The Late Clara Beame

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He poured the hot chocolate into a cup. David sniffed. “Smells good. Any extra?”

  Henry hesitated. “Well, there’s just about two cups left. Not enough to serve all the others.”

  “Then let’s be selfish,” David suggested, getting out two more cups and pouring the chocolate into them. “We’ll take our cups up along with Laura’s and spend a couple of minutes with her, cheering her up.” He deftly put the three cups on a silver tray and marched out of the room, Henry following him.

  Laura was half drowsing on her pillows over a book. The large and handsome room was lit only by the bed-light. She smiled and yawned luxuriously when she saw her visitors. Her face was flushed and her eyes were a little glazed. “I feel so comfortable and sleepy; it’s good of you both to waste your time on me. Three cups?”

  “Take your choice,” David said. “We’re having a cup of cheer with you so you won’t feel you are abandoned.”

  Laura took a cup, and yawned again. “Has the storm stopped? I don’t hear the wind much.”

  “It’s stopped,” David told her. “At least the snow has. Not the wind, though.”

  “I hope it’s hot enough, Laura,” Henry said, sitting on the edge of the bed and anxiously studying his wife’s face. She sipped and nodded, giving him a long and loving look. “Perfect,” she murmured. David stood and drank the chocolate. “Did you gargle with aspirin and take a couple?”

  She nodded as he reached out to take her pulse. Considering the heat of her hand, which indicated fever, he was surprised that her pulse was quite slow. “How much aspirin did you swallow?”

  Laura said guiltily: “Well, I wanted to be better by tomorrow, so I dissolved three tablets. Was that too much?”

  “Well, it’s more than the recommended dose, but it won’t kill you. It will make you sleepy, though.” So that accounted for the slow pulse.

  “You took nothing else but the aspirin?”

  Laura shook her head. “Nothing.”

  David patted her hand. “I think you’ll be better tomorrow. Just sleep as much as you can. If you feel worse in the night, call me. Hank will be here, won’t he?”

  “Oh, no,” Laura said. “Not when I have a cold. He’ll sleep in one of the other bedrooms. Don’t worry, David. I’ll be all right. I’ve had colds before.” Her dark eyes sparkled. “I’m going to use psychology. I’m going to be absolutely all right tomorrow.”

  She did not understand why David suddenly looked grave. But his voice was kind, when he told her: “Just make up the old mind, old girl. That’s psychology.”

  Henry kissed Laura on the back of her neck and murmured in her ear. Then he and David went to the door. “Merry Christmas!” she called to them as they went downstairs to join Alice and John Carr. Henry lit his pipe; David lit a cigarette. While doing so he caught his sister’s eye and nodded. She pressed her lips together and stared at the fire. Then taking a deep breath, she began to speak casually.

  “As you know, John, I’m a widow, actually the widow of a — suicide. Everyone’s keeping it all so nice on the surface, thinking to spare me, as they used to say. Sparing people is one fine way to make them remember everything more acutely.” She paused. “I can’t help it. I just feel like talking. Sam, my husband, killed himself and left a note for me. The autopsy showed that he had extensive cancer of the stomach and liver. So, he had apparently decided to kill himself and spare me, not to mention himself, months of misery and agony. We never did find the doctor who had told him. And I never noticed, myself, that he was sick. He always had such good color, though he had lost weight recently.” She put her hands over her face.

  David noticed the expression of sympathy on John Carr’s face. John said: “I know it’s against all religious doctrine, but I can hardly blame your husband, Alice.”

  “I told Alice,” David said, “as I told the police, that Sam must have known. In June of 1959 he and Alice visited me in Cleveland, and he mentioned that he had ‘some kind of indigestion’. Illness always made Sam impatient and mad, as if his body had let him down. But he’d never had any serious illness in his life. He asked me for something he called ‘stomach medicine’. I suggested a full G.I. series, but he refused; he looked insulted. ‘Just heartburn,’ he insisted. So I gave him a simple antiacid, in capsules, to take after meals and at bedtime. He could always have them refilled without prescription. Later he wrote me that the capsules had ‘helped him’. I never gave the matter another thought. However, he must have been bothered between June and December, and he must have gone to some doctor, probably in another city, under an assumed name. Sam was a bright boy. I think, myself, that he may have suspected, later.”

