Sandra Birks said, “Archie’s here. I was fortunate to get him—I don’t think you’ve ever met Archie, have you, Alma?”

“Archie?” Alma repeated with the rising inflection of one who asks a question.

“Archie Holoman. You know, Dr. Holoman. He was just graduating when I was married. He’s in a hospital and isn’t supposed to take outside cases, but of course Bleatie is different. It’s all part of the family.”

I saw from the way Alma smiled and nodded that she’d never heard of Archie before, and gathered that Sandra had a trick of producing intimate men friends just as a magician takes rabbits out of a hat.

“Do sit down,” Sandra Birks said to me. “I’m going to see if Bleatie can talk. It was the most awful thing! That car swung around the corner and banged into me before I had an opportunity to do anything. Bleatie swears the driver did it on purpose. It was a big, old car, and it got away. I hung onto the steering wheel. Bleatie lunged forward and went right through the windshield. The doctor says his nose is broken. I didn’t know that when I telephoned you, Alma. . . . Do sit down, Mr. Lam. Pick a comfortable chair, stretch out, and have a cigarette. I want to talk with Alma for a minute.”

I dropped into a chair, put my feet up on an ottoman, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Bertha Cool was getting twenty dollars a day for my time. My stomach had food.

From a bedroom I could hear the sounds of motion, the rumble of a masculine voice, then a ripping sound as adhesive tape was torn in strips. I could hear Sandra Birks talk rapidly in a low monotone. Occasionally Alma interrupted with a question. After a while, they came back and Mrs. Birks said, “I want you to talk with my brother.”

I ground out my cigarette, followed them on into the bedroom. A young chap with a triangular face, broad across the forehead and eyes, coming down to a weak point at the chin, was putting on bandages with a professional touch. A man lay on the bed, cursing every now and then in a low voice. His nose was built up with splints, bandage, and adhesive tape. His long black hair was parted in the middle and hung down on either side of a sloping forehead. There was a bald spot about two inches in diameter on the top of his head. The adhesive tape, radiating out from the bandages on his nose made it seem as though his eyes were peering out from behind a white, coarse spiderweb.