In the Teeth of Adversity (2 page)

“Look,” I said. “The best thing for you to do is get straight back to your surgery and call the police. Take my coat – you're pretty conspicuous in that white jacket – I'll pick it up later. I'll follow along right behind you. Then if the police question my presence, I'll say I had a sudden toothache and dropped in for emergency treatment.” It might not be the best story in the world, but it was several cuts above his. And I might be able to knock together a better one between now and the time the question actually came up.

He didn't move.

“Hurry up,” I urged. How long did it take a body to cool? Long enough for the police to detect the length of time between death and the time they were called in? “We haven't much time.”

“I – I haven't told you everything – yet,” he said. He seemed more interested in gazing into Pandora's eyes – however baleful – than in looking up and meeting mine. “You don't know the worst.”

I usually don't. “Go ahead,” I said grimly. “Surprise me.”

“Morgana is – was – desperately afraid of hypodermics. I did everything to try to save that tooth – I've babied it along for years. But it was no use anymore. And she'd never had a tooth out before. The very thought made her hysterical. I assured her that the extraction was necessary, but she'd worked herself up into such a state –”

He still hadn't looked away from Pandora. She was working herself up into quite a state, too. “Go on,” I said.

“Well, Tyler Meredith – my partner – has been developing a new anaesthetic. A gas type. He's worked on it for a long time, with very good results. We thought ...”

I began to see where this was leading, but I didn't want to believe it. I closed my eyes and hoped that, when I opened them again, the nightmare would have run its course.

It hadn't. He was still there, still staring into Pandora's eyes, still babbling on.

“... I can't understand it. We had such wonderful results with the laboratory animals –”

“Just let me get this straight,” I interposed weakly. “You mean that you used
Morgana Fane
as a guinea pig for an untried anaesthetic?”

“No! No!” He quivered with shock and tore his eyes away from Pandora at last. “I told you we'd tested it on guinea pigs –
real
guinea pigs. The results were excellent. Economy of operation, foolproof administration, the patient went under immediately, knew nothing, recovered in a minimum of time, with no side effects –”

“Except that the patient died.”

“She agreed.” He was almost tearful.

“In writing?” I asked hopefully. Perhaps we could build her up as a willing martyr to science. A heroine, undergoing risks, so that others might never know the terror –

“No,” he said reluctantly. “I never thought of that.”

I stood there and wondered if a few tiny hunks of silver amalgam were worth it. But it was too late to give them back.

“Here.” I crossed to the closet and took out my overcoat. “Put this on and get back to your surgery. You'll have to level with the police, but we ought to be able to work out a story for the newspapers later.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure – ?”

“Do we have a choice?”

He looked as though he'd thought of an answer to that one, too, but I didn't want to hear it. With his type of brain, it undoubtedly involved moving the body to some neutral ground and trying to pretend that she'd never kept her appointment. Judging from the speed with which he'd come running to Daddy, I didn't have any illusions about who had been cast as the corpse remover, while he stayed snug in his surgery establishing an alibi.

“Believe me, it's the only way,” I said firmly, shoe-horning him into my coat. It was a snug fit, but it buttoned enough to hide the white jacket, which was the important thing.

“If you're positive ...” He was still dragging his feet. I didn't exactly blame him. I wasn't too anxious to look on the last remains of Morgana Fane myself. A little of the zest goes out of living – even if only temporarily – when one of the legendary ones dies.

And Morgana Fane was as legendary as they come. Since she was discovered while performing in some quaint act at a remote seaside pier some fifteen years ago, she had been propelled into a fame which had never subsided. She was not only breathtakingly photogenic, she had a gift for getting into headline-dominating situations. The manner of her demise was going to be no exception. It wouldn't be easy, trying to soft-pedal this.

“I'll come downstairs with you.” I took Zayle's arm, allowing him no escape. “And I'll be in the taxi right behind yours. All you have to do is get back upstairs to your own surgery without being seen. I'll go straight into the waiting room and you can leave the rest to me.”

