Chapter Three

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(1)

“I WISH you’d come in and have a look at Muriel, Madge. I don’t want you to think I’m an old fuss-pot, but I don’t feel quite happy about her,” said Colonel Farrington apologetically.

It was eleven o’clock at night, and Madge was just going up to bed; she carried a glass in her hand and she answered: “Of course, if you want me to, though I assure you there’s no need to bother about Mother’s heart. It’s quite as good as mine. I forgot to take her barley water up; it’s here. Is she awake?”

“No. She’s asleep. Very heavily asleep. Baring gave her some sleeping tablets, because she complained of heart pains. I always hate dope of any kind, and I don’t like the look of her. She’s a very bad colour.”

“Poor old Daddy! How you do worry!” said Madge. “All quite unnecessary. Mother’s a typical hypochondriac, that’s all.”

“You’re a little hard, Madge---but then, of course, you do understand these things,” said the Colonel. “I’m an old fool, and I know it, but I was worried in case she’d taken too much of the beastly stuff. Baring was suggesting a consultation about her heart.”

“Consultation my hat! Mother was certainly upset when I told her I wasn’t going on slaving here indefinitely, but her heart symptoms are just temper,” replied Madge.

Colonel and Mrs. Farrington had the ground floor of Windermere House as their own flat, now that other floors were occupied by Anne and Joyce and their respective husbands. Madge opened the bedroom door very quietly and went up to Mrs. Farrington’s bed. A shaded hand lamp cast a soft glow on the sleeping woman, and Madge stood looking down at her. Mrs. Farrington was breathing rather heavily, and her husband whispered uneasily: “Do you think I ought to ring up Baring?”

“No. Of course not. Sleeping draughts often make patients breathe heavily. Baring wouldn’t have given her anything that wasn’t perfectly safe. Don’t worry, Daddy. Go to bed and forget all about her. You may get a full night’s sleep yourself for a change. I know she generally wakes you up about half a dozen times.”

“The poor soul’s a very bad sleeper,” said the Colonel. “All right, my dear. Thank you for reassuring me. You’re a good girl, Madge.” He kissed her forehead gently, and Madge whispered:

“I’m far from good---but never mind. Sleep well, Daddy, and don’t worry.”

(2)

“Madge, Madge, will you come at once, my dear? I’m afraid . . .”

Madge was sitting on the edge of her bed in her dressing gown when her father opened her bedroom door a crack and spoke in an urgent whisper. It had just struck six o’clock, and the March dawn was breaking, clear and luminous, while blackbirds shouted outside in the plane trees. Madge always got up at six, and did two hours’ housework before breakfast.

“All right, Daddy. Come in. What is it?”

Colonel Farrington, his face grey, his hair tousled, came into the room in his dressing gown.

“She’s dead, Madge. Dead and cold. . . . I just went in to her.”

Madge stood up and gave one glance at her father’s face; then, without a word, she hurried to the door and ran down the stairs and into her mother’s room with Colonel Farrington behind her.

The hand lamp was alight beside the bed, but the heavy curtains were still pulled across the windows, and Madge went and drew the curtains back in two swift movements, so that the dawn-light flooded into the room from the long bay windows. She went quietly to the bed and put her hand on Muriel Farrington’s shoulder. Then she looked up and met her father’s anxious eyes.

“I’m sorry, Daddy: you’re right. She’s been dead for hours. She must have died in her sleep, perfectly peacefully.”

Glancing down at the big double bed, Madge added: “You slept in your dressing room, then?”

The Colonel nodded. “Yes. She thought it best. You see, she took her sleeping tablet early, and said I might wake her up when I came to bed. I had my door open, of course, but I didn’t hear a sound, though I am a very light sleeper. Do you think she might have called me, Madge, and I----”

“No. Of course not. She hadn’t moved even; she’s just as she was when I saw her. Oh, but she drank her barley water----”

“No, dear. I drank it,” said the Colonel. “I woke up just before six and crept in here: I couldn’t hear her breathing and I switched the hand lamp on. It was a shock. Madge. I picked up the glass and drank the stuff because my throat went dry. We’d been married over thirty-five years, you know, and---well, I was just knocked sideways.”