  “Too bad,” John commented. “If he’d taken your advice that June, he might have been saved?”

  “Perhaps. A bare chance. At any rate, his life would have been prolonged, and he wouldn’t have had as much pain.”

  “Where did he get the poison?” John asked.

  “I think I know,” David answered. “Though I never told the police, for the simple reason that it didn’t occur to me until much later. Months later. He got the poison from me.”

  Three faces turned to him at once, alert but silent. Then Henry blurted out: “What do you mean? You gave him poison?”

  “No. He took it. Hank, try to remember. Alice and Sam visited me in Cleveland, at that time, and so did you and Laura. You wanted to see my offices. Remember? It was a hot summer day. I showed you all around. And I mentioned that I’d recently attended a convention of heart specialists. One of them was a Hungarian refugee, who announced that he had done some work on tachycardia with a synthetic of the curare family. I told you about it. He gave us all a sample of his stuff, one capsule each. A minute quantity of the powder, mixed with water, and injected, slowed down the heart, our boy told us. Now, any of the curare family is lethal; the original curare was and is used by jungle hunters on their spears. I know it’s used in some way for polio victims. I haven’t followed that part up though. I showed all of you the capsule, and tossed it back in a drawer in its little box. I never did get around to trying it out, myself; I have too much respect for any form of curare. Conservative guy, me.”

  They were all listening. David lit another cigarette thoughtfully, and nodded. “I mentioned that the drug was deadly. Sam must have pricked up his ears. Did he know then that he had cancer? It’s very possible. He must have taken the little box when my back was turned, and no one else saw him, either. We were all over the examination room, and, as usual, I was sounding off on my specialty.

  “So, Sam had taken the capsule. He must have seen that I didn’t think too much of it, and that I’d probably never notice it was gone, and even if I did, I’d only wonder when I’d thrown it away. He — took that gamble. Even if I discovered it within a few days, or weeks, what would it matter? I’d never even think that he, or anyone else in that room with me that day, would take it. What for, anyway?

  “The police wouldn’t even tell me exactly what poison Sam had taken. They only said it was ‘virulent’.” David gestured with his hands.

  “But you don’t really know it was that capsule?” John asked eagerly.

  “I know now,” David said quietly.

  “How?” Henry exclaimed.

  David was silent a moment. “I examined Sam before the police came. There were some — aspects — of his appearance that puzzled me. I’d have sworn he had had a heart attack. If it hadn’t been for that damned note he had left — the police had his handwriting compared with other samples. It was his own handwriting, all right — I’d have staked my reputation that he had had a heart attack. He had had, too,” David added grimly. “His heart had been permanently stopped, by my capsule for tachycardia. His heart had been paralyzed. I don’t know how long he lived after taking it. He told me once, he would sometimes wake up in the night and take one of my an
tiacid capsules, white like the curare one.”

  John interrupted. “He couldn’t have taken yours by accident?”

  “Be sensible! Why should he have stolen it in the first place? He took it for a reason. Well, I doubt he lived very long after taking it. Oh, you wanted to know how I knew he had taken my capsule and what the poison was. One day last fall I suddenly remembered the curare. I don’t know why. So, I looked for it. It was gone, of course. Then I went to Chicago and visited the coroner’s office. I insisted on knowing what had killed Sam. After a lot of bullying, they finally told me. Then they were curious, too. Why had I wanted to know? That was ticklish. But I told them that I had thought, before I had seen the note, that Sam had died of a heart attack, and I mentioned that as my sister was still brooding over her husband’s suicide I’d like to be able to tell her that he hadn’t killed himself at all, but had died of an attack. They mentioned the note. I sheepishly agreed. End of episode.”

  “And they never traced the poison to you?”

  “No. How could they? They did wonder, though, where and how he had gotten it. The coroner said, however, that if a man wants to kill himself, he’ll always find a way. True. So does a murderer.”

