Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense

by Armstrong Charlotte

  “I’m bringing in a patient,” he told her now on the phone. “May need surgery. Will you try to get hold of Dr. Wilson?”

  “Sure thing. Don’t want the ambulance?”

  “No, I—”

  Behind him Connie screamed, “No!” She flew through the door and flung herself on him. “No, no!”

  David lowered the instrument and his right arm caught her shaking body around the shoulders.

  “You can’t telephone!” she said hoarse with fear. “You can’t call anybody! Put it down!”

  He did exactly that. He put the phone down on the table. But not into its cradle. It lay there, still alive.

  He used both hands to hold Connie a little away so that he could look at her. “I’m afraid you don’t understand,” he said patiently. “That hand is a real mess, Connie.”

  “But you fixed it. He is better now. You’ve got to go.”

  “I haven’t fixed it,” he said quietly, shocked by this childishness,

  “I can’t fix it. Not here. He is very sick, Connie. I’m sorry to have to tell you—but he may lose that hand.”

  “No.” She didn’t seem to take in his words at all.

  “Or lose his life,” the doctor said more sharply. “It’s serious, Connie.”

  “You can’t be here. Take your car. Go away. Hurry.” She struggled in his hands.

  Patiently he started all over again. “You don’t understand—”

  “You are the one who doesn’t understand,” she cried frantically. “You don’t know about John. He’s gone into town but he’s coming back.

  If he finds you here he’ll kill you!” Her voice was almost a shriek. “He’ll kill us all!”

  He slapped her cheek lightly. His right arm held her shoulders with all his strength until their shuddering, under his hard physical support, began to lessen. “All right,” he said. “Now tell me quietly. What is all this? Who is this John?”

  “He is Mike’s boss. He hired Mike. He’s out of the house for only a little while. You mustn’t be here when he comes back.”

  “Hired Mike to do what?”

  “To make—to work with explosives. Mike was in demolitions work in the service. He—David, we don’t have time to talk. You’ve got to go. And hurry.” He was still as a rock and she began to push at him. “Now, please. If John finds out that I called you or that anyone was here—” She began to try to use a softness to appeal to him and it was a somewhat rotten softness. “I am thinking of you, David,” she said meltingly.

  “There is nothing to be afraid of,” the doctor said.

  “Nothing to be afraid of?” Her head went back. The cords of her neck were ugly with strain. “Why do you think we couldn’t call a doctor long ago?” she cried. “Because John wouldn’t let us. John wouldn’t have anybody here. Or let us go anywhere. This is the first—I took a terrible chance! Well, you came. You did what you could. Now go. Please. You just don’t understand.”

  “Explosives injured that hand?” the doctor inquired.

  “Yes. Yes, the first one. A part of it went off.”

  “The first what?” he said flatly.

  “The first bomb,” she said.

  The doctor reached through confusion for his own steady guiding purpose that would tell him what he ought to do. “Mike is going to the hospital,” he said sternly. “I’ll take him there. I’ll take you, too. So, don’t you see, Connie? What is there to fear?”

  “We can’t.” Now her eyes looked sick. “We can’t go into town.”

  “Why not?”

  “No, no, we are only waiting for the money. Mike’s pay. Then we have to go away.”

  “Mike isn’t going anywhere you could call ‘away’ with that hand,” said David. “Now stop this nonsense and get him ready.”

  Then she screamed at him. “You don’t understand who John is! Mike can’t go to town because—after this morning—” Her face broke. “Oh, David, help me? I don’t know what to do.”

  The rigid spine had broken, too. If he had not held her she would have fallen.

  “The only way you can help is to go away,” she sobbed. “Right now. Before it’s too late.” Panic stiffened her and she pushed at him. “John won’t be much longer—”

  “Connie—”

  She looked into his eyes with a false, a grotesque coquetry. “Why should you be killed, dear David?”

  He felt a great pity for her, who lived by nothing but the same old petty power of being a female. “Why should anybody be killed?” he asked. “Who is this John, that he might kill? What is he doing in town?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “But you will.”

