In the Teeth of Adversity (3 page)

The thick carpeting on the stairs would have muffled any sound, even if I hadn't been trying to be quiet. It wasn't just that I preferred to remain unnoticed by the receptionist, nor even that I felt it would be lacking respect to the recently departed to make noise. It was something else – a dark, breathless void about the atmosphere – as though the whole house were gathering itself together against the explosion which was to come.

I found Endicott Zayle hovering in the doorway of his tiny X-ray room between the surgeries. He was staring at the closed door of his own surgery with wide, haunted eyes, as though he were waiting for some spectre to emerge and begin haunting him for the rest of his life.

He might be right. Certainly, if we couldn't smooth this unhappy incident over, it would haunt him in the press and in his professional, if not private, life from now until retirement. It would even figure prominently in his obituary notice, the reminiscences of the event quite over-shadowing his own demise. Haunting enough for any man, with no help from the supernatural necessary.

“You've called the police,” I said, trying to make it a statement and not a question.

He turned wild, glazed eyes onto me and I knew the answer.

“A doctor?”

“I – I can't. I couldn't use the telephone downstairs where everyone could hear me. Any my other telephone” – he gestured helplessly toward the closed door – “is in there. I – I can't go in there again.”

I checked my watch. Incredibly, only a quarter of an hour had passed since we'd left my office. We still had time – if we didn't delay any longer. I started for that closed door.

“No, wait –” He grabbed my arm, holding me back. “Give me just another minute, to – to –”

“You've had plenty of time to get used to it,” I said firmly, trying to shake him off. “The longer we delay now, the worse it will look.”

“But you don't understand.” He gripped tighter. “You can't. You're a layman. You only read about it in the papers from time to time. You can't know what it means to a professional. It's the nightmare we all dread. A patient – someone who looked and acted perfectly normal – sitting there, perfectly all right one moment. And the next – with no warning. You can never tell beforehand who's going to react in what way. Every patient is a bit apprehensive. It's too bad, but it's natural – from their point of view – I suppose. But
one
of them – one in perhaps hundreds of thousands – is going to be so abnormally terrified that there's a fantastic overproduction of adrenaline coursing into their bloodstream and – that's it. They die! Right there in your chair. They die of fright.”

It was a good routine. I nodded, making mental notes for future use, wondering if he could reproduce just those same impassioned tones if he was called upon to do it again for the press. However, the press was one thing – and just between ourselves was another. Between ourselves, there were other things to be sorted out.

“Unless,” I said ruthlessly, “they die because a new anaesthetic isn't all their dentist thought it would be.”

For a moment, I thought his own adrenaline was going to come up with something pretty nasty. He went a mottled purple and began taking deep breaths.

However, he'd let go of my arm and I took advantage of the opportunity to fling open the door of his surgery.

Once that was done, it seemed to break the trance he was in and he entered slowly behind me. Everything looked much the same as it had on my last visit. The same sterilizing cabinet, the tray of instruments set out on the side table, the rack with the X rays of the day's patients. Everything looked exactly the same to my eyes.

Even the chair. Empty and waiting for me.

“This was a pretty sneaky trick to get me to keep an appointment.” I turned to him accusingly. “Did Gerry think this one up for you?” There were times when I wouldn't put anything past my partner, and this was one of them.

“I don't understand ...” His eyes bulged and his arms flapped feebly in protest against what he was seeing. “She was
here
– in that chair.” He advanced upon the chair as though the body might come into focus if he got near enough.

“She isn't there now,” I said, reinforcing the evidence of his own eyes.

“But – but where
is
she?” That adrenaline must have been doing a war dance through his system now. I hoped he wasn't going to expire upon my hands. “She can't have just disappeared. What's happened to her – her body?”

I looked around helpfully, but the room remained the same. It was shining and clean – sterile in fact. And completely nook-and-crannyless, the better to achieve the acme of sterility. There wasn't room to hide a small mouse, let along a full-grown female body.

