The Removal Company

by S. T. Joshi

  Sanderson stopped his car in the middle of the field. There was no one about. Only one dim farmhouse was visible, miles in the distance. It was now almost entirely dark.

  I drew my car up about twenty feet away from his, my headlights still pinning it with light. I waited for his next move.

  Sanderson got out of the car. His forehead was red with a bloody gash. He looked haggard, exhausted, and fearful. I could hardly comprehend the transition from the calm, self-possessed cynic who had had me in his clutches only a few days before.

  There was a gun in his hand.

  I got out of the passenger side of my car, so that my vehicle stood between my body and his. Pulling out my own gun, I trained it on him and said:

  “Put it down, Sanderson. This is it! It’s the finish!”

  He didn’t move. The gun wasn’t even pointing in my direction, but instead was hanging down at the ground. I thought I saw his jaw trembling.

  “Drop it, Sanderson!” I shouted. “You’re done for!”

  Almost instantly he shrieked at me, with more than a touch of madness in his voice: “Kill me, you fool! What are you waiting for! Shoot me!”

  I paused, looking at him queerly. “I don’t shoot a man in cold blood, Sanderson. Just give up and we’ll go back to town.”

  Another shriek: “No!” Then Sanderson flung the gun away from him and sat down hard on the ground, leaning his back against his car. He covered his face with his hands.

  I approached him carefully. The gun was about three or four feet away; he could easily have lunged for it if so inclined. I reached the gun and kicked it a little farther away.

  “What’s gotten into you, Sanderson?” I said, quietly. “What gives?”

  He took his hands away from his face and looked up at me. He was the picture of wretchedness, the blood from his cut forehead trailing down one side of his head and almost dripping into his eye. His mouth was twisted into a grimace.

  “You have me now, Mr. Joseph Scintilla,” he said bitterly. “So why not just put an end to it? That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure what I want,” I said.

  “You don’t mean you intend to take me back alive!” he cried. The prospect seemed to appall him.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  With a hideous scream he clutched the sides of his head with his hands and fell over on his side.

  Infuriated, I grabbed him by the lapel of his coat and dragged him up. My face was inches from his. I hissed: “What’s with you, Sanderson? What are you trying to pull?”

  At that, he revived a bit—pushed me away from him with surprising vigor.

  “Haven’t you figured it out, yet, Mr. Detective?” he spat at me. “You’re so good at finding people, but you don’t seem so hot at understanding them....” His pedantic, schoolroom manner of speaking was entirely sloughed off: the real Sanderson, stripped of his cocoon of unnatural calmness, was laid bare before me.

  When I made no reply, Sanderson looked at me with a kind of wonder, even of awe. “You really don’t get it, do you? You just don’t get the score!” He laughed harshly, hysterically. “I’ve led you here by the nose, and I can’t get you to finish the job! Oh, it’s too much!”

  He howled with laughter.

  “Come off it, Sanderson,” I snapped. “What don’t I get?”

  “God, Scintilla, you’re such a fool!” He looked right up at me. “Don’t you see what I want? I know this is the end, I know you’ve destroyed my operation. There’s nothing left for me—so why can’t you put me out of my misery?”

  I was brought up short. “You want me to kill you?” I said quietly.

  “Yes!” he screamed. “Yes! That’s all I want—nothing more!”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Why?” he repeated. His voice descended to a whisper. “Because it is I”—he pounded his own chest—“I who find the prospect of death so terrifying. The blackness, the oblivion, the utter extinction of life.... The very thought of it makes me feel as if I’m floating in some shoreless sea, helpless and deserted.... Don’t you see that’s why I formed the Removal Company?”

  I looked at him quizzically.

  “Do you think I wanted to kill anyone? The thought was too horrifying even to contemplate. And when I saw all these people—who really had so much to live for!—wanting to end their lives, I...I had to do something! This was the only way...fake their deaths and make them into new people. What else could I have possibly done? Yes, it was difficult, but it’s all I could think of to help them.... I wanted to help them, really....”

  He looked up at me pleadingly.

  “You took their money, too.”

