The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

by Alexander Laing

  Q. Mr. Michaud, at what time did you actually seal up the vault, and run chlorine into it?

  A. Eight o’clock in the morning.

  Q. What date?

  A. It was the day you gave me orders to do it.

  Q. That was April 4, 1932, wasn’t it?

  A. I guess so.

  Q. Was there anyone else present?

  A. You were.

  Q. Tell what you remember of the process.

  A. I packed the door chinks, and you said, “Let her down from 70 to 50,” and I turned the valve till that much gas had flowed. Then you said to disconnect the tank, and I said my white lead joints would keep it from leaking, and we might as well leave it hooked up. You bet me a box of Pittsburgh stogies if would leak five pounds, so we left it.

  Q. The evidence seems to show that I have lost my bet—that is, unless another tank has been substituted, reading 50. Now, Mr. Michaud, could the vault have been opened without your knowledge after it was sealed?

  A. Not unless somebody undid the fittings and ran in some more chlorine afterwards. There wasn’t a speck of mold on them stiffs.

  Q. Sheriff Palmer, is there any evidence that the vault was opened after it was sealed in my presence by Mr. Michaud at 8:00 A.M., April 4, 1932?

  A. (By Sheriff Palmer) No, your honor. The only person that could have opened it was Michaud. And the only person that could have unhooked the pipes was him. All them white lead joints and the stuff that plugged the door was covered with Michaud’s fingerprints, and nobody else’s.

  Q. And no new gas could have been introduced from another tank, sheriff, except by destroying and replacing at least one of those white lead joints?

  A. That’s right, honor.

  Q. Is this true, in your opinion, Mr. Michaud?

  A. (By Charles Michaud) I guess so.

  Q. Did you yourself open the vault, or in any way change the chlorinating apparatus between April 4th at 8:00 A.M., this year, and 5:00 P.M. on September 2nd?

  A. No, I didn’t open it, and I didn’t change a thing.

  Q. In your sixe years as diener of the medical school have you done all the embalming?

  A. I think so.

  Q. Who besides yourself have keys to the vault?

  A. You have one, and Dr. Alling, and Dr. Wharton, and Dr. Wyck had.

  Then came a series of questions which revealed that the diener had once been discharged for drunkenness and for selling liquor to students at a fishing shanty which he had maintained with Mike. The complainant had been Dr. Wyck. The diener had been reemployed on his good behavior, after a few weeks, and there had been no further complaints against him.

  The coroner next asked a question that totally surprised me.

  “Mr. Michaud, you were a very good friend of Mike Connell’s. Tell us how he saved your life in Belleau Wood in 1918.”

  Charlie replied that Mike had saved twenty-three lives in all by crawling up under pistol fire to bomb a machine-gun squad which, if it had had a few seconds more to get the gun into action, would have wiped them all out.

  A number of shrewd questions also established the facts that Charlie had heard rumors that Mike’s arm had been unnecessarily amputated and that the diener believed that his friend’s madness was a result of the amputation. I saw that a strong case was being built up against the diener, involving both personal malice and the avenging of his chum Mike. By this time Charlie was full aware of the bad impression he was making, and was sweating more than ever as he nervously twisted in his chair.

  “Mr. Michaud,” the coroner asked, changing the subject, suddenly, “what kind of instrument was it, in your opinion, that was used to murder Dr. Wyck?”

  “How should I know?” Charlie yelled, rising to his feet. “I haven’t even had a chance to look at the body!”

  “Please be more orderly,” the coroner admonished. “You have a right not to answer any question. I have only one more for you. Please tell us where you were form 9:45 P.M. April 3, 1932, until 8:00 A.M. next day.”

  “I don’t have to answer, you say?” Charlie asked. “Then I won’t answer that.”

  The coroner merely nodded and motioned for the next witness, who proved to be Biddy. I shall not try to giver her hopelessly muddled answers. She affirmed the great friendship between Mike and Charlie, admitted defiantly that she did not believe the amputation had been necessary, and answered to a direct question that she was by profession a laundress.

