Tom and Fran arrived at the doctor’s house on the dot of nine o’clock. In spite of the darkness and the pouring rain, the drawing room curtains were still open, so Dr Owen and his sister were aware of their arrival and the doctor had the front door open for them as they ran up the path from the car.
‘Do come in. That’s right, Mrs Black – pop your brolly into the bottom of the hat stand. Here we are, let me take your coats …’
After a moment or two of cheery bustle, Dr Owen led them through a door on the opposite side of the hall to the drawing room. ‘Then we won’t trouble my sister, who is listening to a play on the wireless – we got a new Bakelite one last Christmas, a marvellous instrument. Now, Mr Dod, will you have a whisky and soda? And what can I offer you, Mrs Black? Or perhaps, like my sister, you don’t partake?’
‘A gin and lime would be very nice, if you have it.’
‘Of course. Of course.’
While Dr Owen clinked about with bottles, tumblers and the heavy glass soda syphon, Tom asked whether he had enjoyed the football match.
‘I didn’t catch the score. How did they get on?’ Tom asked.
‘It was a draw.’ The doctor’s hand hovered over the bottles in his drinks cabinet. ‘Do you follow football, Mr Dod?’
‘Not really. I’m more of a cricket man myself, and Mrs Black is tremendously keen on tennis. Though of course one notices the results. Forest got a terrible drubbing last week, as I recall.’
‘Yes, we conceded five goals to Southampton. I’m afraid we haven’t won a match yet this season. If we carry on like this, we will very likely be relegated.’
As the doctor kept up a cheerful banter with Tom about football and cricket, Fran took in the room into which they had been shown. She had half expected it to be the doctor’s consulting room, or else a book-lined working study, like the one where they had been received by the vicar earlier in the day, but she quickly realized that it must be the doctor’s private retreat: a small sitting room, with a comfortable three-piece suite upholstered in a masculine plain brown, some pot plants in brass containers and a half-read detective novel lying on a side table. A modest fire burned in the grate, just enough to cheer the spirits and take the chill off the room without raising the temperature to subtropical, which was evidently the way his sister liked things. This is where he comes to escape, Fran thought, while his sister listens to the wireless.
Once they were settled, Dr Owen taking one chair, Tom the other and Fran seated on the central sofa, the doctor raised his glass, said ‘Chin-chin’, and took a sip of his whisky before asking in a friendly tone, ‘Now then, what can I do for you? I should perhaps mention before we begin that I may not be able to answer everything you ask, because I am naturally bound by medical ethics and patient confidentiality. That being said, you are here on behalf of Mrs Ripley’s next of kin – which allows me a little leeway, I suppose – and since we all want to get to the truth, I will endeavour to help in any way I can.’
‘I think we’ll be on safe ground with my first question,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘Your sister said this afternoon that she thought the deaths of Mr Vardy and Miss Tilling might be linked in some way to the death of Mrs Ripley. What would your opinion be about that?’
‘My sister is of course entitled to her views.’ The doctor smiled. ‘As you know, I issued all three death certificates – and so far as I am concerned, these are three unrelated deaths which came about in three completely different sets of circumstances. Mr Vardy and Miss Tilling died as a result of unrelated tragic accidents, and until the recent exhumation I believed Mrs Ripley’s death to be due to heart failure following a bad dose of gastro-intestinal trouble.’
‘Just so that we have the details straight,’ Tom said, ‘is it possible for you to tell us what you recall seeing when you attended the deaths of these three people, perhaps starting with Mr Vardy?’
‘Certainly.’ Dr Owen paused, as if recalling the scene to mind. ‘It was around mid-morning, I think, when I was called out to Mr Vardy. I was informed that he had been found dead by some of his workers. By the time I arrived, they had fished his body out of the water – they had quite a job, I believe, as his clothes were waterlogged and very heavy – and he was lying on his back on the ground. He was obviously dead and everything suggested that he had been that way for some hours, because he was completely cold when I first saw him. I had the men take him back to the farmhouse and conducted a fuller examination there. The coroner had to be informed, of course, and an inquest held. I could find no signs of any violence or a struggle and the jury delivered a verdict of death by misadventure, which I believe was entirely correct.’
‘Thank you,’ Tom said.
‘Miss Tilling’s death was a rather odd business,’ Dr Owen continued. ‘It was quite well on in the afternoon and I had not long returned from a call and was still in my consulting room, at the side of the house, sorting out some paperwork, when Dulcie came rushing in, saying that she thought she had heard screams coming from the direction of Miss Tilling’s house. I was about to follow her through to the drawing room when Clara – Miss Tilling’s cook – came hammering on the front door to say the maid had just found Miss Tilling lying at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I grabbed my bag and rushed across the street, but the old lady was already dead and had been for probably an hour or so. It’s very difficult to be absolutely precise about a time of death, as I expect you know. The maid was in absolute hysterics – it was her cries that had initially alerted Dulcie – and at first she was no help at all. In fact, from the situation as I first saw it, I was extremely suspicious of the maid, because Miss Tilling had a large wound on the back of her head which I quickly realized had been inflicted by a hefty-looking ornament. So my obvious instinct was that someone had bonked her on the head and since there must have been quite a noise when all that paraphernalia came crashing down on to the tiles in the hall, I had to ask myself why the servants had not come through straight away to investigate? I ought to explain that Miss Tilling was lying face down surrounded by various bits of broken glass and china, with this statue of some half-naked chap lying right beside her head.’