Madge went round the bed and took her father’s arm. “I know, Daddy. I understand. Come with me and I’ll get you a hot drink. You need it. We can’t do anything in here. Everything must be left until the doctor comes---it’s better so. I’ll ring up Dr. Baring as soon as I’ve given you a drink.”

He stood beside the bed a moment longer and then said slowly: “She died in her sleep, didn’t she, Madge, without knowing anything about it? I’m glad of that, because she feared to die. She looks so peaceful, no pain or struggle. Just passing out . . .”

Madge squeezed his arm. “Yes, Daddy: a continuation of sleep: the best way to die. Death that way is merciful. Now come with me; you’re cold and exhausted. Let me look after you and deal with everything.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he replied gently.

Madge took her father downstairs to the basement kitchen, because it was warm there. She opened up the boiler fire and coaxed it to a cheerful glow with handfuls of kindling. She filled the electric kettle with hot water from the tap and it started singing almost at once.

Colonel Farrington sat by the stove, his face very grey and old, murmuring to himself: “Thirty-five years . . . It’s a long time. I often wondered which of us would go first. Better this way, perhaps. She’d have missed me, wouldn’t she, Madge?”

“Yes, Daddy. You’ve been perfect to her; never impatient, never irritable. She’d have been lost without you. Now drink this; it’s hot and it’ll do you good. I’ll go and telephone Dr. Baring.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he replied again.

Madge went into the drawing room, where the telephone instrument stood on a table beside Mrs. Farrington’s couch, conveniently placed for the “nice little chats” she had with her friends. As she picked up the receiver, Madge was aware of a feeling of astonishment as she realised that never again would she hear Muriel Farrington’s cultured voice holding those interminable telephone conversations. “Never again . . .” she murmured to herself as she dialled the doctor’s number. The voice which spoke to her was not Dr. Baring’s, and she repeated his name.

“Dr. Scott speaking,” was the reply. “Dr. Baring is laid up. What is it?”

Madge was conscious of a shock: she had been so certain that she would hear old Dr. Baring’s husky, fussy, consequential voice. Dr. Scott was his new partner, a very clever young surgeon with a brusque habit of speech and no nonsense about a bedside manner.

“This is Miss Farrington speaking, from Windermere House. My stepmother, Mrs. Farrington, has died in her sleep. Dr. Baring saw her yesterday; her heart had been giving her a lot of pain. I thought it better to let Dr. Baring know at once, before we have her moved. She was alone when she died.”

“Mrs. Farrington . . .” he said slowly. “I examined her once, a few months ago. Her heart was sound enough then. All right. I’ll come along shortly.”

“Dr. Baring is not well enough to come?” asked Madge. “He saw her only yesterday. . . .”

“Dr. Baring had a motor smash. He is still unconscious, so you’ll have to put up with me.”

“Thank you,” said Madge evenly, and hung up the receiver. Dr. Scott was like that, an awkward customer, deliberately gauche and difficult. Madge remembered how furious he had made Mrs. Farrington. She went back to the kitchen. Her father was still sitting crouching over the fire, but his face was a better colour now, and he no longer shivered.

“You look warmer now, Daddy. Have another mug of tea.”

“Thank you, my dear. I expect the news came as a shock to poor old Baring. He’d known Muriel nearly all her life.”

“It wasn’t Dr. Baring who answered the phone, Daddy. It was Dr. Scott. Baring has had a motor smash.”

“Heavens! What an extraordinary thing. I was thinking how shaky he looked yesterday---too old to drive a car. Was he badly hurt, poor old chap?”

“I don’t know. Dr. Scott is coming round himself.”

“Scott? But Muriel didn’t like him, dear.”

“I know she didn’t, Daddy, but never mind about that now. Here’s your tea. I’ve put heaps of sugar in it; it’s good for you.”

