Dr. Phibes

by William Goldstein

  Partly in pride, partly in self-remonstrance, he sent her a rose and brought her to dinner at Simpsons where Ulla’s straw-gold hair and flushed skin dominated the large dining room for more than two hours. Also, to ease that part of his conscience which was stiE outraged, he refused to stay with her that evening. The next day a card in his postbox signaled her disdain and, incidentally, the end of his freedom.

  Their second meeting was a reversal of the first. She produced a supper for two from out of a kitchen of the most modest appointments. Dinner was concluded with a dessert wine and good Brie cheese, after which they repaired to her canopied sleeping room without any urging on his part. Once there, he was subjected to such a silken assault that he found himself beating a tactical retreat on buckled knees at three o’clock in the morning.

  Thenceforth Ulla, dear school maidenly Ulla, was someone quite different at each encounter. And these meetings, due to the fever in poor Whitcomb’s blood, soon became daily affairs.

  Poetess, priestess, muse, milkmaid, all these Ulla played with a drive and humor far beyond her years. She could be contrite, petulant, noble and scheming with equal fervor, exhibiting a range which spoke of an even larger repertory that would take months, even years to explore.

  After one week, Whitcomb was testing the idea of marriage upon himself, this sentiment dissolving in his traditional cowardice after only a few hours of sweated contemplation. Relieved, he decided to offer her everything.

  To his astonishment and in a gesture that immediately endeared the young girl to the aging playboy to an even greater degree, she declined to list all those things which would “make her happiest” according to his request. Instead, her RSVP suggested that they spend the very next day absorbing the stately architecture and historic impediment of Westminster Cathedral.

  Whitcomb declined with regrets, suggesting that they postpone their outing until the weekend when he would be able to break away from the press of business. In fact, he’d scarcely worked a full day since they’d met. For that matter, his work habits were sufficiently sporadic and his practice had fallen to such a low estate that, had it not been for an annuity bequeathed to him by a long-since forgotten Aunt, Dana Whitcomb would be, if not penniless, forced to live on income.

  Nevertheless, he lived high. And it was with characteristic aplomb that he sent a carriage to call for her promptly at 3 P.M. on Saturday, the time of their appointed meeting. She seemed properly impressed at his costume which, in keeping with the occasion, consisted of trousers cut from the tartan woolens of his clan above which he wore a sleek blazer bearing the flaming shield crest of the House of Whitcomb. Ulla wore white, and he would have immediately clasped his hands about her tiny waist had it not been for the purity of her composure. Instead, he kissed her politely on the forehead and then reclined into the soft cushions of the hansom, there to contemplate the ravages he would visit on the virginal girl after their ecclesiastic outing.

  He entered the great and noble abbey bearing the splendid girl on his arm. He wanted to move to his right to review the stone markers of the great and near great that lay along the wall, but a steady and consistent pressure from Ulla’s white-gloved fingers held him on a course down the great center aisle. For Dana Whitcomb that was to be a fatal mistake. For in their passage, the power long instilled into the stones by the steps of generations of British royalty now transferred into them. By the time they reached the vaulted altarwork at the cathedral’s far end, Ulla’s exclamation was almost an understatement.

  “I feel so—so—queenly!” she breathed.

  “You are, and shall be, my dear!” said Whitcomb, in calm command of his fervor which, even then, was threatening to bring sweat to his scrubbed palms. He hardly could have appreciated the dimensions of the promise the young Ulla found and permanently locked into his words. He decided they must have a coronation, complete with all the trimmings.

  That very afternoon Ulla thought it necessary to make preparations for the forthcoming “occasion.” The ensuing trip to Mayfair, in which the bemused Whitcomb steered her through a series of milliners each more elegant than the last, was concluded only after he discovered his checking account to be near the point of exhaustion.

  Three successive days, with rounds of fabric selection, fittings and color coordination, accompanied by the interminable discussions with seamstresses or, worse, those purple young effetes whose presence was obligatory in certain salons, afforded Ulla with a collection of court gowns, capes, shoes and streetwear worthy of the Hapsburp.

