Dr Stolowitz had his offices on the street floor of a yellow brick apartment house that towered over neighbouring brownstones. I arrived at 8.15. His receptionist was tall, lanky, with a mobcap of frizzy red curls. Her thin features seemed set in a permanent expression of discontent. I noticed her extremely long, carmined fingernails 94
and a bracelet of a dozen charms on her bony wrist that jangled when she moved. She greeted me with something less than warmth.
'Joshua Bigg to see Dr Stolowitz,' I said, smiling hopefully.
'You're early,' she snapped. 'Sit down and wait.'
So I sat down and waited, coat and hat on my lap.
At precisely 8.25, another nurse came out — a little one this time — and beckoned to me.
'Doctor will see you now,' she said.
The man standing behind the littered desk was of medium height, stocky, with a heavy belly bulging in front of his short white jacket. He was wearing rimless spectacles with thick lenses that gave him a popeyed look. He was smoking a black cigar; the air was rancid with fumes.
'Good morning, Doctor,' I said.
'Five minutes,' he snapped. 'No more.'
'I understand that, sir.'
'Just what is your connection with Yale Stonehouse?' he demanded.
'As I explained to you on the phone,' I said patiently,
'I'm investigating the Professor's disappearance.'
'Are you a private detective?' he said suspiciously.
'No sir,' I said. 'I am employed by the Professor's attorneys. You may check with Mrs Stonehouse if you wish.'
He growled.
He hadn't asked me to be seated.
'All right,' he said. 'Ask your questions. I may answer and I may not.'
'Could you tell me when Professor Stonehouse consulted you, sir?'
He picked up a file from his desk and flipped through it rapidly, the cigar still clenched between his teeth.
'Seven times during October and November of last year.
Do you want the exact dates of those visits?'
'No, sir, that won't be necessary. But Mrs Stonehouse told me his illness started late last summer.'
'So?'
'But he did not consult you until October?'
'I just told you that,' he said peevishly.
'Could you tell me if Professor Stonehouse consulted any other physician prior to coming to you?'
'Now how the hell would I know that?'
'He mentioned no prior treatment?'
'He did not.'
'Doctor,' I said, 'I don't expect you to tell me the nature of the Professor's illness, but — '
'Damned right I won't,' he interrupted.
'But could you tell me if the Professor's illness, if untreated, would have proved fatal?'
His eyes flickered. Then he ducked his head, looked down, began to grind his cigar butt in an enormous crystal ashtray. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly mild.
'An ingrown toenail can be fatal if untreated.'
'But when Professor Stonehouse stopped coming to see you, was he cured?'
'He was recovering,' he said, the ill-tempered note coming back into his voice.
'Was his illness contagious?'
'What's this?' he said angrily. 'A game of Twenty Questions?'
'I am not asking you to tell me the specific illness, Doctor,' I said. 'Just whether or not it was contagious.'
He looked at me shrewdly.
'No, it was not a venereal disease,' he said. 'That's what you're really asking, isn't it?'
'Yes, sir. What would you say was the Professor's general mental attitude?'
'A difficult, cantankerous patient.' (Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!) 'But if you mean did he exhibit any symptoms of mental disability not connected with his illness, the answer is no, he did not.'
He didn't realize what he had just revealed: that there were symptoms of mental disorder connected to the Professor's ailment.
'Did he ever, in any way, give you a hint of indication that he intended to desert his wife and family?'
'He did not.'
'Would you characterize your patient's illness as a disease, Doctor?'
He looked at the clock on the wall.
'Your five minutes are up,' he said. 'Goodbye, Mr Bigg.'
I put on my coat in the outer office. Three or four people were waiting to see the doctor.
'Thank you very much,' I said to the receptionist, giving her my best little-boy smile. It doesn't always work, but this time it did; she thawed.
'He's a bear, isn't he?' she whispered.
'Worse,' I whispered back. 'Is he always like that?'
She rolled her eyes. 'Always,' she said. 'Listen, may I ask you a personal question?'
'Five feet, three and three-eighths inches,' I said, and waved goodbye.
I stopped at the first phone booth I came to and called the office. I left a message for Thelma Potts telling her that I was engaged in outside work and would call later to let her know when I'd be in.
I took the Broadway bus down to 49th Street and walked over to the decrepit building where Marty Reape had his office. His name was still listed on the lobby directory, but when I got to the ninth floor, the door to Room 910 was open and a bearded man in stained painter's overalls was busy scraping with a razor blade at the outside of the frosted glass panel. Half of the legend, MARTIN REAPE: PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS, was already gone.
I stood behind the painter and peeked through the open door. The room was totally bare. No desk, chair, file cabinet, or anything else. Just stained walls, dust-encrusted window, cracked linoleum on the floor.
'Want something?' the painter demanded.
'Do you know what happened to the furniture in this office?'
'Ask the manager,' he said.
'Is this office for rent?'
'Ask the manager.'
'And where will I find the manager?'
'Downstairs.'
'Could you tell me his name?'
He didn't answer.
In the rear of the lobby was a steel door with a square of cardboard taped to it: MANAGER'S OFFICE. I opened the door with some effort. A flight of steel steps led steeply downward. I descended cautiously, hanging on to the gritty banister. A gloomy, cement-lined corridor stretched away to the back of the building. The ceiling was a maze of pipes and ducts. At the end of this tunnel was a scarred wooden door. I pushed in.
It was like going into a prisoner's cell. The only thing lacking was bars. Cement ceiling, walls, floor. No windows. The furniture looked like tenants' discards.
There were two people in that cubbyhole. A very attractive Oriental girl clattered away at an ancient Underwood, pausing occasionally to brush her long black hair away from her face. A small brown man sat behind the larger desk, talking rapidly on the telephone in a language I could not identify. There was a neat brass plate on his desk: CLARENCE NG, MANAGER.
Neither of the occupants had looked at me when I entered. I waited patiently. Mr Ng rattled on in his incomprehensible language, then suddenly switched to English.
