The Accessory Author:Mary Lockwood The doctor sat at his desk, staring down at the tiny crowded print of the Manhattan telephone directory, which lay sprawled open on the green blotter at a page in the W's. — Leave well enough alone, he told himself angrily, half fearfully. For Christ's sake, leave it alone! She may already have decided it's none of her business, she...Once More h... more »e examined her face in his mind, enduring again the light, lazy, mockery of her glance, her flickering half-smile. Yes, he thought: as soon trust a cat to stay out of the cream.
"Oh, by the way, what's the name of that tall blond doctor, you know, the good-looking one with the bony face, who always seem to be in suck a hurry? Because honestly, it's the funniest thing, but I could swear I saw him down in Bryant Park the other day, when this poor man keeled over with a heart attack or something, and they were calling and calling for a doctor... I mean, he didn't have a bag or anything, so no one knew he was a doctor; but aren't you supposed to - I mean, aren't doctors expected to -?"
He had not had to ask her name. He had found her address simply by turning a page. In this city of millions, no one knew, no one need ever know, of the connection between them.
Fantastic, unimaginable; possible. Yes, he thought, possible. Don't I see already exactly how it could be done? And know myself capable of it- as of anything, everything, in my own defense?
There was a roommate, the newspapers said - Ann Claremont. She had no idea who might have wanted to harm her roommate, whose body she had been called upon to identify. She was being kept under sedation at her father's apartment, wand was not available for comment.
As the weeks passed, the doctor found that he was bothered by a sense of unfinished business. If he could just meet the roommate, he thought, this Ann Claremont- could set himself to watch her face at the moment she first saw him and heard his name. An introduction, a handshake; and with it the final confirmation of his own security...
THE ACCESS0RY is the story of what happened to Ann Claremont and Dr Nicholas Sheldon, mounting to a climax that will make the reader gasp.« less