by Clark Howard
“How does he feel about losing his only child to a rogue like you?”
“He’s taking the old-fashioned view,” Todd grinned. “You know, not losing a daughter but gaining a son. I think he really believes it, too. He’s already making plans for a grandson.”
“He’ll make a fine grandfather, all right,” Devlin said. He thought briefly of old Sean Devlin and how much he had learned from listening to him and watching him in the kiln back in Pittsburgh. “A grandfather can be a great influence on a boy,” he mused. “A great influence, indeed.”
“Yes.” Todd took a swallow of his drink and glanced back through the French doorway to see Janet talking animatedly to several young women who were looking their way. “I think, he said dryly, “that we—or I should say you—are about to be engulfed by the smart set. Maybe we should join them voluntarily; it’ll probably go easier on us.”
“Before we do,” Devlin said, “I wanted to check something with you. I was up at the state hospital the other day on a case and I happened to run across the name of a Dr. Todd Holt in their records. I wondered if—” Devlin paused in mid-sentence as he saw his friend’s mouth tighten and noticed a flush of red color his neck.
“You wondered what?” Todd asked quietly.
“I wondered if there actually was such a doctor, or if it was just you trying to see someone without going through a lot of red tape.”
“What kind of business would I have at the state hospital?” Todd said, avoiding a direct answer.
“I don’t know, Todd.” Devlin’s tone went flat and he had to exert himself to keep from frowning. It settled heavily on him that Todd was being evasive. “Maybe you can tell me,” he countered.
“I can’t help you, Dev,” Todd said unequivocally. “What kind of case is it, anyway?”
“A missing man,” Devlin’s eyes had narrowed imperceptibly. Todd was as much as lying to him; Devlin felt it, knew it, as instinctively as he had ever known anything. For an instant it almost made him angry; Todd Holt, whom he had taken out of a slum and found a home for, anonymously helped through college, stepped aside to let him have the highly desirable job he now held with Noah Sundean as the Chief Justice’s aide—this same Todd Holt lying to him, was almost unbelievable.
“Who is it?” Todd asked, being deliberately—but, to Devlin, obviously—casual.
“Man named Keyes, J. Walter Keyes. He’s a business manager for professional entertainers. We’re doing an undercover job on it to avoid publicity.”
“Thought you were only going to do racket cases down here?”
“This is an exception.” Devlin’s words were short now, clipped, as if he were talking to a suspect instead of a supposed friend.
“What was the state hospital tie-in?” Todd wanted to know. Pumping me, Devlin thought, to find out how much I know.
“Keyes’ former secretary is a patient there. There’s a possibility she had been blackmailing him.” Devlin paused as if finished speaking, glanced away for an instant, then snapped his gaze back and threw in a shock question to test its effect. “You ever hear the name Abigail Daniels?”
“No,” Todd answered. No hesitation, no elaboration; but his tongue flicked out to wet his lips even as the word was spoken.
Lying, Devlin thought, right through the teeth.
Todd Holt finished his drink and, to escape Devlin’s fixed stare, looked again at his fiancee and the small circle of women around her.
“Shall we join the girls?” Todd asked.
“You go ahead,” Devlin said tonelessly. “Tell Janet I’m sorry but I couldn’t stay.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.” He started to walk away, then paused and looked back. “There’s a missing man somewhere in this city,” he said levelly, “and nobody seems to want to help find him. But,” he added with cold determination, “he’s going to be found. I guarantee it.”
Todd Holt said nothing as Devlin turned his back on him and left.
Twelve
“Mr. Keyes,” the elderly Moderator said, “the panel will now present its rationalization of the evidence against you with respect to the charge of Aiding and Abetting Moral Degeneracy. As with the previous charge, you will be given an opportunity to defend yourself after the panel has been heard. Is the procedure clear to you? ”
Keyes did not answer, but merely stared dully at the aged speaker wearing the now familiar wilting carnation.
“Very well,” the Moderator said after a moment. He looked down the panel table. “Mr. Investigator, may we hear from you first, please?”
The Investigator rose at his place at the opposite end of the table and opened a manila folder.
“This is a current report on the subjects Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt. The period of coverage begins shortly after Miss Carlyle aborted her unborn child and married Mr. Merritt. Both had completed their respective films prior to their wedding and neither was under contract for any further work at that time. They honey-mooned in Acapulco and travelled around southern Mexico for two months, then returned to Hollywood and established residence in Miss Carlyle’s apartment.
“For awhile after that they went through the usual routine of posing as newlyweds for fan magazine layouts, doing personal appearances on daytime television and radio shows, that sort of thing. Then they fell out of the public eye and little was heard about either of them for six months or so. Eventually a line or two began appearing here and there in various gossip columns hinting that all was not well with their marriage and that they were on the verge of separation. The customary denials were issued to the columnists by the couple’s respective agents, but it was generally accepted by the entertainment colony that the marriage had become a failure.