  “Oh, God, Scintilla, do you really think that was it?” he said scornfully. “Do you take me for a petty thief? Give me more respect than that.”

  He looked down at himself, scowling in furious contemplation. Then: “So why can’t you finish me, Scintilla? It would be so easy for you....”

  “I can’t, Sanderson. I don’t do things like that.”

  “Then what’s going to happen to me?” he cried, pitiably.

  “You know there’s only one way.”

  “Wh-what?” he stammered, in genuine confusion.

  I went over to his gun, lying in the grass and dirt.

  I kicked it back at him. It hit him in the leg. He recoiled as if electrocuted.

  “No...,” he whispered. “No, please, not that....”

  “Yes. It has to be that way. You started this, you have to finish it.”

  He picked up the gun, gazing at it in horrified fascination as if it were some alien entity whose nature and function he couldn’t grasp. It rested in both hands for minutes.

  “Go on,” I said. “Take control of your life. Remember your own words. ‘Suicide is never cowardly, it is always brave.’ You were right.

  “Be brave now.”

  His right hand wrapped itself around the barrel of the gun. His index finger momentarily touched the trigger, veered off, then resumed its hold. His hand, his whole body, began to shake. He looked up at me with an appalled expression.

  “I can’t...,” he muttered. “I won’t....”

  “You will,” I said, trying to instill in him the resolution I myself was far from feeling.

  He looked down at the gun again. His face crumpled in horror.

  “I tried to help people, Scintilla,” he moaned. “I tried....”

  “I know,” I said. “But you ended up causing irreparable, inconceivable harm. Now you must put an end to it.”

  There was silence for several moments. Then, with a shriek, he held the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  This was not a case whose loose ends were neatly tied.

  By the time I got back to the Removal Company, I found that Vance and Merriwether had come upon an immense array of files that Sanderson had amassed, and had immediately shoveled them into a fire they had started in the fireplace of that paneled room where we had found Marge. Marge herself had come around, but was still groggy and weak-kneed. We let her rest while we continued to destroy the records.

  As for Bullet Head—incredible as it may seem, we let him go. He was in no mood to stick around, and with his boss out of the way, he would surely be happy to see the back of this place. Frankly, we doubted that he would be telling anything to the police.

  We had to call in the police ourselves, to deal with those two or three poor wretches whom Sanderson had been working on. I had called the precinct and had urged my pal, Lieutenant Monahan, to come along. Even my long friendship with him wasn’t quite enough to make the explanations smooth or convincing: all I could say was that we had come upon a doctor conducting some kind of hypnotic experiments on people, and that didn’t seem to satisfy Monahan in the least. But neither Arthur nor Gene nor I would say much more, and with a glare and a huff Monahan had to make do.

  I have no idea what ever happened to those partially brainwashed people in
the Removal Company.

  * * * *

  Later we went back to 144 West 62nd Street to see how Katharine Vance was doing.

  Dr. Williamson was there. He gave me and my two male partners sharp looks over the smell of burning that covered us, and a still sharper look at Marge, still woozy from whatever drug Sanderson had administered. We did our best to prevent him from examining her.

  I tried to deflect his attention by saying: “How is she, doc? What’s the outlook for her?”

  He glared at me for a time, still suspicious. He knew something had happened, couldn’t figure out what it was, and sensed that we would never tell him.

  “It’s going to be a long haul, Mr. Scintilla,” he finally said. “She has gone through an incredible trauma. I don’t dare give her any drugs beyond the sedative, and even that I will give up soon. She needs to resume her life, and if she has the strength of mind and body to do it, then perhaps she will eventually recover.”

  I pulled him away from the others. “Doc,” I whispered, “do you know of her...er, depression? How do we know that it won’t...you know, come back even if she does ‘recover’?”

  “Yes, I know something about that,” he said, “and I don’t know what to tell you. I understand she had psycho-analysis, and it didn’t appear to be of much help.”

  “Yes, well,” I stammered, “perhaps some other doctor might be better for her....”

  “Perhaps.”

  “When do you think she can go back to California?” I said more loudly, including the others in the conversation.

