The Todd Dossier

by Robert Bloch

  Q. This was before Mr. Todd’s heart attack?

  A. Two years before. Mark my words, I’m not saying there’s any connection between the two, between her coming to stay and Mr. Todd’s getting sick. Fair is fair and you’ve got to give the devil his due. If anything, Mr. Todd lived a much quieter life after she arrived. Up until then, when he stayed at the lodge any length of time, there were always lots of guests, big parties. I remember when we had up to a hundred in for holiday weekends. Well, after she arrived, all that was changed. There were very few people outside of the ones who came up on business, and no parties at all. Sometimes half a dozen for dinner, but nothing more. And Mr. Todd took longer vacations. The two of them would go away together just like that, without so much as a word of advance notice.

  Q. And this upset the household routine?

  A. That’s not what I said. Mrs. Veillier never upset the routine. She didn’t interfere or try to change things. She just changed him. Little by little you could see it happening. It wasn’t just that he was quieter. There was something else, something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. But when you’ve lived with a person as long as I lived with Mr. Todd, in a manner of speaking that is, you can’t help but notice. Being with her was doing something to him I didn’t like, even though I couldn’t exactly say just what it was. Not until he had this attack, three years ago, and then I knew.

  Q. Knew what?

  A. How she’d changed him. She’d made him afraid. Never, never in all those years, had I ever seen Mr. Todd afraid before, not of anything. But he was afraid now. Afraid of dying.

  Q. Wouldn’t you say that fear would be a natural reaction under such circumstances, Mrs. Torrance?

  A. Yes, for most people. But not Mr. Todd. Oh, he didn’t go to pieces, nothing like that, it wasn’t something you could see unless you knew the man as well as I did. He still put up a good front, I’ll say that for him—always cheerful, making jokes. But that’s when he brought Dr. Mantle in, and the nurses came, and all at once it didn’t matter if the market went up or down, it was just his pulse-rate that counted. She did it, fussing over him all the time, don’t do this, don’t do that, you mustn’t exert yourself, remember you’ve got to rest—mark my words, she did it. Of course a heart attack is a serious thing, it’s nothing to sneeze at, but a man like Hollis Todd doesn’t turn into an invalid unless somebody really throws a scare into him. And that’s her doing. Three years of it, night and day, never leaving him alone for a single solitary moment. It’s no wonder he didn’t get better. How could he with her always there to keep reminding him how sick he was? Too sick for visitors, too sick even for me to see him—don’t think I didn’t know where that idea came from! It wasn’t Dr. Mantle who said for me to keep out of the room, not on your life. She was the one. She didn’t want anyone else around who might help him snap out of it, just nurses and doctors and the like. Oh no, I couldn’t disturb him, that would be too much—but she was entitled. Many’s the time I’ve seen the two of them just sitting there, him in the bed and her beside it, holding his hand. Just sitting there, neither of them saying a word, hour after hour. Day after day.

  Q. When did you first hear about the possibility of an operation?

  A. Six months ago. I can’t give you the exact date but it was sometime just before the Fourth of July. Dr. Mantle came to me and said Mr. Todd’s condition wasn’t improving and it might be necessary to start thinking about moving him to a hospital. What for, I asked. Wasn’t he satisfied with the kind of care he was getting here? Dr. Mantle said it wasn’t a question of care, not anymore. He had talked it over with Mr. McCullen and Mrs. Veillier and they both agreed it was time to investigate the possibility of surgery. I asked him what kind of surgery, and he said a heart transplant. Well, that was just too much for me, let me tell you. Just too much.

  Q. Did Dr. Mantle explain the operation to you?

  A. He didn’t have to explain anything, young man. I read the papers just like everybody else. I know what they do. They cut the heart out of a dead person and put it in the body of someone who’s still alive. And then there’s a big to-do about it, how marvelous it is, and all the doctors get their names in headlines right on the front page. Only later on, on the back page, there’s a little story about how the patient died.

  Q. Mrs. Torrance, are you aware that a number of heart transplant patients have successfully survived the operation?

  A. If you mean do I know some of them are still breathing, yes, I am aware of it. But I don’t call that survival. I don’t call that being alive. Not if you’re going to be an invalid all the rest of your days, just lying in bed or sitting in a wheelchair. I call that worse than death, and I told him so.

