The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

by Alexander Laing

  The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

  by a Medical Student

  Edited by Alexander Laing

  Note

  Editors out to keep their own personalities out of other men’s books; so I have not presumed to tamper with the straightforward narrative of this one. Its conversations, however, were unevenly presented, perhaps because some were taken down in shorthand and others reconstructed from memory. Consequently, I have chosen typical passages from what seems to have been the authentic speech of each character, for use in imparting a similar colloquial ease to his other spoken words. Some incidents, originally related in long stilted speeches, I have reduced to narrative form. There were no chapter divisions in the Ms. For the name of the book, as well as for all footnotes, I am responsible. There is no questioning the fact that this is the work of an anonymous but genuine medical student. Thomas Painter and Gertrude McClure, a teacher and a student of morphology, have verified all technical references, and have shared equally with me the task of preparing the book for the printer. The following “Explanation” accompanied the original Ms.

  A. L.

  Explanation

  (To the Reader: This story was received from a reputable literary agent, who claims to be as ignorant as we are of the author’s identity. The following explanation accompanied the first part of the Ms. Customary royalties will be reserved for the author’s account, should he wish to reveal himself to the agent with satisfactory proofs of identity.—The Publishers.)

  During the past year I have been drawn unwillingly into a series of grim events—and I have no assurance that their sequence is ended. The climax could yet be my own death. I happen to be possessed of knowledge that ought to convict any one of three persons of a capital crime; yet I am morally convinced that all are innocent. This makes me reluctant to divulge what I, and I alone, have learned.

  Yet conceal it, even briefly, may mean that it will die with me; and, since its partial discovery might work greater injustice, I intend to write down all I know. I intend to describe these happenings in the strict order of their occurrence, starting with the first significant evening, a year ago tonight. Even though later events at times have erased the seeming importance of earlier ones, I shall try to show everything as it first appeared, for it may be that some item which I have thought trivial may be vital knowledge to another investigator. My shorthand diary will aid me, as will a great many shorthand notes taken in the course of duties which I shall presently explain. I shall alter the names of all persons, places, and institutions, and refer to the climate as that of Maine, with which I am familiar. There will be plenty of references through which anyone who is interested can locate the real town and school about which I am writing.

  If at any point it seems unlikely that I can complete the story, I shall mail what is done to a literary agent who knows nothing of me.[1] Perhaps this will be considered a clever hoax to interest a publisher; but even if that prevents publication, the Ms. Is not likely to be destroyed, so some day the truth will out. If it comes too late to affect persons now living, that may be for the best.

  The story was received in two installments, the first of which, containing everything but the material in Part II, was postmarked Chicago, the last part, New Orleans. Both may have been remailed by the “readdressing” services.

  Part 1

  The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

  One

  I room at the Connells’, on Atlantic Street, four blocks east of the medical school. The hospital is about as far in the other direction, the main buildings are clustered in a private plat studded with pine groves and enclosed by a high iron fence. The hospital is at the eastern edge of the town by Altonville, the center of which is half a mile westward, beyond the Maine State College of Surgery.[1]

  My rooms are in the garret of a one-story frame house. Biddy Connell, who did my washing during my first two years as a medic, let me fix them up with wallboard. I am writing now in the front room, my study. The bedroom is in the rear. Between them opens the well of a steep stairway. In the very early morning of the 3rd of April, 1932, I had gone to bed about one o’clock, and may have just fallen asleep when sharp, explosive shrieks brought me swinging down before I even knew what I was about. Dr. Wyck had told me to eek an eye on Biddy Connell’s husband Mike, a truck driver, whose left arm had been amputated two weeks before. So far, despite the shock, he had borne his misfortune without a whimper.

  As I groped for the hall light, I caught a glimpse of Biddy pawing for the bulb. The light flashed on and off again, leaving against the black a bluish, momentary impression of Mike’s features, stark with pain.

  “For the love of God, Mike, what is it?” she yelled.

