The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

by Alexander Laing

  Adjoining the cellar I could trace the vestigial remains of a barn. But the grass grew where its floor had been. Only the fieldstone foundations, and the bushes growing thickly around them in a rectangle, remained. I returned to town relieved, if doubly baffled; and my awful imaginings began to quite down for a few short hours, before taking on another form.

  Daisy Towers herself answered my ring. “Mother had dinner all cooking at seven when she left,” she said. “Come on in before it burns up.”

  She was wearing a black coolie coat with blue designs and loose blue satin trousers. I was pleasantly impressed by the fact that she was considerably more than good-looking. At the switchboard she always had a crispy and businesslike air which now was not apparent.

  “You heard about Mike?” she asked, and I nodded. He had been sent to the state asylum for an indefinite period.

  As I swallowed the last bite of Washington pie, she said, “I was waiting for you to get that down before giving you the latest tidbits. We’ve got another monster on our hands, born at six o’clock this afternoon.”

  “That’s nice. What’s queer about it?”

  “The thing that’s exceedingly queer about it is that it’s another symmelus.”

  “Good God! Who’s the mother?”

  “A girl from out Center way. At least she’s married.”

  “Anybody I’d know?”

  “Lucy Bennett. She’s twenty-two, and her husband’s sixty-odd. She spent three years at reform school, fifteen to eighteen, and then was farmed to the Bennetts as a girl of all work. Ma Bennett died about two years later and the old man decided it would be cheaper to marry Lucy than to go on paying her ten dollars a month.”

  “You seem to have the young woman’s case history at your tongue’s end,” I said. “Does the monster look like the other one?”

  “Yes, only more so. You remember how the other one’s leg ended in a blob of raw meat? Well, this one has all the toe bones of both feet growing out of the common stump, but about three times as long as they should be, with a web of skin between.”

  “Sounds as if somebody’s been trying to make a merman.”

  “So you think somebody was?”

  I scrutinized her to see if she was jesting, which did not appear to be the case. “Do you?” I countered.

  “David, I’m not sure what I think—about that. But I’m sure of one thing: that boy who was so interested when Sarah Mullin died reminded me of somebody. Remember? Well, who was it he reminded me of?”

  The truth came in a flash. The boy was featurally like old Wyck himself. I mentioned it, and she nodded.

  “Exactly. I went to school with him, through the fifth grade. His name’s Ted Watson. Then there was a scandal and he left town. His mother was shot by her husband. She was pregnant, and he’d been away for a year. The jury wouldn’t convict him of murder. He’d forgiven his wife the first time, and owned the boy publicly. But when she did the same thing again, he shot her. And at trial, he named Wyck the father of the boy, and sword that his wife confessed that Wyck was also the father of the unborn child that died with her. Wyck’s own wife was supposed to have died from the same of the disclosures, but she’d been an invalid anyway, ever since Marjorie was born.”

  “How much of an invalid?”

  “She never left the house.”

  “I see. That helps to account for Wyck’s behavior with other people’s wives, perhaps.”

  “Of course it does. You know that girl who works in the bakery in town? Well, who does she look like?”

  “Why—yes, I see. Rather like Marjorie Wyck.”

  “Almost her double. And there are a few more around town who look a lot more like Wyck than like their mothers’ husbands.”

  “Then your idea is that perhaps the boy killed Wyck by way of revenge for what Wyck had made him?”

  “Seems like it, doesn’t it?”

  “Then why did Muriel Finch clear out of town?”

  “The answer to that is why I asked you to supper. You haven’t been trying to get in touch wither all week for nothing.”

  “First let me see that transcript of phone calls.”

  She got her purse and handed me a slip of paper. Among the calls to the nurses’ dormitory was one, at 7:34, from Alton 808, which was the number of Wyck’s house.

  “Do you know who this was for?” I asked.

  “Probably for Muriel. The housemother said that the last she saw of her was when she called her to the phone at about half past seven.”

