I
The telephone was ringing as I came in the gate of the Dower. I left Tony on the porch with a word of warning and hurried inside to answer it.
A pleasant masculine voice said: “Mrs Matheson? I have a message from your husband. He is delayed at the office and will not be home for dinner.”
“Blast!” I said, thinking of the meal I had prepared. “Thanks very much.”
“Just one moment, please,” said the voice hurriedly.
“Yes?”
“Mr Holland sends his compliments. Will you and Inspector Matheson dine at the Hall next week?”
The invitation took my breath away. Partly because I had presumed the voice came from Russell Street.
“This is Ames speaking from the Hall,” he announced, evidently guessing at my confusion. “You were out when Inspector Matheson rang. I promised to relay his message.” The Dower House telephone was only an extension from the Hall.
Ames? The name was faintly familiar. Oh, yes, Mr Holland’s general factotum; overseer, secretary, greenkeeper, butler and what have you. Ursula Mulqueen had told me about him. His father had served the Hollands in the same capacity until his retirement to the Lodge.
“Mr Holland wants us to dine with him,” I repeated, playing for time.
“Yes, Mrs Matheson. Will Wednesday night suit you?”
I frowned at the wall.
“As far as I know now. But my husband is engaged on a case and might not be able to make it.”
There was a pause before Ames spoke. “I will inform Mr Holland. I am sure he will understand. Cocktails are served at seven, Mrs Matheson.” I heard the receiver being replaced.
I went back to the porch to bring Tony in for his meal. The phone rang again. Ames’ voice was becoming familiar. This time he sounded apologetic.
“I forgot to mention, Mrs Matheson, that Mr Holland likes his guests to wear evening dress.”
“We always do,” I replied loftily, and took pleasure in ringing off first.
I moved about the house quickly. There was still a great deal of unpacking and arranging of furniture to be done. Ordinarily I would have welcomed the chance of John being out of the way to get it done. But that night I felt nervous. The odd creaks and reverberations, to which one becomes accustomed after a time, seemed unnatural and sinister to my ears. The silence was heavy. It made the noises sound muffled and furtive. A constant beat from the frogs in the creek and the hum of night insects reminded me of the isolated position of the Dower House. I kept Tony from bed for as long as his temper could stand it. His worn-out crying comforted me that lonely night, where it would have irritated me at another time.
In fact, I had the jitters so badly that I was compelled to put away the detective story I was reading at dinner. Even the radio was tuned into some gruesome play by Edgar Allan Poe. For a while I went bravely around the house, pulling down blinds and flooding the rooms with light. My dinner dishes were washed and dried with a clatter, but I did not open the kitchen door to put scraps in the garbage bin on the porch. An opossum in the roof, stirring before his midnight scampers, almost caused me to drop a stack of plates. I shook my fist at the ceiling, took a firm grip of myself and went into John’s study to unpack a case of books.
It was this one small room, fourteen feet square, because it fitted the green carpet perfectly, which had reconciled John to the distance from town and the unreliable train service. The walls were lined with bookshelves and a gas fire had been neatly fitted opposite to the only sensible position to put a desk. This was in an alcove formed by windows facing three ways.
I crossed to them slowly and deliberately to draw the blinds, mindful that at least I had Tony for company. A mist had risen up from the creek at the back of the Dower property where the frogs still croaked incessantly. Somewhere above the mist the moon was shining, making the white trunks of the English trees in the wood slim and wraith-like, and illuminating the tower of the Hall. I forced myself to wait, watching it. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was daring myself to be afraid if that mysterious light flashed from it again. I even counted up to twenty before I dropped the shade, and called myself a fool.
Kneeling beside the open case, I began to sort books. They were mainly technical tomes belonging to John, but there were a few novels of mine and a set of Shakespeare which had been a school prize. Turning over pages at random as I crouched there on the floor, something made me glance towards the door. It was closed against the draught, but I could have sworn a thread of cold air blew on my neck that I had not noticed before. Terrified, I watched the door handle, half expecting to see it slide around. I knew I was being absurd and tried to call lightly: “Is that you, darling?”
The heavy pressing silence dulled my words. Again I became conscious of the croaking of the frogs, monotonous and lonely.
