The Ferguson Affair

“Gunnarson.”

His voice rose in pitch. “But I thought you were in the hospital.”

“I am. Come and see me. Room 454.”

“I’ve been planning to, naturally. I’ll try to drop by tomorrow. Or is tomorrow too soon for you?”

“It isn’t soon enough. I want you out here this morning.”

“I’d like to come, but I simply can’t make it today. Please don’t think I’m unappreciative of all you’ve done for us. I’m profoundly grateful, really, and so is Holly.”

“I want something more than gratitude. The police have been bearing down on me. You and I need an exchange of views, to put it mildly. If you’re not here by noon, I’ll assume that our professional relationship is dissolved and act accordingly.”

Somebody was knocking softly at my door. It seemed like a good time to hang up. The door opened inward, and Ella Barker peeped around the edge of it:

“May I come in, Mr. Gunnarson?”

“Please do.”

The girl approached me tentatively. Her eyes were very large and dark, with semicircular imprints under them. She had on hospital shoes and a clean white uniform, but no cap. Her black hair was brushed gleaming, and she was wearing fresh lipstick.

“I wanted to thank you, Mr. Gunnarson. I came over here as soon as I heard. To think that you got yourself shot on my account.”

“It wasn’t on your account. Put the thought away and forget about it. Anyway, it’s not a serious wound.”

“You’re just being nice.” She leaned above me, her eyes brimming with inarticulate feeling. “You’ve been awful nice to me. Would you like a back rub? I give a very good back rub.”

“No thanks.”

“Did you have a nice breakfast? I can get you some fruit juice if you’re thirsty.”

“You’re very kind. But I seem to have everything I need.”

She moved around the room, setting it straight in small, unobtrusive ways. I don’t know exactly what she did, but the place began to seem more comfortable. She picked up an empty glass vase that stood on the bureau, straightened the runner under it, and set it down again in the exact center.

“I’m going to get you some flowers,” she announced. “You need some flowers to brighten up the place. What kind of flowers do you like?”

“Any kind. But please don’t send me flowers. You can’t afford them.”

“Yes I can. I’m starting back on duty tomorrow morning at seven.” She turned with a slight dancer’s lilt, and smiled at me across the foot of the bed. “The hospital is taking me back.”

“No reason why they shouldn’t.”

“But I was so afraid they’d fire me. After all, I was in jail. I ran around with some terrible people.”

“Next time you’ll be more careful.”

“Yes. I guess I’m lucky to have a next time.” The marks of iron were showing on her face. It would take time for them to dissolve away. “Did Larry Gaines shoot you?”

“I can’t discuss that with you, Ella.”

“He did, though, didn’t he? And he got away.”

“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “He won’t be coming back to hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid of him. I just don’t want him to get away.”

“Forget about him, too.”

“I’m trying. It is like a sickness, just like you said. Well. I don’t want to wear out my welcome. If there’s anything I can do for you, day or night-” She completed the sentence by adjusting my sheets.

It wouldn’t be long, I thought, before she’d be making some man a good wife. It was the first satisfaction that I derived from the case. She came around to the side of the bed and leaned over me again. Before I could guess her intention, she kissed me lightly on the corner of the mouth and made for the door.

It was not the kind of kiss that goes to your head, but I was feeling very susceptible. I got out of bed and found a striped cotton bathrobe hanging behind my clothes in the closet. I more or less got into it, and reconnoitered the corridor.

The elevator doors were beside the nurses’ station. I went in the other direction, down the fire stairs. On the third floor I found an orderly with gray hair and a paternal expression, to whom I explained my problem, omitting salient details. He escorted me to the door of Sally’s room.

She was lying there with her bright hair spread on the pillow. She looked pale and wan and wonderful.

I kissed her smiling mouth, and she kissed me back. Her arms came around me, with the warmth of reality itself. Then she pushed me back to look at me.

“I got your note. It was sweet. But you’re a wild man, a positive wild man. Are you all right, Bill?”

“Fine. It was only a flesh wound,” I lied.

“Then why is your arm in a sling? And who shot you, anyway?”

“I don’t know. It was dark.”

“Also,” she said, “you have lipstick on your face, and I’m not wearing lipstick. Have you been kissing the nurses?”

“No, they’ve been kissing me. Ella Barker came by to thank me.”

“She better.” Her hand tightened on mine. “Bill, will you promise me something-just one thing? Promise me you won’t take criminal cases and rampage around the countryside and all.”

“I promise.” But I had mental reservations.

My wife may have sensed them. “You have a family to think of now, not just me. She’s beautiful, Bill.”

“Like her mother.”

“Not this morning I’m not beautiful. I’m all washed out this morning. On the other hand, have you noticed my abdomen? It’s getting quite flat already. I can actually see my toes.”

She demonstrated this, wiggling her toes under the covers.

“You’re as flat as a pancake, darling.”

“Not that flat, I hope. Bill?” She turned toward me, pushing her hair back. Her eyes were deeper and softer than I had ever seen them. “Do you mind awfully the fact that our joint product is not a boy? You like little girls, don’t you?”

“I like girls of all sizes.”

“Don’t try to be funny. We have a serious problem.”

“You’re okay, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I feel pretty good. Kind of empty, though, like an elevator shaft after the elevator went down. Except when they bring her in. Then I feel full.”

“Is there something the matter with her? Where is she?”

“Don’t get panicky now. She’s in the nursery, and she’s physically perfect. Not to mention precociously intelligent and aware. I can tell by the way she nurses. That makes the problem even more urgent. We have to give her a name, for her to start forming her personality around. We can’t simply go on calling her Her, like something out of H. Rider Haggard.”

“How about Sally?”

“Negative. One Sally in a family is enough. Do you like Sharon for a name, or is Sharon Gunnarson too cosmopolitan? Rose of Sharon Gunnarson is even more unwieldy, but that is the way I feel about her. Rose of Sharon Gunnarson,” she said dreamily.

“Negative. Rose Sharon Gunnarson, maybe.”

“But Rose by itself is such a florid name. Do you like Sarah? Susan? Martha? Anne? Elizabeth? Sandra?”

“Strangely enough, I like them all. How about Nancy?”

“I like Nancy. But let me think about it. We’ll both think about it. Now you go back and rest, Bill, you look tired. Maybe I can visit you tomorrow. Dr. Trench says my pelvis was formed for motherhood and I should get my strength back very rapidly.”

I told Sally that I adored her pelvis. She bumped it at me under the covers feebly.

I met Dr. Trench outside the door. He was a short man of forty with horn-rimmed glasses and a quick,