The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck (22 page)

On Sunday morning, I entered the school building with the idea of finishing the preparation of the last slides of tissue from the symmeli. Dr. Alling’s private laboratory connects with his office by an inner door. My key will open the regular entrances of both rooms, but not the door between. I was quietly at work staining the thin sections of protoplasm when Alling’s characteristic quick step sounded in the hall and stopped before the door of the office. A heavier tread sounded on the stairs.

“Oh, Prendergast,” I heard Alling say. “Yes, sit down. You remember the unfortunate coincidence that your petition of last spring was presented on the very night of Dr. Wyck’s disappearance. Well, as you know, the state has been unable to secure an indictment against the diener and Mrs. Connell, and the county prosecutor has been investigating the case further, with the idea of drawing up new bills of indictment on better evidence; whether against the same suspects, or others, I don’t yet know. What I do want to know is, have you been questioned?”

I shall not absurdly pretend that any Rollo-book notions of honor kept me from straining my ears and taking down in shorthand all that I could hear.

“Why no, sir,” Prendergast said, with a tone of pained surprise.

“Oh?” said Dr. Alling, as if a little surprised himself. “Well then, I want to warn you that you will be questioned, and probably fingerprinted, very soon. I don’t think legalities of method will stop Sheriff Palmer from finding out anything that might later be verified in the usual ways. I myself have already been asked how much time you spent with me that evening. Purely to make sure that what I said was not in error, I should like you to trace for me your own whereabouts between the faculty meeting and the noon of the following day. Do you mind?”

“Not in the least, sir,” Dick replied. “My uncle and I went home with you. We stayed probably an hour, and then drove to the Inn. My uncle ordered highballs for us, but they wouldn’t serve any. You know what an ardent Wet he is, politically. So we left the place and drove down to Phillipston. He had the same experience at the Craig, there. Well, that made him furious, and we fetched up in Shoulder Lake, at the Mason Lodge. There’s no trouble wetting your whistle there, you know, sir. It was then about midnight, I guess, but we stayed up awhile talking about my—er—dilemma. Then we went to bed, got up about nine the next morning, had breakfast at the Lodge, and drove back to Altonville.”

“Yes, that seems to dovetail in exactly with what I said, Prendergast. And you, of course, have a right to refuse to be fingerprinted without due process of law.”

“I realize that, sir.”

“Oh? Well, that will be all, Prendergast.”

I heard Dick leave; then came the noise of Dr. Alling using the Hunt & Peck system on the typewriter. After ten or fifteen minutes he also left. Suddenly the phone rang.

“Learn anything?” said Daisy’s voice.

“Why, how did you know I was—”

“Because you weren’t in any of the other places where you should have been when I tried to get you.”

“What did you want me for?”

“To tell you what you know already, that Alling had phoned Prendergast to come to his office.”

“But how did you know they’d left?”

“Oh, just a little device of mine. Listen, you’d better get out of there, because I have a hunch that Alling is going to ask me to find you in about a minute. Better scram back to your house.”

I was hardly inside the door when the phone rang. It was Alling, sure enough, asking me if I cared to drive Shoulder Lake with him for dinner. We stopped at the Altonville Inn, where the manager substantiated the first stage of Prendergast’s story. We proceeded to Phillipston. The manager of the Craig produced his night clerk whose answers fully agreed with Prendergast’s statements. At last we drew up at the Mason Lodge and had no difficulty in inspecting the ledger. Tolland and Prendergast were the last names entered under the date of the 3rd of April.

“Any way of telling just when they did arrive?” Dr. Alling asked the owner.

“I can tell you whether it was before or after midnight, by seeing if it’s the night clerk’s handwriting on the tally slip.” After rummaging in a file a bit he held up a sheet and said, “Before midnight.”

The tally slip, marked “Pd. Cash,” listed a double room and bath at $5.00, $3.40 for room service, and $2.00 for two breakfasts.

“Any way of telling whether either of them went out again during the night?” Alling asked.

The manager chuckled and said, “If he did, he went out like a light, or else on all fours.”

We had dinner and motored back to Altonville. I still had received no actual explanation, but, as we neared the school building, Prexy said, “Would you mind taking one letter, so that I can drop by the post office and get it into the night mail?”

I here reproduce the letter from the carbon in the files:

Altonville, Me.
Sept. 25, 1932

Hon. Harvy Tolland
381 East Park Boulevard
Portland, Maine

Dear Senator Tolland:

I take pleasure in informing you that your nephew Richard Prendergast has passed the first two preliminary examinations. His marks, by no means distinguished, were satisfactory evidence of summer study and of a changed attitude. The other examinations will come during the Thanksgiving recess.

As you doubtless already know, the grand jurors have found the indictment against Charles Michaud and Bridget Connell, in the Wyck case, “not a true bill.” The county prosecutor is in consequence redoubling his effort to secure an indictment. It is not unlikely that everyone connected with the school, including your nephew, will be asked for an alibi. I questioned him in private this morning, and feel sure that his story, if substantiated, will immediately absolve him from any further annoyance.

It will therefore be helpful to me to have a sworn statement of the time which he spent in your company from the adjournment of the faculty meeting, April 3, 1932, until noon of the day following. Your own signature to such a document will unquestionably serve to relieve your nephew from any further embarrassment.

Very sincerely yours,          
Manfred Alling.

When I had filed the carbon, Dr. Alling offered to drive me to my next destination, but I elected to stay and finish checking the cost of new supplies for the coming term. The main chance for error in my check-up had to do with apparatus for private use, purchased through the school to secure a better price. Such items were marked “Personal” on the requisition sheets.

