by Helen Wells
“Richard is not faking, Mr. Steele. He has had a real breakdown. Under these circumstances, there is no point in arresting and prosecuting him now. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes. I am so sorry.”
“Do you think, in the interests of his making a recovery, that the bank might grant an extension of time on his promissory note?”
“I think so. I will recommend it to the trustees. Miss Ames, do the Albee family’s doctor and lawyer know what has happened to Richard? Can’t they help?”
“I plan to see Merrill,” said Cherry, “and tell him about his brother. Mrs. Albee, too, if you think so.” Mr. Steele nodded. “Then they can decide what steps they wish to take. But I don’t believe Dr. Hope will release Richard, or even let him be disturbed, until he is better.”
“I can understand that. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Steele.”
Cherry asked the bank officer a final question. Did he know of any friend of the Albee family named Susan? Cherry had brought with her the letter signed “S.” She showed it to Mr. Steele.
“That might be Susan Stiles,” he said. “Judging from its tone and content, it probably is. She’s an exceedingly nice girl, more a friend of Merrill’s than Richard’s, I believe.”
Susan and her father, Dr. Stiles, used to live in Crewe. A few years ago, they moved to New York City. In the past year Mr. Steele had occasionally seen Susan and Merrill together in Crewe restaurants. He suggested that Cherry could locate Susan by looking up her father, Dr. George Stiles, in the New York City telephone directory.
“Mr. Steele,” said Cherry, rising, “thank you very much. You’ve been a great help to Richard.”
From a telephone booth in downtown Crewe, Cherry called the Albee plant. A secretary informed her that Mr. Merrill Albee was there but he was too busy to see anyone today. Cherry stated her name, profession, and hospital affiliation, and said she would like an appointment to see Mr. Albee about his brother, Richard, “with whom I have been in touch.” There was a long pause, while the secretary apparently consulted Merrill. Then the secretary returned to the telephone and said, “Mr. Albee will see you tomorrow morning at eleven, Miss Ames. At the plant.”
“Eleven. At the plant. Thank you.” Cherry hung up.
It was too bad she had to wait until tomorrow. Perhaps she could see Mrs. Olivia Albee today. She could try.
The Albees’ white house, on the corner of a broad avenue, was a big, pillared place, surrounded by hedges and trees. Cherry rang the doorbell and was answered by an elderly housemaid. Cherry introduced herself and asked whether Mrs. Albee was at home to visitors.
“Mrs. Albee is out,” the maid said pleasantly. “I believe she has gone to the doctor’s, and won’t be home until dinnertime.”
“I see—thanks—” Cherry was discouraged. It was half past three in the afternoon.
“Is there any message, miss?” the maid asked.
“No, I guess not. I’ll try again.”
Two hours later Cherry was back in New York City. At the Greenwich Village apartment, the Spencer Club nurses were busy preparing dinner. Bertha handed Cherry a bowl of potatoes to peel.
“I’ll do it as soon as I make a phone call,” Cherry said. “Where are the telephone books?”
“On the floor of Mai Lee’s closet. She stands on them to reach the top shelf.”
Cherry thumbed through the Manhattan directory, found a number for Dr. George Stiles, and dialed it. Someone who sounded like a housekeeper answered. Dr. Stiles and his daughter had just gone out, and would be out all evening with friends.
“When can I reach them tomorrow?” Cherry asked. “Any time in the afternoon,” was the reply. Cherry left her name, said thank you, and hung up.
After dinner, which Cherry joined in in a preoccupied way, she made another telephone call. This one was to Dr. Hope, at his home in Hilton. She gave him a detailed report.
“Good,” said Dr. Hope. “Very good. But there’s surely more. Keep at it.”
CHAPTER XI
The Patched Letter
MERRILL ALBEE WAS A DIFFICULT MAN. FIRST OFF HE hinted to Cherry that she had inconvenienced him in his morning’s work at the plant. Then he said he supposed the interruption was unavoidable, since he did want news of Richard.
