Doctor On Toast

by Richard Gordon

  ‘Don’t make a fuss, dear, please. Of course we have a moral obligation to put them up. Hotels in London are so frightfully expensive.’

  ‘Them – ? Don’t tell me he’s bringing his blasted missus?’

  ‘And his family, naturally.’ Lady Spratt flicked her lighter. ‘I thought it would be nice for them to see all the shops and theatres and things during the Christmas holidays.’

  Sir Lancelot drew himself up. ‘Then I shall spend the weekend at the club.’

  ‘Very well dear.’

  ‘That seems the most convenient solution for everyone,’ he added, with his best bedside dignity.

  ‘Not really, dear. You see, they will be staying for three weeks.’

  ‘Three weeks? Good God!’

  ‘Where are you going to?’ demanded Lady Spratt.

  ‘To lock up the cellar before I forget.’

  ‘Really, Lancelot! Don’t be ridiculous. You know my brother is most abstemious.’

  ‘Rubbish! I’ve never met such a leech for the vintage port.’

  ‘Which reminds me, I’ve arranged a little dinner party for Saturday–’

  ‘Maud, this is absolutely preposterous! You’ve known for years how I detest entertaining out of the week–’

  ‘You will join us, won’t you, Gaston?’ Lady Spratt added calmly. ‘After all, you’re almost one of the family now, aren’t you?’

  Ophelia still being away on Saturday, I accepted. ‘I’ve asked Miss Gracie from the BBC, which still leaves me one man short. But I expect you will easily enough find someone interesting from the hospital, won’t you, Lancelot? So glad you can come, Gaston. Black tie.’

  4

  Saturday was one of those Dickensian evenings when the street lamps throw a watery glow through the fog and the buses crawl past looking like great tanks of tropical fish. Though I’d have preferred to share chips out of the same newspaper as Ophelia, I put on a dinner jacket and drove from Razzy’s flat to Harley Street, unable to help myself feeling pretty tickled. It seemed odd to be riding on the Spratt bandwagon, after Sir Lancelot had for years squashed me under the steamroller of his personality. Besides, it was well-known in St Swithin’s that the surgeon did himself well, and though Razzy had left the larder well stocked it’s surprising how soon you can get fed up with a diet of pâté de foie gras and tinned lychees.

  I rang the bell and the pretty Italian maid showed me into the drawing-room. Standing in front of the fire, his legs apart, smoking a pipe like a small tuba and generally making himself at home, was Sir Lancelot’s brother-in-law.

  ‘Good evening, my Lord,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, good evening, Doctor,’ replied the Bishop of Wincanton.

  Personally I don’t mix much with Bishops, except during the Varsity rugger match at Twickenham, which must be the only time in the world you can find yourself standing in the gents’ between a couple of them. Sir Lancelot’s brother-in-law was himself one of the lean, athletic-looking sort, with a nose like a niblick and a chin like a bulldozer, and I remembered the limbs now cosy in gaiters had once appeared in little shorts to stroke a winning crew for Oxford.

  ‘My wife,’ said the Bishop.

  She was one of those fragile-looking creatures who often attach themselves to muscular men, like the hookworm.

  ‘Sandra, my eldest daughter.’

  Just like Mum, but more anaemic.

  ‘My younger children.’

  A shocking pair of about twelve, sitting in the corner surreptitiously picking their noses.

  ‘And this is Miss Gracie,’ added Lady Spratt, fluttering over the sherry.

  She had a pink woollen dress, pale ginger hair, gold-rimmed glasses and rather careful vowel-sounds.

  As for poor Sir Lancelot, for once he didn’t seem to be in the room at all. He just sat in a chair, scowling at his relative’s well-polished boots.

  ‘As I was saying,’ the Bishop continued, while I took the sofa next to Sandra. ‘The pain commences immediately beneath the back collar-stud.’

  ‘Presumably you mean the front collar-stud,’ growled Sir Lancelot.

  ‘I recall most vividly the sudden onset,’ the Bishop went on, as the maid handed me a glass of sherry. ‘I had just risen to address the luncheon marking the opening of the Assizes.’

  ‘The Horse Show, Charles,’ murmured his wife.

