In the Teeth of Adversity

by Marian Babson

  I shook my head no to all his questions and kept on shaking it. Perhaps the exercise would clear it a bit.

  Pandora stalked into the bathroom to find out why she was being neglected. She was appalled to find Gerry with an armload of clothes reeking of unpleasant associations. While I was now more socially acceptable, I was in the bath and out of reach, surrounded by water. In a fury, she sprang onto the low-suite cistern behind the toilet seat and perched there, reviling us both.

  “You didn’t hear the six-o’clock news?” I asked. “Or wasn’t it mentioned? It might not have been. The first news will probably break in the morning editions.” I tried to count my blessings. At least, Tyler Meredith’s death wouldn’t create the havoc of publicity Morgana Fane’s would have.

  “News?” Gerry twitched nervously. “You don’t mean you made medical – er, dental – history, do you? My God! What went wrong?”

  “It was murder,” I said. “Sheer, bloody murder. There’s no point in trying to deny it between ourselves.”

  “Hold on, old man,” Gerry said. “Stay there – I’ll be right back.”

  I heard the comforting clink of bottles from the other room. When he returned, Gerry was carrying two glasses of dark-amber fluid – not an easy task, as he was still absently clutching the clothes he had retrieved from the floor earlier. I stretched out an arm and relieved him of one of the glasses.

  “Wrap yourself around that, old man,” Gerry said sympathetically, “and then tell me. What did they do to you?”

  “I’m all right,” I said. “They never laid a drill on me.” Not that Zayle hadn’t tried hard enough – that was another nightmarish element to the endless afternoon. He’d evidently decided it would lend authenticity to our cover story if he got in some drillwork on me and had kept trying to jockey me into the chair – the unoccupied one. However, while I’m always willing to go along with an alibi – especially one I’ve invented myself – I draw the line at sacrificing a molar to it, and so he didn’t succeed. “Then what the hell’s the matter with you?”

  Gerry demanded. “You don’t look as though you’ve been for a pleasant social interlude.”

  “I haven’t,” I said. “I told you – it was murder. But,” I added hopefully, “I don’t think the police realize that yet. And perhaps I’m wrong – that bruise on the back of his head might have been there for a couple of days. Anyway, we managed to get the General back upstairs and keep him there, so he couldn’t spill the –”

  Abruptly, Gerry reverted to type. Discovering he was still holding my clothes, he pulled up the lid of the laundry hamper and pitched them inside – suit and all. For good measure, he picked up my shoes and threw them in as well.

  “Now,” he said, “would you care to start at the beginning?”

  “Zayle rushed in here this afternoon ...” I lost the soap and stopped to look for it.

  “Suppose,” Gerry said with dangerous patience, “you get out of that bloody tub and come into the office where we can have a civilized conversation.”

  “No slippers,” I said. I looked hopefully at Pandora. “I don’t suppose your ladyship would oblige?”

  Pandora gave me a haughty look and turned her head away. She was usually an agreeable little cat, but she steadfastly refused to fetch my slippers.

  “For God’s sake – you two!” Gerry stormed out of the room and returned with my robe and slippers, which he slammed down on the floor beside the tub. “Now, get out of it!”

  I pulled the plug and reached for the towel.

  Pandora padded after me as we went into the office, prepared to reclaim me as her own, now that I reeked decently of Castile soap and Scotch.

  “Now” – Gerry seated himself behind the desk and faced me grimly – “let’s have the worst.”

  “So,” Gerry said as I finished, “dentists have begun murdering one another, have they? It couldn’t happen to a better profession.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I don’t think Zayle did do it. I mean, he was here for quite a while. I’ll swear he honestly believed he’d killed Morgana Fane with that new anaesthetic. If he wasn’t convinced of it, then the stage lost a potential great when he chose dentistry. He certainly had me believing she was dead. It was one of the shocks of my life when she appeared in that doorway –”

  “Please.” Gerry shuddered. “Let’s not borrow trouble. She’s alive. You never heard – you never thought – you never dreamed – of anything else. The mere idea of trying to do a PR job to cover her demise in Zayle’s chair is enough to send me to an earlier grave than Tyler Meredith’s.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I mean, how could we possibly have explained ...?”

