Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (24 page)

“Scalpel.”

Jean Pierre placed what he would have called
a knife firmly in Adrian’s outstretched palm. James’s apprehensive eyes met
Jean Pierre’s across the operating table, and Stephen concentrated on Harvey’s
breathing as Adrian made a ten-centimetre paramedian incision, reaching about
three centimetres into the fat. Adrian had rarely seen a larger stomach and
thought he could probably have gone as far as eight centimetres without
reaching the muscle. Blood started flowing everywhere, which Adrian stopped
with diathermy. No sooner had he finished the incision and staunched the flow
of blood than he began to stitch up the patient’s wound with a 3/0 interrupted
plain catgut for ten stitches.

“That will dissolve within a week,” he
explained.

He then closed the skin with 32/0
interrupted plain silk using an atraumatic needle. Then he cleaned the wound,
removing the patches of blood that still remained. Finally, he placed a medium
self-adhesive wound dressing over his handiwork.

James removed the drapes and sterile towels
and placed them in the bin while Adrian and Jean Pierre put Metcalfe into a
hospital gown and carefully packed his clothes in a grey plastic bag.

“He’s coming round,” said Stephen.

Adrian took another syringe and injected ten
milligrams of diazepam.

“That will keep him asleep for at least
thirty minutes,” he said, “and, in any case, he’ll be ga-ga for about three
hours and he won’t be able to remember much of what has happened. James, get
the ambulance immediately and bring it round to the front of the hospital.”

James left the theatre and changed back into
his clothes, a procedure which he could now perform in ninety seconds. He
disappeared to the car park.

“Now, you two, get changed, and then place
Harvey very carefully in the ambulance and you, Jean Pierre, wait in the back
with him. Stephen, you carry out your next job.”

Stephen and Jean Pierre changed quickly back
into their clothes, donned their long white coats again, and wheeled the
slumbering Harvey Metcalfe gently to the ambulance. Stephen ran to the public
telephone by the hospital entrance, checked a piece of paper in his top pocket
and dialled.

“Hello,
Nice Matin?
My name’s Terry Robards of the New York
Times.
I’m here on holiday, and I have a
great little story for you....”

Adrian returned to the operating theatre and
wheeled the trolley of instruments he had used to the sterilizer room, and left
them there to be dealt with by the hospital theatre staff in the morning. He
picked up the plastic bag which contained Harvey’s clothes and, going through
to the changing room, quickly removed his operating gown, cap and mask and put
on his own clothes. He went in search of the theatre sister, and smiled
charmingly at her.

“All
finished,
ma
soeur. I have left the instruments by the sterilizer. Please thank M. Bartise
for me once again.”

“Oui, monsieur.
Notre plaisir. Je suis heureuse de pouvoir
etre a meme de vous aider.
Votre infirmiere de 1’Auxiliare Medical est arrivee.”
A few moments later, Adrian arrived at the
ambulance, accompanied by the agency nurse. He helped her into the back.

“Drive very slowly and carefully to the
harbour.”

James nodded and set off at funereal pace.

“Nurse Faubert.”

“Yes, Docteur Barker.” Her hands were tucked
primly under her blue cape, and her French accent was enchanting. Adrian
thought Harvey would not find her ministrations unwelcome.

“My patient has just had an operation for
the removal of a gallstone and will need plenty of rest.”

With that Adrian took out of his pocket a
gallstone the size of an orange with a hospital tag on it which read “Harvey
Metcalfe.” Adrian had in fact acquired the huge stone from St. Thomas’s
Hospital, the original owner being a six foot six West Indian bus conductor on
the number 14 route. Stephen and Jean Pierre stared at it in disbelief. The
nurse checked her new charge’s pulse and respiration.

“Were I your patient, Nurse Faubert,” said
Jean Pierre, “I should take good care never to recover.”

When they arrived at the yacht Adrian had
briefed the nurse on diet and rest, and told her that he would be round to see
his patient at eleven o’clock the next morning. They left him sleeping soundly
in his large cabin, stewards and staff clucking attentively.

James drove the other three back to the
hospital and deposited the ambulance in the car park, and the keys with
reception. The four of them headed back to the hotel by separate routes. Adrian
was the last to arrive at Room 217, just after 3:30 A.M. He fell into an
armchair.

“Will you allow me a whisky, Stephen?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good God, he meant it,” said Adrian, and
downed a large Johnnie Walker before handing the bottle to Jean Pierre.

“He will be all right?” said James.

“You sound quite concerned for him. Yes, he
can have his ten stitches out in a week’s time and all he’ll have is a nasty
scar to brag about to his friends. I must get to bed. I have to see him at
eleven o’clock tomorrow and the confrontation may well be harder than the
operation. You were all great tonight. My God, am I glad we had those sessions
at St. Thomas’s. If you are ever out of work and I need
a
a croupier, a driver and an anaesthetist, I will ring for you.”

The others left and Adrian collapsed on his
bed, exhausted. He fell into a deep sleep and woke just after eight o’clock to
discover he was still fully dressed. That had not happened to him since his
days as a young houseman, when he had been on night duty after a fourteen-hour
day without a break. Adrian had a long, soothing bath in very hot water. He
dressed and put on a new shirt and suit, ready for his face-to-face meeting
with Harvey Metcalfe. His newly acquired moustache and rimless glasses, and the
success of the operation made him feel a little like the famous surgeon he was
impersonating.

The other three all appeared during the next
hour to wish him luck and elected to wait in Room 217 for his return. Stephen
booked them all out of the hotel and arranged the flight to London for late
that afternoon. Adrian left, again taking the staircase rather than the lift.
Once outside the hotel, he walked a little way before hailing a taxi to take
him to the harbour.

