by Colin Watson
She re-filled her cup and carried it to a small chintz-covered armchair near the fireplace. Close to the chair was a telephone on a low table. She set down her cup, lowered herself into the chair and reached for the phone. She asked for a Welbeck number and waited, leaning back into the comfort of the cushions.
“Bernard?... This is Lucilla—Lucilla Teatime.”
“Lucy! My dear, how lovely to hear you again! Where are you?”
She smiled smugly to herself and stroked with one finger the outline of a flower in the patterned chair cover.
“I am a long way from London, and not a bit sorry. Flaxborough suits me admirably.”
“Where and what in God’s name is Flaxborough?”
“Now, Bernard,” she said reprovingly, “I thought better of you. To pretend that civilization stops at North-west Three is the least endearing of the Londoner’s parochial affectations. Flaxborough is not merely an exceptionally charming town; it is a good deal more stimulating than that elephantine combination of a clip joint and knocking shop that you are pleased to regard as the centre of the universe.”
“All right, Lucy, all right. Just tell me what you are doing.”
“A number of things. All interesting.”
“And rewarding? Your talents are sadly missed, my love.”
“I really believe you mean that. But you need not worry. This is a town of many opportunities.”
“Which you are in the process of seizing, no doubt.”
“I glean where I may, Bernard. With a little help, of course.”
“Oh?”
“At the moment—and I know you will be interested to hear this—it is being given by an old friend of yours. You did not know, did you, that Brother Culpepper is here with me?”
“Good Lord! Holy Joe?”
“You had not heard that he was in retreat?”
“Well, I did gather as much from the newspapers.”
“No, no, Bernard—I mean in an ecclesiastical sense. Out here he is isolated from the demands of the world. He tells me it is a great relief not to feel sought after all the time. And of course the open air life is working wonders for him.”
“Never mind Joe. I want to hear about you, Lucy. What are you doing with yourself?”
“I have acquired a herb farm.”
“A what?”
“A herb farm. Now, please do not interrupt, Bernard: this call is going to cost rather a lot of money, and you will have to listen carefully if you are to understand what I wish you to do for me. There is one thing I must be clear about before I begin. Am I right in assuming that your—what shall I say?—your professional lustre is undimmed?”
There was a slight pause.
“If you mean what I think you mean, the answer is yes.”
“Oh, I am so glad. In that case, I am sure you will be able to do me the favour I have in mind. It will require a little research—nothing terribly difficult. Now then, Bernard, are you ready? You will probably wish to make a note or two.”
“Carry on.”
“Firstly, I wish to know what you can find out about a Dr Augustus Meadow, who is in practice in Heston Lane, Flaxborough. Or was, rather—he happened to die this evening.”
“Oh, Lucy, you surely haven’t got yourself mixed up in...”
“Certainly not. As far as anybody knows, he collapsed and died in a perfectly respectable manner and in his own surgery. It was by sheer coincidence that I was waiting to see him at the time. The annoying thing is that I shall not now be able to learn from him what I wanted.”
“What sort of information are you after, anyway? Career? Background? Whatever I can unearth down here is bound to be pretty sketchy. Why don’t you see what you can find in the files of the local paper? I assume there is a local paper?”
“I am not writing a biography, Bernard. My interest is in the man’s professional activities and I have reason to think that some of them may have been specialized in a way that would gain notice. His receptionist tells me that he conducted certain clinical trials, or helped to conduct them, on behalf of a drug firm called Elixon. According to her, he published findings in the medical press. I suggest that back numbers of the British Medical Journal might be revealing. Unfortunately, that is not the sort of literature one finds knocking about in Flaxborough public library, or I might not be troubling you.”
“All right, I’ll cast around. Anything else?”
“Yes. Have you heard of a drug called ‘Juniform’?”
“I have.”
“Is it well known?”
“Not in my field, no. But then it’s scarcely likely to become part of the armoury of the obstetrician.”
“Oh, Bernard! You are sweet. Obstetrician.... So you are!”
“Now look, Lucy—do you want me to help you or don’t you?”
At once Miss Teatime quelled her trill of amusement. “Bernard, I am sorry. No, you were saying...?”
“I was saying—or about to say—that ‘Juniform’ is what you might call an over-sixties drug. I’ve no personal experience of it, but I do know that it is being very assiduously pushed.”
“But how exciting! Like heroin, you mean?”
“No, I do not mean like heroin. Pushed commercially. It isn’t a pep pill being peddled round coffee bars. Private surgeries are where the pressure is being applied. The manufacturers obviously think they’ve got a winner. I gather they’re spending like mad on promotion.”
