“Thanks, Jaime,” Bushell said, and hung up. He looked to Sam and Kathleen. “A break at last - and a big one.” He frowned. “I wish I knew what it meant, though. After all the Russian connections we’ve unearthed, this one doesn’t fit.”
“It probably also doesn’t get us any closer to The Two Georges,” Kathleen said. “I know it’s important for us to catch the man who shot Honest Dick, but that’s not the half of the case we need right now.”
“You’re right,” Stanley said in mournful agreement. “They’re too smart to have told the shooter much, I’m sure.”
“Yes, that’s so.” Bushell rubbed at his mustache. “It must be why Sir Horace didn’t want me to spend time on the Tricky Dick end of things. Even if it did crack open, it might not help us soon enough. But this is still something he has to hear straightaway.”
He dialed Bragg’s office number. “I’m sorry, Colonel,” Sally Reese blared in his ear. “You can’t talk with Sir Horace right now. He’s gone to the dentist again this morning - that crown just isn’t right. He said he didn’t sleep a wink last night, and he’s getting it seen to.”
“This is important, Sally,” Bushell said.
“I understand that, Colonel, but I can’t make him be here when he isn’t, now can I?” Bragg’s secretary laughed her loud, scratchy laugh.
“No, you can’t do that,” Bushell admitted. He rubbed his forehead. Bragg had mentioned the dentist’s name a few days before, he was sure of it. He snapped his fingers in triumph. “He goes to Dr. Pendleton, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does,” Sally Reese laughed again. “I think he swears at him more than he swears by him, but he’s kept going back all these years.”
“Give me Pendleton’s telephone number, then,” Bushell said, reaching for the pencil he’d used to make notes on what Jaime Macias had told him. “If Sir Horace isn’t under general anesthetic, he needs this news now.”
“Well, since it’s you as asks,” Sally said. “Let me go through my pile of cards here. I’ll have it for you in a jiffy, yes I will.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Sally,” Bushell said with all the charm he had in him. In his ear, Bragg’s secretary giggled like a schoolgirl. From behind her table, Kathleen Flannery made as if to retch. Bushell stuck out his tongue at her.
“Here it is,” Sally Reese said, ignorant of the byplay on the other end of the line. “It’s AGincourt 4873.”
“Unless he’s unconscious, Sir Horace will want to know what I’ve got to tell him,” Bushell assured her.
“And if he is unconscious now, he’ll be sorry he was when he wakes up.”
“All right, Colonel. You sound like you know what you’re talking about.” Sally Reese slammed down the phone. She did even that with unnecessary vigor. Before he rang the dentist’s office, Bushell paused a moment to dig a finger into his ear. Kathleen looked puzzled. Samuel Stanley, who’d had more dealings with Bragg’s longtime secretary, chuckled softly.
Bushell dialed the number Sally Reese had given him. A woman’s voice came on the line: “Offices of Dr. Spencer Pendleton, member of the Royal North American College of Dentists and Oral Surgeons. How may I help you?”
The best way for her to have helped a man with a bad toothache, Bushell thought, would have been to shorten the introduction. He let that alone, though, merely giving his own name and title and saying, “I need to speak to Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg immediately.”
He waited for the receptionist to tell him Bragg was trapped in the chair and unavailable. He’d settle that in short order. But the woman answered, “I’m sorry, Colonel, but Sir Horace isn’t here.”
“Really?” Bushell said, sitting up straighten “Has he already left? That means he’ll be back at the office soon.”
“I’m afraid you misunderstand, sir,” the receptionist said. “He’s not been in this morning. He has no appointment scheduled, he has not asked to be seen on an emergency basis, and, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve no notion why you believe he would be here.”
“Why?” Bushell said. “To get something done about the crown Dr. Pendleton put on him last week. He’s done nothing but complain about it ever since.”
“Sir?” If that wasn’t honest bewilderment in the receptionist’s voice, she belonged in front of a cinema camera. “Sir Horace wasn’t in here last week to have a crown fitted or for any other reason. Let me check to be absolutely certain -“ Bushell heard flipping pages, presumably from Dr. Pendleton’s appointment book. The receptionist came back on the line: “No, sir, the last time Sir Horace saw Dr. Pendleton was last February 19, to have him replace a filling that had fallen out of a bicuspid. He’s not been here since.”
“You’re sure of that?” Bushell demanded.
“Sir!” The receptionist remained polite, but unmistakable frost came into her voice. “Our records are most exact, I assure you. If there’s nothing more -“ When Bushell didn’t answer, the woman hung up as emphatically as Sally Reese at her best.
Bushell gently replaced in its cradle the handset he was holding. He sat staring at the telephone. Samuel Stanley, of course, had heard only his side of the conversation with Dr. Pendleton’s receptionist. “Sir Horace is on his way back here?” he said. “When did he leave the dentist’s?”
“He didn’t,” Bushell answered. “He wasn’t there. He hasn’t been there since February, as a matter of fact.”
Stanley and Kathleen exclaimed together at that. “Where the devil has he been, then?” Sam burst out.
“If I knew, I would tell you,” Bushell said. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Do you suppose he keeps a mistress?” Kathleen asked.
Samuel Stanley burst into rude, raucous laughter at that idea. Flustered, Kathleen looked down at the table. Bushell held up a hand. “It’s - not as unlikely as you think, Sam,” he said slowly.
“Oh yes, it is,” Stanley said, laughing still. “That miserable, dried-up -“ He cut himself short, no doubt remembering - a couple of words too late - Bushell’s friendship with Sir Horace. But Bushell hadn’t spoken to defend Bragg. “It’s not as unlikely as you think,” he said again, and then did something he’d thought he’d never do: he repeated what Irene had said at the Russian embassy about Sir Horace.
“Good God,” Kathleen whispered.
“Good God is right,” Sam Stanley said in an altogether different tone of voice. “I was at that party, Chief. The nerve of the man - not just for doing it, but for doing it there. I wouldn’t have guessed he had it in him, not in a thousand years.” He probably would have elaborated on that theme had Kathleen not been in the room, and had Bushell’s ex-wife not have been involved in the affair.
“I wouldn’t have, either,” Bushell said. “I didn’t. But then, Irene turned out to be ... susceptible to men with titles. I didn’t find out about that till later on, either.” Sounding dispassionate about the breakup of his marriage came easy by now; he’d had practice. Not having to hide internal anguish, though, was new.
“What do we do now?” Kathleen asked. “Come up to him when he does get here and say, ‘We know you didn’t go to the dentist, so where were you?’“
“If he’s visiting a kept woman at a time like this, he ought to be horsewhipped,” Stanley said, sounding as if he wouldn’t mind being the fellow cracking the whip. Then he looked thoughtful. “Do you suppose Sally knows? If she does, would she tell us?”