  “And who put in the call?”

  “That question shows why I should be on duty twenty-four hours a day. Jerry, the porter, had the board; and he didn’t notice. We called Marjorie Wyck, of course, to see if she’d spoken to Muriel at that time, but she said she’d been out for a stroll, and that the call couldn’t have been from her house, which she always locks up, since living alone.”

  I decided to make the plunge. “That call, Daisy, was from Ted Watson. I saw him stop in at the gas station at about quarter to eight last night with a gallon can. He carried it to his car, which was stalled down the hill past the Wycks’. He drove up to the house, stayed about two minutes, and then drove off toward Alton Plain. But he stopped at the southwest corner of the hospital fence to pick somebody up.”

  “Then you mean that he called Muriel from the Wycks’, on the way to the gas station,” she said. “But how did he get in to the phone, if Marjorie wasn’t there?”

  “He might have used Gideon’s key.”

  “Oh! But no, wait a minute.” She got a clipping from the Alton Courier, giving a precise description of all the articles delivered in the bundle of Gideon Wyck’s clothes. I pointed out that anyone who had these articles in his possession even transiently could have duplicated the key.

  “All right,” she admitted. “How did he get in the time you were watching him?”

  “He knocked, and Marjorie let him in.”

  “When was that?”

  “A little after eight.”

  “Then Marjorie’s a liar. She said she was out from seven until nearly nine. Which means she probably let him in the first time, too.”

  “He asked her to go somewhere with him, when I was watching, Daisy, and she refused. But the way he asked made it seem as if he was repeating an offer that he’d probably already made a short while before.”

  “Listen here,” she interrupted, “before we go any further, I want to know why you had your eye on him at all. What happened before that?”

  Having gone so far, I decided to go all the way. Therefore, after making her promise to say nothing to anyone without first consulting me, I told Daisy Towers everything I knew concerning the disappearance of Gideon Wyck.

  Thirteen

  If Daisy was correct in her belief that Ted Watson was Wyck’s bastard, the conduct of the two toward each other was made more understandable, and a thoroughgoing excuse for murder was unveiled. We decided that Ted had been dependent upon Wyck for a livelihood; that Wyck, who apparently had commenced to go insane about a year before, had bullied his bastard offspring into doing service as a chauffer and guard; that Muriel had been forced to become a technical assistant in his experiments; that the mothers of the two monsters had been the immediate victims; that neither Ted nor Muriel had known the ghastly nature of the work in which they were implicated until the monsters were about to be born; that Ted, in love with one of the victims, had been enraged to the point of murder when he learned of her fate; that Muriel might or might not have been his accomplice in the murder, but probably had been at most a passive tool.

  The admittedly improbable thesis that human monsters could be deliberately produced, and that they had been in this case, was strengthened by the fact that Daisy had discovered hospital records to show that Wyck had several times been called out Alton Center to attend Lucy Bennett in her pregnancy, and by our former knowledge that Sarah Mullin had been serving as a maid in Wyck’s own house up until about ten weeks of the birth of
the monster she had carried in her womb. His well known, devastating glance, moreover, was more than a hint of genuine hypnotic powers, which could have been exercised to aid in getting either woman to the ruined farm, about halfway between their two bodies.

  But even if Wyck’s secret had nothing whatever to do with the two monsters, there were equivalent motives for Ted to murder his father. The rankling fact of bastardy, the memory of a mother killed because of the seducer who had begotten him, the redoubled effect of thinking that a girl he loved had also died as a result of being seduced by his own father—these alone seemed more than ample motivation for the act.

  And then there was the obvious understanding between Marjorie and her half-brother, to indicate that they knew of their relationship and that he had thought it his duty provide her with a means of escape. That she had not taken it, and that he and Muriel had both fled, caused us to conclude that Marjorie might have known of the crime without having had any part in it.

