responsibilities. It’s very good training, actually, if it’s done properly.’
‘Does it not spoil a hound to make too much of a pet of it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so, if you intend it to follow its nature and its calling. The Maltese, who have preserved the breed, train them for rabbiting, but it’s hardly likely the boys will be allowed to use them for that sort of thing. I see the hounds as pets because of their temperament, and as show dogs because of their beauty and comparative rarity. They have been known in this country only since the early 1930s and then they seem to have disappeared in England until another pair was brought here in 1963 and then eight more came in 1968. Crufts have recognised the breed and America is also taking an interest.’
‘How does Malta come into the story?’
‘The Phoenicians, those indefatigable travellers and traders, took some of the dogs to Malta from Egypt and, to their great credit, seem to have preserved the breed more or less intact.’
‘The Maltese have terriers of their own, have they not?’
‘Yes. I wouldn’t really want to own one, though. The only terriers I really care about are the lively, gallant little Yorkshires.’
‘But how unpatriotic, when Scotland has the West Highland, the Aberdeen and other terriers of its own.’
‘Yes, but as Wodehouse points out, our Scottish terriers are all too apt to look like disapproving elders of the kirk. Give me a large deerhound or a tiny Yorkie any day, rather than an Aberdeen or a West Highland or a Cairn. I only wish the Rants would ask us over there to see them — the hounds, I mean. I doubt whether they’d bring them when they come to see us.’
‘The sisters Rant are not intending to become commercial breeders, are they?’
‘No, but they will have puppies now and then for sale. I shall bespeak a couple from the next litter if all goes well and the family are keen to have them — not that I think there is any doubt about that.’
‘I wonder when we shall see the sisters again? Like you, I find them interesting.’
‘It sounds as though they are better off without that selfish father of theirs, but, for their own sakes, I wish they would take down his brass plate. They complain that the summer visitors are always bothering them because they think one of them is a doctor.’
‘Family sentiment dies hard. Perhaps that is why Bryony leaves their father’s brass plate in position.’
‘I can’t believe she cared tuppence for that conceited, selfish old man.’
‘We have only her word for it that he was either conceited or selfish, and he has left his daughters well provided for.’
‘Oh, well, RIP then, Dr Rant,’ said Laura, closing her notebook and putting it aside. ‘All the same, I’m glad he wasn’t
‘I thought we were talking only about daughters.’
‘Don’t be so difficult. You know perfectly well that I meant the book by Ivy Compton-Burnett, the one about the father who made his living as an author and then found out that one of his daughters was a better writer than he was.’
‘Perhaps Morpeth or Bryony would have turned out to be a better doctor than their father. Is that what you mean?’
‘Neither had the chance, as far as I can make out. Bryony’s chief grievance seems to be that, once they left school, their father kept them at home and never allowed them to train for anything because he needed their services.’
‘When we had made their acquaintance I was sufficiently interested in them to look the family up in much the same painstaking way as you appear to have followed in the case of the Pharaoh hounds. Dr Rant seems to have died suddenly and under somewhat mysterious circumstances.’
‘They have never referred to anything of that sort. Was there an inquest?’
‘Yes, indeed. A verdict of accidental death was brought in. It was decided (largely on Bryony’s evidence) that on his wife’s death Dr Rant had attempted to drown his sorrows by indulging rather too freely in alcoholic beverages. These did not mix very well with the various tranquillising drugs he was administering to himself. The inference was that he inadvertently took a fatal combination of the two.’
‘Sounds thin to me. Much more likely to have been a deliberate suicide, don’t you think?’
‘There was probably a kindly determination on the part of the coroner and his jury to spare the girls’ feelings. Nobody likes to have a suicide in the family. It reflects on the rest of the group.’
‘Well, I wish the rest of that particular group would come over here and let me talk to them about Pharaoh hound puppies. There is plenty of time before Christmas, but I should like to get my word in before somebody else wants to have the pick of the litter. Can’t we invite Bryony and Morpeth to lunch pretty soon?’
Hearing sounds outside, Dame Beatrice went to the window. She was in time to see a car turn into the drive, an old car and rather a noisy one.
‘We may not need to issue an invitation on behalf of the project you have in mind,’ she said. ‘There is only one car among those owned by our more frequent visitors which makes quite the complaining noise which I hear.’
‘Well, I hope you’re right and that it is Bryony and Morpeth. We’re not expecting anybody, are we? Should it chance to be a patient, there’s nothing in the book, so he or she hasn’t an appointment. I’ll go along and see, shall I?’ She joined Dame Beatrice at the window and they saw the car as it turned a bend in the drive. ‘Yes, it’s the Rants’ car, but there is only one woman in it. Looks like Bryony. The passenger is a man. Bit of a cheek of her to bring a stranger here without warning. Oh, dear! I think she
‘He looks masculine enough to me,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘All I meant was that his hair is long and, while there’s no telling at present whether his foot is light, there’s not