‘So you thought at first that Miss Tilling had been attacked?’
‘That was my first impression, yes. But once the police turned up and the housemaid calmed down and was able to tell us what had actually happened, everything began to appear in a somewhat different light, as both the servants claimed to have been out during the course of the afternoon. Naturally, the police didn’t just take their stories at face value. I know they made some enquiries and established that Clara, the cook, had definitely been out that afternoon, and they also confirmed that the housemaid had dropped a parcel off at the post office – just as she said she did – which meant that Miss Tilling had indeed been left alone in the house for a period of at least half an hour. There was no suggestion of a break-in, and under the circumstances I was prepared to agree that, in spite of initial appearances, Miss Tilling’s death had been the result of a freak accident, having fallen downstairs while alone in the house.’
‘In spite of the head wound?’
‘All the items found lying on the hall floor had come from a shelf built into a small alcove towards the top of the stairs. The police concluded that as Miss Tilling fell she had cannoned into the shelf and that had set off a sort of chain reaction, bringing everything falling down on top of her, with the statue unfortunately crashing on to her head as she reached the ground.’
‘And you were satisfied with that explanation?’ Tom asked, his voice carefully neutral.
‘All the circumstances appeared to bear it out.’
Fran took a turn to ask a question. ‘Was she killed by the fall, or by the blow to the head?’
For the first time, Dr Owen looked a touch impatient. ‘My dear Mrs Black, I am not Sir Bernard Spilsbury. I cannot say precisely which injury resulted in Miss Tilling’s demise, because no one knows in which order these things happened. It is entirely likely that the injuries sustained in the fall, which included a fractured pelvis and a serious contusion to the front of the skull, would have been sufficient to cause death without the damage sustained from the blow inflicted by the statue to the back of the head, and vice versa. For me, it was sufficient that death had been due to multiple injuries sustained during a fall.’
‘Let’s move on to Mrs Ripley, shall we?’ Tom said. ‘I believe you were called in to attend Mrs Ripley on the afternoon following a luncheon party for some old friends of Mr Ripley?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea who the other participants of the luncheon party were. My sister took the call, as I recollect, and she passed on the request for a visit as soon as I returned home from seeing another patient. I’m sure of that, because I particularly remember that I went straight out again to see Mrs Ripley.’
‘I think we’ve been told that Mrs Ripley was not seriously ill at that stage …’ Tom prompted.
‘Mrs Ripley had a somewhat delicate constitution and these little digestive upsets were not unusual. I asked her a few questions, undertook a brief examination and recommended rest and a light diet for a couple of days. I also said I would drop some medicine round to her later. In fact, my sister was kind enough to deliver it to the house on my behalf as I was tied up with another case in the afternoon. I have a fair-sized practice here and things can sometimes get pretty busy.’
‘Do you mind my asking what the medicine was?’
‘Not at all. It was a mixture of powdered rhubarb, soda and bismuth. I had regularly prescribed it for Mrs Ripley and it always had a beneficial effect. I made up a couple of days’ supply.’
‘And when did you next see Mrs Ripley?’ asked Fran, who had now recovered from Dr Owen’s rather crushing earlier reply.
‘I called on her at around eleven, next morning. Mrs Ripley was a somewhat overanxious patient and she liked the reassurance of regular visits if she was feeling under the weather.’
‘And how did she seem?’ Tom resumed the role of questioner.
‘Oh, considerably better. I went to see her again the next day. It was probably after lunch. She told me she felt so much better and wondered whether she could abandon the invalid diet, as we called it, and start taking the same meals as the rest of the household. I confirmed that she could, and didn’t do much more than check her pulse and prescribe some more medicine, just to reassure her that all was well.’
‘Did you tell her to stay in bed?’
Dr Owen smiled. ‘Mrs Ripley was not in bed at that point. She had a chaise longue in her bedroom, which she used when resting up during any period of illness. I had never told her to stay upstairs, I just recommended rest. It was up to Mrs Ripley how she interpreted that and whether or not she decided to come downstairs.’
‘So she did not appear to be seriously ill at that stage?’
‘No, she did not.’
‘But she must have taken a turn for the worse?’
Dr Owen looked from Tom to Fran and back again. ‘Mr Dod, I see no point in beating about the bush. You know as well as I do that the Home Office analyst has found arsenic in Mrs Ripley’s remains. We therefore know that in all likelihood Mrs Ripley was not fatally ill when I saw her, but that at some point following my visit she took or had administered to her a substantial dose of arsenic. I was called back to see her the next day and arrived to find her in a state of complete collapse. She died within minutes of my arrival and her death had all the appearances of heart failure following a return of the original gastric illness, so I had no hesitation in issuing a certificate – a decision which is going to cause me some considerable professional embarrassment.’ He punctuated the sentence by draining the last of the whisky from his glass.
