The Flesh of The Orchid

by James Hadley Chase

  “But twenty miles . . .” Carol beat her clenched fists together. “It’ll take too long. . . .”

  “There’s no one else,” Steve said, and his mind swam away in a liquid pool of pain.

  “I’ll go,” she said, “but first I’ll do what I can.” Then she thought, “I must take him with me. Of course; I can’t leave him here. I should never have got him from the car.” She bent over him. “We’ll go together, darling,” she said. “If you can help yourself just a little. I’ll get you into the car.”

  “Better not,” Steve said. He felt blood in his mouth. “I’m bleeding a bit inside. Better not move me now.” And blood ran down his chin, although he tried to turn away, not wanting to frighten her.

  Carol caught her breath in a sob.

  “All right, my dear,” she said. “I’ll be quick.” She began to make pads with the handkerchiefs. “And, Steve, if anything . . . I mean . . . oh, darling, I love you so. I want you to know. There’s no one but you, and I’m so frightened and lonely . . . Do try . . . don’t leave me . . .”

  He made an effort, smiled, patted her hand.

  “I won’t. . . that’s a promise . . . only be quick . . . .”

  But when she lifted him to take off his coat, his face suddenly turned yellow and he cried out, his fingers gripping her arm, then he slumped back into unconsciousness.

  She worked feverishly, strapping the pads tightly against the wounds. Then she ran to the car, found a rug, rolled shirts and pyjamas into a pillow and made him as comfortable as she could.

  She hated leaving him, but there was nothing else to do. She bent over him, touched his lips with hers, then with one last look back she climbed into the car.

  She never remembered much of the drive to Point Breese. She drove the car recklessly, her one thought was to get Doc Fleming back to Steve. The road was broad and good, and she was only conscious of the noise of the wind as the car flew along. At that hour in the morning—it was a little after two o’clock— the road was deserted and her speed seldom dropped below eighty. Once rounding a bend she narrowly missed another car (it was Magarth coming up to Larson’s place), but it all happened so quickly that she was only half aware that another car had passed her. She arrived at Point Breese as an outside clock chimed the half hour past two. The journey had taken her just under the half-hour.

  She found Doc Fleming’s house easily enough, and brought the Packard to a stop outside. She ran up the garden path and hammered on the front door, and kept up the persistent hammering until the door was opened.

  A middle-aged woman with a mean lined face and untidy hair stood in the doorway. She had on a drab dressing-gown which she held across her flat chest with a hand like a claw.

  “Making a noise like that,” she said furiously. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Please,” Carol said, trying to control her voice, “I want the doctor. Someone is very ill . . . hurt . . . where is the doctor?”

  The woman ran her skinny fingers through the tangle of unwashed, greying hair.

  “It’s no use coming here,” she said, preparing to slam the door. “The doctor’s ill. Banging and banging like that. Who do you think you are?”

  “But someone is hurt,” Carol said, wringing her hands. “He’s dying. Please let me see the doctor. I have a car . . . it won’t take long.”

  “I can’t help that,” the woman said, her face red with anger. “The doctor’s an old man and he’s got a cold. He’s not going out at this hour. You must go elsewhere.”

  “But someone’s bleeding to death. Don’t you understand? Dr. Fleming would come if you only told him. He’s bleeding Carol began to cry, “and I love him so.”

  “Get off,” the woman said harshly. “We can’t help you here. Go elsewhere.”

  Carol controlled her rising panic.

  “But where?” she asked, clenching her fists. “There’s no time . . . he’s bleeding.”

  “There’s a hospital at Waltonville and there’s Dr. Kober at Eastlake. He’ll turn out, He’s a Jew. They always turn out.”

  “I see,” Carol said. “I’ll go to him. Where’s Eastlake? How do I get there?”

  The woman was staring at the puckered scar on Carol’s left wrist, then she quickly averted her eyes.

  “It’s five miles,” she said. “I’ll show you on a street map . . . perhaps you’d better come in.”

  “Oh, but please be quick,” Carol said. “I shouldn’t have left him. . . .”

