Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

THE NEW DOCTOR KILE ARE NOVEL though a door had been opened and shut again, somewhere. Kildare blinked and took a quick breath; then he made his feet carry him through the living room. In the hall a tall figure of a man waited at the foot of the stairs. It moved, and turned into the frowning face of Joe Weyman. "Well, Joe?" he asked. "I broke orders, Doc," said Weyman. "I had to. I heard the tinkle of that glass breaking and I just had to come in an' join you. If you take a trip up the river for burglary, I might as well go along." "I didn't hear the window raised. How did you come in?" "Through the door. I got a little lock-persuader, here." He showed a small bit of steel, like a section of hard spring. "Doc, d'you need all of these here lights to show the world where we're having our fun?" "We need light," said Kildare. He sat down and started smoking a cigarette. "Go look through the lower part of the house and tell me what you see, when you come back." "Lookat — I found this near the door," said Weyman. He held out a slip of paper on which was written in a swift, strong hand: "Darling: I lost my key and couldn't get in; but now I'll find it and come. Nelly." "Him and Nelly, I bet they have high times," said Weyman. "It doesn't fit," answered Kildare, and crumbling the paper impatiently, he dropped it into his pocket. "Go look around and tell me what you find." In two minutes Weyman was back. "Kind of sloppy guy. No?" he asked. "See anything worthwhile?" "This guy don't know nothing about women," said Weyman. "See the mugs he was drawing, in there? "Let's go upstairs," said Kildare. There were two bedrooms, one obviously for guests, and one bathroom. They went through the bathroom into the guest room, first. The door of it was so jammed that Weyman had to give it his shoulder. They turned en the lights. "What's the funny smell in the air, Doc?" "Dust," said Kildare. "This fellow Thornton has no friends. There's been no one in this guest room for a long, long time. That's why the door stuck, Joe. It simply hadn't been opened and the heat of a couple of summers gummed the paint together." He pointed it out at the edges of the door. Weyman said nothing as they went back into the master bedroom. There was a good thick rug on the floor and a bed that sat low on the floor with a stool for a bedside table with a short lamp on it. On the walls were varnished Medici prints of the Duchess of Modena and Rembrandt's Knight with a Spear. There was also an oil portrait of a redheaded girl in a green dress. She was no beauty, but she had a good smile and a fine, straight pair of eyes. The telephone, oddly enough, stood on the chest of drawers. A single number was written down on the pad beside it. There was a lall mirror against one wall, and opposite it was a closet containing a few suits of clothes. 1HERE was a small desk beside the closet door, with a clean blotter on top of it. Kildare pulled the blotter out from its frame and turned it over. It was spotted with ink blottings and with absentminded designs in pencil. "What's on there that you wanta know, Doc?" asked Weyman. "A lot of unhappiness," said Kildare. "How come?" "Wasted time," he said. He went over to the picture of the girl and pulled it out from the wall. The paper behind it was only slightly less faded than the rest of the paper in the room. That behind the other pictures was far darker and richer. "How is this, Weyman?" he asked. "He painted this picture six or seven years ago — or maybe only five. And yet he hung it only a short time ago." "How can you tell, Doc? . . . Ah, you mean the paper's faded a lot where it hangs." "It was hanging there for a while," interpreted Kildare, "then it was taken down, remained down for years, and finally was put up again." "Kind of cuckoo, ain't he?" said Weyman. "I don't know," said Kildare. "Go and stand in front of that mirror." "How's this? I look damn fine to me, Doc." "Stand closer." "Here I am, touching the glass." "Somebody stood still closer, however," remarked Kildare, staring at the rug. "Nobody could stand closer." "The rug's worn," said Kildare. "Feet seem to have walked right through that mirror. Can we move it?" That was easily done, and behind the mirror appeared a door. Weyman's bit of steel spring was used on the lock which gave at last with a small squeak, like the shrill of a mouse. Inside, they found a closet with a few women's clothes in it. Kildare reached into the closet and brought out a wisp of spiderweb. "She doesn't come very often, Joe," he said. He took out a green dress and shook dust out of it. "Not for about five years." "Five years? Where's the date?" "This was the fashion, five and six years ago. This is the dress he painted her in." "Come on, Doc! You mean that?" "See the bit of red peasant embroidery? It's the same dress, all right." "Then what's it mean? Why's he hang the picture on the wall and cover up the closet where her duds hang?" Young Dr. Kildare and Joe Weyman searched the dusty house which was the home of the mysterious patient Kildare went to the telephone and rang the number that was written on the pad. "Mahoney speakin'!" said a great voice. "This is Henry Thornton," said Kildare. "Thornton? Thornton? You mean that you're Mister Thornton? . . . Hey, Nelly!" Kildare sighed. Presently a rich Irish brogue was saying: "Is it you, Mr. Thornton? Is