“Ah.”
Meadow rose to his feet. He walked in his easy, athletic way to the window and looked out, his hands clasped loosely behind him.
“As to that,” Purbright heard him say, “I should prefer to hear no more, if you wouldn’t mind. It is the physical welfare of my patients that concerns me, not their relations with the law.”
“Crime concerns us all, doctor—if you will forgive the triteness of the sentiment.”
Meadow turned to face the room.
“Policemen,” he remarked pleasantly, “do not have a monopoly of social conscience. When next I see Mr Grope committing a crime, I shall assuredly remonstrate with him. All right?”
He stepped to the door. The smile he directed upon the inspector was as warm as a car salesman’s.
Purbright stood. He glanced behind him at the chair. It’s splendid satin had regained its creaseless convexity.
“I hope you haven’t found my intrusion too tiresome, Dr Meadow.”
“My dear chap! What an idea!”
One slender, immaculately clean hand was drawing open the door. The other was extended in a gesture at once courteous and peremptory. (He’s a great one for showing out, Purbright said to himself.)
The inspector was almost through the doorway when he stopped suddenly, looked at Meadow, snapped his fingers and said: “Salad.”
Bewilderment—a very rare visitor to the doctor’s handsome and confident features—was certainly upon them now.
“Salad,” Purbright said again. “Samson’s Salad. I nearly forgot to ask you about that.”
Meadow shrugged, apparently still doubtful of what Purbright was talking about.
“At the inquest, you spoke of Winge’s indulgence in self-medication. You mentioned a specific herbal preparation. Wasn’t that its name? Samson’s Salad?”
“Oh, that. Yes, so I understand. Why?”
“What do you know about it?”
“Only that Winge claimed it did him good.”
“You didn’t investigate it yourself—have it analysed, or anything?”
“Good lord, no. Patients are always putting that sort of rubbish into themselves. I advised against it, naturally, but I don’t suppose he took any notice.”
“Might something of that sort have produced the symptoms we were talking about before? The loss of balance, for instance?”
“Conceivably.”
“Sexual stimulation?”
“Certain vegetable extracts do have that effect. I am not saying that this particular preparation did so,”
“But you saw fit to draw it to the attention of the coroner. And by name. That did rather suggest to me, doctor, that you considered it suspect.”
“I did not want any fact overlooked that might be relevant, that’s all.”
“But the coroner did not take up the point.”
“No. I had made it, though. That was enough for me.”
“Certainly. By the way, do you happen to know of anyone else who takes this stuff?”
“I do not.”
“None of your patients—apart from Mr Winge?”
“No.” For the first time, Meadow’s manner was unmistakably curt.
Purbright gave a slight bow.
“You’ve been most tolerant, doctor.”
“Not at all.” Affability was back instantly and in full measure.
Meadow watched the inspector’s last commending glance at the room’s contents before he turned to leave.
“You are a furniture man, are you Purbright?”
He sounded eager to establish kinship, as with a newly identified club member.
“I am not a collector, if that’s what you mean, sir. I find some of it very satisfying to look at, though.”
“I see you’re too wise to become acquisitive.”
“No—just too poor.”
As Purbright walked away from the closing front door, he realized that the doctor had considered his final remark to be simply a smart riposte, a piece of policemanlike repartee. Meadow clearly was well-off to that degree at which shortness of cash is an abstraction as imponderable as death.