  “Come in, come in,” the woman said. “I can’t show you if you stand in the dark. Let me put on a light.”

  She turned away and a moment later the dark little passage was dazzling with a hard naked light hanging from the ceiling.

  Carol stood just inside the front door and faced the woman as she turned.

  “What lovely hair you have!” the woman said, her small eyes gleaming with excitement. “Perhaps I could persuade the doctor to go with you. Come in, come in. He might if he . . . he’s not been very well. I’ll tell him if you’ll wait in here.”

  The sudden shifty change of expression, the sudden false friendliness, frightened Carol, but there was nothing she could do. She had to save Steve. So she followed the woman into a small waiting-room, consisting of three chairs, a round table on which were tattered copies of old periodicals. There was an atmosphere of decay and neglect in the room.

  “I’ll tell him, dear,” the woman said. “You sit down. He won’t be long.”

  “Please hurry,” Carol begged. “He’s bleeding so badly.”

  “I’ll hurry,” the woman said, went to the door, looked back at Carol and then left the room. There had been a look in her eyes that sent a shiver up Carol’s spine. She listened to the woman hurrying up the stairs and felt instinctively that she was trapped . . . that this woman meant her harm.

  Quietly she opened the door.

  “It’s the lunatic from Glenview,” she heard the woman say. She was speaking loudly and clearly. “She’s downstairs.”

  “What? Speak up,” a man said angrily. “Why do you always whisper? Who from Glenview?”

  “The lunatic . . . Carol Blandish . . . the one they’re looking for . . . go down and talk to her . . . I’ll call the Sheriff,” the woman said. “And hurry.”

  “But she’s dangerous,” the man said, a whine in his voice. “You talk to her. I’m too old. I don’t want anything to do with her.”

  “Go down!” the woman said angrily. “You know you can’t use the telephone. There’s five thousand dollars reward for her capture. Don’t you want that, you old fool?”

  There was a long pause, then the man said: “Yes, I’d forgotten that. Perhaps I’d better go down.”

  Carol closed her eyes. She must be dreaming this, she thought. It must be another of those terrifying dreams that came so mysteriously: only this time more vivid than ever before. Perhaps Steve hadn’t been hurt; perhaps the two men in black were also part of the dream and she would suddenly wake up in her bed in the cabin, her heart pounding, frightened but safe.

  The lunatic . . . Carol Blandish . . . the one they’re looking for . . .

  She shivered, willed herself to wake up and slowly opened her eyes, praying that she would find herself in bed, safe, but the shabby little room was still there and looked too real to be a dream figment, and she backed across the room, staring with horror at the door, listening to the slow shuffling steps on the stairs.

  Somewhere at the back of the house she heard a sharp ting! of a bell: a telephone-bell.

  Go down and talk to her . . . I’ll call the Sheriff . . . . There’s five thousand dollars reward for her capture. . . .

  Whether or not this was a nightmare she must get away from this house. These people meant her harm. They wouldn’t help Steve. They would try to keep her here, away from Steve, and he would die.

  But she was now so frightened that she could not move, and crouched in a corner, her heart hammering against her side, a nerve jumping and twitchi
ng at the side of her mouth.

  The door was slowly pushed open, and a vast old man came into the room: a bald-headed, tired, sagging figure with a great hooked nose and a drooping tobacco-stained moustache. But it was his eyes that filled her with unspeakable terror: at least his right eye, which was like a dirty yellow clay marble: like a phlegm-clot, blind, but she felt somehow it probed right into her mind.

  The old man was wearing a blanket dressing-gown; food stains encrusted the lapels and above the opening she could see heavy underwear: layers of old, overwashed wool.

  “Go away I” she screamed to herself. “Let me wake up! Don’t come near me!”

  The old man closed the door, set his great bulk against it. He took a handkerchief from his dressing-gown pocket and mopped his left eye, which watered. The yellow clot over his right eye continued to stare at her, hypnotizing her.

  “You’re in trouble I hear,” he said in a shaky, whining voice. “What do you want me to do?”