“This will never do,” I told myself severely, getting up from the floor and letting the lid of the case close with a bang.
I opened the door and went into the hall. At one end the porch light shining through the narrow windows flanking the front door made a pattern on the carpet. I watched it for a moment. It was quite still. At the far end of the passage a lamp was aglow just outside Tony’s room.
He was breathing quietly. The nursery was full of the warmth and companionship of him. I leaned over the cot, wishing suddenly that he was twenty years older. It would have been good to remain there with him, but I realized that once I gave in to this state of nerves I would never be happy alone again in the Dower House. Sounds and shadows became unheard and unheeded in John’s solid, satisfying presence. I left Tony’s room resolved to continue with the unpacking. With one hand on the doorknob, I shot a would-be careless glance down to the front door.
That glance developed into a fascinated stare. I stood clamped to the floor, the only moving thing about me an icy drop winding its way down my spine. The pattern on the carpet just inside the front door had altered. It was blurred by the shadow of a head and shoulders. I watched it, too frightened to move. A hand was passed slowly over the leadlight.
II
The doorbell rang briefly. Who would be calling on me at this hour? Whom did I know so well in Middleburn that they would call at all?
I approached a few paces, my eye falling on a stout walking stick in the hallstand. I gripped this more to gain in moral courage than with any other design and called firmly despite my knocking knees: “Who is it?”
My breath came quickly as I waited for a reply. “My name is Mulqueen,” spoke a man’s voice through the windows. “Is that Mrs Matheson? Can I come in?”
I ran down the remainder of the hall and took the chain off the door to admit the visitor. A short, ball-like man clad in a mackinaw jacket and a tweed cap stepped across the threshold. He had a pair of small twinkling eyes and a red tip to his nose.
“Hope I didn’t frighten you,” he shot at me. “Heard you were all alone and thought I’d pop in to see if everything was all right.”
My relief made me garrulous.
“Not at all. Come into my husband’s study. I didn’t light a fire as I was by myself, but there is a gas jet. Here! Let me take your cap. And what about your jacket? It is so cold out. You might notice it more after the warm room.”
The bright eyes regarded me shrewdly.
“Windy?”
I laughed. “Very. I read too many detective stories. In here. I have been trying to forget the strange noises by unpacking.”
Ernest Mulqueen sat down on the edge of a chair and spread his hands to the fire. I found it hard to stifle a gasp at the sight of them.
He said: “Just as well you didn’t see them before I introduced myself. Rabbits. I have a gin set in the wood for foxes. Go round this time every night to put the bunnies out of their agony. They will jump in, silly creatures.” He scrubbed at his bloody hands with a still bloodier handkerchief. “Humane. You probably heard me.”
I regarded him squeamishly. “I did hear some odd knocking coming from the direction of the wood. Do you—”
“That was me. The nearest tree. Instantaneous.”
I made a mental resolve to pass by the wood in future. Ernest Mulqueen must have read my thoughts. He was a hearty, earthy little man, gifted with a keen perspicacity. Almost at once I wondered how he came to marry into the noble family of Holland, and still further how he begot a namby-pamby daughter like Ursula. She should have been a big-boned girl with useful hands: wholesome, not in the mid-Victorian sense, but rather like brown bread.
He reassured me regarding the results of his humaneness. “Quite off the beaten track. You won’t see any muck.”
“Gin?” I queried, puzzled.
“A trap,” he explained. “I’m after that fox which is making a nuisance of itself on the poultry run. He’s hiding out in the wood. Of all the crazy things the old man has ever done, importing a pair of foxes is the craziest. The only hunting people want to do round here is for houses.” He broke off abruptly. “How do you like this house?”
“We were lucky to get it,” I said carefully.
“Too right, you were! Never thought the old man would let it go out of the family, even after Jim’s smash.”
“What happened exactly?” I asked, tilting back my chair to reach the cigarettes on John’s desk. I offered them to my visitor. “Not for me, thanks. I have a pipe if you don’t mind the stink. Jim? No one seems to know. Took his plane up one fine day and it fell to bits, Jim with it. The old man was rather cut up.” He drew on his pipe and said between puffs: “Tried his hardest to blame someone other than Jim. Apple of his eye, Jim was.”
