By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy & Tuppence 4)

He went to the desk, turned over a ledger, scrawled something on a card and brought it back.

'There you are, Tommy,' he said. 'I don't know what the deep dark mystery is. Always been a man of mystery, haven't you? It's a nice representation of Boscowan's work you've got there. We might like to use it for the show. I'll send you a line to remind you nearer the time.'

'You don't know a Mrs Lancaster, do you?'

'Well, I can't think of one off-hand. Is she an artist or something of the kind?'

'No, I don't think so. She's just an old lady living for the last few years in an old ladies' home. She comes into it because this picture belonged to her until she gave it away to an aunt of mine.'

'Well I can't say the name means anything to me. Better go and talk to Mrs Boscowan.'

'What's she like?'

'She was a good bit younger than he was, I should say. Quite a personality.' He nodded his head once or twice. 'Yes, quite a personality. You'll fred that out I expect.'

He took the picture, handed it down the staircase with instructions to someone below to do it up again.

'Nice for you having so many myrmidons at your beck and call,' said Tommy.

He looked round him, noticing his sunundings for the first 'What's this you've got here now?' he said with distaste.

'Paul Jaggerowsld - Interesting young Slav. Said to produce all his works under the influence of drugs - Don't you like him?'

Tommy concentrated his gaze on a big string bag which seemed to'have enmeshed itself in s metallic green field full of distorted cows.

'Frankly, no.'

'Philistine,' said Robert. 'Come out and have a bite of lunch.' 'Can't. I've got a meeting with a doctor at my club.' 'Not ill, are you?'

'I'm in the best of health. My blood pressure is so good that it disappoints every doctor to whom I submit it.'

'Then what do you want to see a doctor for?'

'Oh,' said Tommy cheerfully - I've just got to see a doctor about a body. Thanks for your help. Goodbye.' Il Tommy greeted Dr Murray with some curiosity - He presumed it was some formal matter to do with Aunt Ada's decease, but why on earth Dr Murray would not at least mention the subject of his visit over the telephone, Tommy couldn't imagine.

'I'm afraid I'm a little late,' said Dr Murray, shaking hands, 'but the traffic was pretty bad and I wasn't exactly sure of the locality. I don't know this part of London very well.'

'Well, too bad you had to come all the way here,' said Tommy. 'I could have met you somewhere more convenient, you know.'

'You've time on your hands then just now?' 'Just at the moment, yes. I've been away for the last week.' 'Yes, I believe someone told me so when I.rang up.' Tommy indicated a chair, suggested refreshment, placed cigarettes and matches by Dr Murray's side. When the two men had established themselves comfortably Dr Murray opened the conversation.

'I'm sure I've aroused your curiosity,' he said, 'but as a matter of fact we're in a spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge. It's a difficult and perplexing matter and in one way it's nothing to do with you. I've no earthly right to trouble you with it but there's just an off chance that you might know something which would help me.'

'Well, of course, I'll do anything I can. Something to do with my aunt, Miss Fanshawe?'

'Not directly, no. But in a way she does come into it. I can speak to you in confidence, can't I, Mr Beresford?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'As a matter of fact I was talking the other day to a mutual friend of ours. He was telling me a few things about you. I gather that in the last war you had rather a delicate assignment.'

'Oh, I wouldn't put it quite as seriously as that,' said Tommy, in his most non-committal manner.

'Oh no, I quite realize that it's not a thing to be talked about.'

'I don't really think that matters nowadays. It's a good long time since the war. My wife and I were younger then.'

'Anyway, it's nothing to do with'that, that I want to talk to you about, but at least I feel that I can speak frankly to you, that I can trust you not to repeat what I am now saying, though it's possible that it all may have to come out later.'

'A spot of trouble at Sunny Ridge, you say?'

'Yes. Not very long ago one of our patients died. A Mrs Moody. I don't know if you ever met her or if your aunt ever talked about her.'

'Mrs Moody?' Tommy reflected. 'No, I don't think so.

Anyway, not so far as I remember.'

'She was not one of our older patients. She was still on the right side of seventy and she was not seriously ill in any way. It was just a case of a woman with no near relatives and no one to look after her in the domestic line. She fell into the category of what I often call to myself a flutterer. Women who more and more resemble hens as they grow older. They cluck. They forget things. They run themselves into difficulties and they worry. They get themselves wrought up about nothing at all.

There is very little the matter with them. They are not strictly speaking mentally disturbed.'

'But they just cluck,' Tommy suggested. 'As you say. Mrs Moody clucked. She caused the nurses a fair amount of trouble although they were quite fond of her.

She had a habit of forgetting when she'd had her meals, mairlng a fuss because no dinner had been served to her when as a matter of fact she had actually just eaten a very good dinner.' 'Oh,' said Tommy, enlightened, 'Mrs Cocoa.' 'I beg your pardon?'

'I'm sorry,' said Tommy, 'it's a name my wife and I had for her. She was yelling for Nurse Jane one day when we passed along the passage and saying she hadn't had her cocoa. Rather a nice=lookiug scatty little woman. But it made us both laugh, and we fell into the habit of calllng her Mrs Cocoa. And so she's died.'

'I wasn't particularly surprised when the death happened,' said Dr Murray. 'To be able to prophesy with any exactitude when elderly women will die is practically impossible. Women whose health is seriously affected, who, one feels as a result of physical examination, will hardly last the year out, sometimes are good for another ten years. They have a tenacious hold on life which mere physical disability will not quench. There are other people whose health is reasonably good and who may, one thinks, make old bones. They on the other hand, catch bronchitis, or 'flu, seem unable to have the stamina to recuperate from it, and die with surprising ease. So, as I say, as a medical attendant to an eldefly ladies' home, I am not surprised when what might be called a fairly unexpected death occurs. This case of Mrs Moody, however, was somewhat different. She died in her sleep without having exhibited any sign of illness and I could not help feeling that in my opinion her death was unexpected. I will use the phrase that has always intrigued me in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. I have always wondered what Macbeth meant when he said of his wife, "She should have died hereafter."'

'Yes, I remember wondering once myself what Shakespeare was getting at,' said Tommy. 'I forget whose production it was and who was playing Macbeth, but there was a strong suggestion in that particular production, and Macbeth cer-tainly played it in a way to suggest that he was hinting to the medical attendant that Lady Macbeth would be better out of the way. Presumably the medical attendant took the hint. It was then that Macbeth, feeling safe after his wife's death, feeling that she could no longer damage him by her indiscr

etions or her rapidly failing mind, expresses his genuine affection and grief for her. "She should have died hereafter."' 'Exactly,' said Dr Murray. 'It is what I felt about Mrs Moody. I felt that she should have died hereafter. Not just three weeks ago of no apparent cause ' Tommy did not reply. He merely looked at the doctor inquiringly.

'Medical men have certain problems. If you are puzzled over the cause of a patient's death there is only one sure way to tell.

By a post mortem. Post mortems are not appreciated by relatives of the deceased, but if a doctor demands a post mortem and the result is, as it perfectly well may be, a case of natural causes, or some disease or malady which does not always give outward signs or symptoms, then the doctor's career can be quite seriously affected by his having made a questionable diagnosis ' 'I can see that it must have been difficult.' 'The relatives in question are distant cousins. So I took it upon myself to get their consent as it was a matter of medical i- teres, t to know the cause of death. When a patient dies in her sleep it is advisable to add to one's medical knowledge. I wrapped it up a good bit, mind you, didn't make it too formal.