"Theodore Sturgeon - The Perfect Host" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

boy--it was probably his boy--and leaves the boy outside while he goes in. He would be seeing a
wife, in all probability. He'd leave the boy outside only if the woman's condition were serious or
if she were immediately post-operative or post-partem.
So many patients go in and out that I naturally don't remember too many of them; on the other
hand, I can almost always tell a new patient or visitor ... marvelous the way the mind, unbidden,
clocks and catalogs, to some degree, all that passes before it....
The chances were that these people, the man and the boy, were visiting a new patient.
Maternity would be as good a guess as any, to start with.
It was well after nine o'clock, the evening of Mrs. Stoye's death, and the administration
offices were deserted except for Miss Kaye, the night registrar. It was not unusual for nurses to
check up occasionally on patients. I nodded to Miss Kaye and went back to the files. The maternity
admission file gave me five names for the previous two days. I got the five cards out of the
patients alphabetical and glanced over them. Two of these new mothers had other children; a Mrs.
Korff, with three sons and a daughter at home, and a Mrs. Daniels who had one son. Here: "Previous
children: One. Age this date: 14 yrs. 3 months." And further down: "Father age: 41."
It looked like a bull's eye. I remember feeling inordinately pleased with myself, as if I had
assisted particularly well in an operation, or had done a bang-up job of critical first-aid.
I copied down the address of the Daniels family, and, carefully replacing all the cards, made
my vacation checkout and left the building.
It seemed late to go calling, but I knew that I must. There had been a telephone number on the
card, but I had ignored it. What I must do could not be done over the phone.
I found the place fairly easily, although it was a long way out in the suburbs on the other
side of the town. It was a small, comfortable-looking place, set well back from the road, and with
wide lawns and its own garage. I stepped up on the porch and quite shamelessly looked inside.
The outer door opened directly into the living room, without a foyer. There was a plate-glass
panel in the door with a sheer curtain on the inside. I could see quite clearly. The room was not
too large--fireplace, wainscoting, stairway in the left corner, big easy chairs, a studio couch--
that sort of thing. There was a torn newspaper tossed on the arm of one fireside chair. Two end
table lamps were lit. There was no one in the room.


I rang the bell, waited, rang again, peering in. Soon I saw a movement on the stairs. It was
the boy, thin-looking and tousled, thumping down the carpeted steps, tying the cord of a dark-red
dressing gown as he came. On the landing he stopped.
I could just hear him call "Dad!" He leaned over the banister, looking up and back. He called
again, shrugged a shrug which turned into a stretch, and, yawning, came to the door. I hid the
knife in my sleeve.
"Oh!" he said, startled, as he opened the door. Unaccountably, I felt a wave of nausea.
Getting a grip on myself, I stepped inside before I spoke. He stood looking at me, flushing, a bit
conscious, I think, of his bare feet, for he stood on one of them, trying to curl the toes of the
other one out of sight.
"Daniels...." I murmured.
"Yes," he said. "I'm Ronald Daniels." He glanced quickly into the room. "Dad doesn't seem to


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be ... I don't ... I was asleep."
"I'm so sorry."