  ‘The Assizes, my dear, I am positive,’ returned the Bishop firmly. ‘I assure you the agony was most acute. Naturally, one wonders if it might indicate something serious underneath–’

  ‘Oh, that’s very possible, very possible indeed,’ agreed Sir Lancelot.

  ‘You will no doubt recall, Lancelot, I told you of an exactly similar attack on the beach two summers ago.’

  I didn’t take long tumbling to it that the Bishop, like so many chaps who spend their youth hurling themselves across football fields or propelling themselves backwards up rivers, was a shocking hypochondriac. He was also one of these people who keep cadging medical advice, even if it is provided free these days like the school milk. I knew this habit made Sir Lancelot bristle all over, and he often carried on at St Swithin’s about ‘despicable professional shop-lifting.’

  ‘My unfortunate wife,’ the Bishop continued smoothly, ‘suffers from severe indigestion. The pain, which is of a burning nature, comes on immediately before meals.’

  ‘After meals, Charles.’

  ‘Before meals, my dear, I think we decided. The pain, I will add, is situated just below the ribs, and is accompanied by considerable flatulence.’

  ‘My God! Three weeks!’ I heard Sir Lancelot mutter.

  We all listened politely while the Bishop drew a neat clinical picture of a case of hysterical dyspepsia, and ended, ‘What, my dear Lancelot, do you advise?’

  ‘Consult a doctor,’ replied the surgeon.

  ‘Lancelot!’ hissed Lady Spratt.

  But before anyone could take this in, the maid opened the door again and announced, ‘Dr Angus McFiggie.’

  ‘My dear feller!’ Sir Lancelot jumped up. ‘I’m delighted you could get away. Let me introduce you to everybody. This is Dr McFiggie – the Dr McFiggie.’

  I could see the guests were pretty impressed. After all, they were always seeing our pathologist in the Sunday papers on the scene of the most fashionable crimes in the country, and McFIGGIE IN THE BOX on the placards could sell the evening papers like the result of the Derby. In St Swithin’s itself, of course, his lectures were always crowded, particularly the one on rape, which was illustrated with lantern slides.

  ‘And now I’m sure we shall all of us be most interested to hear Dr McFiggie’s views on the Bayswater case,’ continued Sir Lancelot proudly, glaring at the Bishop and settling his guest in the best chair.

  ‘Um, yes,’ said the Bishop vaguely.

  ‘Personally, I am convinced the husband did it. Eh, McFiggie?’

  But McFiggie only grunted and sucked sherry through his ginger moustache like bathwater draining out through the loofah. Although the chap could swap nasty remarks with QCs, and even give Her Majesty’s judges a come-back from the witness-box, it became clear as Sir Lancelot tried a few more openings that he was a shocking social failure. He just sat staring at his feet and working his eyebrows up and down, until they looked in danger of getting matted together permanently. I suppose he would have felt really at home in the room only if the lot of us had been dead.

  ‘It is surely freely admitted inside our profession that many doctors murder their wives,’ went on Sir Lancelot chattily. ‘And that many more ought to.’

  ‘There was Dr Crippen, sir,’ I mentioned, to help the conversation. ‘He put his under the cellar floor.’

  ‘Exactly, Grimsdyke. And Dr Ruxton cut his up in the bath. You may not all be aware that the last Englishman to be hanged in public was one Dr Palmer, the poisoner? It was extremely embarrassing for his old hospital. For years afterwards they had to explain the poor fellow met his end while attending some sort of open-air meeti
ng, when the platform suddenly collapsed beneath his feet.’

  ‘Lancelot!’ hissed Lady Spratt again.

  The Bishop’s wife then started telling everybody about the dyspepsia once again, McFiggie sat picking the soup stains off the lapels of his dinner jacket, and I tried chatting to Sandra about the ballet. On the whole, Lady Spratt looked pretty relieved when the maid re-appeared to announce dinner.

  ‘Our two youngest ones will now go to bed,’ pronounced the Bishop, it seemed to everyone’s agreement. ‘They have an exciting day in store tomorrow. Their mother is taking them to the Zoological Gardens.’

  ‘Which with any luck will keep them,’ grunted Sir Lancelot.

  The meal started very pleasantly, with Sir Lancelot expertly slitting the turkey to ribbons in a couple of minutes. Though I must say McFiggie didn’t help much with the conversation, until Miss Gracie turned to him and said with a smile:

  ‘Dr McFiggie, you look so very tired. I suppose like all doctors you’ve had a simply frantic day?’

