The Iron Gates

by Margaret Millar

  “I don’t want the roses. Give them to someone else.”

  She had never dreamt that the family would come to see her, openly and casually like this. She had imagined one of them sneaking in, in the dead of night, to find her, to make her suffer. Yet they were here now, all of them, waiting downstairs to see her as if nothing had happened, sending her roses, and pretending this was an ordinary hospital and she herself was merely a little ill.

  “We know it’s always hard to see your family for the first time,” Miss Scott said, “but if you could make the effort we feel it will do you worlds of good.”

  “Like Mrs. Hammond,” Lucille said.

  Miss Scott looked almost cross for a moment. “Cora does a great deal too much talking. You want to see your husband, don’t you?”

  Lucille pressed her hands to her heart. I want to see Andrew, to go home with him, to live with him all of my life, never even bothering to see anyone else.

  “No, I don’t,” she said.

  “Very well, I’ll tell Dr. Goodrich. You may stay up here.”

  When she had gone Lucille sat down on the edge of the bed. She was barely conscious. Though her body was upright and her eyes open, it was as if she was almost asleep and her mind in labor and heaving with dreams, little faces, willow fingers, roses of blood, clotherings and a pellet of rice, did you count the spoons, nurse?, hard dead flesh of macaroni, doing as well as can be expected, are these roses for me, for me, for me?

  Willow drowned in a tub. Soft dead willow floating hair and headache in a tub.

  Superintendent!

  How smooth, how dear, how dead. Come Cora Cora, come Cora.

  Super—in—ten—dent!

  Grape eyes mashed, rotten nose splashed on a wall, I’m sure you’ll love the soup today, it floats the willow, nursie, nursie . . .

  Suddenly she leaned over and began to retch.

  Miss Scott came running. “Mrs. Morrow! Here. Head down. Head down, please.’’

  She pressed Lucille’s head down against her knees and held it. “Breathe deeply, that’s right, that’s better. We’ll be fine again in a minute. It must have been something you ate.”

  Miss Scott took her hands away, and slowly Lucille raised her head. She knew Miss Scott was there, she could see her and hear her, but Miss Scott wasn’t really there, she was a cloud of white smoke, you could wave her away with your hands, blow her away, she didn’t matter, she couldn’t do anything, she wasn’t there.

  “Would you like a glass of water, Mrs. Morrow? Here, let me wipe your mouth, you’ve bitten your lip. There now do we feel better?”

  (Didums bitums ittle ip?)

  “There, drink this. I’m sure you’re upset because you didn’t go down to see your family. They’re awfully worried about you, you know. You wouldn’t want to upset them, would you now?”

  Miss Scott expected no answer. She went to the dresser and picked up a comb and began to comb Lucille’s hair. Then she brushed off Lucille’s dress and straightened the belt. Passive, indifferent, Lucille allowed herself to be guided through the door.

  “We felt it was better for you to meet your family in Dr. Goodrich’s office, not in the common room. Here we are. Would you like to go n alone?”

  Lucille shook her head. She meant to shake it just once, but she couldn’t seem to stop, she felt her head shaking and shaking. Briskly, Miss Scott reached up and steadied it.

  The door opened and Dr. Goodrich came out into the corridor. Miss Scott frowned at him and tipped her head almost imperceptibly toward Lucille.

  “I see,” he said. “Come in, Mrs. Morrow. Here is your family.”

  Andrew came over to her and kissed her cheek. The others sat stiffly on the leather couch, as if they didn’t know what was expected of them.

  Then Edith, too, rose and came toward her.

  “Lucille, dear,” she said, and their cheeks touched for an instant in the old familiar gesture.

  Lucille stood, rubbing and rubbing her cheek.

  (Here is your family. At least they said it was your family, and there was some faint resemblance to Andrew in the tall man. But the girl, who was she? And the young man? And the scraggly hag who’d kissed her? Ho, ho, ho, ho. What a joke! But she knew.)

  “Hello, Lucille.”

  “It’s nice to see you again, Lucille.”

  “Hello, Lucille. I like your hair-do.”

  “Will you sit down,, Mrs. Morrow?”

