'My lot were going to London when I left them,' said O'Connor promptly. 'Yes, I believe it was North Audley Street. Mrs. Craddock was rather a one for the gents.'
Elsie tossed her head.
'I'd no patience with her. Always finding fault and grumbling. Nothing you did right.'
'Her husband got some of it too, didn't he?'
'She was always complaining he neglected her – that he didn't understand her. And she was always saying how bad her health was and gasping and groaning. Not ill at all if you ask me!'
O'Connor slapped his knee.
'Got it. Wasn't there something about her and some doctor? A bit too thick or something?'
'You mean Doctor Roberts? He was a nice gentleman, he was.'
'You girls, you're all alike,' said Sergeant O'Connor. 'The moment a man's a bad lot, all the girls stick up for him. I know his kind.'
'No, you don't and you're all wrong about him. There wasn't anything of that kind about him. Wasn't his fault, was it, if Mrs. Craddock was always sending for him? What's a doctor to do? If you ask me, he didn't think nothing of her at all, except as a patient. It was all her doing. Wouldn't leave him alone, she wouldn't.'
'That's all very well, Elsie – don't mind me calling you Elsie, do you? Feel as though I'd known you all my life.'
'Well, you haven't! Elsie indeed.'
She tossed her head.
'Oh, very well, Miss Batt.' He gave her a glance. 'As I was saying, that's all very well, but the husband he cut up rough all the same, didn't he?'
'He was a bit ratty one day,' admitted Elsie. 'But if you ask me he was ill at the time. He died just after, you know.'
'I remember – died of something queer, didn't he?'
'Something Japanese it was – all from a new shaving brush he'd got. Seems awful, doesn't it, that they're not more careful? I've not fancied anything Japanese since.'
'Buy British, that's my motto,' said Sergeant O'Connor sententiously. 'And you were saying he and the doctor had a row?'
Elsie nodded, enjoying herself as she relived past scandals. 'Hammer and tongs they went at it,' she said. 'At least the master did. Doctor Roberts was ever so quiet. Just said, 'Nonsense.' And, 'What have you got into your head?''
'This was at the house, I suppose?'
'Yes. She'd sent for him. And then she and the master had words, and in the middle of it Doctor Roberts arrived, and the master went for him.'
'What did he say exactly?'
'Well, of course I wasn't supposed to hear. It was all in the missis's bedroom. I thought something was up, so I got the dustpan and did the stairs. I wasn't going to miss anything.'
Sergeant O'Connor heartily concurred in this sentiment, reflecting how fortunate it was that Elsie was being approached unofficially. On interrogation by Sergeant O'Connor of the police she would have virtuously protested that she had not overheard anything at all.
'As I say,' went on Elsie, 'Doctor Roberts, he was very quiet – the master was doing all the shouting.'
'What was he saying?' asked O'Connor, for the second time approaching the vital point.
'Abusing of him proper,' said Elsie with relish.
'How do you mean?'
Would the girl never come to actual words and phrases?
'Well, I didn't understand a lot of it,' admitted Elsie. 'There were a lot of long words, 'unprofessional conduct' and 'taking advantage' and things like that – and I heard him say he'd get Doctor Roberts struck off the – Medical Register, would it be? Something like that.'
'That's right,' said O'Connor. 'Complain to the Medical Council.'
'Yes, he said something like that. And the missis was going on in sort of hysterics saying, 'You never cared for me. You neglected me. You left me alone.' And I heard her say that Doctor Roberts had been an angel of goodness to her.
'And then the doctor, he came through into the dressing-room with the master and shut the door of the bedroom – I heard it and he said quite plain, 'My good man, don't you realize your wife's hysterical? She doesn't know what she's saying. To tell you the truth it's been a very difficult and trying case and I'd have thrown it up long ago if I'd thought it was' – con – con – some long word – oh, yes, consistent – that was it – 'consistent with my duty.' That's what he said. He said something about not overstepping a boundary – too – something between doctor and patient. He got the master quieted a bit and then he said, 'You'll be late at your office, you know. You'd better be off. Just think things over quietly. I think you'll realize that the whole business is a mare's nest. I'll just wash my hands here before I go on to my next case. Now you think it over, my dear fellow. I can assure you that the whole thing arises out of your wife's disordered imagination.'
'And the master he said, 'I don't know what to think.'
'And he come out – and of course I was brushing hard, but he never even noticed me. I thought afterward he looked ill. The doctor he was whistling quite cheerily and washing his hands in the dressing-room where there was hot and cold laid on. And presently he came out too with his bag, and he spoke to me very nicely and cheerily as he always did and he went down the stairs quite cheerful and gay and his usual self. So, you see, I'm quite sure as he hadn't done anything wrong. It was all her.'
'And then Craddock got this anthrax?'
'Yes, I think he'd got it already. The mistress she nursed him very devoted, but he died. Lovely wreaths there was at the funeral.'
'And afterward? Did Doctor Roberts come to the house again?'
'No, he didn't, Nosy! You've got some grudge against him. I tell you there was nothing in it. If there were he'd have married her when the master was dead, wouldn't he? And he never did. No such fool. He'd taken her measure all right. She used to ring him up though, but somehow he was never in. And then she sold the house and we all got our notices and she went abroad to Egypt.'
'And you didn't see Doctor Roberts in all that time.'
'No. She did, because she went to him to have this – what do you call it – noclation against the typhoid fever. She came back with her arm ever so sore with it. If you ask me, he made it clear to her then that there was nothing doing. She didn't ring him up no more and she went off very cheerful with a lovely lot of new clothes – all light colors although it was the middle of winter, but she said it would be all sunshine and hot out there.'
'That's right,' said Sergeant O'Connor. 'It's too hot, sometimes, I've heard. She died out there. You know that, I suppose?'
'No, indeed I didn't. Well, fancy that! She may have been worse than I thought, poor soul.'
She added with a sigh, 'I wonder what they did with all that lovely lot of clothes? They're blacks out there, so they couldn't wear them.'
'You'd have looked a treat in them, I expect,' said Sergeant O'Connor.
'Impudence,' said Elsie.
'Well, you won't have my impudence much longer,' said Sergeant O'Connor. 'I've got to go away on business for my firm.'
'You going for long?'
'May be going abroad,' said the sergeant.
Elsie's face fell.
Though unacquainted with Lord Byron's famous poem, 'I never loved a dear gazelle,' its sentiments were at that moment hers. She thought to herself, Funny how all the really attractive ones never come to anything. Oh, well, there's always Fred.
Which is gratifying since it shows that the sudden incursion of Sergeant O'Connor into Elsie's life did not affect it permanently. Fred may even have been the gainer!