  The pathologist took another swig of Sir Lancelot’s special burgundy and wiped his moustache.

  ‘Up early,’ he grunted.

  ‘Some poor soul, I suppose,’ chimed in the Bishop automatically, ‘who needed your attention?’

  ‘Exhumation job,’ replied McFiggie.

  Miss Gracie looked as though she’d found a slug in her Brussels sprouts.

  ‘Indeed?’ Sir Lancelot glanced from his plate at once. ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Aye.’ McFiggie threw a quick look round the table. ‘It’s a woman they put under the sod the best part of a year ago. Usual thing, y’know. Anonymous letters, insurance claim, another woman, police get to hear.’

  ‘My dear feller! I insist you tell us the full story at once.’

  ‘Weel – I was down at the Yard last Tuesday, and the Superintendent said, “I suppose we’d better get her up, Doctor”. So there I was, at five this morning in the cemetery.’

  I noticed that everyone had stopped eating.

  McFiggie gave a laugh. ‘And it was that cold and dark we damn near started on the wrong one.’

  I shot our pathologist a professional glance. Not only was he expanding under the influence of Sir Lancelot’s burgundy, but I fancied the chap had been so overawed by the social ordeal he’d been stoking up for hours beforehand, like we did ourselves before the lemonade dances in the Nurses’ Home.

  ‘Errors are ever possible in your exacting professional duties,’ murmured the Bishop after a moment.

  ‘And my boots were leaking,’ grumbled McFiggie. ‘I usually keep a special pair for exhumations and the like, but I must have lost ’em.’

  ‘But what did you discover, McFiggie?’ insisted Sir Lancelot.

  ‘Discover?’ The pathologist banged the table. ‘Plenty, believe you me. We got her out – coffin split open, o’course, always seem to these days – and I said, “Let me have a dekko at her.” The Superintendent gave a wee laugh and said, “You won’t see much, Doctor. Not from this smell.” He’s a comic card, the Super. Though he was right enough. Very low lying that cemetery. But I’ll bet my last sixpence–’ McFiggie banged the table again, knocking over a few glasses. ‘The report on her guts tomorrow comes up with phosphorus poisoning.’

  ‘Mummy, I think I’ve left my handkerchief upstairs,’ said the Bishop’s daughter.

  ‘Now isn’t that absolutely fascinating?’ demanded Sir Lancelot.

  ‘The resources of science in the preservation of law and order are indeed remarkable,’ muttered the Bishop, quietly laying his knife and fork to one side.

  ‘Aye, but if you want to hear something really good, your Reverence–’

  ‘Are you interested in music, Dr McFiggie?’ asked Lady Spratt.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I found this very night in Camden Town. It’ll be all over the papers in the morning, anyway.’

  As McFiggie paused to suck his teeth I felt the moment had come for a brilliant piece of sabotage by interrupting with a funny story. But I could only remember the old one about the Bishop and the parrot, and that night it would never have done at all.

  ‘Not another murder?’ exclaimed Sir Lancelot eagerly.

  ‘Six,’ returned McFiggie briefly.

  ‘Good gracious me!’ said Sir Lancelot.

  ‘That’s what I make the score at the moment. I’ll have the devil’s own job tomorrow sorting the bodies out. He’d cut the heads off, y’see,’ McFiggie explained. ‘The legs he stuck under the floorboards, and the arms were in the copper. He’d been boiling all day to get rid of ’em, and it was the stench that brought out the neighbours. Not that boiling works, o’course.’ He gave another laugh. ‘I can make up a skeleton from a few bits of bone, just like we’ve got left on our plates.’

  ‘How absolutely intriguing,’ breathed Sir Lancelot.

  ‘And not only that–’ The pathologist felt in his pocket. ‘I can build a whole head from these, which we found in the cellar.’ He rattled half-a-dozen objects on his bread plate. ‘Teeth.’

  The Bishop’s wife screamed and pitched into the mashed potatoes.

  ‘Oh, horror!’ cried the Bishop.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Sir Lancelot jumped up. ‘Don’t get excited everybody, for Heaven’s sake.’

  ‘My wife! My poor wife!’

