"Couldn't we take her to the hospital?"

"Not without a private doctor to protect her."

"Protect her from what?"

"The police, or the psycho ward. Idon't want her answering any official questions until I have a chance to checkon Helen."

The girl whimpered. "I don't want togo to the psycho ward. I had a doctor in town here a long time ago." Shewas sane enough to be frightened, and frightened enough to cooperate.

"What's his name?"

"Dr. Godwin. Dr. James Godwin. He's apsychiatrist. I used to come in and see him when I was a little girl."

"Do you have a phone in the gatehouse?"

"Mrs. Bradshaw lets me use her phone."

I left them and walked up the driveway tothe main house. I could smell fog even at this level now. It was rolling downfrom the mountains, flooding out the moon, as well as rising from the sea.

The big white house was quiet, but therewas light behind some of the windows. I pressed the bell push. Chimes tinkledfaintly behind the heavy door. It was opened by a large dark woman in a cottonprint dress. She was crudely handsome, in spite of the pitted acne scars on hercheekbones. Before I could say anything she volunteered that Dr. Bradshaw wasout and Mrs. Bradshaw was on her way to bed.

"I just want to use the phone. I'm a friend ofthe young lady in the gatehouse."

She looked me over doubtfully. I wondered if Dolly'scontagion had given me a wild irrational look.

"It's important," I said. "She needs adoctor."

"Is she sick?"

"Quite sick."

"You shouldn't ought to leave her alone."

"She isn't alone. Her husband's with her."

"But she is not married."

"We won't argue about it. Are you going to let mecall a doctor?"

She stepped back reluctantly and usheredme past the foot of a curved staircase into a book-lined study where a lampburned like a night light on the desk. She indicated the telephone beside it,and took up a watchful position by the door.

"Could I have a little privacy, please? You can search me on theway out"

She sniffed, and withdrew out of sight. Ithought of calling Helen's house, but she wasn't in the telephone directory.Dr. James Godwin fortunately was. I dialed his number. The voice thateventually answered was so quiet and neutral that I couldn't tell if it wasmale or female.

"May I speak to Dr. Godwin?"

"This is Dr. Godwin." He sounded weary ofhis identity.

"My name is Lew Archer. I've justbeen talking to a girl who says she used to be your patient. Her maiden namewas Dolly or Dorothy McGee. She's not in a good way."

"Dolly? I haven't seen her for ten oreleven years. What's troubling her?"

"You're the doctor, and I think you'dbetter see her. She's hysterical, to put it mildly, talking incoherently aboutmurder."

He groaned. With my other ear I could hearMrs. Bradshaw call hoarsely down the stairs:

"What's going on down there, Maria?"

"The girl Dolly is sick, he says."

"Who says?"

"I dunno. Some man."

"Why didn't you tell me she was sick?"

"I just did."

Dr. Godwin was talking in a small deadvoice that sounded like the whispering ghost of the past: "I'm notsurprised this material should come up. There was a violent death in her familywhen she was a child, and she was violently exposed to it. She was in theimmediate pre-pubic period, and already in a vulnerable state."

I tried to cut through the medical jargon:"Her father killed her mother, is that right?"

"Yes." The word was like a sigh."The poor child found the body. Then they made her testify in court. Wepermit such barbarous things—" He broke off, and said in a sharplydifferent tone: "Where are you calling from?"

"Roy Bradshaw's house. Dolly is in the gatehouse with her husband.It's on Foothill Drive—"

"I know where it is. In fact I justgot in from attending a dinner with Dean Bradshaw. I have another call to make,and then I'll be right with you."

I hung up and sat quite still for a momentin Bradshaw's leather-cushioned swivel chair. The walls of books around me,dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world andits disasters. I hated to get up.

Mrs. Bradshaw was waiting in the hallway.Maria had disappeared. The old woman was breathing audibly, as if theexcitement was a strain on her heart. She clutched the front of her pink woolbathrobe against her loosely heaving bosom.

"What's the trouble with the girl?"

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009