Donovan’s Brain

by Curt Siodmak

  He laughed at me as if the joke pleased him.

  “Then I found out everything about you. You didn’t have much money, but when I trailed you here and saw you go into the bank, you stuffed bills into that brief-case. It wasn’t very smart to carry all that around. I had asked for five thousand and I could just as well have said a million, but what difference would it have made? When I had the money you burned it!”

  He sobbed, but he had no tears left. His mouth hung open and the sound strangled into a croak.

  Now I was sure I had burned all the rest of the prints and negatives. I stepped out of the car and he was afraid I might leave him there with his car on Mulholland. When hope ends, the world ends too

  He may have been an honest man all his life only because he was convinced that if things were ever too bad, he could be dishonest and change his luck. Now that this had not worked out either, he despaired. Every experience of his confirmed his pessimism about the world he knew, and he had lost his foolish optimism about the world he had net lived in. He was disillusioned.

  “You burned my camera too!” he said “A Graflex. Seventy-five dollars second-hand. It took me a year to pay for it.”

  He was coming down to earth; his misery had focused on concrete facts. He had lost a camera. The five thousand dollars was dream money. The camera was real.

  He was going to die soon. I did not give him more than six months. Why shouldn’t he die on Donovan’s money? I took a bundle of bank notes from my pocket and passed it to him. I held out the notes and I felt no interference. Donovan did not object

  Yocum stared at the money in my hand, not daring to touch it

  “Buy yourself a golden camera. Rent a room in a sanitarium,” I said “Get yourself into shape again!”

  He took the bills and moved his lips convulsively.

  I walked away I preferred to hike the mile down to Ventura Boulevard rather than be embarrassed by his sentimental outburst

  A cab on Wilson Drive took me back to the hotel.

  I phoned Schratt before I packed to leave for Washington Junction, to tell him I was on the way. The operator had to ring several times before there was an answer.

  “I was asleep,” Schratt explained, but his voice sounded wide awake. “How are you Patrick?”

  I told him I would be home next day. He indicated no enthusiasm; I had the impression my return embarrassed him. I was afraid something had gone wrong with the brain.

  “Oh no,” Schratt answered hastily. “Everything is fine. I just measured the electric discharge. It increases rapidly in output, close to five thousand microvolts now. The brain has grown twice its original size, too. If this continues, we shall have to have a bigger flask. I have enough brain ash for the serum. You needn’t worry, Patrick!”

  He was very eager to dispel my uneasiness, but did not encourage me to return He wanted me to stay in Los Angeles and go wherever the brain told me to. He talked as if he were carrying out the experiment and I were the apprentice.

  “But there is no reason to stay here.” I was surprised to find myself on the defensive. “I have found out everything I wanted to know. No use hunting down facts I already have.”

  Schratt objected as glibly as if he had thought this out in advance:

  “But you still don’t know why Donovan ordered you to Los Angeles! Is the brain’s thinking logical or not? Have you found out whether it works according to a preconceived plan? Are its orders just a blurred outburst, void of reason, or is it proceeding systematically toward a fixed conclusion? I think you are obliged to find out whether this apparently exuberant growth of cell tissues destroys the organized process of thinking or augments it. Only then you will know whether the brain alone can carry out the process of thought or the whole central nervous system is interdependent.”

  I was at a loss to answer. Schratt had swamped me with questions. His feverish interest puzzled me and I could not dismiss the suspicion that he assumed this urgency to keep me away

  “By the way,” he went on, “how is Janice? Did you see her? She is at Cedars of Lebanon”

  “I’ve talked to her,” I answered, ‘but haven’t seen her yet.”

  “You ought to,” he said. This time there was honest concern in his voice

  “I may,” I answered, “but even so, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  He had nothing to reply. We hung up.

  It was close to midnight, but before I went to bed I put a pad and pencil within reach I was drowsy. The street noises grew dim. Someone in the next room was talking on the phone, but soon his voice lost its animation and his words grew meaningless.

  In the half dream which dulled my mind I repeated a name I had heard somewhere before: Anton Sternli. The thought ran in circles in my half consciousness and followed me into my sleep.

  NOVEMBER 28

  Today for the first time in a week I am able to continue my record. The night after I burned Yocum’s shack I did not dream of anything so far as I can remember, but Schratt’s voice repeated a single sentence, unendingly. The phrase made no sense to me, but all the time it echoed in my sleep, a terror gripped me as if the words were a threat of mortal danger. “Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghost.”

  Unmistakably it was Schratt’s voice that spoke again and again: It followed me into the day.

  I got up. On the floor I found a message I had written in the night. Anton Sternli, Pasadena, 120 Byron Street, was clearly put down in Donovan’s handwriting.

  “Five hundred dollars,” I had written after the name, and following it the number: 142235.

  I dressed and went out to find that man.

  He did not live at 120 Byron Street, but at 210. That proved that Donovan’s memory is not infallible. He can make mistakes like an ordinary human being.

