In his years as a snooper, Caxton had learned that secrets could often be cracked by going to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that twisting the tiger's tail was dangerous; he understood the psychopathology of great power as thoroughly as Jill Boardman did not — but he relied on his position as a dealer in another sort of power almost universally appeased.
What he forgot was that, in phoning the Palace from a taxicab, he was not doing so publicly.
Caxton spoke with half a dozen underlings and became more aggressive with each one. He was so busy that he did not notice when his cab ceased to hover.
When he did notice, it was too late; the cab refused to obey orders. Caxton realized bitterly that he had let himself be trapped by a means no hoodlum would fall for; his call had been traced, his cab identified, its robot pilot placed under orders of an over-riding police frequency — and the cab was being used to fetch him in, privately and with no fuss.
He tried to call his lawyer.
He was still trying when the taxicab landed inside a court-yard and his signal was cut off by its walls. He tried to leave the cab, found that the door would not open — and was hardly surprised to discover that he was fast losing consciousness —
VIII
JILL TOLD herself that Ben had gone off on another scent and had forgotten to let her know. But she did not believe it. Ben owed his success to meticulous attention to human details. He remembered birthdays and would rather have welched on a poker debt than have omitted a bread-and-butter note. No matter where he had gone, nor how urgently, he could have —
He
«Did he say when he would be back?»
«No. But we always have columns on the hook to fill in when one of these things comes up.»
«Well … where did he call you from? Or am I being snoopy?»
«Not at all, Miss Boardman. He did not call; it was a statprint, filed from Paoli Flat in Philadelphia.»
Jill had to be satisfied with that. She lunched in the nurses' dining room and picked at her food. It wasn't, she told herself, as if anything were wrong … or as if she were in love with the lunk …
«Hey! Boardman! Snap out of the fog!»
Jill looked up to find Molly Wheelwright, the wing's di etitian, looking at her. «Sorry.»
«I said, “Since when does your floor put charity patients in luxury suites?”»
«We don't.»
«Isn't K-12 on your floor?»
«K-12? That's not charity; it's a rich old woman, so wealthy that she can pay to have a doctor watch her breathe.»
«Humph! She must have come into money awfully suddenly. She's been in the N.P. ward of the geriatrics sanctuary the past seventeen months.»
«Some mistake.»
«Not mine — I don't allow mistakes in my kitchen. That tray is tricky — fat-free diet and a long list of sensitivities, plus concealed medication. Believe me, dear, a diet order can be as individual as a fingerprint.» Miss Wheelwright stood up. «Gotta run, chicks.»
«What was Molly sounding off about?» a nurse asked.
«Nothing. She's mixed up.» It occurred to Jill that she might locate the Man from Mars by checking diet kitchens. She put the idea out of her mind; it would take days to visit them all. Bethesda Center had been a naval hospital back when wars were fought on oceans and enormous even then. It had been transferred to Health, Education, & Welfare and expanded; now it belonged to the Federation and was a small city.
But there was something odd about Mrs. Bankerson's case. The hospital accepted all classes of patients, private, charity, and government; Jill's floor usually had government patients and its suites were for Federation Senators or other high officials. It was unusual for a private patient to be on her floor.
Mrs. Bankerson could be overflow, if the part of the Center open to the fee-paying public had no suite available. Yes, probably that was it.
She was too rushed after lunch to think about it, being busy with admissions. Shortly she needed a powered bed. The routine would be to phone for one — but storage was in the basement a quarter of a mile away and Jill wanted it at once. She recalled having seen the powered bed which belonged to K-12 parked in the sitting room of that suite; she remembered telling those marines not to sit on it. Apparently it had been shoved there when the flotation bed had been installed.
Probably it was still there — if so, she could get it at once.
The sitting room door was locked and she found that her pass key would not open it. Making a note to tell maintenance, she went to the watch room of the suite, intending to find out about the bed from the doctor watching Mrs. Bankerson.
The physician was the one she had met before, Dr. Brush. He was not an interne nor a resident, but had been brought in for this patient, so he had said, by Dr. Garner. Brush looked up as she put her head in. «Miss Boardman! Just the person I need!»
«Why didn't you ring? How's your patient?»
«She's all right,» he answered, glancing at the Peeping Tom, «but I am
«Trouble?»
«About five minutes' worth. Nurse, could you spare me that much of your time? And keep your mouth shut?»
«I suppose so. Let me use your phone and I'll tell my assistant where I am.»
«No!» he said urgently. «Just lock that door after I leave and don't open it until you hear me rap “Shave and a Haircut”, that's a good girl.»
«All right, sir,» Jill said dubiously. «Am I to do anything for your patient?»
«No, no, just sit and watch her in the screen. Don't disturb her.»
«Well, if anything happens, where will you be? In the doctors' lounge?»
«I'm going to the men's washroom down the corridor. Now shut up, please — this is
He left and Jill locked the door. Then she looked at the patient through the viewer and ran her eye over the dials. The woman was asleep and displays showed pulse strong and breathing even and normal; Jill wondered why a «death watch» was necessary?
Then she decided to see if the bed was in the far room. While it was not according to Dr. Brush's instructions, she would not disturb his patient — she knew how to walk through a room without waking a patient! — and she had decided years ago that what doctors did not know rarely hurt them. She opened the door quietly and went in.
A glance assured her that Mrs. Bankerson was in the typical sleep of the senile. Walking noiselessly she went to the sitting room. It was locked but her pass key let her in.
She saw that the powered bed was there. Then she saw that the room was occupied — sitting in a chair with a picture book in his lap was the Man from Mars.
Smith looked up and gave her the beaming smile of a delighted baby.
Jill felt dizzy. Valentine Smith
Then ugly implications lined themselves up … the fake «Man from Mars» on stereo … the old woman, ready to die, but in the meantime covering the fact that there was another patient here … the door that would not open
