“But, good God, man, of course she’s distressed! Look here. Suppose — I admit nothing — but suppose she came across that wretched kid, blubbing his eyes out because he’d been baited about his warts. Suppose she saw him trying to wash them off and, on the spur of the moment, remembering the history of wart cures, she made him believe they would clear up if he thought they would. Very well. The boy goes home, and they do. Before we know — she knows — where she is, the whole thing blows up unto a highly publicized nine days’ wonder. She can’t make up her mind to disabuse the boy or disillusion the people that follow him. It gets out of hand. The longer she hesitates, the harder it gets.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I know. That all makes sense and is perfectly understandable.”
“Very well, then!” he said impatiently.
“She was overwhelmingly anxious that I shouldn’t tell her husband.”
“I daresay,” Dr. Mayne said shortly. “He’s not a suitable subject for confidences.”
“Did she tell you?…All right,” Alleyn said answering the extremely dark look Dr. Mayne gave him. “I know I’m being impertinent. I’ve got to be.”
“I am her doctor. She consulted me about it. I advised her to say nothing.”
“Yes?”
“The thing was working. Off and on, as always happens in these emotional — these faith-cures, if you like — there are authentic cases. With people whose troubles had a nervous connotation, the publicizing of this perfectly innocent deception would have been harmful.”
“Asthma, for one?”
“Possibly.”
“Miss Cost, for instance?”
“If you like.”
“Was Miss Cost a patient of yours?”
“She was. She had moles that needed attention. She came into my nursing home and I removed them. About a year ago, it would be.”
“I wish you’d tell me what she was like.”
“Look here, Alleyn, I really do not see that the accident of my being called out to examine the body requires me to disregard my professional obligations. I do not discuss my patients, alive or dead, with any layman.”
Alleyn said mildly: “His Worship the Mayor seems to think she was a near-nymphomaniac.”
Dr. Mayne snorted.
“Well, was she?”
“All right. All right. She was a bloody nuisance, like many another frustrated spinster. Will that do?”
“Nicely, thank you. Do you imagine she ever suspected the truth about the Green Lady?”
“I have not the remotest idea but I should think it most unlikely. She, of all people! Look at that damn farce of a show, yesterday. Look at her shop! Green ladies by the gross. If you want my opinion on the case, which I don’t suppose you do—”
“On the contrary, I was going to ask for it.”
“Then: I think the boy did it, and I hope that, for his sake, it will go no further than finding that he’s irresponsible and chucked the rock aimlessly or at least with no idea of the actual damage it would do. He can then be removed from his parents, who are no good to him anyway, and given proper care and attention. If I’m asked for an opinion at the inquest that will be it.”
“Tidy. Straightforward. Obvious.”
“And you don’t believe it?”
“I should like to believe it,” said Alleyn.
“I need hardly say I’d be interested to know your objections.”
“You may say they’re more or less mechanical. No,” Alleyn said correcting himself. “That’s not quite it, either. We’ll just have to press on and see how we go. And press on I must, by the same token. My chaps’ll be waiting for me.”
“You’re going out?”
“Yes. Routine, you know. Routine.”
“You’ll be half-drowned.”
“It’s not far. Only to the shop. By the way, did you know we’re moving Miss Pride in the morning? She’s going to the Manor Park Hotel outside Dunlowman.”
“But why? Isn’t she comfortable here?”
“It’s not particularly comfortable to be suspected of homicide.”
“But — oh, good Lord!” he exclaimed disgustedly.
“The village louts shout doggerel at her and the servants have been unpleasant. I don’t want her to be subjected to any more Portcarrow humour in the form of practical jokes.”
“There’s no chance of that, surely. Or don’t you think Miss Cost inspired that lot?”
“I think she inspired them, all right, but they might be continued in her permanent absence; the habit having been formed and Miss Pride’s unpopularity having increased.”
“Absolute idiocy!” he said angrily. “I think, as a matter of fact, I’ve probably stopped the rot, but it’s better for her to get away from the place.”
“You know, I very much doubt if the channel will be negotiable in the morning. This looks like being the worst storm we’ve had for years. In any case, it’ll be devilishly awkward getting her aboard the launch. We don’t want a broken leg.”
“Of course not. We’ll simply have to wait and see what the day brings forth. If you’re going to visit her, you might warn her about the possibility, will you?”
“Yes, certainly.”
They were silent for a moment. A sudden onslaught of the gale beat against the Boy-and-Lobster and screamed in the chimney. “Well, good night,” Alleyn said.
He had got as far as the door when Dr. Mayne said: “There is one thing you perhaps ought to know about Elspeth Cost.”
“Yes?”
“She lived in a world of fantasy. Again, with women of her temperament, condition and age, it’s a not unusual state of affairs, but with her its manifestations were extreme.”
“Was she, in consequence, a liar?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “It follows on the condition. You may say she couldn’t help it.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Alleyn said.
“It may not arise.”
“You never know. Good night, then, Mayne.”
When they were outside and the hotel doors had shut behind them, they were engulfed in a world of turbulence: a complex uproar into which they moved, leaning forward, with their heads down. They slipped on concrete steps, bumped into each other and then hung on by an iron rail and moved down crabwise towards the sea. Below them, riding lights on the hotel launch tipped, rose, sank and shuddered. A single street lamp near the jetty was struck across by continuous diagonals of rain. On the far side, black masses heaved and broke against the front, obscured and revealed dimly lit windows and flung their crests high above the glittering terrace. As the three men came to the foot of the steps they were stung and lashed by driven spume.
Miss Cost’s shop window glowed faintly beyond the rain. When they reached it they had to bang on the door and yell at Pender before he heard them above the general clamour. It opened a crack. “Easy on, souls,” Pender shouted, “or she’ll blow in.” He admitted them, one by one, with his shoulder to the door.
The interior fug had become enriched by a paraffin heater that reeked in Miss Cissy Pollock’s corner, and by Pender, who breathed out pickled onions. Miss Pollock, herself a little bleary-eyed now, but ever-smiling, still presided at the switchboard.
“Wicked night,” Pender observed, bolting the door.
“You must be pretty well fed up, both of you,” Alleyn said.
“No, sir, no. We be tolerably clever, thank you. Cissy showed me how her switchboard works. A simple enough matter to the male intelligence, it turned out to be, and I took a turn at it while she had a nap. She come back like a lion refreshed and I followed her example. Matter of fact, sir, I was still dozing when you hammered at the door, warn’t I, Ciss? She can’t hear with they contraptions on her head. A simple pattern of a female, she is, sir, as you’ll find out for yourself if you see fit to interrogate her, but rather pleased than otherwise to remain.” He beamed upon Miss Pollock, who giggled.