was bending over a long table with a wooden mallet in his hand, apparently about to release his latest creation from its mold. A basin of soft plaster stood on the floor beside him. Gregory leaned against the door and watched him for a few moments.
“Oh, hello,” Thomas said, looking up. “I’m just about finished. Do you want to take it with you?” He began shifting the casts around, eying them with professional satisfaction.
“A nice clean job,” he muttered to himself. Gregory nodded, picked up a white, surprisingly light block of plaster which was standing near the edge of the table, and, glancing at its bottom, saw the impression of a naked foot with big, thin, widely spaced toes. Along the edges the plaster had risen slightly to form a mushroom-like rim.
“No thank you, not now,” said Gregory, putting the cast down and hurriedly walking out of the room. Thomas watched in surprise, then began to remove his splattered rubber apron. Gregory, already in the corridor, stopped and asked over his shoulder:
“Is the doctor in?”
“He was a few minutes ago, but he may have left already. I don’t know.”
Gregory walked to the end of the corridor. Without knocking, he opened the door and went into the medical examiner’s lab. The window was shaded, but a small lamp next to a nearby microscope stand provided some light. Here and there, he could see racks of test tubes, beakers and other instruments, and some glistening bottles of colored liquid. There wasn’t a sign of Sorensen, but Dr. King, his young assistant, was sitting at his desk, writing.
“Good evening. Is Sorensen around?” Gregory asked; without waiting for an answer he began to bombard King with questions.
“Do you know anything about the cat? Did Sorensen examine — “
“Cat? Oh, the cat!”
King stood up.
“I ought to know — I did the autopsy. Sorensen isn’t here. He said he was too busy.” King’s emphasis suggested that he was not especially loyal to his boss. “I still have the cat,” he continued. “Do you want to take a look?”
He opened a small door in the corner of the room and turned on the ceiling light. The only article of furniture in the narrow cubicle was a dirty wooden table; it was splattered with reagents and rust-colored stains. Gregory glanced in at the reddish sliced-up thing pinned to the table and backed away.
“Why should I look?” he said. “You’re the doctor. Tell me what you found.”
“Well, in essence… mind you, I’m not a veterinarian,” King began, straightening up slightly. With a mechanical gesture he touched the row of pens and pencils in the breast pocket of his jacket.
“Yes, yes, I know that, but I wanted the autopsy done right away and there wasn’t time to get a vet. Now how about it, Doctor, what did the cat die of?”
“Starvation, cold, exposure. He was such a pathetic, skinny little creature.”
“How’s that?”
King, without knowing why, was annoyed by Gregory’s astonishment.
“What did you expect? Poison? Believe me, there was none. I made all the usual tests, but it was hardly worth the trouble. There was absolutely nothing in the cat’s intestines. You look disappointed.”
“No, no, you’re right, of course. Nothing else?” Gregory asked, staring at some instruments spread out in the sink. Lying next to a pair of forceps was a scalpel; some scraps of fur still adhered to its blade.
“I’m sorry,” said Gregory. “Uh, thank you for your trouble, Doctor. Good night.”
Gregory turned and walked into the corridor. A few seconds later he was back. Dr. King, busy with his papers again, raised his head.
“Excuse me, Doctor… was the cat very young?”
“No, not at all. In fact, it was rather old. Don’t let the small size fool you — it’s a characteristic of the breed.”
Though he sensed that he wouldn’t get anything more from King, Gregory, resting his hand on the doorknob, continued to ask questions.
“Uh… is there any chance that the cat died from something unusual?”
“What do you mean by ‘something unusual’?”
“Uh, maybe some kind of rare disease… oh, never mind, you already told me the cause of death, I’m just talking nonsense. Excuse me…” Noting the derisive expression on King’s face, Gregory was genuinely relieved to get back to the corridor. He closed the door and stood next to it. Before long he heard the sound of King whistling.
“Well, maybe I put him in a good mood,” he thought, “but I’ve had it.”
Gregory ran down the stairs and into the street. The lights in the building were already on for the night, but outside it was still only early evening. A strong southerly wind was drying the sidewalks. Gregory strolled along whistling, but stopped as soon as he realized he had picked up the tune from King. There was a slender woman walking a few steps in front of him. Gregory noticed a stain of some kind on the back of her coat. No, it was a feather, or maybe a shred of cotton. Catching up with the woman to tell her about it, Gregory opened his mouth and began to raise his hand to his hat in greeting; inexplicably he returned his hand to his pocket and quickened his pace. It was only a little while later, when he had given some thought to the incident, that he realized why he hadn’t said anything. The woman had a pointed nose.
“I shouldn’t worry about such stupid things!” he told himself angrily.
Entering a subway station, Gregory boarded the first northbound train. He leaned against the side of the car, glancing through a newspaper and mechanically peeking over it from time to time to check the names of the stations rushing past outside the windows. He got off at Wooden Hills. The train pulled away noisily and sped into the tunnel. Gregory stepped into an unoccupied telephone booth and opened the directory. Carefully sliding his finger along the column of names, he found what he was looking for: “Sciss, Harvey, Ph.D., M.A. Bridgewater 876- 951.” He picked up the receiver and dialed the number carefully, closing the booth door in anticipation. No more than a minute later he heard the even buzz of the ringing signal, then a short clicking and a woman’s voice:
“Hello?”
“Is Dr. Sciss in?”
“No he isn’t. Who’s calling?”
“Gregory, of Scotland Yard.”
The woman hesitated for a moment, as if uncertain what to do. Gregory could hear the sound of her breathing.
“The Doctor will be back in fifteen minutes,” she said at last, a note of reluctance clearly discernible in her voice.
“In fifteen minutes?” he repeated.
“Probably. Shall I tell him you called?”
“No, thanks anyway. Maybe I…”
Gregory hung up without finishing and stared glumly at his hand, which was pressed against the telephone book. Noticing the flickering lights of an approaching train, he left the booth without further thought, glanced quickly at the illuminated platform sign to find out the destination of the waiting train, and got into the last car.
During the twenty-minute trip to Bridgewater, Gregory kept thinking about the woman who had answered Sciss’s phone. He knew Sciss wasn’t married. Could it have been his mother? No, the voice was too young. Housekeeper? He tried desperately to remember its sound, flat yet melodious at the same time, as if it were a matter of extreme importance, but he was well aware that he was only trying to keep from worrying about what to say to Sciss. Their conversation, he was afraid, might eliminate his only remaining lead.
In Sciss’s neighborhood the subway line ran outdoors on an elevated structure. Gregory descended from the station and, with the noise of passing trains rattling overhead, walked along a broad avenue lined by stores. Sciss lived nearby on a dimly lit, deserted street; a bright green sign advertising a peep show glowed in the ground-floor window of the house next to his.
It was hard to see much of Sciss’s building in the darkness. Gregory noticed some masses of concrete protruding over the sidewalk from the upper stories; they could have been ledges or balconies. The building’s entrance lobby was completely dark, except for some light reflected from a neon sign across the street; the stairway was dark also. Gregory pushed an illuminated button for the self-service elevator and rode upstairs. Sciss
