"I don't know how you manage that boat of yours all by yourself. Seems to me I'd want company to sail away up there in that rough water," she paused. "I hear Pat's a good sailor."
"You talk too damn much, Rosie," I growled and started along the hall. All the way up the stairs I remembered the twinkle in her eyes as I went past her.
The ground floor of the Laboratory is occupied by the Administration Office and Clinical Pathology Section. Shut off at the back are the white tiled walls and monel metal tables of the Autopsy Rooms. On the first floor the Tissue Pathologists sit at their microscopes and study the pretty blue and red stained slides of human and animal tissues which come from the batteries of Technicon machines and the skillful microtomes of the laboratory technicians. Here too are the Medical Library and the Hematology Section, where blood from thousands of patients is smeared on slides, stained, and examined for signs of disease. I was just rounding the banister at the top of the stairs when, coming out of the Serology Room, I saw the long thin slow-moving figure and wavy blond hair of Harry Cope, the hematologist. He saw me at once and waved a languid hand.
"Hello, John! How was the holiday?" he said in his soft English voice.
"Pretty good, Harry. Keeping you busy?"
"Not in my own shop," he said. "But Dr. Hallam will certainly be glad to see you back. I've had to give him a hand the last day or two."
"Why, what's up?" I was surprised. Harry knew quite a bit about Virology and had kept up his interest in it even though hematology was his specialty. However he seldom worked for us unless there was a real emergency.
"I'd better let the Director tell you himself, old man. I have an appointment just now. See you later." He moved down the hall, as quiet and impassive as usual.
A little worried now, I went up the stairs to the second floor, passed Bacteriology and poked my head into the Virology Section. The routine work on virus diseases goes on here. The Research Lab, Dr. Hallam's pet project, is in a specially designed penthouse on the third floor, alongside the animal house, and is never used for ordinary tests.