I found myself in an over-large hall, facing a broad flight of stairs which led in a wide, half-circular sweep to the upper rooms. On the stairs, halfway up, was a white-clad figure: a nurse.
“All right, Benskin,” she said. “I’ll see to it.”
The tall, lean bird seemed relieved to go. He gave me a brief, puzzled stare, and then cat-footed across the hall, along a passage and through a baize-covered door.
The nurse came slowly down the stairs as if she knew she was good to look at, and liked you to look at her. I was looking all right. She was a nurse right out of a musical comedy; the kind of nurse who sends your temperature chart haywire every time you see her. A blonde, her lips scarlet, her eyes blue-shaded: a very nifty number: a symphony of curves and sensuality; as exciting and as alive and as hot as the flame of an acetylene torch. If ever she had to nurse me I would be bed-ridden for the rest of my days.
By now she was within reaching distance, and I had to make a conscious effort not to reach. I could tell by the expression in her eyes that she was aware of the impression she was making on me, and I had an idea I interested her as much as she interested me. A long, tapering finger pushed up a stray curl under the nurse’s cap. A carefully plucked eyebrow climbed an inch. The red painted mouth curved into a smile. Behind the mascara the green-blue eyes were alert and hopeful.
“I was hoping to see Miss Crosby,” I said. “I hear she’s not well.”
“She isn’t. I’m afraid she isn’t even well enough to receive visitors.” She had a deep, contralto voice that vibrated my vertebrae.
“That’s too bad,” I said, and took a swift look at her legs. Betty Grable’s might have been better, but there couldn’t have been much in it. “I’ve only just hit town. I’m an old friend of hers. I had no idea she was ill.”
“She hasn’t been well for some months.”
I had the impression that as a topic of conversation Maureen Crosby’s illness wasn’t Nurse Gurney’s idea of fun. It was just an impression. I could have been wrong, but I didn’t think so.