“Oh, you can’t, can’t you?”
“Is Mr. Shield here?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“One of Mr. Shield’s investments has turned out rather well,” Terry ventured.
“Investments! You mean one of his lottery tickets?”
Terry shrugged his shoulders.
The door opened another inch or two. The woman’s glittering eyes surveyed him from head to foot. Suddenly she said:
“He ain’t here any more. Try the Shamrock Rooms on Third Street.”
The door slammed.
Terry’s cab took him to the Shamrock Rooms on Third Street, where he learned that William Shield was a cripple who had been there for two weeks and had moved without leaving a forwarding address.
Terry frowned thoughtfully and decided to switch his attack to the doctor, who, Cynthia had said, was listed in the telephone directory. William Shield might change his residence with each case, but Dr. Sedler would, at least, be permanent. He would, however, be of sufficient intelligence to be a dangerous adversary. Any advantage to be gained from Dr. Sedler’s accessibility would be more than offset by the cunning intelligence of a medical man who made his living by keeping one jump ahead of legal retribution.
Terry Clane paid off his taxicab in front of a three-storied house which had, with the passing years, lost its status as a “palatial residence” and degenerated into a semi-business property. It still maintained its impressive lines, but the cheek-by-jowl proximity of tailoring establishments and delicatessen stores conspired to emphasize the atmosphere of unpainted neglect which surrounded it.
The huge plate-glass windows of what had once been a living-room now blazoned, in letters which were just a bit too large, the sign “P. C. SEDLER, M.D.” There was also a painted metal sign attached to iron uprights which were thrust into a strip of lawn in front of the building.
Terry Clane climbed the short flight of steps which led to the cemented porch and opened a door marked “Waiting-room to Surgery”. A jangling bell in an inner room signaled Terry’s passage across the threshold.
The entrance room was a huge affair, with chairs to accommodate patients crowded arm to arm along the wall. There were only two people in the room: two girls who might have been sisters, despite the fact that they sat at opposite corners of the room. They were both young, slender, attractive. Both were holding magazines. Both raised anxious eyes as Clane opened the door, then abruptly shifted their eyes back to the magazines, apparently finding the reading matter of absorbing interest. Clane walked towards the centre of the room, stood by the table, and waited. Neither of the young women looked up.
The door marked “PRIVATE” opened to disclose a tall bony man of forty-five, about whose forehead was strapped a circular eye-shade. He wore a clean white smock with short sleeves, and his bare thin arms and hands were redolent of antiseptic. A cross light on his face emphasized the high cheek-bones, the cat-fish-like mouth, and the bony jaw.
“Dr. Sedler?” Terry asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m in a hurry,” Terry said, glancing uncertainly at the two young women. “I want to see you at once.”
“A professional consultation?” Dr. Sedler inquired in cold, measured tones.
Terry said, “Both yes and no.”
“Come in,” Dr. Sedler invited.
He stood to one side, and Clane walked the length of the reception room, through the door, and into an office containing tiers of steel filing cases banked against one wall. An open door beyond showed a white-tiled operating-room where lights beat down upon a surgeon’s operating-table. Dr. Sedler jack-knifed himself into a chair in front of the desk, motioned Terry Clane to another chair, and surveyed his visitor with shrewdly calculating eyes.
Clane seated himself and assumed an air of nervousness.
“Go ahead,” Dr. Sedler said, “we’re alone.”
Clane said, “Evidently you don’t remember me, Doctor.”
The eyes searched his face as Sedler said, “What’s the name?”
Terry shook his head and said, “The name won’t help you, Doctor. Surely you must remember that night when the man got in front of my headlights. You were coming along behind me, picked him up and brought him here for treatment. You told me to follow you here, but... I... I...”
Dr. Sedler’s mouth was a long, thin, straight line, which gave no hint of sympathy. His eyes studied Clane as though seeking to find the most advantageous spot for a surgical incision.
“You were drunk,” he said.
Clane shook his head, and said, “No, I wasn’t drunk.”
“I distinctly smelled liquor on your breath. Don’t tell me you weren’t drunk, young man. I’m a physician and surgeon. I’ve followed my profession too long not to recognize intoxication when I see it. You had no business driving a car. You were even too drunk to follow my car, as I instructed. Now you show up and, I presume, want to make a lot of explanations and excuses. I don’t care to listen to them.”
Terry said contritely, “I wanted to make certain that the man was all right. You see, Doctor, you were wrong about my condition, and after I walked back to my car I looked it over carefully. There wasn’t so much as a dent on the buffers. I couldn’t possibly have struck this man much of a blow. He showed up right in front of the headlights and stood there. I swerved to try and avoid him. He jumped to one side and I thought he was clear, but I felt a jarring impact and looked back to see him rolling over in the street. He must have lost his footing when he tried to jump, and my buffer barely grazed his shoulder. He couldn’t have been seriously injured.”
The surgical calm of impersonal appraisal with which the doctor stared at Terry was as effective as though he had openly sneered.
“Not injured, eh?” he said.
“Not seriously. He couldn’t have been.”
The doctor took a leather key container from his pocket, selected a key, unlocked a drawer in his desk, pulled out three negatives.
“Come over here to the light,” he said.
Terry stepped over to the light and peered over the doctor’s shoulder at the X-rays.
“See those? Those are vertebrae. See this?” indicating a shadowy line with the point of a pencil. “That’s a fracture-dislocation. Do you know what that means?”
“You mean it’s...?”
“Exactly,” Dr. Sedler snapped. “I mean it’s a broken back. And you can thank your lucky stars that it wasn’t the third cervical; otherwise there would have been an impingement of the phrenic nerve, a complete respiratory paralysis and suffocation due to inability to actuate the motor reflexes of the diaphragm. Young man, you’re in a most unenviable position. Your failure to follow me to my office or to report the accident to the police is an additional fact which will militate against you.”
“But I’m insured...”
“Insurance be damned!” Dr. Sedler interrupted. “I’m not dealing with dollars and cents; I’m dealing with human lives. Do you know what it means for a man to be bedridden all the rest of his life, to have his legs paralyzed, to have to wear his neck in a cushioned brace so he can’t turn his head? — to be unable to eat, sleep, relax with any normal enjoyment? You make me sick, talking about insurance! I’ve given this man medical attention because I picked him up, and became interested in his case. But you, young man, have a criminal responsibility. The prognosis is not at all certain. In the event of death, you’ll be guilty of manslaughter. In any event, you’re a hit-and-run driver, and an intoxicated driver... What’s your name?”
Terry evaded the question. “Of course, Doctor, I...”
“What’s your name?”