Cherry stifled a retort, and took a long look at Richard’s brother. Merrill Albee seemed older than his age, which was thirty; he was already growing bald. He was a tall, thin man, with a pale, intelligent, angular face that in no way resembled Richard’s. His manner made him seem older than he was, for he had that not-to-be-questioned air of a business head accustomed to issuing orders. This interview, here in his private office, was not going to be easy. Cherry planned to come right to the point about her patient, but Merrill Albee said:
“Excuse me, Miss Ames.” He consulted his wristwatch, took two pills from a container in his pocket, and swallowed them. “Can’t always manage to take these on time,” he muttered half to himself.
“Yes, the timing is important. I’m a nurse, as you know, Mr. Albee. Those look like tablets to counteract secondary anemia.”
“They are.” Merrill glanced at her with a first ray of interest. “I’m obliged to take an array of medicines and vitamins. A great nuisance.”
Although she had some idea of his physical condition, Cherry tactfully inquired after his health.
“Oh, I’ve been in wretched health for years. Secondary anemia, arthritis, a damaged heart.” Merrill Albee smiled bitterly. “It’s an old story. My younger brother ruined my health for me when we were boys, in an accident in the Sound.”
Cherry concealed her feelings. Merrill went on to say that Richard hadn’t meant any harm, but that he, Merrill, nevertheless had suffered and, according to his doctor, would continue to suffer.
“That is hard, Mr. Albee.” It was not her place to reason or argue with him. Apparently Merrill had convinced himself that Richard was guilty.
The secretary came to the door. “Excuse me, Mr. Albee, but the two suppliers’ salesmen whom you asked to call are here.”
“I can’t see them today. I’m not feeling well today, and I already have enough to do. The men will have to call again.”
“But they came all the way from New York, Mr. Albee.”
“Please don’t argue with me, Miss Gardner.” The secretary stood there uncertainly, then left. “Now, Miss Ames, you have some news of my brother?”
“Yes, I am here as your brother’s nurse, Mr. Albee. He is a patient at Hilton Hospital in Hilton, Illinois.” She had planned to soften the blow, but Merrill showed no alarm. “Richard is an amnesia case.”
“He—What? I don’t believe it.”
Cherry said patiently, “Your brother has lost his memory. When a motorist found him, our hospital ambulance brought him to the hospital with a broken leg. He was dazed and malnourished and in rags. We believe he had been wandering for several months. He didn’t even remember his name.”
Merrill stared at her, shocked and shaken. “How is he now? How long has he been at the hospital?”
“Richard has been under medical and psychiatric treatment for about a month. He’s much better now.”
Merrill reached for a denicotinized cigarette. “Then his condition can’t have been too serious. I’m glad to hear he is better, and of course I want to do whatever I can.”
Cherry wanted to shake this cold fish of a man. “Richard’s condition was and is serious, Mr. Albee. He has not recovered by any means.”
“Well, ship him home and our family doctor will look after him,” Merrill said casually. Then he gave Cherry an anxious look. “What has he been doing for the past seven months, Miss Ames? Do you know? He walked out on me, and never had the consideration—even for our mother—to write or telephone home.”
“He couldn’t! He lost his sense of identity. He’s forgotten what you and your mother look like.”
“Amazing. But never mind that, for the moment. What
has Richard been doing?”
Why was Merrill so anxious to know this? Cherry repeated that Richard had been wandering. “The psychiatrist wonders whether Richard broke down in Crewe, because of some trouble, and at that point started to wander.”
“Oh, ridiculous. I was the last person to see Richard before he left, and he was perfectly all right. He intended to go away. Didn’t that possibility ever occur to you hospital people?”
Cherry let the surface sarcasm pass. She was not here to quarrel, but to understand. She was concerned with the reasons for Merrill’s hostility and scoffing. Under the circumstances, his lack of alarm was extraordinary.
“I’m going to show you something, Miss Ames, which will prove I am right.”
Yes, Merrill needed to be always in the right, Cherry thought, remembering the park attendant’s story, and needed to prove Richard always wrong.