  “He’s placing the bombs,” she said in a high hard voice. “The booby traps.”

  “Placing—Where?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Connie turned her head. “I wouldn’t let them tell me. I didn’t want to know. It has nothing to do with me. We had to have some money. We were in a kind of jam. But John won’t pay until after—Then we are leaving.”

  David wasn’t listening to the dreary voice. Bombs! In town? Where? Bombs set to go off? In a public place? For some reason he had a vision of mangled children. He had to find out where.

  He said quietly, “Mike has been making bombs for this John to use? To hurt people? Is that what you are saying?”

  She was breathing in long panting sighs.

  “For pay?” he said.

  Her face flushed. “It was just a job. Mike didn’t know, at first—”

  “But now you do know?”

  “John would have killed us. We couldn’t do anything. And he will kill us if you don’t listen to me.”

  David made no more reproaches. There was too little to say and it was too late to say it. He felt great pity for Connie, and for Michael March. Sorry for all those who were lost, who had been going places, and taken short cuts, and had arrived here.

  He said, “This is what we must do, Connie. I’ll take you both into town, right away. Mike to the hospital. You can go to the police. If you tell them quickly and they stop this John—what is the rest of his name?”

  She shook her head.

  He put her gently down on a chair. “One minute, then we’ll go. We’ll get out of this. Don’t be afraid.”

  She sat like dough, sinking into herself.

  The girl on the switchboard had kept listening in on the open line as much as she could. Now and then, she had to deal with other calls. She had heard a woman screaming “No.” Afterward she had heard voices but not the words. At last she heard Dave’s voice again. “Maggie?”

  “Yes, Dave?”

  “I’m out at the old Benton farm. Evidently with some criminals.” Her heart jumped but she made no sound of alarm. She set herself to listen. “One of them is in town, right now, with a bomb or bombs. He is placing them somewhere. Like booby traps. I can’t find out exactly where. But you call the Chief, Maggie. Right away. He may be able—the man’s name is John. That’s all I can give him.” His voice changed. “What?”

  Maggie could almost see his head turn, his high-held head that she longed to touch. Maggie Fowler knew quite well that she was falling in love with David Blair. She also knew, and she had known a long time, that there was a decision to be made. There was a commitment that she must make with all her heart, or not at all. And it was difficult. It wasn’t easy.

  She waited now. Her heart was beating slowly and steadily. Her ears seemed to grow on her head.

  In the farmhouse Connie had lifted her drooping head. She was saying in a mourning voice, “It’s too late. Don’t you hear the car? He’s come back. He’s out there. He’s seeing your car. So now it’s too late. Oh, David, he’ll kill us. Why not? He went into town to kill one man. What’s going to stop him here? But I don’t want to die.”

  “Be still,” said David. “Don’t speak. Leave it to me.” Into the phone he said, “Keep listening, Maggie. I’ll try to find out more.”

  “I’m here,” Maggie said.
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  David let the phone hang loosely a little away from his ear and mouth, and poised his right hand over the dial. He listened. Yes, someone had come. The front door was opening. Now there were footfalls in the hall.

  David did not look at the archway in which the maker of the sounds would appear. He looked down at the dial and began to make motions with his forefinger, as if only now he was trying to make a connection. This was deception, because the phone was open and Maggie Fowler was listening on the other end.

  A man’s voice said, “Better drop that.”

  David stiffened, as if he were startled, and lifted his head. He saw a tall thin man with too much white in his eyes, and a gun in his hand. The gun was ready. “Drop it, I said.” The man had thin cruel lips.

  “I am Dr. Blair,” said David at his iciest. “Who are you?”

  The wicked snout of the weapon kept steady. The man did not say who he was—for Maggie to find out. “Drop it,” he snarled.

  “Put that gun away.”

  “Drop the phone, I said. Now.”

  Maggie, in the hospital, heard the line close, as the phone went into the cradle. Until then she had heard this much.

  “I am Dr. Blair. Who are you?”