  Carol squeezed herself further into the corner.

  “Are you the doctor?”

  “Yes,” the old man said. “I’m Dr. Fleming.” He touched his temples with the handkerchief. Little beads of moisture ran down his face.

  He was horrible, Carol thought. She couldn’t take him to Steve. She couldn’t trust him.

  “I’ve made a mistake,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you. I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Fleming cringed. She realized that he was very frightened, and his fear increased her own terror.

  “Now don’t be hasty,” he implored. “I’m old, but I’m a good doctor. Does my eye worry you? It’s nothing: a clot. I’m always promising myself to have it removed, but I never have the time.” His wrinkled hands fluttered up and down the lapels of the dressing-gown; they looked like big bleached spiders. The harsh electric light picked out the black hairs on his fingers.

  “But it doesn’t interfere with my work. My other eye— But won’t you sit down? You must tell me what’s wrong . . . .”

  Carol shook her head.

  “No!” she said. “I’m going. I shouldn’t have disturbed you. Thank you for seeing me . . .” Her voice broke, rose a note. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  Very slowly she pushed herself from the wall, took a hesitant step towards him.

  “You’d better stay,” Fleming said. “We want you to stay,” and he spread his bulk across the door, his face grimacing at her in his fear. “Have some coffee. My wife . . . coffee will do you good.” He waved the bleached spiders at her imploring her to be quiet, not to frighten him any more.

  Carol ceased to breathe, then suddenly she screamed, feeling her lungs emptying long after all the air was expelled and her diaphragm labouring long after her chest was empty. The scream was very thin and soft: like the scream of a trapped rabbit.

  “No, please,” Fleming said. “It’s all right. Nothing is going to happen. We’re good people . . . we only want you to be safe from harm. . . .”

  A soft scratching sound came on the door, and the old man suddenly relaxed, his face white as chalk. He stood away from the door and his wife came in.

  “What is it?” she asked, looked at Carol. “Why aren’t you sitting down ? Has my husband . . .” Her eyes went to the old man. “Won’t you go with her? Someone is ill.”

  “Yes, yes,” Fleming said, sat abruptly on one of the hard chairs. “She’s changed her mind.” He put fingers to his throat. “This has upset me, Martha,” he went on. “I shouldn’t have come down. A little brandy, I think “

  “Be quiet,” the woman said sharply. “Don’t think so much of yourself.”

  “I must go,” Carol said. She was by the table now, her mouth fixed in a cringing grimace. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

  “But the doctor’s going up to dress now,” the woman said quickly. “He won’t be a minute. Your friend’s ill, isn’t he? Someone you love?”

  Carol’s heart lurched.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m thinking of.” She touched her temple with her fingers. “Yes . . . he’s bleeding. But why does the doctor sit there? Why doesn’t he do something?”

  “Go on,” the woman said to Fleming. “Get dressed. I’ll make the young lady a cup of coffee.”

  Fleming still sat slumped in the chair. His breathing was heavy.

  “Let her go,” he said suddenly. “I don’t want the money. I want peace. I’m old. Let her go before something happens. Look what she did to the truck-driver . . . .”

  “Get upstairs, you old fool,” the woman said angrily. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t disturb him,” Carol said. “I’m going . . . I really must go,” and she walked across the room very slowly, but determinedly.

  Fleming hid his big floppy face in his hands. The woman hesitated, gave ground, backed against the wall, her hard eyes alight with rage and fear.

  “You’d better stay,” she said. “We know who you are. You’d better not make a fuss. You can’t get away.”

  Carol opened the door.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, turning so that she could face them. “I thought you would help me.” She turned quickly, ran to the front door, but it was locked. She whirled round to find the woman standing in the doorway of the waiting-room, watching her.

  “Open this door,” Carol said, her face like a small lead-coloured mask.

  “It’s all right,” the woman said. “Why don’t you come in and sit down? I’ll make you a cup of coffee . . . .”

  Carol ran down the passage, past the woman, wrenched at the handle of another door that she thought might open on to the back garden. That too was locked.

