“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.”
“Which is?”
“That my partner’s death was connected in some way with what you’ve been talking about. That it wasn’t natural, in other words.”
“I’m a long way from saying that, doctor. I am not even going to speculate at this stage. After all, the cause of death has not been established. When it is—and I don’t suppose there’ll be any difficulty there—I shall accept the
