Mark smiled. “Well, we won’t break them. I’ll try to call again. Here.” He gave the man a bill. It was worth it to know that loyalty flourished like the green bay tree in basements. “Buy yourself a beer.”
He walked to the Lafayette and got himself some lunch; then, fortified by snails in black butter, he went into a phone booth. The Reid Memorial Hospital was mellifluently co-operative. It begged him to wait one minute. He expected to wait ten, all fruitless, and was surprised to find himself wrong. A crisp voice, male, replaced the soft voice, female, and told him that certainly Miss Cassidy had nursed Mrs. Beacham in her last illness. Was there anything else?
He admitted that there was. His own wife needed a nurse, and she’d heard of Miss Cassidy’s unusual competence and would have no other. But Miss Cassidy wasn’t in the phone book. Could they tell him where she could be located?
The voice hesitated and finally confessed that Miss Cassidy was dead.
Mark was shocked. Could they tell him where she had trained? Perhaps he could find someone similar. “You know how women are at times like these.” He heard himself panting and knew it wasn’t all acting, either.
The voice gave him the name of a sprawling city hospital, famous for its color, drama, and capability. He thanked the voice profusely and hung up. Another cab, and he was on his way to the last urban lead. If this was a blank he’d go back uptown and try George’s five sisters.
The mist had turned to rain when he drew up before the great stone barracks that housed at least one example of all the world’s misery and pain. He’d been there many times before, in the early morning, late at night, in summer and winter. He knew which corridor led to the morgue, which to the dipsomaniacs. He knew the sad floor that often rang with empty, frightened cries, and he could still see the blank eyes that reflected nothing, not even life.
After a wait, he was led to a small, clean office, so dark that the lamps were lighted. It was proudly decorated with chintz, books, and potted ivy. It belonged to Miss McKenna, the head of the nursing staff.
She was a stocky woman with graying red hair and too many lines on her calm, white face. Lying to Miss McKenna would be a waste of breath. He told her at once who he was and why he was there.
“I’m playing a hunch, Miss McKenna,” he said. “I think the answer to this is in Miss Cassidy’s past. I haven’t been able to find anything. Can you help me?”
Miss McKenna looked out of the single, open window that faced a gray stone wall. Not even a clock ticked in the room. Outside, the rain wept quietly and remorsefully, like an old, old woman in a graveyard.
Finally she said, “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to help you.” She touched her eyes with a folded handkerchief, unashamed. “Mary Cassidy and I were girls together. We started our training the same day. I’ve been good for nothing ever since I read about her in the papers.”
“Has anyone been here to inquire?”
“Not a soul. Not a single soul. She seems to have gone as if she had never existed. . . . But I remember.”
“You tell me then. I don’t know anything. I never even saw her alive. What was she like? Who were her people? What was her private life?”
She told him, sitting up straight in her chair, her clean, strong hands folded in her lap.
Mary Cassidy had come to America when she was twelve. Her people in Donegal had died, and the priest had arranged her passage. She’d lived in New York with an aunt who had seven of her own, and had gone to work in a tea packing factory. But she’d studied at night; she’d seen enough of poverty and illiteracy, and she was determined to make something of herself. So determined that she was afraid to buy clothes, even when she had the money; so afraid of being hungry again that she’d hoard broken crackers from the nurses’ dining room, and wrinkled apples that nobody else would eat. “Not miserly,” Miss McKenna said. “Just frightened. I’m glad she had plenty in her life before she left it.”
“She had more than plenty,” Mark said. He thought of telling her about the unopened perfume, the frail nightgowns still in the tissue paper from the shop, but that seemed cruel and he put the thought away.
“Of course she was a good nurse?” he asked.
“One of the best. She had a kind of passion for service. I guess because she was getting more than she’d ever hoped for and wanted to pass it along. I’ve known her to follow up discharged cases, on her hours off, just to make sure things were all right.”
