The Dark Palace

There was nothing written on the card, face or reverse. He looked inside the envelope, but found no cover note.

The conservatory suddenly seemed a dark and inhospitable place, as if a shadow had settled over it. A shiver seemed to lurk in the air, waiting to take possession of him. And yet there had been no change in the external quality of the light, no drop in the temperature. It was simply that, for some unaccountable reason, he had experienced real and physical dread.

TWENTY-SEVEN

He found a medical supply shop open on Wigmore Street, where he purchased a pair of spectacles with darkened lenses. It was not that his eyes’ sensitivity to light had increased since his self-inflicted wound. Just that if he was going to return to the office he wanted to forestall for as long as possible any questions regarding the stitches over his eye.

With the swelling and dressing in his injured eye, he was half-blind anyhow. Such was the prevalent gloom of the morning that once he put the glasses on he could hardly see a thing. Even so, it was a relief to be hidden behind the blessed darkness of the celluloid-coated disks.

He groped his way out of the shop and headed south to Oxford Street. At one point he was even helped across the road by a solicitous gent. He was used to giving himself over to the hands of strangers, but not under these circumstances.

On Oxford Street, he stumbled into a Lyons tea house and made his way to a table in the gloom-encompassed rear. After a moment or two, the waitress came up to take his order: tea and a crumpet.

As he waited for his morning sustenance to arrive, he tried to get his story straight.

Of course, it would have been a different matter if his stunt had come up trumps, if he had found the girl and got a story out of her. But he had drawn a blank on both fronts.

It had all seemed so simple in the picture palace of his imagination. Without his having to say a word, the nurses would rush him to the very same ward where she was being held. The affinity of their wounds would make sure of that. And even if that did not happen, someone would be bound to comment on the startling coincidence of their admitting two patients with eye injuries on the very same night. He could get into easy conversation with said someone, and tease out of them where the girl was now.

In the event, the first nurse who saw him had smelled the whisky on his breath and assumed that he had sustained his injury as the result of a drunken brawl. And so he was given a wad of cotton wool to hold to his eye and kept waiting for three hours.

A second nurse stitched his eye, without any attempt to anaesthetize the area. When he cried out in pain, she commented that she should have thought all the whisky he had drunk would have numbed the pain.

He did not see the girl in the ward, and no one who spoke to him made mention of her. When he tried to ask in a casual ma

And so, at last, he had been discharged. He had wandered the streets until he found the medical supply shop.

His tea and crumpet arrived. He let the sugar flow freely from the jar. And asked the waitress for jam.

He felt a childish need for sweet and comforting consumption.

Only one conclusion could be drawn. The doctor had taken her to UCH, despite the fact that the Middlesex was closer to the scene of the attack.

Once he had finished his tea, he would head there. This time he would walk up to the front desk, present his credentials and ask for them to confirm the admittance of a female patient suffering from a vicious wound which had resulted in the enucleation of her eye. Sometimes, the most straightforward approach was the best.

That was something a man like Le

TWENTY-EIGHT

The clanging siren ripped into the morning’s torpor. The morning answered with a pale indignant glare, but was essentially powerless to resist.

Qui

On that occasion, Qui

But why had he shown himself to Qui

The man stood rooted to the spot, still staring at Qui

Qui

The man made no move to get away, nor did he acknowledge Qui

‘Who are you? What do you want with me?’

For an answer, the man looked deep into Qui

Neither the man nor Qui

‘I knew your father,’ he said at last.

Qui

‘How is that possible?’

‘I know what happened to him. I know why … why he took his own life.’

‘No!’

‘Do you not wish to know?’

‘What has this to do with what happened last night? A girl was viciously attacked last night after the premiere of a new motion picture. I saw you there. You argued with the maker of that film. You came here to see her …’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Why else would you be here?’

‘Your logic is faulty. However, it is true that I made some enquiries at the desk. They know me here. I was able to ask questions without arousing suspicion. She was not admitted.’