  The furnishings of Ulla’s apartment came next, inaugurated by a purchase of a brocaded rug which, Ulla explained, was the only appropriate complement to the silken slippers which they would wear at home together. To match the rug, the rooms had to be repapered. At Ulla’s urging, Whitcomb commissioned an embossed design that incorporated his family crest overprinted on a delicate scripting of their initials in gold. A commode, in the manner of Louis Quatorze, was bought with his last farthing. After that Whitcomb conducted his negotiations on credit. He loathed this action but was by that time so taken by the circumstances which forced him into it that he thought nothing of signing over documents granting a percentage of his income for the next five years to that last refuge of the profligate: a personal loan counsellor. With his bankroll newly, if shakily, bolstered, he was able to underwrite settees, chairs, odd tables and other companion furnishings to the commode. Ulla’s apartment was beginning to take on the aspect, if not the expansiveness, of a baronial palace.

  During this brief, but extraordinary spree, Whitcomb hardly had time to question his durability, so artfully did Ulla induce him into her service. And the one time that he gathered courage enough to ask her what she was about, her quick reply disarmed him totally: she wanted him to “instruct” her in the ways of the nobility.

  From her remark flowed the final architecture of his innermost dream. Whitcomb, throughout his entire life, had considered himself as “to the manor born.” And, although English schoolboys learned well the court life of their ancient rulers, the gloss and glory of these days never left his imagination. In his manner, dress and speech, he affected the ways of the court or at least what he fancied them to be. And in the tedium of his work, those minor victories when colleagues and clients inquired as to his lineage, were far more important to Dana Whitcomb than any praise for his medical craftsmanship.

  Later, when his confirmed bachelorhood had transformed him into an amiable rogue and the need for increasingly elaborate settings to his seductions grew, he first fancied and then enacted the roles of judges, vicars, seneschals and dukes in a variety of boudoir settings. And the young ladies, each of them gorgeous and voluptuous in her own right, were variously bewildered, amused, even titillated by his prancings. But none save Ulla had ever exhibited the command, the daring, the sheer ability to counter his most cherished performance: queen to his king. And when he found her, he was prepared to give all.

  They were ready now for the coronation, he in purple diadem, his graying locks polished and patted into place, and she in her elegant red train. They walked slowly to the Louis Quatorze commode in regal splendor. Ulla kneeled on a small white pillow and waited, her heavy lidded eyes closed in anticipation, her breasts heaving magnificently.

  Whitcomb lifted a small black lacquered box. He had pawned certain pieces of his office equipment to purchase what was inside the box—a diamond-studded tiara. His hands shook slightly as he opened the box, hesitating at each small metal clasp. He lifted it out of its velvet container and placed it on Ulla’s head.

  They kissed in awesome hesitation, then murmured the venerated text of regal acceptance and responsibilities with salutary fervor.

  His knee, through a dozen layers of garments, presed close to hers. Their eyes locked in tearful emotion. He pulled her to him, and she yielded. In exultation, in joy, in relief, they leaped into the royal bed.

  In the midst of their silken transport, a metallic “tinkle” announced callers at
the door. They couldn’t move—or rather could only move to one rhythm. The bell rang again. He shifted, his ankles protruding from the sheeting in exclamation. She pulled him to her. The canopy jostled. The outside door was pounded.

  They moved forward, royally. He thought of Charlemagne, of Henry VIII, of Louis le Grande. She thought of him. They sighed. The canopy jostled. The front door shook.

  “Sire . . .” Her eye opened underneath the coverlet, its violet pupil glowing like a night coal. “Someone is come.” He muttered, his head was at Agincourt, his lady on Cleopatra’s Barge. The knocking grew louder.

  “Sire, someone is here and will not go away.” She rolled her silk-clad bottoms and bit his ear.

  “Call the guards,” he mumbled, and caught the skin of her throat into his face to smother himself.

  The knocking continued. The canopy shook, the battle raged.

