boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

500 Anthony Boucher
Luke had been gone an hour. Plenty had happened here in that hour, but more
where Luke Sellers had been. The old printer had aged a seeming ten years.
He kept twitching at his little scraggle of white beard, and his eyes didn’t focus
anywhere. His lips at first had no power to shape words. They twisted hopefully,
but what came through them was just sound.
“Molly—” Luke said at last.
John MacVeagh stood up sharply. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Molly— Told you I was worried about her—”
“She— No! She hasn’t! She couldn’t!”
“Iodine. Gulped it down. Messy damned way. Doc Quillan hasn’t much
hope—”
“But why? Why?”
“She can’t talk. Vocal cords— It eats, that iodine— Keeps trying to say something.
I think it’s— Want to come?”
MacVeagh thought he understood a little. He saw things he should have seen
before. How Molly felt about him. How, like Johansen with Laura, she could tolerate
his marriage if he was happy, but when that marriage was breaking up and her loss
became a pointless farce—
“Coming, Johnny?” Luke Sellers repeated.
“No,” said MacVeagh. “I’ve got to work. Molly’d want me to. And she’ll pull
through all right, Luke. You’ll read about it in the Sentinel.”
It was the first time that this god had exercised the power of life and death.
VIII
The next morning, Laura looked lovelier than ever at breakfast as she glanced up
from the paper and asked, “Did you like my interview?”
MacVeagh reached a hand across the table and touched hers. “What do you
think?”
“I’m proud,” she said. “Proud to see it there in print. More coffee?”
“Thanks.”
She rose and filled his cup at the silver urn. “Isn’t it nice to have all the coffee we
want again?” As she set the cup back at his place, she leaned over and kissed him. It
was a light, tender kiss, and the first she had ever given him unprompted. He caught
her hand and held it for a moment.
“Don’t stay too late at the office tonight, dear,” she said softly.
“Most amazing recovery I ever saw,” Doc Quillan mumbled. “Take a while for the
throat tissues to heal; but she’ll be back at work in no time. Damned near tempted
to call it a miracle, MacVeagh.”
“I guess this OPR appointment settles my part of what we were talking about,” Ingve
Johansen said over the phone. “It’s a grand break for me—fine work that I’m anxious
to do. So I won’t be around, but remember—I may come back.”
“Gather Phil made a fool of himself last night,” said H. A. Hitchcock. “Don’t worry.