Doctor Fisher of Geneva

3

I took a day off from work and drove down by the lake, but I very nearly turned back when I saw the extent of the grounds, the silver birches and the weeping willows and the great green cascade of the lawn in front of a pillared portico. A greyhound lay asleep like an heraldic emblem. I felt I should have gone to the tradesmen’s entrance.

When I rang the bell a man in a white jacket opened the door. ‘Doctor Fischer? ‘ I asked.

‘What name?’ he asked abruptly. I could tell he was English.

‘Mr Jones.’

He led me up some stairs into a sort of corridor-lounge with two sofas and several easy chairs and a big chandelier. An elderly woman with blue hair and a blue dress and lots of gold rings occupied one of the sofas. The man in the white jacket disappeared.

We looked at each other, and then I looked at the room, and I thought of the origin of it all - Dentophil Bouquet. This lounge might have been the waiting-room of a very expensive dentist and the two of us sitting there patients. After a while the woman said in English with a faint American accent, ‘He’s such a busy man, isn’t he? He has to keep even his friends waiting. I’m Mrs Montgomery.’

‘My name is Jones,’ I said.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of his parties.’

‘No.’

‘Of course I sometimes miss one myself. One isn’t always around. One can’t be, can one? Not always.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Of course you know Richard Deane.’

‘I’ve never met him. But I’ve read about him in the newspapers. ‘

She giggled. ‘You’re a wicked one, I can tell that. You know General Krueger?’

‘No.’

‘But you must know Mr Kips?’ she asked with what seemed like anxiety and incredulity.

‘I’ve heard of him,’ I said. ‘He’s a tax consultant, isn’t he?’

‘No, no. That’s Monsieur Belmont. How strange that you don’t know Mr Kips.’

I felt that some explanation was needed. I said, ‘I’m a friend of his daughter.’

‘But Mr Kips isn’t married.’

‘I meant Doctor Fischer’s daughter.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ve never met her. She’s very retiring. She doesn’t go to Doctor Fischer’s parties. Such a pity. We’d all like to know her better.’

The man in the white jacket returned and said in what sounded to me a rather insolent tone, ‘Doctor Fischer has a bit of fever, ma’am, and he regrets that he can’t receive you.’

‘Ask him if there’s anything he needs - I’ll go and get it at once. Some nice Muscat grapes? ‘

‘Doctor Fischer has Muscat grapes.’

‘I only meant it as an example. Ask him if there is anything I can do for him, anything at all.’

The front door bell rang and the servant, disdaining a reply, went to answer it. He came back up the steps to the lounge followed by a thin old man in a dark suit bowed almost double. He projected his head forward and looked, I thought, rather like the numeral seven. He held his left arm bent at his side, so that he resembled the continental way of writing that number.

‘He has a cold,’ Mrs Montgomery said, ‘he won’t see us.’

‘Mr Kips has an appointment,’ the manservant said, and taking no more notice of us, he led Mr Kips up the marble staircase. I called after him, ‘Tell Doctor Fischer that I have a message from his daughter.’

‘A bit of fever!’ Mrs Montgomery exclaimed. ‘Don’t you believe it. That’s not the way to his bedroom. That’s the way to his study. But of course, you know the house.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve been here.’

‘Oh, I see. That explains it - you’re not one of us.’

‘I’m living with his daughter.’

‘Really,’ she said. ‘How interesting and how forthright. A pretty girl, I’ve been told. But I’ve never seen her. As I said, she doesn’t like parties.’ She put her hand up to her hair, jangling a gold bracelet. ‘I have all the responsibilities, you see,’ she said. ‘I have to act as hostess whenever Doctor Fischer gives a party. I am the only woman he invites nowadays. It’s a great honour, of course - but all the same… General Krueger generally chooses the wine… If there is wine,’ she added mysteriously. ‘The General’s a great connoisseur. ‘

‘Isn’t there always wine at his parties?’ I asked.

She looked at me in silence as though my question was an impertinent one. Then she relented a little. ‘Doctor Fischer,’ she said, ‘has a great sense of humour. I wonder he hasn’t invited you to one of his parties, but perhaps under the circumstances it wouldn’t do. We are a very small group,’ she added. ‘We all know each other well, and we are all so fond, so very, very fond, of Doctor Fischer. But surely you at least know Monsieur Belmont - Monsieur Henri Belmont? He’ll solve any tax problem.’

‘I have no tax problems,’ I admitted.

As I sat on the second sofa under the great crystal chandelier I realized it was almost as though I had told her that I dropped my h’s. Mrs Montgomery had looked away from me in obvious embarrassment.

In spite of my father’s small title which had procured him a niche for a time in Who’s Who I felt myself an outcast in Mrs Montgomery’s company and now, to add to my shame, the manservant tripped down the stairs and without giving me a glance announced, ‘Doctor Fischer will see Mr Jones at five o’clock on Thursday,’ and moved away into the unknown regions of the great house which it seemed strange to think had been so recently Anna-Luise’s home.

‘Well, Mr Jones, was that the name? It has been pleasant meeting you. I shall stay on a while to hear from Mr Kips how our friend fares. We have to look after the dear man.’ lt was only later that I realized I had encountered the first two Toads.