BY THE TIME THE DOCTOR CAME, WE HAD LIFTED my father's body to the couch and covered it with a blanket.
The doctor was a thin, sturdy man, bald, with thick glasses.
He lifted the blanket and looked. He dropped the blanket.
"He's dead, all right."
I didn't speak.
It was McAllister who asked the question while I swung to and fro in my father's chair.
"Why?"
The doctor came toward the desk.
"Encephalic embolism.
Stroke.
Blood clot hit the brain, from the looks of him." He looked at me. "You can be thankful it was quick.
He didn't suffer."
It was certainly quick.
One minute my father was alive, the next moment he was nothing, without even the power to brush off the curious fly that was crawling over the edge of the blanket onto his covered face.
I didn't speak.
The doctor sat down heavily in the chair opposite me. He took out a pen and a sheet of paper. He laid the paper on the desk.
Upside down, I could read the heading across the top in bold type.
Death Certificate.
The pen began to scratch across the paper.
After a moment, he looked up.
"O.K. if I put down embolism as the cause of death or do you want an autopsy?"
I shook my head.
"Embolism's O.K.
An autopsy wouldn't make any difference now."
The doctor wrote again.
A moment later, he had finished and he pushed the certificate over to me.
"Check it over and see if I got everything right."
I picked it up.
He had everything right.
Pretty good for a doctor who had never seen any of us before today.
But everybody in Nevada knew everything about the Cords.
Age 67.
Survivors: Wife, Rina Marlowe Cord; Son, Jonas Cord, Jr.
I slid it back across the desk to him.
"It's all right."
He picked it up and got to his feet.
"I'll file it and have my girl send you copies."
He stood there hesitantly, as if trying to make up his mind as to whether he should offer some expression of sympathy.
Evidently, he decided against it, for he went out the door without another word.
Then Denby came in again.
"What about those people outside?
Shall I send them away?"
I shook my head.
They'd only come back again.
"Send them in."
They came in the door, the girl's father and mother, their faces wearing a fixed expression that was a strange mixture of grief and sympathy.
Her father looked at me. "I'm sorry we couldn't meet under happier circumstances, Mr. Cord."
I looked at him.
The man's face was honest. I believe he really meant it.
"I am, too," I said.