SURGEON AT ARMS

'Some signal got through to me, but I didn't take it seriously.' Lord Cazalay sounded offended. 'You remember you particularly promised to come.'

'I've got an urgent case coming in, I'm afraid. You'll have to excuse me.'

This pretext being unanswerable, Lord Cazalay added, 'I wonder if I could have a word with you fairly soon? It's a matter of some importance.'

Graham gave a grunt. He probably wants more money out of me, he thought. Money is the only matter of importance that he knows. 'I'm dreadfully booked up this week, Charles, professionally.'

'Surely you can spare a moment? It's rather pressing. How about lunch tomorrow at my club?'

'It's a miserable confession, but my lunch is always a sandwich between cases.'

'Can't I call tomorrow evening? About seven?'

'All right, I'll make a point of being here,' Graham told him, giving in.

'I'm much obliged. By the way, you'll make sure we're undisturbed, I take it? It's extremely confidential.'

'I'm nearly always on my own,' Graham assured him.

In the next morning's paper he saw that Fred Butcher had resigned from the Government. He wondered why. He had seemed from brief acquaintance a likeable, down-to-earth sort of fellow. He couldn't be bothered to read the story running down the column. Politics was a bore, and the newspapers only made tip fairy-stories. When someone mentioned the incident in the theatre of the Cavendish Clinic during Graham's first case, he said, 'Yes, I met the chap the other day. Seemed a very solid citizen.'

'Did you?' asked his young assistant, looking up.

'What's the matter?' Graham was surprised at the tone. 'Is he in disgrace, or something? I supposed he'd resigned on some lofty point of political principle.'

'Reading between the lines, he's in the cart. Something very peculiar about Army contracts. A number of old Army wireless sets seem to have gone sadly astray.'

'Who on earth would want an old Army wireless set?'

'People want anything these days. In Germany you could refurnish your house with a few hundred cigarettes.'

'I suppose so,' said Graham sombrely. 'Everyone seems to be on the make. There's a spiv in all of us.'

Lord Cazalay arrived promptly at seven. With him was the ferret-faced Arthur. Graham invited them in cordially. If they had some proposition for him, he had already decided to reject it. But at least he could politely offer them a whisky. After all, it had come via Lord Cazalay.

For a while Lord Cazalay talked about the obstacles to making money in the postwar world, a subject he seemed inclined to leave with more impatience than usual. Arthur sat sipping whisky nervously and said nothing. After a few minutes Lord Cazalay declared, 'Graham, I've found you a new patient.' He inclined his head. 'Arthur here.'

Graham looked at the ferrety man with mild interest. 'What's the trouble?' he asked.

'I'd like you to fix my face up, Sir Graham.'

'But you haven't any scars or blemishes that I can see.'

'I'd just like you to change it a bit. Like you did to the pilots during the war.'

Lord Cazalay gave a harsh laugh. 'Plenty of room for improvement, eh, Graham?'

Graham put his finger-tips together and gave the proffered features a more careful inspection. It wasn't a bad face. The nose was too pointed and the jaw underslung, but not to the point of unsightliness. But he appreciated, even if he still never understood, the psychological forces urging patients towards him. A crooked nose or a dropping eyelid, passing more or less unnoticed by the world, could incite any amount of self-torture. He remembered a youth during the war with a leg withered from polio. All the frustrations of his life were ascribed to his leg. He implored one of the general surgeons to chop it off, to cast it from his life altogether, replace it with one of the splendid artificial ones they were designing for the wounded. The surgeon obliged. Six months later the young man committed suicide. We must all find something to blame, Graham thought, even if it's a bit of ourselves.

'Of course, you realize that a cosmetic operation, like any operation, carries a risk?' Graham explained, as he did to every patient. Arthur nodded. 'Nor is it free from pain and bother. Some can be distinctly uncomfortable for weeks afterwards. And even I can't guarantee a perfectly successful result.'

'The bill will be rather painful too, I fancy,' said Lord Cazalay, laughing again.

'I wouldn't conceal that, either,' said Graham.

'You'd be looked after, Sir Graham,' Arthur assured him solemnly. 'Rely on me for that.'

'As this is turning into a consultation, I'll have to ask you to leave us, Charles,' Graham explained to his brother-in-law. 'It's rather irregular to conduct one with an audience.'

Arthur looked at Graham imploringly and asked, 'Can't he stay? He's a friend.'

'Oh, very well, if you wish,' Graham conceded testily. 'In what particular way do you want your appearance changed?'

'I just want it changed. I'm not fussy.'