Dandy Gilver and a Deadly Measure of Brimstone by Catriona McPherson

and put his hands behind his head. ‘I’m perfectly capable of deciding what I fancy from the brochure.’ He patted his breast pocket, from which I could see a folded catalogue peeping out.
    ‘But I must insist when it comes to the boys,’ I said, thinking again of Regina’s look of alarm as I thrashed in the icy water of the plunge pool. ‘They are not to be electrified or … pummelled unless the doctor says so.’
    Hugh nodded absently.
    ‘Hot salt bath, galvanic wrap, dab of mud, spot of ultraviolet heat,’ he said. ‘And a quiet game of cards in the evening.’
    ‘Starting tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Have dinner with us tonight, dear, and then come back before bedtime.’ Of course, I needed a little time with him to finesse the Alec problem. ‘And now I must just go and see what’s kept the doctor.’
    ‘Oh, don’t make us see him, Mummy,’ said Teddy. ‘I’m not going to do all that salty, muddy nonsense anyway.’
    ‘Don’t be impertinent,’ I said, for I had noticed Hugh’s brows twitch down at the word ‘nonsense’. ‘I shall remake your appointments for tomorrow morning. Meet me in the hall in ten minutes, please, and we shall drive back in time for tea.’
    ‘Mr Laidlaw said there was cherry cake here,’ said Teddy.
    ‘Cinnamon toast and maids of honour at home,’ I said. ‘Donald?’ Donald opened his eyes which had fallen shut again.
    ‘I’m not hungry,’ he said, so languidly that Hugh caught my eye.
    ‘I’ll speak to the doctor,’ I repeated. ‘Ten minutes, please.’ And I hurried away.
    Dr Laidlaw’s office was on the ground floor at the drive side of the house, unspeakably gloomy, but I supposed it was inevitable that all the west-facing rooms were reserved for guests. There was a little ante-room lined with those tall wooden cabinets for holding files of papers and in the middle of the floor one of the four-sided settees I had seen in the drawing room, a very practical way for four strangers to await their consultations without having to look one another in the eye or breathe one another’s germ-ridden air. At the moment, all four seats were empty. Nor was there anyone at the little desk with the telephone and type-writing machine. I passed to the inner door and knocked.
    ‘Oh! Who—? Come in.’ Dr Laidlaw’s voice came in a series of chirps and, when I entered, it was to find her peering up from behind a fortress of papers on her desk, with a startled look on her face, like a baby bird in the nest when it hears its parents’ wings.
    ‘Mrs … ah,’ she said.
    ‘Gilver. You arranged to see my husband and sons this afternoon, Dr Laidlaw. I wonder if it would be convenient for us to leave it until the morning?’
    The baby bird appeared to realise that the wing beat was that of a marauding hawk, not its parent at all. She ducked slightly and almost disappeared behind the wall of articles, books and files she had built around her. I walked closer to the desk, not to seize her in my talons, but from the look of her one would not know.
    ‘I am so, so, so very sorry,’ she said. I moved another pile of dusty paper, made up into bundles with pink tape, and sat down. The furniture in the room comprised the desk and chairs, the bookcases lining the walls, an examination couch with a curtained screen half pulled around it and upwards of a dozen wooden crates, all packed with books, all standing open, all thick with dust. In fact, the whole office was lavishly untidy, its good glass-fronted bookcases stuffed to bursting with books not only in rows but jammed in horizontally on top of the rows too. I saw that the doors of one case, particularly under strain from its contents, were held together by more of the same pink tape threaded through the handles and tied in a bow. Buff-coloured files with carbon papers frothing out of them like coxcombs were stacked along the windowsill, bunching and pulling the grey-yellow lace curtain which looked as though it had not been washed