As we returned to the room I heard the sound of the piano. Zina was sitting there, playing — her fingers drifting easily, lingeringly over the keys and a dreamy expression on her face. She stopped playing as she saw Sansevino. ‘So you have found it, eh?’ he said. ‘You feel better now?’
‘I feel marvellous, Walter. Wonderful.’ She glanced towards the black, louring sky beyond the windows. ‘I do not care any more.’ Her fingers rippled along the keys.
Sansevino crossed to the couch, stripped the blankets off Maxwell’s body and then began to cut away the clothing from his injured leg. ‘Get me some water, please. Warm water. Also sheets for bandages and some pieces of wood. The banisters from the stairs will do nicely. Zina! Get me the morphia and my hypodermic.’ It was extraordinary. He ceased to be the man who’d tried to murder us up there in Santo Francisco. He was just a doctor faced with a surgical problem.
He got the clothing cut away and stood for a moment looking at the bloody pulp of flesh. At one point the white of the bone was showing. He shook his head. ‘It is very bad.’ His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth. Then he went over to a desk in the corner and opened the bottom drawer with a bunch of keys he’d taken from his pocket. He brought out a small roll of surgical instruments. ‘Go and tell Miss Tucek I also need some boiling water, please.’ I hesitated. Reece and Hacket were outside, knocking out the banisters. There was only Zina in the room. ‘Hurry, please. Go on, man. I shall not hurt him. What would be the point?’
I went out into the kitchen. Hilda had a bowl of warm water. I carried it in while she got some hot water for the instruments.
When I got back Hacket and Reece were standing over the doctor. As soon as Hilda had brought in the hot water and he had sterilised his instruments, he began work. He was deft and quick and he worked with complete concentration. I watched, fascinated, as the long sensitive fingers moved over Maxwell’s flesh. It gave me a horrible, almost masochistic sense of pleasure. It was as though I could feel them on my own leg, only this time I knew there’d be no pain for me.
Gradually the broken limb took shape. Then suddenly he was bending over, straining at it, forcing the bone into place whilst a high, thin scream issued from Maxwell’s mouth. He straightened up at last, wiping the sweat from his face with a towel. ‘It’s all right. He will not know anything about it afterwards. He is drugged.’ After that, splints and bandages, and then he was pulling the blankets up and rinsing his hands in the bowl.
‘He will be all right now,’ he said, wiping his hands on the towel. ‘Would you be good enough to give me a drink, please, Mr. Hacket?’
Hacket passed him a stiff cognac. I became conscious again of Zina playing and realised she had been playing all the time. Sansevino gulped noisily at the liquor. ‘You see, I have not lost my touch.’ He was smiling at me. There was no double meaning intended. He was genuinely pleased that he’d done a good job. ‘When we get back to Napoli we will have that leg in plaster and in a few months it will be as good as ever.’ He paused, searching our faces with his dark eyes. ‘I take it you do not wish to die here in the lava?’
‘Just what are you getting at?’ Hacket asked.