“But –” He was looking back over his shoulder at Pandora. “Will she be all right here by herself?”

Pandora arched her back and spat at him. She was a cat prepared to sell her life dearly. If she had to go, she was going to take someone else with her.

“I think she prefers it,” I said. “At any rate, my secretary is due in about half an hour.”

Which reminded me. I went back to the desk, ignoring the nasty comments from underneath it, and scrawled a hasty message. “Gone to the dentist. Emergency. Expect me when you see me. Doug.”

It was as close to the truth as it was wise to get on paper.

You don't see people at their best in a dentist's waiting room. In fact, you don't see them at all. No one bothered to focus on me as I entered, and if my case had been as serious as I'd been representing to the receptionist in loud tones, I wouldn't have bothered noticing them either.

As it was, I had a good look round while I crossed to an empty chair. Three dulled faces looked up from glossy magazines, just checking to make sure I wasn't anyone who was going to call their names.

The fourth seemed actively annoyed that I wasn't. “I've been here half an hour,” he complained. “It's not like Malcolm to keep me waiting. Are you certain he knows I'm here?”

“Quite positive, Sir Geoffrey.” The new receptionist, who had – unnecessarily – guided me into the waiting room, smiled brightly.

The old boy twirled his moustache and leered at her, betraying as fine a set of porcelain choppers as had ever been seen outside an antique shop. That explained why
he
wasn't afraid of seeing his dentist more than twice a year. Old Sir Malcolm – Endicott's father – determinedly fighting the spectre of retirement, listed his chess and poker pals as patients and scheduled them throughout the working day, so that he could maintain the fiction of still engaging in a busy practice in his top-floor office. It was relatively harmless, as self-deceptions went, and I knew the active partners encouraged him in it – if only to keep him out of their hair and their offices.

“Perhaps I ought to go up.” Sir Geoffrey leaned forward, shifting his weight to his silver-knobbed walking stick preparatory to rising. “Malcolm may have forgotten me. It's a long time since you announced me.”

“I'll remind him again.” The receptionist had a steely note in her voice. “He
is
busy, you know.” It was clear that she had no intention of allowing patients to roam about the premises as they pleased.

Which suited me. If there was any roaming to be done, I intended to be the one to do it, and it must be soon. By now, Zayle must have called the police and it would be beyond their comprehension if, having done so, he calmly rang downstairs for the next patient to be sent up so that he could fill in the time while waiting for their arrival. On the other hand, in the state he was in, it was just the sort of thing he might do. It was up to me to forestall him and get upstairs with him before the police came.

I gave a muffled groan and put a hand up to my jaw. I didn't even get a glance of sympathy from any of the others. Perhaps the groan had been too muffled – on my way out, I had snatched up a long scarf and wound it around my neck a couple of times. I felt that it not only gave the proper effect for someone suffering from a toothache, but it helped to disguise my identity.

Loosening the scarf enough to let sound escape it, I tried again. This time I gave a modified version of the anguished yowl Pandora lets out when she realizes that we are actually going past the fishmonger's without going in.

There were three short, sharp exclamations of sound as magazines hit the floor, having dropped from nerveless fingers. As befitted one who had seen action in numerous campaigns through the course of several wars, Sir Geoffrey was the first to leap into action.

“Good God, lad!” he cried. “Hold fast! Here –” He rapidly unscrewed the bulbous silver top from his walking stick and inverted the stick over it. The aroma of five-star Channel brandy filled the room as he thrust the bulb into my hand. “Here – drink this!”

I'd always suspected the cat of overacting. But I couldn't complain of inattention now. Every eye was on me. There was nothing to do but sip the brandy with what I hoped they'd take for a brave smile.

“That's the spirit, lad!” Sir Geoffrey encouraged. It certainly was – about 120 proof. He must have had it smuggled in privately.

