The Book of the Dead by Elizabeth Daly Page A

great deal for me to attend to at home, and not much here; and it was only by the greatest piece of luck that I got that cancellation for the Limited.”
    â€œBut how tiring for you.”
    â€œIt isn’t so bad by plane. After the Western Merchants Bank in San Francisco telephoned me yesterday morning I caught the 1:17. I got here at 1:55 today. The manager of the Western Merchants branch here is with me now. If you could come up I should be very much obliged.” She added: “I don’t know anybody in New York. I haven’t been East in years. I didn’t know my husband was ill; I’m rather bewildered.”
    â€œHave you talked to his doctor, and the people at St. Damian’s hospital?”
    â€œI’ve talked to the hospital; they told me about this Miss Fisher. I want to know about my husband’s stay in Stonehill—and about this man Pike.”
    â€œI’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
    There was every reason for Mrs. Crenshaw to be bewildered—bewildered to the point of delirium; but her lifeless voice had sounded cool enough. Was she thickwitted? Gamadge didn’t know.

CHAPTER NINE

Business
    A S GAMADGE LEFT THE HOUSE he stopped to look with a burglar-conscious eye at the broad window-ledge that jutted out to the left of the front steps; it was no more than a short stride from the iron hand-rail, and there was a convenient hold in the brickwork above; one of a pair of little wall-fountains, lions’ masks and shell-shaped reservoirs, that he had brought back from Europe long before. Clara had had them put up on either side of the front door, and used them for plants or ivy. They were now full of geraniums; the fluted lip of the left-hand one would help anybody, even a not very agile person, from rail to ledge.
    I’m glad he didn’t pull the thing out of the wall and smash it, thought Gamadge. I won’t say a word to Clara. He had mentioned none of yesterday’s events to her when he talked to her that morning on the telephone.
    By half past three he was once more in the lobby of the apartment house; this time he was sent immediately up to the tenth floor. The house manager, an inscrutable expression on his face, stood waiting for him in an open doorway; he seemed to think that he and Gamadge were now comrades, and on confidential terms. He murmured: “Whatever you do, get it down in writing,” and led the way into a large lobby and through a doorway on the right. Gamadge found himself in a big, dim, well-furnished sitting-room, with bright glazed chintz on the upholstery, and awnings in the windows. There were windowboxes full of flowers, and the rugs or carpet had been replaced for the summer by matting. A pleasant room.
    A woman sat on the sofa with her back to the light; a man stood beside her. His hat and brief case were on a table near the straight chair from which he had evidently just risen. He came forward.
    â€œMr. Gamadge? I’m Watt, from the Western Merchants Bank. May I introduce you?”
    Gamadge, shaking hands, said he might.
    â€œMrs. Crenshaw, this is Mr. Gamadge. Mr. Gamadge,” said Watt, smiling, “is well-known to us in New York as an author and an—er—expert. You may safely follow his advice.”
    Gamadge murmured something.
    â€œThanks for coming up,” said Mrs. Crenshaw. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Gamadge?”
    Gamadge sat down; the apartment manager hovered in the rear.
    â€œI hope you like what you’ve seen of the apartment,” said Mrs. Crenshaw. “There’s a big bedroom, and a fair-sized dining-room, and a kitchen and maid’s room across the lobby. No guest room.”
    While she spoke Gamadge absorbed first impressions: a quiet woman—she sat motionless, her hands crossed on the handbag in her lap. A conventional woman—she could not have had many hours on the surface of the earth since receiving the sudden news that she was a