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  Amazing Stories, May, 1934

  Amazing Stories

  2

  Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitarium

  by Fletcher Pratt

  NOTE by the editors: The following manuscript discovered that he had begun to take drugs, and is one of the results of the famous Grimshaw he was returned to the institution. Some time Sanitarium scandal, an event which in its day, after this, while his wife and parents were in made a tremendous stir, cost a state Europe they received a cablegram from Dr.

  superintendent of hospitals his post, and turned Grimshaw announcing the death of the young the course of an election. But every state has its man. They at once returned to the United States scandals of this type. It is seldom that their and made arrangements for the removal of the reverberations extend beyond the immediate body from the place where it had been

  locality; and for the benefit of those who have temporarily interred at the Trinity (Episcopal) not heard of or do not remember the Grimshaw Chapel of Gowanda to the family vault at Short case, we will briefly rehearse the known facts.

  Hills, Long Island. While passing through New Dr. Adelbert Grimshaw, a physician of

  York City, the hearse carrying the casket was German extraction, opened a private sanitarium struck by another car. The hearse was

  for nervous cases at Gowanda, near the grounds overturned and the casket broken. It proved to occupied by the State Hospital for the Insane. It contain, instead of the body of Harlan Ward, a was a very select institution, catering to the dummy dressed in his clothes and stuffed with wealthiest patients, and the high fees Dr. sand, the face being represented by an ingenious Grimshaw secured from them enabled him to wax mask.

  establish a charity ward in which, with

  There was an immediate investigation,

  admirable public spirit, he labored to improve in the course of which many facts came to light.

  the condition of the indigent feeble-minded.

  The most striking of these was that in nearly Dr. Grimshaw appears to have effected

  every case of patients, whose death at the some remarkable cures in insanity cases; several sanitarium had been reported by Dr. Grimshaw, well-attested instances of complete recovery the body was similarly missing, and a sand-from paranoia are recorded under his stuffed dummy was substituted in the coffin.

  ministrations. At the same time it was noted that None of these bodies has ever been discovered.

  a good many patients died at his sanitarium, and The death certificates had all been signed by Dr.

  later investigation revealed that these belonged Grimshaw himself.

  to two classes—wealthy patients whose

  This sensational discovery was followed

  relatives were at a great distance, and both poor by the arrest of Dr. Benjamin Voyna,

  and wealthy patients who had no relatives at all.

  Grimshaw’s chief assistant. Papers found in the It was the case of Harlan Ward that led

  safe of the Grimshaw Sanitarium showed

  to the scandal. This unfortunate young man, the beyond doubt that it had been made the

  son of the famous automobile manufacturer, headquarters of a gang engaged in distributing was committed to Grimshaw’s sanitarium by his narcotics, and that both Dr. Grimshaw and Dr.

  parents and wife in the autumn of 1927 in an Voyna were deeply engaged in the traffic. It was effort to cure him of the liquor habit. He was undoubtedly at the sanitarium itself that Harland duly discharged as cured some eight months Ward had contracted the drug habit that proved later, but about a year after his discharge it was his ruin.

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  Of the other facts uncovered by the

  about them until some time later. When he police there were two of such singular character examined them, he found they contained

  that the present manuscript appears to afford the something white. Imagining it might be drugs of only adequate explanation for them, however some kind, he turned them over to the State fantastic it may seem. One of these was that Medical Examiner.

  while running a sanitarium and a drug ring, Dr.

  The Medical Inspector opened one of the

  Grimshaw apparently found time for the capsules and found that it held a small wad of breeding of large numbers of cats. Over thirty exceedingly thin paper, apparently cut or torn were found in and about the premises by the from the edge of a thin-paper edition of the State Police when they raided the place. The Bible. He noted that something was written on other, and more extraordinary fact, was that Dr.

  the paper in minute characters. With the aid of a Grimshaw, through a chain of agents, seems to microscope, he was able to decipher the writing, have been engaged in the peculiar business of which was finer than anything but the finest supplying circuses and vaudeville impressarios known engraving. Like the first, the other with dwarfs.

  capsules contained strips of paper, and when the Most of these midgets (as is not unusual) whole had been deciphered and arranged in its were morons, and many of them were both

  obvious order the following manuscript

  drug-users and drug-peddlers.

  resulted. It will be noted that there is a gap in Dr. Voyna ultimately received a jail

  the story, representing, probably, another sentence of five years; the heaviest allowable capsule which has not yet been found.

  for dope peddling under the laws of the United States. Grimshaw was never apprehended. INTO whatever hands this may fall, I pray to Warned no doubt by the first newspaper God that the finder will lay it before the police accounts of the bursting of the Ward casket, he at the earliest opportunity. I herewith lay a took to flight and has not been found since. If he complaint that Dr. Grimshaw is engaged in the is ever arrested it is doubtful whether any drug traffic; Dr. Voyna, his assistant must be charge but drug-peddling will lie against him.

  involved also. I fear that in spite of my The laws of New York require that a body shall precautions this will fall into Grimshaw’s be produced before a charge of murder can be hands; if so, it will only provide that good substantiated, the corpus delicti, and as we have doctor with a view of how he looks to other stated not one of the bodies of his victims has people—Sherman and Kraicki, Arthur Kaye and been found. Investigation of the doctor’s past myself. Dr. Grimshaw, we salute you! Behold career showed that he had been a graduate of your mirror—a mirror set in a skull, as it Heidelberg and Jena where he took high honors were—for we speak to you as men already dead.

  in endocrinology, but that he later lost his And you, unknown finder and reader of this last German license on account of malpractice. His testament of a dying man, if you be not

  original name was Grundhausen.

