Nothing Is Impossible: Further Problems for Dr. Sam Hawthorne

by Hoch Edward D.

  “Come on, Sheriff. We have to find her.”

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way. We’ll take my car.”

  As I drove the Mercedes down Main Street and told the sheriff of my phone call to Radcliffe, I had the feeling of events closing in on me. It wasn’t just the glowering sky, which might be hinting at another thunderstorm later in the day, but a terrible urgency that I sensed but couldn’t explain. Then, as we came in sight of May’s apartment over the drugstore, I saw the familiar yellow Duesenberg round the corner like an animal breaking from cover. May was at the wheel. She gave a startled backward glance at us and floored the accelerator.

  “Hang on, Sheriff!” I shouted.

  “Where’s she goin’?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  The Duesenberg streaked down Main Street, gathering speed as it went. I stayed close behind, gradually narrowing the gap between us. Once we hit the county road outside of town I saw my opportunity to pull alongside her, but as I did she turned her head toward me, a wild look in her eyes, and swerved violently to the left.

  “She’s mad!” Sheriff Lens shouted. “She’s trying to ram us!”

  She was, and a sudden jolt and scrape of metal told me she’d succeeded. My Mercedes shuddered and almost left the road. I picked up speed, passing her and trying to cut her off. That was a mistake. She slammed the Duesenberg into my broadside, almost tipping us over. With steam coming from the radiator, Sheriff Lens and I jumped out. May backed up about fifty feet and I thought she was going to drive around us. It was the sheriff who first realized her true intent. “Doc, she’s tryin’ to kill us!”

  The Duesenberg came straight at me, picking up speed. I tried to run, but the stalled Mercedes had me penned in. I saw the face of a madwoman bearing down on me and thought it would be the last thing I ever saw.

  Then Sheriff Lens fired his revolver and the Duesenberg’s windshield shattered under the impact of the bullet.

  I heard a terrible scream as the car went out of control, barely missing me, clipping the rear fender of the Mercedes and smashing head-on into a tree.

  Then we were both running toward the car. The sheriff still had his gun out, but it was clear he wouldn’t need it. There was blood everywhere, and when I listened for a heartbeat I knew it was already too late.

  “There’s your murderer, Sheriff,” I told him. “But there won’t be any trial now.”

  “It was May Russo, after all! But why, Doc? And how did she manage to do it?”

  “Not May Russo,” I corrected him. “This is her twin brother, and you had him locked up for the past month without knowing it.”

  We found May back at her apartment, tied to the bed and gagged. As soon as she was free she asked me, “Where’s Martin?”

  “Is that your brother?”

  She nodded. “I should have told you about him.”

  We told her what had happened and she cried a little, but not much.

  “He killed your parents, didn’t he?”

  She nodded, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t know for sure until Hank Foster was killed. The crimes were too similar to be a coincidence. That’s why I was so upset. When he got out of jail, he came to see me and I happened to mention fainting when I saw the Fosters’ thunder room because it reminded me of our parents’ murder. He went out there during the storm and it was the first crime all over again. That’s when I knew.”

  “He was dressed in your clothes.”

  “I can’t explain it,” she said, shaking her head. “I know now that he was terribly sick.”

  “What’s all this about him bein’ in my jail?” Sheriff Lens demanded.

  May sighed. “I was driving through here with Martin a month ago when we had our accident. He was acting crazy that day, trying to grab the wheel from me, when I went into the ditch—”

  “You said you were distracted,” I pointed out, “but you never explained it further. You also said you lost some of your clothes in the accident. I wondered how that was possible. There was no fire and little damage to the car. How would you lose clothes under those circumstances unless they were stolen?”

  She nodded. “After we went into the ditch, he grabbed one of my suitcases and ran off into the woods. He had a couple of shirts in there, but they were mostly my things. I suppose he ran away because he thought I’d be angry about the accident. And I was—it was all his fault.”

