"Manitou - 01 - The Manitou" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

The Manitou by Graham Masterton



The phone bleeped. Without looking up, Dr. Hughes sent his hand across his desk in search of it. The hand scrabbled through sheaves of paper, bottles of ink, week-old newspapers and crumpled sandwich packets. It found the telephone, and picked it up.

Dr. Hughes put it to his ear. He looked peaky-faced and irritated, like a squirrel trying to store away its nuts.

"Hughes? This is McEvoy."

"Well? I'm sorry Dr. McEvoy, I'm very busy."

"I didn't meant to interrupt you in your work, Dr. Hughes. But I have a patient down here whose condition should interest you."

Dr. Hughes sniffed and took off his rimless glasses.

"What kind of condition?" he asked. "Listen, Dr. McEvoy, it's very considerate of you to call me, but I have paperwork as high as a mountain up here, and I really can't -- "

McEvoy wasn't put. off. "Well, I really think you'll be interested, Dr. Hughes. You're interested in tumors, aren't you? Well, we've got a tumor down here to end all tumors."

"What's so terrific about it?"

"It's sited on the back of the neck. The patient is a female Caucasian, twenty-three years old. No previous record of tumorous growth, either benign or malignant."

"And?"

"It's moving," said Dr. McEvoy. "The tumor is actually moving, like there's something under the skin that's alive."

Dr. Hughes was doodling flowers with his ballpen. He frowned for a moment, then said: "X-ray?"

"Results in twenty minutes."

"Palpitation?"

"Feels like any other tumor. Except that it squirms."

"Have you tried lancing it? Could be just an infection."

"I'll wait and see the X-ray first of all."

Dr. Hughes sucked thoughtfully at the end of his pen. His mind flicking back over all the pages of all the medical books he had ever absorbed, seeking a parallel case, or a precedent, or even something remotely connected to the idea of a moving tumor. Maybe he was tired, but somehow he couldn't seem to slot the idea in anywhere.

"Dr. Hughes?"

"Yeah, I'm still here. Listen, what time do you have?"

"Ten after three."

"Okay, Dr. McEvoy. I'll come down."