  “Prryow!” Pandora chimed in. She leaped from my lap to my shoulder and settled there, purring comfortingly into my left ear.

  “Let’s forget that,” Gerry said. “Let’s just settle for what we do have to explain. Which is ...?” He paused delicately.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t seem too bad – at the moment. In the circumstances, there’ll have to be autopsy, I suppose. But even if the pathologist does come to the worst conclusion, we ought to be pretty well out of it. I mean, it may be an item, but it’s scarcely headline material. A dentist dies, under slightly shady conditions – who’s going to be passionately interested?”

  “Exactly,” Gerry concurred. “It may be unfortunate, but it’s scarcely earthshaking. Let’s have another drink.”

  We were just relaxing nicely when the doorbell rang. We looked at each other and tossed a mental coin. As usual, I lost. Pandora registered a strong protest as I rose and crossed to open the door. I should have listened to her.

  Endicott Zayle stood there. For a wild moment, I considered slamming the door in his face and pretending there was no one at home, but something told me that idea wasn’t feasible.

  “Er ... come in,” I said feebly.

  “Thank you.” He sidled inside with suspicious obsequity.

  Pandora shifted on my shoulder and began to inch backward, growling faintly, until she had put my neck between her and the intruder. He might be almost unrecognizable in a suit instead of his white jacket, and no antiseptic could compete with the waves of shaving lotion he had splashed on, but she knew that there was something about that man she didn’t like.

  I was with her one hundred percent. We do not like thee, Dr. Zayle. I tried to force my face into an expression that was noncommittal, if not exactly welcoming.

  “Yes?” I said. I couldn’t quite manage “Good evening.”

  “I was just passing by,” he said unconvincingly, “and I thought I’d drop in and see how you were. We weren’t able to get to that tooth of yours this afternoon because of all the confusion. How is it? Still holding up, eh?”

  I might have thought a gentle madness was setting in – if I couldn’t see the expression on Gerry’s face. No, I was all right, and things hadn’t changed since the last time I’d noticed. Dentists didn't make house calls. Which left the madness on the other foot.

  “It’s fine.” I tried to recall Zayle to sanity. “It always was fine. Don’t you remember? We just agreed to –”

  “Ah-ha-ha-ha, silly of me.” His eyes were fixed on a spot just below my left ear. I realized Pandora was peeking around my neck at him, still snarling softly. “Of course ... of course.” He kept staring at Pandora as though he’d never seen her before. Perhaps he hadn’t; she’d spent all of his last visit under the desk.

  Then I clearly recalled his stooping to see what the hissing was and remaining crouched, staring into her eyes. Perhaps he just had a thing about Siamese cats.

  “Actually ...” he said, and I braced myself for the crunch. “Actually ... I’m meeting Adele – my wife – at Charing Cross Station in half an hour. Since you were just across the street, I thought ...”

  “You thought you’d drop in for a drink while you were waiting.” Gerry went to get another glass. “Very sensible of you, old man.”

&n
bsp; “My wife – Adele,” Zayle continued babbling, “has been visiting friends on the coast. She’ll be expecting to be met. She’ll be expecting ...” He trailed off limply.

  She’ll be expecting Tyler Meredith, my mind finished the sentence automatically. There were also a few likely follow-up sentences fingering around my brain, but I tried to ignore them.

  “Here you are, old man.” Gerry thrust the drink at him, but his voice had lost some of its heartiness. He, too, had begun to suspect what was coming next.

  “Thank you. Cheers.” Zayle didn’t look as though he’d ever see cheer in anything again.

  “I thought –” he said. “That is, I was wondering – I mean, it’s only across the street –”

  While Zayle was floundering, I met Gerry’s eyes and he shrugged resignedly. It was plain to see that either we were all going to meet Adele’s train together, or we’d have Endicott Zayle around our necks all night. He wasn’t going to have enough courage to face his wife alone. Far less, break the bad news all by himself. And as he had said, it was only across the street. There were disadvantages in living near a Main Line station, too.

