CHAPTER 4

Occasion salutes thee, and reaches out her forelock to thee, saying: “Here I am, take hold of me.”

Martin Luther

It was obvious to Alan what had happened. Someone had been hurt. The father or the mother had been hurt, and one of them had rushed the other to the hospital, throwing open all the doors, hurrying out in a panic, leaving the baby behind.

Or perhaps the person who had been hurt had been alone, and had staggered out into the street, looking for help. Perhaps the mother or father was lying unconscious on the sidewalk somewhere right now. Well, it wasn’t Alan’s problem. It was a matter for the police.

His arms were sagging. He laid the heavy baby down on his back in the playpen and handed him the bottle. Could he hold it by himself? He could. He grasped it eagerly and popped the nipple into his mouth. “Good for you, kid,” said Alan, watching with admiration as the milk began to disappear.

He found the telephone on the wall over the desk, next to a bulletin board covered with snapshots. Alan put his hand on the phone, and then paused, entranced.

The pictures were mostly of the baby. Was this the father, this man in uniform holding the newborn child? Navy? Coast Guard? Alan didn’t know one uniform from another. The most appealing picture was a single large photograph of the infant with his mother. It was a black-and-white closeup of their two faces, enlarged almost to life size.

Alan took his hand away from the phone and leaned on the desk, studying the picture, feeling an impulse to climb into its black-and-white world. He had already connected himself to the baby and the apartment, and now he felt attached to the mother as well. Both baby and mother were looking soberly at the camera. Her hair was neither dark nor blond. It hung short and straight, as though cut around the rim of a bowl.

The real live baby in the playpen was whimpering again. Alan guessed what it needed. He had seen it in the movies. He picked up the baby, held it upright against his shoulder and patted its back. The baby belched politely, and Alan put it down again, aware of another surge of fatherly feeling.

He went back to the telephone and dialed 911.

The police officer at the other end of the line didn’t quibble when Alan explained about the abandoned baby and the blood on the floor. He asked a few sharp questions, and then said, “We’ll be right over.”

Alan hung up, feeling like a good citizen who had acted properly in a crisis. He looked again at the picture of the baby’s mother, and wondered what had happened to her. Then he began rummaging among the papers on the desk. Almost at once he found a sad one, a six-month-old newspaper clipping:

NAVY PILOT KILLED IN HELICOPTER ACCIDENT U.S. Naval Reserve Ensign Theodore Hall, 27, of 115 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, was killed yesterday when a high wind sent his craft against the roof of a hangar at the Naval Air Station in South Weymouth. Hall is survived by his wife Rosalind and infant son Charles.

Sad. The baby was fatherless, his mother a widow. Really sad.

The baby’s name was Charles Hall. It was too formal a name for a baby. Alan looked again at the picture of the baby with his mother, and said their names aloud, “Charley and Rosalind Hall.”

Rosalind Hall? The name had a familiar ring. Surely Rosalind Hall was a member of the American Guild of Organists. He had seen her name over and over again, in one connection or another. He groaned. Oh, of course, Rosalind Hall was Rosie Hall, Castle’s favorite pupil. You sound envious, Castle had said. Well, you should be. She’s damned good. One couldn’t help suspecting he was in love with the woman, although Alan wasn’t sure Castle preferred women to men. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t.

But it was worse than that. Rosie wasn’t just a name on a list, she wasn’t simply a student of Castle’s. She was someone who was always being shoved down Alan’s throat. She was a widow, and her friends were trying to marry her off. People were always telling him, “Oh, you’ve got to meet Rosie Hall.” His sister Betsy was the worst. She had been to boarding school with Rosie, she was always talking about her. Once she had even arranged a date for the two of them, but at the last minute Rosie had called Betsy to say she was sick, and Alan had told Betsy the hell with it, and that had been that. He was sick of hearing the woman’s name.

A siren sounded from the street. The high whine spiralled down and stopped. The police cruiser was pulling up outside.

Swiftly, his curiosity still unsatisfied, Alan opened the desk drawer and groped inside it. His fingers closed on a key. It had a tag, #115 Rear. Pulling the drawer farther open, he found a small notebook, and flipped the pages. It was full of musical scribblings.

The doorbell rang. Without thinking, Alan pocketed the key and deposited the notebook in one of the zippered compartments of his down jacket.

Then he went to the door and flung it open.