I turned my look to Zayle with some suspicion. There wasn't even any gas apparatus in the room. Dentists, I suppose, are only human. They must have their pressures and tensions like the rest of us. It was just possible that he was cracking up. And it was typical of Perkins & Tate's luck that he should have chosen to have his nervous breakdown all over us.

“You're sure,” I inquired delicately, “that – er –”

“Of course, I'm sure,” he snarled. “You don't think I could mistake something like that?”

“Not mistake, exactly,” I said. “But – perhaps you've been overworking lately?”

It was the wrong thing to say, of course. But in a situation like this, it was hard to find the right thing.

“Are you suggesting” – he began advancing on me with a nasty look in his eyes – “that I'm imagining things?”

“No, no.” I backed away hastily. He wasn't armed, but there were any number of sinister instruments lying on that tray, ready to be snatched up and wielded at a moment's provocation. “Certainly not. It – it was just a theory that sprang to mind. I can see how silly it was.”

“You mean –” He was not about to be mollified. “You don't think I'm overworked. Possibly you don't believe I work at all?”

“No, no, you work very hard. I'm sure of it. I've seen you at work. You and your partner, both.”

“Tyler –” His wild eyes turned toward the wall separating their surgeries. “Yes, Tyler. He might have come in to speak to me, taken in the situation, and –”

“And disposed of the body for you,” I finished, without any great triumph. It was probably what had happened, which meant we were back where we started from, only in a worse mess than before. I'd have preferred the nervous breakdown. It was going to be even harder to present this to the press as a perfectly normal and understandable reaction than the original dereliction of duty.

The police, also, took a notoriously dim view of people's playing musical chairs with bodies – it looked like a suspiciously guilty reaction. And, I recalled, it was Tyler Meredith who had invented the new anaesthetic they were testing on Morgana Fane.

“Well.” I looked at Endicott Zayle. Now that he had settled the question of the disappearance to what was apparently his own satisfaction, he seemed to have lost interest in it. He had stopped by the tray of instruments and was fiddling with them. “Hadn't we better go and ask him about it?”

“Oh, no, that's quite all right.” Zayle continued to potter happily with some sinister-looking probes and angled mirrors. “Tyler will have taken care of everything. We needn't bother anymore.”

While I considered it laudable – in fact, necessary – to have every confidence in your partner, I still felt Zayle's attitude left something to be desired. Responsibility, perhaps. Not to mention a sense of duty, a conscience, a –

Looking beyond Zayle, at the doorway, I found my thoughts colliding like irresponsible motorists on a foggy Ml. I tried to find my voice, and after a moment, I succeeded.

“You're sure,” I said softly, “you're absolutely positive that Morgana Fane was really dead when you left her in that chair?”

“Of course, I am.” He glared at me, bristling. “Don't you think I can recognize a cadaver when I see one? What kind of fool do you take me for?”

I smiled weakly, still looking beyond him. There wasn't much of an answer I could give to that one. Not with Morgana Fane standing in the doorway behind him.

Morgana Fane, alive and breathing. Breathing fire, in fact. She charged into the room, radiating fury.

“
There
you are!” she said. “What in hell is going on around here?”

I was glad she'd asked the question. I was dying to know the answer myself.

Zayle stiffened as though he'd been shot in the back and turned slowly. “No,” he said. “No!”

“Where did you
go
? Where have you
been
?” Morgana Fane whirled into the room, still on the attack. “I thought you were a reputable dentist, but you pump my lungs full of that disgusting stuff, and then you disappear for hours. I don't believe you care
that
much” – she snapped her fingers in his face – “for your patients. You're nothing but a quack!”

“Miss Fane.” Zayle reeled backward. I stood by to catch him if he started to collapse, as seemed not unlikely. “My dear Miss Fane!”

“She's right, you know, m'boy.” The gaunt grey figure, like the ghost of another era, followed Morgana Fane into the office. “Can't treat patients that way. Upsets 'em.”

