The Book of the Dead by Elizabeth Daly Read Free Book Online

valley; now it was climbing again. Idelia turned: “We’re almost there.”
    The bus stopped; they got out and walked through the steamy twilight along dark streets. At last they reached a corner where huge old sycamores hung their branches over a brick wall.
    â€œI don’t remember ever having seen this old place before,” said Gamadge. “Or if I have, I never noticed it.”
    â€œThe front entrance isn’t on this avenue,” said Idelia. “It’s down the street.”
    â€œShall we walk around the block first?”
    â€œYou like to start with the outsides of things, don’t you?”
    â€œThink of the things you buy,” laughed Gamadge.
    Perhaps Idelia did not realize that if they were now on very easy terms, she had Gamadge to thank for her lack of awkwardness. At any rate, she smiled up at him complacently enough as they followed the high wall up the avenue and into the next street. As they approached the end of the block they passed old wooden doors, painted green and padlocked. Within the grounds of the hospital could be seen the slate roof of a small detached building.
    â€œThe laundry?” suggested Idelia.
    â€œOr the morgue. This must be an old foundation; Crenshaw certainly picked up an oldfashioned doctor.”
    The big brick hospital filled the southeast corner of the block. It was a rambling Gothic structure, with high windows, a high doorway, and a high flight of stone steps. One of the oaken doors had a bronze tablet, with St. Damian’s Hospital in Gothic lettering; the other door was open.
    â€œDon’t we ring ?” asked Idelia, as Gamadge urged her through into a badly lighted hall.
    â€œRing? At a quarter to nine?”
    â€œIt might make them mad to have us walk in.”
    â€œThey’d be madder if they had to answer the bell. The hospitals haven’t enough nurses at present, much less doormen.”
    The hall was lofty and rather narrow, with paneling of shiny yellow oak and a floor laid with red and yellow tiles. There was a bench in an alcove along the righthand wall, and farther along in the same wall an office window. Gamadge left Idelia sitting on the bench, and went up to the window. A young woman sat in the rear of the little room reading a magazine.
    Gamadge tapped on the ledge.
    She got up and came forward. “Yes?”
    â€œI called to inquire after Mr. Howard Crenshaw.”
    â€œCrenshaw? Wait a minute. I just came on duty.” She turned to her switchboard, hesitated, and then began to rustle through a file of memoranda. She looked up. “You a relative?”
    â€œNo. I’m inquiring on behalf of a friend.”
    She turned back to the file. “I remember now; here it is, I found it. Mr. Crenshaw died this morning.”
    Gamadge looked back over his shoulder. Idelia, sitting forward on her bench, had followed the conversation; she sat motionless for a moment or two, and then sank slowly back to lean against the wall. Her face was expressionless.
    Gamadge faced the receptionist again. He said: “I’m greatly shocked to hear that. May I see someone who could give me details?”
    â€œJust a second.” The girl went into an inner office. She returned with a short, gray-haired man in spectacles, who came through a door in the partition and addressed Gamadge with interest:
    â€œI’m really glad to meet a friend of Mr. Howard Crenshaw’s.”
    â€œFriend of a friend.”
    â€œPerhaps of the lady who inquired before? Our receptionist tells me that she called last night and a week ago; described herself as a slight acquaintance, summer acquaintance.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    The spectacled man had no view of Idelia in her alcove. He went on: “The inquiry was filed and reported to the supervisor. Even last week—within an hour of the time Mr. Crenshaw arrived at St. Damian’s—he was unconscious. His doctor sent down word that he