Granville glanced at her. “I’m busy!” he snapped.

“All the same,” she answered, and was gone.

After a moment, he sighed and walked quietly out the door. When his wife insisted, he had learned to pay heed.

In the examining room behind his office Granville found Inspector Bennett hunched in a chair, his face gray with pain, his eyes blazing with what appeared to be impotent fury.

Dr. Granville looked down at the man’s foot, and his attention sharpened. His wife had removed Bennett’s boot, and the stocking was humped with the swelling. Broken-

He knelt by the inspector and his wife handed him a pair of scissors to cut away the policeman’s stocking. Bennett was biting his lip, forcing down a groan of pain. “Had to drag the bloody thing half a mile before I could find help,” he managed at last, then glanced at the doctor’s wife. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

“What happened?” Granville asked, looking at the discolored ankle and twisted metatarsals.

The constable standing woodenly beside the inspector, his face without expression, waited.

Bennett said in a growl, “That bast-That devil ran over me!”

“Motorcar?” The inspector nodded, and Granville went on, “It will hurt, but I need to run my hands here-and there.” He began gently, and Bennett all but screamed when the doctor pressed on the raised area just ahead of the big, calloused toes.

“Dislocated, I think. Your foot must have been on its side when the tire compressed it. Into sand, I would guess-any harder surface and the entire foot would have been crushed.”

“Yes, sand,” Bennett answered between clenched teeth.

“And I think this bone took the brunt and is probably broken.” He looked up, nodding at his wife, and she disappeared into the back, reappearing almost immediately with a basin of soapy water and a cloth.