Doctor On The Boil (14 page)

That night the dean dreamt that the Queen on her flag-decked dais was executing him again. He woke sweating, relieved that it was but a fantasy. He glanced at his bedside clock, and saw that it was already past seven in the morning. Then a warm feeling grew upon him. This particular day was going to be one of the most satisfying of his life.

The dean usually made a brisk toilet, anxious to be out of the house and away to the hospital. He had been even quicker during the last week in an attempt to be off before Sir Lancelot got down to breakfast. Approaching marriage, far from mellowing the surgeon’s mood, seemed to put him in an increasingly filthy temper. But that morning the dean tarried in the bath and fiddled with his clothes, seeing his wife go downstairs first. He wanted to be completely sure of finding himself alone after breakfast with his guest.

By the time the dean reached the table, Josephine had already snatched a cup of coffee and hurried to Bond Street for a final fitting of the dress she had bought for the following day’s wedding. Muriel rose and said she had a patient to examine before the teaching-round. George alone sat yawning over his cornflakes. The boy always seems so tired these mornings, the dean thought testily. Perhaps he ought to have some treatment for it.

There was only one letter beside his plate. It was from the senior consultant psychiatrist at St Swithin’s.

The dean read it, with a grunt. ‘You seem to have impressed the psychiatry people at St Swithin’s at your consultation yesterday afternoon.’

George looked at him silently. Since the incident of the Minister’s desk he had been too terrified to speak to his father at all. ‘Impressed them?’

‘Yes. That you are mentally unsuited to the occupation of medicine.’

A slow smile spread over George’s face.

‘They go further. They imply that you are mentally unsuited for any occupation whatsoever.’ He tossed the letter down. ‘Well, if you want to give it up, you may as well, I suppose. Even though I wouldn’t take the word of a psychiatrist on the suitability of a fish to water. You represent a great waste of time and money, but as you have little idea of the value of either I suppose that won’t trouble your conscience.’

‘But Dad–’

The dean stopped him. ‘I don’t want another word about it. It is a most painful subject to me. Once we have Sir Lancelot out of the way, we can settle down to discuss your career. Perhaps you would do well to emigrate.’

George spooned the rest of the cornflakes into his mouth and scurried away. The dean picked up the morning paper. Inga came in silently to clear the dirty dishes. Miss MacNish, the dean knew, had gone to have her hair done for the wedding. They would be undisturbed. The scene was set, the drama could begin.

‘Morning, Dean.’ Sir Lancelot appeared and sat at the table. ‘Sling us the bit of the paper with the crossword, will you? I rather like having a stab at it over breakfast.’

The dean stared at him coldly. He ran his tongue over his lips. ‘It might interest you to know, Lancelot, that it is one of the remaining small pleasures of my busy and overtaxed life also to have a stab at the crossword over breakfast. I only manage to see my newspaper at all because I specifically ordered Miss MacNish shortly after your arrival
not
to send it directly to your bedroom with your morning tea.’

Sir Lancelot sniffed. ‘I’ve worse things to worry about, I suppose.’ He poured himself some coffee. ‘Slacking this morning, I see? You’re usually at the hospital by now.’

‘I am not slacking. I was waiting specifically until you came down.’

‘Civil of you, but as a matter of fact I really prefer solitude for this particular meal.’

‘I have something to say which I fear will cause you considerable dismay.’

‘You’re not on about that bloody electric blanket again, are you?’

‘Lancelot, when you leave this house tomorrow morning for the registry office, you will be leaving it for good. On that, I think we are fully agreed. But you will be leaving St Swithin’s for good, too.’

Sir Lancelot glared. ‘What’s all this? Are you ordering me about, you little hearthrug Napoleon?’

‘I was intending to put an unpleasant matter to you as kindly as possible. If you persist in using such terms, I shall employ less finesse.’

‘Dean, do shut up and ring the bell for my eggs and bacon.’

‘I think you would prefer us to have no audience. Lancelot, will you turn your mind back to the occasion of Thursday, June the twenty-fifth, 1953? That was Coronation year.’