“Father!” Zayle turned his harassed eyes to the elderly man. “What are you doing here? You ought to – I mean, you have your own surgery. Upstairs. Your own patients. Shouldn't you be up there with them?”

“Found this poor little thing wandering around the top floor in distress,” Sir Malcolm said indignantly. “Couldn't leave her roaming around on her own, could I? You were nowhere about. Took her in – I was between patients – and we've been playing chess. Clever little puss. Not a bad brain – for a woman. Might be something in giving them the vote, after all.”

“I was looking for
you
,” Morgana Fane said to Zayle. “You went off and left me all alone.

“It was absolutely frightful,” she appealed to me. “There I was, lying back, unable to
move
, and he suddenly looked down at me with a frightening expression and bolted from the room. I thought something must have gone wrong and that I was dying.

“But it was like being underwater – I couldn't speak – I couldn't move – and I kept waiting for you to come back and help me. But you didn't.” She faced Zayle accusingly. “I don't know what that stuff you had me inhaling
was,
but it was the most awful experience of my life.”

“Always told you, m'boy, no good comes of mollycoddling patients. Anaesthetics – pah!” Sir Malcolm snorted. “We never had time for mollycoddling at the front. Plain and simple – that was the ticket. You put your knee on the fella's chest, gave a few short, sharp yanks and there you were. Neat as a pin. Then your orderly brought 'im round and sent in the next patient.”

“Please, Father,” Zayle said weakly, “why don't you go back upstairs? It must be time for your next patient.”

“More than time,” I put in helpfully, “he's downstairs. Sir Geoffrey, getting impatient. He thinks you've forgotten about him.”

I was all in favour of getting General Sir Malcolm out of the way. We had enough trouble on our hands. It wasn't the PR problem I'd been called in to take care of, but it might be just as serious. If Morgana Fane decided to sue for malpractice, or something of the sort, she'd have quite a case. Experimenting with a new anaesthetic – with Morgana Fane as your guinea pig. I shuddered quietly. The idea alone was good for a long term at the Scrubs. And when she turned those luminous green eyes on the judge and jury, there'd be a fresh outcry to bring back hanging. When I looked into those eyes myself, I had understood for the first time why men joined the Foreign Legion.

“Forget?” Sir Malcolm roared indignantly. “I never forget anything! Damn it, my memory's better than yours.” He was raging at his son. He seemed to have forgotten – or perhaps, not noticed – that I was the one who had brought up the subject. “I've never gone off and left a patient unattended in the chair, sirrah! Nor have I –”

“There you are, Malcolm.” Sir Geoffrey entered briskly. “Could hear you five miles off with the wind blowing in the opposite direction. I knew you wouldn't forget me. Might have known” – he favoured Morgana Fane with a fine Edwardian leer – “you'd found something better to occupy your time than an old warhorse like me.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” Sir Malcolm said, suddenly becoming putty in his friend's competent hands. “Neat little filly, eh?”

“The best.” Sir Geoffrey twirled his moustache. “Put my last shilling on her, any day.”

Morgana blossomed, if I may use the expression. She wasn't sure who the newcomer was, but the aura of money and power was unmistakable. “You might introduce me, Malcolm,” she said sweetly.

“See here.” I drew Endicott Zayle to one side while these quaint Victorian rites were in progress. “We've got to have a conference. Don't say anything more until I can –”

“Eh? What?” Zayle stared at me with a glazed look. I couldn't really blame him. Sir Malcolm was enough to daze any beholder, even one who knew him so well as – presumably – his own son did.

“And who” – Morgana Fane was suddenly beside me again, looking up with a coquettishness obviously left over from the last introduction – “are you?”

When in doubt, stick to your story. “I'm an emergency,” I said. “An emergency case, that is.” A bright idea hit me, although I couldn't bring it off with Sir Geoffrey still there. But later, perhaps, when the timing had had a chance to fade and get confused, we might be able to plead that I was the reason Endicott Zayle had left his post. Another's need had been greater than Morgana's. I tucked the idea away for future reference.