The Flaxborough Crab f-6

by Colin Watson

  “British Medical Journal! Yes, that was it. I’m sure it was.”

  “Good girl,” said Purbright. He pulled open the door himself and stepped through.

  Sergeant Malley, gingerly carrying a brimful mug of tea from the canteen back to his office, raised his head to see Purbright immediately in front of him. He stopped. A little of the tea slopped on the corridor floor. The inspector was looking so cheerful that Malley had to remind himself that Purbright was not by nature a rib-poker before he felt safe to squeeze to one side and give him room to pass.

  “Oh, about Meadow...” he began.

  “Have they done the autopsy yet?” the inspector interrupted eagerly.

  “Autopsy?”

  “Certainly. Have you not seen Heineman yet?”

  Malley gripped his mug more firmly. “I have, as a matter of fact. Thompson, too. And Dr James. There isn’t going to be any autopsy.”

  Purbright stared. “What the hell are they playing at?”

  “Thompson’s decided that there’s no need for an inquest. James signed a certificate, so it looks as though that’s that.”

  “That is bloody well not that! Come on, Bill—get into your office. I’ll phone from there.”

  Dr Thompson had left Sparrow, Sparrow and Amblesby. Purbright tried the deputy coroner’s own home. Mrs Thompson suggested the doctor might have driven over to the hospital. He had his medical duties to perform as well, the inspector would realize. She plainly shared her husband’s opinion that the honour of deputizing for old Amblesby was not worth the trouble involved.

  The matron at the General said that Dr Thompson had gone on the wards to visit one of his patients. She would have him called to a telephone.

  Purbright waited restlessly, weighing the receiver in his hand.

  “I know what it is,” he said to Malley. “Doctors. Mutual protection association.”

  The sergeant pushed his tea carefully to one side to make room for a tin of tobacco.

  “I think you’ll find Heineman’s the trouble. The G.P.S don’t like pathologists much anyway—they spot the mistakes after the damage has been done—and Heinie’s an outsider. He’s only been here eleven years. You can imagine what the feeling is going to be when it’s not just a patient but one of the fraternity who goes on his slab.”

  “Aye, but Meadow was murdered, Bill. I’m absolutely positive now.”

  Malley paused in sniffing his newly opened tin.

  “How?”

  “God knows. That’s the hell of it. But it was done. Somehow or other it was done.”

  “And do you know who did it?” Beneath. Malley’s bucolic manner was now a tense seriousness.

  “Aye,” said Purbright, and left it at that.

  A series of loud clicks came from the phone, followed by a voice, querulous, irritable.

  Purbright spoke.

  “Dr Thompson? Inspector Purbright... Yes, I realize that. I’m sorry. But this is urgent. I understand from the coroner’s officer that you have decided against holding an inquest on Dr Meadow...”

  Four minutes later, Purbright put down the receiver and faced Malley with an expression of stony anger.

  The sergeant removed his pipe and glanced with mild curiosity into the bowl.

  “No joy?”

  “He can see no reason for what he calls impugning the judgment of a competent and highly respected physician. That’s what he thinks his order for a P.M. would amount to.”

  Malley took an experimental suck at his pipe and looked again in the bowl. “I was rather afraid you’d not be able to convince him.”

  “Evidence—give me evidence, he says, that a crime’s been committed. But, God almighty, the only evidence we can ever hope to find is in that bloke’s belly. So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Difficult,” said Malley, between puffs. “Pity there can’t be a little misunderstanding. I mean, Heinie would be in there filleting before anyone could stop him, once he got the word...”

  “Oh, no!” Purbright held up his hand. “You can stop thinking along those lines, Bill. Pirate autopsies are definitely out.”

  “What are you going to do, then?”

  Purbright lay back in his chair and stared disconsolately at the wall. For a long time, he said nothing. What he did murmur at last made sense neither to the sergeant nor to himself.

  “ ‘The fur is darker’.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I believe you have a Mr Brennan staying here, I should like to see him, please.”

  The girl with the black fringe and a deep absorption in a magazine reached in slow motion for the house phone without looking up. “What name, madam?”

  “Mr Brennan.”

  “No, madam—your name.”

  “My name is Miss Teatime.”

  The girl set a plump white finger-end to guard the last word she had read, and peeked suspiciously through her fringe. Then, with the same hand that held the phone, she contrived to push home one of the switchboard plugs.

  “There’s a lady in reception to see you, sir. She says her name is Miss Teatime.”

  The girl listened, looking fixedly at the visitor.

  “Very good, sir.”

  She removed the plug, seated the phone, and made rendezvous with the waiting finger.

  “Room twenty-seven, madam.”

  Miss Teatime walked to the lift.

  On the second floor, the door of twenty-seven already stood open.