Sir Lancelot pondered for some time. ‘It was the first day of the Lord’s Test against the Australians under Hassett, the season we got the Ashes back by winning the final game at the Oval–’

‘I’m not asking about trivia,’ snapped the dean. ‘I should have imagined the date was stamped indelibly on your memory. It was that of a meeting of the full disciplinary committee at the hospital.’

‘H’m,’ said Sir Lancelot.

The dean picked up a butter-knife and started tapping the dish to emphasize his points.

‘That June day you were still Mr Spratt, a junior consultant on the staff of St Swithin’s. Though you perhaps did not realize it, you stood on the threshold of your greatest days as a surgeon – which, I freely and gladly admit, brought immense benefit to mankind and considerable renown to the hospital.’

‘H’m,’ repeated Sir Lancelot.

‘You appeared before the committee in rather peculiar circumstances.’ The dean tapped louder. ‘In the first place, it was convened with a bare quorum, only three members. Most irregular. The meeting was at an unusual time – nine in the evening, when few consultants could have been in the hospital. And of those three committee members, all now unhappily dead, two were consultant physicians related to your family by marriage. The chairman was the retiring senior surgeon, who was your uncle. Odd.’

‘I do wish you’d stop playing “God Save the Queen” on that ruddy butter-dish.’

The dean abruptly dropped the knife. ‘Furthermore, Lancelot, in a most mysterious manner the relevant pages of the minute-book became gummed together.’

‘Nothing mysterious about it whatever. I gummed them.’

‘With the aid of a scalpel, the story of the meeting is now revealed. The proceedings seem to have been ridiculously brief and laughably lenient. A reprimand, I recall, was the only punishment. Everything was conducted with discretion, even delicacy. The lady in question was referred to throughout simply as “Mrs X”. I shall not press you who the unfortunate female was–’

‘You’d damn well better not, and she was
not
unfortunate.’

‘Nevertheless, Lancelot, you outraged decency by taking her away for the weekend. To France. To Le Touquet. I must say, you do seem to enjoy making history repeat itself.’

‘Well? What great harm was there in that, as you pointed out in your office? Even if I have done it twice in my life.’

‘With a difference. On the recent occasion, the lady who accompanied you is tomorrow to become your wife. Even the narrowest moralist would strain himself objecting to that. But on the earlier expedition the lady already had a husband.’

‘They were joined only formally.’

‘That is absolutely nothing to do with it. Luckily for you, the husband did not indeed seem particularly affronted. He simply complained to the hospital, and left St Swithin’s to take the matter further if they thought fit.’

‘I don’t see what business it was of the hospital’s, anyway.’

Picking up the knife again, the dean gave the butter-dish a decisive tap. ‘You seem to have forgotten with the passage of time that the lady in question was also one of your patients. A few weeks previously you had removed her appendix in the private block.’

‘H’m,’ said Sir Lancelot again.

‘Of course, I don’t really believe that the General Medical Council would feel necessarily obliged to act at this stage – as it most certainly would have done, had the facts come to its notice at the time.’

‘Why not, for God’s sake? It isn’t exactly prehistoric.’

‘Because now you are retired from practice,’ the dean emphasized. ‘Completely retired. You do not operate. You do not see a single patient. You do not even appear inside the walls of St Swithin’s. You are
absolutely retired
.’

‘H’m.’

‘And anyway, the gossip alone, if it got about, would not be a nice thing for a man of the integrity, the devotion to duty, the status – and, if I may add, the arrogance, stubbornness and intolerance – of yourself.’

Sir Lancelot gave a sigh. ‘Blackmail?’

‘That is not the word which I should use. But I suppose it is,’ the dean added cheerfully.

There was a pause. ‘All right. I’ll get out. I’ll take Tottie and keep out of your hair.’

‘Very wise of you indeed, I think.’

‘You mentioned a while ago about a free world cruise–’

‘That offer is now closed,’ said the dean firmly.

‘We’ll go from honeymoon back to Wales, I suppose,’ Sir Lancelot said gloomily. ‘At least I shall be able to get some fishing.’

The dean rose. ‘Now I must be about my duties. This has been painful for me, Lancelot, very painful. I will bid you good morning. Tomorrow it will be good-bye.’