  ‘Damn it, it’s only a vasovagal attack.’ He sounded as if it were a shocking breach of good table manners. ‘And don’t all crowd round the patient. Grimsdyke!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Hand me that water jug.’

  ‘Mercy, mercy!’ muttered the Bishop, slapping his wife’s hand.

  ‘That won’t do the slightest good,’ Sir Lancelot told him, tipping the water over her. ‘The best thing you can do is loosen her stays.’

  ‘Had I better fetch the brandy from the next room, sir?’ I was beginning to feel a bit concerned about all this.

  ‘There’s a good chap. Not the liqueur brandy, of course.’

  By the time I’d found the right brandy and spent a few moments calming down the pretty Italian maid in the kitchen, the patient had been carted upstairs. The dining-room was empty except for McFiggie, who was staring absently at the table cloth, and Sir Lancelot, who had taken his seat again and was getting on with his dinner.

  ‘I told Maud perfectly plainly earlier in the evening this room was far too stuffy,’ he greeted me. ‘Help yourself to some more turkey, my boy, before everything’s stone cold.’

  Personally, I thought the time had come to call it an evening. Shortly afterwards I collected McFiggie and put him in a passing taxi, feeling that my first social engagement with the Spratts hadn’t been much of a success. And I’d hardly closed the front door before I could hear Lady Spratt starting up on her husband.

  5

  I parked the 1930 Bentley between Razzy’s pair of Jaguars in the basement at Park Lane, and took the lift to his flat.

  I must say, I felt pretty worried about Sir Lancelot. Admittedly, the pair of us had entertained our little differences in the past, particularly across the green baize tables in the examination hall. But it would be jolly unsporting not to respect him as both a great chap and a mighty surgeon, and anyway if it hadn’t been for him I should have ended up weeks ago in McFiggie’s filing cabinet. It struck me as a shocking pity that the end of his career should be dimmed through mixing himself up with Sexton Blake, and a frightful shame if he missed becoming President of the Royal College of Surgeons, particularly with all those free dinners they throw in.

  But of course I soon stopped thinking about Sir Lancelot, or anything else at all except Ophelia, and got out of the lift doing little bits of mental arithmetic over the number of hours until I’d see her again. I felt for Razzy’s key as I turned the corner of the corridor, and there the dear girl was, pummelling his doorbell.

  ‘Ophelia!’

  I bounded like a gazelle who’d trodden on an ant-hill.

  ‘Darling, where on earth have you been?�
�� she demanded. ‘And all dressed up like that, too. I’ve been ringing this thing for simply hours.’

  I was confused. ‘But why aren’t you still down in the country, helping your old people to finish up the cold turkey?’

  ‘Something utterly sensational has happened–’

  ‘Basil – ?’

  My heart raced. Perhaps he’d been spotted by a horror-film producer and whisked off to Hollywood. Perhaps he’d eloped with the Fairy Queen. Perhaps he’d missed his cue for the trap door, and broken his blasted neck.

  ‘No, it’s Jeremy. He phoned me this morning with quite the most fabulous job in the world.’

  ‘Jeremy? Jeremy who?’

  I let her into the flat.

  ‘Jeremy Graham. You know, he does the publicity for the Capricorn shipping people.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  I remembered a superior bird with tight trousers and a curly bowler we’d met in a pub.

  ‘So I had to absolutely drop everything and fly. But here’s the stupid thing.’ Ophelia laughed. ‘I’ve got to have a medical examination first. Me! Who’s never had a day’s illness in my life, and all my relatives living to be simply hundreds.’

  ‘Medical examination?’

  I wondered what on earth she was advertising, particularly as all the girls in the magazines seemed to be photographed in a state of advanced malnutrition.

  ‘Yes, darling.’ Ophelia made for the consulting-room. ‘I’m going modelling on a ship. Isn’t it thrilling? Three weeks all the way to South America, fly home, glorious sunshine, absolutely everything paid and no housework. What do I do now? Go behind that screen thing?’

  ‘Now – now just a minute.’

  She looked at me in surprise.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter, Gaston?’

  ‘Nothing really, but…well, this could be all most frightfully embarrassing.’

  ‘Embarrassing?’

  ‘I mean…dash it! You ought really to go to some other doctor.’