  “You never told them you suspected Sam had taken it?” Henry asked after an uneasy silence. “From you?”

  “Certainly not. At the very least, they’d think I’d been damned careless, leaving the stuff around, which I was, of course, and not locking it up. They never traced the poison to me. For which I’ve been devoutly grateful.”

  He stood up. “Let’s have another drink.” He glanced furtively at his sister, whose face was pale even by the firelight.

  John reached over to take Alice’s hand. “All that must have been pretty terrible for you.”

  She spoke with an effort. “In a way, I’m not sorry it happened like that. Sam was spared many months of suffering. It was a shock, yes. But a quick one.” She attempted a smile.

  “Sam didn’t tell me, I suppose,” David went on, “because he was afraid I’d tell Alice. Yet Sam was one of those amiable, loquacious guys who couldn’t keep a secret. If someone told him one, he’d be dying to pass it on, or look so mysterious that you’d get suspicious and try to find out what he was up to. You’d usually find out, too; then Sam would look relieved. Also, as I’ve said, he hated the very slightest physical indisposition. If he even had a headache he’d insist on talking about it to the most casual acquaintance. He used to write me anxious letters about little creaks and groans in his carcass, and then I’d have to write back that the human machine was just as susceptible to grunts and twinges as mechanical ones. I remember one letter, ten pages of it, in which he gave a brilliant description of a passing touch of gout in one of his toes. I tell you, it should have been incorporated in materia medica! I told him to take aspirin, and if that didn’t help, to go to his local doctor. But Sam was terrified of doctors. He had a blood test, once, and passed out.”

  David, frowning, lit another cigarette. “Now cancer, when it’s beginning to assert itself, isn’t as uncertain and vague as passing gout pains. That’s what I can’t understand. Why didn’t Sam begin to write me frightened letters about his symptoms, describing each one minutely? He wouldn’t have suspected, in the very beginning. He did complain of what he called ‘heartburn’ and I did give him some antiacid, which Alice tells me he took religiously. Had he had any other symptoms — ” David shook his head.

  “I just don’t know. Sam may have been a hypochondriac, but unlike most hypochondriacs, he hadn’t the slightest knowledge of anatomy. Most hypochondriacs can diagnose their condition, and have surreptitiously studied medical books so well that they can give doctors a very precise picture. Sometimes erroneous, but sometimes right on the mark. But Sam didn’t even have the slightest knowledge of the simple process of digestion. His idea of anatomy was grotesque: it was all a deep mystery to him.” David paused. “I don’t think Sam ever ‘suspected’ that he had cancer. He couldn’t have. So, when the first definite symptoms appeared, he’d have written me volumes.”

  David stood up and made another drink for himself. No one spoke. Alice’s eyes were turned to the fire. John Carr frowned. Henry looked extremely interested.

  “But you told the police yourself, Dave, that Sam had apparently committed suicide — after all, there was that note — when he discovered he had inoperable cancer.”

  “So I did,” David agreed. “That’s what I thought myself. Then. I don’t think so, now, remembering Sam’s character and his letters to me.”

  “Then why did he kill himself?”

  “It must have been something else. Something we don’t know.”

  “Oh, God, what?” Alice murmured, pushing a strand of hair from her forehead.

  David sat down. “Alice, the three of us have known Sam all our lives. Did he seem bothered to you before he — killed — himself?”

  Alice shook her head. “No. I’d have known if he’d been upset. He was an extrovert, a happy, boyish extrovert. Always cheerful and optimistic. He couldn’t act to save his life. You remember the night he died? He wasn’t hysterically buoyant. He was just his natural, friendly self.”

  David glanced at John Carr, and as if cued, John asked: “There wasn’t anything wrong in your married life, was there, Alice?”

  Alice started, and turned her face from the fire. She answered, in a low voice, “Well, we’d known Sam all our lives. When we were children, Sam and I would talk about getting married, when we grew up. I suppose — well — we just drifted into it.” She swallowed painfully.

  Henry was staring at her. She forced herself to look back at him steadily.

