see why they can’t.”

  “Nice that the Coldfields can.”

  “Well, they’re such nice people. And the house is big enough—separate suites and everything.” She added: “Gloomy old hole.”

  Several little grey dogs with bushy tails trotted into the room and circled it, pausing curiously now and then beside the heaps of litter on the floor.

  “Siberian loulous,” said Mrs. Blagdon, her eyes following them fondly.

  “Loulous?”

  “That’s what the man said; I don’t know how you spell it. I got them because it’s such good exercise walking dogs—I ought to walk every day. It’s wonderful exercise for me.”

  “I should think it would be.” Gamadge was impressed. “All at once?”