  When Kent asked ,”Do you do dry-cleaning?” she replied in the affirmative, but later changed her testimony to indicate that she thought the reference was to the use of French chalk for removing grease spots. Biddy was not asked to account for her whereabouts during the fateful night. Apparently Kent assumed that she had been with Mike all the time and was trying to implicate her only as an accessory, in the laundering and cleaning of Wyck’s clothes. It was an added relief to realize that he probably thought that I too had been at home all through the fateful evening, up to the time when I was sent to the hospital. After a few more questions, to clarify points already made, Kent dismissed Biddy and prepared to read the report of the autopsy which he had personally performed upon the cadaver of Gideon Wyck. After a moment or two of hesitation, he requested me to wait with the others in the anteroom.

  We sat there through a tense ten minutes or so. Biddy snuffled continually. Charlie had become torpid. Marjorie was reading the latest muck-raking life of Byron. Presently Charlie was called for further examination, and returned a few minutes later with a surly frown on his face. The deputy told Marjorie she could leave if she liked, and beckoned for me to reenter the courtroom.

  Nineteen

  To my vast relief, the jurors were filing out. Dr. Kent said, “Mr. Saunders, Dr. Alling requested that I permit you to make a copy of the post-mortem findings. As it will be filed in the town records, where any citizen can inspect it, I see no reason for opposing the request.”

  I set to work, under the eye of the sheriff, and made the following transcript:[1]

  POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION, of the body of Gideon Wyck, M.D., Æ 66/67 years, found dead and embalmed in vault of the Maine State College of Surgery, on Sept. 2, 1932.

  External Peculiarities. 1. An incision in the region of the left groin, leading to the femoral artery. (Made presumably to inject embalming fluid.)

  2. An ante-mortem puncture wound in the suboccipital region, penetrating the space between the first and second cervical vertebrae, and transecting the spinal cord at this juncture. This wound was presumably inflicted by means of a sharp, scalpel-like instrument in the hands of a person with knowledge of anatomy.

  3. A group of six minute scars in the left anticubital fossa.

  4. An ancient scar, ten centimeters in length, in the lower right rectus region of the abdominal wall.

  Internal Peculiarities. 1. A carcinomatous growth of medium malignancy at the neck of the bladder, capable of causing death within a year.

  2. Early carcinomatous metastasis to the bones of the skull.

  3. Evidence of pronounced internal hemorrhage in skull cavity and spinal cord.

  4. An atrophic and scarred area underlying the rectus scar, with adhesions to the peritoneum but outside the peritoneal cavity.

  Chemical Analyses. 1. Analysis of stomach and intestinal contents demonstrates presence of approximately 8 grams of diethylbarbaturic acid (veronal), enough to have caused death when absorbed.

  2. Analysis of other organs shows the presence of the above drug and leads to the presumption of a general distribution of the drug, the quantity probably under 4 grams. Enough to indicate possible chronic poisoning. Probably not enough to have caused death.

  Cause of Death. Transection of the spinal cord in the region of the first cervical segment, due to a wound inflicted by a sharp instrument. The nature and position of the wound indicate homicide. The other circumstances lend a strong presumption of truth to the idea that the fatal incision was inflicted while the victim was unconscious from the act
ion of the poison.

  Time of Death. Due to the time elapsed, and to the fact that embalming must have occurred within four hours after death, no time of death can be determined by anatomical inspection.

  Signed,

  HATHAWAY KENT, M.D.

  Coroner, Alton County.

  Witnesses:

  Eliphalet Smith, M.D.

  J. B. Otis

  The coroner went out while I was copying, remarking to the sheriff that he would be back in twenty minutes. The clerk, deputy, and county prosecutor also left. Sheriff Palmer paced up and down the hallway. Each time, in passing the door, he shot a glance toward me. Despite my knowledge of his attitude of having the goods on everybody, it made me nervous. Could it be that they expected me to betray myself by falsifying some detail in the transcript?

  I was doubly careful to be accurate to a letter. Presently the sheriff paused, staring hard at me.

  “What’s that there stuff they use to embalm a stiff?” he asked abruptly.

