Peter Lovesey - Mad Hatter

What he had not allowed for in his inspired rush to the water was the scarcity of swimmers. He was only the third to take the plunge. Between leaving terra firma and making his first contact with aqua marina he suffered an instant’s apprehension that the water-temperature might be the reason, but he was reassured. It was pleasantly tepid. Doubtless like most social institutions, Brill’s was heavily patronised at certain times and deserted by all but a few enthusiasts at others.

Prothero was patently in no hurry to swim. He had appeared from his cubicle some three minutes after Moscrop’s immersion and remained by the door, limbering up with toe-touching and knee-bending exercises, an exasperating little man, spry in movement and trim in figure. If anything, he appeared younger out of his clothes than in them. Moscrop wondered as he watched from the pool whether a reassessment of the doctor’s age was in order, bald head or no. It was easy to understand a man in such fine physical shape having a certain attraction to the fair sex. Not at all surprising that he should have married three times. Why, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he should. . Good Lord! Was this keeping an open mind? To discipline his thinking, Moscrop put thumb and forefinger to his nostrils and dipped his head under the water. When he surfaced, the doctor was sitting at the edge with legs neatly crossed.

‘How’s the water?’

The words literally went over his head as he floated there. He was not used to conversations interrupting his vigils. Observation was essentially a silent occupation. He was still making a mental estimate of the positions of the other two swimmers to ascertain which one Prothero was addressing when the question was repeated.

‘I said how’s the water?’

No doubt about it. The doctor was speaking to him. Deuced awkward. This wasn’t at all a part of his strategy. What could he do-ignore the fellow? Pretend he hadn’t heard? It might have worked if the bath had been swarming with swimmers, but this morning it really wouldn’t do. He lifted his head and his eyes met Prothero’s.

‘Thought you were wearing ear-plugs for a moment. Is it cold this morning?’

Small-talk. Best to go through the formalities and then swim out of earshot at the first opportunity. ‘Not excessively.’

‘I believe in accustoming the body to the water gradually,’ Prothero explained. ‘There’s no benefit in sudden shocks to the system.’

Was this his way of saying he had observed the splash in the pool a few minutes before?

‘Mind you,’ the doctor went on, ‘once I’m in the water I don’t believe in paddling about. Oh no, it’s important not to catch cold. Used in the right way, sea-water’s the finest balm a doctor can prescribe, did you know that? Marvellous for scrofulous infections.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes, indeed. All forms of paralysis, nervous afflictions, hysteria, headaches, indigestion. Nothing like sea-water to cure ’em. I wouldn’t recommend bathing from a public beach, mind.’

‘No?’

‘By God, no! Contaminated water. The stuff you’re lying in is pumped from Cliftonville, or I shouldn’t have my feet in it, I can tell you. I’ve no liking for open-air bathing, anyway. Did my share of it as a young man, you know, but that was when a fellow wasn’t ashamed to swim in the buff.

‘Here for the season, are you?’

‘Er-yes.’

‘Me, too. I never miss it. There was one year when I was here from race-week to Christmas and I don’t think I missed more than half-a-dozen balls all season. That was a long time back, though. I’ve buried two wives since then and acquired a third.’

Moscrop was not sure whether to offer condolences or congratulations. The doctor was not waiting for responses, anyway.

‘Emily died of smallpox. Solicitor’s daughter with a good dowry. Set me up in practice. Stella was my second. One of the Pelhams. D’you know ’em? Landed family. She ate some bad fish. Killed her overnight. You can see why I’m so strong on contamination.’

‘By Jove, yes. But you married again?’

‘My third?’ Prothero sniffed. ‘Yes. Went for good looks this time. Married a bit beneath my station. Shop-keeper’s daughter. Easy on the eye, but a bit of a liability on social occasions.’ He got to his feet. ‘Time I got my costume wet, I think.’ He entered the water with an agile header and struck out powerfully for the opposite side, using the new Trudgeon stroke. It would not be wise to under-estimate Dr. Prothero.

Moscrop contrived to keep well clear of his new acquaintance, employing the more conventional side-stroke to cross the pool at a different angle. It was as well that he had the physical exercise to occupy him, for he was shaking with indignation, outraged by Prothero’s contemptuous description of the woman he was privileged to call his wife. To say that Zena-from now on, he refused to think of Prothero’s name in association with hers-was ‘easy on the eye’ was like calling the Crystal Palace a glass-house. The man was boorish and insensitive, totally unworthy of her. And, what worried Moscrop more, he had admitted to regarding her as a ‘liability’; what on earth did that mean?

After four diameters, Prothero left the pool by putting his hands on the side and jumping out with a neat bunny-hop. ‘Don’t believe in staying in the water longer than necessary, you know,’ he called. ‘Danger of chills. I’m going to take off my costume and give myself a good rubbing with a coarse towel. Get the body glowing, what?’

Moscrop waited for the sound of the bolt being turned in the door of Prothero’s cubicle before clambering out by way of the steps and locating his own clothes. For him, the process of towelling was necessarily brief; he needed to be ready to take up the pursuit as soon as the doctor quitted his cubicle. From now on, he would be exercising his wits to the full to avoid detection. It was no good bemoaning his lost anonymity. He should count himself lucky that only his face had been revealed; the doctor had no idea what height he was or what clothes he wore. Thank Heavens for a bowler and flannels!

By standing on the seat inside his cubicle he was able to watch the locked door across the pool for the sure indication that it was about to be unbolted-the sight of the crown of a silk hat above it. When it appeared, he ducked out of sight, counted up to twenty and set off after the doctor. In the steam-filled corridor outside, he almost caught him up, but had the resource to stop at a mangle and put his wet costume through it. In the foyer he paused again to return it to the attendant. By then his quarry was outside and crossing East Street. He followed him warily, down to the front, turning right into the King’s Road. The cannon on the West Pier fired. The doctor did what scores of other men were doing at that moment: checked his watch. Then he moved on to the eastern corner of West Street and marched through a dark green painted doorway and out of sight. Moscrop hurried towards it to read the legend over the door, Real Turtle Soup Always Ready. Dr. Prothero was dining at Mutton’s.

The aroma issuing from the double glass door all but seduced Moscrop inside. Turtle soup exerted a strong pull on a stomach subsisting on a Brighton landlady’s cold beef and bread puddings. Moreover, he already had it in mind to patronise Mutton’s; wasn’t it one of Brighton’s institutions, the logical place to visit after a bathe? Not while Dr. Prothero was inside, he decided with admirable self-control. His bowl of real turtle soup was the sacrifice he had to make to preserve what was left of his incognito. So he made a purchase at Streeter’s, the old bun-shop in Pool Valley, and dined surreptitiously from a paper bag, endeavouring to watch the entrance to Mutton’s from a position on the promenade where he could appear to be feeding seagulls.