Colin Watson - The Flaxborough Crab

Meadow said nothing.

The deputy coroner looked at Purbright, who shook his head, and then at Mr Scorpe.

Scorpe lumbered portentously to his feet and glared through his spectacles at a corner of the ceiling as though he had just discovered there the fugitive conscience of Dr Meadow.

“You have, ah, told the court...” he began, slowly.

“Mr Scorpe...”

It was the deputy coroner speaking.

“Mr Scorpe, I do not have to remind you, of course, that while you are entitled to ask the witness questions, those questions must be simple requests for relevant information. You must not cross-examine. This is not a court of law.”

“ If you please.” Scorpe bowed with exaggerated humility, then stood for a while nibbling the sidepieces of his occular ordnance.

Suddenly he directed at Meadow a broad, conciliatory smile.

“You have always enjoyed, doctor, have you not, the full confidence and warm appreciation of the Winge family?”

Meadow tried not to look surprised. “Why, yes, I believe that to be so.”

“And in treating my late client, whose death we all deplore, you invariably employed the full extent of your professional knowledge and skill...” Aloft went Mr Scorpe’s glasses to forestall reply. “No, no, doctor—I require no confirmation. That was a statement, not a question. A statement of known fact.” Mr Scorpe glanced sternly at the deputy coroner, then smiled once more upon Dr Meadow.

“Would you not agree, doctor,” he went on, “that the family of my late client has offered no objection at any time to the course of treatment you saw fit to prescribe for Alderman Winge?”

“No objection. Not at any time, Mr Scorpe.”

“Of course not!” Scorpe again treated the deputy coroner to a glance of contempt. Dr Thompson scowled back, then ostentatiously consulted his watch.

A piece of paper had appeared in Mr Scorpe’s hand. He resumed his fond contemplation of Dr Meadow.

“They did not object—they had, indeed, no known reason to object—to your prescribing a substance named”—Scorpe peered at the paper—“beta-aminotetrylglutarimide?”

There was a moment’s silence, perhaps in tribute to Mr Scorpe’s feat of pronunciation, then Dr Meadow said carefully:

“I am not in the habit of consulting my patients’ relatives, but, as you rightly say, there was no reason why they should have objected. Laymen have no business either to approve or disapprove the prescription of drugs. They know nothing about them.”

“The medical profession, on the other hand, knows all about them?”

“I personally make no claim to omniscience.”

“Not in regard to, ah...beta-aminotetrylglutarimide?”

“It is a carefully tested and widely approved preparation.”

“How carefully tested, doctor?”

For the first time, Dr Meadow’s bearing of dignified condescension showed signs of disturbance. He turned to the deputy coroner.

“I really cannot submit to this line of questioning on medical matters by a lay advocate. It is most improper.”

Dr Thompson, who had been enjoying the exchange between Meadow and Scorpe, made a non-committal pout.

“If Mr Scorpe,” added Dr Meadow, “is intent upon attaching sinister significance to every pill and powder taken by a man who has had the misfortune to fall into a reservoir, I suggest he looks into his late client’s devotion to self -medication.”

The solicitor made a gesture of huge reasonableness.

“By all means, doctor. Provided, of course, I am so invited by the learned coroner.”

Dr Thompson frowned. The description smacked of irony—but so did all descriptions in the mouth of the impossible Mr Scorpe.

“What had you in mind, doctor?” he asked, quietly.

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Winge indulged in quack remedies. I advised against them, naturally, but he tended to be headstrong in these matters.”

“Quack remedies?”

“Yes. Herbs—that sort of thing. His latest addiction, if I am not mistaken, was to something he called ‘Samson’s Salad’. He obtained supplies of it by mail order. Looked like compost.”

Purbright heard behind him a hoarse, indignant whispering. He looked round. Old Mrs Crunkinghorn was protesting about something or other to her neighbour, Fireman Hackett.

“May we have quiet, please!” commanded the deputy coroner, feeling by now thoroughly authoritative and ready to slap an odd witness or two into gaol for contempt if he got half a chance.

The disturbance died. Dr Thompson returned his attention to Dr Meadow.

“ ‘Samson’s Salad’, did you say, doctor? How very odd. Still, it is scarcely within the scope of this inquiry to speculate on the hypothetical effects of some hearsay vegetable. If Mr Scorpe has exhausted his catechism, I don’t think we need detain you any longer from your practice.”

Taking great care to look neither grateful nor relieved, Dr Meadow strolled casually from the court.

“And now, perhaps we should hear what Miss Bertha Pollock can tell us. Will you kindly call Miss Pollock, sergeant.”

Chapter Eight

Dead by misadventure. A poor sort of end for a member of fifteen committees. And yet precisely the same verdict would have been recorded on a famous explorer who had tumbled off a mountain peak. Not death by adventure. Perhaps that would sound too much like approval. No—misadventure.

Inspector Purbright, a few minutes early for an interview the next day with the Chief Constable, beguiled the time by thinking up as many as he could of Alderman Winge’s distinguished precursors. General Gordon...Casabianca...Custer... Donald Campbell...Shelley...

“Ah, there you are, Mr Purbright.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s all this they tell me about poor old Steven Winge? Shocking business.”

Mr Chubb laid his bowler hat carefully on the corner of his desk, peeled his gloves into it, and walked over to the fireplace.

“No, sit down, Mr Purbright, sit down.”

The inspector did so.

“It seems that we can dispense with the special night patrols now, sir. I think we’ve heard the last of the Flaxborough Crab.”

Mr Chubb frowned. “I do wish the newspapers would not coin these offensive catchwords. Mr Winge may have fallen from grace, as it were, but he had a very distinguished record, you know.”

“Well, versatile, certainly,” said Purbright, rather daringly.

The Chief Constable seemed not to hear.

“I’ve just been to a Rotary lunch, and Winge’s name did crop up in the course of conversation, as you might imagine. He’ll be missed, naturally.”

“No doubt, sir.”

“Very nasty for his wife, too, poor soul.”

The inspector did not look convinced. “My impression at the inquest was that she’s a very strong-minded woman. I think she’ll live this down quite quickly—possibly with the help of an action for damages against Dr Meadow.”

“Good gracious me! Whatever for? Against Meadow, you say?”

“Scorpe was representing her. And his questions to Heineman and Meadow were extremely pointed. I should say that Scorpe hopes to prove—or to suggest strongly enough to impress a court—that Winge’s behaviour was caused by his doctor’s faulty prescribing.”

“But that’s a very long shot, surely? As I understand it, people only sue doctors for leaving scissors and things inside them. Not for giving them medicine.”

“It depends on the nature of the medicine, sir. Mr Scorpe hinted that the drug given to Winge had not been properly tested and that Meadow didn’t know what effects it might have.”

“Ah, well, that is Meadow’s worry, not ours. These patrols, Mr Purbright—you’re quite happy about our dropping them now, are you?”