A False Mirror - Charles Todd [10]
She held on to Hamilton’s hand as if it were a lifeline. “I want to be here, not somewhere else. He’s going to be all right, isn’t he? And I want to be here when he wakes up.”
Granville thought, She’s hardly heard a word I’ve said to her. Aloud, he went on, “I don’t need two patients on my hands, Mrs. Hamilton. Think what’s best for your husband.”
Still she refused to let go.
He ignored her then, concentrating on running his hands over the broken body in front of him, watching the thin trickle of blood that had begun to appear at the corner of Hamilton’s mouth.
There was a commotion out front, and Mrs. Granville came to the door. “Doctor. Inspector Bennett is here. I think you ought to have a look at his foot—”
Granville glanced at her. “I’m busy!” he snapped.
“All the same,” she answered, and was gone.
After a moment, he sighed and walked quietly out the door. When his wife insisted, he had learned to pay heed.
In the examining room behind his office Granville found Inspector Bennett hunched in a chair, his face gray with pain, his eyes blazing with what appeared to be impotent fury.
Dr. Granville looked down at the man’s foot, and his attention sharpened. His wife had removed Bennett’s boot, and the stocking was humped with the swelling. Broken—
He knelt by the inspector and his wife handed him a pair of scissors to cut away the policeman’s stocking. Bennett was biting his lip, forcing down a groan of pain. “Had to drag the bloody thing half a mile before I could find help,” he managed at last, then glanced at the doctor’s wife. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
“What happened?” Granville asked, looking at the discolored ankle and twisted metatarsals.
The constable standing woodenly beside the inspector, his face without expression, waited.
Bennett said in a growl, “That bast—That devil ran over me!”
“Motorcar?” The inspector nodded, and Granville went on, “It will hurt, but I need to run my hands here—and there.” He began gently, and Bennett all but screamed when the doctor pressed on the raised area just ahead of the big, calloused toes.
“Dislocated, I think. Your foot must have been on its side when the tire compressed it. Into sand, I would guess—any harder surface and the entire foot would have been crushed.”
“Yes, sand,” Bennett answered between clenched teeth.
“And I think this bone took the brunt and is probably broken.” He looked up, nodding at his wife, and she disappeared into the back, reappearing almost immediately with a basin of soapy water and a cloth.
Dr. Granville began to bathe the injured area, keeping his hands away from the part that hurt the most. Then he proceeded to bandage the entire foot, glancing again at his wife as he worked.
“For right now, swollen as it is—and will be—it’s most important to stay off your feet entirely. But if you can’t—” He turned, and his wife set a pair of crutches into his hands. “If you can’t, then use these. Don’t walk at all until the swelling is down. I’m quite serious. Elevate your foot on a stool, and soak it in this—” His wife passed him a small packet of crystals. “Bandages and all, every two hours and again before you go to bed. After that we’ll see. I’ll come round to the house after my dinner and have another look at that bone.”
Mrs. Granville stood smiling at her husband’s back, as if he’d worked a miracle for the inspector.
“Crutches?” Bennett demanded. “Can’t you just set it, put some plaster over it, and let me be about my business?”
“You’re not to put your weight on that foot, Bennett. Do you hear me? Not until I can look at it again. Who did this to you? Mrs. Blackwood?”
Mrs. Blackwood had learned to drive her husband’s motorcar when he hadn’t come home from France. She was a terror on the roadway, her control minimal and her attention seldom on the mechanics of driving.
The silent constable smothered a grin.