  I interrupted to take up the story. “May denied having a twin sister but she never mentioned a brother. I knew she had one because she’d told April about him. During the chase this morning, when I saw how May was handling the car she loved so much, slamming it into mine, I was certain of one thing—this wasn’t the May I knew. Either it was a different personality or an entirely different person. A split personality didn’t explain how she could be in two places at once, but two different persons explained everything. Both May and the woman I phoned in Cambridge assured me she had no twin sister, but what about that brother? Could he be a twin?

  “I thought about the month between her arrival and Hank Foster’s murder and tried to remember if I’d seen anyone resembling her. He had to be short, of course, with long blonde hair—because Bruna Foster told us she’d yanked at the hair and it wasn’t a wig.”

  Sheriff Lens snapped his fingers. “That hobo I released the day you were at my office!”

  “Exactly. He also had a beard at the time, so I didn’t realize he looked like May. You probably arrested him in the first place because of his long hair and beard.”

  “He looked like a bum to me. He sure didn’t belong around here.”

  “He had a suitcase with him that you had to return when you let him go after four weeks. I don’t know too many hobos that lug suitcases around with them.”

  “He came to see me when you let him go,” May said. “I thought he’d been gone for weeks. I asked about the suitcase but he said he’d lost it. You probably noticed how edgy I was all week after seeing him, Dr. Sam. Then when I heard about the Foster killing, it was all clear to me—he’d murdered our parents and now he’d acted out the crime again. But I just couldn’t say anything.”

  “Everything fit,” I told her. “Without the beard, he looked like you, and Bruna said the killer never spoke. She wasn’t lying—she really thought he was you.”

  She nodded and waited until she could find her voice again. “He called a lawyer to get me released this morning and he was waiting at my apartment. He was wearing one of my dresses. It was insane. When I tried to reason with him, to tell him he needed medical help, he tied me up and took the car.”

  “It’s a wonder he didn’t kill you, too,” Sheriff Lens said.

  “I don’t think so,” May told him, the tears spilling over. “It would have been like killing himself.”

  “I hoped that May’s nightmares about her parents’ deaths were over for good,” Dr. Sam concluded, “but she decided to return to Boston for psychiatric help, anyway. I was sorry to see her go.

  “The following Christmas, she wrote me she was feeling well and had met a nice young man. Her Duesenberg was beyond repair, but Rex fixed my Mercedes up as good as new. That still left me without a nurse, but I found another and her name wasn’t June. Next time I’ll tell you how she helped solve a mystery that really had me stumped.”

  THE PROBLEM OF THE BLACK ROADSTER

  “No, bank robberies aren’t what they used to be,” old Dr. Sam Hawthorne was saying over his brandy. “Today someone walks up to the teller with a note and she hands him a packet of money set aside for just that purpose. He strolls out while the automatic cameras snap his picture, and that night it’s on the local news. In most cases, nobody even sees a gun. In the old days, when I was a country doctor practicing in Northmont, things were different. This was the Depression, the days of John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson, to say nothing of Bonnie and Clyde. Those people didn’t bother with notes. They had shotguns and tommyguns to deliver
their message.”

  This was in the spring of 1935 (Dr. Sam continued), a few weeks before Easter, which wasn’t until April twenty-first that year. I was still without an assistant since my nurse April left to marry a resort owner up in Maine. On this particular Monday I’d phoned long distance to tell her of the peculiar events leading to the sudden departure of her replacement. Perhaps I secretly hoped she’d come back for a week or two, but I should have known better. She was being married in less than three weeks, on the Saturday after Easter.

  “I’m sorry about your troubles, Sam,” she told me over the telephone. “I wish there was some way I could help, but we’re so busy up here with the wedding arrangements. You’re still coming, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” I told her truthfully. “I’ll be there.”

  “I hope you find a new nurse before then,” she told me.

  Without an office assistant, there were a great many routine chores I had to do myself. One of them was the banking, and that Monday’s mail had brought a gratifying number of checks in response to the monthly billings I’d sent out the week before. I wanted to deposit them in the bank at once so I’d have enough money for the rent on my office and my apartment, as well as the first month’s salary for a new nurse, if I ever found one.

