“The other two very teeny ones, you understand, with neither of them my fault. Men show their true nature, silly jackasses, when you put them behind a wheel.” Exuding, with her indignation, the faint fumes of bottled spirits.

“I’ve got one for you,” he said, pulling from somewhere the line he undoubtedly had read years ago in a long-incinerated comic book: “If Ireland should sink, what would float?”

Both the policeman and the old lady concentrated but said nothing.

“Cork,” he said.

She screamed her delight. “What’s the biggest part of a horse?”

Over her head he and the police officer exchanged grins like a secret fraternity handshake.

“No, ye dirty things! The answer is the mane part.”

Senility, he wondered? She was alert enough to be acerbic, protesting throughout the physical examination, which was unremarkable.

He ordered pictures of the skull and was reading the wet x-rays when her son arrived. Arthur Donnelly was beefy-faced and visibly anxious.

“Is she all right?”

The films showed no skull fractures. “She appears to be. But at her age, I think it unwise to allow her to drive.”

“I know, I know. It’s one of her greatest pleasures. Since my father passed away the only thing she enjoys is driving herself over to visit some girl-friends. They play cut-throat bridge, maybe take a little nip.”

Or two, Spurgeon thought. “She seems fine,” he said. “But considering the fact that she’s seventy-one, perhaps we’ll keep her overnight under observation.”

Mrs. Donnelly became stony-faced at the suggestion. “What’s a fool?” she asked.

“I give up,” he said helplessly.

“Somebody who can’t understand that after what I’ve been through I want to sleep in the bed that’s my own.”

“Look, we know this place,” her son said. “My brother Vinnie—you know him, Vincent X. Donnelly, the state rep?”

“No,” Spurgeon said.

Donnelly looked annoyed. “Well, he’s a hospital trustee and I know he’d want her to go home.”

“We can give your mother every care here, Mr. Donnelly,” Spurgeon said.

“Screw that. We know this place. It’s no bed of roses. You people have enough humanity on your hands without worrying about our old lady. Be a good fella and let me take her home to her own mattress. We’ll call in Dr. Francis Delahanty, who’s known her for thirty years. We’ll even hire nurses to come to the house. For as long as you want.”

He telephoned Meomartino, who listened impatiently while he outlined the findings.

“I’m watching a cardiac arrest, among other things,” Meomartino said. “I’ve yet to get any sleep tonight. Do you really need me down there?”

It was a tacit vote of confidence at best, but he grasped at it. “I can handle it,” he said. He released the old woman from the hospital, beginning to feel like a physician.