Colin Watson - The Flaxborough Crab

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, Pauline, 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.”

“About half-past four this afternoon.”

“As long ago as that?”

“Yes, I’d been typing an article for him. That and a few letters. He went back to the house at half-past four to get his tea.”

“What about your tea?”

“I made a cup here. He didn’t tell me until I’d finished typing his article that he wanted a copy made, so I stayed on.”

“At what time did surgery begin?

“Six o’clock.”

“And didn’t you see him then?”

“No, he always came into his consulting room by its own side door and rang for the first patient when he was ready.”

“I see. He seemed fit, did he, when he left you at four-thirty?”

“Perfectly. I’ve never known him to be anything else, as a matter of fact.”

“Perhaps I should say,” interjected Dr Bruce, “that my partner was, in fact, suffering a certain degree of hypertension. Miss Sutton here wouldn’t have known that, of course, but I think you’ll find that Dr James, in Priorgate, will confirm what I say.”

“Dr James was treating him, was he?”

“Well, he was certainly advising him. That I do know.”

Purbright again faced the receptionist.

“I presume that someone was with Dr Meadow when he collapsed. A patient.”

“Yes. Mrs McCreavy. She’s been taken home.”

“I’ll have her address, if I may.”

The girl went to the hatch and returned with the bunch of record cards. Purbright looked at them.

“Are these all patients who were seen by Dr Meadow this evening?”

“Not all.. These three. Mr Leadbetter was first in. Then Mrs Grope...”

“Mrs Grope? Mr Walter Grope’s wife?”

“That’s right. And Mrs McCreavy was the last. A girl called Hewson was waiting and so was the lady you met when you came in—Miss...Teatime, is it?”

“Miss Teatime,” the inspector confirmed ruminatively. “Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime.”

He wrote down the names and addresses of Mrs McCreavy and Leadbetter.

“Oh, and I’d better have yours, Pauline, while I’m at it.”

She told him.

“What was Mrs McCreavy’s reaction, by the way?”

“Oh, she screamed blue murder and came rushing out with half her clothes off.” The girl seemed to repent of the note of contempt in her voice; she added quickly, “Well, it must have given her a nasty fright, I expect.”

“Did you go in to see what had happened?”

“No, I ran to try and find Dr Bruce. It was Mr Brennan who went into Dr Meadow’s room. Him and Miss Teatime.”

“Mr Brennan is the gentleman who was here a little while ago?”

“That’s right.”

“But he’s not a patient, I gather.”

Bruce shook his head. “He’s the new rep for Elixon. One of the drug houses.”

“Where should I be able to get in touch with him? If it proves necessary—I don’t say that it will.”

Bruce looked blank, but the girl replied: “The Elixon man stays at the Roebuck as a rule, I believe. They’d tell you how long he’s booked in for.”

“But might it not be just overnight?”

“Oh, no. Reps are usually here for at least a week. They work the whole area from Flax and then go on to Norwich or over to Leicester. I should think Mr Brennan will be around for another three or four days.”

“I see. Well, you might as well get along home now, Pauline. Thank you for being so helpful.”

When the girl had gone, Purbright turned to meet the speculative eye of Dr Bruce. For a while he said nothing. Then he smiled.

“Yes?” Bruce prompted.

The inspector produced cigarettes. He lit one after Bruce had waved back the proffered packet.

“You are thinking,” said Purbright, “this... Why has an inspector, of all people, trotted along here so promptly on hearing of the regrettable, but perfectly natural, collapse and death of a respected general practitioner? Am I right?”

“You are,” said Bruce, drily.

“Ah, well you must not read too much into my apparent enthusiasm. For one thing. Sergeant Malley—whose province this sort of thing is—had gone home to enjoy a well-earned meal and it seemed rather heartless to drag him back again.”

“That was not your only reason.”

“No, it wasn’t. I admit to a degree of personal curiosity. You see, there’s a strong element of coincidence. You probably are not aware of it, doctor.”

“I am not.”

“Let me explain. Some rather odd things have been going on in Flaxborough lately. As you must know, if only by reading the local paper, a number of women have been assaulted. I don’t need to go into details, but the nature and the unusual frequency of these attacks have suggested that the persons responsible—and I use the plural advisedly—constitute a medical rather than a criminal problem.

“One of them, and only one, is known. Unfortunately, he is now dead...”

“Old Winge, you mean?”

“Yes. Alderman Winge. As I say, he is dead. But he was a patient of your late partner. Coincidence? All right. Now then, a girl was attacked just outside this surgery—out there on Heston Lane. Who came to her rescue? Dr Meadow, as you probably have heard. And there is no doubt in my mind but that he saw and recognized the man responsible—whom he let go, incidentally.

“Again, observation is being kept at this moment on a man whose wife is convinced that he goes out at night to seek some sort of erotic satisfaction. I know this sounds questionable as evidence, but I do happen to know that this particular man showed no such tendencies until recently, when he moved to Flaxborough and became a patient of Dr Meadow.

“You may say that these links, if I might call them that, are few and extremely tenuous. But I’m sure you will understand my curiosity—to put it no higher—on hearing that the man I believed to know a lot more than he had divulged about the business had suddenly dropped dead.”

For a long time, Dr Bruce gazed mournfully out of the window. When he spoke, it was with slow, rather weary deliberation.

“Whatever you say now, inspector, is scarcely likely to remove the implication you’ve already succeeded in making.”