‘There’s just one thing, Dean.’

‘Yes?’

‘If you breathe one word about that affair to anyone, I really believe I shall slit your blasted throat with a bone-saw.’

The dean looked hurt. ‘Come, Lancelot. Surely you can trust my discretion? After all, we’re lifelong friends, aren’t we?’

Everyone in the dean’s household was up early the next day, except Sir Lancelot. The dean himself appeared in his best suit, rubbing his hands and beaming at a disruption which, on normal mornings, would have incited outbursts comparable to
King Lear
. He had grudgingly agreed some days before to the wedding-reception being held in his home – Sir Lancelot disliked hotels, and anyway thought it a neat way to keep down the onlookers. Miss MacNish and Josephine had been almost continually in the kitchen for forty-eight hours, and now the large dining-room was emptied of its normal furniture to contain a pair of long tables covered with stiff white cloths. One bore various succulent canapés and a small wedding cake, the other glasses for champagne. Breakfast for himself, the dean saw, would be a cup of coffee in the kitchen or nothing at all. But he didn’t care. That morning Sir Lancelot was going. For good.

‘Nothing like a wedding for setting the womenfolk in a twitter,’ he remarked to Josephine, giving the dining-room a genial glance. ‘Even though the bridegroom is of retirement age and the bride old enough to know better. What a curiously standardized form of human nourishment these little cocktail things are,’ he added, picking up a square of toast with a slice of egg and two tips of asparagus on it. ‘One gets exactly the same at receptions in New York or Buenos Aires or Melbourne or Tokyo.’ He swallowed it. ‘I must write a letter to
The Times
about that some day.’

‘Lionel!’ exclaimed his wife excitedly. ‘I’ve got some – oh, please don’t eat any more of those canapés, we’ve hardly enough to go round as it is – I’ve got some simply wonderful news.’

‘You’ve heard? Yes, it’s splendid, isn’t it?’

‘Then
you’ve
heard? And you agree?’

‘Of course I agree. I’ve been working towards that precise end for weeks.’

‘
Have
you? That’s funny. I rather sensed you disapproved of the whole idea.’

‘What on earth put that in your head? We shall get a little peace at last when he’s left our family circle.’

‘Of course, he’s a bit noisy sometimes. But we shall miss him dreadfully, of course.’

‘Miss him? Oh, yes! like the garbage when the dustmen empty it on Monday mornings.’

‘Lionel! What a –
please
don’t eat any more of those – what a way to talk about your own son.’

‘I didn’t even mention my own son,’ he told her irritably. ‘I mean Lancelot.’

‘You seem absolutely obsessed with Lancelot. Do please listen to me for a moment. They want to get married.’

‘Of course they do. What do you imagine this banquet is for?’

‘I mean George wants to marry Inga.’

‘Does he indeed? We’ll soon see about that. What’s the little fool going to live on? He’ll not have a penny from me. And he won’t get very fat on that drivel he writes for television. He’ll go on the buses, I presume. I shouldn’t think even Inga will stand for that.’

‘Why are you always so horrible about little Inga?’

‘Well, she can’t expect much. She told me her father was a match-seller in Stockholm. Almost a beggar, I suppose.’

‘I do wish you’d make allowance for the poor girl’s English. He sells his Swedish matches by the hundred million. Every day.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘And there’s another point. Inga won’t look at him unless he sticks to medicine. She’s got sense, you see. She wants him to have a nice steady job.’ Josephine laughed. ‘She’d make a wonderful doctor’s wife. She’s even antiseptic to look at, isn’t she?’

The newly-engaged pair, listening outside, felt it the moment to enter the dining-room, holding hands and looking sheepish.

‘Then I’m delighted,’ the dean decided. In his mood that morning he could have been delighted had his son announced he was going to marry Sarah Gamp. ‘Yes, you have my blessing, as they used to say in the days when children took parents into their confidence about such things. Well, well! Fancy you getting married, George. I never credited you with the initiative. Now you are taking unto yourself a wife, you must steady up, take a serious and sober view of life. There’s nothing frivolous or amusing about marriage, you know.’

