Тэлмидж Пауэлл - The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™ - 25 Classic Mysteries

Lost & Found

Reward for return of package taken from trunk of T-Bird while parked at the Foster Motel the night of Oct. 26. Package contains book on poisons of interest only to students and book collectors.

Will double antiquarian book market price for immediate return. No questions asked. Call 253-6655 and hang up if Larry doesn’t answer.

Personals

To “Bookman”: Terms satisfactory. Will have cash on hand for delivery of book at Pickens Park, bench near fountain, at 9 p.m. Saturday. L.

Wanted To Buy

Centrifuge, distillation equipment, small laboratory furnace for amateur experiments in basement lab by student of toxicology. Call 253-6655 and ask for Larry or leave message with Marie, housekeeper.

Announcements

Due to illness Mrs. Thelma McCarson Summers of Rathmoor Estates will not receive callers until further notice.

Positions Wanted

Assistant maid seeks employment. Efficient and whiling worker. Box C-883 Chronicle-Times.

Employment Opportunities

Need fine craftsman and crew to clean out and restore basement in Rathmoor Estates home where explosion due to inexperienced handling of volatile chemicals resulted in severe damage and claimed lives of my husband and young housekeeper. Call 253-6655.

Announcements

Mrs. Thelma McCarson Summers, recovered from recent illness, is again receiving at her Rathmoor Estates home.

Autos For Sale

Classic T-Bird. Cheap. 253-6655.

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine , December 1981.

Dr. Terrence Gramling awoke that fine spring morning thinking about one of his patients, Camilla Jordan. She claimed his conscious mind as he briskly went through the automatics of his morning ritual — icy shower, aerobic exercises timed to the final second, choice of monogrammed underwear, bench-made shoes and gray vested suit by the best tailor in the city. As he emerged from the master bedroom of his expensive, severely-modern bachelor apartment, he looked every inch the successful and brilliant young psychiatrist. With his clipped Vandyke, whose lustrous brown matched the color of his hair, he did indeed resemble the Master, a Freud in mid-thirties.

He sat down to a breakfast prepared by his housekeeper-cook — two minute eggs, Danish bacon, whole-wheat toast and a cup of steaming Swiss mocha. As he ate, he beheld the new day through floor to ceiling glass that opened onto the balcony-terrace of his condominium. Golden warmth of sun. Clear azure sky. Birds singing, mating, wheeling in exuberant flight. Saps all rising to burst brilliant green through the landscaping of the courtyard. Spring... time of renewal... the moment for Camilla...

She had never been very far from his mind during the long past months that he had been her messiah. Now on this lovely spring morning his mind held a calculated inspiration for her. Perhaps his subconscious in its primeval wisdom had turned the final key while he’d slept...

Dr. Gramling was chief of staff at Haven Hill, a private sanitarium for the wealthy. He had chosen psychiatry because the infinite jungle of the human mind offered a challenge worthy of his talents. Even in medical school, comparing himself to his fellow students, he had assumed that he would quickly make a name for himself. And so he had. In a science so filled with mystery and uncertainty, Gramling was never visibly unsure of himself. He preferred to ignore his failures, of which even genius must suffer a few, but he was never reticent or shy about bringing his successes into the light of public and projected. Even hoary old colleagues, savants among the chosen, spoke Gramling’s name nowadays with a nod of respect.

Haven Hill claimed fifteen gently rolling acres behind stone walls softened and subdued by clinging ivy. As Gramling’s white jag nosed past the wrought-iron gate, his fiefdom spread before him, carpet-like green lawns, walkways bordered by clipped box hedges, the shadows of majestic live oaks, the white purity of multi-storied colonial style buildings with verandas tucked behind the tall columns. Here and there ambulatory patients were strolling in the company of nurses in the soft blue uniforms that Gramling, having done a study on the emotional effects of color, favored for his personnel. But it was the dark skeins beneath this surface patina of peace that absorbed Terrence Gramling. At Haven Hill in the space of a few weeks he would deal with a broader range of cases than many of his colleagues would experience in half a lifetime. Hill patients varied in age from six to octogenarian; and such a circus of fetishes, fixations, obsessions, compulsions, regressions, and you-name-it. Never was an orchard more fruitful, Gramling thought; and the pun was a verity, fully intended.

As soon as he was in his spacious, walnut-paneled private office, he rang for Iva Twugg. She was a short, dumpy woman of middle age whose blue eyes, an echo of the color of her uniform, had seen it all.

“Good morning, Twugg.”

The head nurse nodded a respectful, impersonal, neutral response, as Gramling would have it.

He stood behind the precise order of his huge desk. “I want to see Camilla Jordan, Nurse. Right away.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“And phone Camilla’s parents. I want them to come over for a talk. We may have something encouraging to discuss, the parents and I.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“And tell my private secretary, as you go out, to bring in Camilla’s file while you’re fetching our patient.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Twugg ushered Camilla into the office fifteen minutes later. The head nurse lingered at the patient’s side, easing away; and Gramling’s Vandyke twitched below his brightest smile as Camilla stood alone in the middle of quiet office.

“Good morning, Camilla. You’re looking wonderful. Isn’t it a lovely day?”

She looked at him steadily, in silence. In her early twenties, she was a slender creature of dark, exotic beauty. Her straight black hair was brushed to glistening highlights, framing the shadowed angles of her face. Neatly manicured, in an expensive, simple white dress, she seemed to have stepped from a society page. But there were two almost obscure details., the faint bulge of her dress over her abdomen, and the inverted cone of blackness in her eyes... eyes that nailed on Gramling with the intensity of a frozen bunny rabbit’s.

At Gramling’s slight nod, Twugg continued her retreat, softly closing the office door as she melted away. Camilla’s eyes jerked to the closed door, and Gramling knew she was feeling her isolation in this room with a male. He heard the hiss of her indrawn breath; it seemed he could feel her pulse rate thud through the room.

Once, the nearness of a male would have triggered her to violence, to a mad, screaming, tooth-and-claw struggle to escape. But Dr. Terrence Gramling had, at least, eased her from that precipice. This morning she pulled from the invisible knife-edge through a racking effort of her own, turning slowly to face him finally. She tilted away from his friendly smile, but at last accepted his gentle gesture and nod and eased onto the chair near his desk.

He moved quietly to a table in the further corner, picked up a silver carafe and poured steaming coffee into two bone-china cups. “Let’s see,” he smiled casually over his shoulder, “it’s two sugars and a spot of cream, isn’t it?”

She pressed back in the chair, clutching the leather-upholstered arms.

He crossed over to her, both hands burdened with cups and saucers. “There now. Nothing like a second morning cup, is there?”

He stood for a long moment with a cup and saucer extended. Gradually her slender hand moved to accept it. He strolled from her, going behind his desk, sitting in his high-backed chair, sipping his coffee and murmuring a sound of pleasure. Watching him, she slowly brought her own cup to her lips.