  My office in a wing of Pilgrim Memorial Hospital was a short distance from town, but with no one to answer the phone I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of the brisk walk to the bank I enjoyed so much. I drove the red Mercedes—my only extravagance—into Northmont and parked across the street from the Farmers & Merchants Bank.

  “Hello, Doc. How’s the car runnin’?”

  I had been getting out of the car and recognized the raspy voice of Sheriff Lens even before I turned around. I turned to greet him. He’d been putting on a bit of weight lately, probably the result of his wife’s good cooking, and I patted his middle as he came up to me. “You’ve got to take that off, Sheriff. Bad for the heart.”

  “I know, Doc. Have you found a nurse yet?”

  I shook my head. “I ran an ad in the Boston, Hartford, and Providence papers yesterday, but it’s tough getting anyone with medical experience to move to a place like Northmont.”

  “Where you headin’ for now?”

  “I’ve got some checks to deposit at the—”

  I was interrupted by a speeding black roadster that came up behind us and then cut over to the wrong side of the street to pull up in front of the bank. We saw two men run out of the bank. They were dressed like bankers, in dark suits and fedoras, but their features were covered by white handkerchiefs. The one in the lead carried a sawed-off shotgun—the other had a pistol and a money sack.

  “I’ll be damned,” Sheriff Lens rasped, reaching for his gun.

  The driver of the roadster slid across the seat to let the others in the driver’s side, and I saw a flash of long blond hair. The man with the money spotted us and saw the revolver coming up in the sheriff’s hand. He fired a wild shot in our direction—not close, but enough to throw off the sheriff’s return shot. His bullet went wild as the car pulled away from the curb. “After them, Doc! It’s a bank robbery!” he cried.

  Without thinking, I took off in pursuit, with Sheriff Lens clinging to the running board. “I can only see part of the license number—8M5. The rest is mud!” he shouted. The roadster made a sudden left turn and was out of sight. I followed in time to see it turning left again at the next corner. “Step on it, Sam—I want to get a shot at them!” I reached the corner and started to turn when a Ford touring car suddenly appeared, coming toward me. I slammed on my brakes, stopping just inches short of a collision. “Damn!” Sheriff Lens was off and running, his gun held high.

  The driver of the touring car, a young woman, saw him and let out a scream, apparently afraid the weapon was meant for her. I hurried over to reassure her.

  “The sheriff’s after some bank robbers. They just passed you.” I pointed off after them.

  “Oh!” She put her hands to her mouth. “I came this way for some peace and quiet!”

  Sheriff Lens came back, looking dejected. “No sign of ’em, Doc. They must have made another turn and there’s no one down the block to give chase. Come on, we’d better get back to the bank.”

  “Sorry about the excitement,” I told the young woman.

  “Did you see the passengers in that car?” the sheriff asked her.

  “Just a glimpse. I—”

  “You’d better come with us. I’ll want a statement from you.”

  “Come with you where?”

  “Follow us to the bank,” I explained. “It’s just around the corner.”

  Some others along Main Street had seen the escape and had ventured close to the bank, but no one had dared enter the building. “It’s awfully quiet in there,” Seth Simpkins remarked. He owned the tailor shop across the street. “Do you think they’re all dead?”

  “We’ll find out.” Sheriff Lens pushed open the front door, his revolver still drawn.

  The first we saw was Brewster Cartright, the bank manager, stretched out on the floor in a pool of blood. It’s true, I remember thinking. They’re all dead.

  But Cartright proved to be the only one dead. The other four bank employees were found handcuffed together and locked in a back room.

  The sheriff’s key didn’t fit the cuffs, so he went for a hacksaw while I checked them for injuries. “Tell me what happened,” I asked Greenleaf, the assistant manager.

  “It was terrible. They came in wearing those handkerchiefs over their faces and waving those guns. Right away I thought of Dillinger and all the bank robberies in the papers. I never thought it could happen here in Northmont.”