  Grimshaw himself, will you do me the last favor As to the present manuscript. When the

  that even the condemned of the scaffold may State Troopers raided the Grimshaw Sanitarium ask? A small thing—merely to inform Miss they found it nearly empty. In the search for Millicent Armbruster of 299 Wallace Avenue, incriminating evidence, which followed, one of Buffalo, that John Doherty is indeed dead.

  the troopers found three gelatine capsules in a Then put the police on the trail. The

  corner by the fireplace in the reception room.

  officers will no doubt be skeptical—ask them to He dropped them into his pocket and forgot make an examination of the coffin that

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  supposedly contains the remains of Arthur diploma is supposed to be beyond that sort of Kaye.

  thing, I fancy, but I made no comment,

  I may as well start my story at the

  imagining that Dr. Grimshaw knew his

  beginning, lest I be taken for one of the sad business. He did—to my infinit
e cost.

  souls that infest this place, merely maundering At the sanitarium I was given a pleasant under a delusion of persecution. I have no such room and very little by way of occupation. I was mania; neither am I one of the dipsomaniacs and kept in at all times save during meals and for a drug-fiends kept here for “cures;” strangely short period in the afternoon, when all the ironic word. My name is John Doherty; I am a patients were taken for exercise to a large park graduate of Hamilton College, class of ‘16, a or garden, with a small stream running through member of the Theta Alpha fraternity, and a it. During this period I encountered Arthur detective by profession. I was led into the Kaye, a large man with a high forehead, who business by a certain taste for romance and a was under treatment for dipsomania; a man physical development that caused me to become named Kraicki, a decayed Polish aristocrat of a a member of most of the athletic teams at sort who was troubled apparently with a chronic college.

  weak-mindedness; Sherman, the interne in I had been working for the Pinkerton

  charge of our wing, to whom I felt considerably agency for some time when they sent me as drawn by common tastes in literature and art.

  additional guard with a money shipment from There was little to do in the park but to Buffalo to Philadelphia. The messenger in sit and talk with these three. We formed a more, charge of it was suspected of double-dealing. It or less self-sustaining group, somewhat

  was essential that extra protection be provided, separated from the other patients and internes and I was locked with him in the baggage car.

  about us.

  The journey was a long one, the motion of the For a time, we attempted to amuse

  train soporific. I suppose I dozed; I was ourselves by playing bridge, but this resource wakened by a flicker of motion as the proved futile. Kraicki was totally incapable of messenger drew his gun, and we both fired at keeping his mind on the game, and would ask practically the same moment. My bullet killed the most absurdly naive questions about what he him; his just grazed my skull, rendering me should do when he held four aces. Naturally, the unconscious.

  enforced idleness began to become somewhat When I had recovered from the injury, I

  wearisome. I am of an intensely active

  found some difficulty in concentrating enough temperament, and have led an active life, and I attention on my work to do it properly, and my began to cudgel my brains for something to do.

  employers, as a matter of gratitude, decided to Even a covert breaking of rules struck me as a send me to Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitarium, which fascinating occupation; at least it would provide had already achieved a considerable reputation me with something to plan and accomplish.

  through the remarkable success of the doctor in Searching about for a rule to break in the handling just such cases.

  most interesting way, I hit on the problem of the I was received with extreme courtesy,

  wall. At the left side of the park a high stone subjected to a searching series of inquiries as to wall separated our bourne from that where the my tastes, habits and past life, and then given a charity patients were confined. Sherman

  series of tests that were readily recognizable as remarked one day that nobody but Grimshaw modified Binet-Simon examinations. It seemed himself, and his leading assistant, Voyna, were rather unnecessary, as a man with a college allowed beyond it, and the building in which the

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  charity patients were kept was only connected what I could observe through the peep-holes, with the main body of the sanitarium by a kind when I heard the grating of a key in the lock at of covered passage. To get over that wall and the end of the covered passage. The outer door solve the mystery of the seclusion of the charity was too far away to be attempted with any patients—that would be an enterprise worthy of prospect of success. I must find concealment, accomplishment.

