Jack swung around to face Chet, who couldn’t have helped but overhear the conversation.

“Sounds like you solved that one pretty quickly,” Chet said. “At least now you don’t have to put your life at risk by going out there in the field.”

“I’m disappointed,” Jack said with a sigh.

“What can you possibly be disappointed about?” Chet asked with exasperated disbelief. “You’ve made a brilliant and rapid diagnosis and you’ve even solved what could have been a difficult epidemiological enigma.”

“That’s the problem,” Jack said dispiritedly. “It was too easy, too pat. With my last exotic disease it was a real mystery. I like challenges.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Chet said. “I wish some of my cases would have such nice tidy endings.”

Jack grabbed his open textbook of medicine and stuck it under Chet’s nose. He pointed to a specific paragraph and told his officemate to read it. Chet did as he was told. When he was finished, he looked up.

“Now that was an epidemiological challenge,” Jack said. “Can you imagine? A slew of inhalation anthrax cases from spores leaking out of a bioweapons factory! What a disaster!”

“Where’s Sverdlovsk?” Chet asked.

“How should I know?” Jack commented. “Obviously someplace in the former Soviet Union.”

“I’d never heard about that 1979 incident,” Chet said. He reread the paragraph. “What a joke! The Russians tried to pass it off as exposure to contaminated meat.”

“From a forensic point of view, it would have been a fascinating case,” Jack said. “Certainly a lot more provocative than picking up a case in a rug salesman.”

Jack got to his feet. After appearing so animated earlier, he now looked depressed.

“Where are you going?” Chet asked.

“Down to see Calvin,” Jack said. “He told me that if my case turned out to be anthrax he wanted to know right away.”

“Cheer up!” Chet urged. “You look like death warmed over.”

Jack tried to smile. He walked down to the elevator and pushed the button. What he didn’t tell Chet was that his restless mood hadn’t resulted only from the anthrax case’s resolving itself so easily. It was also about the mystery with Laurie. Why had she called at 4:30 A.M. to make a dinner date? And why was Lou coming, too?

As the elevator descended, Jack tried to think how he could get back at her. The only idea that came to mind was to buy her a Christmas present over the next few days and then start giving her confusing hints. Laurie was always wildly curious about presents and the suspense ate at her. Two months of suspense would surely be adequate revenge.

Emerging on the first floor, Jack felt better. The Christmas present idea was sounding better and better, although now he’d have to think of something to buy.

Calvin was in his office working on the reams of paper that passed over his desk every day. His hand was so large that the way his fingers had to hold his pen looked comical. He glanced up when Jack approached the desk.