It was not the number on the envelope, but Margaret dialled, and explained Hilary’s fever to the nurse who answered. Could Dr. Muir come to the house? Just a moment, please; the nurse would ask.
She came back presently with the information that Dr. Muir could not make a house call that day. Margaret could bring the child to his office if she didn’t mind a considerable wait, or, if she preferred, he would prescribe an antibiotic.
Margaret gave the receiver a look of astonishment. Prescribe for a new patient without even seeing her? But she said only, “I think in that case I’d better wait and see how she does. This is the Dr. Muir who treated Mrs. Philip Byrne recently, isn’t it?”
After another delay and some ruffling of papers, it was. Aware of the impatience in the nurse’s voice, Margaret said persistently, “Dr. Muir saw Mrs. Byrne, of course?”
“I really couldn’t . . . if you care to hold the line,” said the nurse coldly, “perhaps the doctor can speak to you himself.”
Margaret held the line. Twice she almost hung up, but something forced her to go on listening to distant waiting-room sounds: doors opening and closing, a child’s fretful wail, a voice making an appointment. Why was she doing this? If doctors here were so busy, or so reluctant to make house calls, Cornelia and Philip would hardly thank her for stirring up any kind of dust . . .
“Dr. Muir speaking.”
The low soft voice caught Margaret by surprise. She said rather stumblingly that she had been quite concerned about her sister, Mrs. Byrne; what had Dr. Muir thought of her when he saw her?
“I didn’t actually see her,” said Muir equably, and went on to explain. The flu epidemic had been widespread and in many instances severe, and when he was not in his office he had been at the hospital. Mrs. Byrne’s case had been typical of the intestinal type; he had therefore prescribed the usual antibiotic with instructions that she was to report on her progress and let him know if improvement was not rapid.
He was surprisingly patient with Margaret, or perhaps only very tired, and when he had finished he said politely, “How is Mrs. Byrne now?”
“Oh, much better. In fact she’s gone off for a vacation,” said Margaret, feeling foolish and embarrassed. “Thank you, doctor.”
She hung up, bothered by the fact of her own reassurance, rubbing absently at the tiny tight headache that had sprung up at both temples.
What to do about Hilary? Her own mother had been a firm believer in aspirin, fluids, and alcohol rubs, but a whole new generation of complicated germs had grown up since then, and suppose she was taking Hilary’s “attacks” too lightly? Suppose Hilary were prone to some sort of condition that could be dangerous? If the fever hadn’t gone down by evening she would go through the directory until she found a doctor who would come, and after that she would call the Revertons, reconciliation or not—
No, she wouldn’t. The Mexico City number had been on the slip of paper with the doctor’s.
Margaret discovered herself pacing distractedly around her room, half in worry over Hilary, half in anger at Cornelia and Philip for getting her into this. She knew both attitudes to be unreasonable—Hilary undoubtedly had only a touch of flu, and they had left her in the best of health—but that didn’t help her own increasing headache.
She went in to look at Hilary, and found her asleep, hot face turned into her pillow, one hand clutched about a comer of the scrapbook that protruded from under it. If she had taken the letter from the pantry drawer, wild horses wouldn’t drag it out of her, Margaret thought, gazing down at her, and now that the letter had become an issue she would have secreted it in some wily undiscoverable place.
Not that it could be of any real importance, or it would not have been left lying about in a house that was to be turned over to strangers; it would probably not have been preserved at all. A gossipy note about mutual friends from Grace, the sender of the postcard? Now that Margaret concentrated on it, her one tempted glance had caught small cramped writing.
What did seem to matter was the fact that, with Mrs. Foale away, both Jerome Kincaid and Elizabeth Honeyman were markedly curious about her.
Better, much, if it were Hilary, because then it was only a child’s secretive fancy. Might she have slipped the letter into the vase on the closet shelf, to join the photograph of the dark-haired woman? On this note of bald self-deception Margaret turned from the bed, opened the closet door without sound, reached for the violet-encrusted vase and tipped the photograph into her hand.
It was no more revealing on a long look than it had been at a glimpse, except that a sense of recognition grew. The face under the dark bangs wasn’t exactly pretty, but something about it—the perfect crescent brows, possibly, or a certain enamelled stillness—held the eye. She seemed to be in her late thirties or early forties, with a firm almost-plumpness that became her. Mrs. Foale?
It was a snapshot and not a very good one; there was nothing to learn from the dim gray pattern of background. Margaret turned a little, seeking a better light, and met Hilary’s interested marble-like stare. Hilary said obligingly, “That’s Mrs. Foale.”
What folly to have believed that simply because her lashes were down, her mouth a little open, her breath coming regularly, the master spy had been asleep. The virus did not exist, thought Margaret a trifle resentfully, that could get the better of Hilary. But the child’s calm certainty was chilling, almost as though she had some unthinkable means of summoning up Mrs. Foale’s face . . . Margaret said deliberately, “You can’t possibly know whether it’s Mrs. Foale or not.”
“Yes, I can. I asked this girl what Mrs. Foale looked