  “If you could just meet the train with me,” he pleaded. “It wouldn’t take long. Just – just stand by for a few minutes. I – I’ll have to tell her before she gets back to the house. Er ... you might like,” he added hopefully, “to drive back with us. I – I could return your hospitality then.”

  “Sorry, that’s out,” Gerry said firmly. “Pressure of work. The station, yes. Anything else, no.”

  “Yes, quite.” Zayle accepted the ultimatum with a sigh. He would be on his own with his Adele once the train disembarkation was over. He did not appear to be enjoying the prospect.

  “Excuse me.” I bent and sloped my shoulders, decanting a protesting Pandora onto the desktop. “I’ll go and get dressed.”

  We saved a lot of time and effort by using the side entrance, the long flight of steps leading up from Villiers Street into Charing Cross Station itself. Only a couple of trains were in. The station was quiet, recovering from the rush-hour exodus.

  “Platform tickets,” Zayle muttered. “We must have platform tickets.” He fussed over to a machine and busied himself with a handful of change. Gerry and I stood where he had left us, waiting until, in his own good time – which seemed longer than necessary – he came back to us.

  “Here you are. And you. And one for me.” He doled out the platform tickets like a Nanny. I almost expected to hear “What do you say?” when neither of us bothered with a thank-you.

  But his mind was on other things. “Platform five.” He looked around vaguely. “Platform five – the train should be arriving soon.”

  As though to underline his words, the loudspeaker announced the train arriving at Platform 5.

  “Over there.” We sprinted down the platform, waving our platform tickets as we passed the ticket gate, then halted as the train slowed to a stop.

  Carriage doors began to slam along the length of the train, and Zayle backed up suddenly, stopping as he collided with us.

  “Sorry,” he said nervously. “Sorry.” Despite the fact that he had us with him for moral support, he looked as though he’d like to cut and run. He glanced up and down the platform in increasing agitation. “Do you see her?” he asked.

  “We don’t know what she looks like,” I reminded him. “We’ve never met your wife.” Our visits to him had always been businesslike, brief and to the point. We had never felt like lingering, after the drill had been removed and the mouth rinsed, for any social chitchat.

  “Oh?” He seemed vaguely surprised. “Haven’t you?” He looked down the platform again and tried to take another step backward, but I was in his way. “Here she comes now,” he said.

  With us flanking him, he moved forward to intercept a statuesque redhead who was hurrying toward the ticket gate. She was looking over and beyond us, craning her neck to see a face she was expecting. It was obviously a shock, and not a pleasant one, when Zayle stepped into her path.

  “Hello, dear,” he said. “Did you have a nice holiday?” He reached for her suitcase.

  “Oh!” She stopped short and for a moment we all stood there, making an immovable little island, being buffeted around the edges by the departing passengers.

  “Shall we step out of the way?” Zayle suggested, trying to give her time to recover. Silently, we moved to the far side of the platform, beside the empty bay, which would not be empty for long. Even now, the loudspeaker was announcing the imminent arrival of a train at Platform 6.

  “Where’s Tyler?” Adele asked abruptly. “Why isn’t he here? What have you done with him?” She turned a cool, level look on me and then on Gerry, still flanking Zayle, but didn’t bother to ask who we were or what we were doing there. We were of no interest to her.

  “Darling, I’d like you to meet Doug and Gerry,” Zayle babbled desperately. “They’re my –” He broke off, evidently realizing that he could not admit that he felt the need of a couple of public relations men in order to greet his own wife. “Uh – I’ve known them a long time,” he finished limply.

  “I see.” We were still of no interest to her. She lifted her eyes thoughtfully to the distant horizon of intersecting steel rails. At the far end of the platform bay, a train slowed and curved into the bay, heading for home base.

  “Did you have a good journey? Would you like a drink before we start home? How are –”

  “It’s no use, Endicott,” she said. “I’ve come to a decision.”

