Abbershaw rose and opened it, to discover Michael Prenderby, the young, newly-qualified M.D., standing fully dressed in the doorway.
The boy looked worried, and came into the room quickly, shutting the door behind him after he had glanced up and down the corridor outside as if to make certain that he had not been followed.
“Forgive the melodrama,” he said, “but there’s something darn queer going on in this place. Have a cigarette?”
Abbershaw looked at him shrewdly. The hand that held the cigarette-case out to him was not too steady, and the facetiousness of the tone was belied by the expression of anxiety in his eyes.
Michael Prenderby was a fair, slight young man, with a sense of humour entirely unexpected.
To the casual observer he was an inoffensive, colourless individual, and his extraordinary spirit and strength of character were known only to his friends.
Abbershaw took a cigarette and indicated a chair.
“Let’s have it,” he said. “What’s up?”
Prenderby lit a cigarette and pulled at it vigorously, then he spoke abruptly.
“In the first place,” he said, “the old bird upstairs is dead.”
Abbershaw’s blue-grey eyes flickered, and the thought which had lurked at the back of his mind ever since Meggie’s story in the garden suddenly grew into a certainty.
“Dead?” he said. “How do you know?”
“They told me.” Prenderby’s pale face flushed slightly. “The private medico fellow—Whitby, I think his name is—came up to me just as I was coming to bed; he asked me if I would go up with him and have a look at the old boy.”
He paused awkwardly, and Abbershaw suddenly realized that it was a question of professional etiquette that was embarrassing him.
“I thought they’d be bound to have got you up there already,” the boy continued, “so I chased up after the fellow and found the Colonel stretched out on the bed, face covered up and all that. Gideon was there too, and as soon as I got up in the room I grasped what it was they wanted me for. Mine was to be the signature on the cremation certificate.”
“Cremation? They’re in a bit of a hurry, aren’t they?”
Prenderby nodded.
“That’s what I thought, but Gideon explained that the old boy’s last words were a wish that he should be cremated and the party should continue, so they didn’t want to keep the body in the house a moment longer than was absolutely necessary.”
“Wanted the party to go on?” repeated Abbershaw stupidly. “Absurd!”
The young doctor leant forward. “That’s not all by any means,” he said. “When I found what they wanted, naturally I pointed out that you were the senior man and should be first approached. That seemed to annoy them both. Old Whitby, who was very nervous, I thought, got very upstage and talked a lot of rot about ‘Practising M.D.s,’ but it was the foreigner who got me into the really unpleasant hole. He pointed out, in that disgustingly sticky voice he has, that I was a guest in the house and could hardly refuse such a simple request. It was all damn cheek, and very awkward, but eventually I decided to rely on your decency to back me up and so …” He paused.
“Did you sign?” Abbershaw said quickly.
Prenderby shook his head. “No,” he said with determination, adding explanatorily: “They wouldn’t let me look at the body.”
“What?” Abbershaw was startled. Everything was tending in the same direction. The situation was by no means a pleasant one.
“You refused?” he said.
“Rather.” Prenderby was inclined to be angry. “Whitby talked a lot of the usual bilge—trotted out all the good old phrases. By the time he’d finished, the poor old bird on the bed must have been dead about a year and a half according to him. But he kept himself between me and the bed, and when I went to pull the sheet down, Gideon got in my way deliberately. Whitby seemed to take it as a personal insult that I should think even an ordinary examination necessary. And then I’m afraid I lost my temper and walked out.”
He paused, and looked at the older man awkwardly. “You see,” he said, with a sudden burst of confidence, “I’ve never signed a cremation certificate in my life, and I didn’t feel like starting on an obviously fishy case. I only took my finals a few months ago, you know.”
“Oh, quite right, quite right.” Abbershaw spoke with conviction. “I wonder what they’re doing?”
Prenderby grinned.
“You’ll probably find out,” he said dryly. “They’ll come to you now. They thought I should be easier to manage, but having failed—and since they’re in such a hurry—I should think you were for it. It occurred to me to nip down and warn you.”
“Good of you. Thanks very much.” Abbershaw spoke genuinely. “It’s a most extraordinary business. Did it look like heart failure?”
Prenderby shrugged his shoulders.
“My dear fellow, I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even see the face. If it was heart failure why shouldn’t I examine him? It’s more than fishy, you know, Abbershaw. Do you think we ought to do anything?”
“No. That is, not at the moment.” George Abbershaw’s round and chubby face had suddenly taken on an expression which immediately altered its entire character. His mouth was firm and decided, and there was confidence in his eyes. In an instant he had become the man of authority, eminently capable of dealing with any situation that might arise.
“Look here,” he said, “if you’ve just left them they’ll be round for me any moment. You’d better get out now, so that they don’t find us together. You see,” he went on quickly, “we don’t want a row here, with women about and that sort of thing; besides, we couldn’t do anything if they turned savage. As soon as I get to town I can trot along and see old Deadwood at the Yard and get everything looked into without much fuss.
