“Yes,” Mrs McCreavy seemed a little resentful at having been short-circuited.
“How did his appearance strike you? Did he look ill or tired?”
“No, nothing like that. He seemed a bit quiet, though, and he didn’t listen properly at first when I was talking to him. He just sat fiddling with that thing they listen to your heart through.”
“Anyway, you told him your symptoms, I suppose. What happened then?”
“He told me to take my things off.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I did. Not altogether, I mean. Just...well, so that he could sound my chest. There’s a screen, of course. When I came out again, he was standing up. He got me to come round beside the desk. Next to him—you know, facing. Anyway, he started off by doing that tapping business with two fingers, up and down the chest, and then round the back. I always like that, don’t you? He’d got lovely hands, Dr Meadow had. They sort of matched his voice—do you know what I mean? Anyway, he went on tapping and asking questions for a bit, about where I felt the pain, and whether I’d had a cold, and what I ate, and that sort of thing, and then he put on his what’s-its- name—you know—not telescope...”
“Stethoscope.”
“That’s right—and he went over my chest again with that, and he said there was nothing wrong that he could hear, absolutely nothing. And then he got me to turn round and he started listening at the back. And he said, no, nothing there. Oh, he said that twice, and I thought he sounded a little bit annoyed, as a matter of fact. And then he sort of stepped away. I didn’t see him, of course, but I heard him say something like, ‘Well, we’ll see if this does the trick’, and I waited, and then I felt that thing go on my back again, and I heard him say something very quietly to himself. It sounded like, ‘The fur is darker’...”
“The fur is darker?”
“That’s right. I don’t know what he could have meant. The fur is darker—that’s what he said. I only thought of it afterwards because of what happened. You see, straight away there was this funny hissing noise he made. Ssss! Like that. As if he was impatient or cross. And then I got the fright of my life. Well, his arm came up as if he was trying to grab me. And me with practically nothing on. I thought... well, I don’t know what I thought, but I jumped away from him and I think I called out ‘Get away’, or ’Don’t’, or something, and then there was this awful crash and I looked round and there he was lying on the floor, sort of jerking and twitching, and I screamed and all I can remember after that was sitting out there in the waiting-room and crying and trying to drink a glass of water that Miss Sutton had brought me. Oh, it was a terrible shock to see him there.... Poor Dr Mea...”
A return of grief transformed the name into a soft, bleating sob. Her head fell. She felt ineffectually for the handbag that she had put down on the settee on coming in. It was just out of reach. Purbright stood and moved it over against her hand. He touched her shoulder.
“Thank you, Mrs McCreavy. I shan’t trouble you any more.”
And he didn’t. But as he walked down the path between the diminutive lawn and a bed of Mr McCreavy’s scrupulously tended dahlias towards the green-painted gate, he reflected on troubles of his own. Not the least of these was the bafflement induced by the late Dr Meadow’s last words.
What on earth had he been trying to convey by ‘The fur is darker?’ What fur? Had there been an animal of some kind in the surgery? Had it bitten him? Fatally? Oh, hell...
Sergeant Love was looking deceptively bland when Purbright got back to the police station.
“I see he’s still at it,” he announced.
“Who’s at what?” Purbright was in no mood for cryptic references.
“The Flaxborough Crab. Have you seen the report book this morning?”
“I have seen nothing this morning. I’ve been purging my soul by unproductive leg work.”
“Another young woman’s been attacked.”
Purbright’s weary “Oh, Christ!” implied that he had had about enough of the conspiracy by assault-prone females to disrupt his routine. But at once he repented and asked anxiously: “Serious?”
“She wasn’t hurt. Only frightened. He was wearing something round his face this time.”
That’s new.”
“Yes.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Elizabeth Loder. Nineteen. She’s a housemaid. Her family live in Dorley Road, but she’s only there on her nights off. Anyway, it was Pook who interviewed her. He’s doing you a full report.”
“Is he. Yes, all right, Sid. Now look—did you manage to see that Leadbetter character?”
“Aye, Mrs Grope, too. She says her old man’s cooling off again. Very pleased about that. Apparently the doctor told her that Grope had been taking some medicine that might have disagreed with him but that he’d had it stopped.”
“She offered no clue about Meadow’s dropping dead I suppose?”
“No, she said he was perfectly all right when she came out.”
“I see. And Leadbetter?”
Love grinned. “Funny, but do you know who he is? He’s the brother of that old ram on the council—the one who was mixed up in that brothel business a few years back. Must run in the family.”
“Must run in Dr Meadow’s patients,” corrected Purbright, thoughtfully. “Unless Leadbetter’s another herb addict. Did he tell you what it was he’d gone to see the doctor about?”
“Not a word.”