  “A mixture. Glycerin ,water, potassium ac—”

  “Leave out your hifalutin’ words. Supposin’ we heated some in a pan till it dried, what’d it look like?”

  “Like nothing much, I guess.”

  “Never mind guessin’. What’d be the color of it?”

  “I’m not sure. We can go down and find out, if you like.”

  “All right. Finish your job and let’s git movin’.”

  A few minutes later the coroner returned, but the jury was still deliberating when I accompanied the sheriff to the cellar of the medical school. I put a few drops of embalming fluid in a pyrex evaporating dish, set it over a Bunsen burner, and let it boil dry. The sheriff stared at the hardly discernible remains, grunted as if displeased, and shoved the dish aside.

  “Here,” he said, “put yer left hand in that stuff. Come now,” he added. When I had done so he gripped in turn each of my fingers and the thumb, pressing them on a strip of glass. This he passed over the flame until traces of moisture dried, and then stared through it toward the window. I held my breath fearing suddenly that I might have left some fingerprint in the vault, after we opened it, with no way of proving that it had not been put there before.

  “Naw, it ain’t you, and that ain’t it,” he decided. “Come in here.” He took the vault key from his pocket, opened the place, and told me to switch on the light. Then, with great care, he removed the bulb, replaced it with another, and carried his trophy out into the adjacent room.

  “Those ain’t yours,” he said, “which is too damn bad, ’cause if they was, we’d have a nice little party, you and me, down Portland way ’long about Christmas time: a necktie party.”[2]

  I looked at the bulb, and could see four whitish prints on it, of three fingers and a thumb.

  “What would you say that was, young feller?”

  “Putty?” I suggested.

  “Do they plug ’em with putty, anywheres, when they embalm them?”

  I had to admit that putt was not used at all in the process, and began to thank my stars that it was Charlie, not I, who had turned that bulb when we entered the vault.

  As if reading my thoughts, the sheriff continued, “Mister Charlie Michaud turned that bulb before you went in, or so both of you said, this morning. So I guess those are his prints, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It wouldn’t take you long to find out.”

  He thrust his head forward at me, drawling, “I dunno if you’re just dumb, or if you’re crawfishin’. Tell me all over again, what was it out friend Mister Michaud did just before openin’ that door.”

  “He stripped that packing from around it.”

  The sheriff took a bit of packing from the waste bin in which it still lay, and rolled it between his fingers.

  “Nice and black and oily,” he commented. “Had it all over his hands. And then, accordin’ to you, Mister—I didn’t get the name—”

  “Saunders.”

  “Yes—accordin’ to you, Mister—Saunders—with his nice black oily fingers Charlie leaves some fingerprints that look just like putty. Hmm. We ain’t allowed to hang ’em for bein’ as dumb as that, but they let us put ’em to makin’ baskets. Ever see the baskets they weave, down to the booby-hatch? Not bad, some of ’em, considerin’. Now just take a look here.”

  He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and turned it upon the bulb. Looking closely, I could see a set of fainter, brownish prints, corresponding with, and partly overlapping, the others.

  “Here, Sherlock Holmes,” the sheriff mocked, “have the hull works while you’re at it.” He proffered a magnifying glass ,and I used it in spite of his mockery. It was easy to see that the faint brown lines ran on top of the white ones. It was completely obvious too, that the prints were made by two different persons.

  “Them brown ones are Michaud’s, and they went on after the vault door was opened, this fall. I was kinda hopin’ that the others would be—yours, Mister—left there in a hurry last spring. The last feller out of that place was in an all-fired hurry t’ git out, and he twisted the bulb instead o’ takin’ time to run back the other way to the switch. Or do you think I’m wrong, perhaps, Mister—ahem—Saunders, isn’t it?”

  “I think you’re right, Sheriff. I snapped the switch once, and the light didn’t go on. Then Charlie turned the bulb, and it didn’t go on. I snapped the switch again, and it did light up. That left the switch back where it was. Therefore it had been in on the ‘on’ position all summer, and the bulb must have been turned off by twisting it, as you say.”

