Erle Gardner: Turn on the Heat

I clung to the transom ledge with one toe resting on the doorknob. Bertha Cool slipped off a shoe and pushed it into my hand. I beat out the glass with the heel, then dropped the shoe and slid through the transom.

The gas was terrible. It stung my eyes and made me gag. The room was darkened with the shades all drawn and the drapes pulled into place. I had a glimpse of a bed, and the inert figure of a woman sprawled over a writing-desk, her head on her left hand, her right hand stretched out across the desk.

I held my breath, ran across to the nearest window, jerked the shades to one side, opened the window, stuck my head out, and got a breath of air. I ran across to the other window, opened it, and did the same thing. Then I ran out into the kitchen. The gas stove was going full blast. I could hear the hissing sound of escaping gas. I shut off all the valves and opened the kitchen window.

From the door I could hear the clerk calling, “Open up,” and Bertha Cool’s voice came drifting through the broken transom. “He’s probably overcome by gas. You’d better rim down and call the police.”

There were steps running down the corridor, and then Bertha Cool’s voice, sounding as calm as though she’d been giving me orders over the telephone, saying, “Take your time, lover. Make a good job of it.”

I went over to the desk. Flo Danzer had been writing. There was one letter addressed to Bertha Cool. It was in an envelope. I ran over to the window, took out the letter, and glanced through it. It was a long, rambling account of how she had tried to pose as Amelia Lintig. I saw the name John Harbet, saw the name of Evaline Harris, and then to my dismay saw the name of Dr. Alftmont, of Santa Carlotta.

I slipped the letter back into the envelope, hesitated a moment, then sealed the envelope. I whipped out of my pocket one of the stamped, addressed envelopes with a special delivery stamp in the upper right-hand corner which I used for making out agency reports. I pushed the whole business into this envelope, sealed it, and said to Bertha, “Over the transom.”

I sailed it up. I heard Bertha say, “What do I do with it, lover?” and I said, “Take it over to the mail chute, drop it, and forget it.”

I heard Bertha Cool’s step in the corridor. I was feeling giddy and nauseated. I ran to the window and took a deep breath. Then I went back and looked under Flo Danzer’s head. There was a piece of paper underneath it. She’d been writing, evidently when the gas overcame her. There was a pen in her hand.

I wanted to ease that letter out and see what it contained. I could get the words: To whom it may concern : — the writing seemed to be badly scrawled.

Wind was taking out some of the gas smell, but it was still awfully thick. My eyes were smarting and I felt strangely light-headed. I heard a man’s voice in the corridor saying, “There’s a terrible odour of gas,” then a woman’s voice, and then I heard the sound of steps running down the corridor, and the clerk’s voice saying, “The police will be here, also an ambulance. Here, break that door down. The man inside has been overcome.”

I figured that was the best I could do now. I heard the sounds of bodies slamming against the door. I ran towards the window and dropped down to the floor. I closed my eyes and, as though in a daze, heard the door crash inward and people were running towards me. Someone picked up my shoulders. Someone else picked up my feet. I was carried out to the corridor. People were running around, and a woman was screaming.

I felt fresh air on my face, and Bertha Cool saying, “Here, put him out on that window ledge. Hang on to his feet. He may drop.”

I inhaled great lungfuls of fresh air and opened my eyes. People were milling around. I heard the clerk say, “Poor chap. It was his aunt—” There followed a confused interval of blurred half-consciousness, and then I heard the sound of a siren. A few minutes later, officers from a radio car were in charge. After a while an ambulance came. People went into the room and came out.

I looked up into Bertha Cool’s face and said, “Remember to give them her name. She’s Amelia Lintig of Oakview.”

“It’s on the register, lover,” Bertha said.

“Be sure to see they get it right,” I said.

After a while I tried my legs. They were a little wobbly. A man in a white coat said, “How are you feeling, buddy? Think you can get down to the ambulance under your own power?”

“I want to stay here with my aunt,” I said.

Bertha Cool said, “It’s only partially the gas. He’s been under a terrific strain worrying about his aunt. He knew she was despondent.”

The white-coated man stuck a stethoscope on my chest, said, “Here, we’ve got to get him out to the air.”

I pushed him away and said, “I want to know what’s happened”

“You can’t go in there,” the ambulance man said.

“I’ve got to.”

Bertha Cool said cooingly, “Poor boy. It was his favourite aunt.”

I went into the room. Radio officers were in charge. One of them said, “It’s too late to do anything here. The body isn’t to be touched until the coroner comes. Who shut off the gas?”

“I did,” I said.

The clerk said, “They broke in the transom at my orders. I knew it was the only thing to do.”

Bertha Cool glanced at me meaningly. “You’d better go in the ambulance, lover,” she said.

I looked at Bertha, and said, “I can’t. There’s an important letter—”

“I know, lover,” she said. “Leave it to Bertha. She’ll take care of it.”

The ambulance man put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, buddy. Your heart is taking an awful beating. You got quite a dose of gas. If you could only smell your own breath, you’d realize it. You smell like a gas house.”

I went down to the ambulance. Strained, white faces in the lobby eyed me as though I’d been some alien creature. I stretched out on the cot in the ambulance. I felt a needle prick my arm, and heard the scream of the siren.

After a while I began to feel better and realized that the ambulance was the safest place for me — that and the receiving hospital. The police were looking for me in too many different places on too many different charges.

Bertha Cool called on me in the receiving hospital. “I have a cab waiting, lover, any time you feel like trying to leave. How are you?”

The nurse looked at my chart and said, “He’s suffering from a general run-down condition as well as the shock and the gas.”

Bertha said, “It’s no wonder. Poor boy. He’s been working twenty-four hours a day, and he isn’t built for it.”

The nurse said to me, “You must take things easier.” I said, “I’m better now. I think I can leave.” The nurse said, “Just a minute. I’ll get the doctor’s permission.”

She walked down the corridor. I heard the whir of a telephone dial, and then she started talking, saying something in a low voice which I couldn’t understand.

I said to Bertha, “Wise me up.”

Bertha, with an eye on the corridor, said, “You doped it out right. She committed the murder.”

“How about the confession?” I asked. “Did it mention Alftmont?”

Bertha said, “No. The confession was unfinished and unsigned, but it was in her handwriting. It was one of those ‘to whom it may concern’ things. It started right out by saying that she was the one who had murdered Evaline Harris.”

“Did it mention Harbet’s name?”

“No. That was in the letter she wrote and addressed to me.”

“Are we going to have to use that letter?”

“I don’t think so.”

“If we do,” I said, “remember that e had left her a stamped, addressed envelope, and told her to drop us a line about some other matter. She mailed the letter herself and—”