went up in a self-service elevator to a waiting room on the fifth floor. This was handsomely furnished in California Danish and had soothing music piped in, which got on my nerves before I had time to sit down. Two pregnant women on opposite sides of the room caught me, a mere man, in a crossfire of pitying glances.
The highly made-up girl behind the counter in one corner said: `Mr. Archer?'
`Yes.'
`Dr Weintraub will see you in a few minutes. You're not a patient, are you? So we needn't bother taking your history, need we?'
`It would give you the horrors, honey.'
She moved her eyelashes up and down a few times, to indicate shocked surprise. Her eyelashes were long and thick and phony, and they waved clumsily in the air like tarantula legs.
Dr Weintraub opened a door and beckoned me into his consulting room. He was a man about my age, perhaps a few years older. Like a lot of other doctors, he hadn't looked after himself. His shoulders were stooped under his white smock, and he was putting on weight. The curly black hair was retreating from his forehead.
But the dark eyes behind his glasses were extraordinarily alive. I could practically feel their impact as we shook hands. I recognized his face, but I couldn't place it.
`You look as though you could use a rest,' he said. `That's free advice.'
`Thanks. It will have to come later.'
I didn't tell him he needed exercise.
He sat down rather heavily at his desk, and I took the patient's chair facing him. One whole wall of the room was occupied by bookshelves. The books seemed to cover several branches of medicine, with special emphasis on psychiatry and gynecology.
`Are you a psychiatrist, doctor?'
`No, I am not.'
His eyes were melancholy. `I studied for the Boards at one time but then the war came along. Afterwards I chose another specialty, delivering babies.'
He smiled, and his eyes lit up. `It's so very satisfying, and the incidence of success is so very much higher. I mean, I seldom lose a baby.'
`You delivered Thomas Hillman.'
`Yes. I told you so on the telephone.'
`Have you refreshed your memory about the date?'
`I had my secretary look it up. Thomas was born on December 12, 1945. A week later, on December 20 to be exact, I arranged for the baby's adoption by Captain and Mrs. Ralph Hillman. He made a wonderful Christmas present for them,' he said warmly.
`How did his real mother feel about it?'
`She didn't want him,' he said.
`Wasn't she married?'
`As a matter of fact, she was a young married woman. Neither she nor her husband wanted a child at that time.'
`Are you willing to tell me their name?'
`It wouldn't be professional, Mr. Archer.'
`Not even to help solve a crime, or find a missing boy?'
`I'd have to know all the facts, and then have time to consider them. I don't have time. I'm stealing time from my other-from my patients now.'
`You haven't heard from Thomas Hillman this week?'
`Neither this week nor any other time.'
He got up bulkily and moved past me to the door, where he waited with courteous impatience till I went out past him.
23
WITH ITS PORTICO supported by fluted columns, the front of Susanna's apartment house was a cross between a Greek temple and a Southern plantation mansion. It was painted blue instead of white. Diminished by the columns, I went into the cold marble lobby. Miss Drew was out. She had been out all day.
I looked at my watch. It was nearly five. The chances were she had gone to work after her breakfast with Hillman. I went out and sat in my car at the curb and watched the rush-hour traffic crawling by.
Shortly after five a yellow cab veered out of the traffic stream and pulled up behind my car. Susanna got out. I went up to her as she was paying the driver. She dropped a five-dollar bill when she saw me. The driver scooped it up.
`I've been hoping you'd come to see me, Lew,' she said without much conviction. `Do come in.'
She had trouble fitting her key into the lock. I helped her. Her handsome central room appeared a little shabby to my eyes, like a stage set where too many scenes had been enacted. Even the natural light at the windows, the fading afternoon light, seemed stale and secondhand.
She flung herself down on a sofa, her fine long legs sprawling. `I'm bushed. Make yourself a drink.'
