“ ‘In any case,’ I said, ‘I shouldn’t distress yourself too much. Death, when it does come, will be a release from suffering.’ ”
“ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘poor Auntie. I’m afraid I’m selfish, but she’s the only relative I have left in the world.”
“Three days later, I was just sitting down to dinner when a telephone message came. Would I go over at once? The patient was dead.”
“Good gracious!” cried Charles, “it’s perfectly obvious—”
“Shut up, Sherlock,” said his friend, “the doctor’s story is not going to be obvious. Far from it, as the private said when he aimed at the bull’s-eye and hit the gunnery instructor. But I observe the waiter hovering uneasily about us while his colleagues pile up chairs and carry away the cruets. Will you not come and finish the story in my flat? I can give you a glass of very decent port. You will? Good. Waiter, call a taxi … 110A, Piccadilly.”
II
Miching Mallecho
“By the pricking of my thumbs
Macbeth
Something evil this way comes.”
The April night was clear and chilly, and a brisk wood fire burned in a welcoming manner on the hearth. The bookcases which lined the walls were filled with rich old calf bindings, mellow and glowing in the lamplight. There was a grand piano, open, a huge chesterfield piled deep with cushions and two armchairs of the build that invites one to wallow. The port was brought in by an impressive manservant and placed on a very beautiful little Chippendale table. Some big bowls of scarlet and yellow parrot tulips beckoned, banner-like, from dark corners.
The doctor had just written his new acquaintance down as an aesthete with a literary turn, looking for the ingredients of a human drama, when the manservant re-entered.
“Inspector Sugg rang up, my lord, and left this message, and said would you be good enough to give him a call as soon as you came in.”
“Oh, did he?—well, just get him for me, would you? This is the Worplesham business, Charles. Sugg’s mucked it up as usual. The baker has an alibi—naturally—he would have. Oh, thanks … Hullo! that you, Inspector? What did I tell you?—Oh, routine be hanged. Now, look here. You get hold of that gamekeeper fellow, and find out from him what he saw in the sandpit … No, I know, but I fancy if you ask him impressively enough he will come across with it. No, of course not—if you ask if he was there, he’ll say no. Say you know he was there and what did he see—and, look here! if he hums and haws about it, say you’re sending a gang down to have the stream diverted … All right. Not at all. Let me know if anything comes of it.”
He put the receiver down.
“Excuse me, Doctor. A little matter of business. Now go on with your story. The old lady was dead, eh? Died in her sleep, I suppose. Passed away in the most innocent manner possible. Everything all shipshape and Bristol-fashion. No struggle, no wounds, haemorrhages, or obvious symptoms, naturally, what?”
“Exactly. She had taken some nourishment at 6 o’clock—a little broth and some milk pudding. At eight, the nurse gave her a morphine injection and then went straight out to put some bowls of flowers on the little table on the landing for the night. The maid came to speak to her about some arrangements for the next day, and while they were talking, Miss … that is, the niece—came up and went into her aunt’s room. She had only been there a moment or two when she cried out, ‘Nurse! Nurse!’ The nurse rushed in, and found the patient dead.
“Of course, my first idea was that by some accident a double dose of morphine had been administered—”
“Surely that wouldn’t have acted so promptly.”
“No—but I thought that a deep coma might have been mistaken for death. However, the nurse assured me that this was not the case, and, as a matter of fact, the possibility was completely disproved, as we were able to count the ampullae of morphine and found them all satisfactorily accounted for. There were no signs of the patient having tried to move or strain herself, or of her having knocked against anything. The little night-table was pushed aside, but that had been done by the niece when she came in and was struck by her aunt’s alarmingly lifeless appearance.”
“How about the broth and the milk-pudding?”
“That occurred to me also—not in any sinister way, but to wonder whether she’d been having too much—distended stomach—pressure on the heart, and that sort of thing. However, when I came to look into it, it seemed very unlikely. The quantity was so small, and on the face of it, two hours were sufficient for digestion—if it had been that, death would have taken place earlier. I was completely puzzled, and so was the nurse. Indeed, she was very much upset.”
“And the niece?”
“The niece could say nothing but ‘I told you so, I told you so—I knew she was worse than you thought.’ Well, to cut a long story short, I was so bothered with my pet patient going off like that, that next morning, after I had thought the matter over, I asked for a postmortem.”
“Any difficulty?”
“Not the slightest. A little natural distaste, of course, but no sort of opposition. I explained that I felt sure there must be some obscure morbid condition which I had failed to diagnose and that I should feel more satisfied if I might make an investigation. The only thing which seemed to trouble the niece was the thought of an inquest. I said—rather unwisely, I suppose, according to general rules—that I didn’t think an inquest would be necessary.”
“You mean you offered to perform the postmortem yourself.”
“Yes—I made no doubt that I should find a sufficient cause of
