“I know her!” Mrs. Straughan said quickly. “She works on the serving counter.”

As if by instinct, all eyes swung to the clock. It was seven minutes after five.

Mrs. Straughan said urgently, “The dinner! They’re beginning to serve the evening meal!”

“Let’s get to the dining room fast!” As he spoke, Harry Tomaselli was already at the door.

On the hospital’s second floor the nursing supervisor entered Vivian’s room with a harassed air, glancing at the door number as she came in.

“Oh yes, you’re Miss Loburton.” She consulted a clip board and made a penciled notation. “You’ll be transferred to the West Burlington Clinic.”

Vivian asked, “When will it be, please?” She had already learned, earlier in the afternoon, of the impending move and the reason for it.

“The ambulances are very busy now,” the supervisor said. “I expect it will be several hours—probably about nine o’clock tonight. Your own nurse will be in to help you with your things in plenty of time.”

“Thank you,” Vivian said.

Her mind back with the clip board, the supervisor nodded and went out.

This was the time, Vivian decided, to call Mike. Their five days of separation were not due to end until tomorrow, but neither of them had contemplated anything like this. Besides, she had already come to regret the whole idea of having a period of time apart; she saw it now as a stupid and unnecessary notion which she wished had never occurred to her.

Her hand went out for the bedside telephone, and this time there was no hesitation. When the operator answered Vivian said, “Dr. Michael Seddons, please.”

“One moment.”

There was a wait of several minutes, then the operator came on the line. “Dr. Seddons is away from the hospital with one of the transfer ambulances. Can someone else help?”

“No, thank you,” Vivian said. “I’d like to leave a message though.”

The operator asked, “Is this a medical matter?”

She hesitated. “Well, not really.”

“We can only take urgent medical messages now. Will you make your call later, please.” There was a click as the line went dead. Slowly Vivian replaced the telephone.

Outside in the hallway she could hear commotion and raised voices. She sensed an undercurrent of excitement; there was a sharp order given, then a clatter as an object fell to the floor, and someone laughed. It all sounded commonplace, and yet at this moment her mind clamored to share in it, to be a part of whatever was going on. Then her eyes fell to the bedclothes, to where the coverlet went flat at the point where her left leg ended. Suddenly, for the first time, Vivian felt fearfully and desperately alone.

“Oh, Mike!” she whispered. “Mike darling—wherever you are, please come to me soon!”

Nurse Penfield was about to enter the cafeteria when she saw the group bearing down toward her. She recognized the administrator and the chief of surgery. Behind them, her big breasts bouncing with the effort of keeping up, was Mrs. Straughan, the chief dietitian.

Passing through the cafeteria entrance, Harry Tomaselli slowed his pace. He told Mrs. Straughan, “I want this done quickly and quietly.”

The dietitian nodded, and together they entered the kitchens through a service doorway.

O’Donnell beckoned Nurse Penfield. “Come with me, please. I’d like you to help us.”

What happened next was done with swiftness and precision. One moment a middle-aged woman was serving at the cafeteria counter. The next, Mrs. Straughan had taken her arm and had steered her into the diet office at the rear. O’Donnell told the bewildered woman, “One moment, please,” and motioned Nurse Penfield to remain with her.

“Take the food she was serving and incinerate it,” he instructed Mrs. Straughan. “Get back any you can that’s already been served. Remove any dishes she may have touched and boil them.”

The chief dietitian went out to the serving counter. In a few minutes O’Donnell’s instructions had been followed and the cafeteria line was moving once more. Only a few individuals closest to the scene were aware of what had occurred.

In the office at the rear O’Donnell told the woman kitchen worker, “Mrs. Burgess, I must ask you to regard yourself as a patient in the hospital.” He added kindly, “Try not to be alarmed; everything will be explained to you.”

To Nurse Penfield he said, “Take this patient to the isolation ward. She’s to have contact with no one. I’ll call Dr. Chandler and he’ll issue instructions.”

Gently Elaine Penfield led the frightened woman away.

Afterward Mrs. Straughan asked curiously, “What happens to her now, Dr. O.?”

“She’ll be well looked after,” O’Donnell said. “She’ll stay in isolation, and the internists will study her for a while. Sometimes, you know, a typhoid carrier may have an infected gall bladder, and if that’s the case she’ll probably be operated on.” He added, “There’ll be follow-up checks, of course, on all the other people who have been affected. Harvey Chandler will see to that.”

On the diet-office telephone Harry Tomaselli was telling an assistant, “That’s what I said: cancel everything—transfers, discharges other than normal, catered meals, the whole works. And when you’ve done that you can call the admitting office.” The administrator grinned across the desk at O’Donnell. “Tell them that Three Counties Hospital is back in business.”

Tomaselli hung up the phone and accepted the cup of coffee which the chief dietitian had poured him from her private percolator.

“By the way, Mrs. Straughan,” he said, “there hasn’t been time to tell you before, but you’re getting your new dishwashers. The board has approved the expenditure and the contract has been let. I expect the work will begin next week.”

The dietitian nodded; obviously the information was something she had anticipated. Now her mind had moved ahead to other things. “There’s something else I’d like to show you while you’re here, Mr. T. I need my refrigerator enlarged.” She eyed the administrator sternly. “I hope this time it won’t require an epidemic to prove my point.”

The administrator sighed and rose to his feet. He asked O’Donnell, “Do you have any more problems today?”

“Not today,” O’Donnell answered. “Tomorrow, though, there’s one item of business I intend to deal with personally.”

He was thinking of Eustace Swayne.

Twenty-four

David Coleman had not slept well. Through the night his thoughts had kept returning to Three Counties Hospital, its pathology department, and Dr. Joseph Pearson.

None of the events of the past few days had changed in the slightest degree Dr. Pearson’s culpability in the death of the Alexander baby. Whatever his responsibility a week ago, it still remained the same. Nor had Coleman revised his own opinion that pathology at Three Counties was an administrative mess, bogged down by outdated concepts and handicapped by antiquated methods and equipment which should have been shaken loose long since.

And yet, uneasily over the past four days, David Coleman had found his feelings toward Pearson changing and moderating. Why? A week ago he had looked on Pearson as a near-senile incompetent, clinging to power beyond his time. Since then nothing tangible had happened to change that conviction. What reason was there, then, for his own uneasiness about it now?

It was true, of course, that the old man had handled the typhoid outbreak and its aftermath with a decision and competence that was perhaps a good deal better than Coleman could have managed himself. But was that so surprising? After all, experience counted for something; and the situation being what it was, it was understandable that Pearson should want to rise to it well.

But it was his own total view of Pearson that was less clear-cut, less firm. A week ago he had classified the old pathologist—whatever his achievements of the past—among the intellectual “havenots.” Now David Coleman was no longer sure. He suspected that in time to come he would be unsure about a good deal more.