  “A week, maybe a bit more. You know,” the doctor ruminated, “a nice, comfortable train ride might be just the thing—”

  “No!” shouted Vance. “Not a train ride! Not that!”

  Dr. Williamson looked at him in quiet astonishment. We others looked away.

  “As you prefer,” Williamson said.

  * * * *

  I spoke to Harry Greenway and prevailed upon him to have his marriage with “Elena Cavalieri” quietly annulled. We both realized that that would be far better than a messy, and public, trial for bigamy. I also spoke to Detective Gulliver Crane in Pasadena, explaining the situation—some of it—and persuading him that it would be in his best interest to drop the charges against Arthur Vance. He did so.

  The murder of Dr. William Grabhorn was never solved.

  * * * *

  A week passed. Vance and his wife were ready to go home. The two of them came to my office to say goodbye.

  Vance placed his wife in a chair—she still seemed somewhat fragile and disoriented—then approached me as I sat on the edge of my desk. He shuffled his feet a bit in front of my desk, then said:

  “Joe, I don’t even know how to begin thanking—”

  “Please,” I said, holding up my hand. “Don’t thank me. I just did my job. And I was paid well.”

  “Not well enough,” Vance said gruffly, and he flung another stack of bills on my desk.

  “Vance,” I said, “you don’t have to do this....”

  “Yes, I do!” he replied excitedly. “You put your life on the line for me!”

  “You did the same for me.”

  “Please, Joe, just take it—I’ll feel better. You don’t have to tell me that money doesn’t solve every problem in the world, but it can help sometimes.”

  “All right,” I conceded. “Thanks. Thanks very much.”

  Katharine Vance now approached me, timidly. “I don’t know everything that has happened to me, but I know—Arthur has told me—that you are the person most responsible for...for saving me. I owe you my life,” she said simply, hanging her head.

  “Just make sure you take care of it,” I said, giving her what I hoped was an avuncular hug.

  We said goodbyes and they left.

  Marge Schaeffer walked in a few minutes after they had gone.

  “I wanted to see them up here,” she said a little breathlessly, “but I met them in the hall—I guess they came up already. Are they going back home now?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “They’re a nice couple,” she said reflectively. “I wish them well.”

  “So do I.”

  We both stood still, not looking directly at each other.

  “So what now, Joe?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I take on the next job, assuming there is one. Or”—looking at the big stack of money on my desk—“maybe I’ll take a little vacation. It’s been a long time since I’ve had one.”

  She looked right at me and said: “Feel like some company?”

  I looked back at her and said: “That might be fine.”

  We stood grinning at each other. I felt like a kid.

  “Say, Joe, do you like playing pool?”

  “Do I—what?”

  “Pool. You know, cue ball, sticks, table. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”

  I looked her up and down. “Gee, Marge, you don’t look like the kind of gal who hangs out in a pool hall.”

  With a twisted smile she said: “Oh, there’re plenty of things you don’t know about me, Joe Scintilla.”

  There was nothing I could say to that.

  “C’mon,” she said banteringly, “let’s play some pool.”

  “Okay,” I laughed. “So long as you don’t put me behind the eight-ball.”

  POSTSCRIPT

  This novel was very loosely based upon a short story, “The Removal Company,” by the Californian writer W. C. Morrow (1854-1923), published in the California Illustrated Magazine (October 1891) and not otherwise reprinted, to my knowledge. Morrow is a much undervalued writer of tales of suspense, horror, and the supernatural, and his work deserves to be better known. When I first read his story, I found it full of suggestive possibilities that could only be conveyed in a novel rather than a short story; moreover, his working out of the plot seemed a little tame by present-day standards. In the event that readers would like to compare my novel to its inspirational source, I print the complete text of the story below:

  The Removal Company

  by W. C. Morrow

  It is hardly strange that my best and oldest friend, widowed and dying, should have given into my charge her little daughter, Annette, for there was none other so strongly bound to this obligation, none toward whom that gratitude which lives beyond the grave extended a hand of gentler appealing. Nor did it seem at that time so serious an undertaking. Annette was sweet and gentle and quiet and obedient, studying my wishes and trying to follow their course, seemingly putting aside her own great sorrow in my presence and investing her demeanor with the full strength of her brave young heart. I knew little about children then, or I should not have been blind to the womanly conduct of this strange child. Now I have some idea of her suffering, which she kept so bravely from me, of that consuming yearning with all her childish heart for the touch of a mother’s hand and the music of a mother’s voice; and I know now how greatly she needed the kindly guidance of a level purpose and an even heart.

