“It is a carefully tested and widely approved preparation.”
“How carefully tested, doctor?”
For the first time, Dr Meadow’s bearing of dignified condescension showed signs of disturbance. He turned to the deputy coroner.
“I really cannot submit to this line of questioning on medical matters by a lay advocate. It is most improper.”
Dr Thompson, who had been enjoying the exchange between Meadow and Scorpe, made a non-committal pout.
“If Mr Scorpe,” added Dr Meadow, “is intent upon attaching sinister significance to every pill and powder taken by a man who has had the misfortune to fall into a reservoir, I suggest he looks into his late client’s devotion to self-medication.”
The solicitor made a gesture of huge reasonableness.
“By all means, doctor. Provided, of course, I am so invited by the learned coroner.”
Dr Thompson frowned. The description smacked of irony—but so did all descriptions in the mouth of the impossible Mr Scorpe.
“What had you in mind, doctor?” he asked, quietly.
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Winge indulged in quack remedies. I advised against them, naturally, but he tended to be headstrong in these matters.”
“Quack remedies?”
“Yes. Herbs—that sort of thing. His latest addiction, if I am not mistaken, was to something he called ‘Samson’s Salad’. He obtained supplies of it by mail order. Looked like compost.”
Purbright heard behind him a hoarse, indignant whispering. He looked round. Old Mrs Crunkinghorn was protesting about something or other to her neighbour, Fireman Hackett.
“May we have quiet, please!” commanded the deputy coroner, feeling by now thoroughly authoritative and ready to slap an odd witness or two into gaol for contempt if he got half a chance.
The disturbance died. Dr Thompson returned his attention to Dr Meadow.
“ ‘Samson’s Salad’, did you say, doctor? How very odd. Still, it is scarcely within the scope of this inquiry to speculate on the hypothetical effects of some hearsay vegetable. If Mr Scorpe has exhausted his catechism, I don’t think we need detain you any longer from your practice.”
Taking great care to look neither grateful nor relieved, Dr Meadow strolled casually from the court.
“And now, perhaps we should hear what Miss Bertha Pollock can tell us. Will you kindly call Miss Pollock, sergeant.”
Chapter Eight
Dead by misadventure. A poor sort of end for a member of fifteen committees. And yet precisely the same verdict would have been recorded on a famous explorer who had tumbled off a mountain peak. Not death by adventure. Perhaps that would sound too much like approval. No—misadventure.
Inspector Purbright, a few minutes early for an interview the next day with the Chief Constable, beguiled the time by thinking up as many as he could of Alderman Winge’s distinguished precursors. General Gordon...Casabianca...Custer... Donald Campbell...Shelley...
“Ah, there you are, Mr Purbright.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s all this they tell me about poor old Steven Winge? Shocking business.”
Mr Chubb laid his bowler hat carefully on the corner of his desk, peeled his gloves into it, and walked over to the fireplace.
“No, sit down, Mr Purbright, sit down.”
The inspector did so.
“It seems that we can dispense with the special night patrols now, sir. I think we’ve heard the last of the Flaxborough Crab.”
Mr Chubb frowned. “I do wish the newspapers would not coin these offensive catchwords. Mr Winge may have fallen from grace, as it were, but he had a very distinguished record, you know.”
“Well, versatile, certainly,” said Purbright, rather daringly.
The Chief Constable seemed not to hear.
“I’ve just been to a Rotary lunch, and Winge’s name did crop up in the course of conversation, as you might imagine. He’ll be missed, naturally.”
“No doubt, sir.”
“Very nasty for his wife, too, poor soul.”
The inspector did not look convinced. “My impression at the inquest was that she’s a very strong-minded woman. I think she’ll live this down quite quickly—possibly with the help of an action for damages against Dr Meadow.”
“Good gracious me! Whatever for? Against Meadow, you say?”
“Scorpe was representing her. And his questions to Heineman and Meadow were extremely pointed. I should say that Scorpe hopes to prove—or to suggest strongly enough to impress a court—that Winge’s behaviour was caused by his doctor’s faulty prescribing.”
“But that’s a very long shot, surely? As I understand it, people only sue doctors for leaving scissors and things inside them. Not for giving them medicine.”
“It depends on the nature of the medicine, sir. Mr Scorpe hinted that the drug given to Winge had not been properly tested and that Meadow didn’t know what effects it might have.”
“Ah, well, that is Meadow’s worry, not ours. These patrols, Mr Purbright—you’re quite happy about our dropping them now, are you?”
“Aren’t you, sir?”
“Oh, certainly—so long as you are convinced that poor Winge was responsible for all those unfortunate incidents.”
“I think there can be no reasonable doubt, sir. The behaviour pattern was identical in every case.”
“You don’t think you ought to check back, as it were? Check each incident, I mean, against Winge’s availability at the time?”
Purbright recognized in the suggestion one of those fairly rare instances of Mr Chubb’s choosing to show himself much more intelligent than most people thought. Nevertheless, he shook his head.
“The man will not be accused officially of any of these things, sir, so there is no question of a miscarriage of justice. In any case, reluctance to speak ill of the dead is very strong in a place like Flaxborough—as you must have noticed yourself, sir. Loyalty of that kind does tend to make memories somewhat unreliable.”
The Chief Constable, Rotarianly sensible of what Purbright was getting at, made no comment.
“Even the living are spared on occasion,” Purbright added. “You may remember, sir, what the girl Brenda Sweeting said about the man who attacked her. She was sure that Dr Meadow could have identified him. I think so, too. I think he recognized Alderman Winge, an old and valuable patient, whom he let go and pretended later not to have seen.”
“Ah, but we cannot make an accusation of that kind, Mr Purbright. Not without incontrovertible proof. Compounding a felony... Well, I mean that is what it would amount to.”
“Yes, it would, sir,” said Purbright, simply. “And I don’t think it’s too harsh a name for behaviour that was calculated to put more women in danger.”
“Perhaps it is as well,” said Mr Chubb, after some thought, “that things took the turn they did. Strange, how these little mishaps sometimes prove to be blessings in disguise.”