  “We’ve been so worried about you, Lucille, not letting us know or anything . . .”

  (That was the hag who wasn’t Edith. Her voice was Edith’s, high, piercing, thin as a wire, but Edith had never looked like this, a dried and shriveled mummy with sick-yellow skin. Yet—yet . . .)

  “Edith?” she said, her face wrinkling in pain and bewilderment. “Is that you, Edith?” She looked slowly around the room. “And you, Andrew? And you, Polly—Martin . . . ? This is a surprise. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  (There was something wrong about that, but it wasn’t important, she would figure it out later.)

  “This is a surprise. I feel so confused.”

  Andrew brought her a chair, and when she sat down he stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder, strong and steady.

  “If you have any troubles, Lucille,” he said gently, “share them with us. That’s what a family is for.”

  “So confused—and tired.”

  “You can trust us, darling. Whatever is bothering you, it’s probably not nearly as bad as you think it is.” He looked over at Polly and Martin. “Tell her, tell her, Polly, Martin, tell her we’re all behind her, whatever . . .”

  “Of course,” Polly said stiffly. “Of course. Lucille knows that.”

  “Sure,” Martin said, but he didn’t look across the room at her.

  “If you’d tell us what happened,” Edith said shrilly. “There’s been so much mystery. I’m worried half to death. What did the man . . . ?”

  “I’m so tired,” Lucille said. “I’m sure you’ll excuse me.”

  She moved slightly.

  “Please!” Andrew said and tightened his grip on her shoulder. “Please!”

  With a sudden cry she wrenched herself out of his grasp and ran to the door. An instant later Dr. Goodrich was in the corridor beside her.

  Edith clung to Andrew. Her body was shaking with silent sobs and her hands clawed desperately at his coat sleeve. “Take me home, Andrew, please take me home, I’m frightened! She is—she really is crazy! I’ll be like that some day, I know it, she’s just my age. . . .”

  “Behave yourself,” Andrew said, and looked down at her with an ugly smile. “People with as little sense as you have rarely lost it. Law of compensation, Edith.”

  Martin was lighting a cigarette. He seemed absorbed in the flare of the match, as if by watching it he could learn something vital.

  “I hate to be wise after the fact,” he said, “but I think we’ve underestimated Lucille. We shouldn’t have come. She knows that Polly and I have never been friendly to her. It’s not anybody’s fault, it just happened like that. If she ran away from the lot of us on Monday what reason had we for thinking she was going to break down and confess all on Friday ?”

  He glanced over at Polly who was staring .sulkily down at the floor. “Certainly the sight of Polly’s sunny little face isn’t going to do anyone any good.”

  “Take a look at your own,” Polly said.

  “I have. I grant it doesn’t measure up. Still, I try. A for effort.”

  “Oh, it’s so terrible!” Edith cried. “There they are wrangling again as if—as if they didn’t care where they were—and poor Lucille—she doesn’t matter to them!”

  “She matters a great deal,” Polly said with a dry little smile. “Or haven’t you noticed? She matters so much that I wasn’t married today, that my fiancé couldn’t even stay in the same house with me. . . . She’s managed to mess things up very nicely for me.”

  “Don’t be mawkish,” Martin said. “
Giles was polite enough to leave until things were settled.”

  “Sure.” Polly shrugged. “Very polite of him.”

  “You sound like the deserted bride.”

  “How should I sound? He might have stood by me for a while until . . .”

  Martin’s voice sliced her sentence. “Since when are you the type that asks to be stood by? Or even wants it?”

  “Stop it!” Edith said. “Stop your wrangling. It’s indecent.”

  Dr. Goodrich returned to the room.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought it was advisable for Mrs. Morrow to go to her room. She seems far more irrational this afternoon than she did this morning.” He glanced, with sympathy, at Andrew. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out better. But there is a good deal of trial and error in these cases, it’s the only way we learn. In its present stage psychiatry has many classifications and rules, but far more exceptions. What I am trying to tell you is not to expect results too soon.”

  “I see,” Andrew said slowly.

  “And for the present I think your wife should have no visitors.”

