Operation Nassau Read Free Page B

instead.’
    The man Brady sipped his coffee and then sat and looked into it. ‘She’s highly strung,’ he said. ‘He’s dead set on getting back with no fuss, and he has a great opinion of your abilities. When he heard what you did at the airport -’ He broke off. ‘He’s met you, you know. Don’t you remember?’
    ‘I have no clear recollection,’ I said.
    ‘He came to the hospital in connection with the New Year parade, and you dealt with him then most efficiently, he says. That’s why he thought you might help him. Of course,’ Mr Brady said quickly. ‘I shall be on the plane, and Sergeant Trotter, who lent us a hand. But it would really set his mind at rest to have you, I can see that. And . . . I hope it won’t embarrass you, but I have to say that of course he will make up any difference between your fare and his own. I don’t suppose the hospital let you travel in luxury.’
    They don’t. I only travel in luxury when I am travelling with my father, who used this method among many to promote me into a wealthy and suitable marriage. Since I broke the news to him that I do not intend to marry at all, he has travelled in luxury still more frequently, in an insane ambition to spend all the family wealth before it falls into the hands of his successor, the forty-sixth titular chieftain, one T. K. MacRannoch, a native of Tokyo.
    I felt that my broken night’s sleep entitled me at least to a first-class flight to the Bahamas. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘If you will kindly arrange to transfer my ticket. Tell Sir Bartholomew I shall call at the hospital at 10.15 a.m. The airport should be warned that he is a sick man, and they must waive all formalities.’
    ‘I’ll do that,’ said Mr Brady. He looked a trifle unsettled. ‘I should say,’ he said, ‘that I don’t know Bart Edgecombe all that well myself. You know, we play golf occasionally. But I didn’t even know he was in New York until we ran into each other this morning.’
     
    The world is full of people who regard medicine as a public charity. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And is Sergeant Trotter a friend?’
    Instead of looking irritated, his expression became merely rueful. ‘Sergeant Trotter,’ he said, ‘is everyone’s friend, as you will find out. He’s regular army and going to Nassau on business, that’s all I know. But he was the only other man to jump to it when Bart honked out and fell, and he stayed with me till you came. In fact, he’s in the next room to mine now, waiting to hear what you say. Just one of Nature’s Samaritans.’
    I know that type too. I almost changed my mind; but it was a two-hour flight, that was all, and a first-class passenger lunch would save me buying a supper. I stood up and said, ‘Since we have an early start, perhaps we should have some sleep then. Good-night, Mr Brady.’
    He put down his coffee-cup and got up. For a moment I thought he was going to reduce the conversation to personalities; then he shut his mouth and held out his hand. ‘Good-night, Doctor,’ he said.
    I put the chain back on the lock and emptied the syringe before getting into bed. It was 11.40 p.m. I do not like unorthodox days.
     
    There is nothing to sap the moral fibre quite like a first-class flight on a Super VC 10, from the nuts and taped music to the champagne and hot cologne-scented towels which quickly succeed them.
    The journey to the airport with Sir Bartholomew, who was quite sensible, although unsteady on his feet, had passed off without incident, and after installing him in comfort on a double seat on the other side of the gangway, I was able to put my walking-shoes on the scarlet plush foot-rest and receive the menu with pleasure. Hot prawns in batter were passed round. ‘Looks a bit better than he did yesterday, doesn’t he?’ said a London voice in my ear, and I perceived that I was sitting next to Mr Brady’s helper of the airport lounge, and that Mr Brady himself was nodding good morning from the seat just