  “What happened to Cartright?”

  “The one with the shotgun came in first—by the front door—and shouted that it was a holdup. The tellers were all behind their windows, getting ready for the noon customers. Mr. Cartright was up front by his desk. He was sneaking up behind the gunman when the second one came through the door and shot him dead. No one resisted after that. We thought they’d kill us all.”

  “How much money did they get?”

  “I don’t know. They handcuffed us and locked us in the back room before they went after the money. They warned us to keep quiet or they’d shoot us, too.”

  I knew each of the three tellers—Magneson, Jones, and Ryder—through doing business at the bank. Female tellers were unheard of in those days, but it was a respectable if low-paying job for young men just out of school. “Did you recognize either of the two men as regular customers?” I asked them.

  Magneson shook his head. He was a curly-haired young man in his early twenties. “It was hard to tell with those handkerchiefs over their faces. But the voices weren’t familiar.”

  Sheriff Lens returned with a hacksaw and a bunch of keys. On the third try, one of the keys worked and the men were freed—rubbing their wrists and looking grateful. “Poor Mr. Cartright,” Greenleaf muttered. “He was a good man. He deserved a better end than this.”

  At this point, word of the shooting and robbery had reached the Cartright home and Brewster’s wife Lydia arrived, her face streaked with tears. I’d treated Lydia Cartright for the flu the previous winter and felt I knew her better than I’d ever known her husband. “Lydia,” I intercepted. “Let me take you home.”

  “Dr. Sam, I heard the news and I had to come. My place is here with him.”

  “You can’t do any good here, Lydia.”

  “Sam, he meant everything to me—he can’t just be gone so quickly!”

  “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  But out on the sidewalk, before I could reach the car, her brother came running up. “Lydia—I just heard!” Hank Foxe was a gangling young man still in his mid-twenties, some ten years younger than his sister. He’d worked at the bank himself a few years back, but apparently had decided the job seemed too much like charity from his sister and brother-in-law and was now employed by No
rthmont’s first automobile dealer, who had set up shop a few blocks from the town square on Boston Street.

  “Hank, he’s dead.”

  Foxe looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. “Bank robbers shot him,” I confirmed. “It was quick. He didn’t suffer.”

  “God!” He cradled his sister in his arms and led her gently away.

  “Do you still need me?” a voice behind me asked. I turned to see the young woman who’d been driving the Ford touring car.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I guess the sheriff and I forgot about you. The bank manager was killed by the bandits.”

  “How awful,” she said.

  I had an opportunity to study her for the first time. She was, I thought, in her late twenties. She had bobbed hair like many of the city girls were wearing—a sort of dirty blonde in color. “Things were so rushed I didn’t get your name,” I said.

  “It’s Mary Best. I was just driving through town on my way to Springfield. I’ve got a job waiting for me there.”

  “Doc!” Sheriff Lens called from the doorway of the bank. “Can you come back in here for a minute?”

  “Don’t go away,” I told Mary Best. “Your description of the men might be extremely valuable.”

  “But I didn’t really see—”

  The sheriff led me over to the body. “Can you do the formalities so we can get him out of here?”

  “Certainly.” I glanced up to make sure one of his deputies was taking notes. “The deceased is known to me as Brewster Cartright, manager of the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Northmont. He was pronounced dead at—” I glanced at my watch “—twelve-eight P.M., death having been caused by a bullet wound in the chest near the heart. The exit wound indicates the bullet passed through or near the heart, then out the back. Death was instantaneous.”

  Sheriff Lens nodded at me, his eyes watering as they sometimes did, and he signaled to a pair of ambulance attendants to come and take the body away. I reminded him of the young woman waiting outside. “Are you going to question her?” I asked him.

  “Yes, I have to get her name and address. Bank robbery is a federal crime. We’ll have the F.B.I. in here before dark. They’ll want to talk with her, too. I’ve already called the state police to set up roadblocks.”