The Crozier Pharaohs

9

Poacher and Doctor

« ^ »

The noun,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I will ignore. The adjective I find intriguing. Whom did Dr Rant murder? — and under what circumstances?’

‘Is it worth a fiver to you?’

‘We shall both know that when I have heard the story.’

‘What do you want to know for?’

‘Because this death at Watersmeet may well lead to a charge of murder against person or persons so far unknown.’

‘Dr Rant couldn’t a-done it. He’m dead.’

‘I believe, though, that certain people still harbour such a grudge against him that they have extended it towards his daughters and even to their kennel-maid. What can he have done to arouse and sustain such rancour? All doctors make mistakes at times.’

‘Ah, well, one or two of his mistakes, folks reckons, was made a-purpose.’

‘The story, if credible and well substantiated, is worth the five pounds you postulated. Fire away and do not spare the details. We have plenty of time before the Crozier Arms opens its hospitable doors to you.’

Beyond emphasising that he had obtained his information by what he referred to as ‘pub talk’, Adams told his story as though he had personal knowledge of its details.

After the death of his wife, Dr Rant had taken to the bottle, but this, it was surmised, was not so much because of his loss — there might have been sympathetic understanding for that — but because two of his patients had died when, in the opinion of the ‘old wives’ of the village, who included in their number the village midwife, the first of the patients should have recovered.

The inquest that followed the death of Dr Rant himself found that, fuddled by drink, he had taken an overdose of the drug he had prescribed for himself and died from the combined effects of the drug and the alcohol. It was pointed out by the medical witnesses that a doctor, of all people, should have known the danger of combining the two, and there was some talk that the truer verdict would have been one of suicide.

When the doctor’s will was proved, the bulk of the money and the house itself had been left to Bryony and Morpeth. However, Dr Rant’s younger partner, who had ‘lived in’ at Crozier Lodge for several years, received a sufficiently handsome sum to buy his own practice in Abbots Bay. This again displeased the villagers, since they then had no doctor at all in Abbots Crozier and were obliged to go down to the other village if they needed to attend surgery.

‘So what had caused the deaths of the two patients?’ Dame Beatrice enquired. Adams could answer this question. One of the doctor’s victims had been apprenticed to the village carpenter. While at work, the youth had dropped a chisel and made a nasty gash in his thigh. The doctor, as usual, had referred him to the hospital, but the boy demurred, so Dr Rant had stopped the bleeding and put on a dressing. Local opinion was that the dressing was unsterilised and possibly even soiled., At any rate, the wound became infected and the lad died of septicaemia.

The other case was markedly different, although it was the immediate result of the first one. The aunt of the dead apprentice went to Crozier Lodge to take Dr Rant to task because of the young man’s untimely end. A bitter altercation ensued and the doctor turned the woman forcibly but of the house. She was alleged to have missed her footing on the front steps because she turned her head to shout abuse at Rant. That was the version he gave at the inquest and there was no one to dispute it, since the only other person present was a jobbing gardener who was too far away to be able to give an acceptable account of what had happened and who claimed that, until he had heard the woman scream as she fell, he had been unaware that anybody was leaving the house. The woman was concussed by the fall and died by the time the ambulance reached the Axehead hospital.

Her husband claimed that Dr Rant must have pushed her down the steps and, in his cups, although not in court, the jobbing gardener had admitted that the sounds of vituperation proceeding from the top of the front steps had been audible to him, that he had stopped work to listen and look, and that he had seen the woman come hurtling down the steps on to the concrete path below ‘like she had been given a good sharp shove’.

He had dropped the garden fork he was holding and had run to where the woman lay. There was no sign of Dr Rant, although the gardener had seen him standing at the open front door only a few moments earlier. In that case, even if he had stepped inside and closed the door, he must have heard the woman scream as she fell. Finding her unconscious, the gardener had hammered on the door. This produced the elder daughter, Bryony, who looked down and saw the woman lying on the path. Bryony, according to the story, had gone indoors to find her father.

‘It seems a pity, ’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘that village animosity against their father should have spilled over on to his daughters. It savours of witch-hunting and is equally unjust.’

Adams agreed.

‘Nice ladies,’ he said, ‘but the village has their reasons. They don’t like all them dogs, for one thing, but, more than that, there’s them as reckons one or other of the ladies could have testified at the inquest of Mrs Subbock, her what was killed falling down them steps. Stands to reason, says some, as the row outside the front door must have been heard by them insjde the house and somebody would have looked out the window, even if they done nothing else, to see what all the palaver were about.’