The Colonel drank his tea gratefully: he had a very sweet tooth, and his wife had never allowed him to take liberties with the sugar. Then Madge said:

“We’d better get things quite clear before Dr. Scott comes, Daddy. You know how abrupt and disconcerting he is. About those sleeping tablets. Do you know how many there were in the box?”

“Yes, my dear. There were eight. I gave your mother one, and the rest are in the box on the mantelpiece in my dressing room. I took them out of her room because I don’t trust the beastly things. I was afraid she might take another by mistake.”

“That’s all right, then,” said Madge. “Did she take any other medicine last night?”

“Just our senna tea, dear. Muriel always made it, and we shared it between us, half a glass each.”

“I remember,” said Madge. “Now you’d better go and dress, Daddy. I’ll come up with you and find your things, and you can dress in the bathroom. I’ll let Dr. Scott in and fetch you if he wants you.”

(3)

“Those are the tablets, my dear,” said Colonel Farrington, lifting the little round box from the mantelpiece in his dressing room. “There are seven left, just as I said.”

“I see. Put them back where they were,” said Madge. “Now go and have a wash and get dressed.”

He obeyed her like a child, and when he had closed the bathroom door Madge went into her stepmother’s room and drew the bedclothes down a little. The waxen face was untroubled, the eyes shut, the jaw in place, supported by the pillows, for the dead woman lay on her side. She wore an old-fashioned cambric nightdress and a dainty knitted sleeping jacket. The loose sleeve of the latter was crumpled up a little, leaving the forearm bare. In the blue-veined arm was a tiny red spot—a recent puncture from a hypodermic needle. Madge stared at it, standing very still, then she replaced the bedclothes as they had been before.

She caught sight of her own face in the mirror, and went to the dressing table to smooth her hair. Her long dressing gown fastened with a zip from hem to throat, and now her hair was combed through she looked perfectly tidy. She went outside into the hall, and to her surprise she saw Paula standing at the foot of the stairs. It was most unusual for Paula to appear before ten o’clock in the morning.

“Is anything the matter?” Paula almost gasped out her words.

“Why do you ask, and what made you get up at this hour?” asked Madge.

“I heard you come downstairs.”

“I always come downstairs at six o’clock. You don’t generally find it necessary to come down yourself.”

“Oh, Madge, don’t be beastly. I had a bad dream or something. Is Mother all right?”

“Go back to bed,” said Madge tersely. “The doctor’s just coming, that’s his car. You’ve only got a nightdress on and not much of that. Go back to your room before I open the front door.”

“Madge---is she dead?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

Paula did not answer. Instead she turned and ran upstairs, her chiffon nightdress shimmering over her white body.

Madge went to the front door and drew the bolts. Dr. Scott was just running up the flight of steps outside.

“Good morning, Miss Farrington. May I have a word with you? This must have been a shock to you.”

“Please come in, Doctor.” Madge led him to the drawing room.

“You are a state registered nurse, I believe,” he said, and she nodded.

“Then you would know if Mrs. Farrington’s heart had deteriorated of late?”

“I only know that Dr. Baring said it had deteriorated. My stepmother did not expect, or need, any nursing. Apart from the fact that she rested a good deal and avoided exertion, she led quite a normal life.”

“Have you had any experience of heart cases?”

“Obviously. All nurses have, but I never specialised in that line. I did theatre work.”

“Quite. You can see I must make some inquiries, because Mrs. Farrington was not my patient, and Dr. Baring is in no state to give information. Speaking from your nursing experience, did you think Mrs. Farrington’s heart was likely to give out?”

Madge faced him steadily. “Her death was a great surprise to me. I didn’t take her heart pains very seriously, because she was of the hypochondriac type. Obviously I was wrong, but hearts are often incalculable.”

“Admittedly. I take it you saw Dr. Baring when he called yesterday?”

“No. I did not. I hardly ever saw him. My stepmother preferred to see him alone. As I run this house and do the cooking as well, I don’t leave my work unless I am needed, but my father saw Dr. Baring and he will be able to tell you what he said.”

“Did Dr. Baring prescribe any medicine?”

