"Really? I thought he was quite reputable."
"What is reputable?" Mrs. Meldon countered. "Is it what empty-headed bitches say, who are suckers for a patriarchal look and soft hands? Is it what some jerk says — 'Five hundred dollars I paid, for a single interview' — after he's stung? He has an M.D., so what? I know an abortionist who has one."
"It helps," said the Saint.
"What do you want to know about him?" Mrs. Meldon asked. "When he was three years old in Vienna, a butcher slapped his hands because he reached for a sausage. As a result he puts his nurse in a blue smock. He won't have a white uniform around him. He doesn't know this, of course. He has no idea that the butcher's white apron caused a psychic trauma. He says he insists on blue uniforms because they gladden the eye."
"He begins to sound like not our kind of man," the Saint put in.
"Oh, go ahead and pick him," said the Egyptian princess. "Who the hell cares? He wouldn't be the first mass of psychic trauma picked as an outstanding jerk. No inhibitions, says he. It's a little tough on somebody who's put inhibitions by the board lo these many moons to go to him as a patient. Shooting fish down a barrel, I calls it. Another drink? Of course. Mix it yourself."
She crossed her lovely legs in such a fashion that a good portion of thigh was visible. She didn't bother to pull down her dress. She seemed tired of the discussion, even a trifle embittered, and a pattern began to form in the Saint's mind. He put early conclusions aside in the interest of conviviality and mixed drinks.
"Tell me," he said, "how you expect to get psychiatric help from a man you hold in such disregard?"
She straightened up.
"Disregard? Nothing of the sort. He knows the patter, he has the desk-side manner. He can make you tell things about yourself you wouldn't tell yourself. Maybe it helps, I don't know. Yes, I must admit it does. It helped me to understand myself, whatever small consolation that may be. I don't want to understand myself. But Gerry insisted. He wants to keep up with things. Like mink coats on dogs."