  Fleming had joined his wife and was standing just behind her. The yellow clot in his eye seemed to beseech her to be quiet and calm.

  Trapped in the narrow passage, between the two doors, Carol paused, her brain refusing to function.

  “You see?” the woman said gently. “You can’t get away. Your friends are coming. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Then Carol saw another door; a small door half-hidden by a curtain, a yard or so from where she was standing.

  Without taking her eyes from the two in the doorway, she edged towards the door, then snatched at the handle. The door opened. At the same moment the woman darted forward.

  Carol cried out, stepped back through the open doorway, threw up her hands to ward the woman off. The woman pushed her, and the ground seemed to give way under her feet and she felt herself falling.

  * * *

  Sheriff Kamp lay flat on his back in his small truckle bed. His low, rasping snores vibrated round the room. He didn’t hear the shrill ring of the telephone-bell in the main office of the county jail, nor did he hear his deputy, George Staum, cursing as he levered himself out of his desk chair.

  But a minute or so later the door crashed open and Staum was shaking the Sheriff awake.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Kamp growled, flinging off Staum’s hand. “Can’t you let a man sleep?”

  “They’ve found her!” Staum said excitedly. His round fat face hung over Kamp like a Dutch cheese. “They’ve got her!” He was so excited that he couldn’t get out his words.

  “Got her? Got who?” Kamp demanded, still confused with sleep, then he started up, grabbed hold of Staum. “You mean —her? Who’s got her?”

  “Doc Fleming . . . Mrs. Fleming’s just ‘phoned. . . .”

  “Hell!” Kamp struggled into his trousers. “Fleming! That old punk! Five thousand bucks! It would be him. Never did a day’s work in his life and he has to find her.”

  “Mrs. Fleming says to be quick,” Staum spluttered, his eyes popping. “She’s scared something will happen.”

  “Can’t be quicker,” Kamp growled, slipping his heavy revolver belt round his waist. “Get Hartman on the ‘phone. Get the Press. I’m going to get something out of this! Fleming! My stars! I bet it fell into his lap.”

  Staum
ran into the office.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he bawled over his shoulder.

  “Follow on. Get Hartman and the Press first, then come on as fast as you can. I want a cameraman there. If I don’t get that five thousand I’m going to have my picture in all the papers,” Kamp said, grabbed up his hat, ran from the room.

  * * *

  Simon Hartman couldn’t sleep. He sat in a big easy chair in his luxury hotel suite, a glass of whisky on the table beside him, a cigar clamped between his small sharp teeth.

  Hartman was short and thick-set. The lines in his thin, sallow-complexioned face made him look older than his fifty-five years. There was a cold, brooding expression in his eyes, and his thin lips were turned down. Although the hour was a minute or so before 3 a.m., he had no inclination to sleep. For years now he had slept but little, and then only in uneasy cat-naps.

  Hartman was the senior partner of Simon Hartman & Richards, solicitors, whose reputation at one time had stood as high as any of the big New York firms. But since Richards had retired the business had gone to pieces, and Hartman, an inveterate gambler, had been tempted to use his clients’ money to play the markets, and recently he had been juggling with securities that were not his own, with disastrous results.

  He had almost reached breaking-point when John Blandish died and the Blandish Trust was formed. Here, then, was a chance in a lifetime, and Hartman was quick to seize the opportunity. Richards and he were appointed trustees and as Richards took no interest in business the trust was entirely in Hartman’s hands.

  It came as a tremendous shock to Hartman when he learned of Carol’s escape. He knew that if she avoided capture for fourteen days she could claim the Trust money . . . what there was left of it. For even in that short space of time Hartman had already dug deeply into Blandish’s fortune.

  The girl had to be found! If she wasn’t found, he’d be ruined, and Hartman had no intention of being ruined. He had already taken charge of the search. The Sheriff was a fool. Dr. Travers was irresponsible. The police were worse than useless. But he had galvanized them into action; had offered five thousand dollars reward for the girl’s capture. Now everyone in Point Breese was searching for the girl.