‘From what little I know of these matters, I’m sure it is the sort of mistake which any medical man might make under the circumstances,’ Tom said, while shaking his head to decline the doctor’s gestured offer of a top-up. ‘What else can you tell us about the final day of Mrs Ripley’s life?’
‘Not a great deal, I’m afraid. I had planned to pop in and see her during my rounds, but immediately after morning surgery word reached me that another of my patients, Mrs Canning, had gone into labour. There were complications and I was asked to attend, so I drove out to Elton Heath, where the Cannings live, and I was detained there for some considerable time. Sometime after midday one of their servants came up to tell me that my sister had telephoned to say there was a request for me to visit Mrs Ripley, but by then things were at a critical stage and I could not leave my patient, so I sent word back that I would be there as soon as I could.’
‘Can you recall what was said about Mrs Ripley’s illness at that point?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t be exact. Possibly no more than that she had taken a turn for the worse, something like that. Things were touch and go with Mrs Canning, so I didn’t go down to take the call myself. It must have been a good thirty minutes later when her child was delivered, a little girl, Violet – she’s doing very well now, I’m pleased to say – and it was a while after that before I was confident enough of the mother’s condition to be able to leave her in the hands of Mrs Nicholson, our local midwife. I do recall that in the meantime a second call had come in, this time directly from the Ripley household – my sister had obviously told them where I was – stressing the urgency of Mrs Ripley’s condition. Again I did not actually go to the telephone myself, but sent word that I would get to them as soon as I possibly could.’
‘I don’t see how you could have done any more,’ Tom said. ‘When two seriously ill patients are simultaneously in need of your services it places you in an impossible position.’
‘It doesn’t happen very often,’ Dr Owen said. ‘But you know the saying, “It never rains but it pours”.’
‘And eventually you felt you could leave Mrs Canning and her baby?’
‘Yes. After I was sure they were both out of the woods, so to speak, I gave my hands another scrub, packed my bag, grabbed my jacket and all but ran to the car. You can’t get up much of a speed between Elton Heath and Durley Dean, I’m afraid. The furthest stretch of the lane is still unmade and it’s a real switchback of a road, as you may know, so it must have taken me at least a quarter of an hour, maybe twenty minutes, to reach the Ripleys’ place.’
‘Can you remember who let you into the house?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea, old boy. One of the servants, I imagine. I went straight up to Mrs Ripley’s room and she was lying on that couch of hers, with Father Pinder on one side and the French governess on the other. I remember that as I approached the bed Father Pinder said, “I think she’s gone, Doctor”. He’d jumped the gun slightly, because I managed to find a faint pulse, but she was failing and I’m afraid none of my attempts to revive her bore fruit. She died a couple of minutes after I got there.’
‘Were you surprised?’
‘You do see some unexpected things in general practice, so in a way nothing much surprises you after a while.’
‘And – believe me, I imply no criticism here – you had no hesitation in issuing a death certificate?’
‘It’s the duty of a good doctor to prevent unnecessary suffering,’ Dr Owen said. ‘That extends to avoiding the unpleasantness of a post-mortem examination and an inquest, if at all possible, so one does not go looking for problems. I had not anticipated Mrs Ripley’s death, but I knew she had a weak heart and concluded that I had underestimated the seriousness of her illness. After enquiring with the governess, I established that after her lunch Mrs Ripley began to display quite alarming symptoms of gastric illness, violent vomiting and so forth, and that she quickly became exhausted and suffered a major collapse. Let me put it this way: I would not have issued the certificate if I had suspected for a moment that Mrs Ripley had been murdered.’
‘You say murdered,’ Fran put in. ‘Does that mean you would completely rule out the possibility of suicide?’
Dr Owen paused a moment to consider his response. ‘Under the circumstances, I suppose one cannot rule anything out. But I thought I knew the Ripleys fairly well and I had never considered Mrs Ripley the suicidal type, whereas we have now all realized that her husband had a motive for putting her out of the way.’
‘You mean his relationship with Miss Rose?’
‘I do.’
‘You say “we have now all realized”, so can I take it that you never noticed anything untoward between Mr Ripley and his secretary before Mrs Ripley’s death?’
‘I don’t think anyone did. But, of course, none of us knew what might be going on behind his office door at the bank.’
‘So you suspect that Mr Ripley killed his wife?’ asked Fran.
‘It’s not a pleasant thought, I know. But let us face facts, my dear Mrs Black. The poison got into Mrs Ripley’s system somehow, and who else could possibly have put it there? Who else would have wanted the poor lady out of the way?’
‘Well,’ Tom said, after a lengthy pause. ‘Thank you so much for finding the time to see us and being so helpful. Jolly bad luck about Forest only drawing this afternoon. Better luck next week, eh?’
The doctor saw them out himself. The rain had subsided to drizzle, but Tom still needed to use the windscreen wipers.
‘Look here,’ he said. ‘It’s still only half past nine. Why don’t we go and give Mr Hargreaves another try?’
‘It’s a bit late to be making calls,’ Fran protested.
‘But the old boy wanted us to call on him. Come on, let’s give it a go.’