‘And so witnessed the accident? I take your point and I think it more than likely that you are right and that there would have been a witness to the accident — more than one witness, perhaps. However, witnesses are not always prepared to come forward, especially when their evidence may bring trouble to a member of their own family. Do you know anything about relations between the doctor and his wife?’

‘Used to bash her about — the girls, too, so I heared,’ said Adams, ‘but it don’t do to believe everything you hears. As for Dr Mortlake, now, down in Abbots Bay, as used to be Dr Rant’s assistant, well, they all testified as he were out on his arternoon rounds when Mrs Subbock cracked her nut falling down them steps.’

It was Laura who telephoned Dr Mortlake.

‘Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley’s secretary here,’ she said. ‘Dr Mortlake?’

‘Speaking. What can I do for Dame Beatrice?’

‘Will you suggest a time convenient to you when you could meet? As soon as possible, please.’

‘I shall be honoured to meet her, of course. Where?’

‘Preferably here at the Stone House, Wandles Parva. Will you dine with us? We can put you up for the night.’

‘Thanks very much. Will Wednesday suit Dame Beatrice?’

‘I’m sure it will.’

‘My colleague in Axehead can get a locum to take my evening surgery.’

‘Right. We’ll expect you at half-past seven. We dine at eight in the summer.’

‘May I ask what it’s all about?’

‘It’s Home Office business, I think.’

‘Oh, really? What is that to do with me?’

‘I can’t tell you any more. Wednesday at half-past seven, then.’

Dr Mortlake was a clean-shaven, personable man of between thirty-five and forty, or so Dame Beatrice guessed. No mention was made of the reason for the invitation until dinner was over and the three were in the drawing-room having coffee. Dame Beatrice opened what Laura described as the business meeting by remarking that she had made the acquaintance of the Rant sisters. She then looked at Laura, who explained how this had come about. She went on to say that she believed Dr Mortlake knew them well.

‘I did, at one time,’ he said, ‘but that was several years ago. As you probably know, I was their father’s assistant for a time and I lived with the family at Crozier Lodge.’

‘Mrs Rant was alive at the time, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes. She lived for a year or two years after I joined them. Rant and I each had a surgery on the ground floor — but, after he died — it must be three years ago now — I left. For one thing, the two girls were then the owners of the house and, as neither had qualified in medicine, I was not at all surprised when I received a delicate hint from Bryony that they wanted the place to themselves. For another thing, in a hive of gossip such as Abbots Crozier, I thought there might be — to put it mildly — remarks made about the relationship between a still youngish bachelor and two unmarried girls. Besides, Rant had always promised me a full partnership instead of the part-share which I had accepted when first I joined him, and in his will he left me enough money to buy my own practice.’

‘Dr Mortlake, I want to hear about four deaths which have occurred, three of them over a fairly short period, the fourth recently. None of them appears to have been caused by old age or any terminal illness.’

‘You don’t mean —?’

‘It may come to that, in the final analysis, but I doubt it. I want those people cleared out of the way, that is all. I dislike unnecessary complications.’

‘But, if I know the deaths to which you are referring, all four have been fully accounted for. There is no mystery about any of them.’

‘You think not? A young and, so far as one knows, a healthy boy dies of septicaemia from a gash which, properly treated, should have caused no particular problem.’

‘Oh, Dame Beatrice! You know what villagers are like. Three-quarters or more of them in Abbots Crozier have not even the basic notions of hygiene. The boy’s aunt refused to have him attend Outpatients at the Axehead hospital and the lad agreed with her. In consequence, because of their negligence, the wound turned septic and that was that.’

‘Not quite, surely? I understand that Dr Rant treated the wound.’

‘Oh, look here!’ said Mortlake uncomfortably. ‘I can’t criticise another doctor’s treatment of his patient, even though that doctor is dead. You yourself are highly qualified in medicine. You know what the ethics of the profession entail.’

‘I accept the implied rebuke, but your scruples need not extend further than you claim. What of Dr Rant as a family man; as a husband and father?’

The flush of anger and (Dame Beatrice guessed) embarrassment died away on Mortlake’s fair-skinned cheeks. He looked troubled. He said at last that the couple had always behaved with the utmost correctness in his presence, but he had thought that their attitude towards one another in private might have been different. As for the two daughters, they had been in awe of their father, if not in actual fear of him. Bryony attempted to stand up to him now and again, but any sign of rebelliousness was soon nipped in the bud. She had gone to Mortlake himself after one inglorious set-to with her father and unburdened herself. All she had done, she said, was to beg her father to let her return to college so she could study to go on to university.