“Shortly thereafter, Dan Merritt began showing up at various Hollywood parties without his wife. He usually arrived in the company of several other young actors, all of whom, with the exception of Merritt, were unmarried and comprised part of what was referred to as the swinging set. These parties, naturally, were showplaces for the starlets, and usually couples paired off during the course of the evening. When Merritt began letting himself be seen in the company of these various young ladies, the columnists then pulled out all stops and openly reported that the Carlyle-Merritt marriage was all over.
“Molly Carlyle, who had not been seen in public for some time, finally emerged along enough to file for divorce. Her attorney in the action was Everett Simmons, who is also legal counsel for Keyes Enterprises. The attorney for Dan Merritt was Simon Cobb, a close friend and business associate of J. Walter Keyes. The business end of the legal action—that is, the pre—trial agreement regarding division of property and other financial matters—was handled by Keyes himself; the lawyers were little more than figureheads whom Keyes cut in for part of the money involved in the settlement. Each attorney received fifteen hundred dollars as a fee; this is six times the customary fee of two—hundred—fifty dollars.
“The divorce itself was a routine, uncontested affair. Miss Carlyle made a brief appearance in court, the settlement papers were approved, and the divorce was granted. After that, the two parties went their separate ways.
“In the period which has elapsed since, Dan Merritt has become one of the accepted leaders of the so-called swinging set. He has become completely Hollywoodized: he wears his hair long, dresses in the ultra-mod style of clothing, is suspected of using various drugs, and is generally considered to be one of the most accomplished seducers in the film colony. He specializes in virgins: the newly arrived girls who are beauty contest winners and such, and have been brought out under starlet contracts.
“As for Molly Carlyle, her professional career has regressed to the point where she does little or no work at all anymore. She has become something of a recluse, lives alone in a small apartment, is rarely ever seen in public, and since the divorce has developed a serious problem of alcoholism. It is rumored that she may have to be committed to a sanitarium if her affinity for liquor continues
at its present rate.”
The tall, young investigator closed his manila folder and placed it back on the table.
“That, gentlemen, is a resume of the facts concerning the two subjects up to the present time.”
“Thank you, Mr. Investigator,” the Moderator said from the other end of the panel. He shifted his glance to one of the other men at the table. “Mr. Psychologist, may we hear from you now, please?”
The Psychologist rose and buried one hand deep in a coat pocket, already misshapen by repeated similar acts. In his other hand he held his ever-present ornate pipe, its bowl for the moment dry.
“The psychological aspects of the Merritt-Carlyle case are quite involved,” he began slowly. “Quite complicated—with respect to both parties. I will, as usual, try to explain those aspects in as simple language as possible; however, if I lapse into professional terms which anyone does not understand, please don’t hesitate to interrupt.”
The rumpled, somewhat untidy doctor, raised his pipe and stared thoughtfully at it for a moment, as was his habit when momentarily organizing his thoughts. Before continuing, he softly cleared his throat.
“In Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt we have a young couple with an abundance of personal talent but a very definite lack of maturity. Molly was in love with Dan and desired to marry him and, as we have heard, his feelings were reciprocal. Under normal circumstances—circumstances, that is, removed from their professions as motion picture stars—they might have gone ahead and been married before Molly’s untimely pregnancy had a chance to occur. As the situation was, however, they were prevented from doing so by respective professional commitments. This undoubtedly placed a great deal of strain on their emotions and contributed in some measure to their decision to partake of the physical benefits of marriage prior to the wedding. Immaturity, you see, has many psychological off-shoots, and one of them, a very important and often quite troublesome one, is impatience. The couple wanted to be married, they wanted to begin sharing all the little intimacies of married life: the living together, eating together, sleeping together, and all the rest. And to the immature, what they want—as opposed to what is best or proper or even possible—is the most important thing in the world. Immature people are very shallow, very narrow; their emotions focus on only a single goal at any one time. And that goal, as I have indicated, is something that they want.
“Now, in any case of gross or exaggerated immaturity, this want that they have can very easily evolve from a simple desire into a psychological need—and a very demanding one. It may develop to the point of obsession, to the point where the subjects become so emotionally desperate to have this want, whatever it may be, that they will sacrifice any promise of future satisfaction simply in order to have what they want immediately.
“So in the case of Molly and Dan, since they could not have all of what they, to them, urgently desired, they decided, quite subconsciously, you understand, to take part of it at once and reserve the rest for the future. The part they chose, obviously, was sexual intercourse. They simply let down their barriers, their concept of what was right and wrong under the circumstances, and allowed their natural physical instincts to do the rest—and thus they were able to satisfy, temporarily, the demands of their own immaturity.”
The Psychologist began filling his pipe now, scooping tobacco out of a leather pouch he took from his pocket. Remarkably, and in direct contradiction to what his appearance flagrantly predicted, he managed his task without dropping so much as a grain on the table before him. Producing the battered Zippo from the same pocket, he manufactured its usual enormous flame and once again filled the Blue Room with the pungent odor of his sole vice.
