The Iron Gates

by Margaret Millar

  Chocolates for Cora. Flowers and a basket of fruit and a bed-jacket for Mrs. Morrow, the morning newspaper, no longer a newspaper but merely selected items clipped and pasted on a piece of cardboard. Mrs. Hammond’s daily box of food from her family. The Yiddish delicacies looked very tempting and Miss Scott had often wanted to taste some but Mrs. Hammond always grabbed the box and disappeared with it into the bathroom.

  It was an unwritten rule that Cora should get the newspaper first and complain of it.

  “Why I can’t have a decent ordinary paper is more than I can say,” Cora said.

  “Now, Cora,” Miss Scott said, “look at the goodies you got.”

  “I loathe chocolates. Will Janet never learn?”

  “We’re a little cross this morning, aren’t we?”

  “Oh, really!” Cora said, half-laughing in exasperation. “What are the other parcels?”

  “For Mrs. Morrow. Here you are, Mrs. Morrow.”

  “Thank you,” Lucille said in a frozen polite voice. “Thank you very much.”

  She didn’t put out her hand to take the parcels, so Miss Scott herself opened them, making happy noises as she worked.

  “Hm! A bed-jacket. Look, Mrs. Morrow. It matches your eyes almost exactly. We’re going to look lovely in it.”

  “Certainly,” Cora said. “You in one sleeve and Lucille in the other.”

  “Now, Cora,” Miss Scott said in reproof.

  “If I were running this place I would insist on some form of intelligent communication.”

  Quite unruffled, Miss Scott unwrapped the flowers, and the basket of Malaga grapes. “Shall I read the cards to you? Well, the bed-jacket is from Edith. ‘Lucille dear, I know this is your favorite . . .”

  “Don’t bother,” Lucille said.

  “ ‘. . . color and how it becomes you. Love from Edith.’ The grapes are from Polly, with love. And your husband sent the flowers. ‘Remember we are all behind you. Andrew.’ Aren’t they sweet little mums?”

  “Yes,” Lucille said. Sweet little mums, little secret faces with shaggy hair drooping over them, sweet flowers, a rosebud of cancer on a breast, a blue bloated grape, drowned woman, bile-green leaves, cold, doomed, grow no more.

  “Yes,” Lucille said. “Thank you very much.”

  But Miss Scott was gone, and so was Cora. How had they gotten out without her seeing them go? She was watching and listening, wasn’t she? How long ago was it? How long had she been alone?

  Her eyes fell on the flowers. The flowers, yes. She didn’t like them looking at her. She may have missed Cora and Miss Scott leaving the room, but she was perfectly rational about this. The roses had squeezed-up sly little faces. You couldn’t see the eyes but of course they were there. Weren’t they? Look into one. Take it apart and you will find the eyes.

  The torn petals fell softly as snowflakes.

  “Why, Mrs. Morrow, you’re not going to tear up your lovely flowers,” Miss Scott said. “My goodness, I should say not.”

  Had she been gone and come back again? Or had she never left at all? No, she must have left, I’m quite rational; it’s perfectly sensible to look for eyes if you think they’re there.

  Miss Scott was moving the flowers, taking away the rosebuds and the shaggy-haired chrysanthemum children. Miss Scott was talking. Was she saying “We mustn’t tear our lovely children”? What silly things she said sometimes/As if anyone would tear a child.

  “Come along, Mrs. Morrow. Miss Parsons will take you down to Dr. Goodrich’s office. That’s right, dear, come along.”

  Docile, a bruised petal still between her fingers, Lucille moved out into the hall.

  Cora looked coldly across the room at Miss Scott.

  “Is it possible to talk sense to you?”

  “Oh, come off it, Cora,” Miss Scott said. “None of that.”

  “I wondered.”

  “Talk if you want to.”

  “I shall,” Cora said. “In the meager hope that something will get across. Mrs. Morrow is deathly afraid.”

  “Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Miss Scott said thoughtfully.

  “She’s afraid of her family. She told me last night. One of them is trying to kill her.”

  “Oh, come, Cora. I thought you had too much sense to believe . . .”

  “I believe her,” Cora said.