  Q. Dr. Mantle?

  A. No, not Dr. Mantle. Mr. Todd. That’s when it happened, the morning of the Fourth of July. I couldn’t stand it any longer, I went to his room, barged right in past the nurses and there the two of them were, him lying in his bed and her sitting right beside him, cool as a cucumber. Well, I didn’t waste any words. I told him straight out what I thought about it—that he was in mortal danger of his life. And maybe it wasn’t my place to tell him but if he stopped to realize he’d know I was just speaking the plain truth. I was only concerned about his welfare, that’s all I’d been concerned about for these past twelve years. Not like some people with their fancy jewelry and closets full of furs and whole suites of rooms done over for them to live in. Maybe they didn’t really care if he lived or died now but I did.

  Q. What did Mr. Todd say to you?

  A. Nothing. Not a word. He kept staring at me while I talked, but his face never changed—I wasn’t even sure he was listening until he reached out and took hold of that woman’s hand. Then I started to cry, I couldn’t help it, and she was the one who said it. She told me.

  Q. Told you what?

  A. To get out.

  Q. Leave the room?

  A. Yes. And the house. “I want you out of here,” she said. “Is that understood?” I looked at Mr. Todd, waiting for him to say something, but he just nodded yes. When I went out the door the two of them were still sitting there staring like statues.

  Q. When did you leave the lodge?

  A. I was packed and off on the train for Boston that afternoon. And I’ve never been back since. Not even to say that I was wrong.

  Q. In what way?

  A. About the operation. I knew it the minute he took her hand and let her tell me to go. I’d been wrong all along. If ever anyone ever needed a heart transplant it was Hollis Todd. Because he had no heart of his own. No heart at all.

  Extract From the Statement of Eva Veillier

  My name is Eva Veillier. On the date you mention, October 12th, I was at the lodge. That afternoon I was—

  Q. Excuse me, Mrs. Veillier. Were you living at the lodge?

  A. I am a French citizen, my official residence is Paris. I have been a frequent guest at the lodge in recent years. On the afternoon of October 12th I was resting when Crosby McCullen came to my room. I had been up all night with Hollis. He was impatient, he despised illness, and he refused a sedative. He had wanted to see a movie but it was out of the question that he should be moved to the projection room, and so I read to him most of the night.

  Q. You were asleep then, the afternoon of the 12th?

  A. I didn’t say I was asleep, I said I was resting. I could not sleep then and I sleep even less now, so you will excuse me if I wander. Crosby McCullen had come to tell me that a heart was available, that we were leaving for Los Angeles at once.

  Q. Is that all he told you?

  A. He told me to pack. As if I had not been packed for days. As if I were the kind of woman who worried about what clothes she should take on an occasion like this. I have traveled around the world with three Pucci jerseys and a toothbrush. But that is not your interest here. When I went out into the hall they were already wheeling Hollis to the elevator. The elevator is not a large one, there was no room for me. Hollis told the nurse to g
et out so I could ride down with him. He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. His fingers were cold, very cold.

  Q. You accompanied Mr. Todd to the helicopter?

  A. Not directly. Hollis wanted to see the living room before we left. It was the first time he had been downstairs in five months. I suppose it was not only that. I suppose—excuse me.

  Q. That’s all right, Mrs. Veillier.

  A. Excuse me. I am very tired, overwrought. I was about to say that I suppose Hollis did not know if he would ever see the room again. I remember he was upset about the covers on the furniture, the muslin covers. Where were the flowers, he wanted to know. Why did he keep a staff of gardeners for the greenhouse if there were to be no flowers in the house? Why were there no flowers, why were the clocks run down? He said it looked as though he were dead and the place was up for auction—

  Q. Mrs. Veillier.

  A. I am sorry. It is just that he had never spoken the word before. Not during all the months of his illness. But now I felt its presence. It is as though by saying it he brought death into the house. It was in that room with us when Crosby took the telephone call.