“I see... And what exactly is ‘Juniform’ supposed to accomplish?”
“The claim, I gather, is that it produces some kind of cellular modification that inhibits natural ageing processes. Is that too technical for you?”
“Hence the name, I presume. ‘Juniform’. Juvenis, young.”
“Exactly. I’ll try and dig up some more about it, if you really want me to.”
“I do, my dear. It sounds enormously intriguing.”
“At least I know your interest is purely altruistic, Lucy. It will be a good many years before you need any artificial rejuvenation.”
“Bernard, you are quite irresistible! No wonder all those lovely rich women bring you their cysts to be...”
“Is there,” he interrupted hastily, “anything else you want me to find out while I’m at it?”
“Am I being a dreadful nuisance?”
“Not in the least. I’m only too happy to help.”
“Well, in that case, I shall be greedy and ask you for one final piece of information. This will not be easy, I am afraid, but I know you will try. It concerns Elixon—you know, the drug house that markets ‘Juniform’. I wish to know whatever you can learn about one of its travelling representatives. His name is Brennan, and he is at present in this area. Oh, and Bernard...”
“Yes?”
“I realize that this will sound quite wickedly unreasonable, but if all this information is going to be of any use to me, I must have it within twenty-four or, at the most, forty-eight hours.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Bloody hell, indeed, Bernard, but I did tell you that Flaxborough is a considerably more lively town than London. I think the absence of petrol fumes has something to do with it. You will ring me?”
“Oh, all right. But I’m not promising anything.”
“Flaxborough four-three-double-seven. Tomorrow evening, or the evening following at the very latest.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Which I know will be a great deal, my dear. You are a man of resource. My confidence will not miscarry...”
“Lucy! For God’s sake! Not over the phone...”
“Sorry,” she said sweetly.
But the line was already dead.
Chapter Fifteen
Mrs McCreavy greeted Inspector Purbright with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. She had never, in the course of a somewhat tediously blameless life, received a visit from a policeman of any rank, let alone a detective inspector. But now, with so elevated a representative of the law upon her
doorstep, it seemed (to Mrs McCreavy) that neglectful destiny was going to make up for lost time. Into what sort of notoriety was she about to be plunged? Would there be a taking of photographs? A summons to court? And had she remembered, on hearing the door bell, to take that corset off the settee in the front room?
She preceded him into the parlour, ready to whisk the corset under a cushion. It was nowhere in sight. (Of course—she’d put it away earlier that morning when the window cleaner had called.) Feeling less vulnerable, she tightened up her face and invited him to state his business.
“I understand, Mrs McCreavy, that you were present in Dr Meadow’s surgery yesterday evening when he was taken ill.”
She bowed her head in solemn confirmation.
“It must have been a very upsetting experience for you. I’m sorry.”
“Upsetting,” she repeated. “Yes, definitely.”
“I hope you’re feeling a little better now.”
“A little. Thank you very much.”
“The reason I am here is quite simple, Mrs McCreavy. You have nothing to worry about. It is just that a sudden death of this kind has to be officially reported. We have to establish details. You understand? All quite usual.”
“Details. I see.”
“So I want you to tell me exactly what happened, as you remember it. Of course, I shan’t ask you anything private—about your reasons for consulting Dr Meadow, I mean. I only want you to describe what took place.”
Mrs McCreavy’s response suggested that the inspector’s delicacy had been wasted. She slid both hands across her diaphragm and lifted, as if for his approbation, a generously proportioned bosom.
“Well, I’d been getting these pains round here, you see. Oh, and right through the chest. Just like knives. A bit worse on this side, if anything.”
She thoughtfully weighed her left breast, reminding Purbright, despite his determination to be seriously sympathetic, of a judge at a vegetable show.
“Of course, I’ve had them, off and on, since I was a girl, and my husband always says I make a lot of fuss about nothing, but I mean, he doesn’t know, does he? He’s not in there to feel. And then there was Mrs Holland, next door but one. She had to have all her insides taken away. Well...” She paused, inviting comment.
“You were very wise to make sure,” Purbright said briskly. “So,” he continued at once, “you went to the surgery, entered Dr Meadow’s consulting room when it was your turn, and told him about the pains. He was sitting down, was he?”
“Yes,” Mrs McCreavy seemed a little resentful at having been short-circuited.
“How did his appearance strike you? Did he look ill or tired?”
“No, nothing like that. He seemed a bit quiet, though, and he didn’t listen properly at first when I was talking to him. He just sat fiddling with that thing they listen to your heart through.”
“Anyway, you told him your symptoms, I suppose. What happened then?”