  “Please, Adele.” He frowned warningly. “Not here. Can’t it wait until we get home?”

  “Since you forced the issue by appearing here like this,” she said, “it can’t. I’m sorry” – she tossed a perfunctory apology to Gerry and me – “but he brought you along because he thought I wouldn’t make a scene in front of strangers. He’s just using you. He’s like that, you know.”

  We nodded glumly. We knew.

  “Now, really, Adele –”

  “No, Endicott,” she said firmly. “You might as well know now. I want a divorce. I’m going to marry Tyler just as soon as it can be arranged.”

  “Oh, no!” Zayle gave the impression of reeling. “No – you can’t.”

  I felt a bit like reeling myself. This was going to be worse than I had expected – and I had expected the worst.

  “Oh, yes, I can, Endicott. And I wouldn’t advise you to try to stop me. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. My decision is final.”

  “No.” Zayle looked helplessly from Gerry to me. “No ... it’s impossible.”

  I saw, with a cold and deadly clarity, just why Zayle had stopped by for us. He had no intention of breaking the news to her himself. He was waiting for one of us to do it. I looked at Gerry. I’d done my fair whack for the day – let him start earning his own chunks of silver amalgam.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Adele Zayle said coldly. “Least of all this.”

  “Actually, Mrs. Zayle,” Gerry said, “I’m afraid it is. I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident. Mr. Meredith –”

  “He’s dead, Adele.” Zayle could not conceal his triumph. “Tyler’s dead.”

  “Nonsense!” But she went white and cold as marble. “That can’t be true. I was talking to him just after lunch. He answered the telephone himself. He was perfectly all right then.”

  “It happened sometime this afternoon,” I said.

  “No one can be quite sure when. After the autopsy, the police might –”

  “Autopsy? Police?” She glared from one to another of us. “That doesn’t sound like an accident. It was – murder?”

  I kept silent. After what I had seen, I didn’t want to answer that question. I waited for Zayle to deny it, hoping he could sound convincing. I’d like to be convinced myself.

  He didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at his wife with that odd expression in which there was more than a trace of satisfaction and triumph.

  “You did it!” she a
ccused. “If Tyler’s dead, then you killed him. Why are you here? Why haven’t the police arrested you? Unless – ?” She looked hopefully at Gerry and me.

  “No,” I denied quickly. We might look fairly official, flanking Zayle as we were, but I hoped we didn’t look as though we had him in custody. “No, we’re public relations consultants.”

  “You needn’t look so smug,” Adele flared at her husband. “You’re not going to get away with it.”

  Before either of us could guess what she was going to do, she stepped forward, put both hands against Zayle’s chest and shoved. Then, without looking back, she snatched up her suitcase and walked off.

  We caught him just in time. Off balance, he teetered over the track in front of the oncoming train, while we each pulled desperately at an arm. One concerted heave, and we had him back on the safety of the platform while the train slid past.

  “Oh, dear,” he said, looking after his departing wife. “I was afraid she’d be upset.”

  Neither he nor she looked behind at the platform bay, where steel wheels ground against steel rails over the spot where his body would have been lying if we hadn’t been quick enough.

  “Let that be a lesson to you, old boy.” Over Zayle’s head, Gerry said to me warningly, “Always beware of redheads – especially smouldering redheads.”

  Chapter 5

  Our brush with a hot-tempered redhead seemed to have put Gerry in a thoughtful frame of mind where what’s laughingly known as “the weaker sex” were concerned. At any rate, he actually spent the evening in the flat and was on tap at roll call in the morning. Consequently, we got a fair amount of work accomplished before little Penny, our secretary, arrived just after lunch, having spent her morning in secretarial school.

  I was on the telephone, assuring an eager journalist that I would definitely let him know if the rumour about one of our clients turned out to be true. While miming to Penny that yes-I-was-all-right and no-the-dentist-hadn’t-hurt-very-much, I made a mental note to check with said client and discover, if possible, what the hell was actually going on.