"Remember it."
Making his way down the corridor again, Carl shook his shoulders, feeling a sudden load of care. If he had been rough with the Professor, it was because he smelt danger. A lot of people—their victims —knew about their operations already; for various reasons, they would not talk, but if anyone else grew suspicious, if gossip started, the entire thing might collapse. Now, at the break-even point, they could not afford that; the whole purpose of the trip was just coming over the horizon.
He turned into his cabin, bathed his face, and prepared to leave for the poker game in Tillotson's suite. How was he supposed to concentrate, when this sort of thing happened? . . . His anger cooling, he was left with a curious sense of bereavement. It was true that he and the Professor were old friends of long standing; but no friendship could survive stupidity such as this. He would just have to be watched, that was all. Like Kathy. Like all the rest of them.
The ship's doctor, Tom Hillingdon by name, was a grave young man with a sense of humour under severe and permanent control. None of the popular myths about ship's doctors—their drunkenness, their failing powers, their infamous conduct in a professional respect, their past convictions for abortion—applied to him, any more than they did to his fellow-practitioners; he was a ship's doctor because he liked the life and, more important still, because he could measure up to it. He was tall, and good-looking in a studious way; his qualifications were impeccable. He read a great deal. He had an ambition to specialize in tropical medicine—but later on, when he had seen the world and learned the ropes. Now, on the present job, he was energetic, capable, and resolute. He had to be.
No seedy drunk or superannuated snuff-taker could have filled his post. On any normal voyage, Hillingdon had well over a thousand people to look after—more than to be found in the average village— and he might have to deal, at short notice, with anything from broken legs to whooping-cough, from child-birth to D.T.s. He was always on his own; the Alcestis had its own clinic, operating-theatre, isolation area, and labour ward, and he had to be an expert in all four of them. There were no available specialists to be called in, no locum to shoulder the weight or take the blame. He had to detect malingerers among the crew, and to flatter female hypochondriacs whose husbands owned fifty-one per cent of any given stock. Above all, he had to be there when he was needed; and, like the Captain in another area of competence, he could be needed for almost anything.
Just at the moment, he was needed for an unusual though not unique reason, by a young woman whom he knew, by observation, to be the second prettiest girl in the ship. Tom Hillingdon, who was fond of pretty girls—it was quite mutual—was prepared to concede Diane Loring that much; though during the past month he had made certain mental reservations about her which were now proving accurate. It was just as well that he hadn't joined the queue. . . . But at least she was honest and unequivocal; faced with the same predicament, people usually said that they were inquiring for a friend.
Diane, sitting opposite him across the surgery table, went straight to the point.
"I need a bit of help, Doc," she told him.
Tom Hillingdon came to the alert. She was using a phrase which he had heard, with minor variations, three times during the past two days; he had been looking for the link, which none of the complainants would give him; it seemed likely that this was it. Of course, she might simply be pregnant, or she might think she was. But in that case they usually said: "Doctor, I'm in a jam."
"Please tell me about it," he said formally, and added, with private irony: "Miss Loring."
Diane said: "It hurts."
He asked some questions, and presently made his examination and took a swab for later analysis. But he knew the answer already; it completed the puzzle which was scarcely a puzzle at all, simply a pattern of misconduct. For that reason he was not at all surprised; he had been expecting a visit from Diane Loring, or from someone like her, for the last forty-eight hours. He had thought it might be the nurse, which was a good example of a bad guess. Of course, it was not a frivolous matter; the trouble was venereal, within the meaning of the word. But it was a minor, irritant variation which posed no problems.
He told her what they had both suspected, and now knew, and added:
"I would like you to tell me who it could be."
Diane hesitated. "Well, it's like this," she began, and then stopped.
"I can assure you," he helped her, "you need not be shy with me."
"Shy? Who's shy? I'm just trying to work it out."
Now he remained silent. He had lost his capacity for surprise many years earlier. Sometimes he thought it was just as well.
"This doesn't go any further, does it?" asked Diane, on a note of caution.
"No," said Tom Hillingdon, untruthfully.
"It's probably Walham," said Diane after a moment. "I knew that old bastard would get even somehow. Or—or it just might be Bancroft."
Tom Hillingdon waited. He wanted to hear a third name, simply for the fun of it. He knew it already.
"Or it might be that dark guy who limps—what the hell's his name?—his wife plays canasta the whole time."
Hillingdon waited again. Ethically sensitive, he felt he should not prompt her.
"You know—old Timber Tool."
"Timber Tool?"
"Woodcock," said Diane finally.
Tom Hillingdon inclined his head, content that the pattern was complete.
But the pattern was not complete. "Or it might be a couple of other people," said Diane. "Anyway, that will give you the general outline."
Hillingdon hoped so; his supply of drugs was limited. "Have you been very busy?" he asked.
"Hell, Doc—what's busy?"
"I beg your pardon," said Tom Hillingdon formally. "It's my job to ask these things." He began to write, completing his notes and outlining the necessary treatment. "I'll give you an injection, just to be on the safe side," he told her. "And I'll make up a lotion which will take care of the local irritation. It should clear up in a day or two."
"Thanks, Doc."
"There's one other thing, Miss Loring," he said, with only slight emphasis. "You should refrain from sexual intercourse for the time being."
"O.K.," said Diane cheerfully. "You're the doctor!"
He was the doctor, and for that reason he did not like the next step at all. Of all the things in medicine which he took seriously, the most serious, for him, was the integrity of his profession; and the fact that, every day he spent aboard the Alcestis, he was under a positive obligation to violate the Hippocratic oath of secrecy, had always been troublesome. He had forced himself to come to terms with the situation, but it had never sat well on his conscience.
Briefly, he had to set out in a daily report all details of the patients under his care—their symptoms, their treatment, their prospects of recovery. Whatever it was—a broken leg, an alcoholic lapse, a bout of Asiatic flu—the Captain had to know about it, as soon as it developed. In the present case, he had to report to Captain Harmer that the ignoble link between three of his other patients was Diane Loring.
When Tom Hillingdon was younger, he used to baulk at the disclosure; once, he had even come into collision with Harmer himself, who put him straight on company policy, as opposed to medical ethics, in very short order.
"I don't care who's got what," the Captain told him forcefully, "or how disgraceful or embarrassing it may be. I've got to know about it! This ship is my sole responsibility; if something goes wrong, it's the Master that takes the blame, and I am not going to take the blame for something I know nothing about."
"But surely, sir—" he had begun his protest.