It was nearly time for evening rounds, but attending their many patients was impossible right now. He was as twitchy as an anxious cat. “You’re sure there have been no messages?”
“None,” Julia said, glancing again at the window. “But that’s not surprising. It’s wretched outside. I’m amazed Harry got back.”
Maybe she had been called out, somewhere close enough to walk, and then been delayed. If the call was for a birth, there was a good chance she wouldn’t return until tomorrow, but…
Daniel pulled back the thick drapes of the drawing room to reveal a world obscured by sheets of ice that glinted in the light of the streetlamps. The few people outside were shadowy huddles cocooned in hats and shawls, burrowing against the frozen storm.
She’s probably waiting out the weather in a patient’s home.
He said a silent prayer that it was a cozy middle-class flat and not a miserable hovel. The thought of her locked in a bleak room with deadly contagions while icy air infiltrated cracked walls…
“She’s not upstairs.” Mrs. Phipps returned, eyes creased with worry. “I looked in every room.”
Daniel slid his fingers through his hair to press out the unwanted, foggy images trying to form.
“Let’s not borrow trouble.” Ruth’s stiff words stood up straighter than the hunched group of worriers. “She’s most likely seeing to a case and has no idea we’re concerned. It’s only five. I expect she’ll be home for dinner. If not, she’ll send a note.”
She must have thought we were too busy to take anyone with her.
But the thought didn’t reassure him. Julia was right. This wasn’t like Nora. Frowning, Daniel left the parlor. “It’s not late, but it’s dark. She must be attending someone. Where’s her list of cases?”
“She keeps her book in the clinic dispensary,” Mrs. Phipps said, trailing him, the others close behind.
Once downstairs, he walked past the books and papers and journals stacked on her desk, and opened the wardrobe. His arms went cold.
“Is that her bag?” Julia whispered.
Daniel nodded and licked his lips. The familiar bag yawned wide, the eclectic contents neatly arranged. “She’s not on a call.”
The others stared at him as images of his expectant wife clouded his thoughts. Hurt. Sick. Struggling.
“Are you sure you checked the entire house?” he asked. “Every back staircase? Every closet?” If she’d fallen somewhere or fainted…
“We’ll do it again,” Julia promised. “All of us, together. But I’m certain she’s not here. If she’s not on a call, she must have—”
But he was already searching, looking behind doors and under tables in the empty exam rooms, like this was some tormented game of hide-and-seek.
***
“Daniel, it’s only been a few hours,” Julia insisted a quarter hour later. “The patients need you. Let Mrs. Phipps and I search the house.”
He shook his head, unable to explain that stopping was impossible until he’d searched every inch himself.
“We’ll all be laughing over this tonight.” Mrs. Phipps opened the linen closet, though the wobble in her bottom lip betrayed her own unease. “It’s surely some silly misunderstanding.”
He knew she was right; chances of disaster were slim. Most certainly, he’d be annoyed and relieved by dinnertime. But the possibility of Nora injured dug like a dagger tip at his throat. He couldn’t accomplish anything until he’d shoved it aside.
“I’ll take the servants’ rooms in the attic and work my way down. Should have started systematically. You keep searching down here and work your way up,” he told the women.
It was like a case—eliminate everything it cannot be and see what remains. He opened the doorway to the shadowy back stairs. Only after he knew that she wasn’t lying at the bottom of some rickety stairwell, he’d consider the possibility that she was at a shop, stocking up on tea or soap.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he lied.
Chapter 38
After a fruitless search, Daniel forced himself to tend patients for an hour, moving from one bed to the next, alongside Harry, who watched with strained eyes. When the doorbell rang, Daniel started like a rabbit. Normally, he wouldn’t have heard it from in here.
“Go. See who it is,” Harry said. “I can look after things.”