Dr. Alling, who had private means, paid for all his own laboratory supplies, so in his case it was merely necessary to total the bill. There was nothing of any special interest, this time, except a newly developed type of kymograph,[
1
] which made its record upon a ribbon and thus was not limited by the size of the drum as on the older kind. As I was checking up its receipt, I got the pleasant notion of taking a record of my own pulse, ringing up Daisy while the machine was in operation to observe the effect of her voice on my heart. Then I tore off the ribbon to give her as a souvenir—a scientific warrant of my affection.

The requisitions were filed in a loose-leaf ledger. As I bent the back to slip Alling’s requisitions in with his former ones, the first leaf in the book caught my eye with its first item:

Cleaning Machine, Cat. No. 14086 Harley, Fanshaw
$9.00 less 25%

The sheet was five years old. Out of my subconscious arose the words of the sheriff’s report on the bundle containing Dr. Wyck’s clothing. “The suit and coat in the said bundle smelled strong of cleaning fluid.” I took down the big catalogue of the Harley, Fanshaw Scientific Supply Company, and looked up item 14086, confidently expecting it to be some device for cleaning laboratory glassware. It came as a shock to find the words

“Harley Home Dry-Cleaner”

and an illustration of an oblong five-gallon can, mounted askew on an axle, so that whatever was inside it would be tumbled around in all directions when the crank was turned. Cleaning fluid, not mailable, was listed at 85 cents a gallon. Fearfully I thumbed through Alling’s later requisition slips, and found that on each one he had ordered at least two gallons of cleaning fluid.

Alling was precisely the kind of person who would dry-clean and press his own clothes, not because of expense, but because of the remarks that he would imagine as passing back and forth among the cleaners about the absurd shape of his twisted coat, and of the trousers with one hip twice as big as the other. Moreover he had many of the fussy, fastidious habits of confirmed bachelors. I had noticed that he invariably made his own coffee, timed his own eggs, puttered with the pendulums of his clocks, and paused in the vestibule, when entering the house, to run a buffer over his shoes.

There were probably thousands of such machines sold. There might be more right here in Altonville. Nevertheless, I knew in my heart that they were uncommon, and that the possession of one was a strong presumption against Alling’s innocence, considering the fact that the bundle containing Wyck’s dry-cleaned clothes had been mailed in Boston at a time when Alling himself was in the city. I spent an hour going through the whole book of requisitions, to see if any other member of the faculty might have ordered such a machine. But none had.

For the present, I did not dare tell Daisy about this discovery. Of late, her own suspicions of Alling had been dying down.

I should mention the fact that bills of indictment had been drawn up separately against Charlie and Biddy, and that for a second time the grand jury had halted the state’s case by refusing to endorse either one. Rumor had it that Charlie had given a perfectly good alibi when questioned by the jury in camera. But their oath made it illegal for them to divulge any such testimony.

1. An instrument for recording wavelike motions, or modulations; especially for recording variations in blood pressure.—Ed.
   

After a night of worry about the dry-cleaning machine, I approached my morning’s task in a distrustful mood. But it took hardly ten words from Prexy—words spoken in the ordinary course of our business together—to convince me that it was absurd to suspect him. His passion to improve the curative facilities of mankind was so sincere, that I merely fell back upon the old formula, “The king can do no wrong.”

That was how matters rested between us, through most of the school year. Meanwhile, the state got nowhere with its indictments, and the sheriff was off on fantastic tangents of his own devising.

At the time of the second inquest I again asked Dr. Alling whether he wanted me to continue to withhold information which I knew to be pertinent, and he again advised me to construe “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” within the limits of the law of evidence—that is, he cautioned me that “the whole truth” meant no more than the full specific answer to any individual question.

Another hint of his legal knowledge came out in a special convocation of students and faculty, which replaced, in the fall of 1932, the usual rather meaningless opening exercises. Prexy spoke about the murder of Dr. Wyck, and its effect on the school’s fortunes. Five prospective students, he said, had canceled their applications. Six old ones had transferred to other institutions.

“We have suffered a double misfortune in the loss of a brilliant scientist and in the mystery that beclouds his death. As you know, this school depends for a large part of its sustenance upon appropriations of the state legislature. I must ask each of you to consider it his personal responsibility to guard the school’s good name. I ask a proper cooperation with the officers of the law who are investigating the death of Dr. Wyck. By the same token, I expect these officers to confine their investigation within strictly legal limits.

“It has come to my attention that efforts are being made by one official to take fingerprints of students, without due process of law. The maintenance of personal liberties is more important than the solution of any one crime. I therefore wish to offer the school’s official protection to anyone who feels that he is being imposed upon. I shall be glad to explain to any of you your legal rights. The laws of our state permit the taking of fingerprints only of persons accused of a felony or a more serious crime.[
1
] The prints must be destroyed if a conviction is not promptly obtained.

“One point more: at the request of the authorities, the vault and preparation room have to date been kept locked. A final inspection will be given these rooms tomorrow, and the bodies will be available for dissection on Thursday, October 6th.

“Gentlemen, I wish you the full reward of the endeavor which you bring to your studies.”

Hearing this candid speech, and the clapping that followed, I was glad that I had come to a decision about his inability to do wrong. His warning about fingerprints was justified, for the sheriff was going around with a list of all students, asking if they would like to be fingerprinted, and many had no objections. The state, Dr. Alling told me, was deliberately delaying its case now, until the next session of the court, as it was felt that the present grand jury panel would probably stand by its guns and refuse to find a true bill on circumstantial evidence of any kind—and as yet, so far as we knew, there was no other.