  “Don’t worry your pretty head about it. She’s in good hands, she’s safe here, even if it’s true. Come, cheer up. The superintendent will be around in a few minutes and you wouldn’t want him to see you down in the dumps like this.”

  “Have you ever been afraid, really afraid?”

  “I don’t remember. Besides, why would anyone want to kill Mrs. Morrow?”

  “I’ve been afraid,” Cora said. “For Janet’s sake. When the epidemic of flu was on after the last war . . .”

  “Get your hair combed, dear. You look a sight. Dr. Nathan will be disappointed in you.”

  Lucille knew that Sands’ face was one of the thousands of little faces that pursued her with silent shrieks through dreams and half-dreams. But she could not remember where he fitted in, and even when he told her his name she merely felt, vaguely, that he was a part of fear and death. Yet it didn’t frighten her. She knew that he was on her side—more than Dr. Goodrich, or the nurses—he looked at her evenly, without embarrassment, and his face seemed to be saying: I know fear and I respect its power, but I am not afraid.

  She looked into his eyes and quite suddenly he began to recede, to get smaller and smaller until he was no bigger than a doll. She remembered this happening to her as a child, when she was looking at something she especially loved or feared. The experience had always filled her with terror. (“I am awake, I am truly awake, it can’t be happening, I haven’t moved, nothing has changed.” “It was only a dream, dear.” “I am really awake.” “Only a dream.”)

  Sands. Ugly little old doll. How wonderfully he was made. Almost human, the way he moved.

  “I am not feeling very well,” she said in a strong clear voice.

  “Did you hear me, Mrs. Morrow?”

  “Oh, yes . . . Oh, yes.”

  “We’ve found the parcel you threw into the lake.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Did you throw it away, or did Greeley?”

  He came back, life-size.

  “Greeley?” Lucille said.

  “He may not have used that name. Will you look at this, please, Mrs. Morrow? Is this the man?”

  He held out a picture and she looked at it, blinking slowly, trying to control the expression of her face. Her mind seemed to be working with extraordinary clarity. (I could pretend not to recognize the picture. But perhaps they can prove I knew him. I’ll admit I know him, but nothing else, nothing else . . .)

  “This is Greeley,” Sands said. “He was the man who waited for you across the street from the hairdressing shop. He is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  She had a sudden wild surge of hope. If this man was dead she had a chance. She would get out of here, she would fight.

  “He was murdered,” Sands said.

  The hope drained out of her body like blood from a wound. Her hands were icy, and her face had a stupid dazed expression.

  “I am not trying to harry you, Mrs. Morrow, but to protect you. Someone has taken the trouble to kill Greeley on your account. Greeley was in the way—of something. Greeley was between you—and someone.” His voice pressed, relentless, on her ears. “Who wants you dead?”

  To frighten her, Sands thought, enough, but not too much . . .

  “If I knew,” Lucille said. “If I knew . . .”

  “You know why.”

  “No.”

  “You gave Greeley fifty dollars?”

  (“Here, take this, it’s all I’ve got.” The little man grinning a$ if the bitter wind had swept up the comers of his mouth. “I figured on more, I figure it’s worth it.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” The wind piercing her thin coat. “Now wait a minute,
I ain’t been standing around here for my health. I know what was in that box. I looked.”

  “Who gave it to you? Who told you to bring it to me?”

  “Offhand like this I can’t remember.” The grin again, though he looked cold and sick and ready to drop in his tracks. “I’ll get more for you.”)

  “No,” she said.

  “One of your maids has already identified Greeley as the man who brought the box to your house. If I am to help you, Mrs. Morrow, I must know what was behind this thing. It is too crude and grotesque for a joke. And too dangerous to lie about.”

  She shivered. She could still feel the wind. It seemed to be blowing at her back, pushing her along toward the water, into the water. She felt an icy wave roll against her leg, and her forehead was bathed in sweat. Her head lolled and her mouth opened, sucking in the rush of water.

  There was a movement in the room, a hand touching her lightly on the shoulder, Dr. Goodrich’s voice saying, “That will be all, I think, for today,” and Miss Parsons wiping off her forehead with a cloth.

  At the door Lucille turned around. Sands was still watching her.

  “Good-bye,” she said clearly.