“Aren’t all sons?” I said, rather sentimentally.
“Not like a Holland. You’d think they were the chosen people, the stuff that is spouted about ancestors and continuing the line. Suppose I shouldn’t say that, the wife being one before I married her. But they do get your goat occasionally.”
I could not think of any suitable comment to make so I let him ramble on. He was obviously finding relief in blowing off steam after breathing in the refined air of the Hall.
“Born and bred in the country, I was. The land is the only place for me. Can’t stand this polite roguery that goes under the name of business. The old man would sell us all to make a shilling, and then turn round and gas about upholding the prestige of the family. What family, I ask you. He’ll pop off sooner or later and Jim has already gone. There’s only that snivelling brat of Yvonne’s left, and he won’t make the grade, I bet.”
I started a little and my cigarette fell from my fingers. I bent to pick it up.
“Isn’t Mrs Holland’s son a strong child?”
“I dunno. Seems to me he’s always bawling. I don’t think they give the kid enough to eat. All these fancy ideas about vitamins. Lot of rot. Mind you, it’s only just lately that he’s got like that. He used to be a bonny little nipper.”
“Perhaps Mrs Holland should take him to a doctor,” I suggested, watching him closely.
“James doesn’t believe in coddling the kid. There’s some old witch in the house who used to be Jim’s nurse. He swears by her.”
“What does Yvonne say?”
Ernest Mulqueen knocked out his foul-smelling dottle.
“Nothing. It’s what the old man says that goes. Maybe you’ll find that out yourself one day.”
He added with a trace of bitterness: “You can’t fight him. He always wins. Look at me! I used to run my own place up the Riverina way. When I married the wife what happens? She develops a heart or something and must be near dear James. Ursie must be brought up right. My farm can be run along with the rest of his property. To cut a long story short, he collars my land, puts me down here at a miserable screw and gathers in the profits.”
“Why don’t you go back?”
My practical suggestion startled him. He muttered something about not leaving Ursie in the old man’s clutches.
“Anyway, the wife wouldn’t go now. You must have a woman on the farm. It never did suit her. Can’t think sometimes why she married me. Taken by and large, I’m fairly content. Nothing to worry about and regular money coming in.”
“But Ursula,” I insisted. “Wouldn’t she go back with you?”
“The wife has ideas for Ursie,” he declared bluntly. “Anyway, it’s too late. It’s all one property now. The old man made it a legal arrangement. Got in old Braithwaite and I signed on the dotted line. Fool that I was!”
Mulqueen got up from his chair slowly, due more to reluctance to go into the cold air than physical tardiness. His actions and movements were always brisk.
“Well, I must toddle along. What time will hubby be home, Mrs Matheson?”
“I expect him any moment. Thank you for keeping me company. You saved me from becoming a gibbering idiot.”
I led the way down the hall, switching on the lights as I passed. Ernest Mulqueen shrugged himself into his mackinaw.
“You don’t want to be nervous. Very nice neighbourhood, you know.”
“I do know. But it was the first night I had alone here. In future any bumps and bangs from the wood will make me feel safe. Mind the steps from the porch.”
He turned back.
“Drat! Mind like a sieve. Had a message for you from the old man. He went away today on urgent business. At least, that is what that smooth-faced young feller told me. You are to use the golf course when you like, free, nixy and for nothing. I was to tell you.”
“That is very nice of Mr Holland.”
Mulqueen glanced at me for a moment. He was very shrewd, despite the bunglings over his farm. Perhaps they had taught him a never-to-be-forgotten lesson.
“Better do as he wishes,” he advised. “I’ve always found it worth while to keep on his right side myself. And you do want to buy this place, don’t you?”
I watched my caller out of the gate and was about to switch off the porch light when a taller and very familiar figure came out of the mist. The pair nearly collided. Mulqueen said good night, and turned back to wave at me in a mischievous manner. John’s hand went to his hat in a half-hearted way of salute. He waited until Ernest Mulqueen had disappeared.
“So!” he began, advancing up the flagged path. “I’ve found you out at last. Damn! I’ve stubbed my toe again on these beastly stones. Why is there only one here and there? Couldn’t they afford a complete path?”
