A Christmas Odyssey Read Free

own physician. Therefore it was help of some other sort that he wanted: perhaps connectedwith the clinic, and the kind of people who came there.
    “Mebbe I can take a message to her?” Squeaky suggested. “While she’s stitching and bandaging, like. Is it about the kind o’ folk what come here?” It was a guess, but he knew immediately that he had struck the mark.
    “Yes, it is,” Henry Rathbone admitted. “The son of a friend of mine has sunk into a most dissolute life, more so than is known to any of my own acquaintances, even in their least-attractive pursuits. I want to find this young man, and attempt to reconcile him with his father.” He looked a little self-conscious, perhaps aware of how slender his chances were. “I have given my word, but I do not know where to begin. I was hoping that Hester might know at least the areas where I could start. He is apparently concerned with a deeper level of vice than mere gambling, drinking, or the use of prostitutes.”
    Squeaky felt a sharp stab of alarm. This sounded like a story of grief that Hester would get caught up in much too much. Next thing you know, she’d be helping him, making inquiries herself. What really worried Squeaky was not just the harm she could come to, but the ugly thingsabout his own past that she might learn. As it was, she might guess, but there was a great deal about himself that he had managed to keep from her, in fact to even pretty well wipe out of his own memory.
    “I can help you,” he said quietly, his heart thumping in his chest so violently he feared it made his body shake. “I’d be the one she’d ask anyway. I know that kind o’ thing. Some things a lady doesn’t need to find out about, even if she has nursed soldiers an’ the like.”
    Henry Rathbone smiled very slightly. “That would be good of you, sir. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”
    “Robinson. Most folks call me Squeaky.” He felt faintly embarrassed explaining it, but no one ever used his given name. He had practically forgotten the sound of it himself, nor did he care for it. “I’d be happy to oblige. Tell me what you need, an’ I’ll make a few inquiries as to where you can begin.”

W hen Henry Rathbone had gone, Squeaky closed his account books, which were perfectlyup-to-date anyway. He locked them back in the cupboard in his office where he kept them, and went to look for Hester.
    He found her upstairs. Her long, white apron was blood-spattered, and as usual, her hair poked out where she had pinned it back too tightly and it had worked its way undone. She looked up from the clean surgical instruments she was putting back in their cases.
    “Yes, Squeaky? What is it?”
    His mind was already made up. She must not have any idea what he intended, or, for that matter, that Henry Rathbone had called to see her. Hester was clever, so he would need to lie very well indeed for her to believe him. In fact it might be better not to hide the fact that he was lying, but just to fool her as to which lie it was.
    “I need to go away for a little while, not quite sure how long,” he began.
    She looked at him coolly, her blue-gray eyes seeming to bore right into his head.
    “Then we shall have to manage without you,” she said calmly. “We are well up-to-date with most things. I’m sure Claudine and I will be able to take care of the money and the shopping between us.”
    Squeaky wondered why she did not ask where he was going, and what for. Was it because she had already decided that she knew? Well, she didn’t!
    “A friend of mine is in trouble,” he started to explain. “His son has gone missing and he’s afraid he’s in danger.” There now, that was the truth—almost.
    A momentary sympathy touched her face, and then vanished.
    “Really? I’m sorry.”
    She didn’t believe him! That hurt, particularly because Squeaky was doing this just to protect Hester from herself. He knew the kind of place Lucien Wentworth was likely to have ended up