columns guarding the front veranda and a cupola on top. It sat well back from the street shaded by magnolias and ancient oak trees, with a graveled drive leading up between a double row of neatly clipped hibiscus shrubs.
There was a double garage to the right at the rear, and the drive circled in front underneath a porte-cochere where wide wooden steps led up to the veranda.
Another car was parked directly in front of the steps, and Shayne pulled in behind it. It was a shabby Ford sedan.
Shayne cut off his ignition and got out to circle around in front of the Ford and mount the steps. The sunlight was bright and there was almost complete country silence as he crossed the scrubbed porch boards and found an old-fashioned knocker on the front door.
There was no electric push-button visible, so Shayne lifted and dropped the brass knocker a couple of times and waited.
The door was opened onto a large center hall by a trim Mulatto maid who smiled pleasantly when he asked for Dr. Philbrick, and led him down the cool hall to a sparkling, modern reception room on the right.
The room was empty. A sign beside the door said PLEASE RING BELL AND BE SEATED.
Shayne rang the bell but perversely refused to obey the second instruction. There was a conventional long center table with neat stacks of popular magazines and medical journals, comfortable chrome and leather chairs ranged about the walls with smoking stands beside half a dozen of them. On the walls were etchings of hunting dogs, and several framed diplomas. Shayne was studying one of them which conveyed the reassuring information that Jay Philbrick had duly passed the proscribed courses in the Southern Medical College in the year 1932 and had been duly awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine by that institution when he heard a side door open and turned to see a plump and red-haired nurse emerge in her starched white uniform. She was young and had smiling eyes, a pert nose and a saucy mouth. She tilted her head slightly on one side as she looked at him, and said, “Yes?” in a questioning, hopeful sort of way as though wondering what the devil he was doing there and hadn’t he maybe got in the wrong pew by mistake.
Shayne grinned disarmingly and shrugged toward the diploma he had been reading, “Just checking up on the doc’s credentials,” he confided. “Make sure he isn’t a quack.”
Her left cheek dimpled and her eyes danced with merriment, but she said gravely, “Did you wish to see the doctor?”
“I’m Shayne. I phoned you a few minutes ago…”
“Oh yes.” The dimple vanished and the merriment went out of her eyes to be replaced by what appeared to be anxiety. “Exactly what was it you wished to see Dr. Philbrick about?”
“It’s an urgent, personal matter. I’ll take only a few minutes of his time. You promised to try and slip me in between patients.”
“I know. But I should have checked with the doctor before suggesting you come out. He’s much busier than I thought and won’t be able to see you until much later. If you’d give me some idea of what you want, I might be able to help you.”
Shayne kept his irritation from showing. He said, “I don’t mind waiting,” and sat down in a comfortable chair.
The nurse frowned nervously and wet her lips. Shayne had a distinct impression she had been bawled out for asking him to come, and had been commissioned to get rid of him fast. She said, “It may be late in the afternoon until he’s free to see you. He’s terribly rushed this morning…”
Just then a resonantly mellow voice came through the half-open doorway behind her. “Not at all, Ed. You know I want you to drop in any time you feel the ticker needs a check-up. As a matter of fact, Ed, I had time on my hands this morning. If there weren’t strict doctor’s orders against it, ha-ha, I’d be tempted to suggest that my julep bed is just begging to have a few sprigs plucked and I know where my wife has got a bottle of real bonded Old Racehorse hidden away, and we might adjourn to my den and see if maybe the twain would meet…”
The voice was coming closer as it spoke, and a little sallow-faced man pushed the door open and came out, followed by a tall, solid-bodied man with a shock of white hair and a ruddy beaming face who was still talking as he entered the room and saw the nurse and Michael Shayne.
“… but it is doctor’s orders, old man, and I’d be the last one in the world to…”
Dr. Jay Philbrick’s booming voice stopped abruptly in mid-sentence. He glanced uncertainly from Shayne to the nurse, and then back to the patient whom he was just ushering out, and ended in a quieter, more professional voice, “Slow down a little, Ed, and don’t worry. Call me in a day or so after I’ve had a chance to go over the results of the test.”
He turned about abruptly and pulled the door of the reception room shut behind him.
Shayne moved forward in a long, unhurried stride, and reached the closed door just as the nurse stepped in front of it and faced him with an embarrassed flush coloring her cheeks.
“I’m sorry but the doctor can’t see you now.”
Shayne looked down at her quizzically. “I told you it was extremely urgent and I’ll be only a few minutes.”
“I’m sorry, but he told me…”
“To explain that he was too busy to see anyone?” The quizzical smile stayed on Shayne’s face and he kept his voice deceptively gentle. “Although he has got time on his hands for a Mint Julep.”
Shayne put a big hand on the nurse’s shoulder and firmly moved her aside. “How does he know I’m not a salesman for bonded Old Racehorse?” He opened the door and strode into a small room outfitted as an office with typewriter desk and filing cases.
The redheaded nurse followed him protesting weakly as he crossed to another closed door marked PRIVATE. He opened it without knocking into another small room that contained a bare mahogany desk, a thick rug on the floor, three deep comfortable chairs, and a swivel chair behind the desk.
Dr. Philbrick stood with his back to him, leaning over the desk with a telephone to his ear. He turned his head to look at Shayne, and his ruddy face was no longer beaming. He replaced the telephone slowly and straightened to face the detective. “This is a private office, sir, and you are intruding.”
Shayne said, “I think there’s some mistake. I telephoned and your nurse made an appointment for me to see you. The name is Shayne.”
“I judged it was,” said the doctor coldly, “when I saw you in the outer office. My nurse had been instructed not to admit you.”
“Why, doctor? You don’t even know what I want.”
“I saw this morning’s Courier. You’re a private detective from Miami who was arrested last night for common drunkenness and disorderly conduct. I can’t conceive what you have to say that could possibly interest me.”
Shayne grinned and said lightly, “I see. I didn’t realize that little affair had made the front pages. I want to ask you some questions about Miss Buttrell, doctor. I represent her father who has asked me to investigate.” He uttered the lie coolly, turning as he did so to an upholstered chair directly in front of the desk.
A change of expression came over the doctor’s face the moment he mentioned Miss Buttrell’s name. It was a curious look, and one that Shayne could not interpret. He couldn’t tell whether it was fear or relief.
Dr. Philbrick hesitated a moment, then seated himself stiffly in the swivel chair. His ruddy face was bland again, though no longer beaming. “Miss Buttrell?” he repeated. “The young girl who lost her memory. Why didn’t you tell my nurse you were an authorized representative of her father?”
Shayne shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me it was necessary to spread the news around that I’m in Brockton investigating the affair. One of the jobs of a private detective is to keep his business as private as possible.”
“Ah… I see.” The doctor’s smile was frosty. “Now that you are here, Mr. Shayne, how can I help you? And how is the child, by the way? Did she respond to treatment and familiar surroundings?”
“Not too well. Not to the extent of recovering her memory. What, in your professional opinion, caused her condition?”
Dr. Philbrick frowned and carefully placed the tips of five fingers against the tips of five others before replying. “Do you mean the precise cause of amnesia, or my opinion as to how she suffered the injury?”
“Both. You see we have absolutely nothing to go on, doctor. Her car has not been recovered. We have a gap of several hours between the time she might have passed through Brockton on her trip and the moment when she appeared at the local hospital suffering from shock and loss of memory. First, let me get this absolutely clear. Is there any possibility, doctor, even the slightest possibility, that the girl was faking amnesia?”