  The effect of all this was to convince me at least that Wyck was dead, probably killed by his own bastard. But there was also a possibility that Mike, during his few moments in the cellar, had found Wyck hiding and had killed him with the axe which I had seen in his hand when he came out again. I had heard one piercing scream, which I had been inclined to think was a cry of disappointment from Mike himself, but if it was he who had committed the murder, Ted would have had less reason for fleeing so precipitately. Both Daisy and I were of the opinion that Ted’s going had been occasioned by the discovery of his hiding place, and by the fear that Mike might lead someone else to it.

  My talk with Daisy, therefore, resulted in a loss of most of my fears of supernatural occurrences, but strengthened the almost equally appalling suspicion that the insane old doctor had actually been successful in a deliberate attempt to produce monsters in human wombs.

  When I told Daisy that I was going to speak to Dr. Alling the next morning, and put him on the trail of Ted Watson, she replied, “Suit yourself, but you’ll live to wish you’d had better sense.” I inquired why, and she added, “He’s just too exceedingly smart, that’s all. If you think you can tell him part of what you know, and hold back the rest, you’re just living in a fool’s paradise. He’s the only person alive who’s been able to pump things out of me that I didn’t want to tell.”

  “Well,” I said, “what of if? Three brains are better than two. It’s quite likely that he knows a hell of a lot more about what Wyck was up to than we do. Between us we can probably piece out the whole story.”

  “Sure,” she said. “There isn’t a doubt of it. Thanks to the way Mike mauled you, Alling’s the only person except little Daisy who knows that you came in with blood all over your face, and your clothes in a mess, the night Wyck disappeared. That’s something you don’t have to tell him, you know. When you come around with a nice voluntary tale about how somebody else did it, that’ll be about all he needs to throw you in jail, sonny. Go ahead, tell him. But if I were you I’d find out where Ted Watson is, first. It smells just a trifle fishy when a murder suspect begins to lay the blame on somebody who doesn’t exist, so far as the authorities know.”

  “What do you mean, murder suspect?” I cried indignantly.

  “Just that, deary,” she said. “Why do you suppose he’s never repeated his request for information about how you got so banged up?”

  If I had phoned the sheriff immediately after Mike’s attack on Muriel, we doubtless could have intercepted Ted at the little bridge. My own procrastination now made it too late; and I was confirmed in my former resolve to wait until Dr. Alling himself saw fit to ask for an explanation.

  I am now going to hurry through a description of the summer vacation, stressing one important episode but sparing you the need to follow all the conversations we had about things which became plainer at a later date.

  Our school is unique in having an enrollment principally from small towns and farms, of boys who go home again to serve as excellent country doctors. Consequently, the second semester ends for us a month earlier than usual to permit many of the students to aid their families with spring plowing and planting. All except those who are to graduate can leave Altonville soon after May 1st. A few make a point of staying for Prexy’s annual lecture, at which he invariably—up to 1932—has presented some genuine and important advanced in morphological research.

  I stayed on because of secretarial duties attendant upon the official closing of school Dr. Alling omitted his celebrated lecture, for sufficient reasons. It was to have concerned itself with the tissues of monsters, using chance animal specimens, and monstrous insects developed in the laboratory. But the disappearance of his collaborator left part of the research incomplete; and the altogether bizarre coincidence that two human monsters should have been born at such a time in the local hospital monsters should have been born at such a time in the local hospital made it prudent to avoid the attendant publicity on such a subject, which the newspapers would be quite sure to garble in fantastic ways.

  Meanwhile, Daisy and I continued to meet frequently but we succeeded in doing little more than obscure the nicety of our original thesis. Her knowledge of odd events in the town made it possible for her to think of a number of other individuals with a grudge against Gideon Wyck. There was Ted’s “father,” who had shot his wife because of her affair with the doctor. Daisy knew of several other husbands who might have almost as good a cause to hate Gideon.

