Read To the Hilt for Free Online

malaise of the soul, outwardly discernible in weak movements of his hands and the lack of vigor in his voice. I didn’t think there was much I could do to improve things, if his own doctor couldn’t.
    As if on cue a fifty-to-sixty, thin, mustached, busy-busy person hurried into the room in a dark flapping suit, announcing that as he was passing on his way to the Clinic he had called in for five minutes to check on his patient. “Morning, Ivan. How’s things?”
    “Good of you to come, Keith.”
    Ivan drifting a limp hand in my direction, I stood up with parent-inculcated politeness and was identified as “My stepson.”
    Dr. Keith Robbiston rose in my regard by giving me a sharp glance and a sharper question, “What analgesic have you been taking for that eye?”
    “Aspirin.” Euston Station aspirin, actually.
    “Huh.” Scorn. “Are you allergic to any drugs?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Are you taking any other drugs?”
    “No.”
    “Then try these.” He produced a small packet from an inner suit pocket and held it out to me. I accepted it with gratitude.
    Ivan, mystified, asked what was going on.
    His doctor briskly answered while at the same time producing from other pockets a stethoscope and blood-pressure monitor. “Your stepson... name?”
    “Alexander Kinloch,” I said.
    “...Alexander, your stepson, can’t move without pain.”
    “What?”
    “You haven’t noticed? No, I suppose not.” To me he said, “The reduction and management of pain is my specialty. It can’t be disguised. How did you get like this? It can’t be organic if you’re not taking medicine. Car crash?”
    I said with a flicker of amusement, “Four thugs.”
    “Really?” He had bright eyes, very alert. “Bad luck.”
    “What are you talking about?” Ivan said.
    I shook my head at Dr. Robbiston and he checked around his heart-threatened patient with effective economy of movement but no comment on my own state.
    “Well done, Ivan,” he said cheerfully, whisking his aids out of sight. “The ticker’s banging away like a baby’s. Don’t strain yourself, though. But walk around the house a bit. Use this strong stepson as a crutch. How’s your dear wife?”
    “In her sitting room,” I said.
    “Great.” He departed as abruptly as he’d arrived. “Hang in there, Ivan.”
    He gave me a brief smile on his quick way out. I sat down again opposite Ivan and swallowed one of the tablets the doctor had given me. His assessment had been piercingly on target. Punch bags led a rotten life.
    “He’s a good doctor, really,” Ivan told me defensively.
    “The best,” I agreed. “Why do you doubt him?”
    “He’s always in a hurry. Patsy wants me to change ... ” He tapered off indecisively; only a shadow seemed left of his former chief-executive decisiveness.
    “Why change?” I asked. “He wants you to be well, and he makes house calls, a miracle these days.”
    Ivan frowned. “Patsy says he’s hasty.”
    I said mildly, “Not everyone thinks or moves at the same speed.”
    Ivan took a tissue out of a flat box on the table beside him and blew his nose, then dropped the used tissue carefully into a handy wastebasket. Always neat, always precise.
    He said, “Where would you hide something?”
    I blinked.
    “Well?” Ivan prompted.
    “Er ... it would depend what it was.”
    “Something of value.”
    “How big?”
    He didn’t directly answer, but I found what he said next more unusual than anything he’d said to me since I’d known him.
    “You have a quirky mind, Alexander. Tell me a safe hiding place.”
    Safe.
    “Um,” I said, “who would be looking?”
    “Everyone. After my death.”
    “You’re not dying.”
    “Everyone dies.”
    “It’s essential to tell someone where you’ve hidden something, otherwise it may be lost forever.”
    Ivan smiled.
    I said, “Are we talking about your will?”
    “I’m not telling you what we are talking about. Not yet. Your uncle Robert says you know how to