The caption underneath the picture said Dutch Man of War, circa 1650.
The odd prickly feeling went up the back of my neck. Dutch. And what was it that old Mrs. Herz had muttered, back there in my flat? De boot, mijnheer, de boot.
I took the ship book under my arm and went downstairs to the foreign language section. I lifted out an English — Dutch dictionary, flicked through the pages, and there it was. De boot, the ship.
Now I'm as reasonable and logical as the next man, but this was more than a coincidence. Karen Tandy had been having nightmares about a Dutch ship from the seventeenth century, and then old Mrs. Herz had started having hallucinations or God knows what about just the same thing. How and why were questions that I just couldn't answer, but it seemed to me that if Mrs. Herz had been killed by her visitation, then the same thing could happen to Karen Tandy.
I went back to the desk and checked out the book on ships. The old whore with the horse-like teeth and the black hair gave me a sardonic grin, and that didn't exactly make me feel any better. A woman like that was enough to give you nightmares on her own, without worrying about mysterious sailing boats from another century.
"Enjoy your reading," she grinned, and I pulled a face at her.
Outside, I found a phone booth, but I had to wait in the freezing wind and snow while a short fat woman called her ailing sister in Minnesota. It was one of those conversations that chases its own tail, and just when you think they're going to wrap it up, they start all over. In the end, I had to bang on the glass, and the woman glared at me, but at least she finished her epic dialogue.
I got into the phone booth and thumbed in my dime. I dialed the Sisters of Jerusalem Hospital, and asked for Dr. Hughes; I had to hang on for four or five minutes, stamping the circulation back into my feet, and at last the doctor answered.
"Dr. Hughes here, can I help you?"
"You don't know me, Dr. Hughes," I said. "My name is Harry Erskine and I'm a clairvoyant"
"A what?"
"A clairvoyant. You know, fortunes told, that kind of stuff."
"Well, I'm sorry Mr. Erskine, but —"
"No, please," I interrupted. "Just listen for one minute. Yesterday I had a visit from a patient of yours, a girl named Karen Tandy."
"Oh, really?"
"Dr. Hughes, Miss Tandy told me that ever since she had first felt that tumor of hers, she'd been having recurrent nightmares."
"That's not uncommon," said Dr. Hughes impatiently. "Many of my patients are subconsciously disturbed by their conditions."
"But there's more to it than that, Dr. Hughes. The nightmare was very detailed and very specific, and she dreamed about a ship. It wasn't just any old ship, either. She made me a drawing of it, and it turned out to be a very particular ship. A Dutch man of war, dated about 1650."
"Mr. Erskine," said Dr. Hughes. "I'm a very busy man, and I don't know whether I can —"
"Please, Dr. Hughes, just listen," I asked him. "This morning another client of mine came to visit me, and she started talking in Dutch about a ship. She was the kind of woman who wouldn't have known a Dutchman if he'd come up wearing dogs and given her a bunch of tulips. She got very upset and hysterical, and then she had an accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"Well, she fell downstairs. She was seventy-five years old, and it killed her."
There was a silence.
"Dr. Hughes?" I said. "Are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here. Listen, Mr. Erskine, why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I think it's relevant to Karen Tandy, Dr. Hughes. I was told this morning that she had some kind of complications. This dream has already killed one of my clients. I'm worried in case the same thing happens again."
Another silence, longer this time.
Finally, Dr. Hughes said: "Mr. Erskine, this is very irregular. I'm not saying for one moment that I understand what you're trying to get at, but you seem to have some kind of idea about my patient's condition. Do you think I could persuade you to come up to the hospital and talk to me about it? There may be nothing in it, but to tell you the truth we're at a complete impasse with Karen Tandy, and anything, no matter how small, could help us understand what's wrong with her."
"Now you're talking," I told him. "Give me fifteen minutes, and I'll be right there. Should I just ask for you?"
"That's right," said Dr. Hughes tiredly. "Just ask for me."
By the time I arrived, the slush was freezing up again, and the streets were slidey and treacherous. I parked in the basement of the hospital, and took the elevator up to the reception desk. The girl with the Colgate smile said: "Well hello — it's the Incredible Erskine, isn't it?"
"It certainly is," I told her. "I have an appointment with Dr. Hughes."
She buzzed his office, and then directed me to the eighteenth floor. I rose in the warm, hushed elevator, and emerged into a thick-carpeted corridor. A shingle above the door in front of me read dr. j. h. hughes, and I knocked.
Dr. Hughes was a small, weary man who looked as though he needed a weekend in the mountains.
"Mr. Erskine?" he said, limply shaking my hand. "Take a seat. Coffee? Or I have something stronger if you prefer it."
"Coffee is terrific."
He bleeped his secretary to fetch us drinks, and then he sat back in his big black swivel armchair and laced his hands behind his head.
"I've been dealing with tumors for a good many years now, Mr. Erskine, and I've seen them all. I'm supposed to be an expert in my field. But I can tell you straight out that I've never seen a case like Karen Tandy's, and I'm frankly bewildered by it."
I lit a cigarette. "What's so special about it?"
"The tumor isn't the normal kind of tumor. Without going into too much grisly detail, it doesn't have any of the usual characteristics of tumorous tissue. What she has there is a fast-growing swelling made of both skin and bone. In some ways, you could almost describe the tumor as being like a fetus."
"You mean — a baby? You mean she's having a baby — in her neck? I don't understand you."
Dr. Hughes shrugged. "Neither do I, Mr. Erskine. There are thousands of recorded cases of fetuses growing in the wrong place. In the fallopian tube for example, or in various kinds of annexations of the womb. But there is no precedent for any sort of fetus growing in the neck area, and there is certainly no precedent for any sort of fetus growing as fast as this one."
"Didn't you operate on her this morning? I thought you were going to remove it."
Dr. Hughes shook his head. "That was the intention. We had her on the operating table, and everything was lined up for its removal. But as soon as the surgeon, Dr. Snaith, started making an incision, her pulse-rate and respiration weakened so drastically that we had to stop. Another two or three minutes and she would have died. We had to satisfy ourselves with more X-rays."
"Was there any reason for this?" I asked him. "I mean, why did she get so sick?"
"I don't know," said Dr. Hughes. "I'm having a series of tests run on her right now, which will maybe give us the answer. But I've never come across anything like it before, and I'm as mystified as anyone else."
Dr. Hughes' secretary brought us in a couple of cups of coffee and some biscuits. We sipped in silence for a while, and then I asked Dr. Hughes the 64,000 dollar question.
"Dr. Hughes," I said. "Do you believe in black magic?"
He stared at me thoughtfully.
"No," he said. "I don't."
"I don't either," I replied. "But there's something about this whole business that strikes me as completely weird. You see, Karen Tandy's aunt is also a client of mine, and she has had the same kind of dream as Karen. Not so detailed, not so frightening — but definitely the same kind of dream."