The Flaxborough Crab f-6

by Colin Watson

  The girl left the hatch and reappeared holding a long buff-coloured envelope which she handed to Brennan. He slipped it into an inside pocket and resumed his seat after thanking her and taking a casual glimpse of the desk where she had been typing.

  For lack of anything else to do, Miss Teatime turned her attention to the girl with the folded arms. Why was she hugging herself like that, as if trying not to be noticed? She looked lonely and in trouble. Miss Teatime felt increasingly sorry for her. Some plausible Flaxborough buck had fed her one of the usual legends, no doubt. I’ll be all right if you run about a bit afterwards and drink plenty of water. How sad that people were so ready to believe what they wanted to believe—or what others wanted them to bel...

  There burst in upon this melancholy reflection a quick succession of violent sounds. A collision, as if of furniture...the crash of something overtoppled...a crumpling thud. Then, after an absolute silence no less shocking than the noise that had preceded it, the door to which all eyes turned seemed visibly to be straining against the assault upon it from within by a long, rasping scream.

  For an absurdly extended time, nobody did anything. Did not convention decree that the right to intrude upon a doctor’s privacy was strictly reserved to nurses or other doctors?

  The dilemma was resolved when the door was suddenly dragged open by a Mrs McCreavy transformed by near-nudity and shock.

  Clutching a bundle of snatched-up clothing to her breast, she staggered out of the room with head thrust forward and mouth open. Pert no longer, the brilliantly red lips looked like the edges of a deep, rawly inflicted cut which had drained her face of what little colour it had had.

  The girl opposite Miss Teatime was the first to move. She sprang to Mrs McCreavy, put an arm round her shoulder, and led her to a chair.

  Brennan stared at them, momentarily bewildered, then strode to the open door. Miss Teatime followed close behind.

  On the floor of the consulting room lay Dr Meadow, face down. His arms and legs were disposed like those of a swimmer who had reached shore at last gasp and fallen at once to sleep. Near his head, and caught in a leg of the heavy office chair whose overturning they had heard, were the black coils of his stethoscope.

  Brennan knelt. Miss Teatime watched the fine grey cloth of his jacket tighten against underlying muscle as he heaved Dr Meadow over and bent to listen to his chest.

  Behind them, the receptionist had opened a window and was shouting “Doctor Bruce!” Having found his room empty, she had looked out to see him getting into his car, which he had parked behind Meadow’s big Lagonda.

  “I think,” Brennan said, “that the poor chap is dead.”

  He raised his head and looked over his shoulder at Miss Teatime.

  “Perhaps you had better try and find Dr Bruce.”

  “The girl has been calling for him.” She listened. “I believe I can hear someone coming in from outside now.”

  Brennan turned again to the body. He felt one wrist, then the chest. He shook his head and got up slowly, buttoning his jacket. “Extraordinary,” he murmured.

  Bruce came into the room, pale-faced and anxious, yet quietly businesslike. Brennan and Miss Teatime moved aside to make way for him. They stood back close against the wall, silent spectators. From the doorway, the receptionist watched, knuckles pressed hard on her lower lip. The only sound was the muffled sobbing of Mrs McCreavy, who had been helped back into her crumpled dress and was now sitting grasping the hand of the girl with troubles.

  Bruce squatted down beside his partner. Fingertips explored with delicate expertise. He unfastened Meadow’s shirt, tugged his own stethoscope from his side pocket, and listened, head bowed.

  After nearly half a minute, he took off his jacket, folded it several times, and beckoned the girl at the door.

  “Slip it under his shoulders when I raise him. I want his head well back.”

  The receptionist did as she was told.

  “Ambulance,” Bruce said. He nodded towards the telephone on the desk. “Then you’d better give the police a ring.”

  The soft whirr of the spun dial sounded as loud as a helicopter rotor in the small, silent room.

  Bruce crouched low, his mouth over Meadow’s. Firmly, almost violently, he pressed the heel of his hand into the man’s chest.

  The girl was asking for an ambulance. She glanced down at Dr Bruce and remembered something else. Would they please alert the resuscitation unit.

  She dialled again.

  The calm, matter-of-fact voice of the answering policeman made the scene around her seem suddenly unreal. She tried to give a simple account, but he sounded as if he wanted to sit there all day asking subsidiary questions. She looked helplessly at Bruce. He interrupted what he was doing only long enough to inject a shot of adrenalin.

  The voice at the other end became louder.

  “I said, is he dead. Miss? Can you hear me?”

  She started. “Yes. Yes, I think he is.”

  “You only think...?”

  She put down the phone.

  When, at last, Bruce rose to his feet, he stared wearily at Meadow’s body for several seconds before he stooped once more and gently eased free his folded jacket. He put it on and went out into the waiting-room. Brennan and Miss Teatime followed him.

