p; “Is it? After all, a doctor must come across so many queer characters. He would be better able to detect—for instance—the signs of homicidal mania—in an early stage—before it’s noticeable.”
Thomas said rather irritably:
“You have the general layman’s idea of a homicidal maniac—a man who runs amok with a knife, a man more or less foaming at the mouth. Let me tell you a homicidal lunatic may be the most difficult thing on this earth to spot. To all seeming he may be exactly like everyone else—a man, perhaps, who is easily frightened—who may tell you, perhaps, that he has enemies. No more than that. A quiet, inoffensive fellow.”
“Is that really so?”
“Of course it’s so. A homicidal lunatic often kills (as he thinks) in self-defence. But of course a lot of killers are ordinary sane fellows like you and me.”
“Doctor, you alarm me! Fancy if you should discover later that I have five or six nice quiet little killings to my credit.”
Dr. Thomas smiled.
“I don’t think it’s very likely, Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
“Don’t you? I’ll return the compliment. I don’t believe you’ve got five or six murders to your credit either.”
Dr. Thomas said cheerfully:
“You’re not counting my professional failures.”
Both men laughed.
Luke got up and said good-bye.
“I’m afraid I’ve taken up a lot of your time,” he said apologetically.
“Oh, I’m not busy. Wychwood is a pretty healthy place. It’s a pleasure to have a talk with someone from the outside world.”
“I was wondering—” said Luke and stopped.
“Yes?”
“Miss Conway told me when she sent me to you what a very—well—what a first-class man you were. I wondered if you didn’t feel rather buried down here? Not much opportunity for talent.”
“Oh, general practice is a good beginning. It’s valuable experience.”
“But you won’t be content to stay in a rut all your life? Your late partner, Dr. Humbleby, was an unambitious fellow, so I’ve heard—quite content with his practice here. He’d been here for a good many years, I believe?”
“Practically a lifetime.”
“He was sound but old-fashioned, so I hear.”
Dr. Thomas said:
“At times he was difficult…Very suspicious of modern innovations, but a good example of the old school of physicians.”
“Left a very pretty daughter, I’m told,” said Luke in jocular fashion.
He had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Thomas’s pale pink countenance go a deep scarlet.
“Oh—er—yes,” he said.
Luke gazed at him kindly. He was pleased at the prospect of erasing Dr. Thomas from his list of suspected persons.
The latter recovered his normal hue and said abruptly:
“Talking about crime just now, I can lend you rather a good book as you are interested in the subject! Translation from the German. Kreuzhammer on Inferiority and Crime.”
“Thank you,” said Luke.
Dr. Thomas ran his finger along a shelf and drew out the book in question.
“Here you are. Some of the theories are rather startling—and of course they are only theories, but they are interesting. The early life of Menzheld, for instance, the Frankfurt butcher, as they called him, and the chapter on Anna Helm, the little nursemaid killer, are really extremely interesting.”
“She killed about a dozen of her charges before the authorities tumbled to it, I believe,” said Luke.
Dr. Thomas nodded.
“Yes. She had a most sympathetic personality—devoted to children—and apparently quite genuinely heartbroken at each death. The psychology is amazing.”
“Amazing how these people get away with it,” said Luke.
He was on the doorstep now. Dr. Thomas had come out with him.
“Not amazing really,” said Dr. Thomas. “It’s quite easy, you know.”
“What is?”
“To get away with it.” He was smiling again—a charming, boyish smile. “If you’re careful. One just has to be careful—that’s all! But a clever man is extremely careful not to make a slip. That’s all there is to it.”
He smiled and went into the house.
Luke stood staring up the steps.
There had been something condescending in the doctor’s smile. Throughout their conversation Luke had been conscious of himself as a man of full maturity and of Dr. Thomas as a youthful and ingenuous young man.
Just for a moment he felt the rôles reversed. The doctor’s smile had been that of a grown-up amused by the cleverness of a child.
Nine
MRS. PIERCE TALKS
In the little shop in the High Street Luke had bought a tin of cigarettes and today’s copy of Good Cheer, the enterprising little weekly which provided Lord Whitfield with a good portion of his substantial income. Turning to the football competition, Luke, with a groan, gave forth the information that he had just failed to win a hundred and twenty pounds. Mrs. Pierce was roused at once to sympathy and explained similar disappointments on the part of her husband. Friendly relations thus established, Luke found no difficulty in prolonging the conversation.
