“Where is Slater, young woman?” Dr. Appleton demanded. He had a voice like a gnome’s, too — high and clear, a piping sort of voice with a snap in it.
“He’s up in his room, Doctor,” said Prin, “as I told you over the phone.”
“So you did,” piped Dr. Appleton nastily, “and it’s awfully queer. Slater’s keeling over like this, I mean. Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that! Go see for yourself, Dr. Appleton. That’s why I called you. Aunt Lallie and Peet and Twig and my brother Brady are in the living room. Do you want them?”
“Good God, no. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s relatives of dead patients. Who found Slater?”
“I did.”
“Did you touch him?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“The only other one who’s looked at Uncle Slater was my brother, who went upstairs after I came down. And I’m sure Brady didn’t get farther than the doorway. He’s one of those tough, rugged lads who faint at the sight of their own blood.”
“You’d better come along with me.”
Prin dutifully followed Dr. Appleton upstairs to Uncle Slater’s room. Brady had left the door open, and the doctor went briskly in. Prin hesitated; she would much have preferred to stay in the hall. But she supposed Dr. Appleton needed her to answer questions or something, so she followed him into the bedroom. And there was Uncle Slater, lying on the floor exactly as she had left him, which for some reason was rather a shock. Dr. Appleton was just getting down on his knees. He rolled Uncle Slater over, felt the temple where Uncle Slater used to have a pulse, thumbed up Uncle Slater’s eyelids and peered, opened his black bag and took out his stethoscope and listened here and there; finally he got to his feet and stuck the stethoscope in his hip pocket, so that it hung down in a loop under his seat.
“He’s dead, all right.”
“Well,” said Prin. “That’s settled.”
“And,” the doctor went on thoughtfully, “it’s damned odd.”
“Odd?” Prin said. “What’s odd about it, Doctor? People — especially people Uncle Slater’s age — die all the time.”
“Not for no apparent reason.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake, Doctor, I’m no doctor and even I know that. His heart stopped.”
“Agreed,” snapped the little old doctor. “I’ve never known a dead man whose heart kept on beating.”
Prin blushed. “What I meant, Dr. Appleton, was that Uncle Slater must have had a heart attack.”
“That,” said Dr. Appleton in a very queer way, “is questionable.”
“But why?” Prin cried, bewildered.
“Because Slater O’Shea has come to my office for regular checkups every six months since he married Millie Quimby. I have a file on him a foot thick, including electrocardiograms. I last examined him no later than a week or ten days ago. He had a heart like a bull and the blood pressure of a young man. There’s never been the slightest indication of a coronary condition, incipient or otherwise.”
“But, but,” said Prin, “couldn’t he have had a heart attack, anyway? Or couldn’t there have been something wrong that you missed?”
“Possible,” said Dr. Appleton frostily, “and no doubt it would be convenient to think so. But I don’t. There wasn’t a thing wrong with your Uncle Slater except a very slight kidney condition from his drinking.”
“But you’ve got to put something down on the death certificate, Doctor. What are you going to do?”
“What I am going to do,” piped the little doctor, “is call the police.”
He motioned her peremptorily to precede him, and Prin did so. She noticed that he removed the key from the room side of the door and moved the little doo-jigger by the knob into the lock position before he shut it. Then he tucked the key away in his vest pocket. Prin frowned. It seemed to her that Dr. Appleton was making a great deal more of Uncle Slater’s death than needed to be made of it. It was her private opinion that Horace Appleton was the kind of doctor who might miss a case of leprosy in a routine check, let alone a leaky valve or a thrombus or something like that. There was nothing to be gained by saying this, however, so she silently went downstairs with him. The family was in conclave, whispering. It immediately became a public hearing as the doughty old physician stalked into the living room.
Little do they know, Prin thought.
“Dr. Appleton,” Aunt Lallie said, addressing a point three feet above his head, “have you examined my brother Slater?”
“I have,” said Dr. Appleton.
“What is your professional opinion?”
“My professional opinion is that he’s dead.”
“Oh, dear,” said Aunt Lallie, as if this was what she had been afraid of all along.
“Did Uncle Slater just die?” asked Peet. “Or did he die of something?”
“I don’t know,” said Dr. Appleton, adding grimly, “yet.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” demanded Twig. “Are you a doctor or aren’t you?”
“I sometimes wonder.”
“What the doctor means,” explained Prin, “is that he won’t be able to tell until there’s an autopsy, so he’s going to call the police.”
“Police!” Brother Brady whirled from the bar as if he already felt the first surge of high voltage. “What do you want to do that for?”
“So he’ll get his name in the papers,” said Twig.
“Maybe me, too,” said his sister, clapping her hands.
“Peet, stop,” said Aunt Lallie. “Doctor, I insist on knowing this very instant what you have in your mind!”
“It’s not so much what I have in my mind,” said the doctor, looking almost as if he were beginning to enjoy himself, “as to what your brother may have in his belly.”
“His belly,” said Brother Brady.
“His belly?” said Cousin Twig.
“His... belly?” echoed Aunt Lallie faintly.
“Please,” said Peet. “Must you use such words?”
“Doctor,” said Prin, looking sick. “Do you mean that Uncle Slater might have died of — of being given something?”
“Might have,” said Dr. Appleton, looking around as if inviting more questions. “Just might have.”
“Ridiculous,” said Brady. He groped for his drink.
“Stupid,” said Twig. “The only thing you’ll find in his belly is bourbon or Irish whisky, or more likely both.”
“Will somebody please tell me what an autopsy is?” asked Peet. “I don’t think I really know.”
“An autopsy,” said Brady, swallowing, “is when they cut somebody open and poke around to see what’s in there.”
“They only do it to dead people,” said Twig, sounding as if he would have felt far happier with a more liberal policy on the part of the authorities.
“How perfectly icky,” said Peet. “I’m against doing a thing like that to Uncle Slater.”
“I’m against it, too,” said Brady quickly. “You, Twig?”
Twig turned a splayed thumb down.
“Well, so am I,” said Aunt Lallie sharply. “As Slater’s next of kin, I definitely will not permit it.”
“Madam,” said little Dr. Appleton, “and ladies and gentlemen, I’m for it; and in this case, I think, none of you will have a damned thing to say about it.”
With which he went out into the hall to the phone. They heard him dial, and then talk, presumably to a policeman. Peet had just said that she didn’t believe she liked Dr. Appleton very much, to which Brady had muttered that he didn’t like Dr. Appleton at all, when the doorbell rang. Everyone looked at Prin. So she went out past Dr. Appleton and opened the front door; she was instantly glad that she was the one who had to do it, for there, across the threshold, stood Coley Collins.