  The receptionist lingered unhappily by the consulting room door. She seemed to be wondering whether she ought to close it. Bruce touched her sleeve.

  “Miss Sutton, would you mind staying on here until the ambulance comes. It shouldn’t be many minutes. I must go round to the house now. Mrs Meadow will have to be told.”

  Among the several matters exercising the busy mind of Miss Teatime was the reflection that her original purpose in visiting the surgery would not now be fulfilled. She watched the departure of the still tearful Mrs McCreavy in the custody of her younger companion, whose own anxiety, presumably, had been overlaid temporarily by the evening’s excitement. What could Mrs McCreavy tell of Dr Meadow’s dramatic end? She had volunteered not a single word and in the general distress no one had thought to ask her. The police, no doubt, would set that record straight in their own good time. Mr Brennan...had he gone yet? No, there he was by the door, his back towards her, putting the things back in his briefcase. A lost sale? Hardly. Those people were on a fairly easy pitch. Doctors did not like to think they were missing out on one of the latest fashions in miracle drugs. There had been a couple of those leaflets of his on the doctor’s desk. ELIXON. Tall, dark blue letters. But what, for goodness’ sake, was she to make of that other curious thing she had seen soon after entering Meadow’s room? She would have to think about that. Most puzzling.

  “Goodnight, Miss Sutton.”

  Brennan was leaving. He nodded at Miss Teatime, then looked back to the girl.

  “I’m very sorry.”

  The door closed behind him.

  Miss Teatime was about to follow, when she caught the expression of distressed appeal in the girl’s eye. Of course—how thoughtless to leave her there alone. She went over to her and sat down. The girl looked at her gratefully.

  After a while, the girl said: “I hope it wasn’t anything urgent you wanted to see the doctor about.”

  “No, no,” Miss Teatime assured her. “It was nothing that cannot wait a little longer.”

  “I’m sure Dr Bruce would help if you like to stay until he comes back.”

  “No, he has problems enough for one evening, poor man. I should not dream of troubling him with so trivial a matter. It was simply that I wished to obtain a repeat prescription for some tablets.”

  “He would do that for you, I’m sure. Would you like me to ask him?”

  “That is extremely kind of you, my dear. Unfortunately”—Miss Teatime opened her handbag—“there is one small difficulty. You see, I do not know the name of the preparation—the formula, you know.”

  The girl watched her unfold an envelope and coax out the little green octagon.

  “Oh, I know what that is,�
� she said brightly, then, “What a coincidence, though—it’s one of Mr Brennan’s.”

  “One of Mr Brennan’s? I do not quite...”

  “No, I mean it’s a line done by his firm. It’s got a fearfully complicated name—I couldn’t begin to remember it—but it’s marketed as ‘Juniform’.”

  “ ‘Juniform’. Ah. And you can tell that, can you, simply by looking at this tablet?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s absolutely distinctive. The shape, the colour, those little letters stamped on it—see?—E.D.G.S. I’ve dispensed lots for Dr Meadow’s private patients.”

  “His private patients?”

  “Yes. Well, the Health Service ones would get theirs from chemists in town, wouldn’t they?”

  “I suppose they would.” She began re-folding the envelope.

  “You have been most helpful. Miss Sutton. Thank you.”

  Suddenly, the girl frowned. “Yes, but...”

  “But what, my dear?”

  “I don’t know that I ought to be telling you this, but Dr Meadow has stopped issuing ‘Juniform’.”

  “Really?”

  Again the girl hesitated.

  “Well... Well, as a matter of fact, he used to be very keen on it. I think he was one of the first doctors to try it out. He did a piece in the B.M.J. about it at one time...”

  “The British Medical Journal?

  “That’s right. About clinical trials. That sort of thing. Then just a few days ago, he stopped prescribing it. And today I’ve been typing another article for the B.M.J. I didn’t understand much of it, but it seems he’s noticed what they call side-effects. Some syndrome or other.”

  “Good gracious. I do not wish to catch that, do I?”

  The girl looked at her. “I think it would be better if you spoke to Dr Bruce. You’ll not let him know what I’ve been telling you, though, will you?”

  Miss Teatime smiled and patted her arm. “Not a word.”

  They heard the sound of an engine. Tyres crunched on the gravel outside.

  Miss Sutton jumped up. “That must be the ambulance.”

  They waited, watching the door.

  It opened, but instead of blue-uniformed ambulance attendants they saw a tall, easy-mannered man with a mop of greyish-yellow hair.

  As soon as he spotted Miss Teatime, he stood still, his expression of bland interest replaced by one of surprise.

  “Good God,” he murmured very quietly.

  She advanced towards him, holding out her hand.

  “Inspector! How very delightful to meet you again!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “The pleasure is mine,” said Purbright, gallantly. “And how, may I ask, is the work of the Eastern Counties Charities Alliance progressing?”