“Elizabethan effect, darling, I daresay.” I reached up to remove his hat, dropping a kiss on his nose in transit. “Aren’t you rather late? Go into the study and I’ll bring you some supper.”
“Late! You brazen woman.” John followed me to the kitchen.
“If you are scandalized at my caller, let me inform you that he saved your wife’s reason tonight.”
“He has achieved the impossible. What was the trouble?”
I stopped cutting bread and waved the knife around in a vague gesture. “Strange house. Stranger noises. Cheese toast?”
“Definitely cheese toast.” He lighted the gas under the kettle and came back to sit on the edge of the table.
“You had the jitters?” He said seriously: “Now, look here, Maggie! Are you quite certain—”
“Absolutely,” I interrupted hastily, and went on to tell him about Ernest Mulqueen.
I was living in the Dower on probation; dependent on Mr Holland’s whims and favors on one side, while John, on the other, was not quite satisfied. I had to steer a careful course for the next few months and convince John that everything in the garden was lovely, while bowing and scraping to our landlord. It was like walking a tightrope; an old simile, but an apt one. One slip either side would mean disaster.
We carried the supper into the study.
John said, sniffing the air: “Plug! I wonder how the aristocratic Holland noses like that.”
“Probably the poor man keeps it a secret. By the way, a royal command has been issued. Dinner next week at the Hall, and will we kindly dress. Can you make it?”
“Stiff shirt?” asked John incredulously.
“Indubitably. I said Wednesday and left a loophole for you, just in case you didn’t feel equal to the strain. You could be working late, but I’d rather like you to meet them,” I said carefully, curious as to what impression John had of the household the other side of the wood. Although his knowledge of it was superficial and his mind too highly disciplined to indulge in imaginative conjectures, some past experience might make him view the Hall ménage with misgiving.
John cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oho! And why, might I ask?” I met his look squarely, and replied without batting an eyelid.
“It does you good to get out and forget crime for a change.”
“I suppose Wednesday will be as good as any other night. Any other feelers from the big man?”
“Why do you say that?” I asked curiously. “As a matter of fact, I have been given free run of the golf course. Do you know, I have an odd feeling that we are being used.”
“And I have a feeling,” mimicked John, “that you are right. Explain what you mean, please.”
“I haven’t a notion. Just a feminine shot in the dark. Why, as I have asked before, did you want to know about more feelers?”
“The equivalent of the feminine shot. I had a telephone call from Holland first thing this morning.”
I glanced up too eagerly.
“You did? What did he want? You know, darling, I’m certain there’s something fishy going on at the Hall. First of all, Cruikshank, and today I overheard—”
I shut my mouth firmly as a grin developed widely on his.
“Trapped, by Jupiter! Give a woman a little encouragement and she’ll tell all. What was it you overheard?”
“Very clever! What did Holland want?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I raised one shoulder huffily.
“You see,” John explained, “I hadn’t arrived at the office when he rang.”
“Very, very clever. Didn’t you call him back?”
“Certainly not. I suffer from an inverted type of snobbery. Let him come to me. Now, what was it you were about to say?” John said conversationally.
“Nothing of great interest,” I answered, determined not to be caught again. “You haven’t inquired about Tony.”
John continued to gaze at me. “If you are getting into mischief or anywhere near it, back we go to the flat. That is my first and last warning. All right, how is Tony?”
“Fine,” I replied lamely. “Let me see. What happened today?” I passed over the events in my mind, blue-pencilling them severely, and thought of Connie Bellamy.
“I met a girl from the Exchange. She is married and lives out here. I was swept along to the local Community Centre to meet Middleburn society.”
“Do I know her?”
“Connie Bellamy? No, she had left before your little sojourn at Central. A gasbag with a limited vocabulary. As a result, her conversation becomes rather monotonous. Husband Harold will be thrilled to know we are living in Middleburn. How is the case of the missing estate agent going?”
“In routine, as far as I know. I gave your dope to Billings. How you change from one subject to another, Maggie!”
“That’s just where you’re wrong,” I said in triumph. “There is a definite follow-on from talking about Connie to Cruikshank. It might be of interest to Sergeant Billings.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Connie Bellamy told me Cruikshank has been systematically robbing them for years.” John took it quite calmly. “Sounds interesting. What did she mean exactly?”
