Roland was covering his mouth because he knew the correct reaction was not laughter, but knowing something often did not override one’s instincts.
“Matthew?” came Thaddeus Beck’s voice from the doorway, where his shadow fell across the foyer with a hammer in hand. “What the devil?”
“Ibegyour pardon!” the shrill, pompous voice cried again. “In-spec-tion!”
Mae sighed, forcing a smile onto her face and clasping her hands in her skirt, spinning to put her back to Roland and the others to face a weedy, bewigged fellow vibrating with impatience near the triage bench.
“Hello again, Inspector!” she sang, in a voice that did not quite relay the murder Roland suspected he’d seen glint in her eyes for a moment. “I apologize for the wait. It appears our vandals have taken to attacking local parishes for the crime of giving us charity!”
Roland looked over at him curiously, wondering if he would feign surprise or balk or perhaps even smirk about it, but the man’s face was impressively impassive.
“That has nothing to do with me,” he said in a voice that seemed to actually believe it. “Shall we commence?”
“Matthew, you smell like cow shit,” Tod observed.
“Yes, Iknow,” Matthew returned impatiently. “Oh, egads, here she comes.”
“Matthew Allsaints Everly, you didnotleave me behind,” Vix Aster’s voice cried from the lawn, sending Roland’s hand immediately back up over his mouth again.
“Darling, you’re going to stumble,” her husband dutifully said in her wake, sounding not at all actually concerned that she would nor invested in any way in stopping her from her rampage. “Oh, look, the door’s open.”
“I say, this is very noisy,” the inspector observed. “I was hoping to observe treatment and tour the nursery today.”
“The nursery has a new trio of chicken pox wards, if you don’t mind braving that fester,” Mae said mildly. “And I’ve a patient waiting who needs an infection and gravel debris scoured out of his leg. How are you with a horsehair brush?”
The inspector gave a delicate cough.
“I’ve asked his permission already,” Mae continued. “I was going to let our young protégé and aspirant doctor observe, but you are welcome to take his place.”
“Permission?” the inspector repeated, sounding baffled.
“Yes, fancy that,” Roland mused, stepping to her side. “Miss Casper, I think perhaps you ought to pass the inspector here off to Dr. Ravi while we deal with this unfolding ado at the door, hm?”
“I beg your pardon?” the inspector huffed. “And who are you? Another healer?”
Roland flashed him a tight grin. “I’m whomever I need to be in a given moment, sir. You, however, look very familiar to me. It’s odd. I feel like I’ve seen a younger version of you around here before, in the evening light. Perhaps a patient? Or … hm …”
The inspector blinked and then narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Perhaps just a trick of the light,” Roland said with a shrug. “Come along, Mae.”
“Oh, but,” she protested, frowning as Ravi was already stepping forward to ooze charm all over the unsuspecting inspector.
“Oh, hello,” the inspector managed. “My, but you’re all very brown around here, aren’t you?”
“The brownest,” Ravi agreed, slinging an arm over the man’s narrow shoulders. “Come this way. Have you ever seen someone who’s been dragged down a gravel path?”
“Classroom,” Roland suggested, nodding upward. “Matthew, leave your dress down here. It reeks.”
“It’s acoat,” Matthew snapped, gripping his cassock defensively.
“Actually, maybe leave it outside on the scaffolding,” Mae put in. “I can have it sent with our wash and brought back to you at Holy Comfort in a few days.”
“See that, Reed?” Matthew said, glaring at his lifelong friend. “Manners.”
“Where?” Reed answered, grinning.
Tod sighed and led the charge up the stairs, his sister on his heels, muttering under her breath about disembowelment and exile.