  Brennan, who now wore a brown suit that made him look bulkier than when she had seen him last, was on the threshold. He watched Miss Teatime’s approach along the corridor with an expression of curiosity, interrupted occasionally by a downward glance at the progress of something he was doing with his hands. As she got nearer, she saw that he was peeling an apple. He managed it very expertly so that the peel hung unbroken in a long green and white spiral which gently rose and fell as the apple turned beneath the knife.

  “Good evening, Mr Brennan.”

  He made a short bow, saying nothing, and stood back from the doorway.

  Miss Teatime entered the room.

  “We have met, you know.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  He let fall the appleskin coil neatly into an ornamental waste-paper tub beside the fireplace. The pocketing of the penknife was the conclusion of a single sweeping motion that brought the back of the blade against his thigh, snapping it shut. All his actions, Miss Teatime thought, would be like that—accurate, economical.

  “Please...” He pointed to a chair.

  She sat. Brennan remained standing by the table, on which he had laid his peeled apple on a saucer. He regarded her with polite expectancy.

  As Miss Teatime removed a pair of light fawn gloves, she made a quick survey of the room; not inquisitively, but in the manner of a well-bred guest sizing up an agreeable situation. She saw that it was not a self-contained room, with a bed, like most of those at the Roebuck, but one from which two doors led to other apartments, presumably bathroom and bedroom. The carpet, a blue Wilton, was comparatively new, and the furniture included an antique lacquered cabinet, a pair of good chairs and a small bureau in reproduction Chippendale style. A big console television set supervised the room from one corner. By Flaxborough standards, it was all rather grand.

  “And what can I do for you, Miss Teatime?”

  She turned upon him her full attention, graced with a friendly smile.

  “My errand will probably surprise you, but the fact is that I have come to make application for a grant.”

  He frowned. “I don’t think I quite...”

  “No, of course not. You cannot be expected to understand until I tell you who I am, can you? I am, so to speak, Moldham Meres Laboratories. That is to say, I am the company’s managing director—not,” she added hastily, “that I would like you to think of me as a tycoon or anything of that kind; we are a small and highly specialized concern, and it just happens that major responsibility has fallen upon me because o
f my long experience—through social work, you know—of the needs of elderly people. I do not need to remind you, of course, that the geriatric field is the area to which Moldham Meres Laboratories make particular contribution.”

  “I can scarcely be reminded,” said Brennan, “of something I wasn’t aware of in the first place. I’m afraid I have never heard of these laboratories of yours.”

  Miss Teatime looked shocked, but only for an instant. She good-humouredly wagged an admonitory finger.

  “Now, Mr Brennan, we must not allow commercial rivalry to dictate our attitudes, must we? Human welfare is our common concern. Let us not pretend blindness to each other’s existence as workers towards that end.”

  “I have not heard of your firm,” Brennan repeated. “And I am at a loss to understand what you said earlier about your purpose in coming to see me. A grant? What grant? How can you imagine that I have anything to do with grants?”

  “You are the representative,” Miss Teatime resumed patiently, “of the West German drug house of Elixon, are you not?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And Elixon entertain high hopes that the product they allow to be made under licence here and marketed as ‘Juniform’ will prove a very valuable aid to geriatrician’s.”

  “I would rather not discuss my firm’s products otherwise than with professional people, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, but I am not discussing them. I stated a fact which I assume to be available to anyone who cares to read the medical press.”

  “Is that where you heard about ‘Juniform’?”

  “No.”

  “Where, then?”

  “You forget, Mr Brennan. We are fellow toilers in the vine-yard of human advancement. The only difference is that whereas your remedies are drawn from the retort and the centrifuge, mine rise directly from the earth.”

  “Very picturesque.”

  “Yes, but allow me to continue what I was saying. This ‘Juniform’, if it lived up to its promise, could be a tremendously significant drug. As I understand your firm’s admirably restrained claims, ‘Juniform’ actually holds back the effects of old age.”

  “That is nowhere stated by us.”

  “Not in those words, perhaps. ‘Inhibits the onset of cellular modifications associated with the ageing process.’ That seems to me to be very much the same thing. No matter—what your firm is offering is nothing more or less than a modern version of the great prize sought by the ancients, the Elixir of Life. I’m sorry—am I being picturesque again?”

  “You are employing a silly and sensational catchphrase.”

  “Solely to illustrate my point that ‘Juniform’ has sensational commercial possibilities. Always provided”—she put her fingertips together and regarded them critically—“that it produces no nasty side-effects.”

  Brennan, who had remained standing in exactly the same position since Miss Teatime’s arrival in the room, took out and slickly opened his penknife. He picked up the apple, which was already brown-mottled by exposure, and with a deft, twisting incision, levered a piece out and carried it between thumb and knife blade to his mouth.