‘Yes, Dad. So you say.’

‘I must confess, I have often wished you possessed some of the commonsense and social responsibility shown by your sister Muriel–’

Miss MacNish appeared in the room. ‘Doctor, three policemen have just arrived.’

‘Policemen? I didn’t send for any policemen. To control the traffic outside, I suppose. Must be Lancelot’s doing. Gross extravagance. You don’t get them free, you know, you have to pay. Tell them to go away.’

‘I did, Doctor. But they won’t.’

‘What impertinence. Say we don’t want their services, it was all a mistake. I shall write to Scotland Yard about it.’

‘They have a search warrant, Doctor.’

The dean went rigid. ‘Search warrant? But there must be some mistake…’

‘You’d better ask them in and get it over. Before Lancelot gets down,’ said Josephine grimly.

‘Yes, yes, show them in,’ said the dean, nervously picking up a triangle of smoked salmon on brown bread and swallowing it.

There were two policemen in uniform, politely removing their helmets. The other was a thick-set young man in plain clothes.

‘Afraid we’ve disrupted a party, sir,’ he said cheerfully, waving an identity card in the dean’s direction.

‘But this…this is a gross violation of the liberty of the subject.’

‘I know how you feel, sir. We won’t keep you long. I’d like a word with Miss Muriel Lychfield, of this address.’

‘My daughter? But why?’

‘I have a warrant for her arrest, sir.’

‘Oh!’ cried Josephine.

‘What is happening?’ Inga asked George nervously. ‘Will they now beat-up your father?’

Muriel at that moment came through the door with a tray of asparagus in brown-bread overcoats.

‘They’ve come to take you off to prison,’ said the dean.

She dropped the tray. She clapped her hands over her mouth. The detective drew from his raincoat pocket a small silver object shaped like an elephant. ‘This your property, miss?’ She could say nothing. He turned to the dean. ‘Or yours, sir?’

‘Never seen it before in my life. I don’t even know what it is.’

‘It’s a silver sugar caster, of distinctive shape.’ The detective turned it over. ‘Quite thoughtfully pretty really. I’m rather interested in antiques. We get quite a variety through our hands, as you’d expect, one way and another.’

‘
What
is this all about?’ the dean demanded.

‘Daddy,’ said Muriel. ‘I’ve been a fool.’

‘Will you answer a few questions first, sir?’

‘Anything you like.’ The dean clasped his forehead. ‘My God! My knight–’

‘Yes?’

‘My – “my nightshirt”. It’s an expression. I use it sometimes.’

The detective looked at him curiously. ‘We received a complaint last night from a Lady Blaydon – are you all right, sir?’

‘Yes, yes. A little dizzy.’

‘Should I call a doctor?’

‘I am one, damn it.’

‘Sorry, sir. Just forgetting for the moment. Lady Blaydon stated that a man named Albert Duttle called at her flat yesterday afternoon on the pretext of selling antiques. When he left, this property was missing.’

‘Albert Duttle? Never heard of him.’

‘Oh, Daddy!’ said Muriel. ‘I
have
been a fool.’

‘But he knows your daughter, sir.’

‘Muriel! It can’t be? Surely not?’

‘Oh, Daddy! I’ve been a
bloody
fool.’

‘Everyone’s gone mad.’ The dean leant against the wall. Josephine put her arm round him. ‘Perhaps I’m dreaming it? Yes, I’m dreaming it. The Queen’s going to cut my head off.’

The detective looked puzzled. ‘It’s a serious offence, sir, but not as serious as that.’

‘But how did our daughter get mixed up in all this?’ asked Josephine.

‘We easily traced Duttle to a crummy little antique shop he runs. He’s one of our regulars. We found the missing property. It seems your daughter had conspired with him in stealing it.’ The detective took a manila envelope from his inside pocket. Extracting a visiting card, he handed it silently to the dean.

‘That’s my card, all right. Undeniably. But I certainly never wrote
that
. It isn’t my writing. It–’ He looked in alarm at Muriel.

‘Oh, Daddy! I’ve been such a bloody
awful
fool.’