So she followed up discharged cases. That could be it. He forced himself to move slowly. “Did she ever have any trouble that way? Did any of those discharged cases harbor a grudge?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. I’m sure she’d have told me. But—but—”
“Go on,” he said quietly. “You know yourself how important little things are. Tell me anything that comes into your head.”
“I was just wondering.” Miss McKenna looked embarrassed. “You know when she went into private nursing she ran into queer things. She used to stop in here and tell me about them, and we’d have a good laugh. She used to say she wished she was back on the wards.”
“What kind of queer things?”
“Oh, men making passes,” Miss McKenna blushed, “things like that. They seem to think it’s expected of them. But we know how to handle such. One thing she always did say though. Mr. Beacham was a perfect gentleman. She was devoted to that family.”
“That’s one of the things I was wondering about. Nothing but good to say about the Beachams?”
“Absolutely.” Miss McKenna was definite. “At one time there was a little trouble about the oldest girl, about three years ago. She was getting out of hand, you know, impertinent and giving orders like Mary was an ordinary servant. But Mary never mentioned it to Mr. Beacham. He found out for himself, and I understand he threatened to thrash Roberta, big as she was, unless she mended her manners. She mended ’em!”
Mark looked thoughtful. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, “but I haven’t been able to get a decent description of Miss Cassidy. I saw her body of course, but you know what death does to a face. Nobody has a picture. There was one in a small photography shop in the country, but she went in there a few weeks before she died and had it destroyed. I wonder if you—”
Miss McKenna jumped in her chair. “The Lord love you, but you’ve put me in mind of something I’d almost forgotten. Pictures! Mary was in town not long ago and came down here to see me, but I was out.” She got up and briskly crossed to the phone. “Miriam? Send Angela Scotti down to me at once. I don’t care what she’s doing, send her.” She came back.
“Imagine me forgetting that! And I really was upset at the time. I hated to miss her calls. You see, I was out, and Angela talked to her. She told Angela she didn’t have much time and couldn’t wait for me, but she wondered if I’d mind if she took an old photograph of herself out of my album. Angela said I wouldn’t, but it did strike her as an odd thing to ask. There was only the one picture of her in the whole book, the one we had taken on the roof the day before we graduated.”
“Did she tell Angela what she was doing in town?”
“Yes. She said she’d come down on business for Mr. Beacham. Angela said she was very pale and nervous, so she brought her a cup of tea and left her. For a little rest, you know.” Miss McKenna patted her hair distractedly. “I’m provoked with myself because I didn’t think of that before. I should have remembered. I’m getting old.”
He started to say something gallant, but the door opened and a thin, dark girl came in. Angela Scotti was already enjoying the break in her routine.
“Angela, this is Mr. East,” Miss McKenna said crisply. “Tell him all you know about Miss Cassidy’s visit. He’s working on the case for the Beachams.”
Angela’s wide dark eyes grew wider. She was only a probationer and she pictured herself at the supper table that night. I’ll panic them, she gloated. I’ll show them. Even that fresh interne. “Yes, Miss McKenna,” she said.
She
told the same story about the picture and the cup of tea, but her version was punctuated with gasps. Afterwards, she told the supper table that she felt the same way she did when the orderly put a skeleton in her bed. It was the way Mr. East looked at you, she said. Kind of like Cary Grant, but hard.
“Did Miss Cassidy give any reason for wanting the picture?” Mark asked.
“Yes, she did, but it wasn’t very sensible. She said she didn’t believe in leaving the past lying around. She smiled when she said it, sort of funny. I’d only seen her once before, that was right after Christmas, and she’d changed a lot.” Angela waved her hands. “Nervous, and if you ask me she should have had a sedative. But all she would take was tea.”
“You went out and left her alone in here, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. She’d found the picture in Miss McKenna’s album, and I’d brought her the tea, and she said she’d like to rest a few minutes. But when I came back about twenty minutes later to get the cup she was gone.”
“Did anybody else see her?”
