about themselves; they're obsessed with themselves, yes, but they need reassurance the whole time. They must be continually reassured. Ask Jason Rudd. He'll tell you the same. You have to make them feel they can do it, to assure them they can do it, take them over and over again over the same thing encouraging them the whole time until you get the effect you want. But they are always doubtful of themselves. And that makes them, in an ordinary human, unprofessional word: nervy. Damned nervy! A mass of nerves. And the worse their nerves are the better they are at the job.'
'That's interesting,' said Craddock. 'Very interesting.' He paused, adding: 'Though I don't see quite why you -'
'I'm trying to make you understand Marina Gregg,' said Maurice Gilchrist. 'You've seen her pictures, no doubt.'
'She's a wonderful actress,' said Dermot, 'wonderful. She has a personality, a beauty, a sympathy.'
'Yes,' said Gilchrist, 'she has all those, and she's had to work like the devil to produce the effects that she has produced. In the process her nerves get shot to pieces, and she's not actually a strong woman physically. Not as strong as you need to be. She's got one of those temperaments that swing to and fro between despair and rapture. She can't help it. She's made that way. She's suffered a great deal in her life. A large part of the suffering has been her own fault, but some of it hasn't. None of her marriages has been happy, except, I'd say, this last one. She's married to a man now who loves her dearly and who's loved her for years. She's sheltering in that love and she's happy in it. At least, at the moment she's happy in it. One can't say how long all that will last. The trouble with her is that either she thinks that at last she's got to that spot or place or that moment in her life where everything's like a fairy tale come true, that nothing can go wrong, that she'll never be unhappy again; or else she's down in the dumps, a woman whose life is ruined, who's never known love and happiness and who never will again.' He added dryly, 'If she could only stop halfway between the two it'd be wonderful for her; and the world would lose a fine actress.'
He paused, but Dermot Craddock did not speak. He was wondering why Maurice Gilchrist was saying what he did. Why this close detailed analysis of Marina Gregg? Gilchrist was looking at him. It was as though he was urging Dermot to ask one particular question. Dermot wondered very much what the question was that he ought to ask. He said at last slowly, with the air of one feeling his way:
'She's been very much upset by this tragedy happening here?'
'Yes,' said Gilchrist, 'she has.'
'Almost unnaturally so?'
'That depends,' said Dr Gilchrist.
'On what does it depend?'
'On her reason for being so upset.'
'I suppose,' said Dermot, feeling his way, 'that it was a shock, a sudden death happening like that in the midst of a party.'
He saw very little response in the face opposite him 'Or might it,' he said, 'be something more than that?'
'You can't tell, of course,' said Dr Gilchrist, 'how people are going to react. You can't tell however well you know them. They can always surprise you. Marina might have taken this in her stride. She's a soft-hearted creature. She might say, 'Oh, poor, poor woman, how tragic. I wonder how it could have happened.' She could have been sympathetic without really caring. After all deaths do occasionally occur at studio parties. Or she might, if there wasn't anything very interesting going on, choose – choose unconsciously, mind you – to dramatize herself over it. She might decide to throw a scene. Or there might be some quite different reason.'
Dermot decided to take the bull by the horns. 'I wish,' he said, 'you would tell me what you really think?'
'I don't know,' said Dr Gilchrist, 'I can't be sure.' He paused and then said, 'There's professional etiquette, you know. There's the relationship between doctor and patient.'
'She has told you something?'
'I don't think I could go as far as that.'
'Did Marina Gregg know this woman, Heather Badcock? Had she met her before?'
'I don't think she knew her from Adam,' said Dr Gilchrist. 'No. That's not the trouble. If you ask me it's nothing to do with Heather Badcock.'
Dermot said. 'This stuff, this Calmo. Does Marina Gregg ever use it herself?'
'Lives on it, pretty well,' said Dr Gilchrist. 'So does everyone else around here,' he added. 'Ella Zielinsky takes it, Harley Preston takes it, half the boiling takes it – it's the fashion at this moment. They're all much the same, these things. People get tired of one and they try a new one that comes out and they think it's wonderful, and that it makes all the difference.'
'And does it make all the difference?'
'Well,' said Gilchrist, 'it makes a difference. It does its work. It calms you or it peps you up, makes you feel you could do things which otherwise you might fancy that you couldn't. I don't prescribe them more than I can help, but they're not dangerous taken properly. They help people who can't help themselves.'
'I wish I knew,' said Dermot Craddock, 'what it is that you are trying to tell me.'
'I'm trying to decide,' said Gilchrist, 'what is my duty'. There are two duties. There's the duty of a doctor to his patient. What his patient says to him is confidential and must be kept so. But there's another point of view. You can fancy that there is a danger to a patient. You have to take steps to avoid that danger.'
He stopped. Craddock looked at him and waited.
'Yes,' said Dr Gilchrist. 'I think I know what I must do. l must ask you, Chief-Inspector Craddock, to keep what I am telling you confidential. Not from your colleagues, of course. But as far as regards the outer world, particularly in the house here. Do you agree?'
'I can't bind myself,' said Craddock, 'I don't know what will arise. In general terms, yes, I agree. That is to say, I imagine that any piece of information you gave me I should prefer to keep to myself and my colleagues.'
'Now listen,' said Gilchrist, 'this mayn't mean anything at all. Women say anything when they're in the state of nerves Marina Gregg is now. I'm telling you something which she said to me. There may be nothing in it at all.'
'What did she say?' asked Craddock.
'She broke down after this thing happened. She sent for me. I gave her a sedative. I stayed there beside her, holding her hand, telling her to calm down, telling her things were going to be all right. Then, just before she went off into unconsciousness she said, 'It was meant for me, Doctor.''
Craddock stared. 'She said that, did she? And afterwards the next day?'
'She never alluded to it again. I raised the point once. She evaded it. She said, 'Oh, you must have made a mistake. I'm sure I never said anything like that. I expect I was half doped at the time.''
'But you think she meant it?'
'She meant it all right,' said Gilchrist. 'That's not to say that it is so,' he added warningly. 'Whether someone meant to poison her or meant to poison Heather Badcock I don't know. You'd probably know better than I would. All I do say is that Marina Gregg definitely thought and believed that that dose was meant for her.'
Craddock was silent for some moments. Then he said, 'Thank you, Doctor Gilchrist. I appreciate what you have told me and I realise your motive. If what Marina Gregg said to you was founded on fact it may mean, may it not, that there is still danger to her?'
'That's the point,' said Gilchrist. 'That's the whole point.'
'Have you any reason to believe that that might be so?'
'No, I haven't.'
'No idea what her reason for thinking so was?'
'No.'
'Thank you.'
Craddock got up. 'Just one thing more, Doctor. Do you know if she said the same thing to her husband?'
Slowly Gilchrist shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'I'm quite sure of that. She didn't tell her husband.'
His eyes met Dermot's for a few moments then he gave a brief nod of his head and said, 'You don't want me any more? All right. I'll go back and have a look at the patient. You shall talk to her as soon as it's possible.'
