his eyes met those of a hatchet-faced nurse who was talking to the admissions clerk. The nurse disappeared and a moment later the admissions clerk was joined by an elderly and evidently important specialist, if his retinue of young doctors, a Sister and two nurses was anything to go by. Wilt watched unhappily while the man studied his record of injuries, looked over his spectacles at Wilt as at some specimen beneath his dignity to treat, nodded to one of the housemen and, smiling sardonically, departed.
'Mr Wilt,' called the young doctor. Wilt stepped cautiously forward.
'If you'll just go through to a cubicle and wait,' said the doctor.
'Excuse me, doctor,' said Wilt, 'I would like a word with you in private.'
'In due course, Mr Wilt, we will have words in private and now if you have nothing better to do kindly go through to a cubicle.' He turned on his heel and walked down the corridor. Wilt was about to hobble after him when the admissions clerk stopped him.
'Accident cubicles are that way,' she said pointing to curtains down another corridor. Wilt grimaced at her and went down to a cubicle.
At Willington Road Eva was on the telephone. She had called the Tech to say that Wilt was unavoidably detained at home by sickness and was now in conference with Mavis Mottram.
'I don't know what to think,' said Eva miserably 'I mean it seemed so unlikely and when I found out he was really hurt I felt so awful.'
'My dear Eva,' said Mavis, who knew exactly what to think, 'you are far too ready to blame yourself and of course Henry exploits that. I mean that doll business must have given you some indication that he was peculiar.'
'I don't like to think about that,' said Eva. 'It was so long ago and Henry has changed since then.'
'Men don't change fundamentally and Henry is at a dangerous age. I warned you when you insisted on taking that German au pair girl.'
'That's another thing. She's not an au pair. She's paying much more rent than I asked for the flat but she won't help in the house. She has enrolled in the Foreigners' Course at the Tech and she speaks perfect English already.'
'What did I tell you, Eva? She never mentioned anything about the Tech when she came to you for a room, did she?'
'No,' said Eva.
'It wouldn't surprise me to find that Henry knew her already and told her you were letting the attic.'
'But how could he? He seemed very surprised and angry when I told him.'
'My dear. I hate to say this but you always look on the good side of Henry. Of course he would pretend to be surprised and angry. He knows exactly how to manipulate you and if he had seemed pleased you'd have known there was something wrong.'
'I suppose so,' said Eva doubtfully
'And as for knowing her before,' continued Mavis, waging war vicariously against her Patrick by way of Wilt, 'I seem to remember he spent a lot of time at the Tech at the beginning of the summer vac and that's when the foreign students enrol.'
'But Henry doesn't have anything to do with that department. He was busy on the timetable.'
'He doesn't have to belong to the department to meet the slut, and for all you know when he was supposed to be doing the timetable the two of them were doing something quite different in his office.'
Eva considered this possibility only to dismiss it. 'Henry isn't like that, and anyway I would have noticed the change in him,' she said.
'My dear, what you have got to realize is that all men are like that. And I didn't notice any change in Patrick until it was too late. He'd been having an affair with his secretary for over a
