Free Death of an Old Sinner by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Norris.”
    “Now and then,” Mrs. Norris said, “I’ve taken a call to him from a woman who said it was his broker’s office calling. I think it was her called this morning. Remember, I told you? She hung up when I said he wasn’t home.”
    “I remember,” Jimmie said dully. It was a matter he would have to drop there. “Did he take you to Brooklyn yesterday?”
    “He did not. I thought of that myself when I heard he was there. He didn’t want us to know where he was going.”
    “And obviously he doesn’t want us to know where he is now,” Jimmie said. “All right, Mrs. Norris. I’ll call you later.”
    “Mr. Jamie?”
    “Yes.”
    “Have you eaten your dinner?”
    “Not yet.”
    “You go out of that room this minute and have a nice warm meal. Mind me, now.”
    “I suppose you’re right,” Jimmie said. “I can go downstairs and have them page me if he comes in.”
    “Do. And something digestible. Not too fancy.”
    But Jimmie was not paged throughout his dinner which he did his best to linger over, because the prospect of waiting in his room was too terrible. In fact, leaving the dining room at a quarter to ten, he made up his mind that he would have to take some action if he had not heard from his father by eleven. Jimmie stopped at the desk again. The Mulvany was a small hotel, elegant and intimate, such as had all but disappeared from New York, and it was very, very proper. There was suddenly a severe aloofness on the part of the clerk. Instinctively, Jimmie looked at the key box, room 519. His father’s key was not in it.
    Jimmie all but exploded. “Is General Jarvis in his room?”
    “He is, sir,” the clerk said frostily.
    “I asked to be informed…”
    “I beg your pardon, sir, you asked to be paged if he called. He was in no condition to speak to you, sir. Out of consideration for you, and our other guests, I thought it best to have him taken directly upstairs. He abused me horribly.”
    “That’s some satisfaction,” Jimmie murmured, and started for the elevator. “What time did he come in?”
    “An hour ago, perhaps,” the clerk said, glancing at his watch.
    He would never be governor, Jimmie decided in the elevator. Wherever he found them, he must call stupid men stupid, and all of them had the vote. Or, perhaps, thus would he come to office! When the only justice was poetic. He knocked on the door of 519. No answer. “Father, I’ve had enough nonsense,” he said, trying to make his voice carry without raising it. He knocked harder on the door. Still no answer. He tried the door. It was locked. He went around to the door of the bathroom which they shared. He hammered and all but kicked it in. To no avail. He called the desk then and asked the clerk to send up the pass key to 519, and when the clerk protested, Jimmie suggested that he send the house detective along with him; the old gentleman might have had a heart attack.
    He went out in the hall to wait. The house detective came, put his key in the lock and glanced up at Jimmie. If the door had been locked from the inside, the key was not in it. The detective turned his passkey, withdrew it, and gestured Jimmie to proceed.
    Jimmie threw the door open. The detective shone the beam of his flashlight about the darkened room. It caught the old man. He was awkwardly slumped over the back of a chair, as though he were hanging onto it, and yet in such a position that gravitation would seem to demand that he fall.
    Jimmie ran to him while the detective turned on the wall switch, flooding the room with light. The minute Jimmie touched him, the old man tumbled to the floor. He was dead.
    Dead, Jimmie marveled, wearing all the decorations befitting his rank and service. It was as though he had come upstairs and prepared himself for the next day’s duties before allowing himself to die.

12
    T HOUGH HE BEAR THE shame of it to his own grave, Jimmie had to admit to himself at least that, listening to the house detective call the Medical