Walter cut into his pie-crust, and a curl of fragrant steam rose out of it. He ate slowly, and without much obvious relish; but all the same he was still hungry enough to finish most of the pie, and his bread as well. He drained the last of his Guinness, and then drummed his fingers sharply on the deal tabletop.
'Five or six million, is that it?'
'That's the estimate.'
'Can you get me an accurate costing?'
'Of course.'
He wiped his mouth with his napkin. 'I don't know what I'm letting myself in for,' he said. 'But the least I can do is run it up the flag-pole and see if anybody salutes it.'
'Think of Constance,' I reminded him.
'I am,' he said. 'That's what worries me.'
Twenty-Eight
Dr Rosen was just parking his Mercedes 350 SL outside of the Derby Clinic when I drew up beside him in my rattling Toronado and gave him a wave of greeting. He stopped on the sidewalk, a neat, immaculately-dressed man with a goatee beard and large California-style spectacles with his initials engraved on the lower left-hand corner of the left lens. I often used to think that he would have been happier in Hollywood than he was in Salem: he had a naturally exhibitionistic nature and a love of medical jargon that ranged from 'sibling shock' to 'acceptory neurosis' and back again.
He was very professional, however: thorough and knowledgeable and careful in the finest tradition of New England's country physicians, and his love affair with medical ritz couldn't really be held against him.
'Good morning, John,' he said, cheerfully. 'Come on in and have some coffee.'
'I just came to see Anne,' I told him. We walked together up the sun-flecked pathway to the clinic's glass-fronted reception area. Inside, it was calm and air-conditioned, with smooth background music and expensive potted plants, and a discreet waterfall which tinkled into a free-form goldfish pool. Seated at a desk at the far side of the reception area was a stunningly pretty blonde nurse with a white uniform and a white cap and spotless white medical shoes. She probably didn't know the difference between a cyst and a cistern, but who cared. She was all part of Dr Rosen's 'convivial clinic' theme.
'Any calls, Margot?' Dr Rosen asked her, as he passed her by.
'Mr Willys, that's all,' said Margot, flashing sooty black eyelashes at me. 'Oh, and Dr Kaufman from Beth Israel.'
'Call Kaufman back for me in ten minutes, will you?' asked Dr Rosen. 'Leave Willys until he calls back himself. Was it his fibrositis?'
'I guess.'
'Come in, John,' Dr Rosen beckoned me. 'And, thanks, Margot.'
'You're welcome,' purred Margot.
'She's new,' I commented to Dr Rosen, walking into his large cream-painted office, and looking around. He still had the large Andrew Stevovich oil painting on the wall, a moon-faced woman and two moon-faced men, a picture which I knew in every detail, every shade, every angle, because I had sat opposite it for hours on end, talking to Dr Rosen about my depression and my bereavement.
Dr Rosen sat down at his wide teak desk and sorted briefly through his mail. The desk was bare except for the morning's post and a small bronze abstract sculpture in a twisted triangle, which Dr Rosen had once told me was meant to represent the self-curative strength inherent in every human. It always looked more like a serious case of indigestion to me, but I had never said so.
'Anne,' he said, as if he were continuing a sentence which he had left half-finished, 'Anne is suffering from a broken wrist, severe bruising, muscular strain, swollen tendons, and shock. Well, I imagine the shock has probably subsided by now, but the physical damage will take a few days to right itself.'
He paused, frowned at a letter from Peter Bent Brigham, and then looked up at me with an expression that wasn't very far away from surprise. 'I don't suppose you want to tell me how Anne got that way?' he asked me.
'Hasn't Anne told you?'
'Anne said she was jogging, and she fell, but I really find that very hard to believe. Particularly since she must have fallen with her legs stretched wide apart, as if she were a ballerina doing the splits; and particularly since the external scratches and lesions on her skin all indicate that she was naked at the time.'
I shrugged, and made a face which was supposed to be interpreted as non-committal.
Dr Rosen watched me for a while, tugging his beard between finger and thumb. At last, he said, 'I'm not suggesting for a moment that Anne's injuries are anything to do with you, John. But I'm a physician, remember, and I have to wonder. I mean, wonder, that's part of my profession. I don't only have to deal with the effect, I have to do my best to find out what the cause was, in case the effect happens again. I mean, I'm more than a simple mechanic.'
'I know that, Dr Rosen,' I nodded. 'But, believe me, there's nothing going on here that's — what would you call it? — untoward, or anything like that.'
Dr Rosen pursed his lips, obviously dissatisfied.
'Look,' I said, 'I haven't been beating her up. I hardly know her.'
'She was with you the night she got hurt, and at some time during that night she was naked.'
'It happens, doctor. People do get naked at night. But, believe me, her nakedness was nothing to do with me. Neither were her injuries. All I did was drive her down here so that you could take care of her.'
Dr Rosen stood up, and walked around his desk with his hands thrust into his pants pockets. 'Well,' he said, 'I have no way of proving you wrong.'
'Do you want to prove me wrong?'
'I just want to find out what happened, that's all. Listen, John, that girl wasn't injured in any athletics accident. You know it, I know it. I'm not trying to pry. I'm not trying to act like a one-man watch committee. But it would help me medically to know how she got herself bruised and sprained and roughed up so badly. I mean, her injuries aren't consistent with anything but… well, if you want to have it straight, s-and-m.'
I stared at him. 'Are you kidding? S-and-m? You really think that Anne Putnam and I were — '
Dr Rosen raised his hand, and blushed. 'John, please, you don't have to explain yourself.'
'I obviously do have to explain myself if you think that I was tying Anne Putnam to the bedpost and beating her up.'
'Listen, I'm sorry,' said Dr Rosen. 'I didn't mean to suggest for a moment that — ' He paused, leaving his sentence unfinished. 'Well, I'm sorry. It was just that I couldn't think how else she could have come by injuries of this particular nature. Please. It was very tactless of me.'
'It would have been even more tactless if I actually had been beating her up,' I remarked.
'I've said I'm sorry. Now, do you want to see her? She should have finished her medication programme by now.'
Dr Rosen led me out of his office and along the corridor, his soft-soled shoes squeaking on the highly-waxed floor tiles. He was still embarrassed; I could tell that by the colour of his ears. But what else could I do, except deny that Anne and I had been playing torture chambers? He wasn't going to believe that Jane's ghost had turned Anne upside down and brutalized her by psychokinesis.
Anne was sitting in a white bamboo chair in a corner of her room, watching the $20,000 Pyramid. She looked pale and tired, her arm was strapped up, and both her eyes were bruised. She clutched her robe around her as if she were cold.
'Anne, you've got a visitor,' said Dr Rosen.
'Hi,' I told her. 'How are you feeling?'
'Better, thank you,' she said, and switched off the television by remote. 'I had a few nightmares last night, but they gave me something to help me sleep.'
Dr Rosen left us and I sat down on the end of the bed. 'I feel really guilty about what happened to you,' I said. 'I shouldn't have let you come up to the cottage.'