The Galton Case

Chapter 28

THE COMMUNICATIONS CENTER of the courthouse was a windowless room on the basement level, full of the chatter and whine of short-wave radio signals. Dr. Howell was sitting with his head down in front of a quiet teletype machine. He raised his head abruptly when I spoke to him. His face was gray in the white overhead light:

“So here you are. While you’ve been junketing around the country at my expense, she’s gone away with him. Do you understand what that means?”

His voice rose out of control. The two deputies monitoring the radios looked at him and then at each other. One of them said: “If you two gentlemen want to talk in private, this is no place to do it.”

“Come outside,” I said to Howell: “You’re not accomplishing anything here. They’ll be picked up soon, don’t worry.”

He sat in inert silence. I wanted to get him away from the teletype machine before the message from San Mateo hit it. It would send him off to the Bay area, and I had a use for him here:

“Doctor, is Alice Sable still under your care?”

He looked up questioningly. “Yes.”

“Is she still in the nursing home?”

“Yes. I should try to get out there today.” He brushed his forehead with his fingertips. “I’ve been neglecting my patients, I’m afraid.”

“Come out there with me now.”

“What on earth for?”

“Mrs. Sable may be able to help us terminate this case, and help us reach your daughter.”

He rose, but stood irresolute beside the teletype machine. Sheila’s defection had robbed him of his force. I took hold of his elbow and steered him out into the basement corridor. Once moving, he went ahead of me up the iron stairs into the hot white noon.

His Chevrolet was in the county parking-lot. He turned to me as he started the engine: “How can Mrs. Sable help us to find Sheila?”

“I’m not certain she can. But she was involved with Culligan, the Fredericks boy’s probable partner in the conspiracy. She may know more about Theo Fredericks than anyone else does.”

“She never said a word about him to me.”

“Has she been talking to you about the case?”

He said after some hesitation:

“Not being a practicing psychiatrist, I haven’t encouraged that line of discussion with her. The matter has come up, however. Unavoidably so, since it’s part and parcel of her mental condition.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I prefer not to. You know the ethics of my profession. The doctor-patient relationship is sacrosanct.”

“So is human life. Don’t forget a man was murdered. We have evidence that Mrs. Sable knew Culligan before he came to Santa Teresa. She was also a witness to his death. Anything she has to say about it may be very significant.”

“Not if her memory of the event is delusional.”

“Does she have delusions on the subject?”

“She has indeed. Her account doesn’t agree with the actual event as we know it. I’ve gone into this with Trask, and there’s no doubt whatever that a thug named Lemberg stabbed the man.”

“There’s a good deal of doubt,” I said. “The Sheriff just took a statement from Lemberg. A Reno gambler sent Lemberg to collect money from Alice Sable, and maybe rough her up a bit. Culligan got in the way. Lemberg knocked him out, was shot in the process, left him unconscious on the ground. He claims that somebody else did the knifing after he left.”

Howel’s face underwent a curious change. His eyes became harder and brighter. He wasn’t looking at me, or at anything external. The lines around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth curved and deepened, as if he was being forced to look against his will at something horrible.

“But Trask said Lemberg was undeniably guilty.”

“Trask was wrong. We all were.”

“Do you honestly mean to say that Alice Sable has been speaking the truth all along?”

“I don’t know what she’s been saying, Doctor. You do.”

“But Trenchard and the other psychiatrists were convinced that her self-accusations were fantasies. They had me convinced.”

“What does she accuse herself of? Does she blame herself for Culligan’s death?”

Howell sat over the wheel in silence. He had been shaken, and wide open, for a few minutes. Now his personality closed up again:

“You have no right to cross-examine me about the intimate affairs of one of my patients.”

“I’m afraid I have to, Doctor. If Alice Sable murdered Culligan, there’s no way you can cover up for her. I’m surprised you want to. You’re not only breaking the law, you’re violating the ethics you set such store by.”

“I’ll be the judge of my own ethics,” he said in a strained voice.

He sat and wrestled with his unstated problem. His gaze was inward and glaring. Sweat-drops studded his forehead. I got some sense of the empathy he felt for his patient. Even his daughter was forgotten.

“She has confessed the murder to you, Doctor?”

Slowly his eyes remembered me again. “What did you say?”

“Has Mrs. Sable confessed Culligan’s murder?”

“I’m going to ask you not to question me further.”

Abruptly, he released the emergency brake. I kept quiet all the way to the nursing home, hoping my patience might earn me an interview with Alice Sable herself.

A gray-haired nurse unlocked the front door, and smiled with special intensity at Howell. “Good morning, Doctor. We’re a little late this morning.”

“I’m having to skip my regular calls today. I do want to see Mrs. Sable.”

“I’m sorry Doctor, she’s already gone.”

“Gone where, for heaven’s sake?”

“Mr. Sable took her home this morning, didn’t you know? He said it was all right with you.”

“It certainly is not. You don’t release disturbed patients without specific orders from a doctor. Haven’t you learned that yet, nurse?”

Before she could answer, Howell turned on his heel and started back to his car. I had to run to catch him.

“The man’s a fool!” he cried above the roar of the engine. “He can’t be permitted to take a chance like this with his wife’s safety. She’s dangerous to herself and other people.”

I said when we were underway: “Was she dangerous to Culligan, Doctor?”

His answer was a sigh which seemed to rise from the center of his body. The outskirts of Santa Teresa gave place to open country. The hills of Arroyo Park rose ahead of us. With his eyes on the green hills, Howell said:

“The poor wretch of a woman told me that she killed him. And I didn’t have sense enough to believe her. Somehow her story didn’t ring true to me. I was convinced that it was fantasy masking the actual event.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t let Trask talk to her?”

“Yes. The present state of the law being what it is, a doctor has a duty to protect his patients, especially the semi-psychotic ones. We can’t run off to the police with every sick delusion they come up with. But in this case,” he added reluctantly, “it seems I was mistaken.”

“You’re not sure.”

“I’m no longer sure about anything.”

“Exactly what did she say to you?”

“She heard the sounds of a struggle, two men fighting and calling each other names. A gun went off. She was terrified, of course, but she forced herself to go to the front door. Culligan was lying on the lawn. The other man was just driving away in the Jaguar. When he was out of sight, she went out to Culligan. Her intention was to help him, she said, but she saw his knife in the grass. She picked it up and – used it.”

We had reached the foot of Sable’s hill. Howell wrestled his car up the climbing curves. The tires shuddered and screeched like lost souls under punishment.