  When I rang the bell, a young girl of fourteen opened the door. I asked for Mr. Sternli and she let me into a small library where an old man, bent and white-haired, sat alone.

  He was so nearly blind, his eyes could not focus me, but he did not wear glasses. He looked vaguely in the direction from which my voice came, groping along the desk as he rose to move toward me.

  “I am Dr. Cory,” I said. “W. H. Donovan sent me.”

  My words had a curious effect. He stooped in his tracks. His sightless eyes shifted nervously.

  “Mr. Donovan is dead,” he answered uneasily.

  “Of course,” I said. “He died in my house at Washington Junction.”

  Sternli asked me to sit down and felt his way back to the desk.

  “What can I do for you, doctor?” he asked.

  “Donovan told me to get in touch with you. He wanted me to bring you five hundred dollars.”

  I took the money from my pocket and put it on the table, but Sternli was too near-sighted to see my motion. He looked toward me irritatedly, as if he had not understood, then repeated. “Five hundred dollars.”

  I got up and laid down the money in front of him. He bent down to peer at it. Suddenly he smiled and said in a humorous tone: “It comes just in time. As a matter of fact, money always comes in time or too late, but never too soon. I have broken ray glasses and could hardly afford new ones. They are very expensive; I am nearly blind.”

  He picked up a broken lens from his desk and looked through it toward me.

  “You don’t mind if I stare at you like this? It is all that is left. I sat on them!”

  He chuckled ruefully.

  We sat silent until he questioned in a kind voice: “W H. thought of me before he died? Then I certainly misjudged him all his life.”

  He shook his head and carefully put down the fragment of glass. “What else did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. He was in no condition to talk.”

  “He did not tell you who I am?” he asked. At once, not to embarrass me, he added: “I was Mr. Donovan’s secretary for many years. To be more precise, during all the years a man can work to provide f
or his old age.”

  The room was poorly furnished, except for the rows of expensive books carefully arranged on sturdy shelves. The walls were dingy with age.

  “Didn’t he leave you any compensation?” I asked politely.

  Sternli smiled and nodded.

  “The memories of interesting times, yes. But money? No! He never would! That’s why I am surprised he thought of me at a moment when every man should think of himself. Death was the last word that could be mentioned in Mr. Donovan’s presence. We spoke of it only once and he said: ‘Making a will is resigning life. Better not get the idea in your head at all, or it bores into your consciousness like termites in a house. They eat away in secret until one day when you least expect it, the roof crashes onto you. Never mention death to me!’”

  Sternli turned his face toward me and I saw he was not so old as I had thought. He could not be more than fifty, but his erudite appearance, his gentle manner, his white hair, made him look twenty years older.

  “How can I serve you, Dr. Cory?” he asked.

  I hesitated, but my curiosity got the upper hand.

  “Well, could you tell me something about Roger Hinds?”

  He looked up sharply, a strange look in those myopic eyes that did not focus; then he smiled.

  “Roger Hinds is the name W. H. used on a bank account,” he said. “I deposited money to it. I even remember the amount of the first deposit. Eighteen hundred thirty-three dollars and eighteen cents. W. H. always liked my memory for things which do not have much significance.”

  “You mean Roger Hinds never existed?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He may have, but I never saw him and W. H. never corresponded with him. He used to be very interested, however, in everyone named Hinds and collected information about them. I don’t know why. One of this family is quite notorious recently. You’ll find his name in the headlines. He has been accused of murder. A very cruel case of homicide. It happened the first of August of this year, at nine thirty at night.”

  He touched his forehead with a thin hand.

  “I can never forget anything I read or hear,” he said apologetically. “Cyril Hinds! He is in the county jail, if that is of any interest to you.”

  In that strange conglomeration of reality and the almost supernatural I did not know where my own thinking began and Donovan’s commands ended.

  “He did not mention Hinds’s name,” I said truthfully. Sternli looked at me and slowly lifted the piece of broken glass to his eye. I realized I had contradicted myself. Donovan must have talked to me about Hinds, otherwise Sternli could not understand, for I had mentioned the name in the first place.

  I got up.

  Sternli held out his hand rather timidly. “Thank you, Dr. Cory. It was nice of you to bring me the money. But should we not inform Howard Donovan of this gift? He is the heir and he might object to my receiving it.”

  The last thing I wanted was to tip off Howard Donovan and his lawyers where the money came from, and I lied: “It does not belong to him. It was in an envelope with your name. Donovan gave it to me before he died.”

  That did not sound very credible, but there was no way of proving I was lying.

  “Thank you so very much,” Sternli said. “If I can be of any service to you, please let me know. I have a great deal of leisure, unfortunately.”

  He took my arm to go to the door with me. I felt suddenly Donovan was trying to get a message through to me.

  “I should ask you for the key,” I said in the doorway.

  Sternli peered at me, surprised I had brought up an important request at the moment of departure.

  “The key—what key?” he asked, uneasily.

  I took the slip of paper with Sternli’s name and the serial number on it out of my pocket and showed it to him. He held the paper so close to his eyes it nearly touched them. When he dropped his hand, his face was flushed with amazement.