  “I’m not to come again?”

  “I’ll let you know when I think it’s advisable. Meanwhile it would be a good idea to send her gifts, flowers and fruit and little things. She must be given the feeling that her family care for her and are thinking of her.”

  “We are,” Polly said. “We think of very little else.” Odd girl, Dr. Goodrich thought fleetingly. He shook hands with Andrew. “By the way, Dr. Morrow, if you’re driving back to town, perhaps you’d give a lift to someone here.”

  “Certainly.”

  “He’s had a bad time. His—one of his relatives is here and became disturbed. His face is scratched. I’d like to feel he’ll get home all right.”

  “We’ll be glad to take him.”

  In the corridor a nurse was standing talking to a thin shabby man. The man had his hands in his pockets, and his head was bent over as if he was too tired to hold it up any longer.

  “Mr. Hammond,” Dr. Goodrich said. “Dr. Morrow is going into town and will be glad to give you a lift.” Hammond raised his head. His face was very pale, the only color in it was in the red-rimmed eyes and the three long scratches down his cheek.

  “Thanks,” he said huskily. “Very nice of you.”

  He didn’t look at anyone. When he walked down the corridor he moved as if his whole body was in pain.

  8

  There’s a man and woman and kid down here,” the desk sergeant told Sands on the phone. “They’ve got the damnedest story I ever heard. I don’t know exactly where to send them.”

  “You have every intention of sending them up here,” Sands said.

  “Seems up your alley, Inspector, but I don’t know.”

  “Send them up.”

  The Maguire family was escorted into Sands’ office. The boy was about ten, and looked intelligent and thoroughly awed by his surroundings. He had to be prodded into the office by his mother’s large competent thumb.

  The Maguires looked respectable lower-middle-class, and uncertain, and the combination, Sands knew, would merge into belligerence unless he could restore their self-assurance.

  “I’m sure I don’t know whether I’m doing right or not,” Mrs. Maguire said loudly. “I told John, I said, maybe we should just phone, or maybe we should come right down.”

  “Personal interviews are so much more satisfactory,” Sands said. “Few people are intelligent enough to do as you’ve done.”

  It was broad, but so was Mrs. Maguire. She relaxed far enough to sit down, although giving the impression that she considered all chairs booby-traps.

  “It’s like this. Tommy was out playing this morning; it’s Saturday and no school, and sometimes, he goes down to the lake. I don’t know, he just seems crazy about water, he can swim like a fish, and his father and me don’t take to the water at all.”

  “Let me tell it,” Tommy said. “Let me tell it.”

  “That’s a fine way to behave in front of a policeman! You hold your tongue.” Mrs. Maguire opened her purse and brought out a parcel wrapped in newspaper. She laid it on the desk, as if she was reluctant to touch it. “I put the newspaper around it myself. After I saw what was in the box I couldn’t hardly bear to wrap it up again.”

  “You’re telling it wrong,” the boy said.

  “Show some respect to your mother,” Mr. Maguire said.

  “I found it on the beach,” the boy said, ignoring both his parents. “I often find things there, once fifty cents. So when I found this box I thought there’d be something in it, so I took it home.”

  “First, I could hardly believe my eyes,” Mrs. Maguire said in an agitated voice. “I didn’t even recognize what it was. It was sort of swollen, being soaked in the water and all.”

  Sands removed the newspaper and revealed a water-soaked cardboard box which almost fell apart under his hands. Mrs. Maguire turned her head away, but the boy watched, fascinated.

  A few minutes later Sands was in Dr. Sutton’s office. “Take a look at that.”

  Sutton looked. “Been robbing graves?”

  “What is it?”

  “A finger. To be exact, a forefinger, probably male, and sliced off by an expert. The bones are badly crushed, probably had to be amputated.” He grimaced. “Hell-of-a-looking thing. Take it away. The joke’s over.”

  “It’s just beginning,” Sands said.

  “Where did you get the thing?”

  “A boy found it on the beach. I think someone flung it into the lake last Monday, but the waves washed it up. It couldn’t have been in the water long, the box would have fallen apart.”

  “Got a corpse to fit it?”