  “Got it down pretty pat, haven’t you? Little bit too pat, mebbe. That is, from a jury’s point o view. Well, come on, Sherlock, let’s mosey back and see if I have to turn you loose or put you in the hoosegow. Oh, wait a minute, while I get the stencil on the gas tank. Let’s see, 01014.”

  When we returned, the coroner’s jury was still deliberating. I had the opportunity to reflect upon unexpected features of the post-mortem findings. I could not see why the wound in the back of the neck could be so definitely called the case of death if the body contained so much veronal. The likeliest explanation was that whoever had drugged Wyck had wanted to get on quickly with the embalming, and had severed the spinal cord in order to make certain that the incision for embalming would not shock a comatose body back into consciousness.

  It was well past noon when at last the jury was readmitted. The deputy then went to the anteroom and returned with Biddy and Charlie. The foreman handed a folded piece of paper to the clerk, who read:

  “We find that the cause of death of Gideon Wyck was premeditated murder, since he could not have stabbed himself in the back of his own neck. From verbal evidence given by Marjorie Wyck and Charles Michaud we find that death occurred between the hours of 9:45 P.M., April 3, 1932, and about 6:00 A.M., April 4, 1932, since it would have taken some time to embalm the body afterward and place it in a vault which was sealed in the presence of a witness at 8:00 A.M. on the 4th. We accept the coroner’s recommendation that a bill of indictment be drawn up and presented to a grand jury by the county prosecutor, accusing Charles Michaud of the murder of Gideon Wyck, and accusing Bridget Connell as an accessory before and after the fact.”

  Charlie blinked, stood up, pulled off his dickey tie and limp collar, pushed both into his coat pocket, and sat down again. Since his compromise with the amenities, in the wearing of these ornaments, had not saved him from a dangerous plight, his mind apparently dictated the only immediate relief possible.

  Biddy turned in bewilderment toward me and asked, “What’s that he’s sayin’ about me, Mr. David? What does it mean?”

  The coroner said, “Mrs. Connell, you are accused of helping Charles Michaud to plan the murder of Dr. Wyck, and of helping him to evade justice afterwards.”

  “I did no such thing,” she screamed, and began to sob.

  “Sheriff Palmer,” Dr. Kent concluded, “you will hold the accused as material witnesses, pending the filing of the indictments.”

&n
bsp; I tried to comfort Biddy, and promised to do everything I could to help in proving her innocence. Dr. Kent had come up, and must have heard this declaration; but I was glad that he had, for it provided me at last with a public excuse for being thoroughly interested in the case.

  My head felt like a balloon as I left the town hall. For about five minutes I reveled in mere freedom and thoughtlessness. Then the reaction came from the pressing knowledge that Biddy was under arrest, with no husband or other relative to help her. If her witless way of testifying before the coroner was an indication of what could be expected in an actual trial, the county prosecutor would have no difficulty at all in making Biddy swear that she ate flatirons for breakfast.

  Knowing that Daisy would be lunching, I hurried and caught her leaving early for the hospital, where she had hoped to get quicker news of the inquest. We walked the back way, and I had time to tell her of all the important factors during the twenty minutes before she had to go on duty.

  After lunching at the dog cart, I typed out the post-mortem findings and made duplicate carbons for Daisy and for myself. A little later, she called me to whisper over the phone that Charlie and Biddy had been bound over to the Superior Court, which would commence its sessions on third Tuesday in September. It later turned out that she had learned this from a phone call by Dr. Kent to the attorney-general.

  I went myself to look up Dr. Kent and asked him bluntly what my rights were in arranging for Biddy’s defense. He replied that I could apply for a writ of habeas corpus, but advised me not to do so because a review of her testimony would show multiple assumptions of perjury. He suggested that my best course would be to place all decisions unreservedly in a lawyer’s hands.

  I had only twelve dollars in the world, and did not want to be responsible for drawing upon her nest egg of a thousand dollars from Mike’s accident insurance. Then I remembered that a fellow named Craig, a senior at State when I was a sophomore, had recently hung out his shingle in Phillipston. On the chance that he might take the case for glory, I rang him up, and he agreed to drive to Altonville next morning.