THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC-1:30 P.M.
There was a tap on the door and Hilda poked her head inside. "I'm sorry to bother you, Dr. Protheroe, but there's a Detective Inspector Maddocks, and a Detective Sergeant Fraser here. I've told them you're busy but they say it's too important to wait."
"Five minutes," said Alan.
The door opened wide before Hilda could answer, and Maddocks pushed past her into the room. "It is important, sir, otherwise I wouldn't insist." He stopped when he noticed Jinx. "Miss Kingsley."
Alan frowned angrily. "Since when did being a policeman give you the right to barge, uninvited, into a doctor's consulting room?"
"I apologize, sir," said Maddocks, "but we've already waited fifteen minutes and we do need to talk to you rather urgently."
Jinx stood up. "It's all right, Dr. Protheroe. I'll come back later."
"I'd rather you stayed," he said, looking up at her with a clear message in his dark eyes. "I can't help feeling this is very poor psychology."
"For whom?'' she asked him, with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Illi intus out illi extra?"
He dredged through his Latin for a translation. The insiders or the outsiders, he decided. "Oh, illi extra, of course," he said with a barely perceptible nod towards Maddocks. "Caput odiosus iam maximus est.'' His odious head is already maximum size, was what he hoped he'd said.
Jinx smiled at him. "If you recognize that, Dr. Protheroe, then I don't think it's poor psychology at all. It means you hold the advantage. In any case, I really am starving, so with apologies for desertion, I think I'll go and find myself some lunch." She gave him a brief nod, then slipped past Fraser and Hilda, who were standing irresolutely by the door.
"All right, Hilda, thank you very much." He gestured towards the sofa. "Sit down, gentlemen."
"May I ask what Miss Kingsley said to you?" inquired Maddocks as he took a seat.
"I've no idea, I'm afraid," said Alan amiably. "It was all Greek to me."
"You answered her, sir."
"I can run that stuff off by the yard," he said. "Vos mensa puellarum dixerunt habebat nunc nemo conduxit. I haven't a clue what it means but it always sounds intelligent. What can I do for you?"
Maddocks eyed The Times, which was folded neatly on the coffee table. "Presumably you've read that?"
"I have."
"So you know that Mr. Leo Wallader and Miss Meg Harris are dead."
"Yes."
Maddocks watched his face closely. "Does Miss Kingsley know?"
Alan nodded. "I told her after I read it."
"What was her reaction, sir?"
He stared the Inspector down. "She was very shocked."
"Did you also tell her that the man who attacked you was wielding a sledgehammer?"
Alan thought about that. "I can't remember," he said honestly. "I mentioned the disturbance to all my patients this morning, but I really can't recall whether I gave precise details or not." He eyed Maddocks with curiosity. "Why?" he asked. "Do you see a connection between the assault on me and the deaths of Mr. Wallader and Miss Harris?"
Maddocks shrugged. "We certainly find it interesting that Miss Kingsley and a sledgehammer appear to be the only common factors between three murders and a vicious assault," he said bluntly.
"The third murder being Miss Kingsley's first husband?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm afraid I don't follow your logic. Let's say, purely for the purposes of the argument, that there is a connection between the murder of Russell Landy and the murder of Mr. Wallader, and that the connection is Miss Kingsley's attachment to both men. Marriage in the first instance and marriage plans in the second. And let's go on to say-again purely for the purposes of argument-that because Mr. Wallader changed his mind and decided to marry Miss Harris instead, someone decided she also had to die. How does the assault on me fit into this hypothetical scenario? I have known Miss Kingsley as a conscious and functioning individual for a week. We have a doctor-patient relationship. I am neither married to her nor engaged to marry her. I have not slept with her, nor do I have plans to sleep with her. I know none of her friends and she knows none of mine. She is a paying guest under my roof who is free to leave whenever she chooses." His eyes narrowed in speculation. "Have I missed something that makes this spurious connection even halfway believable?"
"Yes sir," said Maddocks evenly. "Coincidence. It's not something that we, as policemen, can readily ignore. Our experience shows that where there's smoke there's fire." He smiled slightly. "Or to put it another way, where there's Miss Kingsley there is also a sledgehammer."
"Are you suggesting she wields the damn thing herself?"
"I'm not suggesting anything at this stage, sir, I am merely drawing your attention to the coincidence. You would be foolish to pretend it doesn't exist."
"Well, it certainly wasn't Jinx who took a swing at me last night. She's not big enough or strong enough, and judging by the build and the height, it was a man."
"We understand you had a visit from her father's solicitor yesterday."
"It wasn't him, either. Inspector. He's a tiny little chap with dainty feet and hands. I'd have recognized him immediately, ski mask or no ski mask."
Maddocks smiled. "I was thinking more in terms of Mr. Kingsley himself. Perhaps you said something to the solicitor that his boss didn't like."
"I wouldn't know. I've never met Mr. Kingsley, so I've no idea what he looks like." He thought for a moment. "In any case, I'm sure it was a young man, and Mr. Kingsley's sixty-six."
"What about Fergus Kingsley? He's on your list."
Alan nodded. "Yes, he was about the right size. So was the waiter who served me at dinner, but my conversations with both were perfectly friendly and I can't see either of them taking the trouble to hang around the clinic waiting to belt me." But was that right? He had run up against Fergus twice now, and neither time had he felt comfortable with him.
Maddocks saw the sudden thoughtfulness in Protheroe's expression. "Tell me what you and Fergus Kingsley talked about," he invited.
"Nothing very much. He was waiting beside my car when I came out. He expressed an interest in buying it, as far as I remember, then asked me to meet his brother. I explained I was in a hurry and suggested we leave it to another time. Then I left."
Fraser looked up with a frown. "But you weren't in a hurry, sir. According to the report we've seen, you decided to go for a drive and treat yourself to a decent meal because it's some time since you've had an evening off."
Alan gave another amiable chuckle. "So I made a polite excuse and left. Is that so odd? I'd spent a long time talking to his father's solicitor, I was hungry, and I had promised myself a slap-up meal. At the risk of sounding churlish, I didn't particularly want to spend another half hour making small talk with a total stranger."
"You've never met Miles Kingsley then?"
"No."
"But both brothers have visited their sister here." It was a statement rather than a question and Alan wondered how Maddocks knew.
"As I understand it, Miles came last Wednesday at about nine o'clock when I was off duty. Fergus came on Saturday."
"So they both know their way around." Another statement.
Alan frowned. "Fergus spoke to Jinx in the garden, so presumably he could find his way back to the tree they sat under, and Miles, who saw her in her room, could probably find his way back there. Does that amount to knowing their way around? I wouldn't have thought so."
"I was thinking more in terms of the layout of the driveway, sir."