  “Splendidly. I have been astonished by Flaxborough’s yield of the milk of human kindness since the Alliance honoured me with the secretaryship.”

  “Ah, one skims where one can, Miss Teatime, does one not? But look, you must excuse me for now. I’m looking for Dr Bruce.”

  “He’s gone over to the house,” said the receptionist. “To tell Mrs Meadow what’s happened. I don’t think he’ll be long.”

  “I see,” Purbright looked at her. “And you are..?”

  “Pauline Sutton.”

  “Right, Pauline. Now I’m a police inspector and I’m going to have to ask a few questions. You’ll not mind that, will you?”

  She shook her head, then glanced swiftly at the window. Another vehicle had drawn up outside. They saw white paint and a pane of spectacle-blue glass.

  The ambulance men came in, carrying their stretcher. Miss Sutton pointed to the open door of the consulting room. They went past her softly, like late arrivals in church.

  For a moment, Purbright looked confused.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to the girl, “but I hadn’t realized...”

  “That he was still here?”

  “Quite. Hang on a minute.”

  He darted after the stretcher-bearers, motioned them aside apologetically, and knelt by Meadow’s body. After making careful scrutiny, he stood and stepped back to allow them to lift Meadow on to the stretcher. When they had gone, he spent several minutes in a ranging examination of the little room.

  He noted the fallen chair and, close beside it, what he recognized as an apparatus for measuring blood pressure, apparently swept from the desk during the doctor’s fall. Its glass U-tube was smashed. On the desk lay sheafs of notes, prescription and certificate pads, a stethoscope, a couple of leaflets published by a drug house under the imprint ELIXON, and a rack of tiny specimen bottles.

  In a glass-fronted cupboard were cases of surgical and diagnostic instruments, several jars and flasks, a selection of syringes and two or three enamelled kidney dishes.

  A filing cabinet stood next to the cupboard, and in the corner farthest from the door was a sink with an electric water heater above it and two towels on a rail below.

  There were two straight-backed chairs under the window. On one of them lay a shallow cardboard box, something over a foot long and about half as wide. The inspector lifted the lid. The box was empty except for some tissue packing.

  He returned to the waiting-room.

  Bruce was there, talking quietly with Miss Sutton. Another man also had entered, a man in a grey suit. He stood patiently, with one hand resting on the back of a chair, apparently waiting for a break in the conversation between Bruce and the girl. A briefcase lay on the chair.

  Miss Teatime had gone.

  Bruce left the girl and came up to Purbright.

  “What about Mrs Meadow?” Purbright asked him softly.

  “At the hospital. She went in the ambulance.”

  “Took their time a bit, didn’t they?”

  “Held up at the level crossing. Not that it would have made any difference.”

  “He looked stone dead to me.”

  “Oh, he was. No question about it.”

  The whole of this exchange had been at a quiet, almost conspiratorial, level, with Bruce glancing occasionally at the man in grey. “Wait a moment,” he now said to Purbright, “I’ll just see what that chap wants.”

  He went across.

  “Can I help you, Mr Brennan?”

  Brennan made a small bow.

  “I’m terribly sorry to make myself a nuisance at such a time, doctor, but there is something rather important which I should like to ask Miss Sutton.”

  “Pauline,” Bruce called.

  The girl joined them. Brennan seemed to be waiting for Bruce to leave, but the doctor made no move.

  “It’s this sentence,” Brennan said at last.

  He unfolded the sheet of paper he had been holding and pointed to a line near the top.

  “I cannot quite understand it. Could you possibly have made an error in copying, do you think?”

  The girl read, frowning.

  “No, I...I don’t think so, Mr Brennan.”

  “Perhaps if we compared it with the original...?”

  “But I’m afraid you can’t. Not now.”

  Brennan raised his brows.

  “Well, it’s with the other things for posting that I took across to the house a few minutes ago just before Mrs Meadow left for the hospital.” She turned to Bruce. “I thought that in the circumstances she ought to decide which letters should be sent off.”

  “Quite right, Pauline.”

  Brennan shrugged and gave a faint smile.

  “I suppose,” Bruce said doubtfully, “that you could call later and explain to Mrs Meadow...”

  “No, I would not dream of it. The matter is of no consequence.”

  Brennan slipped the sheet of typescript into his case, gave another short bow, turned and left.

  Bruce apologized to Purbright for the interruption.

  “Miss Sutton tells me that you’d like to put a few questions to her, inspector. Perhaps you could do that first. It’s been a rather trying day for her.”

  “Of course. Now then, Paulin
e, what I am going to have to do is make a report to the coroner. That is standard procedure in all cases of sudden death. It doesn’t mean that we are suspicious of anybody. We just have to establish exactly what happened.”

  He searched in his pockets until he had found an envelope and a short piece of pencil.

  “Firstly, I should like to know when you yourself last saw Dr Meadow.”