‘Ozymandias may have had a sceptre,’ said Laura, ‘but it is just as likely that his symbols of royalty were a crook and a flail. None of the three would be allowed in the consulting-room, neither are walking-sticks, umbrellas, a conductor’s baton or a Boy Scout’s staff. I could add to the list, but no doubt you get the drift.’ At a nod from Dame Beatrice, she seated herself between her employer and the patient and flipped open her notebook. Goodfellow looked sadly at Dame Beatrice.
‘But, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none,’ he said plaintively.
‘But you don’t need weapons here,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of — except your own sins.’
‘I am not afraid with any amazement. The angels are always talking to me about sins. What do you think?’
‘He that one sin in conscience keeps
When he to quiet goes —’’
‘But I haven’t got twenty mortal foes. You need twenty mortal foes to sleep among. It says so. ’
‘Poetic exaggeration.’
‘I don’t think I’ll stay any longer. I wish you well.’ He rose from his chair.
‘Give our love to the angels, ’ murmured Laura, going to the bell to notify the maid that the visitor was leaving. She accompanied him into the hall, took his hat from Polly, resurrected his heavy walking-stick and escorted him to the front door. She watched him get into the car. The last she heard was his voice raised in song, inspired, no doubt, by the driver’s surname. ‘ “So we’ll rant and we’ll roar, like true British sailors. We’ll rant and we’ll roar all on the high seas.” ’
The woman in the driver’s seat waved to Laura. Laura waved back, closed the door and returned to Dame Beatrice.
‘Funny sort of cuss,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry the Rants have got themselves mixed up with him.’
‘Let us hope it is but a passing phase. If he is staying at a hotel, doubtless he is only a bird of passage. Now, it will take that car almost an hour to get back to Abbots Crozier. Get Morpeth on the telephone. Find out what she knows about our caller.’
‘Caller? Yes, he hardly turned out to be a patient, did he? I wonder what his object was in coming here and talking all that rot?’
‘You do not think that the rather inexperienced sisters sent him to us simply because they thought he was in need of my help?’
‘Could be just that, I suppose, but I think there is more to it than that. I think this Goodfellow has scared them pretty badly and that they are asking help for themselves rather than for him.’
‘An interesting conjecture. Well, find out what Morpeth has to say.’
Morpeth was contrite and apologised several times during the telephone conversation.
‘I told Bryony we ought to have asked you before we sent you this rather awful man. He seems quite strange in the head. Bryony disagreed because she said she thought that, if we told you how crazy he is, you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him. We’ve had an awfully trying time the last few weeks. First there was Susan — you know, the woman who wished herself on us last year as unpaid kennel-maid. She asked for the job and we took her on, but now she keeps wanting us to get rid of poor Sekhmet.’
‘That Labrador you told us about?’
‘Yes, the poor, harmless, friendly creature. We wouldn’t dream of getting rid of her, but Susan won’t give up arguing.’
‘Sack her if she’s a nuisance. After all, it’s your dog, not hers.’
‘She says that, when Sekhmet comes into season, there is always the chance of a mésalliance with one of the Pharaohs, but I don’t see how that would matter. We would have to sell the puppies cheap or even give them away to good homes, that’s all, but Susan says an accidental mating could contaminate the Pharaoh stock. I can’t see how. It might be different if Isis or Nephthys had a litter by a male Labrador, but there’s no chance of that. We’re much too careful. What do you think?’
‘I haven’t a clue, except that I wouldn’t allow Susan to rule the roost.’
‘She isn’t our only trouble. We think we’ve got a prowler.’
‘That isn’t a pleasant thought. What about going to the police?’
‘I don’t think we’ve enough to go on.’
‘I don’t know so much. Those hounds of yours must be pretty valuable. You don’t want somebody poaching one of them and going off with it.’
‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that. We think it’s us he’s spying on and that, when he gets the opportunity, he will do us some harm.’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘He comes and taps on windows and then runs away. We’ve never seen him face to face, only as a shadow in the garden.’
‘What makes you afraid he means mischief?’
‘We think he may be from the unlucky family of those patients who died when our father was still alive. It’s left some nasty feeling in the village and there was a bit of a demonstration at father’s funeral.’
‘I certainly think that for you to go to the police is the answer.’
‘And have my father’s bad luck — because that is all it was — discussed all over again in open court? We’d rather die. Then, as though that wasn’t enough, this madman comes along and insists that we are doctors and must treat him. I’ll say again how terribly sorry we are to have burdened you with him, but he frightened us so much that Bryony said he must be mad and that Dame Beatrice was our only hope. I know we ought to have rung up and asked before Bryony brought him over to you, but — is she willing to treat him? He seemed very ready to go to her.’
‘I should have thought there was somebody nearer to you. Anyway, he didn’t stay long. I saw that Bryony had one of the hounds in the back of the car. Was that a precautionary measure?’
‘Yes, of course. We didn’t trust the man, but nobody would touch either of us while we were under the protection of Osiris.’
Laura rightly took it that Osiris was the guardian hound and not the god in person, although, as she said to Dame Beatrice later, with Morpeth you never knew.
‘Very wise to take him along, ’ she said over the telephone, ‘I suppose this man couldn’t also be your prowler?’
‘Oh, good gracious, no! At least, I do hope not. I’m sure the prowler is a villager who bears us a grudge because of father.’
‘Doctors make mistakes at times, but nobody thinks they intend to harm a patient.’
‘We’re not liked by the villagers. They don’t like the hounds, either.’
‘Well, if your prowler does any more window-tapping, you take my advice and call the police.’
‘What news from the hills?’ asked Dame Beatrice when Laura went back to her. Laura reported the conversation and it turned on to the subject of doctors as murderers. The names of Crippen, Buck Ruxton, Palmer, Pritchard and Lamson came up. Laura also spoke of a French physician born in Lyons, who, later, practised in Paris and was suspected of murdering wealthy women patients for their money or to cash in on life assurances he had taken out in their names.
The evergreen mystery of Charles Bravo’s death in 1877 at The Priory, a house in Balham, came into the conversation, although, as Dame Beatrice pointed out, if Charles Bravo was murdered by the administering of poison — tartar emetic among other things was mentioned — it was unlikely, on the evidence provided, to have been Dr Gully who was the criminal.
‘And, of course, Thomas Neill Cream studied medicine,’ said Laura, ‘and gave unfortunate girls drinks with “white stuff” in them. Then there was the Polish barber-surgeon Klosowski, who called himself George Chapman after he had parted from a young woman of that name. You don’t suppose somebody in the village got a bit fanciful and imaginative and spread it about that the Rants’ father knocked off a patient or two for gain, do you?’