  Q. What telephone call?

  A. From Los Angeles General Hospital. Dr. Geiger. He said the girl’s parents had refused consent.

  Q. How did Mr. Todd react to this?

  A. He said to offer them money, any amount. For themselves, for charity, whatever they desired.

  Q. And Mr. McCullen conveyed this offer to Dr. Geiger on the telephone?

  A. He tried to do so, but Dr. Geiger told him it wouldn’t matter. Consent was being refused on religious grounds. The parents did not believe in violating the body, he said. Their decision was final. That word, too, hung in the room now. “Final.” It is a word I have always hated.

  Q. The telephone conversation, Mrs. Veillier.

  A. Yes. The telephone conversation. Dr. Geiger told Crosby there was another possibility. The hospital had located an O-donor. They could keep his heart going on a pacemaker until Hollis arrived in Los Angeles.

  Q. What was said then?

  A. Hollis asked Dr. Mantle for his opinion. Would an O-donor heart be satisfactory. Dr. Mantle explained that an O-blood type is what they call the “universal donor.” But the perfect match for Hollis would be an AB-negative, like he himself. Under these circumstances it was a difficult decision.

  Q. But Dr. Mantle made it.

  A. No. Hollis made the decision. He said to tell Dr. Geiger he would not accept the O-donor. But that we were coming to Los Angeles anyway. It was a gamble, he knew that, but he had gambled all his life. And now he would gamble on a better match.

  Q. Mrs. Veillier, I know this is trying for you. We’re really trying to establish facts, not opinions. But you’ve heard the statement of Mrs. Torrance, in which she expressed her opinions of Mr. Todd rather freely. I’m sure you don’t agree with them, but can you explain them?

  A. Easily. It’s strange how a woman can love a man without really knowing him. And as close as Mrs. Torrance had been to Hollis, she didn’t know him at all. She loved him, I’m sure—I had been aware of it for some time. A woman always knows when another woman is jealous, and Mrs. Torrance was jealous of me. Perhaps she never let herself recognize it, but it was the typically unhappy case of a love that couldn’t possibly be requited. And she is quite wrong. If anything changed Hollis, it was love—not fear. He had an enormous capacity for love. No heart? That, of course, is ridiculous. Those who really knew him knew that Hollis Todd was, beneath the surface, all heart.

  Continued Extract From the Statement of George Mantle, M.D.

  . . . Mr. Todd usually listened to my recommendations, but in this situation he was adamant. If there was a chance that an O-donor heart might be rejected after transplant, it was better to reject it now, beforehand, and take the calculated risk of finding another donor of his blood type. I started to question his reasoning but he insisted we leave. The helicopter was ready on its pad behind the house. Mrs. Veillier and I accompanied him when the attendants wheeled him out. Mr. McCullen was still on the telephone, he had a business call to make before we took off. By the time Mr. Todd was settled in the helicopter, Mr. McCullen joined us. During the trip to the airport no one exchanged a word. The helicopter was noisy, but I believe this was not the only reason for our silence. A commitment had been made, and now each of us was beginning to examine the possible consequences. One thing was certain—now that we were on our way, there could be no turning back.

  Extract From the Statement of D.J. Nelson

  My name is D.J. Nelson—D.J. stands for Desmond James—and I’m the chief pilot for Todd Enterprises. I’ve worked there for twelve years and before I get on to the business at hand, I’d like to tell you how I got my job. I think it will give you an insight into Mr. Todd. I was a first officer on Pan Am and one night during an electrical storm we were taking off from LaGuardia on a flight to Rome. Just as we rolled past V-One—that’s where you hit decision speed and it’s too late to abort the takeoff—the captain keeled over. Heart attack. I managed to keep the aircraft steady and get airborne. Of course we landed immediately. Mr. Todd was a passenger on that flight and after we got back down on the ground, he came up to me and offered me a job. I’ll never forget what he said. He said, “I’m indebted for life to people who save my life.’’

  But about the night of October 12th. I was at my office at the airport, working late. I had a lot of paper work to take care of—the Todd organization has three fixed-wing aircraft and four helicopters. I imagine that’s bigger than the whole air force in some of those banana republics and I got the paper work to match. Anyway I got a call from Mr. McCullen to get the Argonaut II—that’s our 707 jet—ready for a flight to Los Angeles. I asked when are we going and he said ten minutes ago. Well, I’m telling you, that was something else. I had to round up the crew and get the aircraft serviced. Lucky for me it wasn’t a high-priority takeoff time and I got a clearance for a direct flight at a maximum altitude of thirty-six thousand feet with a descent starting over Elko, Nevada.

