“I’m busy with Dr. O’Donnell now. I’ll call him back.” Tomaselli sounded surprised. Normally he would not have to tell Kathy anything so elementary.

“I told him that, Mr. Tomaselli.” She sounded doubtful. “But he’s very insistent. He says he’s the husband of a patient. I thought you ought to know.”

“Maybe you should talk with him, Harry.” O’Donnell smiled at the girl. “Take him off Kathy’s mind. I don’t mind waiting.”

“All right.” The administrator reached for one of his two telephones.

“It’s line four.” The girl waited until the connection was made, then went back to the outer office.

“Administrator speaking.” Tomaselli’s tone was friendly. Then he frowned slightly, listening to what was coming from the other end of the line.

O’Donnell could hear the receiver diaphragm rattling sharply. He caught the words, “Disgraceful situation . . . imposition on a family . . . should be an inquiry.”

Tomaselli put his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. He told O’Donnell, “He’s really boiling. Something about his wife. I can’t quite make put . . .” He listened for a moment more, then said, “Now, Mr. Bryan, supposing you start at the beginning. Tell me what this is all about.” He reached for a pad and pencil, then said, “Yes, sir.” A pause. “Now tell me, please, when was your wife admitted to hospital?” The phone rattled again and the administrator made a swift note. “And who was your physician?” Again a note. “And the date of discharge?” A pause. “Yes, I see.”

O’Donnell heard the words, “Can’t get any satisfaction,” then Tomaselli was talking again.

“No, Mr. Bryan, I don’t remember the particular case. But I will make some inquiries. I promise you that.” He listened, then answered, “Yes, sir, I do know what a hospital bill means to a family. But the hospital doesn’t make any profit, you know.”

O’Donnell could still hear the voice on the telephone, but it sounded calmer, responding to Tomaselli’s conciliatory approach. Now the administrator said, “Well, sir, it’s the physician who decides how long a patient remains in hospital. I think you should have another talk with your wife’s physician, and what I’ll do meanwhile is have our treasurer go over your bill, item by item.” He listened briefly, then, “Thank you, Mr. Bryan. Good-by.”

He hung up the phone, tore off the page of notes, and put it in a tray marked “Dictation.”

“What was the trouble?” O’Donnell asked the question casually. In a busy hospital complaints about service and charges were not unique.

“He claims his wife was kept in too long. Now he has to go into debt to pay the bill.”

O’Donnell said sharply, “How does he know she was in too long?”

“He says he’s checked around—whatever that means.” Tomaselli said thoughtfully, “It may have been necessary, of course, but she was here nearly three weeks.”

“So?”

“Normally I wouldn’t think much about it. But we’ve had an unusual number of these complaints. They’re not always as strong as this—but on the same lines.”

Something flashed through O’Donnell’s mind: the word Pathology. Aloud he said: “Who was the attending physician?”

Tomaselli glanced at his notes. “Reubens.”

“Let’s see if we can get him and clear this up now.”

Tomaselli touched an intercom set. “Kathy,” he said, “see if you can locate Dr. Reubens.”

They waited in silence. From the corridor outside they could hear a soft voice on the hospital public-address system. “Dr. Reubens. Dr. Reubens.” After a moment the phone buzzed. Tomaselli lifted the receiver and listened. Then he passed it to O’Donnell.

“Reub? It’s Kent O’Donnell.”

“What can I do for you?” O’Donnell could hear the thin, precise voice of Reubens, one of the senior surgeons, at the other end of the line.

“Do you have a patient”—he looked at Tomaselli’s notes which the administrator had pushed toward him—“a Mrs. Bryan?”

“That’s right. What’s the matter? Has her husband been complaining?”

“You know about it then?”

“Of course I know about it.” Reubens sounded annoyed. “Personally I think he has good reason to complain.”

“What’s the story, Reub?”

“The story is that I admitted Mrs. Bryan for possible carcinoma of the breast. I removed a tumor. It turned out to be benign.”

“Then why keep her here for three weeks?” As he asked, O’Donnell remembered that you always had to go through this question-and-answer performance with Reubens. The other man seldom volunteered information.

Now he answered, “You’d better ask Joe Pearson that!”

“Be simpler if you told me, Reub.” O’Donnell was quietly insistent. “After all, she’s your patient.”

There was a silence. Then the thin, clipped voice said, “All right. I told you the tumor was benign. But it was two and a half weeks before I found out. That’s how long it took Pearson to get it under his microscope.”

“Did you remind him about it?”

“If I called him once I called him half a dozen times. He’d probably have been longer if I hadn’t kept after it.”

“And that’s why you kept Mrs. Bryan in—for three weeks?”

“Naturally.” The voice on the phone took on a note of sarcasm. “Or are you suggesting I should have discharged her?”

There was reason for Reubens to be sour on the subject, O’Donnell thought. Unquestionably he had been put in a difficult position. If he had discharged the patient, he might have had to call her back for more surgery, as had happened to Bill Rufus. On the other hand, every additional day in hospital meant an extra financial burden for the family. He answered noncommittally, “I’m not suggesting anything, Reub. Just making some inquiries.”

The thing had obviously been on Reubens’ mind. “Then you’d better talk to some of the other men,” he said. “I’m not the only one this has happened to. You know about Bill Rufus?”

“Yes, I know. Frankly, I thought things had been improving a little.”

“If they have, it’s not so’s you’d notice it. What do you propose to do about Bryan’s bill?”

“I doubt if we can do anything. After all, his wife was here for three weeks. Hospital money is tight, you know.” O’Donnell wondered what Reubens’ reaction would be when he heard he was being asked to give six thousand dollars himself to the hospital building fund.

“It’s too bad. Husband’s a decent little guy—a carpenter or something like that, works for himself. He didn’t have any insurance. This’ll set ’em back for a long time.” O’Donnell made no answer. His mind was already running ahead, thinking of what came next. Again the thin voice on the phone: “Well, is that all?”

“Yes, Reub; that’s all. Thanks.” He handed the telephone back to Harry Tomaselli.

“Harry, I want a meeting this afternoon.” O’Donnell had made up his mind what had to be done. “Let’s try to get half a dozen of the senior people on staff. We’ll meet here, if that’s convenient, and I’d like you to be here too.”

Tomaselli nodded. “Can do.”

O’Donnell was checking over names in his mind. “We’ll want Harvey Chandler, of course, as chief of medicine. Better have Bill Rufus, and Reubens should be included, I think.” He paused. “Oh yes, and Charlie Dornberger. He might be useful. How many is that?”

The administrator checked the names he had written. “Six with you and me. How about Lucy Grainger?”

Briefly O’Donnell hesitated. Then he said, “All right. Let’s make it seven then.”

“Agenda?” Tomaselli had his pencil poised.

O’Donnell shook his head. “We won’t need one. There’s just one subject—changes in Pathology.”

When the administrator had mentioned Lucy Grainger’s name, O’Donnell had hesitated for one reason only: it had reminded him of a meeting between himself and Lucy the night before.

They had met for dinner—the outcome of O’Donnell’s invitation to Lucy the day of the mortality conference—and in the Palm Court of the Roosevelt Hotel they had had cocktails, then a leisurely meal. It had been a pleasant, relaxed occasion, and they had talked lightly of themselves, of people they had known, and their own experiences in and out of medicine.