  And there was Charlie, the diener of the school building, who had lost his job for awhile for going on a fishing binge with Mike Connell and some students, when he should have been on duty. Charlie had stayed drunk for several weeks, buttonholing anyone who would listen to his troubles. He had attributed them all to Wyck, and had vowed that some day he would get even. Daisy pointed out still another possibility—that Biddy, with plenty of provocation, God knows, might have found a way to relieve the world of the author of her troubles.

  For some weeks, Dr. Alling had said nothing about the mystery that was making two-faced creatures of us all. I spent more time than ever with him after exams, getting the year’s records in order. The Short Sketch lay fallow until after commencement, when he asked me to step into his office.

  Hunched down into a big overstuffed chair, such as he always preferred, he looked tired and lost. “Well, Saunders,” he grunted softly, “there’s another year.”

  Without warning, I experienced the return of my old feeling of solicitude for this cripple, who acted so graciously toward a world that could understandably have bred only bitterness in his heart. He inquired about my summer plans. I told him my applications for a job as camp doctor were as yet inconclusive. He turned to stare out the window, and then continued:

  “Oh? I should like you to remain here if you will. You can have your meals with me. There is a great deal to be done on the book. We’ll both need two weeks off in August. Your present salary will continue.”

  Instinct told me to refuse, but did not supply me with reasons for doing so. Moreover, as I walked toward the hospital to tell Daisy, and get my bawling out, I realized that I was far less anxious to get out of town than I had been a month ago. Looking at her, I decided it was good fortune that let me remain.

  “He’s still trying to trap you into some kind of admission, Davy,” she commented.

  “If he is, he damned near succeeded,” I confessed. “He looked so worn out that I was on the verge of doing anything that would ease his mind. Then I remembered I’d promised you I wouldn’t.”

  “I only asked you to promise not to tell my part of it,” she reminded me. “The rest is up to you.”

  “I know, Daisy. I guess if we do any confessing, we’ll have to do it hand it hand.”

  “Suits me,” she said, giving my hand a swing.

  So we kept our counsel. One day in July Daisy whistled under my windows after the end of her stint, and when we had walked a little way from town toward Alton Plain, she said, “Well, it’s happened, kid. There’
s been a third monster born at the hospital, and Alling gave orders to hush the fact up. Nobody’s to know, except those in attendance.”

  “Whew! Then how do you know?”

  “People when they get excited say things over the telephone as if nobody in between could hear. Of course, we’re not supposed to hear, but the trick’s too easy, if you know how.”

  “Well, what kind is it, this time?”

  She spoke slowly. “It’s a third symmelus.”

  Minor abnormalities are frequent enough, but pronounced monsters have always been very rare. It was an amazing coincidence that two monsters of any sort should appear in quick succession at the same hospital. There of exactly the same class, until after all other possible causes had been investigated.

  I was thoughtful. “Got any new theories, Daisy?”

  “Nothing scientific, except that there isn’t a doubt that it’s Wyck’s doing. It would at least be a comfort to know for sure that he’s dead, and that this sort of thing therefore can’t go on much longer.”

  I was glad Daisy had been a nurse, as that made it easy for us to discuss such matters as these.

  Early in August I got my two weeks’ vacation. I decided to go to Nantucket, the most different place I could think of, within a couple of hundred miles. In going over some of Dr. Wyck’s effects with Dr. Alling, I had chanced upon an illustrated folder, glamorously extolling the island. The room I hired was in sight of the old windmill, and for a luxurious week I did nothing but take long walks across the lonely heath to swim by myself on the southern beaches, where a heavy surf discouraged the run of tourists. One say I walked the ten miles or so to the eastern end of the island. After changing into a swimming suit in a niche of the sand cliffs, I strolled down the beach. I was a little lonely, and felt like walking among the groups of people near the ’Sconset cottages.

  The shortage of men was evident. Several girls gave me the glad eye, but I thought I would make a choosy inspection of the whole beach before drumming up any acquaintanceships. Presently I came upon a group of five girls, in minimum costumes, burying a sixth person in the sand.