have no thought of challenging the propriety of your issuance of the death certificate. But there are a few questions. When did you last see Bertram Fyfe alive?”
“Saturday evening. I was there half an hour, and left at twenty minutes past seven. The others were there, having dinner in the living room. He had refused to go to a hospital. I had put him under an oxygen tent, but he kept jerking it off, he wouldn’t have it. I couldn’t get him to leave it on, and neither could Miss Goren. He was in considerable pain, or said he was, but his temperature was down to a hundred and two. He was a difficult patient. He couldn’t sleep, and I told the nurse to give him a quarter of a grain of morphine as soon as the guests had gone, and another quarter-grain an hour later if that didn’t work – he had had half a grain the night before.”
“Then you returned to Mount Kisco?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think he might die that night?”
“Of course not.”
“Then when you got word Sunday morning that he was dead, weren’t you surprised?”
“Of course I was.” Buhl flattened his palms on the chair arms. “Mr. Wolfe, I am tolerating this as a favor to David Fyfe. You are being inane. I’m sixty years old. I’ve been practising medicine for more than thirty years, and fully half of my patients have surprised me one way or another – by bleeding too much or too little, by getting a rash from taking aspirin, by refusing to show a temperature with a high blood count, by living when they should die, by dying when they should have lived. That is the universal experience of general practitioners. Yes, Bertram Fyfe’s death was a surprise, but it was by no means unprecedented. I examined the body with great care a few hours after he died, and found nothing whatever to make me question the cause of death. So I issued the certificate.”
“Why did you examine the body with great care?” Wolfe was still murmuring.
“Because the nurse had left him in the middle of the night – had been forced to leave – and I hadn’t been able to get a replacement. The best I could do was to arrange for one to report at seven in the morning. Under those circumstances I thought it well to make a thorough examination for the record.”
“And you are completely satisfied that pneumonia was the cause of death, with no contributing factors?”
“No, of course not. Complete satisfaction is a rarity in my profession, Mr. Wolfe. But I am satisfied that it was proper and correct to issue the certificate, that it was consistent with all the observable evidence, that – in layman’s language – Bertram Fyfe died of pneumonia. I am not quibbling. Long ago a patient of mine died of pneumonia, but it was a cold winter night and someone had opened the windows of his room and let the storm in. But in this case it was a hot summer night and the windows were closed. The apartment was air-conditioned, and I had instructed the nurse to keep the regulator at eighty in that room because a pneumonia patient needs warmth, and she had done so. In the case I mentioned, windows open to a winter storm were certainly a contributing factor, but in this case there was no evidence of any such factor.”
Wolfe nodded approvingly. “You have covered the point admirably, doctor, but you have also raised one. The air-conditioner. What if someone moved the regulator, after the nurse’s departure, to its lowest extreme? Could it have cooled the room sufficiently to cause your patient to die when you expected him to live?”
“I would say no. I considered that possibility. Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle have assured me that they did not touch the regulator and that the room’s temperature remained equable, and anyway on so hot a night the conditioner couldn’t have cooled the air to that extent. I wanted to be satisfied on that point, since no nurse had been there, and I arranged with the hotel to check it Saturday night, in that room. After the regulator had been at its extreme for six hours, the temperature was sixty-nine – too low for a pneumonia patient, even one well covered, but certainly not lethal.”
“I see,” Wolfe murmured. “You did not rely on the assurance of Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle.”
Buhl smiled. “Is that quite fair? I relied on them as wholly as you rely on me. I was being thorough. I am thorough.”
“An excellent habit. I have it too. Did you have any suspicion, with or without reason, that someone might have contrived to help the pneumonia kill your patient?”
“No. I was merely being thorough.”
Wolfe nodded. “Well.” He heaved a deep sigh, and when it had been disposed of turned his head to focus on the nurse. During the conversation she had sat with her back straight, her chin up, and her hands folded in her lap. I had her profile. There are not many female chins that rate high both from the front and from the side.
Wolfe spoke. “One question, Miss Goren – or two. Do you concur with all that Doctor Buhl has told me – all that you have knowledge of?”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice was a little husky, but she hadn’t been using it.
“I understand that while the others were at the theater Paul Fyfe made advances to you which you repulsed. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did that cause you to neglect your duties in any way? Did it interfere with your proper care of your patient?”
“No. The patient was sound asleep, under sedation.”
“Have you any comment or information to offer? I have been hired by David Fyfe to determine whether anything about his brother’s death warrants a police inquiry. Can you tell me anything whatever that might help me decide?”
Her eyes left him to go to Buhl, then came back again. “No, I can’t,” she said. She stood up. Of course nurses are expected to rise from a chair without commotion, but she just floated up. “Is that all?”
