a clear hard voice, “I am very much all right, Joe, I am very
much
all right.”
And I sat down at the table, glanced politely at a rather blurred photograph of a woman that capped the story, and began to carefully read the column below it.
July 25/ Mrs. Hannah Meerloo, long-time resident of Carleton and noted philanthropist, was pronounced dead on arrival at Anglesworth Hospital early yesterday morning, following a fall down the cellar stairs in her home on Tuttle Road. Mrs. Meerloo was the widow of Jason Meerloo, killed in World War II, and had lived in Carleton since 1953.
In the house at the time of the accident were her niece, Leonora Harrington, whohad arrived just that day for a visit; a house guest, Hubert Holton, and her summer chauffeur, John Tuttle, a graduate student of Union College. Of the accident Miss Harrington said, “I heard this terrible scream and when I turned on my bedside light it was five minutes after one in the morning. I raced into the hall and bumped into Mr. Holton, who’d heard it, too. We knocked on my aunt Hannah’s door and then went in and found her lights burning but the room empty. We began searching for her, not knowing where the scream came from, and then we heard a pounding on the kitchen door.
“It was Aunt Hannah’s chauffeur, Jay, who sleeps over the garage adjoining the house. He’d heard the scream too. We finally found her lying at the foot of the cellar stairs. She must have been going down to the safe—there were canceled checks lying all around her. She was always up late nights, and the safe is in the basement, in the old preserve closet.”
Miss Harrington was admitted to hospital suffering from shock and gave this account this morning upon being discharged.
Joe said in an astonished voice, “It’s real then, Amelia: a very odd and disputable death.”
We were silent then, each of us immersed, I think, in this explosion of theory meeting fact. Hannah had written that she believed she was going to be murdered, and here was Hannah’s death described for us: a bizarre accident in the middle of the night, one of those inexplicable tragedies that
do
happen to people occasionally,except that more than a decade later we possessed Hannah’s note.
Joe said, puzzled, “But how was it done, considering what we know from her letter? And by whom? She
knew
these people, Amelia.”
“I think a successful murder has to be like a magic trick,” I said slowly. “Like sleight-of-hand, Joe, with something moving faster than the eye can follow.”
He said, “Give me Hannah’s note to read again.”
I dug it out of my purse and while he reread her letter I finished scanning the rest of the news column. It was Hannah’s obituary, but the pattern and shape of her life had begun to matter to me now as much as her death. It said:
Mrs. Meerloo was born Hannah Maria Gruble in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1925, the daughter of a carpenter and a schoolteacher. At 18 she married Jason Meerloo, whose father was an inventor who made millions from his various patents and inventions, a fortune his son Jason inherited several months before his tragic death in France. Left widowed and wealthy at an early age Mrs. Meerloo traveled extensively for several years and is believed to be the first American woman to have visited Tibet. In 1950, using her maiden name of Gruble she published a book for young people entitled “The Maze in the Heart of the Castle,” of which the New York
Times
wrote, “a small classic, a book for adults as well as children, full of enchantment and insights.” It is the only book Mrs. Meerloo is known to have written.
In 1953 she purchased the old Whitney house on Tuttle Road in Carleton and livedthere in semi-seclusion with her housekeeper. She endowed and built the Greenacres Private Psychiatric Hospital near Portland, established in 1946 the Jason Meerloo Orphanage in Anglesworth, and gave to this city the building which now houses the public library.
She
much
all right.”
And I sat down at the table, glanced politely at a rather blurred photograph of a woman that capped the story, and began to carefully read the column below it.
July 25/ Mrs. Hannah Meerloo, long-time resident of Carleton and noted philanthropist, was pronounced dead on arrival at Anglesworth Hospital early yesterday morning, following a fall down the cellar stairs in her home on Tuttle Road. Mrs. Meerloo was the widow of Jason Meerloo, killed in World War II, and had lived in Carleton since 1953.
In the house at the time of the accident were her niece, Leonora Harrington, whohad arrived just that day for a visit; a house guest, Hubert Holton, and her summer chauffeur, John Tuttle, a graduate student of Union College. Of the accident Miss Harrington said, “I heard this terrible scream and when I turned on my bedside light it was five minutes after one in the morning. I raced into the hall and bumped into Mr. Holton, who’d heard it, too. We knocked on my aunt Hannah’s door and then went in and found her lights burning but the room empty. We began searching for her, not knowing where the scream came from, and then we heard a pounding on the kitchen door.
“It was Aunt Hannah’s chauffeur, Jay, who sleeps over the garage adjoining the house. He’d heard the scream too. We finally found her lying at the foot of the cellar stairs. She must have been going down to the safe—there were canceled checks lying all around her. She was always up late nights, and the safe is in the basement, in the old preserve closet.”
Miss Harrington was admitted to hospital suffering from shock and gave this account this morning upon being discharged.
Joe said in an astonished voice, “It’s real then, Amelia: a very odd and disputable death.”
We were silent then, each of us immersed, I think, in this explosion of theory meeting fact. Hannah had written that she believed she was going to be murdered, and here was Hannah’s death described for us: a bizarre accident in the middle of the night, one of those inexplicable tragedies that
do
happen to people occasionally,except that more than a decade later we possessed Hannah’s note.
Joe said, puzzled, “But how was it done, considering what we know from her letter? And by whom? She
knew
these people, Amelia.”
“I think a successful murder has to be like a magic trick,” I said slowly. “Like sleight-of-hand, Joe, with something moving faster than the eye can follow.”
He said, “Give me Hannah’s note to read again.”
I dug it out of my purse and while he reread her letter I finished scanning the rest of the news column. It was Hannah’s obituary, but the pattern and shape of her life had begun to matter to me now as much as her death. It said:
Mrs. Meerloo was born Hannah Maria Gruble in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1925, the daughter of a carpenter and a schoolteacher. At 18 she married Jason Meerloo, whose father was an inventor who made millions from his various patents and inventions, a fortune his son Jason inherited several months before his tragic death in France. Left widowed and wealthy at an early age Mrs. Meerloo traveled extensively for several years and is believed to be the first American woman to have visited Tibet. In 1950, using her maiden name of Gruble she published a book for young people entitled “The Maze in the Heart of the Castle,” of which the New York
Times
wrote, “a small classic, a book for adults as well as children, full of enchantment and insights.” It is the only book Mrs. Meerloo is known to have written.
In 1953 she purchased the old Whitney house on Tuttle Road in Carleton and livedthere in semi-seclusion with her housekeeper. She endowed and built the Greenacres Private Psychiatric Hospital near Portland, established in 1946 the Jason Meerloo Orphanage in Anglesworth, and gave to this city the building which now houses the public library.
She
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