  and quickly. Fortunately a large clothes hamper So one afternoon, just before we were

  stood in the hall. Into it I leaped, and by the called for the regular period of exercise, I grace of the gods, found it empty save for a arranged a dummy in my bed. After the exercise couple of towels. Through its sides I could get a period, as we emerged from the dining room, a somewhat imperfect view of the hall, and I saw more or less disorderly group, I slipped around that the newcomers were three in number—

  a corner into the operating room and waited Grimshaw, Voyna and a boy of about twelve, I behind the door till the attendants, who brought should judge.

  up the rear of the procession, had passed, then They passed me so closely that their

  back into the dining room, and out one of the clothes brushed my place of concealment, and windows into the park again. There I concealed they turned on the light in the room by whose myself in a little group of maples by the edge of door the hamper stood. I was unable to see what the stream until darkness came. I knew the night they were doing, but Grimshaw’s voice rose attendant in the halls would flash his lamp sharp and clear: “You’d better be reasonable through the peep-hole in the door of my room, and take your medicine. It will relieve the pain.”

  but trusted to the dummy (as I have many times A second voice replied, “But I won’t take it, I done in detective work) to deceive him.

  tell you. I know what it is, it’s dope. You can do After the lights in the building went out, what you like; you made a midget out of me, but I searched along the wall until I found a tree you ain’t going to make no dope fiend out of growing against it, scaled it with some little me.” The voice was neither Grimshaw’s nor difficulty and dropped down on the other side. I Voyna’s; I had heard both often enough. It must found myself in another exercise yard—not so therefore belong to the boy, and then the large nor so well carpeted with grass as ours, startling connotation of the speech struck me—

  and without the stream. It was entirely shut in it was no boy but a dwarf or midget.

  by a lofty wall, crowned with spikes on every

  “You won’t take it, eh?” said Grimshaw,

  side save that where I came over.

  with a kind of suppressed fury in his voice, “I’ll The windows of the charity patients’

  show you!” and I heard the sound of a blow.

  building were barred like ours. Thinking myself

  “No I won’t,” said the voice, rising near more or less of a fool and my adventure a rather tears.

  paltry one, I tried the door, more to assure

  “Wait a minute,” (this was Voyna

  myself of the impossibility of entering than for speaking) “That’s not the way, Grimshaw. You any other reason. To my surprise it was can’t bully these Americans. Show him how unlocked. In the lower hall, there was a single much he will gain by it. Look here—you take dim light, but the building was silent save for a the medicine the doctor is good enough to subdued moaning from somewhere upstairs.

  prescribe for you, and in a short time you will The maniacs who formed Dr. Grimshaw’s more not only be well enough to be discharged, but serious cases were usually making some noise we will find you a position in which you will of that sort, so I gave the matter no thought.

  make more money than you ever saw before.”

  I was about to try the upper floor to see

  “You go to hell,” said the third voice (it

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  had a singularly boyish timbre that touched me).

  Kraicki hung around and heard it too—

  “I won’t take your dope and won’t peddle your somehow I couldn’t seem to get rid of them.

  dope. Look at Tony Gasbotta. He’s peddling

  “My God!” said Sherman, when I had

  dope—” his speech was broken by the sound of finished, “So that’s why . . .” and he stopped.

  another blow, and somewhere, one of the

  “That’s why what?” I asked.

  maniac patients began to shout.

  “Why no one but
Voyna is allowed in

  “Shut the door, will you, Ben?” said

  the charity wing or on the third floor of this Grimshaw, and that was the last I heard.

  building,” he said. “I always thought it was My muscles were cramped by the queer.”

  confinement, but I lost no time in escaping from

  “But are you sure they’re not putting

  the hamper and the building. I wondered drugs in our food?” I asked.

  whether they had been giving me drugs in my He gave a little laugh. “Hardly

  food; how many of the sanitarium’s employees possible,” he said. “There are too many people were in on this business; and what lay behind all here and too many visitors. No, that would be these sinister manifestations. “You made a crude. Moreover, there are too many internes midget out of me” —what could it mean. I here. Someone would be sure to notice the taste.

  judged, however, that Sherman was honest It is very characteristic.”

  enough, else he would have been admitted to That was a relief, at all events. As to the whatever grisly secrets the charity building question of whether Grimshaw and Voyna were held. As to habit-forming drugs in our food, I actually engaged in the drug traffic, Sherman was not so sure, but it didn’t look like it, if they seemed not quite certain, but judged that the had to coerce the dwarf into taking the dope.

  best procedure would be to certify me cured, get And then, the whole thing might be the result of me out and let me return with search warrants a maniac’s imagination. I had no guarantee the and police and check up on that mysterious dwarf was sane.

  charity ward. Leaving the problem at that point, Nevertheless, I slept beneath the trees

  we went to dinner.

  that night. I feared that I might run into The table was unusually quiet that night, Grimshaw or Voyna in the halls, and if they and I imagine it must have grated on Kraicki’s were actually engaged in any such shady rather frayed nerves. At all events, before any of business as it seemed, such an encounter would us could check him, he burst out with

  be dangerous to the last degree. In the morning I