  “Sire, our castle is surrounded,” she shrieked, even a little anxious.

  “Then lift the drawbridge and sound the clarion. Who is it this time wench?”

  “I am no wench, I am your queen.”

  Ulla attempted to rise, drawing the silk gown about her as she slid to the edge of the bed. Whitcomb spied her royal ruff in the process, and pulled her back.

  “You are a queen, my queen!” He parted her gown and kissed her in the cleft of her chest, smothering himself in perfume. They slid back to the pillows again to begin the motion of the beast with two backs. The bell tinkled twice, thrice, the door pounded.

  “Sire, the Normans have landed and march now on London. Duke William has come for his crown.”

  “Wot! He comes finally to defile the soil we’ve fought for so dearly. Assemble the thegns and housecarles. Call up the great Fryd. And ready my horse and train. We will march from Stamford and put sword to his folly.”

  Thus animated, a livid Dana Whitcomb clambered up out of the bedclothes where he’d just claimed one victory. Buckling a heavy chamois greatcoat over his naked flanks, he marched to Ulla’s door. Undoubtedly, the bravery of King Harold was on his mind.

  That the two men at the door were not in Norman mail gave Whitcomb pause. For their part, Tom Schenley and Corporal Peters were equally caught by the rotund figure of a man who now stood blinking out at them from the apartment’s half light.

  “Dr. Whitcomb?” Schenley inquired with forced gentleness.

  The doctor seemed at first not to know his own name. Then the symmetrical cone of the corporal’s helmet provided the needed tonic. Whitcomb patted his tousled locks, drew up in full measure of his long gown, and, rocking on the balls of his feet to gain height, addressed the callers. “Yes, I’m Whitcomb. But how do you know to look for me here?”

  “We’d rather not go into that now, Doctor. May we come in?”

  Schenley edged forward. Whitcomb shifted to block his entry.

  “But I’m not prepared to receive visitors. Can it wait?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir. Now, may we speak with you inside?” Schenley gestured to pass, then, almost as an afterthought, stopped and made the proper introduction.

  “Pardon the oversight, Doctor. This is Corporal Peters, and I’m Sergeant Schenley, Metropolitan Police, Homicide Division.”

  Schenley could see that the doctor, like all law-abiding citizens, had set his mind racing as to the specific causes of their visit. But the urgency of their mssion would permit only the barest of explanations. He addressed himself to this straightaway as they entered the lavish parlor.

  “Dr. Whitcomb, several years ago, you were part of a surgical team that operated on a young and very lovely society woman. Within the last fortnight six of the nine members of that team have died, each one of a strange and, if I might editorialize, disturbingly violent cause. We have reason to believe that someone close to the woman, maybe her husband—although he is officially presumed dead—is directing this conspiracy. Or perhaps it is a diabolical if irrational prank. In any case we are under orders to provide maximum security for the three remaining members of the team until the killer—or killers—can be brought to justice.”

  Whitcomb had to steady himself, then sit down on the ochre-colored settee as the full force of Schenley’s statements hit home. He also felt a tinge of relief that the visit was for that, and not some less savory purpose. He still secretly delighted at his recent exploits and fancied himself ever the Lothario: amoral, heartless and perhaps even disreputable. Just then Ulla announced her presence.

  “Dana, who is it?” She emerged now from her bedroom enveloped in a long, white-lace wrapper that revealed to full advantage her purple stockings and a long expanse of golden skin unencumbered by any article of clothing whatever. “Oops,” she tittered and dashed back into the darkness of the bedroom with a jounce of her flanks that left both of the policemen’s mouths agape.

  “Why, it’s Ulla Siguroson,” blurted Corporal Peters.

  “D’you know her, Corporal?” Schenley eyed his partner.

  “Not officially, sir. Just through another department. Frothingham over in—”

  Schenley cut him short with a discreet cough. “You can tell me some other time. Let’s help the doctor get ready. There’s no time to waste.”