‘Of course, Rant had flown off the handle,’ said Mortlake. ‘Mrs Rant had become a semi-invalid and he decided to end the girls’ education and keep them at home to look after their mother and himself, and that’s how it worked out. I was damned sorry for all of them, especially Bryony. She badly wanted to go to university and then get away from home and take a job.’

‘Did Dr Rant have trouble in getting domestic help, then?’ asked Laura.

‘Well, what servants there were had to pluck up all their courage to give notice, I think, but, one by one, they did it and, in the end, not long before he died, he couldn’t get any replacements. However much they needed a job, the village women fought shy of Crozier Lodge, especially after Mrs Rant died, so the two girls did everything.’

‘I often wonder how Edward Moulton-Barrett managed to keep any servants,’ said Laura. ‘Didn’t the girls resent being household drudges when their father, it seems, had so much money?’

‘Bryony was deeply resentful; Morpeth is more malleable and so got most of the chores put on her. To be fair to Bryony, though, it must be allowed that she acted as her father’s driver when he did his afternoon rounds, and so she was out of the house most afternoons.’

‘Couldn’t Dr Rant drive the car, then?’ asked Laura.

‘Oh, he did, until Bryony was old enough to handle it. After his wife’s death, of course, it was better for his own and everybody else’s safety that he did not drive.’

‘I wonder he had any patients who still wanted him to visit them, ’ Laura observed. ‘I’m dashed if I would have called him in.’

‘Well, Mrs Gavin, you would have been surprised by Rant. I often was. After he had steeped himself at lunch, he was urbane, good-humoured, clear-headed and absolutely at his best. Of course, the reaction came later, usually after evening surgery, although quite often he would cry off the evening stint and leave me to cope with his patients as well as my own.’

‘I also wonder,’ said Laura bluntly, ‘that you stayed with such a man.’

‘Well,’ said Mortlake apologetically, ‘there was this promise to take me into equal partnership, you see.’

‘You believed that a drunk like Rant would have kept his word?’

‘I think the fact that he left me enough money to buy my own practice is proof, don’t you?’

‘Well, now,’ said Dame Beatrice briskly, ‘let us turn to the second of the deaths. An inquest was held, I am told, because the death was sudden and totally unexpected. What can you tell us about Mrs Subbock, Dr Mortlake?’

‘I was doing the afternoon rounds when she met with her fatal accident. I attended the inquest, but was not called as a witness. There was nothing to which I could have testified.’

‘But Dr Rant was called, I assume, and you heard his testimony.’

‘Yes, and nobody could fault it. It was held at three in the afternoon because the coroner had been in the police court conducting a case for a client all the morning. Rant was — how shall I put it?’

‘All tanked up?’ suggested Laura.

‘So, of course, he was at his best. We got the repercussions later. He said that he had seen Mrs Subbock to the door himself. She was so vituperative and abusive that he did not want either of his daughters or a servant to hear the bad language. He said he saw her on to the top of the front steps and then promptly shut the front door on her. Shortly afterwards, a man who had been working in the garden knocked on the door and said that the woman had fallen down the steps and that her head was bleeding and she had lost consciousness.’

‘And the verdict was accidental death. What did you think of the verdict in Dr Rant’s own case?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly it was the correct one. The alternative could only have been suicide and nobody who knew Rant would have dreamed that he was capable of that.’

‘Grief for the death of his wife, perhaps?’

‘Oh, he missed her, of course, as a useful adjunct, but the drinking he did consoled him for his loss of one of the household serfs. He had plenty of money, work he could (and did) shove on to me when he didn’t feel like doing it, and two grown-up daughters who had never shown any intention of getting married and who provided his meals and all his other domestic comforts. Rant was sitting far too pretty and was far too fond of himself and his bottle ever to have thought of suicide.’

‘Interesting. But if he was so clear-headed in his cups, how do you account for his dangerous mixing of a drug he was taking and the alcohol to which he had become addicted?’

‘The drug had soporific effects, I suppose. It must have muddled him to the extent that he forgot he had already taken the specified dose. Of course, he should have left the drinks alone at such a time, but he had lost the will to abstain and, again, the drug may have clouded his reasoning powers. I was called as a witness and I said all this. Nobody attempted to challenge the evidence I gave.’

‘Were his drugs prescribed by you?’ asked Laura.

‘Good heavens, no! That would have been quite improper, as I was his assistant and living in his house. He prescribed for himself and Bryony or I was sent to the chemist’s to pick up the bottles. The chemist is dead now, and the shop has been taken over by people who never knew Rant.’

