Маргарет Миллар - Do Evil In Return

Listening to Miss Schiller make her rounds was worse than listening to a dozen taps dripping or a couple of tomcats fighting outside the window. Towards morning Charlotte fell asleep with bitter thoughts of both Lewis and Miss Schiller.

After breakfast Charlotte dropped Miss Schiller and her suitcase at the office and went on to Mercywood hospital to make her morning calls. Lack of sleep never bothered her. When she pushed through the heavy swinging doors of the hospital she looked fresh and alert.

In a private phone booth in the corridor downstairs she looked up Voss’s number and dialed. Though she heard the phone being lifted off the hook at the other end, no one answered.

“Hello. Hello. Is this 2-8593?”

“Yes.” It wasn’t Voss. This voice was high and quavering, the voice of someone very old or very frightened: “Violet? Violet?”

“No,” Charlotte said. “It’s Violet I want to speak to.”

“She went away.”

“She went away where ?”

But the line was dead. Charlotte hung up impatiently. Damn the girl, she thought, I’ve wasted hours on her already. I have work to do.

It was half-past ten by the time she finished making her rounds of the wards. When she returned to her office she found that Miss Schiller had done nothing in her absence; she hadn’t even opened the mail. It was quite obvious that Miss Schiller had spent the morning telephoning all her friends, telling them what had happened and probably a few things that hadn’t.

Flushing under Charlotte’s gaze, Miss Schiller picked up her appointment book.

“The little Wheeler boy’s coming in at two,” she said. “His mother says he didn’t pass and she thinks it’s because he’s so self-conscious about his warts. She wants you to take them off.”

Charlotte made a noncommittal noise. The Wheeler child’s only trouble was an hysterical mother.

“Oh, and Mrs. Ballard phoned, doctor. She had one of those palpitating spells during the night and she wants you to come over before office hours this afternoon.”

“Call her back and tell her I won’t be able to make it before five-thirty or six.”

“I told her you were booked straight through practically and you weren’t feeling well.”

“I’m feeling perfectly well,” Charlotte said. “And I wish to God you’d forget about last night.”

Miss Schiller looked injured. “Well. Well, I must say.”

“Have you a list of the house calls I have to make before lunch?”

“Here it is.”

Charlotte looked over the list. The patients were all women. The majority of her patients were women and children, a fact that irritated her, since she wanted a more general practice. She said, “I’ll be seeing Mrs. Connelly last. You can get in touch with me there if anything turns up.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“After that I’ll have to go down to the city hall and report the loss of my purse.”

“You could phone, right from here.”

“If I do they’ll send a policeman out.”

“Oh. That wouldn’t look nice, would it?”

“Not particularly.”

“I’ll call Mrs. Ballard then, doctor. A lovely person, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Just lovely , I think.”

Charlotte gave her a sharp glance. It wasn’t possible that Miss Schiller knew...? No, of course not. She was just chattering, as usual. To Miss Schiller, Mrs. Ballard was simply a regular patient whose husband paid her bills promptly and in person, and sometimes dropped in to talk with the doctor about his wife’s condition. Having Gwen as a patient was becoming more and more unbearable. But it had to be borne; there was no way of getting out of it. Charlotte had suggested to her several times that she consult another doctor, a nerve specialist, but Gwen had been sweetly adamant: “Oh no, Dr. Keating. I have the greatest faith in you!”

I won’t go, Charlotte thought. I’ll send someone else — Parslow or James — I refuse to go.

When she passed the mirror in the corridor on her way outside she saw that her face was pale and pinched-looking; it was beginning to show the strain, not of the past night, but of the coming afternoon.

The police department occupied the rear half of the city hall.

Charlotte knew by sight the sergeant on duty at the desk, a man named Quincy. His wife had been in a traction cast at Mercywood for several weeks and Charlotte frequently met him in the corridors looking rather ineffectual and down at the heel. In uniform, behind his desk, he seemed larger, and his tone was brusque and officious.

He reprimanded Charlotte for her delay in reporting the stolen purse.

“We might have picked the man up last night,” he said, frowning.

“You might have. It’s not likely that he’d hang around afterwards, though.”

“You can’t expect protection unless you co-operate with the police. The least people can do is report things on time.” He tapped his knuckles irritably with a pencil, as if he wished they were hers. “You say you were closing the garage door when the assailant struck you from behind and ran off with your purse.”

“Yes. I wasn’t seriously hurt, as you can see.”

“It’s assault, anyway. Did you see the weapon?”

“No, but I think it was a blackjack made with wet sand.”

He frowned again. “That’s just an amateur deduction, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’d better mark it, weapon unknown. What did this purse look like?”

“Brown lizard with a gold clasp.” She described the contents, and estimated her total loss at seventy-five dollars.

“Next time something like that happens, phone the police immediately, Miss—” he consulted his report — “Miss Keating. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

“At the hospital.”

“Oh. Oh yes. You’re a nurse?”

“A doctor.”

“A doctor.” His expression was bitter. “I’ve seen so many doctors lately you’d think I’d be able to spot one at a glance. My wife...”

“Yes, I know about her. She’s had a rough time.”

“Plenty rough.”

“These bone operations are tricky, but she ought to be out soon.”

“I...” He seemed a little dazed by her sympathy. It was as if he intended to deliver a speech against doctors and illness and medical bills, and had somehow missed his cue. “Well. Well, I’ll get in touch with you if we discover anything.”

She went out, her heels tapping briskly on the marble tiles. Everything in the building seemed to be made of marble or iron or stone, hard cold materials that symbolized the hard, cold quality of impersonal justice.

At the end of the corridor an old man was standing half-hidden behind a pillar, as if he wasn’t certain whether to advance further into the building or to dart out again. He took a bandana out of his coat pocket and wiped his face and stepped back behind the pillar so that only a part of his sleeve was visible. Charlotte said, “Tiddles?”

The old man stared at her, white with surprise.

“What are you doing here, Tiddles?”

“Nothing.”

“You weren’t arrested or anything?”

“NO... no...” He wiped off his face again and put the bandana back in the breast pocket of his coat leaving the tip of it sticking out very nattily. He had on a brand-new green suit and a bow tie. He’d combed his hair and shaved. The suit was too big for him — the sleeves touched his knuckles and the trouser cuffs brushed the floor — and he kept fingering the bow tie nervously as if to assure himself that it was still there, that it hadn’t dropped off or been stolen. He smelled of bay rum and wine and moth balls.

“You’re all dressed up,” Charlotte said.