“He told me to take my things off.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I did. Not altogether, I mean. Just...well, so that he could sound my chest. There’s a screen, of course. When I came out again, he was standing up. He got me to come round beside the desk. Next to him—you know, facing. Anyway, he started off by doing that tapping business with two fingers, up and down the chest, and then round the back. I always like that, don’t you? He’d got lovely hands, Dr Meadow had. They sort of matched his voice—do you know what I mean? Anyway, he went on tapping and asking questions for a bit, about where I felt the pain, and whether I’d had a cold, and what I ate, and that sort of thing, and then he put on his what’s-its-name—you know—not telescope...”
“Stethoscope.”
“That’s right—and he went over my chest again with that, and he said there was nothing wrong that he could hear, absolutely nothing. And then he got me to turn round and he started listening at the back. And he said, no, nothing there. Oh, he said that twice, and I thought he sounded a little bit annoyed, as a matter of fact. And then he sort of stepped away. I didn’t see him, of course, but I heard him say something like, ‘Well, we’ll see if this does the trick’, and I waited, and then I felt that thing go on my back again, and I heard him say something very quietly to himself. It sounded like, ‘The fur is darker’...”
“The fur is darker?”
“That’s right. I don’t know what he could have meant. The fur is darker—that’s what he said. I only thought of it afterwards because of what happened. You see, straight away there was this funny hissing noise he made. Ssss! Like that. As if he was impatient or cross. And then I got the fright of my life. Well, his arm came up as if he was trying to grab me. And me with practically nothing on. I thought... well, I don’t know what I thought, but I jumped away from him and I think I called out ‘Get away’, or ’Don’t’, or something, and then there was this awful crash and I looked round and there he was lying on the floor, sort of jerking and twitching, and I screamed and all I can remember after that was sitting out there in the waiting-room and crying and trying to drink a glass of water that Miss Sutton had brought me. Oh, it was a terrible shock to see him there.... Poor Dr Mea...”
A return of grief transformed the name into a soft, bleating sob. Her head fell. She felt ineffectually for the handbag that she had put down on the settee on coming in. It was just out of reach. Purbright stood and moved it over against her hand. He touched her shoulder.
“Thank you, Mrs McCreavy. I shan’t trouble you any more.”
And he didn’t. But as he walked down the path between the diminutive lawn and a bed of Mr McCreavy’s scrupulously tended dahlias towards the green-painted gate, he reflected on troubles of his own. Not the least of these was the bafflement induced by the late Dr Meadow’s last words.
What on earth had he been trying to convey by ‘The fur is darker?’ What fur? Had there been an animal of some kind in the surgery? Had it bitten him? Fatally? Oh, hell...
Sergeant Love was looking deceptively bland when Purbright got back to the police station.
“I see he’s still at it,” he announced.
“Who’s at what?” Purbright was in no mood for cryptic references.
“The Flaxborough Crab. Have you seen the report book this morning?”
“I have seen nothing this morning. I’ve been purging my soul by unproductive leg work.”
“Another young woman’s been attacked.”
Purbright’s weary “Oh, Christ!” implied that he had had about enough of the conspiracy by assault-prone females to disrupt his routine. But at once he repented and asked anxiously: “Serious?”
“She wasn’t hurt. Only frightened. He was wearing something round his face this time.”
That’s new.”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Elizabeth Loder. Nineteen. She’s a housemaid. Her family live in Dorley Road, but she’s only there on her nights off. Anyway, it was Pook who interviewed her. He’s doing you a full report.”
“Is he. Yes, all right, Sid. Now look—did you manage to see that Leadbetter character?”
“Aye, Mrs Grope, too. She says her old man’s cooling off again. Very pleased about that. Apparently the doctor told her that Grope had been taking some medicine that might have disagreed with him but that he’d had it stopped.”
“She offered no clue about Meadow’s dropping dead I suppose?”
“No, she said he was perfectly all right when she came out.”
“I see. And Leadbetter?”
Love grinned. “Funny, but do you know who he is? He’s the brother of that old ram on the council—the one who was mixed up in that brothel business a few years back. Must run in the family.”
“Must run in Dr Meadow’s patients,” corrected Purbright, thoughtfully. “Unless Leadbetter’s another herb addict. Did he tell you what it was he’d gone to see the doctor about?”
“Not a word.”
“No, I hardly expected he wo
uld.”
It was very rarely that Love felt awkward in the inspector’s presence. Purbright was no wielder of rank, and his temperament was remarkably equable. Today, however, not even the sergeant’s cheery insensibility could long block his realization that Purbright was, in the sergeant’s terminology, ‘bloody well cheesed’. He ventured, crudely but with good intent, to find out why.