‘Well, that’s most kind of you, Plunkett. In the circumstances –’
‘I think she’d have wished you to have one, sir.’
‘Yes, maybe she would.’
Plunkett poured from a decanter and handed Dr Ripley the glass. He waited for the doctor to sip before he spoke.
‘She sent a message to you, Doctor. Late last night she rang her bell and asked for me. She said she had a feeling she might die in the night. “If I do,” she said, “I don’t want him blamed.” ’
‘Blamed? Who blamed? I don’t understand you, Plunkett.’
‘I asked her that myself. “Who blamed?” I said, and she said: “Dr Ripley.” ’
Plunkett watched while a mouthful of sherry was consumed. He moved to the decanter and carried it to Dr Ripley’s glass. Mrs Abercrombie had had a heart attack, Dr Ripley said. He couldn’t have saved her even if he’d been called in time.
‘Naturally, we didn’t send for you last night, sir, even though she said that. On account of your attitude, Doctor.’
‘Attitude?’
‘You considered her a hypochondriac, sir.’
‘Mrs Abercrombie was.’
‘No, sir. She was a sick woman.’
Dr Ripley finished his second glass of sherry and crossed the drawing-room to the decanter. He poured some more, filling the glass to the brim.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Plunkett.’
It the kitchen they did not speak. Mrs Pope made more coffee and put pieces of shortbread on a plate. No one ate the shortbread, and Miss Bell shook her head when Mrs Pope began to refill her coffee-cup.
‘Bovril, dear?’ Mrs Pope suggested, but Miss Bell rejected Bovril also.
The garden had an atmosphere, different scents came out at different times of year, varying also from season to season. It was in the garden that she’d realized how unhappy she’d been, for eleven years, teaching geography. Yet even if the garden were Paradise itself you couldn’t just bury a dead woman in it and pretend she hadn’t died. Every day of your life you’d pass the mound, your whole existence would be a lie.
‘I’ll go away,’ Miss Bell said shakily, in a whisper. ‘I’ll pack and go. I promise you, I’ll never tell a thing.’
To Dr Ripley’s astonishment, Mrs Abercrombie’s butler accused him of negligence and added that it would have been Mrs Abercrombie’s desire to hush the matter up. He said that Mrs Abercrombie would never have wished to disgrace an old man.
‘What I’m suggesting,’ Plunkett said, ‘is that you give the cause of death to suit yourself and then become forgetful.’
‘Forgetful?’
‘Leave the certificate behind you, sir, as if in error.’
‘But it has to be handed in, Plunkett. Look here, there’s no disgrace involved, or negligence or anything else. You haven’t been drinking, have you?’
‘It’s a decision we came to in the kitchen, Doctor. We’re all agreed.’
‘But for heaven’s sake, man –’
‘Mrs Abercrombie’s wish was that her body should be buried in the shrubbery, beside her husband’s. That can be quietly done. Your good name would continue, Doctor, without a stain. Whether or not you take on further patients is your own affair.’
Dr Ripley sat down. He stared through wire-rimmed spectacles at a man he had always considered pleasant. Yet this same man was now clearly implying that he was more of an undertaker than a doctor.
‘What I am saying, sir, is that Rews Manor shall continue as Mrs Abercrombie wished it to. What I am saying is that you and we shall enter into the small conspiracy that Mrs Abercrombie is guiding us towards.’
‘Guiding?’
‘Since her death she has been making herself felt all over the house. Read that, sir.’
He handed Dr Ripley the letter from Mrs Abercrombie’s solicitors, which Dr Ripley slowly read and handed back. Plunkett said:
‘It would be disgraceful to go against the wishes of the recently dead, especially those of a person like Mrs Abercrombie, who was kindness itself – to all of us, and to you, sir.’
‘You’re suggesting that her death should be suppressed, Plunkett? So that you and the others may remain here?’
‘So that you may not face charges, sir.’
‘But, for the Lord’s sake, man, I’d face no charges. I’ve done nothing at all.’
‘A doctor can be in trouble for doing nothing, when he should be doing everything, when he should be prolonging life instead of saying his patients are imagining things.’
‘But Mrs Abercrombie did –’
‘In the kitchen we’re all agreed, sir. We remember, Doctor. We remember Miss Bell’s hand a few years ago, that she nearly died of. Criminal neglect, they said in the out-patients’. Another thing, we remember the time we