“No, sir. I asked everybody because there she was with a beautiful ring on and a twenty-dollar handbag and I told the other girls that it just showed you what you could do with nursing if you behaved yourself.” She gave Miss McKenna a virtuous look. Then she added, “That drawer was open, though.”
Mark jumped. “What did you say?”
“That drawer.” She pointed to a row of steel filing cabinets along one wall. “Fourth from the left, third from the top. It was open and I closed it.”
Miss McKenna gave Mark a look that compared the student nurses of the past with those of the present and left no doubt about the rating. She drew down her mouth.
“Those are private records, Angela. Nobody touches them but me. The drawer could not have been open.”
“But it was, Miss McKenna. I saw it right away. And I knew you’d have a fit—I knew you wouldn’t like it, so I closed it. I didn’t look inside, either.”
Angela looked as if she might cry in a minute.
“Cheer up,” Mark said. “No harm done. On the contrary, you’ve been a great help. Miss McKenna, do you mind if I take a look? At the outside only.”
“Certainly not.” She spied Angela, avidly watching and quietly moving in. “That will do, Angela. You may go now, and thank you.”
Angela backed to the door, but not because of manners, and closed it slowly behind her.
Miss McKenna looked at Mark. “I’m beginning to be worried,” she said. He was over at the files, reading the date cards on each drawer. “Yes, I’m beginning to be worried. I’m afraid this means something.”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean, I hope so. Fourth from the left, third from the top.” He didn’t touch the drawer; he looked at it with prayer in his eyes. “You’re going to tell me what these files hold, aren’t you?”
“Of course. They’re duplicate histories of our—I guess you’d call them our sensational cases. The originals are in a safe in the psychopathic wing. I have these in here because it isn’t always easy to get at the safe. The room is often locked. Sometimes we need a record in a hurry. There’s a trick lock to these, too. That’s what I’m wondering about. Only myself and a few doctors know how to work it.”
“Did Mary Cassidy know how?” he asked softly.
“Yes.” She looked startled. “Of course Mary knew. That was her work. Mr. East, did Mary open that drawer?”
“I’m sure she did. I think that’s one of the things she came for. If you’d been here she’d have asked you to do it.” He tapped the file gently. “What do you call a sensational case, and under what circumstance is the record referred to?”
“Nervous diseases,” she said. “Or, in plain English, insanity. Sometimes we get several people from the same family, over a period of years. You do, in a place like this. And when that happens, the relatives don’t always tell us the truth. You know how people are about mental derangements. Well, that’s where this file comes in. If we’re suspicious, we check. And we constantly add new details as we come across them, in newspapers and so on. When I read in the paper that so and so has done such and such, I very often hold my breath and wait for the smash-up. It almost always comes, too.”
“All charity cases?”
“My land, no! You’d be surprised! Mr. East, those files are confidential.”
“I know it. Now I want you to listen to me carefully. Mary Cassidy was a friend of yours. Not long before she was killed she went to a photographer’s shop and destroyed the only picture of herself that was available in that part of the country. The following day she came down to New York and looked you up. She came on legitimate business, but I think she’d have found another way to get here if the business hadn’t turned up. And what did she do? She came in here and destroyed another picture. You say that was the only one you had?”
“Yes. I think it was the only one in the whole hospital. I’m sure of it. I’m—I’m all that’s left of the old crowd.”
“Fine. Then she got young Angela out of the room and opened a confidential file. Miss McKenna, doesn’t that begin to add up?”
“If I’d only been here,” Miss McKenna said unhappily. “I’d have helped her.”
“You can still do that,” he said. “You can open that file for me.”
“You’ll have to sell me on that, Mr. East. I want to do it, but I have a professional conscience. You’ll have to tell me why.”
“I will, and you can make the decision yourself. I’ll not try to force you. I think Mary Cassidy ran into somebody, recognized somebody, whose name is in there. Somebody who is now at large and shouldn’t be. I think she was afraid the recognition was mutual, but she wasn’t sure. That’s why she destroyed the pictures. She was playing desperately for time, time to check with your files, time to decide what to do, time to—save herself.”
