restaurant and walked out into the soft March evening. Spring was early, but early or late, it irritated me. Spring always does. It seems to affect a weak and defenseless appeal, like a fragile female in white. I like autumn. Autumn is mature and strong and able to take care of itself.
But spring was with me that night, fuzzing everything into gentle curves, giving the bare trees a slightly pregnant look. There was a fragrance from the park that defied the aggressive fumes of carbon monoxide and incineration. There was rain in the air, and the low clouds were luminous from the lights of midtown Manhattan. I belted my all-weather coat, pulled the brim of my felt hat forward, and set out toward Central Park West. I like to walk in the rain. And besides, I wanted to look at a house in the West Sixties.
The address was in that narrow wedge of streets formed by Broadway and the west boundary of the Park. There was a large apartment house at the corner where I turned left toward Broadway. Behind the elegant frontage facing the Park, the street seemed to crumble. In the shadow of fine buildings and lofty towers, old brownstone houses huddled in shabby embarrassment.
Here spring was defeated. Moldy cellars, stale beer, and furnished-room cookery won out. The street lights were far-spaced and dim. The lights from the houses added only furtive bleakness. I walked faster, stumbled against a refuse can midway from the curb. A radio somewhere blared with studio laughter. A child cried. A couple walked past me, arguing—a young couple full of bitterness. Ethel and Eddie might have been like that.
Two doors from the next corner I spotted the house, primly respectable among its slatternly neighbors. The doorknob shone. The long front windows gleamed against chastely drawn drapes. There was no light visible. A tiny name plate in metal gleamed against the stone. Dr. Wurber. No initials, no Christian name, just the identification. Dr. Wurber.
I mounted the high stone steps and pressed the bell. I heard it jangle through the house. I pressed a second time, more persistent than hopeful. The echo had an empty sound.
“Well, now, and what do you want?”
The sudden gruff voice so startled me I almost went over backward. He was standing in the small areaway at the side of the steps where a door led into the basement. Though he was half lost in the shadows, I could make out dimly the scowling face of a thickset, white-haired man in shirt sleeves and suspenders.
“Who is it you’re after?” he asked, with a stubborn hostility.
I came down the steps quickly. I smiled and said gently, “You startled me. Didn’t know where the voice came from. I wanted to see Dr. Wurber.”
“Not in. Won’t be in.”
“You’re sure?” I leaned against the iron rail surrounding the areaway. The old man, only a few feet from me now, stared nearsightedly.
“Did you—have an appointment, ma’am?” His tone softened.
“I thought I did,” I said breathlessly. “I came so far . . .”
The myopic eyes peered with embarrassing directness in the general area of my waist. I was thankful for the bunchy coat.
“Did you have an appointment for this night?” he persisted.
“It’s—April twenty-fifth, isn’t it?”
“It is that,” he said, edging out of the enclosure as he fumbled in his pants pocket. “Doctor’s a great hand for comin’ unbeknownst to me. Sometimes meetin’ his patients right here on the step. Would you be early now?”
“I might. Is it eight-thirty?”
“ ’Tisn’t that yet,” he said in obvious relief, and went before me up the steps. “I shouldn’t be lettin’ you in, but the night’s damp an’ in your condition . . .”
He unlocked the front door, switched on the lights, and led me into the big living room. I took a bill from the wallet in my pocket, pressed it into the gnarled hand.
“You’ve been so kind,” I murmured.
He beamed under thatched brows. “Nothin’ at all, ma’am. My wife went through it eleven times an’ I always say if you stay out of the night air . . .”
I sat in a large leather chair near the double doors, and picked up a magazine as the old fellow left. I didn’t move until I heard him go down the outer steps and close the basement door.
Luck, I decided, was riding with me. I couldn’t be sure there were any fourteen-year-old files here, but it was too good a possibility to pass. The answer to the whole thing—whether or not Dawn Ferris’s child and Bette Alexander were the same person—might be tucked away in some neat corner in this office.
I waited until everything was quiet. No sound at all if you counted out the pounding of my own heart. But the janitor might be somewhere below, listening. I kicked off my pumps, moved cautiously, in stockinged feet. The carpet pricked through my nylons as I crossed the room. A gloomy room, long, narrow, and high-ceilinged; the windows, only at the front, were shrouded in long, beige draperies. There was a scattering of heavy dark furniture and an aura reminiscent of the convent infirmary, a mixture of closed rooms and medications.
I reached the dark oak doors with the frosted glass paneling that formed the office partition. Except for my shoes, I was still dressed for the street, including gloves. I took a firm grip on the knob and turned gently. The door opened.
The light from the one lamp behind me revealed only shadow on the waxed linoleum floor. I reached out for the wall switch, found a panel with several buttons, pressed one.
Instantly I was bathed in glaring white light, sudden as a scream. I shut it off quickly, but the picture of the room was fixed in my mind, like a scene viewed by lightning. I could have diagramed the desk, chairs, files, and bookcases, the two long windows at the rear with shades drawn level with the sills. There was no evidence of surgical equipment. This must be an office and consulting room.
In the far corner beyond the desk was a group of filing cabinets, on which stood a gooseneck lamp. Not trusting the light buttons, I followed the line of the wall, my cold feet in sweat-damp stockings sliding on the waxed floor. The light from the living room guided me past major hazards. Carefully I reached the lamp, tipped the shade low, and turned the switch. For once I was happy to see the dim yellow gleam of a twenty-five-watt bulb.
Before me were two tiers of green metal filing cabinets. I pulled gently at the top drawer. The doctor evidently wasn’t worried about intruders. The drawer slid open easily. It was filled with eight-by-five folder-type cards, designed for the history of the patient and his correspondence.
Only there was no correspondence. The folder sections were empty. The cards, however, were all filled out in the same neat square handwriting. It was the second bit of unusual penmanship I’d seen that day. But this was the extreme opposite of Eddie Wells’s florid, show-card hand. This script recalled the writing on library cards when I was a kid. Every card in every drawer was written in that same style. Hundreds of them, and every entry made by the same person.
I squatted on my heels to reach the W’s in the bottom drawer and flipped through the carefully filed cards. Dr. Wurber had a passion for organization. He could give Patsy lessons in filing. Welch—Weller—Wells . . .
My hand shook as I drew out the large card. The writing danced before my eyes. I held the card closer to the dim light. Wells, Norma . . . I could almost taste my disappointment. Quickly
