“Hence the name, I presume. ‘Juniform’.
“Exactly. I’ll try and dig up some more about it, if you really want me to.”
“I do, my dear. It sounds enormously intriguing.”
“At least I know your interest is purely altruistic, Lucy. It will be a good many years before
“Bernard, you are quite irresistible! No wonder all those lovely rich women bring you their cysts to be...”
“Is there,” he interrupted hastily, “anything else you want me to find out while I’m at it?”
“Am I being a dreadful nuisance?”
“Not in the least. I’m only too happy to help.”
“Well, in that case, I shall be greedy and ask you for one final piece of information. This will not be easy, I am afraid, but I know you will try. It concerns Elixon—you know, the drug house that markets ‘Juniform’. I wish to know whatever you can learn about one of its travelling representatives. His name is Brennan, and he is at present in this area. Oh, and Bernard...”
“Yes?”
“I realize that this will sound quite wickedly unreasonable, but if all this information is going to be of any use to me, I must have it within twenty-four or, at the most, forty-eight hours.”
“Bloody hell!”
“Bloody hell, indeed, Bernard, but I did tell you that Flaxborough is a considerably more lively town than London. I think the absence of petrol fumes has something to do with it. You will ring me?”
“Oh, all right. But I’m not promising anything.”
“Flaxborough four-three-double-seven. Tomorrow evening, or the evening following at the very latest.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Which I know will be a great deal, my dear. You are a man of resource. My confidence will not miscarry...”
“Lucy! For God’s sake! Not over the phone...”
“Sorry,” she said sweetly.
But the line was already dead.
Chapter Fifteen
Mrs McCreavy greeted Inspector Purbright with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. She had never, in the course of a somewhat tediously blameless life, received a visit from a policeman of any rank, let alone a detective inspector. But now, with so elevated a representative of the law upon her doorstep, it seemed (to Mrs McCreavy) that neglectful destiny was going to make up for lost time. Into what sort of notoriety was she about to be plunged? Would there be a taking of photographs? A summons to court? And had she remembered, on hearing the door bell, to take that corset off the settee in the front room?
She preceded him into the parlour, ready to whisk the corset under a cushion. It was nowhere in sight. (Of course—she’d put it away earlier that morning when the window cleaner had called.) Feeling less vulnerable, she tightened up her face and invited him to state his business.
“I understand, Mrs McCreavy, that you were present in Dr Meadow’s surgery yesterday evening when he was taken ill.”
She bowed her head in solemn confirmation.
“It must have been a very upsetting experience for you. I’m sorry.”
“Upsetting,” she repeated. “Yes, definitely.”
“I hope you’re feeling a little better now.”
“A little. Thank you very much.”
“The reason I am here is quite simple, Mrs McCreavy. You have nothing to worry about. It is just that a sudden death of this kind has to be officially reported. We have to establish details. You understand? All quite usual.”
“Details. I see.”
“So I want you to tell me exactly what happened, as you remember it. Of course, I shan’t ask you anything private—about your reasons for consulting Dr Meadow, I mean. I only want you to describe what took place.”
Mrs McCreavy’s response suggested that the inspector’s delicacy had been wasted. She slid both hands across her diaphragm and lifted, as if for his approbation, a generously proportioned bosom.
“Well, I’d been getting these pains round here, you see. Oh, and right through the chest. Just like knives. A bit worse on this side, if anything.”
She thoughtfully weighed her left breast, reminding Purbright, despite his determination to be seriously sympathetic, of a judge at a vegetable show.
“Of course, I’ve had them, off and on, since I was a girl, and my husband always says I make a lot of fuss about nothing, but I mean, he doesn’t know, does he? He’s not in there to feel. And then there was Mrs Holland, next door but one. She had to have all her insides taken away. Well...” She paused, inviting comment.
“You were very wise to make sure,” Purbright said briskly. “So,” he continued at once, “you went to the surgery, entered Dr Meadow’s consulting room when it was your turn, and told him about the pains. He was sitting down, was he?”