“I couldn’t say. I didn’t ask her.”
“I’ll tell Billings. He may make something out of it. He still has Holland to interview. The old man is proving difficult.”
“Mulqueen told me tonight he has gone away for a few days. Yvonne Holland will be relieved.”
“You seem to know a great deal about the Hollands,” was John’s ominously casual comment.
III
But Yvonne was not at the gates of the Hall when I arrived, and it must have been after three then. Tony had been tiresome about getting dressed and had delayed us. I paused uncertainly at the foot of one of the grey stone pillars bearing a lion couchant. It might have been possible that she had gone on, not willing to be seen loitering from the house. But the road ran straight down from the Hall and there was no sign of her in the distance. I let Tony out of the pusher and decided to give her a few minutes’ grace.
Once free of the straps Tony revelled in his unexpected freedom. I was trying to keep within the shadow of the lion, for I had no wish to be spied upon from the Hall. It gave you that feeling. The square squat tower seemed like an enormous eye which embraced all within its vision with a sinister contemplativeness. I made a half-hearted attempt to put Tony back into the pusher, but his immediate howls of protest were more likely to gain attention than his wandering inside the gate. Yvonne could not be much longer, so I let him stray to a threatened boundary.
It was another glorious autumn day. I moved round the pillar and propped myself up against it in the sun, closing my eyes against the glare.
Presently Tony let out a yelp. He came running up, one finger in his mouth and tears pouring with that amazing rapidity unequalled by any other than a child. When I knew he was hurt my concern at the noise he was creating vanished. I explored his finger carefully. A jagged thorn had torn the skin and imbedded itself. It looked very nasty and was quite capable of making itself unpleasant if action was not taken immediately. I held his fat wrist firmly palm up, pulling at the fast-disappearing head of the thorn.
“Hold still, my treasure,” I adjured, but he kept jerking his hand away.
A voice spoke from behind me. “Could I be of assistance, Mrs Matheson?”
I glanced over my shoulder and then straightened up. It was Ames. The ubiquitous, versatile Ames. I recognized the smooth, courteous voice.
Ames advanced towards Tony and bent down.
“May I see? Perhaps my wife could fix it.”
I studied him as he bent over Tony. He was long and firmly built with a well-shaped head. He appeared to be in his late thirties but was of the type who mature early and retain the same age for many years. That afternoon he wore khaki overalls and boots, for he had been working in the garden. I was to see Ames in many garbs. He dressed to each of the multitudinous jobs he handled and was sartorially perfect in each.
He straightened up. “Come into the Lodge, Mrs Matheson. I’ll get some hot water and tweezers. We’ll have that thorn out in no time.”
“This is very kind of you,” I said, following him to the tiny porch. The door of the Lodge opened directly into a living-room pleasant with sun-faded chintzes and flowers.
Two people sat there.
“Harriet,” Ames introduced his wife, “this is Mrs Matheson.”
“Haven’t we met before?” I asked Mrs Ames. She turned her face full round and I saw the port-wine stain. “In Mr Cruikshank’s shop, was it not?”
She nodded without speaking and turned her face to profile again.
“And my father, Mrs Matheson.”
The white-haired, handsome man rose, slipping his unlit pipe into his pocket. “We heard the commotion. Has the little chap hurt himself badly?”
“A thorn,” Ames explained. “Harriet, will you have a look at it, please?”
Mrs Ames rose and came across the room to Tony, keeping the scar turned away from me. Ames went away for the hot water.
“You have a professional touch,” I told Harriet Ames pleasantly, watching her firm, unhurried hands.
A small boy came into the room bearing an enamel kidney dish with bandages and antiseptic on it.
“Put it on the table, Robin,” Mrs Ames said in her toneless voice.
“This is your boy?” I glanced from mother to son. He had gone to stand by his grandfather’s chair. The old man rested his hand on the dark curls. Robin was a beautiful child with a poise that would have shamed an adolescent.
Mrs Ames did not reply, but merely nodded again and held out her hand for the bowl of water as her husband came back into the room.
Tony, his attention taken up by this remarkable specimen of his own generation, allowed his finger to be bathed and dressed without a murmur. I saw a smile pass between the two little boys and drew my brows together, inexplicably disturbed.