  Whitcomb had by now gathered whatever composure remained to him in his awkward circumstances and was able to express his first utterance of displeasure at Schenley’s unannounced and, to him at any rate, unjustified visit. “Get ready! Surely, gentlemen, you can’t be serious. I’m not prepared to go anywhere. I have my practice, my patients to think of.” He gestured with an expansion far beyond the actualities of his business situation.

  “Dr. Brockman has already consented to look after your patients for a few days. We will make other arrangements if more time is indicated.”

  “If more time is indicated! Where d’you think you’re taking me? This is beginning to sound like an extended holiday.”

  “Not at all, Dr. Whitcomb. You’re going to the country for a few days.”

  “To the country? Why on earth there? I don’t know anyone in the country.”

  “But you must. Your friends the Woosters have invited you to their cottage in the Cotswolds.”

  “How kind. Of course, I haven’t seen Enid and Gregory for eight months, but at least we can play cribbage.” Whitcomb was getting frayed.

  “Oh, they won’t be there,” Schenley said.

  “Won’t be there? Then why am I going to an empty house?”

  “Security, sir. It’s much easier to guard an isolated home in the country than to watch a heavily trafficked town apartment such as this.”

  Whitcomb balked. “I beg your pardon.”

  Schenley parried nicely: “Sorry, sir, I meant to say your own quarters as well as your office. Now, can we be going?”

  Whitcomb grumbled all the way from Ulla’s apartment to his hotel in Marylebone. But he sulked merely to keep up appearances. His practice could hardly suffer by a few days’ absence. It’d be a relief to be gone a few weeks, for that matter, to get away from his creditors who were beginning to press him uncomfortably close. And then there was Ulla. He almost wanted to believe in her virtue, her fidelity. Those thoughts brought him face to face with his dangerous projections of a month earlier: could he artfully be experiencing romantic love for the girl?

  Fortuitously they got to his apartments before he could sink too deep into that abyss. He was scarcely surprised to see the building crowded with police, even less to find his luggage packed and waiting.

  The rest was routine. He checked the windows, doors and desk out of habit, then whisked toward his apartment door with Schenley in tow. Now he was completely resigned to the idea of the trip but he felt it a matter of honor to continue the facade.

  “Sergeant, I appreciate your concern, but you must understand that I owe it to my patients to be back in London within the week.”

  Schenley steered him toward the door, happy to go along with Whitcomb’s deception.

  “Of course, Doctor, all we ask is th
at you be with us till we break this case. I guarantee we’ll have you back here within a few days.” Schenley grinned in his most infectious manner, then he signaled to Peters to take Whitcomb’s overnight case and the three left the apartments in good order.

  On the elevator ride down to the lobby, Whitcomb permitted himself to be a bit more effusive. The Woosters, if he remembered correctly, had as neighbors a retired brigadier, his wife and four children. The oldest girl, when he last saw her, was abud with country air and sunshine. At seventeen, she’d be well equipped to brighten his stay in the Cotswolds.

  “I do feel a bit like a Chief-of-State,” he perked.

  Schenley shrugged, anxious now to be rid of Whitcomb, who was getting to be quite a peacock. The thought that he’d have to spend the next several days with the man just entered his mind when the elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal the hotel’s small, but tastefully furnished lobby. They stepped out, he and Peters flanking Whitcomb, and began walking toward the large glassed entryway.

  Whitcomb stopped for a moment and began fumbling about in his vest pocket.

  “Forget something?” Schenley asked, anxious to get him into the limo outside.

  “My lighter,” he said.

  At that moment, the air tore, shattered, fractured open with the sound of cracking glass. The air blurred in brief brilliance as a golden meteor flew from the shattered front window, through the lobby and straight into Whitcomb, its force carrying him back against the mirrored lobby wall, impaling him with an awesome, awful, pointed thud. The mirrored wall was pierced and cracked by the golden, brass-pointed projectile, now projecting from the small of its host’s back. Underneath, on glass wall and black-tile floor, his blood ran with great and deadly speed, and he never had a chance to speak.