  “Not yet,” Sands said. “Possibly it doesn’t belong to a corpse.”

  “Maybe not,” Sutton said. “Maybe the guy that owns it is going around looking for it.”

  “Your humor is nauseous stuff, Sutton.”

  “Can’t be helped. Leave the thing here and I’ll examine it in the lab.”

  “Don’t die laughing about it, will you?” Sands said and went out of the room. He felt unjustly irritated with Sutton who was, he knew, a kind and simple young man. Perhaps too simple. To Sutton the finger was merely a finger, bones and skin, gristle and ganglia. To Sands it was part of a man, once warmed and fed by flowing blood, articulated and responsive to a living brain, knowing the feel of wind and grass, the touch of a woman.

  He went back to his office and put on his hat and coat, slowly, because he dreaded the job he had to do.

  Ten miles west of Toronto stand the iron gates of Penwood, protecting its inmates against the world and the world against its inmates. At the ornamental apertures in the gates society could press a cold peering eye, but inside, the little colony carried on, undisturbed and uncaring. It grew most of its own food, ran a diary farm, handled its own laundry, and sold samples of needlework, watercolors, and wicker baskets to a curious public. (“Made by a crazy person, imagine! Why it’s just as good as I could do!”)

  The colony was fathered by its superintendent, Dr. Nathan, a psychoanalyst turned business executive, and mothered by its host of nurses, chosen for their quality of efficient and cheerful callousness. No nurse who confessed to daydreaming, or sentimentalism, or an interest in art, was accepted on the staff. A surplus of imagination could be more dangerous than stupidity, and a weakness for emotionalism could destroy the peace of a whole ward.

  Miss Scott had none of these undesirable qualities. In addition to her vital lacks she had a sense of responsibility and a detached fondness for all of her charges. Miss Scott listened and observed and because she had a poor memory she committed her observations to paper, thus doubling her value. She pitied her patients (while impersonally noting that there were lots of people worse off than they were) but when she went off duty at night she was able to forget the day entirely and devote herself to her succession of boy friends.

  Incapable of a grand passion, she was th
e kind of woman who would one day make an advantageous marriage, stick to it, and produce curly-headed and conveniently spaced offspring.

  Though he didn’t admire the type, Sands liked Miss Scott at once.

  “I’m Miss Scott,” she said in her warm bright voice. “Dr. Goodrich is doing his rounds right now. I understand you wanted to see Mrs. Morrow.”

  “I do,” Sands said. “My name is Sands, Inspector Sands.”

  Miss Scott gave him a well-what-do-you-inspect? glance.

  “I’m a detective. Homicide. I’m afraid I have to see Mrs. Morrow.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think Dr. Goodrich will allow it,” Miss Scott said. “She was quite disturbed last night. She’s still N.Y.D., I mean not yet diagnosed, and Dr. Goodrich . . .”

  “If I could possibly get out of seeing Mrs. Morrow, I’d be glad to do it. I rarely pinch children or attack the sick, but sometimes it’s necessary.”

  What a queer man, Miss Scott thought, and was dumbfounded into temporary silence.

  “In this case it is,” Sands said. “What I have to say to Mrs. Morrow may, remotely, help her. More probably it will disturb her further. I wanted this to be clear before I see her.”

  “Under those conditions, I’m sure Dr. Goodrich will refuse to let you see her.”

  “Perhaps not.” He turned his head and seemed to be contemplating the brown-leather furniture of the waiting room. But perhaps he will refuse, Sands thought, and in that case I’ll have to tell him what I know. But what to tell?

  The picture wasn’t clear, the only real figure in it was Lucille herself haunted by dreams and driven by the devils locked up in her own heart. The rest of the picture was in shadow, blurred stealthy shapes merging into darkness, a face (Greeley’s?), a finger, a hump in the snow (Mildred?).

  “Well, Dr. Goodrich will be here any minute,” Miss Scott said and moved toward the door, glad to return to the world of unreason where everything was, in the long run, much simpler.

  She stopped at the parcel desk to pick up the gifts for her suite. Everything, even the flowers, had been opened, inspected, and done up again.