It was not hard to find
Messenger Boy.
She was a gleaming, newly painted joo-footer lying
at the east end of the harbour. She sported a massive Panamanian flag on her
stern mast, which Adrian assumed must be for tax purposes. He ascended the
gangplank and was met by Nurse Faubert.

“Bonjour, Docteur Barker.”

“Good morning, nurse. How is Mr. Metcalfe?”

“He has had a very peaceful night and is
having a light breakfast and making a few telephone calls. Would you like to
see him now?”

“Yes, please.”

Adrian entered the magnificent cabin and
faced the man he had spent eight weeks plotting and planning against. He was
talking into the telephone:

“Yes, I’m fine, dear. But it was an A1
emergency at the time all right
Don’t
worry, I’ll
live.” And he put the telephone down. “Doctor Barker, I have just spoken to my
wife in Massachusetts and told her that I owe you my life. Even at five o’clock
in the morning she seemed pleased. I understand that I had a private ward,
private surgery, private ambulance and that you saved my life, or that’s what
it says in
Nice Matin.
”

There was the old picture of Harvey in
Bermuda shorts on the deck of
Messenger
Boy,
familiar to Adrian from his dossier. The headline read “Millionaire s’evanouit
au Casino” over “La Vie d’un Millionaire Americain
a
etc Sauve par une Operation Urgente Dramatique!” Stephen would be pleased.

“Tell me, Doctor,” said Harvey with relish, “was
I really in danger?”

“Well, you were on the critical list, and
the consequences might have been fairly serious if we hadn’t got this out of
you.” Adrian removed the inscribed gallstone from his pocket with a flourish.

Harvey’s eyes grew large as saucers.

“Gee, have I really been walking round with
that inside me all this time? Isn’t that something! I can’t thank you enough.
If I ever can do anything for you, don’t hesitate to call on me.” He offered
Adrian a grape. “Look, you’re going to see me through this thing, aren’t you? I
don’t think the nurse fully appreciates the gravity of my case.”

Adrian thought fast.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Metcalfe.
My holiday finishes today. I have to get back to California. Nothing urgent:
just a few elective surgeries and a rather heavy lecture schedule.” He shrugged
deprecatingly. “Nothing very earth-shattering about it, but it helps me keep up
a way of life I have grown accustomed to.”

Harvey sat bolt upright, tenderly holding
his stomach.

“Now, you listen to me, Doctor Barker. I don’t
give a damn about a few hernias. I’m a sick man and I need you here. I’ll make
it worth your while to stay, don’t you worry. I never grudge the money where my
health is concerned, and what’s more I’ll make the cheque cash. The last thing
I want Uncle Sam to know is how much I’m worth.”

Adrian coughed delicately, wondering how
American doctors approached the ticklish subject of fees with their patients.

“It would cost you a lot of money if I’m not
to be out of pocket by staying. Say a hundred thousand dollars.”

Harvey didn’t blink.

“Sure. You’re the best. That’s not a lot of
money to be alive.”

“Very well.
I’ll get back to my hotel and see if I can
rearrange my schedule for you.”

Adrian retreated from the sickroom and the
white Rolls Royce took him back to the hotel. In Room 217 they sat staring at
Adrian.

“Stephen, for Christ’s sake, the man’s a
raving hypochondriac. He wants me to stay on here for his convalescence.”

He recounted his conversation with Harvey
Metcalfe verbatim.

“We hadn’t planned for this. What the hell
shall we do?” Stephen looked up coolly.

“You’ll stay here and play ball. Why not
give him value for money–at his own expense, of course. Go on, get on the
blower and tell him you’ll be round to hold his hand every morning at eleven o’clock.
We’ll just have to go back without you. And keep the hotel bill down, won’t
you?”

Adrian picked up the telephone...

Three young men left the Hotel de Paris
after a long lunch in Room 217, returned to Nice Airport in a taxi and caught
BA Flight 012 at 16:10 to London Heathrow. They were once again in separate
seats. One sentence remained on Stephen’s mind from Adrian’s reported
conversation with Harvey Metcalfe.

“If ever I can do anything for you, don’t
hesitate to call on me at any time.”

Adrian visited his patient once a day, borne
in the white Corniche with white-rimmed tyres and a chauffeur in a white
uniform. Only Harvey could be quite so brash, he thought. On the third day,
Nurse Faubert asked for a private word with him.

“My patient,” she said plaintively, “is
making improper advances when I change his dressing.”

Adrian allowed Dr. Wiley Barker the liberty
of an unprofessional remark.

“Can’t say I altogether
blame him.
Still, be
firm, nurse. I’m sure you must have encountered that sort of thing before.”

“Naturellement, but never
from a patient only three days after major surgery.
His constitution, it must be formidable.”

“I tell you
what,
let’s catheterise him for a couple of days. That’ll cramp his style. Look, it
must be pretty boring for you cooped up here all day. Why don’t you come and
have a spot of supper with me after Mr. Metcalfe has gone to sleep tonight?”

“I should love to, docteur. Where shall I
meet you?”

“Room 217, Hotel de Paris,” said Adrian
unblushingly. “Nine P.M.”

“I’ll look forward to it, docteur.”

“A little more chablis,
Angeline?”

“No more thank you, Wiley, that was a
memorable meal. I think, maybe, you have not yet had everything you want?”

She got up, lit two cigarettes and put one
in his mouth. Then she moved away, her long skirt swinging slightly from the
hips. She wore no bra under her pink shirt. She exhaled smokily and watched
him.

Adrian thought of the blameless Dr. Barker
in Australia, of his wife and children in Newbury, and the rest of the team in
London. Then he put them out of his mind.

“Will you complain to Mr. Metcalfe if I make
improper advances to you?”

“From you, Wiley”–she smiled–”they will not
be improper.”