Love lingered near the entrance. It was not yet eight o’clock, and although he felt confident that Leadbitter had not noticed his pursuit up to now, he did not want to commit himself to an encounter at close quarters until the last possible moment. Regretfully he watched a waitress carry what appeared to be a whisky into the room Leadbitter had entered, then he retraced his steps to the car.
To the policeman’s considerable relief, Leadbitter soon reappeared. Instead of getting into the car again, however, he set off along Hooper Rise and turned right into Spoongate. Love followed, keeping to the opposite pavement. For the first time that day, the alderman appeared slightly apprehensive. He even glanced back on several occasions, but saw nothing to make him reduce his pace.
Suddenly, Love realized that the other was no longer in front. He halted, momentarily panic-stricken, and stared over the road at the point where Leadbitter had vanished.
Dark, pillared doorways faced him, all much alike in the gloom. There was no sound but that of a wireless on one of the upper floors. He remained motionless, straining eye and ear.
Then from one of the porches came a shaft of yellow light. Love mentally fixed its position and was already walking diagonally across the road towards it when it narrowed to a slit and was eclipsed altogether. A gentle thud and the reappearance of the light, widening and narrowing by turn, told Love that the door which almost certainly had admitted Leadbitter had been left on the latch and was swinging in the light wind.
Love walked cautiously up the four steps that led to the doorway. On one side he saw the gleam of metal. It was a name plate. He stooped and tried to read it, but the nearest street lamp was thirty yards away. Just as he was fumbling for matches, the door swung back and a woman stepped out into the porch. Love straightened up guiltily and looked at her. “It’s all right,” she said. “They’ve started.” “Oh,” said Love, “thank you.” The woman wished him good night and descended the steps. Now that the door was wide open, the name on the plate was perfectly clear. It was R. Hillyard, M.D.
The panelled hallway into which Love stepped, closing the door gently behind him, had once been warmly luxurious, but the constant passage of patients had given it a shabby, polish-starved look. The elegance of its proportions still made immediate impression, however, and Love glanced admiringly at the slim-bannistered staircase and the lofty window at its head. The house was a much larger one than the narrow façade suggested.
The nearest door on the right was ajar. Love heard from the room beyond an occasional sniff, a cough or two and an assortment of shuffles and creaks. It was without doubt the doctor’s waiting-room. He entered, sat down as near the door as he could manage, and after the preliminary devotions usual in such places—brief contemplation of his knees and a slow search round the walls for a non-existent clock—he surreptitiously looked over the eight or nine people present.
They were a typical surgery selection. A young woman who met his glance with a resentful stare, signifying that she held the male species malignantly responsible for all abdominal irregularities whatsoever. A sunken-cheeked man with scrubby grey hair and an internal whistle. A middle-aged matron with Bad Leg. A nervous young man who had been reading too many truss advertisements.
But of Alderman Leadbitter there was no sign. Wherever pewter antique tankards were being displayed that evening, it was not in the company of these unexceptional specimens of ailing humanity.
Love pondered what he should do next. Obviously he would be wasting his time and ruining a whole day’s tedious work by staying where he was.
He got up and went out into the hallway, watched with mournful contempt by the waiting patients. The rest of the house was silent. It might, he guessed, be largely unoccupied. There were five other doors on this floor and he walked quickly from one to another. At each he listened briefly. Behind only one was there a sound. It was a mumbled conversation between a woman and a man with a Scots accent. Love decided that this must be Hillyard’s consulting room. He heard nothing of the boomingly hearty voice of Alderman Leadbitter, with which he was by now only too familiar.
On tiptoe he climbed rapidly to the first turn of the staircase, paused to listen again, then ascended more slowly to the floor above.
Fixed to the wall opposite the head of the stairs was a small green baize notice board, to which a typed sheet was pinned.
The paper bore the day’s date and was marked off into three columns.
In the first was what seemed to be a series of times, varying between 7.30 and 8.30. The second column contained numbers—either 1, 2, 3 or 4. In the third were sets of initials.
At the head of the sheet were the words ‘Treatment Schedule’.
Love, wary by now of code theories, contented himself with rapidly jotting a copy of the table into his notebook. He had barely finished when a door shut loudly somewhere on his left. He darted instinctively in the opposite direction and drew himself into the deeply shadowed corner of the landing farthest from the staircase wall.
A man emerged from an opening in the wall about ten feet beyond the notice board. He was wearing an overcoat and carried a hat. At the top of the stairs he halted and stood looking down into the hall for several seconds. Then he began to descend. A minute later Love heard the gentle thud of the front door.
This was interesting. The man was Herbert Stamper, who farmed on the west side of Flaxborough Fen: a prosperous and venal gentleman, much troubled by the stubborn survival of an ailing and intolerant wife. Love recalled that his name had appeared on Purbright’s list of antique fanciers.
From below came the noise of voices. Love peered cautiously over the rail and saw a woman coming out of what he had assumed to be the surgery door. Some sort of cheery farewell was being wished her from within the room. As finally she turned and crossed the hall, a buzzer sounded and the chesty man, with wheeze at full cock, slouched from the waiting-room to the doctor’s door.
Love turned back and sought the point at which Mr Stamper had made his appearance. It proved to be the entrance to a corridor that ran at right angles to the landing wall. An arrowed card, bearing the direction ‘Treatment cubicles (Male Patients)’, hung from a nail. Four doors, at intervals of several feet, were set along the left wall of this passage. The end appeared to be blank.
Exploring further along the landing, Love discovered another corridor, running parallel to the first. In this case, however, its four doors were on the right. The card at the corner announced ‘Treatment cubicles (Female Patients)’. Love turned back and re-entered the male corridor, feeling that at this stage the proprieties ought to be observed.
He put his ear to the door marked ‘1’. There was silence inside. Slowly he turned the handle and pressed against the panels. The door would not move. Then he pulled and found the door had been made to open outwards. The space within was little bigger than a cupboard. It was fitted with a mirror and clothing hooks and seemed intended to serve as a small dressing-room. There was another door immediately opposite. Love tried it, but it had been locked or bolted from the other side. No sound came from whatever lay beyond.