  “The black one, wit’ white eyes, Owoo! His nails are in me sowl, tearin’ it out through my arm’s end. Mother of Heaven! He’s torn off me arm.”

  I found the hall light. Mike lay rigid, shivering, his breath painful and loud. Then the stump of his arm lifted and banged hard against the mattress, until he howled with agony. I held it still and tried to quiet him; but his right hand kept clutching spasmodically for the left forearm that was not there.

  “Owoo! God, God, I can’t stand it. Biddy, call the doctor.”

  “Here’s Mr. David, come down to take care of ye,” she crooned.

  He shook his head and insisted upon having Dr. Wyck.

  “Him? Not that one. Niver will I let him in here again.”

  Her husband nodded obstinately. “They’re afraid of no one but him, I tell ye. He knows them all, and the names too. A black one it was, wit’ white eyes, like in the hole in the hill.”

  I could guess what was prompting this talk, but did not care to let myself believe it. Under my hand I felt his heart behaving in an amazing fashion, beating more rapidly than seemed possible, only to pause periodically for a dangerous interval, give a terrific pound, and continue its rapid, steady pumping. He suddenly sat upright, a noise of pain gasping in and out his throat, continuous, horrible.

  “Oh, then, I’ll call him,” Biddy agreed.

  She pulled on her pink wrapper and hastened into the hallway. It seemed a long while before anyone answered.

  “Oh, darlin’, is it Miss Wyck speakin’? Sure, ’tis Biddy Connell.—Yes, sure, for Mike.—Yes, there’s Mr. David here, but my Mike won’t let a sowl but your fayther go near ’im, the thick mich. Oh, God forgive me, and him sufferin’.”

  It was too bad that it was night, because Daisy Towers, who had the switchboard daytimes, usually knew where anyone in town was to be found, and always prided herself on keeping accurate track of the doctors. As it was, Biddy had to make several calls before she got an answer to 190, the number of Prexy Alling’s private laboratory at the medical school. Dr. Wyck proved to be there. He made violent objections, but Biddy implored. “Oh, he’s altogether sure he’s dyin’, Doctor. Yes. Quick, now.”

  I had stepped toward the door. We both turned to find Mike sitting up, pressing the stump into the pillow, his face twitching, his eyes wide and scared.

  “Why do I feel it there, Biddy, like pokin’ me arm through the bed? Look! I can feel the springs with me fingers, all twangy, like a harp. Me poor fingers—they ain’t there.”

  “Does it still hurt so much, Mike, darlin’?” she asked.

  “No. It stopped hurtin’, sudden, a minute ago. Hurtin’ that way. It always hurts. But it was like to kill me then—even after—the black one—let go.”

  “Stop yer blather. Lie down. I’ll tell the doctor to niver mind,” she said; but he became frantic, and she had to reassure him. “All right then. Lie down, now, while I talk a minute to Mr. David.”

  She led me to the far end of the hall, and whispered hoarsely,
“Look, ye know Miss Finch, the pretty nurse? Well, today she told me there was no more need to cut of his arm than to—to—fly. Would it be true, d’ye think, Mr. David?”

  “It’s utter nonsense,” I said at once; but my voice may have sounded too cocksure. I had witnessed the amputation, and had heard the whisper that the limb could have been saved by anyone less interested than Dr. Wyck in a chance to demonstrate the suturing of skin flaps.

  When we went back, there was a crafty, wild look on Mike’s face. “I heard what ye said,” he whispered. “I heard it. But there’s nobody but him can make ’em go away. I know. I’ve seen him do it.”

  “Make what go away?” I asked, but Mike refused to answer.

  A few minutes later Dr. Wyck entered, growling, as usual. Biddy turned her back on him at once. His face, which I always remember as being ruddy and youthful, despite his years, seemed pale and wore a sardonic scowl. Here was on doctor who never cajoled his patients. That was why persons in Altonville, when in danger of their lives, called upon the passionless, machinelike skill of Gideon Wyck.

  “Well,” he asked gruffly, “what ails you?”