From his wallet Merrill Albee took a tattered, folded paper and handed it to her. She smoothed it out gently, for the letter had been torn into small pieces and then patched together with Scotch tape. She recognized Richard’s neat, scientist’s handwriting. She had seen a sample of his handwriting when he had written a letter for one of her ward patients. The characters here were large and sprawling as if he had written in agitation.
“Merrill—I’m so ashamed of what I have done that I’d like to go away and never come back. I don’t know how I can ever face Mother again. Tell her whatever you think best. I’ll be in touch with you whenever I am able to make restitution, the fates willing. Good-bye—Richard.”
Merrill said triumphantly, “There! You see? A good-bye note proves Richard intended to go away.”
Cherry was not so sure. Perhaps Richard had deliberately intended to go away—or perhaps the letter was the despairing outburst of a man on the verge of breakdown. At any rate, to wander away with a blank memory was quite a different matter. What made her wonder was the fact that the note had been torn up, then patched together again. She asked Merrill about the patching.
“That means nothing,” he said. “The message is there, isn’t it?”
That was not the point. The point was to discover the circumstances under which Richard had written this note—and then torn it up?
Cherry knew that just prior to the onset of amnesia, her patient must have gone through a period of great emotional strain. On the edge of breakdown, in a black mood, Richard could have written the note. But he could also have had another stormy change of mood, a change of mind and heart, torn the letter into pieces after the relief of writing it, and thrown it away.
Then did Richard himself patch the pieces together? Cherry found it hard to believe that. It would be simpler to write another note.
Had Merrill found the pieces of the note and patched them together? Certainly, a good-bye note would have relieved Merrill from feeling too much concern about his brother’s going off in the face of the loan trouble.
“Mr. Albee, did you patch the pieces of the note together?”
“Young lady, you’re here to ask questions about Richard, not about myself.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Albee, but you see, it’s necessary to know whether Richard ever discussed with you any plan to go away—apart from his letter.”
“No, he didn’t, but doesn’t his letter of good-bye make his intentions plain and simple enough?”
Cherry forbore to answer. Merrill did not want to understand. “After you found the note, Mr. Albee, what search, if any, did you make to locate your brother?”
“You assume, Miss Ames, that a search was necessary. Here”—he took the letter back from her—“we have Richard’s statement that he wanted to leave and, I believe, never wanted to return. Why, then, should I search for him? Why not let him alone? I felt it would be kinder to let him live his own life as he sees fit. And as I told you, he was—or he seemed to be—perfectly well when I last saw him, perfectly able to take care of himself.”
“Yes.” Either Richard’s moment of breakdown did not occur in Merrill’s presence, or Merrill did not recognize the symptoms.
“Would you search for a brother who leaves a good-bye note, Miss Ames?”
“Yes, I would,” she thought. “I wouldn’t let Charlie just disappear. Especially if he left a good-bye note written in such a heartbreaking tone.”
It sounded to Cherry as if Merrill was not eager to find his brother. As if Merrill did not want to assume any responsibility for him and his bank loan.
“Mr. Albee, I realize you had no way of knowing that Richard was about to lose his memory. Now you do know, and if you could see him, you’d know what a rough time he has been through.”
Merrill refused to be touched. “I am very sorry for Richard, but I don’t see what you expect me to do—except, as I said, bring him home at once.”
Dr. Hope would not want that, not yet. Cherry steered the conversation to the family business. Merrill responded to this subject.
“It’s remarkable, Miss Ames, how little I miss Richard in the business. Oh, of course, he was a help in his own way. I grant that he is a fine chemist.” Even this remark rang with an undertone of envy. “Richard spent many, many years in college while I kept the business alive. I worked, while Richard remained a student, a child. No one considers that I sacrificed the opportunity to complete my own education. But I suppose I can congratulate myself on having a highly educated brother.”
Envy. Grudges. Self-love. How many times this morning, Cherry wondered, had Merrill used his favorite word “I”?
