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“Dorothy, you haven’t, I trust, forgotten that these charming people may be murder suspects?”
    I took my hand off the door handle. “Oh. I
had
forgotten. I was just thinking about seeing old friends, and incidentally picking up information. But Kevin did say … Alan, I’m not sure I like this.”
    â€œGoes with the territory, my dear.” He got out of the car and came around to help me out. “Shall we?”
    Arm in arm, we rang the bell of the lion’s den.
    I couldn’t raise the subject until after dinner. The food was too good to neglect, for one thing, and Doc, who is an enormous man, did full credit to it. And both Peggy and Doc kept us talking, between bites, about life in England. Alan hit it off immediately with both of them, to my relief. It isn’t always a good idea to tell someone in advance that he’ll like someone else, but Alan is an amiable sort of man, and the Foleys are both entertaining people. Alan told a fish story, Doc topped it with a hospital story, and we repaired to the living room for our coffee aching a little with laughter.
    â€œDecaf,” said Peggy, passing a cup to me. “Doc insists. Me, I like the real stuff, but I’ve found a good brand of decaf, and I hope it’s okay. Dorothy, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you again. I’ve missed you.”
    â€œI’m glad to be back, but sorry for the reason.”
    â€œAin’t it the truth? We were all really broken up about Kevin. Somehow we expected him to go on forever.”
    â€œNo reason why he shouldn’t have,” said Doc gruffly. “Not forever, maybe, but a good while longer. I’ve got patients of fifty who aren’t anything like as healthy as he was at ninety-six. I thought for sure he’d live to a hundred, at least. Oh, he was getting a little frail. I kept after him to get some help in that little house of his. I didn’t want him chopping wood anymore, or plowing his garden. I think he was about to give in, too, but—” He spread his hands.
    â€œJust how did he die, Doc?” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as tense as I felt. “I really haven’t heard any of the details.”
    â€œAnd I can’t give them to you.”
    â€œBut—oh, medical ethics, I suppose.” I was a little hurt. Doc had never been one to stand on ceremony with me.
    â€œCome on, Dorothy. You know me better than that, and besides, the man’s dead. Can’t hurt him now. No, it’s just that I wasn’t there.” He settled back more comfortably in a massive leather chair that would have suited Nero Wolfe. “You know I don’t go away much—”
    Peggy snorted. “Much! Three or four real vacations in forty years!”
    Doc just grinned at her. “But there was an AMA convention up in Minneapolis, and Peggy’s folks are from those parts, so she talked me into going. Waste of time, most of it. One or two useful seminars, maybe. Anyway, I left my practice with Jim Boland, decent young guy who has an office in the same building. He doesn’t have a lot of patients yet, so I give him my overflow from time to time. Well, we fill in for each other, really. It’s time I started thinking about who’ll take over from me when I retire.”
    Peggy snorted again, but said nothing. I wasn’t sure whether she was commenting on anyone’s ability to take over from Doc or the unlikelihood of his ever consenting to retire.
    â€œ
Anyway
, I got back to find Kevin in the hospital with galloping pneumonia. We pumped him full of antibiotics and did everything possible, but his heart at ninety-six …” He sighed. “He died comfortably, Dorothy. Slipped into a coma and just didn’t wake up. He was lucid almost to the end, and as serene as he always was.”
    â€œDid he—” I cleared my throat to try to get rid of the lump in it. “Did he know