  She gave him an intelligent, almost apologetic glance, as if she felt even yet the strange alliance between them. You and I—we both have secrets—there isn’t time to tell them.

  “Good-bye,” Sands said.

  She moved, heavily, out into the corridor. Beside her Miss Parsons chattered, trying to imitate Miss Scott and doing it badly.

  Up the incline, past an old man bundled in a wheelchair who peered at her suspiciously over his blankets. A door. A girl sweeping the corridor, moving the broom in perfect unfaltering rhythm over the same spot of floor.

  “Come, Doris,” Miss Parsons said. “Let’s do this corner now.”

  But Miss Parsons lacked Miss Scott’s assurance. The girl Doris didn’t look up or pause a second in her sweeping.

  Miss Parsons hesitated and walked on. I’ll go crazy if I have to stay here, she thought, I’ll go crazy.

  She locked the last door behind her and led Lucille into her room. Breathing hard, she came out again and handed the big key over to Miss Scott.

  “Everything all right?” Miss Scott said.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s the matter with you? You look done in.”

  “Jitters,” Miss Parsons said. “Creeps. Whatever you want to call them.”

  “Cheer up. We all get them.”

  “When I think how many nurses actually end up here . . .”

  “Well, for that matter,” Miss Scott said practically, “look at how many of everything end up here, doctors, teachers, lawyers . . .”

  “But more nurses.”

  “Oh, nuts,” said Miss Scott.” Count your blessings. This is the nicest ward in the hospital to work in. Should be, at the prices they pay and with me iii charge.”

  “Even so.”

  “Oh, cheer up, Parsons.” She smiled kindly, and instantly became businesslike again. “I’ll get the word down to O.T. Mrs. Hammond stays up here. Dr. Nathan says she may have to be put in the continuous bath. Next week they’re going to try metrazol on her.”

  Miss Parsons bit her lip. “Gosh, I hope—I hope I don’t have to assist. Last year I saw a woman break both her legs in a treatment—the noise . . .”

  “That’s all changed now,” Miss Scott said. “They use a curare injection to relax the muscles. It’s quite marv—” She turned her head suddenly. Her alert ears had picked up a sound from Mrs. Morrow’s room, like a retch or a low grunt.

  Pushing Miss Parsons out of her way she ran noiselessly down the corridor. Mrs. Morrow might be sick again, as she was yesterday . . .

  But Lucille was not sick. She was standing just inside the door, saying over and over again in a blank voice, “Cora? Cora? Cora?”

  Cora Green was lying on the floor. She had fallen forward on her face with her hands outstretched, and spilled around her were blue grapes like broken beads.

  “Why, Cora,” said Miss Scott.

  She knelt down.

  Why, Cora, you're dead.

  9

  Quietly and quickly Miss Scott walked back to Lucille, thrust her out into the hall and locked the door.

  “Come along, Mrs. Morrow. Let’s find another room, shall we?”

  (A door opened in Lucille’s mind, and out popped Cora, giggling, “Really! Isn’t she absurd?”)

  “Cora’s not feeling well.” There was a lilt in Miss Scott’s voice, but the pressure of her fingers was businesslike. “She’s had these attacks before. They always pass off.”

  (Absurd, absurd, screamed the little Cora, hilariously. Really, oh, really, really.)

  “Oh, Miss Parsons, would you mind calling Dr. Laverne? Miss Green is ill.”

  In fact, said Miss Scott’s wriggling eyebrow, Miss Green is deader than a doornail but let’s keep it from the children.

  “Oh,” said Miss Parsons, paling. “Of course. Right away.”

  She fumbled for the telephone.

  “Now, let me see, Mrs. Morrow,” Miss Scott said. “It’s just about time for O.T., isn’t it? Are we all ready to go down?”

  (The little Cora doubled up with mirth, her hands at her throat, choking with laughter. Choking . . . “Cora! Cora, you’re poisoned—Cora.” Cora went right on choking.)

  “She was poisoned. In the grapes. They killed her,” Lucille said. The words were clear cut in her brain, but they had lost their outlines in traveling to her tongue, and came out as a muffled jumble of syllables.

  Miss Scott bent her head attentively, and looked as if she quite understood everything.

