The Dogtown Tourist Agency (22 page)

“At least if you get sick there’s a hospital handy. Who’s the doctor?”

“Doctor’s retired; he won’t take cases anymore.”

“Oh? I thought I saw a nurse go into the cottage. She looked just a bit like you.”

“‘Nurse’?” The barmaid raised near-invisible eyebrows at Hetzel’s lack of perception. “She just takes care of things. Nurses her father, I suppose you’d say. Do you really think she looks like me?” The last was a scornful challenge.

“Not really, except that she’s blonde. You’ve got character and style, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Hmf. I’m wasting it here.”

“Why not have a drink?”

“I can’t touch the stuff; I come all over blotches.”

“We can’t have that!” said Hetzel with fulsome emphasis. “By the way, when I looked in the Masmodo directory, I noticed the name of another doctor. It might have been an old directory.” Hetzel glanced at the barmaid questioningly.

“Likely it was.” She turned away.

Hetzel returned to the hotel verandah, put on his macrospectacles and sat watching the hospital. Halfway through the afternoon the “nurse”—if such she were—stepped out upon the verandah to confer with the driver of a grocer’s wagon. Half an hour later a stooped man came slowly out upon an upper terrace and seated himself in the shade of an umbrella. Under a curl-brimmed tall-peaked Arsh hat Hetzel saw damp locks of gray hair, a pallid complexion, a long drooping nose. Once he
looked directly into a pair of milky gray eyes. Dr. Leuvil—if this were he—peered this way and that across the landscape. Hetzel suspected that his eyesight was not entirely keen.

Hetzel removed his macrospectacles, stepped down from the verandah, and ambled up toward the doctor’s cottage. The doctor either would or would not see him; there was no particular reason for subtlety or delay.

The doctor would not see Hetzel. Upon Hetzel’s approach the doctor rose to his feet, shook his head in displeasure, and groped his way back into the cottage. When Hetzel rang the doorbell a small panel opened and the nurse looked out. “Doctor Leuvil is retired. He no longer takes patients.”

“I am not a patient,” said Hetzel. “I want only a few facts in regard to his former associate, Dr. Dacre.”

“Dr. Leuvil will see no one, sir.”

“Just take him the message. I will wait.”

The nurse closed the panel and presently returned. “He does not wish to discuss Dr. Dacre.”

“Tell him that Dr. Dacre has got himself into trouble and that his information may have an important bearing upon the matter.”

The nurse shook her head and her blonde corkscrew ringlets bobbed and bounced. “I won’t tell him because the message would only upset him. He definitely will not discuss Dr. Dacre; it would make him sick.” She started to close the panel; Hetzel held it open. “Really; is he in all that bad condition?”

The nurse suddenly smiled; dimples appeared in her round face. Hetzel thought her quite charming. “He thinks he is; isn’t that the same thing after all?”

“I don’t know,” said Hetzel. “Please give him my message and ask him to think it over. I will come back tomorrow.”

“You need not bother.” The panel closed.

Odd, thought Hetzel. He returned to the hotel, and from the verandah watched Jingkens Star settle into the Mondial Ocean.

Lights went on in the hotel restaurant; Hetzel went in for his evening meal. The waitress was frankly overweight. Her skin was pale; a profusion of blonde curls hung over her massive shoulders. Her cheeks were round; her bosom bulged, her haunches distended the cerise fabric of her pantaloons; all quivered and surged as she moved about her duties. Where the barmaid at Dongg’s Tavern displayed a hard and bitter cynicism and the nurse at Dr. Leuvil’s cottage a chilly aloofness, the waitress seemed affable and uncalculating. She advised Hetzel in regard to the sparse menu and suggested that instead of the mousy beer he test the more palatable sublume cider, whose potency was not to be despised. When Hetzel suggested that she herself take a quart of the cider, or whatever she preferred, she agreed upon the instant. Five minutes later, when the last diner had been served, she settled herself with a grunt of comfort into a chair beside Hetzel and drank down the cider with zest. Hetzel immediately called for two more quarts. “You drink with rare appreciation,” said Hetzel. “It is a trait of which I approve.”

The waitress turned her head toward the kitchen. “Freitzke! Freshen the tables! I am talking business with this gentleman!”

An adolescent girl, blonde and already overendowed with feminine attributes, sullenly began to order the restaurant.

“Your sister?” asked Hetzel.