Merrill mistook her attentive silence for sympathy. “You know, Miss Ames, Richard came into the business as an equal partner. But I feel he did not deserve to. His contribution of time—six months before he left!—and effort has not been anywhere near equal to mine. It scarcely is an equitable arrangement.”
“How did it come about, Mr. Albee?”
“Through the terms of my father’s will. That was not entirely fair, either. You see—”
Merrill revealed that Justin Albee had given him to understand that he, the elder son, and handicapped as an aftermath of a serious illness, would inherit the larger share of the business. “But Mother always was sentimental about Richard.” Their mother had insisted that the father write into his will and business papers an arrangement giving the brothers an equal share in the business.
Merrill—and Richard, too—did not learn this until after Justin Albee died a few years ago. It came as an unpleasant surprise to Merrill. He resented the equal terms. He did not hide from Cherry his disappointment at losing his promised special privileges over the brother who had “injured” him.
“It’s been hard for me, believe me, Miss Ames.”
“Yes, I’m sure it has been.” “Mostly because you made it hard for yourself,” she added silently.
As Merrill Albee talked, Cherry could see how his resentment of Richard had been building, all the time the two boys were growing up, and how it had reached an intense pitch over the equal terms of the partnership. Although Merrill stated once or twice that he was fond of Richard, Cherry thought he was scarcely Richard’s friend. She began to distrust Merrill.
“I’m sure you can see my point of view, Miss Ames?”
“I’m trying to see both your and Richard’s points of view, Mr. Albee.”
He was dissatisfied with her reply. “Perhaps I should tell you that Richard recently has embarrassed me very seriously, and has placed our family business in jeopardy. He is involved in—ah—some misguided dealings with one of the banks we do business with.”
Merrill Albee leaned forward, eager to rally her to his own side. “Richard really should have used better judgment. Ours is a family business, we originated a famous formula, and have exclusive rights to it. Many other pharmaceutical firms, and banks acting for them, wish to merge with us, in order to obtain the right to use our formula.” The bank officer had said the same thing, so in this much, at least, he was telling her unbiased fact. “Now Richard, because of the mess he’s m
ade of the bank dealing, has placed us in a position where we may be forced into a merger. We’d lose control of our family business.”
Cherry remembered that the park attendant had hinted the business might be failing, and the bank officer had mentioned the possibility of placing a lien or claim on Richard’s third share of the business. And Merrill, fairly or not, blamed Richard for the danger of losing control of the business. This, as well as the overdue loan, must weigh on Richard.
“Now do you see why I blame Richard, Miss Ames?”
Cherry did not attempt to discuss with this emotionally twisted man whether or not Richard was guilty in the matter of the overdue loan. Merrill in their entire conversation had been subtly blaming Richard for everything, including his health. He would do so on the subject of the loan, too. Cherry therefore kept away from the dangerous topic of the loan. “I’ll have to find another person to help me learn the facts about the loan and the business,” she thought.
Should she ask Merrill about the name Susan? By now she felt too wary of Merrill to chance that.
“Yet Merrill may be in the right,” she mused as he complained further, “and Richard may be in the wrong. There may be factors about the loan and business situation which justify Merrill’s blaming his brother. Merrill may be entirely above reproach. He has been a steady person, he has kept the business going, and stayed by their mother—whatever his motives may be.”
But whether Richard was guilty or innocent, she must unearth the truth. Only in this way could Dr. Hope and she, too, help their patient to get well and face his life situation. Discovering the truth meant talking to more people.
“Mr. Albee, it would be a great help if I could talk to your mother.”
“No, I don’t want that.” He quickly corrected himself. “My mother isn’t well, and she must not be upset in any way.”
“I understand. Has your mother been in poor health for very long? How serious is it, Mr. Albee—if you don’t mind my taking an interest?”
Merrill said in some detail that it was learned, after a biopsy was made, that Mrs. Albee had a nonmalignant tumor that needed removal. The Albees’ doctor had advised them that the need for an operation was not immediate, not an emergency—contrary to what Richard in his troubled state believed—but the need was serious enough.