The body was cold. It had been dead quite a few hours.
Coughing violently, the doctor hurried from the room, eyes watering. Leiber hadn’t turned the gas on himself. He couldn’t have. Those sedatives had knocked him out, he wouldn’t have wakened until noon. It wasn’t suicide. Or was there the faintest possibility?
Jeffers stood in the hall for five minutes. Then he walked to the door of the nursery. It was shut. He opened it. He walked inside and over to the crib.
The crib was empty.
He stood swaying over the crib for half a minute, then he said something to nobody in particular.
‘The nursery door blew shut. You couldn’t get back into your crib where it was safe. You didn’t plan on the door blowing shut. A little thing like a slammed door can ruin the best of plans.
I’ll find you somewhere in the house, hiding, pretending to be something you are not.’ The doctor looked dazed. He put his hand to his head and smiled palely. ‘Now I’m talking like Alice and David talked. But, I can’t take any chances. I’m not sure of anything, but I can’t take any chances.’
He walked downstairs, opened his medical bag upon the chair, took something out of it and held it in his hands.
Something rustled down the hall. Something very small and very quiet. Jeffers turned rapidly.
‘I had to operate to bring you into this world. Now I guess I can operate to take you out of it. . .’
He took half a dozen, quick, sure steps forward into the hall. He raised his hand into the sunlight.
‘See, baby! Something bright — something pretty!’
A scalpel.
The end