“He gave my stepmother some sleeping tablets. She took one. The rest are in a box in the dressing room.”

“When did you last see Mrs. Farrington?”

“At eleven o’clock last night. My father asked me to come in. She was asleep, and I didn’t disturb her. I noticed nothing abnormal about her, except that she was breathing rather heavily.”

“Thank you. I will examine her now, and see your father later.”

Madge led him to the bedroom. “The sleeping tablets are on the mantelpiece in the dressing room there,” she said. “Do you wish me to stay?”

“No. I will call you if I want you.”

Ten minutes later Dr. Scott’s hand went automatically to his cigarette case, but he put the case back without opening it. He was not feeling very happy. Scott had no opinion of his aged partner: in the younger man’s opinion Baring had no business to have gone on practising, even though he now visited only a few old patients. Forgetful, old-fashioned, and, to Scott’s mind, slovenly, Baring’s judgment had deteriorated. Standing by the bed, Scott asked himself irritably: “What’s the old fool done, and what do I do?”

He went to the bedroom door and opened it, glancing out across the hall, and Madge came towards him. Motioning her into the bedroom, he inquired: “Did Dr. Baring give this patient any injections?”

“I don’t know, though I believe something was said about injections for colds or hay fever or catarrh. My father would know. He’s in the drawing room.”

“Very well. I’ll be with him in a moment.”

Scott stood still for a moment, his lively mind darting from one disquieting thought to another. “Muddled his doses . . . anaphylactic shock . . . might be. Forgot his reading glasses and bunged in the wrong dope. Lord, what a thought. Didn’t even enter up his visits and treatment. What does A. do now?”

He stood and looked down at the peaceful cadaver, and another misgiving assailed him. “Did the poor old muddlehead realise he’d committed an almighty bloomer while he was on his way home, slam down his accelerator, and charge a lamp standard as the easiest way out of the mess? Seems to provide an explanation for an incomprehensible accident.”

Pulling the sheet up over the rigid body, Scott went outside again. “I should like to see your father, please,” he said to Madge.

“He is waiting for you in the drawing room.”

“Very good. Will you come in too, please.”

Madge, still in her long tailored dressing gown, followed Scott into Mrs. Farrington’s elegant old-fashioned drawing room. The Colonel was now dressed, neat and composed, though his face was drawn and haggard.

“I am sorry to have to trouble you with questions at such a time,” said Scott, “but your wife was not my patient, and Dr. Baring is not likely to be able to give us any help.”

“I am very sorry about Baring’s accident,” replied the Colonel. “I understand your difficulties, Doctor, so go ahead.” He spoke quite steadily, and Scott said:

“Thank you. First, were you present when Dr. Baring examined your wife yesterday?”

“No. He saw her in her bedroom and I stayed in here and spoke to him afterwards. My wife was a very reticent woman in some ways: she had the sensitiveness of her generation, and she would never have wished me to be present during a medical examination.”

“I understand. Would you tell me, as far as you can remember, what Dr. Baring reported to you.”

The Colonel rubbed his grey head. “I will do my best, but Baring was less lucid than usual. The fact was he seemed far from well himself, shaky and uncertain. However, he certainly did say, ‘No immediate occasion for alarm, but I will arrange for a consultation. The pulse is irregular and there are some murmurs which I don’t like.’ Actually, the poor old chap looked so shaky himself, I didn’t press him further.”

“What time did he call?”

“Around seven o’clock. I had telephoned to him earlier in the day at my wife’s request; she complained of heart pains and faintness. I rang him again at six o’clock.”

“He did not mention any injections?”

“Not Baring himself. My wife told me that he was giving her a series of injections for the colds and catarrh which troubled her. She did not say very much about it, as we had had a difference of opinion on the matter. I am strongly against this modern craze for injections, but there, you don’t want my opinions.”

Madge put in a word here. “Surely Dr. Baring’s casebook will give you the information you want, Doctor.”