“A great interest in football Mr. Pierce takes,” said Mr. Pierce’s spouse. “Turns to it first of all in the news, he does. And as I say, many a disappointment he’s had, but there, everybody can’t win, that’s what I say, and what I say is you can’t go against luck.”
Luke concurred heartily in these sentiments, and proceeded to advance by an easy transition to a further profound statement that troubles never come singly.
“Ah, no, indeed, sir, that I do know.” Mrs. Pierce sighed. “And when a woman has a husband and eight children—six living and buried two, that is—well, she knows what trouble is, as you may say.”
“I suppose she does—oh, undoubtedly,” said Luke. “You’ve—er—buried two, you say?”
“One no longer than a month ago,” said Mrs. Pierce with a kind of melancholy enjoyment.
“Dear me, very sad.”
“It wasn’t only sad, sir. It was a shock—that’s what it was, a shock! I came all over queer, I did, when they broke it to me. Never having expected anything of that kind to happen to Tommy, as you might say, for when a boy’s a trouble to you it doesn’t come natural to think of him being took. Now my Emma Jane, a sweet little mite she was. ‘You’ll never rear her.’ That’s what they said. ‘She’s too good to live.’ And it was true, sir. The Lord knows His own.”
Luke acknowledged the sentiment and strove to return from the subject of the saintly Emma Jane to that of the less saintly Tommy.
“Your boy died quite recently?” he said. “An accident?”
“An accident it was, sir. Cleaning the windows of the old Hall, which is now the library, and he must have lost his balance and fell—from the top windows, that was.”
Mrs. Pierce expatiated at some length on all the details of the accident.
“Wasn’t there some story,” said Luke carelessly, “of his having been seen dancing on the windowsill?”
Mrs. Pierce said that boys would be boys—but no doubt it did give the major a turn, him being a fussy gentleman.
“Major Horton?”
“Yes, sir, the gentleman with the bulldogs. After the accident happened he chanced to mention having seen our Tommy acting very rash-like—and of course it does show that if something sudden had startled him he would have fallen easy enough. High spirits, sir, that was Tommy’s trouble. A sore trial he’s been to me in many ways,” she finished, “but there it was, just high spirits—nothing but high spirits—such as any lad might have. There wasn’t no real harm in him, as you might say.”
“No, no—I’m sure there wasn’t, but sometimes, you know, Mrs. Pierce, people—sober middle-aged people—find it hard to remember they’ve ever been young themselves.”
Mrs. Pierce sighed.
“Very true those words are, sir.
I can’t help but hoping that some gentlemen I could name but won’t will have taken it to heart the way they were hard upon the lad—just on account of his high spirits.”
“Played a few tricks upon his employers, did he?” asked Luke with an indulgent smile.
Mrs. Pierce responded immediately.
“It was just his fun, sir, that was all. Tommy was always good at imitations. Make us hold our sides with laughing the way he’d mince about pretending to be that Mr. Ellsworthy at the curio shop—or old Mr. Hobbs, the churchwarden—and he was imitating his lordship up at the manor and the two under-gardeners laughing, when up came his lordship quiet-like and gave Tommy the sack on the spot—and naturally that was only to be expected, and quite right, and his lordship didn’t bear malice afterwards, and helped Tommy to get another job.”
“But other people weren’t so magnanimous, eh?” said Luke.
“That they were not, sir. Naming no names. And you’d never think it with Mr. Abbot, so pleasant in his manner and always a kind word or a joke.”
“Tommy got into trouble with him?”
Mrs. Pierce said:
“It’s not, I’m sure, that the boy meant any harm…And after all, if papers are private and not meant to be looked at, they shouldn’t be laid out on a table—that’s what I say.”
“Oh, quite,” said Luke. “Private papers in a lawyer’s office ought to be kept in the safe.”
“That’s right, sir. That’s what I think, and Mr. Pierce he agrees with me. It’s not even as though Tommy had read much of it.”
“What was it—a will?” asked Luke.
He judged (probably rightly) that a question as to what the document in question had been might make Mrs. Pierce halt. But this direct question brought an instant response.
“Oh, no, sir, nothing of that kind. Nothing really important. Just a private letter it was—from a lady—and Tommy didn’t even see who the lady was. All such a fuss about nothing—that’s what I say.”
“Mr. Abbot must be the sort of man who takes offence very easily,” said Luke.