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

hospital?”
    Mr. Thompson smiled. “A doctor is quite right to humor his patient, Mr. Gamadge—when the case is hopeless; but in a hospital we go on fighting for the patient’s life, I’m afraid, until the end.”
    â€œX-ray treatments, all that?”
    â€œAnd blood transfusions. We never give up. But if we had done nothing at all, the result would have been quite the same.”
    â€œWell, I’m infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Thompson—”
    â€œI was going to suggest that if Miss Fisher cared to stop in this evening, Buckley’s would be very glad to see her—to see any friend. They might be glad to have a little ceremony. Mr. Crenshaw was a lonely man; he had nobody. Rather a sad thing.”
    â€œI’ll tell Miss Fisher.”
    Gamadge turned away in order to do so, and Mr. Thompson for the first time caught sight of Idelia on her bench. He paused, looked in considerable astonishment from her to Gamadge, gave it up, and with a backward glance of some perplexity removed himself from the scene.
    The receptionist had settled down to her reading again; Gamadge, satisfied that she was out of earshot, sat beside Idelia and put out his hand. He touched hers in its brown fabric glove, withdrew his own, and said: “I’m sorry. But he’s all right now.”
    Idelia’s response was to turn a stony look upon him. She said “Drugs!” and repeated it. “Drugs!”
    â€œIt wasn’t a bad guess.”
    â€œWhat is this leukemia, anyway?”
    â€œI know a little more about it than I seemed to know; I wanted Thompson to hand out information. It’s a disintegration of the white blood corpuscles, and when it’s acute it’s fatal.”
    â€œAre you sick a long time?”
    â€œNot always. The length of time varies.”
    â€œMr. Gamadge, he knew all the time that he was going to die.”
    â€œCrenshaw knew it while he was in Stonehill?”
    â€œThat’s why he acted the way he did; I can see it now! As if he was done with everything.”
    â€œHis doctor told them here that the first diagnosis was made by him in New York on the sixth of July.”
    â€œThere’s some mistake. Mr. Crenshaw knew it before. Pike was his nurse; he wasn’t afraid of him, he was afraid Pike would think he was tiring himself out, talking to strangers. Perhaps he forgot how sick he was while we were talking, and when he saw Pike that reminded him—that he was going to die. No wonder he looked frightened!”
    Gamadge said nothing.
    â€œAnd of course he forgot all about me and the book,” said Idelia. “He had that terrible attack. After he got to New York he had another. No wonder he forgot everything.”
    â€œExcept business.”
    â€œThings remind you of business.”
    â€œThere’s one thing in favor of your theory, Idelia: The Tempest . It occurred to me from the first that that was just the play to take with you on a last journey. But why should Mr. Crenshaw have concealed the fact that Pike was his attendant, and told you and everyone that he had picked him up in Unionboro?”
    â€œPerhaps he did pick him up in Unionboro. Perhaps he didn’t want anybody to know how sick he was.”
    â€œThen we’re dropping the inquiry?” Gamadge smiled at her. “You don’t want to know why your friend underlined those passages, what your friend wrote in the margins of his Shakespeare?”
    Idelia, taken aback by the reminder, said after a moment: “I forgot about them. Perhaps he rubbed them out because they were something about dying, and he didn’t want me to know.”
    â€œThe underlined passages weren’t about dying. The first one is about hanging, but that was a kind of joke.”
    There was a long pause. Then Idelia said in a voice that had sunk to a whisper: “Something was wrong. What could it be?”
    Gamadge replied as softly: “We might try