  Mike looked uneasily at me and Biddy, and then whispered, “It was the black one, doctor, wit’ the white eyes. Tuggin’ me sowl out, he was, here.” He indicated a spot a few inches beyond the outthrust stump.

  Dr. Wyck seemed to catch hold of his temper. “Oh,” he said, “the black one, eh? You mean my friend Beelzebub? Why didn’t you twist his tail, like I told you to?”

  “God! I couldn’t move a finger. Frozen stiff, I was.”

  “And so you hauled me all the way over here because you dreamed you were being hurt? You fool, I’d—”

  “Dreamed? Fool? Fool yerself!” protested Biddy. “He niver yelled before, iver. Wide awake, he was, and near dyin’ with pain, long after. Ask Mr. David.”

  “I told you all he’d imagine he felt pains in his missing arm.”

  “His heart was most abnormally affected, Doctor,” I put in.

  “Humph. Any man can scare his heart to death if he tries hard enough.”

  “ ’Twas you that was scarin’ ’im,” Biddy blurted, “I heard ye, with all that talk about”—she sniffed—“divils.”

  Gideon Wyck glanced about menacingly at Mike, as if to rebuke him for having revealed a secret.

  “That’s all he needs to be scared of. The arm’s all right. And I don’t want any more night calls about grown-up babies.”

  “Babies? Yes,” Mike said hoarsely, a wild glare in his eyes, “that’s a nice way to speak to a feller that gave his own blood to keep ye alive, ye old ghost.”

  The doctor seemed to start, at that. “Gave your blood? We pay fifty dollars a pint for any donor, you included. More than a truck driver’s blood’s worth.”

  The dual storm of invective from Mike and his wife was stilled by a long ring of the telephone bell. Biddy answered it and came back to say, “Yer poor sweet daughter, and she’s a thousand times too good for the dirty likes of ye, says ye’re wanted at the hospital, quick. And it can’t be too quick for ye to be getting’ out of here, after givin’ us the paper-thing about the insurance.”

  “I haven’t had time to write it, and I won’t find time till you learn to be civil with your betters.” With that, the attendant medico stalked from the house.

  Mike had closed his eyes. I gave Biddy’s hand a squeeze, and told her to call me if anything else went wrong. Then, with the memory of her furious eyes to confront me, I climbed back to my garret.

  Anger, which I had suppressed in the presence of the doctor, now made me lie trembling with indignation. I was very fond of the Connells. They were simple, superstitious: the best reason why a doctor, of all people, ought not to scare them.

  What should I have done? It is not usual for a student either to rebuke his instructor or to bear tales about him. The idea was especially difficult in the case of Gideon Wyck. A lifetime of teaching at medical school had fostered certain deplorable traits that offset his technical excellence in surgery. Gideon Wyck was idolized by half his students for the very ruthlessness that made him a bad practitioner, but a superb scientist. Youngsters whose stomachs began to squirm in the operating room would think of the cool self-control of Gideon Wyck and get a grip on their urge to vomit. His professional anecdotes, often revoltingly cruel, were something you learned to laugh at before feeling at east over a dissection. While disliking him, I was determined to avoid his disfavor. That, however poorly, will have to excuse my irresolute conduct during his bullying of the Connells.

  Vexation over my own cowardice made sleep impossible. I got out my diary and set down a shorthand account of what had happened. Presently I heard Mike say, “Where’s the paper, wit’ the words he wrote down, Biddy?”

  “That nonsense?” she answered. “I burned it. Now go to sleep.”

  “I could never get the memory of it anyhow. Oh, Biddy, I’m scared that he’ll come for me again.”

  ( I continued to record their conversation verbatim.)

  “ ’Tis nonsense, I tell ye,” she shrieked, “whatever it was that ould divil put in yer head, Mike Connell. Ye niver was like this before he came here, last week.”

  “ ’Twas longer than that,” he said, biting off the sentence as if he had spoken it inadvertently. Then he went on, “Out of a book he read it, Biddy, an old, holy-looin’ book, wit’ all the words to say at ’im, the black one. And he read some of it out of the Holy Bible.”

