Max had rallied well, and things looked bright for him. His patient did
not need him, but K. was anxious to find Joe; so he telephoned the gas
office and got a day off. The sordid little tragedy was easy to
reconstruct, except that, like Joe, K. did not believe in the innocence of
the excursion to Schwitter's. His spirit was heavy with the conviction that
he had saved Wilson to make Sidney ultimately wretched.

For the present, at least, K.'s revealed identity was safe. Hospitals keep
their secrets well. And it is doubtful if the Street would have been
greatly concerned even had it known. It had never heard of Edwardes, of
the Edwardes clinic or the Edwardes operation. Its medical knowledge
comprised the two Wilsons and the osteopath around the corner. When, as
would happen soon, it learned of Max Wilson's injury, it would be more
concerned with his chances of recovery than with the manner of it. That
was as it should be.

But Joe's affair with Sidney had been the talk of the neighborhood. If the
boy disappeared, a scandal would be inevitable. Twenty people had seen him
at Schwitter's and would know him again.

To save Joe, then, was K.'s first care.

At first it seemed as if the boy had frustrated him. He had not been home
all night. Christine, waylaying K. in the little hall, told him that.
"Mrs. Drummond was here," she said. "She is almost frantic. She says Joe
has not been home all night. She says he looks up to you, and she thought
if you could find him and would talk to him--"