would-be murderer before he had a chance to slip his gas mask on—Poe never thought up anything as wild as that.”
“Okay, have it your own way,” he grumbled, “but—”
A grunt from Amberson deflected our attention from the corpse.
“Take a look at this, you fellers,” he commanded, holding out the sheaf of papers he had taken from the inside pocket of the dead man’s blouse. “Ever see a finer set-up?”
The first paper was a pass from G-2 declaring the bearer might circulate where he chose inside our lines in uniform or plain clothes; he was not to be delayed; all railroad transportation officers were directed to give him every preference. Intelligence work. The next identified him as Captain Albert Parker Tuckerman, infantry unassigned, on leave with special permission to visit the Paris area. Next were travel orders to Brest, Saint-Nazaire, Treves, Coblenz—each issued in a different name. Last, but far from least, was a complete list of personnel at our provost marshal’s offices, intelligence and liaison officers, and orders for troop movements and concentrations in occupied Germany.
Weinberg pursed his lips and gave a soundless whistle. “Looks as if you’ve caught a big fish here, sir. Who was he; any idea?”
“Nope,” Amberson shook his head, “but I’ll bet G-2 will be glad to see his photograph. There’s a Jerry undercover man been raisin’ merry hell with our arrangments; shouldn’t wonder if he’s here—” He jerked a thumb toward the still form stretched on the railway seat. “Just for once, I’m grateful to that big-mouthed apKern. When he began to sound off about carrying confidential papers, we all knew it was for Miss Watrous’ benefit, but this bird fell for it. He must have traveled with that can of carbon monoxide and gas mask ready for such emergencies. Maybe that’ll account for some of the mysterious disappearances of papers from our offices. Anyway, it’s fairly obvious that when we fell asleep he opened up his little bag o’ tricks and was about to swipe apKern’s dispatches when he got a whiff o’ his own poison and passed out.”
“But he didn’t die that way—” Weinberg began.
“Take it easy, buddy,” I admonished as I administered a none too gentle nudge with my field boot. “Let the board of inquiry decide how he died. Don’t go broadcastin’ that gorilla-stuff. Want to be slapped in the booby-hatch before you have a chance to sop a drink up at Treves?”
Weinberg lit a cigarette and took a thoughtful puff. “I don’t know how the big lug died,” he finally admitted. “Maybe he woke up and apKern talked him to death. But there’s something damn funny about it, just the same.”
“How?” Amberson demanded.
“Oh, nothing. It couldn’t have any bearing on the case.”
“Everything has bearing on a case like this,” the major answered with the cocksureness of the professional policeman. “What was it?”
“Well, when I went to give first aid to Miss Watrous, I noticed that her left puttee was unfastened and her shoe untied and only partly laced.”
“Humph. No, guess that hasn’t any bearing on our case. I know just how she must have felt,” agreed Amberson. “When I first came in the service, I almost died with my puttees. Even now I sleep better sitting up when I can loosen ’em and unknot my shoes.”
* * * *
Life was pleasant, even gay, at Treves. There was much influenza, but after the exertions of field and base hospitals with their never-ending lines of surgical emergencies, we found routine visitation and dedication of bed-patients almost a vacation. My quarters in the Blumenstrasse were comfortable, for a huge white porcelain stove drove back the raw damp cold, and the great bed of carved mahogany was equipped with double feather mattresses.
In intervals between duty I saw the town, visited the Porta Nigra, the great fortified gate past which the life of Treves had flowed since Roman days, the brick basilica and the vast amphitheatre where Constantine had butchered captives or turned them loose to be torn by wild beasts for the amusement of the populace. In the evening there was always plenty of amusement, dances, dinners, or the opera where fat German tenors serenaded equally fat German sopranos with a zest that defied years and embonpoint.
Felicia Watrous was a favorite everywhere, pouring tea at the officers’ club, dining at headquarters, or serving buns and coffee to the men. Half the younger officers were wild about her, but it took apKern to put their disappointment into words.
“Hang it, Carmichael,” he complained, “the gal ain’t human! She has you stopped before you get a chance to get cranked up. She’s—she’s like a nun. You know—just a mere spiritual entity, with her body already in the grave and only her soul remaining, and that swathed in a religious habit. You don’t fall in love with a nun any more than you do with a ghost, but—” he made a gesture of futility as he reached for the brandy to replenish his drink—“there it is! I’d go for her in a big way if she’d give me a break, or even act as if she knew that I’m around.”
I knew just what he meant. She had an odd trick—or an unconsciously conditioned reflex—of fading out of the real world at times and becoming entirely oblivious of her surroundings. Her power to dismiss the world from her consciousness, apparently to notice nothing about her, or even completely to forget the existence of the person talking to her, was extremely disconcerting to young men with matrimonial designs, and utterly absorbing to a doctor with a leaning toward psychiatry.
Then came the influenza epidemic of ’19. Ambulances strained and stalled with their loads of the stricken, hospitals were bulging with fresh cases till we set beds in the corridors and cellars and still required room for more cots. The only reason that we worked no longer was that no day could be stretched to yield a twenty-fifth hour. Our patients died like flies; at first that hurt us, for it’s no easier for a doctor than a layman to stand by and watch men die, but presently we grew used to it.
I had a patient in 18-B, an infantry lieutenant named Ten Eyck, and from the first I knew his case was hopeless. Yet he fought for life with a tenacity that almost startled me. “I have to get well, Doctor—” civilian titles were the rule among civilian soldiers—he told me. “There’s a girl back home I’ve got to see—”
“Of course, you will, son,” I soothed him. “You’re getting stronger all the time. Like me to write a letter to her for you?” I hadn’t time to act as secretary to a dying man, but somehow I determined to snatch it.
“I’d be obliged if you would sir. I’ve loved her since I was that high—” He tried to raise one hand to indicate a Liilliputian stature, found he lacked the strength for it, and lay back, panting, on his pillow. “Her father was a Presbyterian minister and her mother died when she was born.”
“Take it easy, Lieutenant,” I counseled. “Just tell me what you’d like to say to her; don’t waste strength on biographies.”
“But you ought to know this, sir. It explains why I love her so. You see, ’way back in 1894 her folks went out to Africa as missionaries, and she was born there. Their station was in western equitorial Africa, the gorilla country. One day, while her mother was walking in the garden, a great big buck gorilla came charging from the jungle. Hunters had killed his mate, and he was wild with grief and rage. He snatched her up and made off to the forest, but he didn’t hurt her. They found her next day in the hammock he’d made for his dead mate, quite mad from fright, but physically unharmed. Her baby was born the next week, and she died in childbed.”
As far as I