“She is my sister indeed. Look at the little fool; will she never learn? Freitzke, serve from the right, clear from the left!”

“What difference does it make?” grumbled Freitzke. “There is no one at the tables.”

“You must practice; how else will you learn?” The waitress turned back to Hetzel. “Poor Freitzke! We are a left-handed family: father, mother—now dead alas!—and all the girls, but Freitzke also thinks with her left hand. Nonetheless a dear good person, if inclined to fits of unreasonable sulking.”

“The barmaid at Dongg’s is also related?”

“Another sister.”

“Then there is Dr. Leuvil’s housekeeper, or would she be his nurse?”

“That scheming minx! She also is a sister. It is like mathematics. Five years of age separate each from the next. First there is I, Ottile; then Impie at Dongg’s; then Zerpette, at the cottage, and Freitzke, in the kitchen. But we are not at all close. It is something in the blood. Our father is now a recluse and will tolerate only Zerpette, who of course hopes to gain his wealth when he dies.”

“No doubt you remember Dr. Dacre.”

Ottile uttered a coarse laugh. “How could I not remember him? He seduced my innocence! He swore that the love of Faurence and Ottile would become as renowned as the bonds between Prince Wortimer and the Silk Fairy, or if I preferred, that between Macellino Brunt and Cora Besong. Never had I heard a man speak in such rhapsodies! I told him, ‘Take me! Introduce me to these famous ardors!’ But his duties interfered. He and my father never made a good pair. Father was cautious; Faurence was daring. Father would apply a salve; Faurence would thrust the patient into one of his expensive machines and perform a remarkable operation. ‘Soothe!’ was my father’s watchword. ‘Cut!’ cried Faurence. They were together four years and then had a terrible quarrel. Faurence was sent packing, but my father kept all of Faurence’s wonderful machines to pay for the money Faurence owed him. I heard the news and sorrowfully went to pack my clothes: I was at that time attached to my father and I did not want to leave Masmodo. I brought my luggage out to the street and stood waiting, dressed in my best. At last Impie came running to tell me that Faurence had left without me.”

“What an awkward situation!”

“True. Faurence was really a cad.”

“Where did he go next?”

“He went to try his luck on Skalkemond. Even I could have advised against this, for the Skalks above all are proper and orderly. Everything must be done just so, and this is not at all Faurence’s way. Before two years had passed he caused a great scandal and was expelled from Skalkemond. So then, what should he do but return here, all pride and audacity! I reminded him of our holy love, but he would hear nothing of it; unfortunately I had gained a bit of weight. Faurence approached my father to buy back his machines, for half their value, and Father refused to listen; so what did Faurence do but open a new practice, and who should he select for his nurse and confidante? Not me, but Impie! It seems as if she’d always had her eye on him, the drogbattie! Ah well, she’s no better off now than I.”

Hetzel saw that a comment would be in order. “Worse, I should say. At least you have retained your dignity!”

Ottile nodded with a vigor that set the blonde curls shaking. “Her surroundings are sordid; I, at least, deal with gentlemen.”

Hetzel suggested that a taste or two of sublume brandy might sit well with the cider; Ottile endorsed the proposal.

Hetzel said thoughtfully: “I must say that conditions at Masmodo would hardly seem to justify the presence of two medical men.”

“Correct! Although there is more business than might appear, what with Arsh and Dog-beards all along the coast, and the sublume orchardists up Joko Slope. About this time Father became ill and retired from practice and all the custom went to Faurence; for a time he and that unpleasant Impie were the busiest folk in Masmodo. Both day and night, no doubt. At any rate Faurence paid my father his money and recovered his wonderful equipment, and for good measure took over the dispensary as well. He wanted the cottage but Father refused to move. Zerpette was now taking care of him, and he was quite comfortable among his mementos; why inconvenience himself?”

“Why indeed?” Hetzel proffered the bottle. “A taste of this excellent brandy?”

“With pleasure.”

Hetzel poured generously. “Please don’t interrupt your account; you tell a most vivid tale.”

“There is more to come. Faurence began to do remarkable work. One of the Arsh—what was his name? Sabin Cru—fell from his boat. A scrag went after him and plucked him like a daisy. They hauled him out in a laundry basket; there wasn’t enough left of Sabin to furnish a good grip. But Faurence went to work with a will. He did a grand job, and for certain kept the life inside Sabin Cru, and after that all the Arsh came to Dr. Dacre, and even the Dog-beards, although some were deterred by a rumor.”