  Miss Teatime was interested to see that he could eat with scarcely any overt jaw movement. She wondered if, instead of using his teeth, he had acquired the ability to crush food between his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

  “Oh, but I must not frighten you with talk of side-effects. I know they are bound to be a constant nightmare for you pharmaceutical people, and I do sympathize with you. Well, I know what I should feel if we began to receive complaints at Moldham Meres that people had been taken ill after using our products.”

  Brennan cut away another piece of apple. There was a slightly more savage turn of the twist this time. He remained silent.

  “To tell you the truth,” Miss Teatime continued in a lowered voice, “and quite in confidence between ourselves, there have been one or two cases lately that give me concern. A somewhat curious illness has afflicted several of our customers. Moreover”—her voice fell still further—“there has been publicity. You may well imagine how damaging that can be.

  “The odd thing is that every one of these unfortunate customers of ours happens, or happened (one of them has died, I fear), to be also a taker of ‘Juniform’. This doubtless is pure coincidence, but it may serve to help you appreciate my firm’s predicament. I mean, it does bring you closer to the problem, does it not?”

  She frowned. “Now, what was the other strange coincidence I meant to mention? Ah, yes—this illness. Do you know, it is exactly similar—or so I am reliably informed—to one that has been reported in a couple of Continental countries. And yet Moldham Meres Laboratories do not sell any of their products in Europe. I find that comforting, I must say, but it is rather mysterious.”

  The apple was now sculpted down to its core. Brennan regarded the remnant pensively for a moment, then placed it on the saucer.

  “And why are you telling me all this?” He spoke with tight, cold precision.

  “Because I dared to hope that you might be interested in the problem as a colleague.”

  “That is nonsense. What have I to do with this...this nature cure chicanery?”

  “Let us not use harsh words, Mr Brennan. I am simply giving you an opportunity to use your influence with a very worthy organization towards an equally worthy end.”

  “Again nonsense! My dear woman, if you imagine...”

  “Please do not tell me,” Miss Teatime interrupted firmly, “that you are unaware of the existence of C.I.R.F.”

  “And what is that pray?” Behind the hard, sardonic tone, there was a hint of caution.

  “The Chemo-therapy International Research Foundation, Mr Brennan.”

  “Ye-es, I have heard of it.”

  “You should have done. It happens to be the creation of your own firm, by which it continues to be financed.”

  “What of it?”

  “The funds of C.I.R.F.—and please correct me if I am wrong to believe them substantial—are used to finance clinical trials of new drugs. They are supposed to be administered impartially, and I am sure they are, but the only trials of which I have personal knowledge are those which Dr Meadow—the late Dr Meadow, rather—conducted on ‘Juniform’. Dr Meadow received grants from the Foundation totalling nearly six thousand pounds. It was money well spent, of course, because it enabled him to establish that the drug was not only efficacious but completely harmless. His findings were published in the medical press and went into the sales literature of Elixon to be distributed all over the world.”

  Brennan walked slowly to a chair and sat down. He did not take his eyes off her, nor, even when seated, did he relax the military stiffness of his back and shoulders.

  “Go on, Miss Teatime.”

  She nodded and gave him a benign smile.

  “How fortunate that poor Dr Meadow was spared to complete his work in time. But now, alas, he has gone, and one might almost say that a vacancy has arisen in consequence.”

  “A vacancy?”

  “Yes—in relation to the availability of C.I.R.F. funds, I mean. Forgive my being forthright—presumptuous, I fear, was my father’s word for it—Sir William Teatime, the surgeon, you know—but it did occur to me that a research grant might appropriately be made to Moldham Meres Laboratories, in view of the parallel nature of our work in geriatrics. After all”—Miss Teatime gave a little shrug of sweet reasonableness—“my firm did receive the blame for those regrettable cases of indisposition which might just as well have been caused by ‘Juniform’, despite Dr Meadow’s vigilance.”

  For a long time Brennan’s square, sombre face remained quite motionless while he stared unblinkingly at Miss Teatime. Then he gave a curt nod, as if he had just made up his mind about something, and examined his hands, slowly bending and unbending the stubby, powerful fingers.

  “When you came in here,” he said, “I thought you were a crazy but harmless old woman...”

  “That was a most
ungentlemanly impression!”

  Brennan ignored the interruption. “...but I see now that you are clever and far from harmless. It is obvious that you have been making a lot of inquiries into matters which cannot be said to concern you. You think you have found things out which will embarrass me or the firm I represent. Perhaps—and I shall put it no more strongly than this, out of respect for your age and sex—you are hopeful of financial gain.”

  “Perish,” stoutly interjected Miss Teatime, “the thought!”

  “Ah, I am glad to hear you say so. Because, believe me, you will be damnably disappointed”—his voice suddenly rose to a shout—“damnably disappointed, I say!—if you imagine that I will tolerate, let alone succumb to, any threat from you!”