Flash and Filigree Read Online Free PDF Page B

down the culvert, clutching the coat close, his head straight, as his eyes cast about at the rocky footing. He reached the car while the other patrolman was still behind the wheel.
    “Does this car have a two-way radio?” The Doctor had to shout, leaning his head in at the patrolman, against the wild agony of the dying siren.
    “Call the station,” he said, “have them intercept a large gray van, going east on Drexel.” He nodded as to give it emphasis, and then with a heavy breath, stepped back and loosened his collar, drew out a great white handkerchief and mopped his face and neck.
    The patrolman opened the door of the car and slowly got out, all the while eyeing the burning wreck, where the other officer raced to and fro, pumping the extinguisher viciously. The thin spray of the hand-extinguisher hardly reached the front part of the upright sedan where the flames burned brightest on the blackened pole. Then he turned to the Doctor.
    “You see the accident, Mac?”
    The Doctor breathed with difficulty from his run back to the road and the shouting against the siren. But at the question he had to smile, rocked forward slightly, his hands clasped over the coat folded against him.
    “Yes indeed,” he said, “I might even say . . .”
    “What’s your name?” asked the other, already writing.
    “Eichner,” said the Doctor shortly. “There was another vehicle involved in this, a truck. You may have passed it on Drexel, a large gray van.” He intoned the last as a question while the patrolman waited, poised above the pad.
    Then, “STOCK!” They both looked up, surprised almost to anger, as the one with the extinguisher appeared beyond the hood, shouting: “STOCK! HEY, STOCK!” He was smudged and disheveled.
    “Get emergency,” he said. He spoke with a slight lisp. “They’ve got to get a foam-pump out here. Did you see this thing?” He gestured impatiently toward the burning wreck. Patrolman Stockton and the Doctor considered him mutely for a moment, as if the lisp must dry away from the words one by one and let them drop in the dust at his feet all raw and revealed.
    “Okay,” muttered Stockton, finally turning away. “Okay, don’t get your crap hot.” He got back into the front seat, lying half across it, to flip one or two switches and speak a hoarse whisper into a microphone attached to the far side of the dash.
    Dr. Eichner had his memo-book out, open to the page where he had written about the accident, himself leaning through the open door.
    “About the truck,” he said softly, nudging Stockton’s leg.
    The message to the station was incredibly brief, composed of numbers, location, and time. The patrolman flipped the switch again, and sitting up, looked curiously at the Doctor. Then he raised a forefinger near to his right eye and worked it as if calling a small child for a secret. Dr. Eichner leaned closer. The patrolman tapped his finger very lightly on the Doctor’s shirt front.
    “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “you just let us take care of this in our own little way. Okay, fellah?” And giving the Doctor a wink that made him slowly back away, he got out of the car, took the report pad from where he had hooked it onto his belt, and began writing. “How about that name again?” he said.
    “Eichner,” said the Doctor. From his wallet he drew out a card and handed it over, and for a long moment after, stared sullenly at his own dust covered shoes, though, gradually, his drawn mouth, taking a twitch at the corners, became again something engaged, and his eyes sought Stockton’s with light and perhaps a renewed allegiance.
    “I think I begin to understand,” he said. “You already have the truck. Of course. Who else could have reported the accident?” The Doctor spoke the last word on the verge of delight. He pointed a finger at Patrolman Stockton, accusing without malice, but on the contrary, admiringly, as had the officer really been guilty of some laudable