I finished folding my raincoat before I looked at her.
"Yes, we did meet," I admitted cautiously but didn't explain further.
"I don't know how you manage that boat of yours all by yourself. Seems
to me I'd want company to sail away up there in that rough water," she
paused. "I hear Pat's a good sailor."
"You talk too damn much, Rosie," I growled and started along the hall.
All the way up the stairs I remembered the twinkle in her eyes as I
went past her.
* * * * *
The ground floor of the Laboratory is occupied by the Administration
Office and Clinical Pathology Section. Shut off at the back are the
white tiled walls and monel metal tables of the Autopsy Rooms. On the
first floor the Tissue Pathologists sit at their microscopes and study
the pretty blue and red stained slides of human and animal tissues
which come from the batteries of Technicon machines and the skillful
microtomes of the laboratory technicians. Here too are the Medical
Library and the Hematology Section, where blood from thousands of
patients is smeared on slides, stained, and examined for signs of
disease. I was just rounding the banister at the top of the stairs
when, coming out of the Serology Room, I saw the long thin slow-moving
figure and wavy blond hair of Harry Cope, the hematologist. He saw me
at once and waved a languid hand.
"Hello, John! How was the holiday?" he said in his soft English voice.
"Pretty good, Harry. Keeping you busy?"
"Not in my own shop," he said. "But Dr. Hallam will certainly be glad
to see you back. I've had to give him a hand the last day or two."
"Why, what's up?" I was surprised. Harry knew quite a bit about
Virology and had kept up his interest in it even though hematology was
his specialty. However he seldom worked for us unless there was a real
emergency.
"I'd better let the Director tell you himself, old man. I have an
appointment just now. See you later." He moved down the hall, as quiet
and impassive as usual.
A little worried now, I went up the stairs to the second floor, passed
Bacteriology and poked my head into the Virology Section. The routine
work on virus diseases goes on here. The Research Lab, Dr. Hallam's
pet project, is in a specially designed penthouse on the third floor,
alongside the animal house, and is never used for ordinary tests.
In the Tissue Culture Room, Pat was already busy with the specimens and
had time only to wink at me. No hope for enlightenment there! I looked
back at her trim figure as I moved away and, at the door of Electron
Microscopy, ran head on into Polly Cripps, our electron microscopy
technician and Harry Cope's fiancee. Even at thirty-five she was still
good looking in a bold way, with white gold hair waving over deep blue
eyes, a full mouth and a full figure to go with it.
When I recovered my breath after bouncing off that pneumatic form, I
started to speak but, as usual, she beat me to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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