Miss McKenna bent over and read the date on the index card. “Nineteen-thirty. We had a lot of them that year. It was the year we graduated, too.” She turned her back squarely and he heard the whir of a well-oiled mechanism. The drawer slid out. “Go ahead,” she said. “There are about sixty cases in there, as complete as we could make them. Don’t ask me for further details. You’re on your own now.”
She went over to the window while he carried the manila folders to the table, and stood there, staring at the gray wall and the rain. One by one she heard him slap the folders down as he discarded them. She didn’t turn around. He’s looking at the names first, she said to herself; then if he doesn’t recognize any he’ll go back and read the descriptions. Do people alter much in fourteen years, she wondered?
After a while she heard him say, “Miss McKenna?” She turned around then. “Yes, Mr. East?” He was slumped in his chair.
“None of these names mean anything to me and I know that one of them should. What’s wrong? Does anybody ever get in here under an alias?”
“Never! Not that they don’t try it. At least the family tries, but they don’t get away with it. Never. . . . Wait a minute.” She looked suddenly shy. “I’ve just thought of something. Don’t think I’m trying to run your business, but why couldn’t your man be using an assumed name, out in the world, I mean? People do.”
He gave her an awed look, and it made her blush. “Am I dumb or just nervous?”
“Nervous,” she said briskly. “You watch yourself or we’ll be filing you in there. I’m going to get you a drink and I’ll ask you to hold your breath when you pass the receptionist on your way out. And after you’ve had it, you go back over those folders and check by age and nationality.”
She poured him a mild whisky and soda and turned on more lights. It was growing dark outside. He wondered if they were having a storm on the mountain.
“The dead ones are marked dead,” she said. “And you’ll find the addresses of those who are still living. Some have been transferred to institutions or are cared for by relatives. We don’t like that but we can’t help it. They’re all dangerous, but I guess you
know that.”
She went back to her place by the window. She heard the slow, deliberate turning of pages, an occasional grunt, a low whistle. She knew it was ugly reading. Even when you were hospital trained, it was ugly. She tried to remember whether Mary Cassidy had been involved in any particular case.
“Her name, Mary’s name, will be listed on the cases she worked with,” she said over her shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve found one.”
A half hour passed before she heard the sound she was waiting for. It was a deep growl. “Have you got it?” she asked quietly, still watching the rain.
“Yes and no. She had twelve of these cases. Seven died here in the hospital. Three, all men, were transferred to private sanitariums and according to the final notations they’re still there. And presumably living under constant guard. Another man went to a state institution and was eventually turned over to relatives. The last one, a woman, was removed from the city by a brother. Went west, no town given. How reliable is the sanitarium information?”
“Not very.” She came over and stood beside him. “The relatives don’t always tell us when they make changes. And they’re always making them. The patient complains, says he’s mistreated and unhappy, so of course they move him. But with charity cases we always know where they go. It’s the ones with money that cause all the trouble. They move from place to place, and the family keeps quiet about it. . . . Mary felt very strongly about some of her cases. About releasing them, I mean. She advised against it. It isn’t hopeless, is it?”
“No. I’ve narrowed it down to three. The names don’t mean a thing, of course; you were right about the alias. But,” he frowned, “none of the descriptions fits anyone I’ve seen. Still, it’s got to be one of them. There’s a very nice—I guess you’d call it a complex—a very nice complex that figures in all three I’ve selected, and it fits Mary Cassidy’s case like a glove. Want to know something? I don’t think I’m looking for one of your ex-inmates.” He tapped the folders. “I think I’m looking for one of his relatives. A relative who’s as nuts as he ever was but never got caught. A relative who saw Mary Cassidy years ago and resented her, blamed her for the damning charts she kept, for the necessary part she played.”
Time to Die Page 18