  Then, again, David’s voice, saying, “Put that gun away.”

  Maggie Fowler’s hands flew.

  A phone screamed in the thinning dark. The Chief of Police was

  in his bed. He woke and with elephantine patience turned his big

  body. “Yes?”

  “Dad,” said Maggie, and her voice was clear, incisive. “Dad, I just had a call from David. He is out at the old Benton place. With criminals. He says one of them, a man named John, has been in town, planting a bomb. Or more than one. Booby traps. And somebody is holding a gun on David.”

  Chief of Police Fowler blinked and reached for the lamp chain. The clock said 5:10. “Benton place, out on the highway, east?”

  “Yes, Dad. Can you send—?”

  “Sure can. What’s Dave doing there?” The Chief’s feet were already feeling for his shoes.

  “He has a patient. Dad, can you get there?”

  “Pretty fast,” the big man said. “Bombs, eh? Doesn’t know where?” If Maggie had known where she would have told him. “John, eh?” said the Chief in some disgust. “Better get going. Go myself, Maggie. Take it easy.”

  “Oh, good.” Then Maggie cut the connection, swiftly and sensibly.

  She sat in her safe nook in the hospital, her nook that was, nevertheless, a clearing point for trouble. David stood where someone had a gun—someone who was a criminal. It was no time for nerves, no time for wailing or lamentation. It was time to be cool and steady. It was time to stay, to be where she was, on duty. For Maggie Fowler the world rolled toward the sun, slowly, slowly.

  Chief Fowler rubbed the back of his head, dialed downtown, gave orders. “Squad car better nip out there to that farm. Take enough men and watch out. Somebody is armed. And they are holding a gun on the Doc. Get going. Meantime, put Nelson on this line . . .

  “Nelson? There’s some joker with a bomb or bombs loose in this town. Name of John. Big help, eh? Don’t know what he’s after. He’s planting them some place. Turn out everybody you got. Check the schools first. Yeah, we’re going at it blind. Small chance we’ll find anything, but watch it, do the best you can. I’m going out to that farm.”

  He rose from the edge of his bed, dismissing all thought of its comfort. Chief Fowler had a directing idea for his life, too. He reached for his clothing. A minimum of twenty minutes, he estimated, for the car to get out there. A lot of bullets could leave a gun in twenty minutes.

  The Chief had been through some years and he did not get excited. What would be, he conceded, would be. Still he would go to the farm himself. Because it was David Blair out there, in a jam, and the Chief thought well of young Dr. Blair. Because the Chief also loved his daughter Maggie, very much, and he had a dream for her, in a careful, wise-parental sort of way.

  But it was the bomb business that really worried him. Booby traps? Some unsuspecting souls would set off some bombs? It was his business to see that nobody set off any bombs and that nobody got hurt. But a bomb is a small object to find in a city, even a small city. If he went to the farm, it might be the best and quickest way to find out where the bombs were.

  David Blair put the phone on the cradle. All the while he was taking the measure of the man with the gun. This man was one of the lost, a criminal. He was, David judged, in a vicious, reckless mood, on the verge of some triumph. He had just planted some bombs. Now, his objective would be, first, to make sure nobody found the bombs too soon, so that his triumph would be insured, and, second, to get away free. What was there to be done with a man in such a mood?

  The first thing was to convince him that David knew nothing about any bombs. So David stood up very straight, very cold, very calm. “I am a doctor,” he announced. “There is a sick man here. It’s my business to see that he is taken care of. What is the matter with you?”

  “Who you calling?” the man growled.

  “The hospital,” said David. “Naturally. This man must go to the hospital. I am taking him in myself. We may have to cut off that hand.”

  This was sharp and brutal. David was pulling his rank, his prestige, his authority. And projecting an idea of ignorance and indifference about anything but his patient.

  “Too bad,” said the man with the gun. His eyes turned suspiciously. “How did you get here?”

  “The sick man called me, of course,” said David. He didn’t even look at Connie. “As he should have done days ago. Whoever you are, put that gun away. Get it through your head. I’m not a burglar. I’m a doctor.”