  I boarded when the crew arrived and I was just finishing the checklist when I heard the chopper set down. I knew Mr. Todd was pretty sick and I’d ordered a hydraulic lift on standby to get him aboard the aircraft. I looked out while they were raising him and he saw me watching. He grinned and made a little circle with his thumb and forefinger. Mantle—that’s his doctor—had arranged for a hospital bed to be put on board the day before and set up apparatus and medical supplies. I guess they figured on being prepared for emergencies.

  When I saw that Mr. Todd was settled in, I got hold of the tower. They cleared me for immediate takeoff on runway three zero. I remember the fellow in the tower made a remark after giving his instructions. He said, “Good luck. I hope this isn’t a one-way trip.” I guess that was in the back of our minds, all of us, but I didn’t like to hear him say it. Not at a time like this.

  Extract From the Statement of Elgin P. Motherwell

  My name is Elgin P. Motherwell and I’m the steward on the Argonaut II. I don’t hold with flying much—my mother used to say that if God wanted man to fly He’d of given him wings—but Mr. Todd’s the kind of man when he says, “Elgin, I want you out of the kitchen and into the air force,” you just pin on your wings.

  Well, we got Mr. Todd into bed in his cabin and I strapped him in. He seemed to be in pretty good spirits, but he looked poorly. They were all poorly, you might say—Mr. McCullen, Dr. Mantle, and Mrs. Veillier too. It’s only natural, seeing as how they were so worried about Mr. Todd. Just before we took off, Dr. Mantle gave him some kind of injection. Mr. Todd, he just kept looking at Mrs. Veillier and he said—I don’t generally eavesdrop but you said you wanted to hear it all—he said, “Eva, you don’t have very good luck with your men.’’ I never knew Mr. Todd when he didn’t have some kind of wisecrack like that, never mean though, always nice. We left him then to get some sleep. I had some sandwiches to make and a pot of coffee going.

&nbs
p; It was a long flight. Mr. McCullen, he just sat in his seat dictating into his tape recorder, something about don’t let the news get out until the market closes. Mrs. Veillier was in her seat playing solitaire and Dr. Mantle, well, he asked me for a drink, the usual, he said. That’s his joke. “The usual” means bourbon and lots of it. Well, Mr. McCullen, he gets up and takes the bottle right out of my hand, puts it back in the cabinet, locks it, and puts that key right in his pocket. Mrs. Veillier just looked at him and she didn’t say nothing, nothing at all. Dr. Mantle gave Mr. McCullen a dirty look and then he got up and went back to Mr. Todd’s cabin.

  He must of been there about ten minutes and when he came out he leaned against the door and nobody looked at him, and finally he said, “Isn’t anybody interested in the odds? That is, if a heart is available.” Well, that sent a chill right through me.

  From a Report on The Associated Press Wire

  10:45 PM 12 October

  NEW YORK (AP)—Mystery billionaire Hollis Todd reportedly left LaGuardia Airport early this evening aboard his private jet Argonaut II accompanied by aides, at least one physician, and a close friend, Mrs. Eva Veillier. Todd’s pilot filed a flight plan showing their destination as Los Angeles. Airport officials would neither confirm nor deny the departure. It has been rumored that Todd, one of the world’s richest men and most flamboyant philanthropists until his heart attack a few years ago, is en route to Los Angeles for treatment at Los Angeles General Hospital. PICK UP CANNED BIO.

  Extract From the Statement of Melvin De Toledano

  My name is Melvin De Toledano. I am director of administration at Los Angeles General Hospital.

  Q. Are you a doctor?

  A. I said I was an administrator. I run the hospital. Now may I continue?

  Q. Please. The night of October 12th?

  A. I was getting to that before I was interrupted. I had of course kept in close touch with the situation. Mr. Todd had been an extraordinarily generous benefactor to the hospital.

  Q. How exactly?