Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 312 - Murder in White

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MURDER IN WHITE

by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in

The Shadow Magazine #312

February-March 1947

THE MAN in the tightly-belted trench coat, hat turned down all around in

a futile effort to prevent the pounding rain from slashing at his eyes, made

his slow way through New York's maddening traffic.

He was in the middle of the street when the light changed. He stayed

where he was in the center of the trolley tracks and let the speeding cars

swirl past him. There was nothing to do till the light changed back to his

favor. His pants were dripping from the muddy water thrown up on them by the

scudding cars.

He looked from side to side. So far so good. No one in sight who could

possibly know him. In the blinding rain people were contented to make their

own way along. They weren't interested in anyone else in the world.

That is, they weren't till a speeding cab, trying to jump the light, cut

around the corner and clipped the man in the trench coat. The cab sped on as

the man twirled like a ballet dancer and then fell heavily forward on his

face. The mud splashed up around him. He lay there perfectly still, while the

traffic cop on the corner made apoplectic noises on his whistle. The cab

hurried on unheedingly.

The same people, who a second before had hurried so on their anonymous

errands, now paused and eyed the fallen body. They stood, all with a certain

"there but for the grace of God" look in their eyes.

The policeman, huge and burly in his black shining raincoat, made his

slow way to the call box on the telephone pole at the corner. He called for an

ambulance and then, sighing, walked to the fallen man's side. He bent over,

but his rain coat got in the way. He had to get down on his knees before he

could feel for the man's pulse. It was steady and strong.

He didn't dare do anything else. He knew that in the case of a broken neck or

a badly injured back it might well be fatal to attempt to move the man from

where he lay. He went back to his post and did his best to route traffic

around the area. All the while he waved his arms and blew his whistle, he was

vaguely conscious of the clammy wet feeling in the knees of his trousers. It

made a counter-irritant to the annoyance of the rain and the accident.

The ambulance halted next to the prone body and the attendant dropped to

his knees in the rain. The cop grinned. His wouldn't be the only soggy wet

pants.

At one time, internes rode the ambulances in New York, but during the

war, because of the scarcity of doctors, they had to adopt the plan that other

big cities had. They sent orderlies, trained only in first aid, out on call.

It had worked well and they had continued it.

The attendants knew enough not to try any snap diagnosis. All they had to

do was determine whether or not to take a person to the hospital, and for this

they were well qualified.

Slipping a stretcher under the man, the attendant and the driver got him

off the street into the ambulance. A keening whine and all sign of the

accident was gone as though it had never been.

The crowd split up, became separate entities again and wandered on with

that hasty step that is so identifiable in any New Yorker. It doesn't matter

where a citizen of Manhattan is going, haste is of the essence. Even if he is

just scurrying from watching a building being constructed to another site

where a building is being torn down, he hurries.

Eeling through traffic, the ambulance made its way. The clang of the

ambulance bell rode high and clear over the other variegated street signs,

making its presence known in the nick of time to drivers of cars who pulled

over to the side of the street to give way to the white car.

Inside the ambulance, the man who had been knocked down lay perfectly

still. If, inside the broad brow, any thoughts were shaping and re-shaping,

there was no visible sign to denote it. The muddied trench coat, still drawn

tight at the belt, rose and fell gently with his breathing. As the ambulance

cavorted on its way, he was thrown from side to side. The attendant had to

lean over and hold him still as he bounced from right to left.

Rabout's Memorial Hospital was just ahead. The gates fell behind them as

the ambulance, slower now, made its way up to the receiving door. The

stretcher was transferred to a wheeled cart and an orderly in starched whites

rolled it down one of the long corridors.

The man, eyes still closed, was stripped now and covered with a white

drape that matched the walls and the cart on which he was being rolled.

The cart was wheeled into a room. The orderly turned to the completely

exhausted looking interne who stood and dragged on a tiny bit of a cigarette

which seemed glued to his lower lip.

The orderly jerked his thumb at the body and said, "Accident. Car. Forty

second and fifth."

The interne nodded and let a pale gray stream of smoke dribble out of his

nostrils. "D'ja look at his identification?"

"Nothin' on him. No laundry marks in his clothes. Money loose in his

pocket. No wallet. Nothing but a gun. A John Doe if I ever saw one."

The interne nodded as he bent over his patient. He busied himself while

the orderly yawned. "Hey, doc... "

"When did you get a night's sleep last?"

"What day is this?"

"Monday."