  “W. H.’s writing,” he murmured. He groped his way back into the room and returned with a key. It was small and flat for a safe-deposit box.

  Alarmed by the erratic instructions the brain had been giving me, I walked back toward town. Donovan made mistakes; his memory was slipping. The deposit-box number had been written down, but the brain had forgotten to mention the key in its message. It had certainly intended to inform me about it, for the number was pertinent to the key. But something had gone wrong with its process of thinking lately. It had been precise before.

  I made a note of the hour and date I had received the instructions the night before the 23rd of November, after midnight. I must ask Schratt if he found irregularities in the brain’s reactions at that time. Is the organ sick? Is mental decomposition setting in?

  It irritated me that the brain only remembered to complete its message when I was leaving Sternli’s house.

  Walking along, I crossed a street where road gangs were digging ditches. Machines made a deafening noise, shoveling out dirt and throwing it on a moving band which conveyed it to the trucks.

  I did not watch where I walked. Concentrated on Donovan, I was trying to force him to complete instructions concerning the key and code number.

  Donovan could get in touch with me any time he chose, but I was still cut off from him. It was only a one-way communication system, but as the brain was growing steadily stronger, it should soon freely receive my thoughts.

  I walked in a trance, willing Donovan’s brain to hear me, with all the power of concentration I possessed.

  Suddenly I heard a shriek of brakes beside me. Instinctively I stopped and stumbled. Something heavy hit my back. The groaning and clatter of the big iron shovel was close to my ears.

  As I fell a tremendous wave of fear engulfed me. I lost consciousness.

  It was night when I awoke.

  Even before I opened my eyes, the faint stench of antiseptics told me I was in a hospital. The brownish walls were familiar. They had taken me to Cedars of Lebanon, where I had worked as an intern.

  Janice sat by the bed, motionless, watching me. When I stirred she stepped over to me at once. They had packed my thorax in twenty pounds of plaster. Lying motionless, I examined myself mentally, going over my body inch by inch until I was convinced that this was nothing fatal.

  I could move my head a little, bend my fingers, lift my arms.

  Janice watched me anxiously. She was not sure yet I was fully conscious, for my eyes were still closed.

  “Pain?” she asked in a low voice.

  Again I listened to my body. I felt suspended in mid-air, as if my back was not compressed in a plaster cast but supported by gentle hands.

  I had a strange sensation of being bodyless.

  I could feel no effect of a drug. My head was clear, and my mouth did not have the dry, greenish aftertaste of anaesthesia.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I finally said.

  My words alarmed her more than as if I had screamed with pain.

  “It’s spinal concussion,” she said.

  I closed my eyes. I ought to be suffering the pains of hell if that diagnosis was right. Janice got up to ring for the doctor, but I stopped her.

  “I can move my toes and fingers,” I said. “I am not paralyzed. There must be some other reason I have no pain. Did they dope me?”

  I knew she would deny it and she did.

  “You were in pain while you were unconscious,” she said. “For hours. In great pain.”

  She spoke calmly, submitting to me an observation of symptoms, like one doctor to another. She knew enough of medicine to be as surprised and alarmed as I was. Spinal concussion is usually accompanied by pain.

  “What happened to me?” I asked.

  “The silliest thing,” she said cheerfully. “You fell into a ditch in the street and a steam shovel crushed you.”

  She looked very well, and I noticed that she was attractive in her nurse’s white uniform. She had lost that anemic look and I was half convinced she had not really been sick at all. It was our
unhappy marriage that had broken her down.

  “Is that the outfit they give patients?” I said, looking at her uniform.

  “I got permission to come on this case myself.”

  She spoke with a stubbornness which had grown out of long consideration.

  I looked at her face, white and transparent in the yellow light of the lamp behind the screen in the far corner of the room. Her eyes were enormous, dark.

  Everything seemed larger than life, everything moved with a slow motion. Shadows and light became one great waving veil. The sheets that covered the cast towered like mountains.

  Janice’s light hands adjusted them so that I could see the wall opposite

  It was not unpleasant to have her around I didn’t mind if she stayed.

  I closed my eyes again.

  Then the pains stabbed me.

  I tried to shake off the plaster case, which suddenly weighed like tons of steel. My hands clenched in a cramp and the fingernails buried themselves in the flesh of the palms.

  “Codeine!”

  I tried to make her understand. I could not hear my voice myself; it was lost in a shattering noise that seemed to come from the direction of my spinal cord and filled my ears with an increasing howl.

  I knew that pains like these could not be escaped by flight into unconsciousness. They would penetrate any resolution. I knew that all the while I writhed in the attack the knowledge made my pain more torturous.

  Strangely that same senseless phrase underlined the torture. “Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.”

  The pains disappeared as fast as they had attacked. I saw Janice bending anxiously over me. She wiped the perspiration from my forehead. I was floating again, suspended in soft air. Not a memory of my suffering was left.

  The door opened and a doctor entered. A nurse behind him rolled in a table with glasses and instruments.