“What rumor?”

Ottile looked carefully right and left. “Who knows what the truth is? Does it sound credible that Dr. Dacre had a secret laboratory up the coast at Tinkum’s Bar, where he conducted odd experiments and tried to cross a Dog-beard with a Flamboyard?”

“Offhand, no,” said Hetzel. “However, I don’t know what might be a Dog-beard, much less a Flamboyard.”

“Dog-beards are no-hopers—beach folk; you find them mostly out at this end of the Torpeltines. You’ve never seen a Flamboyard?”

“Never.”

“You’ve got a treat coming. They’re our most important indigenes: feathered two-legged fruit eaters, the most gaudy and bizarre creatures imaginable. They have pink and purple plumes and orange fluff balls and golden horns. Why Faurence would want to tamper with such things is beyond imagination; any sensible person would know such a trick to be impossible. Still, someone—everybody thinks it was Father—turned in information. The Medical Inspector came down here posthaste and made no end of a row; if Faurence were innocent at Tinkum’s Bar, he’d done something else as bad. He closed office and left Masmodo, and never came back.”

“And when was this?”

“That would be about two years ago, more or less.”

“Where did he go next?”

Ottile gave a voluminous shrug. “Impie might know. She dressed herself in her finery, packed her bags, took them out into the street and waited, but as before, Faurence never came by. After a bit she took her luggage back into the house and changed her clothes. Impie even now refuses to discuss Faurence Dacre, though once in a while I try to reminisce with her.”

“Faurence Dacre seems a man of flexible principles.”

“Impie and I are agreed on this, at least.”

“Would your father know Faurence Dacre’s present whereabouts?”

Ottile gave her head a pitying shake, for Hetzel’s lack of perception. “Of all the folk of the Gaean Reach, Father hates one man more than all others. That person is Faurence Dacre. But his pride prevents him from speaking Dacre’s name, or even listening to the name spoken.”

“What of Dacre’s expensive equipment?”

“Still at the dispensary. Would you like to see it?”

“Very much! You are a remarkable storyteller and my curiosity is aroused.”

“Among other things?” asked Ottile with a coy glance.

“But is it possible?” Hetzel inquired. “I refer, of course, to the dispensary.”

“Of course it is possible,” said Ottile, “since I have the key.”

“Dr. Leuvil will not object?”

“What if he does? It is none of his affair.”

Companionably seizing Hetzel’s arm, Ottile led the way up the slope. The sky blazed with stars; wind sighed through the sneezewoods. An irregular line of dim lights twisting and angling across the water charted the route to Dongg’s Tavern, where a festoon of red and green lanterns promised ease to dry throats.

Dr. Leuvil’s stark white cottage stood to one side of the road, the dispensary to the other. “Here we are,” said Ottile. “Masmodo Dispensary, and not so bad a place, or so I’m told.”

Ottile produced a cylinder which she touched to the code plate. The door swung open. She turned on lights. “This is the reception room: serviceable but not impressive. I myself painted the pictures on the wall.”

“You have a sensitive touch.”

“Thank you. This is the reception office, and yonder are the examination rooms. There was Dr. Dacre’s private office. His papers and files have been removed of course, but otherwise—” Ottile made a vague gesture.

Hetzel went to examine the photographs which hung on the wall. “And who are these folk?”

Ottile walked along the wall, identifying such scenes as she was able. “—my father and the four girls, when we were quite young. Ah, look at me, how trusting and true! Was I not a dear child?…This is Dr. Dacre and the Arsh Sabin Cru. Notice the fearful damage which was done.”

Hetzel saw the torso of a staring-eyed Arsh lying naked on a hospital bed. Behind stood Dr. Faurence Dacre, smiling faintly, as if aware that the salvage he had worked could only excite the viewer’s awe. He asked, “And what happened to Sabin Cru?”

“Hard to say. The Arsh won’t tolerate deformities. Like as not they drowned him. Impie of course would know as to that. This is the nicest of the patients’ rooms; shall we just take a peep?”

“It hardly seems worth the trouble,” said Hetzel. “I’m more interested in technical matters.”

“They’ve locked the door,” said Ottile. She gave the knob a fretful tug, then quickly turned and threw open the door across the hall. “Examine this room; it is also very nice.”

“One hospital room is much like another,” said Hetzel. “Where are the operating chambers?”