"Monday? Mmmm... seems to me I had about four hours sleep two nights ago.

. . . Yeah, I'm almost sure I did."

"What's with the John Doe?"

"So far nothing but shock. I better have Dr. Mavis take a quick look."

The man opened his eyes for the first time. He looked around and the

interne, nerves frazzled, prayed that he wouldn't ask the usual 'where am I?'

He was one in a million. He looked around the room and asked, "What hospital?"

"Rabout Memorial."

The man on the bed nodded thoughtfully and asked, "Is Dr. Bennit on?"

The interne nodded. "He's the resident."

"He's a good friend of mine. Could I have him look me over?"

"I'll see if he's busy."

Flatfooted with fatigue, the interne went out into the corridor. The man

who remained on the white bed looked around him carefully. So far so good. But

what lay ahead?

The door re-opened and the resident physician, Dr. Arnold Bennit came in.

He was in his middle forties and his bedside manner was not of the best. His

face was drawn in a tight-mouthed sour line. His narrow, intellectual forehead

was creased. Aside from that he was as anonymous as is anyone who wears a long

white jacket.

He walked to the side of the bed and said, "Thank God . . . or

Aesculapius, you are here. I'm just about really to burst at the seams. I'm

depending on you."

"The first step I should think," said the man on the bed, and if he was

in any pain it certainly didn't show in his strong features, "is to transfer

me into the men's ward. I'm completely isolated from the life of the hospital

here."

"I think you're right. I'll have it done. Have you decided what the

extent of your injuries is?"

"Why, doctor," the man on the bed grinned, "isn't that a rather

remarkable question to ask a patient?"

"You know what I mean... by the way, are you sure the accident went off

all right?"

"I'm quite sure no one knew it was a fake, if that's what you mean."

"Good enough. But you still haven't answered my question."

"I think a broken arm will be all right, if you'll go to my clothes and

get the gun that you'll find there."

Minutes later the man on the bed had his left arm strapped up in approved

hospital style. The bandages were, perhaps to the discerning eye, a little

bulky around the hand, but there certainly was little chance that anyone

except someone with x-ray eyes would be able to see the hunk of blue steel

that was responsible for the bulge.

Dr. Bennit looked at his peculiar patient and said, "How much do you know

about this mess?"

"I know that you are being held morally responsible for the death of a

patient on the operating table."

"Ummmm." Bennit said and his face became even more sour. "Almost right,

but he died after he left the table and I'm being accused of faulty asepsis. I

swear to you that I observed all the many necessary requirements. I was as

germ-free as it is humanly possible to be... and yet Thomas Melltin, man about

town and prominent industrialist died from an operation that was a hundred to

one in his favor."

The man with the bandaged arm moved it slightly in its sling and said,

"That's all you have to tell me, doctor?"

The doctor ran his hands down the sides of his white smock and his face

was bitter. "I have no idea how much you really know. You're as poker-faced as

that young lad we have down in the dispensary. What do you know?"

"I know that you were involved in some kind of business transaction with

Melltin before his death."

"Then you know that besides everything else I have a motive... a money

motive. For we had an agreement among the three of us that if one of us died

the others would divvy up the dead man's share."

"Who is the other survivor?''

"You know him. He's stock promoter, Francis Jolas. If he dies they'll put

me in the chair before I have a chance to turn around."

"Is there any chance of his dying?"

"From anything medical? No."

"You're in a tight spot anyway. One last thing . . . .No one has any idea

of my identity?"

"I'll put you down on the records as Larry Crimmins. That way your

initials will be the same. See you later," he said from the door. "See you

later, Lamont."

Cranston lay back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. This was going to

be tough. Here in the hospital, on foreign ground, his Shadow disguise would

be worse than useless. How could he fade into the shadows, into the darkness,

in a place where the walls, the ceilings, even the floor were painted a bright

white?

Yes, it would be tough. But even under these conditions, a mocking laugh,

a whisper of a laugh, floated around the corners of the spotless room and died

away as though they had never been.

For The Shadow knew more than any could suppose...

A HOSPITAL, an efficient one, is first of all a masterly run hotel. After

that it is a factory specializing in the mass production of the conquest of

sickness and pain.

As Cranston was wheeled along a seemingly endless corridor, he had plenty

of time to be impressed with the way Rabout Memorial Hospital was run. Nurses,

head nurses, attendants and orderlies, internes and doctors all went on their

endless interminable ways with the quiet precision of a well-made machine.

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