  I thought I was doing the best I could. I imagined that the responsibility of the charge found proper estimation in my plans, in my conduct, and in my wishes. If there was a sense of oppression under it my gratitude would have masked it. So, being too young and unsettled to establish a household with Annette as my family, I put her in a convent. It never occurred to me to imagine that this sharp separation contained any element of a riddance, nor did there come up any formal hope that Annette, so desolate and lonely, so gentle, unselfish and retiring, might choose to become a conventual, upon which consummation my responsibility would cease, of course. When I spoke to her of going to school in a convent her sad face brightened, and then instantly it fell.

  “What is it, Annette?” I asked.

  “I can never see you then.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, “for I shall go to see you every week.”

  She looked up at me quickly. “You will come every week?” she asked.

  “Yes; every week.”

  “Becau
se,” she added—but why did she use that word “because”? of what was it an explanation and for what a reason?—“because,” she said in her sweet, low, childish voice, slightly tremulous, “you are all I have in the world.”

  I caught her up in my arms and kissed her for that, and this surprised her very much, for it was the first time I had ever caressed her, but that was because I knew so little about children. She went to the convent, and the years of her life began their steady course—with what loneliness, with what suffering, with what longings, with what numberless little cares and anxieties, with what small pleasures and diversions I did not know, for Annette was reticent, and it never occurred to me to inquire. My promise of visits suffered many violations, but my brave little girl never complained. There was always the same quick but transitory happiness which lighted up her pretty face when I would visit her; but there was otherwise a habitual sadness, growing deeper and surely merging into melancholy. And to my surprise she refused religious comforting—not that I was religious, but—I really did not know why her refusal troubled me. At times she talked sparingly but fearlessly a philosophy which made the good women there despair; these things they told me with concern.

  The time came when I awaited with anxiety the day of her graduation, now close at hand, for responsibility at last had laid a hand upon me; its effect upon an erratic bachelor, not old enough to be Annette’s father, was disquieting. Was there any element of selfishness in this feeling? Had I been a churl in failing often to visit Annette?—for when I did go I always took her some little present, and she was grateful for it. Could I not have gone oftener and taken her more presents? Could I not have stayed longer and been gentler and kinder to her, and told her things of the outside world to cheer her? Thus ran my thoughts, quickened possibly by conscience, as I sat in the very rear of the great room on graduation day, well concealed, I thought, by the large crowd present. Thus ran my mind as I sat and gazed in wonder at my Annette (for was she not my ward?) as she sat upon the platform with other girls. Could this beautiful girl be Annette? It must be, for she was so small, so fragile, so pale, so invested with an atmosphere of loneliness. In all that great room filled with people I saw only my little Annette; and never had I seen so pretty, so dainty, so exquisite a picture. I was glad she did not see me; I would let her know afterward that I had been there, and this would prove that I had not neglected her. She held the flowers which fortunately I had thought to send her, and her manner showed that by some accident I must have sent the kind she liked best; for in very truth I had ransacked San Francisco before I found any that I thought were good enough for Annette. But what meant this new look of trouble in her face? It appeared to be evidence of a tangible pain. A fear that the excitement had proved too great for her possessed me, and a strong pity was aroused. There was a strained expression in her eyes, whose glance wandered unceasingly over the vast audience, up and down, row by row, face by face, until the radiance from their unfathomable blue depths fell full upon me; and then instantly a bright flash of recognition, followed by a soft pink flush which rivaled the dainty coloring of her roses, swept over her face, and then a faint smile of pride and happiness, and her glance fell to the floor. At that moment there burst upon me unaccountably, with so fierce assailing that it stunned, the realization, all unexpected, all unguarded against, that my little Annette was a woman.