“I believe Mr Holland has gone away,” I said to Ames. “Does the arrangement still stand for Wednesday?”
“Mr Holland left instructions. I had a wire today saying he would be home in time. He was most insistent that Mr Matheson should be present.”
“There is a complication when it comes to us both coming,” I said, indicating Tony.
Mrs Ames said without looking up: “I will stay at the Dower on Wednesday night. You will be able to manage, Robert. I will give the staff their orders during the afternoon.” She released Tony’s hand and turned to tidy the tray. I got up.
“How will that arrangement suit you, Mrs Matheson?” Ames asked, following me to the door.
“Excellently. I will be happy to leave Tony in such good hands. Good-bye and thank you.”
Old man Ames and Robin both bowed with a strange courtesy, but Mrs Ames did not look up until I was out of the Lodge. I saw her watching me as I passed under the windows, the sun striking full onto her ravaged face.
IV
Yvonne caught up with me when I was about half-way to the village. She had her baby propped up with pillows. His face in repose still had a thin, pinched look about it, but he seemed more contented than on the previous day. I pointed this out to her.
“Nurse Stone was terribly cross about the dummy,” she announced. “She immediately rang through to the Lodge and told Mrs Ames to put one down on the shopping list.”
In spite of my protestation to Yvonne, locating the Middleburn Health Centre was a simple task. It was merely a matter of following the prams.
It was a sunny brick building with a verandah built on two sides. Yvonne squeezed her pram into the last available place and lifted up the child carefully. Holding Tony by one hand, I waited for her as she collected oddments of clothing without which one never travels with a baby.
She preceded me into the L-shaped room. It was bright with gay curtains and posters illustrating the importance of the foundation foods. Already several mothers were waiting their turn for the scales.
A small room led from the main one. There the sister-in-charge sat interviewing each mother after her child was weighed.
“What is her name?” I asked Yvonne, watching her undress Jimmy across her knee. She found it awkward.
“Sister Heather. She’s been here a long time. I believe she would have resigned long ago but for the shortage of fully trained staff. She loves the babies.”
She arose and moved over to the weighing table. Jimmy let out a cry as the cold basket met his naked behind. Yvonne flushed up at once and cast an apologetic look around the room. She made some attempts to soothe the child by snapping her fingers while the nurse arranged the weights. The child’s crying infected other members of the community, so much so that by the time I got up to go into Sister Heather’s office the whole room was a roar. It was really rather funny, although Yvonne was a little distressed.
I pushed Tony into the room, turning back to close the door against the din.
“Talk about feeding time at the Zoo,” I began. I stopped abruptly. Sister Heather had raised her head. The fountain-pen with which she had been writing slipped from her fingers. We stared at each other for a long moment in silence. A moment in which our eyes were held, puzzlement changing to recognition and on her part a startled look. Tony pulled up a chair for himself and clambered into it noisily.
Sister Heather was the first to recover her composure. She held out her hand, smiling. “How do you do? You’re a newcomer, aren’t you? Please sit down while I make out a form for you.”
I murmured something inaudible and idiotic, pushing Tony off his chair and sitting down with him on my knee.
Sister Heather’s gentle voice flowed on, asking particulars as to Tony’s age, weight and diet. When I gave my address her hand hesitated in writing for a moment. The pause was barely noticeable and might only have been imagination on my part. It was incredible that this serene-looking woman was the one I had overheard talking of murder. For some reason the short strained sentences Sister Heather had uttered in the middle of High Street were something between us that was going to be ignored; on her side at any rate.
“We have only just moved into the Dower House,” I said, watching her closely. She was drawing up a graph illustrating Tony’s progress.
“So I heard,” she replied smoothly. “You were lucky to find such a place. You must be in high favour with Mr Holland.”
Somehow I didn’t like the way Sister Heather said that. There was a faint hostility in her voice. I attacked again.
“By the way, Mr Holland’s grandson was instrumental in bringing me here.” I paused a moment. She did not look up.
“Indeed?”
“Mrs Holland offered me her escort. She doesn’t come here often, I believe.”
“I will be glad to see her baby again,” Sister Heather said in the same non-committal manner. She drew out a tape measure and started to take Tony’s head and chest measurements.