  “But your husband did care about you, Alice?” John Carr asked, his voice warm.

  She sighed. “Yes, of course. But I’m not demonstrative. I took our marriage as a matter of course. Maybe Sam missed something. I don’t know. But I was fond of him.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “No children,” John remarked. “Did Sam miss them?”

  “I don’t know. Frankly, we seldom talked about children. I have a feeling Sam was relieved that we didn’t have any. He was so like a little boy, himself. Perhaps he didn’t want to be displaced.” She laughed softly. “He had so many friends. I didn’t know, myself, that he had so many. And he was always so eager to help people. He remembered what it was like to be poor. Hundreds attended his funeral, and went out to the cemetery, although it was a horrible day. Quite often, when I go to his grave, I find new flowers there. Everybody loved Sam. Everybody,” she added in a whisper.

  “And your marriage was happy, Alice?”

  She hesitated, then looked at Henry. “I think it was, for Sam. I’m not so sure, now, about myself. Let us say I was — contented.”

  “He never suspected?”

  “No. Sam loved everybody and he took it for granted that everybody loved him.”

  Henry turned to David, his frown deepening. “Just a little while ago you said that Sam must have known, and consulted a doctor. Now, you disagree.”

  “I’m not so sure of anything right now,” David replied blandly. He yawned. “We’ve been hounding poor Laura about being morbid, and yet we’ve been having a morbid conversation ourselves. How about going to bed? It’s well into Christmas Day, now.”

  “Let’s have one last drink,” Henry suggested.

  “I thought you were an early-to-bedder,” Alice commented.

  “So I am. When we’re alone. But this is a holiday. I’m not sleepy. Anyone else?”

  He threw a light piece of wood on the blazing fire. They sat quietly, watching it. David was worried. Something’s wrong! he thought. I can’t put my finger on it, but something’s wrong!

  Alice glanced uneasily about the large, pleasant room. “Laura often used to say she ‘felt’ Aunt Clara was around, especially on importan
t occasions. I used to laugh at her, and her superstitions. But all at once I feel, myself, that Aunt Clara’s here! Isn’t that stupid? I feel that if I turn my head quickly enough, I’ll actually see her, standing near that tree or peering through the windows. I never knew what she was looking for; there was nothing to see but the private road and the trees. But she looked, anyway. It’s funny. I feel her prowling, in her old, fat, clumsy way. Do you believe in ghosts?” Her question was for John.

  “How can I believe or disbelieve in them? Because nothing is absolutely proved doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There’s Dr. Rhine, you know, at Duke University, with his experiments on extrasensory perception, and his heaps of evidence on apparitions and occult happenings, beyond the laws of natural evidence. The belief in ghosts is too deeply embedded in human history and legend, civilized as well as savage, to dismiss it as fantasy.”

  “Then,” Alice said gravely, “Aunt Clara’s in the house. I almost heard the rustling of her dress just then! I wonder what she wants?”

  Laura was dreaming. It was a frightening dream, and she could hardly breathe. She was in the apartment in Chicago, where Alice and Sam Bulowe had lived. Again, though it seemed like the first experience, she had awakened in the twin bed next to Alice’s, and she was conscious of extreme thirst. The room was dark. She could hear the distant traffic of the restless city. She lay and listened, and her thirst grew. But she was a heavy sleeper and it took her a long time before she stirred — reluctantly.

  She got out of bed, fumbling, staring into the darkness, unable to see anything at all. She tried to remember where the bathroom was. She walked slowly, holding out her arms before her. Once she bumped into a dressing table. But she could not recall its exact location. Was it next to or beyond the bathroom door? She scraped her shin against another object, and bit her lip to keep from exclaiming aloud. Then her hand was on a doorknob. Relieved, she stood there a moment. What had she heard before she had awakened, or had she been more than half awake then? Quiet voices? A faint laugh? Yes! Now, she thought in her dream, why hadn’t I remembered that before? People talking. The boys talking. At this hour of the morning. Talking in the living room. But the living room was far down the hall. They must have been talking outside this room.