it you, darling? I was there, the more fool me, without me key. But I'll be back tomorrow and long before Saturday I'll have the house shining. And the new slip-covers will be ready. If only I can get the other bed out of the attic; there's hardly that much room for me and it to come down the stairs together! But don't have a worry in your darling head, will you?" After Kildare rang off, he said, "Now, let's try to find letters, Joe. Letters of any kind. I'll go through this desk. You go through the downstairs." But there was hardly a letter, and not a one that gave even a hint to Kildare. CHAPTER XIV KILDARE said to Gillespie, an hour or more later: "Thornton was married to a woman he loved. Something went wrong; I don't know what. She left him. After a while, he took it so hard that he couldn't stand the pain of seeing her picture on the wall." "Bah!" said Gillespie. "What sort of a thinskinned rummy is this Thornton?" "A painter," said Kildare. "I've no use for them," said Gillespie. "Poets and painters and the v/hole lot, I've no use for them!" Kildare said: "He couldn't stand the pain of seeing her picture on the wall. So he took it down. But not long ago, not very long ago, he heard from her. He had been living like a hermit, brooding, I suppose, without friends, seeing practically no one, doing work that he despised. But now he hears from his wife. Suddenly his life opens. He has a great shock of hope. He is going to meet her, some place. I don't know the place — I only know that the time was to be Friday, at noon . . . He was going to meet her and bring her home; there was to be a new start for them, probably ... At least, he'd arranged to have the house in good shape for Saturday." "You met somebody who knows Thornton?" "I got into his house; it had a lot to say. But it couldn't tell me where he intended to meet that wife of his. That's what I've got to find. They have a right to belong to one another. I have to bring her to him . . . They have the right. . . ." "What's your next step, young Doctor Kildare?" "I don't know. Sit down and think, I suppose." "Have you got time to sit down?" "I've got to make time." "How d'you make time, young man?" "The way you do ... by trying to be sure before I go ahead." "That's right. If you're going to swing an axe, be sure you hit the line. What's your line here?" "To make Thornton tell me where to find her." "How can you make a madman talk sense?" "I don't know. Only have a vague idea." "Your idea isn't vague at all. And it's scaring hell out of you," said Gillespie. Kildare lifted both hands and pushed them up across his face, pressing hard, as though the flesh were numb. "Jimmy!" roared Gillespie. "Yes, sir?" "You've been a damned fool before. I forbid you to be a damned fool again!" Kildare said nothing. He kept seeing his new idea and shrinking from it. "You're as stubborn as your father," said Gillespie. "Confound him, he insists that it's pernicious anemia that's killing Julia Cray. . . ." KlLDARE went out. Gillespie, his mind returning to the first part of their conversation, shouted suddenly after him, but he pretended not to hear. In the corridor beyond, he ran into old Molly Byrd. With young internes her manner was hardly less autocratic than that of Gillespie. "Young man, you've finally been able to do something worth while," she said. "Has Doctor Gillespie seen Carson?" he asked. "Yes. Didn't you know?" "I forgot to ask." "Forgot? Is there something bigger than Gillespie in your life, just now?" "Molly, what did Carson say about Gillespie?" "He says more than a person could hope — more even than you and I could hope. If Leonard will give himself even normal rest, normal food, and let the X-rays work to stop the gallop of the disease, we might have him . . . much longer. . . ." "Years?" begged Kildare, suddenly big with excitement. "No. Months," said Molly Byrd, sadly. "And who knows what might happen, if there are months and months?" said Kildare. "You mean that new things are being discovered?" "Of course they are. Any day there may be the great discovery that will wipe cancer out of the world!" "Oh, Jimmy, there may be; may there not?" "There will be, Molly, because there has to be." "You're only a liar, and a young liar, at that," said Molly Byrd, with tears in her eyes. "Molly, there's a Doctor Borodin. . . ." "Of course there is. He's one of my boys. And a damned bad boy, in the beginning." "I want to talk with him." "You're the funny one, digging and prying into all the dark corners where the dirt is," said the Byrd, "but you'll get nothing out of Dick Borodin now." "Why not?" "The poor man has no mind for any but one thing: Insulin shock for schizophrenics." "I want to see him." "You can't see him. He's closed up like a monk in a monastery." "Would he talk on the telephone?" "If I told him to, maybe." "You're going to tell him to." "He wouldn't talk except to some great man — or maybe to me, Jimmy." "You're going to introduce me on the telephone as a distinguished doctor, Molly." "I am not!" "Molly," said Kildare, putting his arm around her, "it's for a good cause." "There's no cause good enough to lie for." "There is, though," said Kildare. "Well," said Molly, "maybe you are distinguished. If there's such a thing as borrowing light, you've taken enough from Leonard Gillespie to begin to shine a bit, a small bit, in a very dark night. Come along with me!" 36