“So,” he began anew, “having now a little insight as to how this young woman became pregnant, we shall better understand how easily she followed, with her partner’s consent, the path that led them to an abortionist. Here we have them now, young, immature, and in a very perplexing situation. At this stage they would have been, as you can imagine, quite desperate to find a solution which would eradicate their problem, but since neither of them was mature enough to make a definite decision in any direction, they followed the normal course and sought advice from a third party. That, of course, was simply another way of avoiding responsibility: finding someone to share in the outcome of future events.
“So the troubled young couple divulged their predicament to this third party, at the same time indicating half-hearted plans of their own to elope and marry as soon as possible, et cetera. What they really wanted, however, was for this third party to condone their plans, to become a conspirator with them in what they had done. In this instance, however, the person they selected as their confidant was much stronger emotionally than either of them, and used that advantage to dissuade them from their original course and lead them ultimately to the abortionist. We needn’t, I think, go into the manner in which this was accomplished, since the taped remarks of Miss Daniels dealt fully with that aspect.
“As for the ultimate results of the abortion, they are easily explained simply by taking the emotional maturity levels of both Molly and Dan, and compounding them with a new psychological ingredient: guilt. Molly, over a period of time, began to suffer pangs of conscience; she had, in her function as a female, conceived a child in her body, and she had done this, to her way of thinking, not through any immature snatching of something to which she was not yet morally entitled, but rather because of love, true love, for Dan. And then, to her honor, she suddenly realizes that she has killed this child. Naturally, she blames Dan: he should not have let her do it. By now, of course, she is married to him, and it is perfectly acceptable for them to be engaging in sexual intercourse; but now, with these new thoughts in her head, this new guilt all mixed up with her old immaturity, she subconsciously withdraws from that very activity, that very thing that prior to marriage she so urgently snatched. In short, she becomes cold, frigid.
“Dan, on the other hand, begins to develop a guilt complex also, but his is not wholly—perhaps not even partially—the result of having consented to the abortion; rather it is a psychological off-shoot of Molly’s feelings: she is, by her new attitude, making him feel guilty. By physically withdrawing from him, she causes him to feel somehow dirty and undesirable; she stirs sensations of shame within him, eventually bringing him to the point where it is embarrassing for him to make sexual overtures toward her; and humiliating when he forces himself to do so and is rejected.
“During this period, the two begin cementing a wall between themselves. Shunning Dan, Molly probably broods a great deal and lapses into spells of melancholia. Being shunned, Dan will naturally seek other outlets for his emotions: he might begin to masturbate frequently—which, of course, will serve to further complicate his guilt feelings—and he will reach the point where he finds it increasingly uncomfortable to even be around Molly.
“From here on they simply move away from one another. Molly’s brooding lures her toward alcohol where she is able to numb her guilt. Dan’s rejected status ultimately incenses him to assert his maleness through some positive sexual activity, and he begins looking for a woman. The progression from then on is obvious: Molly becomes an alcoholic; Dan becomes a sex-driven psychopath.
“Thus you have, gentlemen,” he concluded, “the results of immaturity coupled with guilt. Guilt, I might add, conceived of ill advice.”
The rumpled, untidy man sat down, and suddenly finding his pipe without fire, lighted it again.
“Thank you, Mr. Psychologist,” intoned the Moderator. He turned to the table opposite him where sat the Examiner. “Do you think we have time tonight to hear from our Theologian?”
“I would like to, if no one has to leave,” the dignified, grey—haired Examiner replied. “As all of you are aware, time has become of the essence now, and I feel that we should continue the proceedings with as much dispatch as possible. Can all of you remain a while longer?”
The panel nodded its assent and the Moderator bowed hi
s head toward the Theologian.
“My remarks will be brief, gentlemen,” the Theologian assured them. Rising, his broad shoulders expanded widely and his erect head and square jaw assumed the aura of authority that had made him virtually a legend on the pulpit. But when he clasped his large hands before him and began speaking, he seemed almost to be praying, so quiet and humble was his voice.
“My concern in this matter,” he said softly, “is not so much what has been done to Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt, although God knows that in itself is terrible enough; but rather what has been done to the human life which they, in their godless ignorance, were led to destroy.
“As I’m sure all of you are aware, there are wide differences of opinion among the various religions concerning the status of an unborn child. Some religions support the belief that from the very instant of conception the embryo becomes a human being, and that any subsequent destruction of that embryo amounts to murder. Other sects take a completely opposite stand and maintain that the embryo is not a living human being at all until it is separated from the womb and has its first independent breath spanked into it.
“It goes without saying, of course, that each religion is sincere in its belief that its own particular viewpoint on this issue is the true one. As a member of the clergy, I naturally have my own opinion on the subject, but at the same time I certainly respect the prerogative of others, both clergymen and laymen, to disagree with me.
“For the purpose of this hearing, however, I would ask that each of you put aside for the moment your own personal beliefs and approach the destruction of Molly Carlyle’s unborn baby from an entirely realistic premise. I ask you, all of you, to put one simple question to yourselves. That question is this: Is it fair to humanity to allow an unborn child’s birth to be prevented? ”
He paused for a moment to search the faces on either side of him, squinting slightly, frowning, as if not quite certain he was fully reaching the minds which lay behind those faces.