“Terribly sorry,” I apologized. “My tooth ... suddenly ... emergency. But” – I shrugged deprecatingly, looking around at them – “you were here first ... with appointments ... I can wait” – visibly, I controlled a wince – “until the dentist can fit me in.” As I had expected, it was the one queue in which every true Englishman would gladly relinquish his place to another. The babble was deafening.

“Wouldn't hear of it.” “Take my place – only a check-up.” “I can wait. Nothing urgent.”

“Nonsense, lad!” Sir Geoffrey's voice overrode them all. “You can come up with me. Sir Malcolm himself will work on you.”

I paled. Sir Malcolm's tactics in field hospitals from the Somme to Salerno had figured largely in the bittersweet reminiscences of famous military leaders. To the point that it seemed probable, when future historians began investigating certain famous engagements in depth, they would discover an appointment with Sir Malcolm in the morning had led to more charges Over the Top than were motivated by any desire to win glory for King and Country.

There might be nothing wrong with me when I went into Sir Malcolm's surgery, but there would be when I came out.

“Drink up,” Sir Geoffrey urged, “and we'll be on our way. Don't sip – gulp it down. That's prime stuff. Why, I've seen amputations carried out in emergency field theatres with no more than that used as anaesthetic.”

I gulped. “No, really,” I said, trying not to choke. “I couldn't do that. I mean, the
young
Zayle is my dentist. It would offend professional courtesy, or something, if I went to his father, wouldn't it?”

“Quite right,” a no-nonsense female voice said firmly. “You must take my place. I must get back to the House, in any case. I can't wait here all afternoon.”

I took another look at the lady. Now that the colour was creeping back into her face at the prospect of evading her appointment and the magazine no longer masked her, I recognized her as the Rt. Hon. Kate Halroyd, one of our more embattled lady MPs.

“Thank you,” I said. “That's very kind of you.”

“Not at all.” She reinforced her words with a wide smile, and I could see that she had had plenty of practice in the past at avoiding dental appointments.

“You could take my appointment,” the other woman said. She, too, was identifiable now: the Hon. Edytha Cale-Cunningham, more usually seen in the context of horse and paddock and race meets. “But mine is with Ty – Mr. Meredith.
He
seems to be taking quite a long while, too,” she added wistfully.

“Perhaps they're in conference,” I suggested. With Morgana Fane expired upon their premises, the partners had quite a lot to confer over. I only hoped that Zayle had started the due processes of the law rolling before he'd got sidetracked. The thought unnerved me so much that I winced in earnest.

“You mustn't stand here in agony, poor boy,” the MP said as solicitously as though I'd been in her constituency. “Go straight up and tell Mr. Zayle that I said you were to have my appointment.”

“Very kind of you,” I said. “If you're quite sure –”

“And tell Morgana to hurry up.” The other man hadn't spoken before. As he was the only nonentity in the room – besides myself – that meant that he must be the latest in the constant succession of Morgana Fane's business managers. “Tell her we're due at
Vogue
in half an hour.”

I nodded. It wasn't for me to inform him that Morgana Fane was not receiving messages anymore. I wasn't supposed to know yet. I was just an innocent bystander who had dropped in for emergency treatment.

“Thanks,” I said, handing the silver bulb back to Sir Geoffrey. “Thanks – all of you. I really appreciate this.”

“Wait a minute, lad.” Sir Geoffrey halted me as I started out. “Strategy – that's what we need. All very well for this lady to give up her appointment, but that receptionist has her own ideas. I've crossed swords with her more than once. Damned contrary wench. She'd never let you get past her desk. Tell you what, I'll engage her in conversation and you slip past when she isn't looking.”

It seemed as good a plan as any; I was still cheered to know that access to the surgery was guarded so zealously. It reduced the chance of anyone's having wandered up to see what was taking so long. Not that I thought anyone had. They'd all been sitting around much too calmly for that. Morgana Fane's was not a body one might stumble across lightly.

Voices rose heatedly in the reception area. I didn't need Sir Geoffrey's frantic signal, as the receptionist flounced over to a filing cabinet, to slide past and dive for the door.