Doctor Death by Lene Kaaberbøl Read Free Book Online

to my cheeks.
    “Thank you for seeing me, Professor,” I said.
    “Of course,” he said. “I have read several of your father’s articles. I understand that he has suffered a slight misadventure?”
    “Slight? Is that what he wrote? He broke both an arm and a leg, Professor, in a terrible accident that might easily have cost him his life.”
    “I am so sorry. Please convey my warmest wishes for a full recovery.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And so what is this fascinating specimen that you have brought me, Mademoiselle Karno?”
    “A mite.” From my little chatelaine bag I brought out the microscope slide case containing one of the two mites Papa had managed to collect, along with the description and drawing of it. “We think it must belong to the soft mites, but my father has never seen anything like it.”
    “Hmmm. Let me see.” He tossed the rapier casually in an armchair and accepted the specimen with unvarnished curiosity.His enormous desk overflowed with a judicious mixture of books, papers, and sports equipment—I noticed among other things a tennis racquet, a pair of riding spurs, and a cap of the type that rowing crews use—but on a contrastingly tidy laboratory bench by the window there was a microscope. I could not help noticing that it was Zeiss’s latest model, and it was with difficulty that I repressed a wave of envy. He placed the slide under the Zeiss lens and bent over the microscope. At that moment, everything that was flamboyant and boyish fell away and was replaced by a searching intensity, and he looked what he was—a serious scientist. It suited him.
    He studied the mite for several minutes. Then he smoothed the drawing and looked at it. Then back to the microscope. Then to the drawing. He compared them perhaps half a dozen times before he straightened up.
    “Interesting,” he said, and stared out the window for a few more seconds. Then he suddenly turned to me with a completely different expression from the one he had worn when he bid me welcome. The humor and gallantry were gone. He observed me with more or less the same searching intensity that he had devoted to the mite. I felt myself caught in his examination, pinned and studied to such a degree that it was difficult to breathe.
    “Did you execute the drawing?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    He nodded briefly. “Very precise. Extremely precise, in fact. You have a scientist’s eye for detail, Mademoiselle Karno.”
    My heart swelled with pride. He could have given me no compliment that would have made a greater impression.
    “Can you identify the mite, Professor?” I asked.
    “Not offhand, but with certain additional studies I will probably be able to classify it. Where did you get it?”
    “My father found it while examining a young deceased woman. It apparently crawled out of her nose.”
    “I see . . .” He looked in the microscope one more time. “May I keep it? I would like to make some comparisons with various specimens from the institute’s collection.”
    “Of course.” I thought for a moment. “But can you perhaps venture a guess at whether the mite infection could have caused the young woman’s death?”
    He shook his head, just one sharp jerk of his chin. “I don’t yet have sufficient basis for that kind of supposition. If you want to come back in a few days, I’ll be able to give you a clearer and more detailed answer.”
    Come back? I had not been planning to make two trips to Heidelberg within a week. Even with the railroad, it was more than six hours in each direction, and the expense was a substantial strain for a modest household like ours. I had somehow imagined that the rest could be taken care of by letter or telegram.
    He sensed my hesitation.
    “Well, if you can’t come, I shall have to come to you,” he said with a faint smile.
    All at once I was very conscious of being alone with a man I didn’t know. True, he had left the door open, presumably out of consideration for my reputation, but