“I don’t think that baby is well,” I said bluntly. “You must do something.” She looked at me over Tony’s head. Her eyes were quite blank.
“Mr Holland exercises a considerable influence in this district,” she informed me in an even tone. “If you wish to stand well in his favour you would be wise not to interfere with the members of his family.”
I did not give up. “Not even if it is a matter of life and death, Sister?”
Her eyes flickered. She moved back to her side of the desk.
“I am afraid I don’t understand you, Mrs Matheson.” There was a note of finality in her voice. I sighed and got up.
“All right,” I agreed. “Have it your own way. I’m to mind my own business, am I? But I do hope you will give that baby a good examination and some strong advice to his mother. Thanks very much for looking at Tony. I will be along again.” I turned back from the door. “By the way, Sister, can you recommend the local doctor? I am anxious to have one close at hand.”
My simple request had an amazing effect on Sister Heather. She looked confused and stammered slightly, losing the polite detachment with which she had greeted my attempt to force an open discussion on the Holland baby. After some hesitation she told me Dr Trefont was the local man’s name. He held good degrees and had a postgraduate obstetrical record. He was well liked in confinement cases. Very good with children’s diseases.
I took myself off to await Yvonne outside. She did not take long in Sister Heather’s office, a fact that rather disturbed me.
“Well?” I said, as she put Jimmy back in the pram. “How did he go? What did Sister Heather say about him?”
“He’s all right,” she replied with a curtness wholly unlike her.
“How is his weight?” I persisted.
“He has lost a bit, but considering he’s teething I’m not worrying.”
The latter part of her statement was without doubt a lie. She was more than worried, she was scared.
“What’s the matter?” I asked gently. “You look upset. Is it your baby?”
We walked along in silence for a moment. I waited patiently. Yvonne seemed undecided whether to speak.
“Oh, Mrs Matheson,” she burst out presently. “She wants me to take Jimmy to that man.”
“What man?”
“Doctor Trefont. I couldn’t. Why should Jimmy want a doctor? He’s well enough. But for his teeth he’s—”
“Listen to me, my child,” I broke in. “Don’t put too much blame on teething. That’s a very old one. Do as Sister Heather tells you. Go along to the medicine man.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I couldn’t,” she repeated. “Not to him. Mr Holland wouldn’t hear of it.”
“What’s wrong with Trefont? I’m going to him myself.”
Yvonne stopped her pram and gazed at me earnestly. “Don’t, Mrs Matheson. Don’t go to Dr Trefont.” She spoke in dead seriousness.
I replied lightly: “You talk as though the man is an abortionist or something.”
She flushed at my words, and changed the subject.
Yvonne’s earnest request could not but affect me. I had marked too the note of hesitation even as the Health Centre sister had given the recommendation.
That night I rang my old doctor to ask him what he thought. He grunted, “Good idea,” in reply to my careful explanation.
“Glad to get rid of you. Much too busy. Trefont? Nothing against him that I know of. Anyone who has gone through the university here must be all right. I’ll fossick around and see if I can dig up any dirt. How’s your brat? You needn’t tell me. I’d forgotten you’re no longer a patient of mine. Not interested now.”
I rang off, grinning. Doctor Johnson was a dear old chap. If there was anything at all shady about Trefont, he would soon let me know.
On impulse I took up the phone again. It was connected in John’s study and I leant against the edge of his desk as I dialled.
John heaved an ostentatious sigh. “Last one, darling. I won’t be long. Hullo, is that you, Connie? Maggie speaking. How are you?”
I certainly gave the right cue. Connie held forth for some time on her various symptoms and ailments. I listened patiently for a time before I cut in.
“Quite so. I rang to find out the name of your doctor. Is he by any chance Trefont? He is? How do you like him? I’m thinking of going to him myself.”
Connie liked him fairly well, but was not enthusiastic. He had been well recommended. “But he lacked polish if you know what I mean, Maggie. Of course—”
“No bedside manner. Is that it?”
It was, precisely. But a good doctor. Most of the girls around Middleburn went to him.
“Sounds as though he’ll do. Thanks, Connie. By the way, what about you and—er—Harold dining with us one night?”
We arranged the date, and I rang off satisfied with my calling for the time being.