  The gunman moistened his lip. His head turned. He looked at the woman. Connie was slumped in the chair. She had given up. She was leaving everything to David. Something about her utter passivity seemed to relax the man.

  David saw that the gun was not quite so sure of itself now. Something—some second thought that weakened his resolution, worked in the mind behind the small sharp eyes in the long thin face.

  The gunman said, “Look, Doc, I’m a friend. I mean, I’m staying here, too. I—”

  “If you live here, why didn’t you call me?” David cut in, attacking, keeping the advantage. “Do you know you’ve neglected that injured hand until it’s very serious? Do you know the man may not live?”

  “Pretty sick, is he?” the gunman murmured, and the gun was no longer the extension of a stiff and hostile hand, but slanted down.

  “He’s out of his head,” snapped David. “That’s how sick he is. Now, I’m taking him to the hospital where we can do something for him. I’ll take the lady, too.”

  David swung on his heel. If the gun went off, why then it went off. But he thought that probably it would not. It didn’t.

  The man said, “Listen, I got a car. I’ll take him in to the hospital.” This was craft of some kind. Perhaps it was the second objective—to get away.

  “My car,” said David immediately. “Have some sense, man. My car’s got the doctor’s sign on it. I can get him there much faster than you could.”

  “You mean”—pale lids came down slyly—“the cops would let you go as fast as you want, eh? That your car, outside?”

  “Certainly it’s my car,” David said impatiently. “This is an emergency. A life is at stake. Try to understand that. Go get a blanket,” he barked at Connie, “and get your coat.”

  The gunman had lowered the gun entirely now. “Look,” he said, smoothing his face to an expression of innocence, “I’m sorry, Doc. I didn’t know, see? I mean, a man walks in and here is a stranger, this time of the morning. You can’t blame me.”

  “I understand,” said David. “I’m glad you do.” He took two long strides toward the bedroom door. So far, so good. But perhaps he had put a wrong idea about his car into the gunman’s head.

  “Hold it a minute,” the man said and David looked back. The man’s
face was all sly again, suspicious. The gun still hung off his hand, but it was ready to come up. Now where did I make a mistake? David wondered.

  “Calling the hospital, you said you were. So how come, now you’re not calling the hospital? Doctor?”

  David snapped his fingers. “Right.” He forced a quick smile a nod of thanks. “You put me off, waving that weapon around,” he said rather crossly. “Excuse me.”

  There was no way out of it. He had to call the hospital. And now the gunman came sidling to stand very close. David could smell a sour evil purpose in him. The gunman was going to be listening in, going to be sure who was called and what was said on both ends of the line. An ounce in the balance would swing him back to the hostile side.

  David dialed with a steady finger. The hospital. The only place he could call. Oh, Maggie, he thought, don’t go all female, don’t ask curious questions—not now. Three lives could be hanging on the exact tone of Maggie Fowler’s voice.

  “Memorial Hospital,” she sang out blithely.

  “This is Dr. Blair,” said David in his coldest, most staccato manner.

  “I am coming in with an emergency.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” Maggie’s voice was staccato, too.

  Bands across David’s chest relaxed. “This may be an amputation,” he went on in the same cold quick way. “Notify the necessary people, will you?”

  “Dr. Pater is on call, Doctor,” Maggie said crisply.

  And David’s heart leaped up and danced in his breast. Oh, bless Maggie Fowler! There was no doctor named Pater. But “pater” means “father.” Chief of Police Fowler was Maggie’s father. So the Chief of Police had already been called, and Maggie—bless her—was telling him so!

  Now David’s mind worked like lightning. He had her on the wire. The gunman was listening and yet—if there were more that needed to be told, David knew the intelligence, the steady understanding, with which he was connected.

  What more could David send into town? “He wanted to kill one man,” Connie had said. One man. But that could mean that the bomb or bombs would not be in a public place, or a crowded place. Or, at least, that they were not destined for a building or a group. They would be waiting somewhere for an individual.