Dame Beatrice asked no questions. She said, ‘So we come to the fourth and most recent of the deaths in which I am interested, and not only I, but the police.’

‘Oh, this chap who was found dead in the river? As a matter of fact, I’m interested in that. Three of us examined the body, you know, myself, a police doctor and then a pathologist from Lambridge. We agreed that, in all probability, the man, terrified of the dog he had tried to steal, had dashed into the river in an attempt to cross it and had slipped and cracked his skull and drowned while he was still unconscious.’

‘Well, it appears that the police are not prepared to allow matters to rest on a verdict of accidental death. They have their suspicions. Has a man named Goodfellow ever consulted you?’

‘Goodfellow? Not so far as I remember and I think one would remember a name like that. What is his first name?’

‘Robin, or so he says.’

‘Good Lord! Aren’t parents odd when it comes to having their children christened! As for the corpse in the river, do you mean it was this Goodfellow chap?’

‘I know it was not. The Rant sisters have met Goodfellow and they also saw the dead man. Goodfellow’s was not the corpse in the river.’

‘Strange that nobody has come forward.’

‘The answer may be that the dead man was a foreigner. By that, I mean that he did really come from abroad. The villagers call everybody a foreigner who was not born in the place. This man, perhaps, was a chance visitor. Even so, if he was on holiday at one of the hotels or was staying at one of the cottages, one would think he would be missed and then his. photograph recognised. How long did you and the police doctor think he had been dead?’

‘One can’t be precise when the body has been in water. The person who found him — this woman who works for the Rant sisters — had to get back to Crozier Lodge and on to the telephone, the police had to get from Axehead to Watersmeet, then the police doctor had to be summoned and he pulled me in to give a second opinion, as the circumstances were so unusual — ’

‘In what particular way?’

‘Well, the dog was sitting on the trousers and the man was wearing nothing but briefs and a shirt. Anyway, we both came to the conclusion that he had been dead only a matter of a few hours.’

‘At what time did you see him?’

‘Between eleven and half-past.’

‘If I suggested that he died at round about six o’clock, would that fit in with your findings?’

‘Oh, yes, near enough.’ The doctor looked interested. So far, Dame Beatrice thought, he had been slightly on the defensive, but not now. ‘What do you know that I don’t?’ he asked brightly.

‘Nothing which I can substantiate at present. Dr Mortlake, I would like to go back to the time of Dr Rant’s death.’

‘I can’t tell you anything more about that. You have heard what I said in court. There is nothing more.’

‘A question or two, if I may. You were living at Crozier Lodge at the time. You must have known what a foolish and dangerous course Dr Rant was pursuing by drinking heavily while he was taking a powerful drug. Did you never warn him?’

‘Of course I did, but once and once only. He went for me with the bottle of gin he had just emptied. Luckily for me, he tripped on the edge of the rug and fell flat just before he reached me. I didn’t approach the subject again after that. I decided it wasn’t up to me to try to save his rotten life. I wondered whether it would be better if I left Crozier Lodge and washed my hands of him and his affairs, but I had nothing coming in at that time except the salary he paid me as his assistant — I will say for him that the money came regularly month by month because, when I first signed on, I insisted on having it paid by banker’s order — but, apart from that, I felt that my presence in the house was a bit of protection for the two girls.’

‘You were not in the least surprised when he died, I suppose, knowing what you did of his habits?’

Dr Mortlake hesitated. He fidgeted with the strap of his wristwatch so that he could look down and escape from the hypnotic effect of Dame Beatrice’s brilliant black eyes. However, he was forced by her watchful silence to respond to her question.

‘Well, to tell you the truth because it doesn’t matter now, I had formed an opinion — not based, I hasten to add, on anything tangible, but just an opinion — that although he had taken my warning so badly, he had begun to heed it.’

‘So you were surprised when he died.’

‘Oh, well, not really. The alcohol alone would have done for him in the end. He died a bit sooner than I expected, that is all.’

‘Was the nature of the drug he was taking revealed at the inquest?’

‘Well, the chemist was called and a very scared man he was. He could not produce the prescription. He said that Dr Rant was hoping to patent the production and get a multiple firm of chemists to promote it, so he insisted that each prescription should be destroyed when the drug was collected. The chemist testified that the contents varied a little from time to time, as Dr Rant (he supposed) continued his experiments. The coroner did not press the man, as, of course, he ought to have done, and I myself have no idea what the mixture was, since the bottles were always most carefully washed out as soon as they were empty.’

‘That chap is a smooth talker,’ said Laura later.

‘The bedside manner, perhaps,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but what he told us was revealing, I thought, didn’t you?’