  “Holy Bible. Ye know what Fayther Dunn said, about listenin’ to the Bible, except when the priest reads it. He’s an old atheist, that Dr. Wyck. How do ye know he read it true?”

  “He showed me. I read it over meself. All about the different color of divils, it told, in the Bible.”[2]

  She tried to change the subject. “Now, don’t ye even think about it any more, Mike, darlin’. ’Tis all nonsense. And we’ll git the insurance, and ye can spend all day fishin’ wit’ Charlie Michaud, and I’ll buy me an electric washtub, and we’ll live in style, like the Glennons.”

  He did not answer. Exhaustion must have lured him to sleep. But for a long time I lay wakeful. Could people still be serious about the devils of our fathers? My diary shows that I was also pondering, even then, the meaning of Mike’s remark about giving his blood “to keep ye alive, ye old ghost.” Dr. Wyck had seemed startled by the accusation; yet I could not remember his being ill during my three years as a medic.

  I resolved to look up the record of transfusions at the hospital, to see whether Dr. Wyck actually had received blood from Mike Connell. Hardly anything of interest occurred in the hospital that was not known to the medics within a few hours; but efforts were occasionally made to hush up certain cases. Wyck might have done this It was his boast that he had not been sick a single day in his life. “How can you expect to keep other people in health,” he would snap out, “if you don’t know how to stay healthy yourself? Doctors have no time to be sick, you idiot.”

  The author has changed the name of whatever institution he may be actually referring to. There is of course no such institution in Maine.—Ed.

  I cannot find such a passage either in the Bible or in any standard work on demonology. Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica lists, under the date 1583, a book with the following title page: THE WORLDE POSSESSED WITH DEVILS, conteyning three dialogues; 1. Of the Devil let loose; 2. Of Blacke Devils; 3. Of White Devils, and of the comminge of Jesus Christ to Judgement; a verie necessary and confortable discourse for these miserable and daungerous dayes. Perhaps this is the “old holy-lookin’ book” referred to.—Ed.

  Two

  When I mentioned, some pages back, that I could guess what might be prompting Mike’s ravings about devils, I was thinking of the coincidences that his physician happened to be an authority on the literature of demonology. Another of his colleagues, Dr. Kent, is one of the foremost authorities on the legal aspects of medicine, a subject in which he gives a regular course at the medical school. And Dr. Alling,
the president of the local institution, is perhaps the world’s most learned investigator into the causes of deviation from normal structure in the growth of the mentality as well as the body in man. If you ask why such distinguished men should be sequestered in a small and comparatively out-of-the-way community, I can only ask in reply why the work of the Mayo brothers has been done in a relatively obscure city in Minnesota, rather than in the city of New York.

  Altonville, as a matter of fact, is an ideal community in which to conduct researches in medicine. It contains the largest hospital but one in the whole state. The patients, drawn equally from the countryside, from villages, and from manufacturing towns, give perhaps a better cross section of mankind and its ailments than could be got in any of the better equipped hospitals of the world’s great cities.

  The foregoing facts will make clear why several men of the highest rank in their profession are conducting an up-to-date medical school, and researches of a most advanced sort, in the midst of a largely decadent farming area; for it was only the coincidence of these apparently anomalous factors that made possible the events I am about to describe. Crime of an urban kind, with abstruse ramifications, has been committed in a setting provided with only the primitive police facilities of the back country. That, I suppose, is the reason why I am now writing of a still unsolved mystery.

  Before going on with my story, I ought to explain how I was able to discover so much concerning a matter which I from time to time have really tried to avoid. The crucial fact was my residence at the Connells’, where everything started. Another entangling circumstance was my old habit of keeping a shorthand diary, which served to sustain interest in many little occurrences that would otherwise have been soon forgotten, but which proved, long after I wrote about them, to be mutually significant. The main factor, however, was my job as secretary to our “Prexy,” Dr. Manfred Alling. The fact that he sometimes needed me at odd moments had the effect of freeing me from most of the curricular restraints.