Scott was conscious of intense irritation: he hated muddles and confusion, and this case was one vast muddle. He replied:

“When Dr. Baring’s car crashed, there was no police officer immediately available. Several people went to his assistance, and it was found later that his medical case had been stolen. As his notebook was also missing, it is to be presumed that that was stolen, too.”

Madge made no reply, and Scott finally made up his mind.

“I am sorry, but in the circumstances I cannot write a certificate, because I am uncertain of the cause of death. A post-mortem will have to be held to determine it.”

There were a few seconds of dead silence; then the Colonel said: “I don’t pretend that your decision is a welcome one, Doctor, but you know your duty and you must perform it.”

“I respect you for that reply, sir,” answered Scott. “Now, as to other details. Dr. Baring saw your wife at seven o’clock. Was she in bed?”

“Yes. She had gone to lie down earlier in the day, and got into bed after tea,” replied the Colonel.

“Did she take anything to eat?”

“Only a glass of hot milk, with a few drops of brandy added, after Baring left. I sat with her from eight o’clock until nine, when she listened to the news. Immediately after the news, I gave her one of the sleeping tablets Baring had left for her. She then said she would settle down to sleep. I went out for a stroll, to get some fresh air, and looked into her room at ten o’clock. At eleven, when I myself went to bed, I looked into her room again. She was breathing heavily, and I turned the light on beside her bed---a carefully shaded light----”

Again Madge interposed. “My father asked me to come in and look at her. I was bringing her barley water up, as it had been forgotten. Father was worried, but I could see nothing which caused me to think my stepmother was ill. She was sleeping quietly apart from the fact that she breathed rather heavily. Obviously my judgment was wrong.”

“This barley water,” said Scott. “There was an empty glass beside Mrs. Farrington’s bed. Had she drunk her barley water?”

“No,” replied the Colonel. “When I went in to her at six this morning, the glass was still full, just as Madge had left it. I turned on the hand lamp when I realised my wife was not breathing. The shock of seeing her dead shook me up pretty badly. I drank the barley water myself because my throat seemed to go dry and I was a bit muddled.”

Scott looked down at the old man’s haggard face, and for once the young surgeon spoke gently. “I understand. I’m sorry, sir. I realise it was a terrible blow for you, and I respect you very much for the clarity and courage with which you have answered my questions. Now I will make all arrangements and save you as much distress as I can.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Very good of you,” replied the Colonel.

Madge watched with an inscrutable face as Scott went back into Mrs. Farrington’s bedroom, and then took her father’s arm. “Come downstairs into the warm, Daddy. It’s cold in here.”

He followed her without a word.

(4)

Coming upstairs again from the kitchen, Madge met Anne in the hall. “Madge, is there anything I can do? Paula’s only just told me. Tony’s still asleep. He doesn’t even know yet.”

“So much the better,” said Madge coldly. “You can keep Tony and Paula and everybody else out of the way if you want to help. There’s nothing anybody can do except keep quiet and not make a fuss. The ambulance will be coming in a minute. Scott wants a p.m.”

Anne gasped. “Oh God . . . why?”

“Because she wasn’t his patient and he won’t sign a certificate without an examination. Baring’s had a motor smash and can’t help.”

“But it was her heart, wasn’t it?” gasped Anne.

“It’s no business of mine to say what it was,” snapped Madge, “and for goodness sake, don’t go all emotional over it.”

“Where’s Eddie? Can I go and talk to him?” asked Anne.

“He’s down in the kitchen. He was cold and shaky, and I persuaded him to stay there. It’s warm down there.”

“I’ll go down to him, poor old darling . . . or ought I to go and fetch Tony?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t do anything of the kind. We don’t want the whole family in the hall tripping over the stretcher men,” snapped Madge. “Listen. That’s the ambulance bell. Go down and fetch Eddie. He’s the only one who matters.”

Anne went down the kitchen stairs. She, too, felt cold and shaky---and frightened. But when she saw Colonel Farrington’s grey face, Anne forgot her own feelings; forgot, too, about Tony and Madge and everything else. “Eddie, dear, I’m so sorry!” she cried.