  “You didn’t hear me,” Lucille said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You didn’t hear me. She was killed. The grapes were for me.”

  “Now, now, nobody’s going to take your nice grapes away from you. Don’t you worry your pretty head about the grapes.”

  Lucille drew in her breath. If she spoke very very slowly and tried to control her tongue they would understand her. “Cora—Cora—was . . .”

  Miss Scott smiled blankly. “Why, of course, Cora will be all right.”

  Lucille turned her anguished eyes to Miss Parsons, pleading. Miss Parsons tried to smile at her, like Miss Scott. Her lips drew back from her teeth but her eyes were stirred with panic. You’re crazy, why, you’re crazy as a bedbug, I’m afraid of you.

  Dr. Laverne came in the door. He walked softly on his rubber-soled shoes but he had a big booming voice.

  Lucille saw him lock the door behind him. He was carrying his instrument bag in one hand and he didn’t palm the key as the nurses did, but put it in his coat pocket. It was so large that one end of it stuck out at the top of the pocket.

  Lucille couldn’t take her eyes off it. The key that would unlock everything. Escape from the hounds, set up a new trail. They have holed you up here, but if you can get the key . . .

  Carefully she looked away. She must be very canny, not let them suspect anything. She knew that Cora had been poisoned but no one would ever believe her. They thought she was insane because she couldn’t say the right words.

  They didn’t realize how clever she was. One more look at the key, to make sure it was there. Then she would pretend to be sick, or to faint, that was better. And when the doctor bent over her she would take the key. Through the doors and down the slopes and past the iron gate.

  Clever, clever, she thought, and fell back against Miss Scott’s arm, and heard the doctor padding softly toward her.

  “Watch your key, doctor,” Miss Scott said pleasantly.

  She didn’t actually faint then, but she felt too tired to get up. She sagged against Miss Scott’s knees. They were talking about her, but she was too tired to listen. They were urging her to do something, to move her legs, go through a door, behave yourself, lie down, room of your own. We feel that, we know that, we want you to, we are convinced, we, angels of mercy stepping delicately around the b
lood, so tenderly bathing the dead unfeeling flesh.

  Time for lunch, time for rest, time to take a walk, time for Dr. Nathan, time for Dr. Goodrich, time for dinner.

  Music, therapy, color movies, church, a dance, bridge.

  So much time and never any of it your own, so many people and such shadows they all were. Only sometimes did a scene or a person seem real to her—the Filsinger twins, pressed close together, dancing dreamily in a Viennese waltz, Mrs. Hammond carefully dealing out a bridge hand and as carefully strewing the cards on the floor, Dr. Goodrich talking.

  “The report on the autopsy is perfectly clear, Mrs. Morrow. Miss Green died of heart failure.”

  No, no, no.

  “Do you understand me, Mrs. Morrow? Miss Green has had a heart condition for some time. Her death was not a surprise to us. The autopsy was performed by a police surgeon and there was not the faintest evidence of poison.”

  “The grapes.”

  “The grapes were all tested, Mrs. Morrow.”

  Liar.

  “Miss Green, Cora’s sister, is perfectly satisfied with the report. Cora was apparently eating some of the grapes and a bit of skin got caught in her throat. She became panicky. You must have come into the room just then, and perhaps the sudden entrance, and the blockage in her throat . . .”

  “Filthy sonofabitch lying cur,” Lucille said distinctly. “Filthy stinking whoremaster . . .”

  He waited patiently until she had finished, a little surprised, as always, by the secret vocabulary of women.

  “There was no trace of any poison,” he repeated. “I arranged for Cora’s sister to come and see you. She’s in the waiting room now.”

  Miss Janet Green had been reluctant to come to Penwood. She had been there so often, always to see Cora, always with a little bit of hope in her heart that this time Cora would be better, would actually want to come home. But three days ago Cora had died, and her death had had the same enigmatic quality as her life. Everything was perfectly clear on the surface but there were strange undercurrents.

  Janet Green had attended the inquest, a little puzzled, a little bovine.

  Quite incredible that Cora should panic over a bit of grape-skin. Her heart was bad, of course, and there was no evidence of anything else, but still . . .