‘Looks like a clear case,’ the detective said with satisfaction. ‘I expect we’ll have you, too, Doctor. Accessory before the fact.’

The dean started waving his arms about. ‘All right. Arrest me. Arrest us all. Imprison and disgrace the lot of us. Kick me into the gutter. Only someone tell me one thing. Why has a sensible level-headed girl like my daughter suddenly started consorting with the lowest criminals?’

‘It was Sir Lancelot,’ said Muriel. ‘He said I should help Albert in his work. I stayed away from the hospital one morning specially to ask his advice. It was the day he told George to hide naked under the Minister’s desk.’

The dean was vaguely aware of a young man pushing into the room.

‘It was my fault,’ announced the newcomer. ‘I accept all blame. It was my idea to go ahead with the plot, and I’m prepared to take the consequences.’

The dean stared. ‘You’re not Duttle. You’re Summerbee.’ A thought struck him. ‘Or do you work under an alias?’

‘I didn’t really come to confess, sir. But as the police are involved, I’m prepared to give myself up.’

‘But you’re always taking the bloody blame, damn it. What are you, boy? Some kind of masochist?’

‘About the kidnapping, sir.’

‘Kidnapping?’ The detective looked up.

‘Also, sir, I want to tell you this – the way you treat your daughter would make a Victorian novel look like
Candy
. And furthermore, I intend to put a stop to it by taking her off to live with me. But I’ll marry her first, if she really wants to.’

‘Terry, darling!’ They grabbed each other. ‘How could I have been so
blind
? I was mad, mad! Terry, how I love you!’

The dean reached out a shaking hand for an anchovy on a strip of toast, and munched it with an abstracted air. ‘I shall kill myself,’ he muttered. ‘Bingham can have the bits.’

‘Hello! The party started already? You might at least have held your horses till the ceremony was over, Dean. What have you got the house full of policemen for? If you imagine there’s valuable wedding presents to guard, I’m afraid everyone will be sadly mistaken. No breakfast, I suppose? Then I fancy I’ll settle for a glass of champagne. George, be a good fellow and open a bottle in the ice-bucket. You know how, I presume, without drowning the lot of us? I say, that’s Sergeant Morgan-Jones, isn’t it? Quite forgot you were in the plain-clothes branch. How’s the old hernia?’

‘Fine, Sir Lancelot. Never a moment’s trouble since you fixed it at St Swithin’s.’

‘Must have been about the last case before I retired. Still playing rugger?’

‘Putting on a bit of weight now, I’m afraid, sir.’

‘Damn good three-quarter you were for the Metropolitan Police. Shocking booze-up we had when you gave the St Swithin’s fifteen a hiding that season, wasn’t it? How on earth do you manage to get back from the ground these days of the breathalyser? Borrow a black maria for the evening, I suppose–’

‘Lancelot,’ croaked the dean. ‘Help me.’

‘I say, Dean, you don’t look very well. That electric blanket been playing you up, or something?’

‘Something awful has happened. I face the prospect of a criminal charge.’

‘Really? Well, that’s not a nice thing for a man of the integrity, the devotion to duty, the position – and, if I may add, the miserliness, deviousness and selfishness – of yourself.’

‘You
must
help me.’

‘Not much time, really. In an hour I’m getting married. Then I’m on my honeymoon and then I’m retiring to Wales. But do send me a postcard to say how the trial turns out.’

‘Lancelot, you must
not
leave London. Only you can save me.’

‘Damnation, man, do you want to exile me or keep us both on as lodgers? At least make up your mind.’ He took a glass of champagne from George. ‘Good morning, Grimsdyke,’ he added genially as the young doctor came in, holding Stella by the hand. ‘To what do I – or rather the dean – owe this unexpected visit?’

‘We’re getting married, sir, at the same registry office. In fact, we’re next on the bill to you. I thought it would be a bit of a laugh if we all went along together.’

‘A very pleasant idea. Have some champagne. The rest of you look as though you could do with a glass, too. Not you and your men, I suppose, Sergeant, either on duty or in training? George, you’d better open another bottle. My dear Tottie, how nice to see you. Though shouldn’t I by rights only set eyes on you at the registry office? Otherwise it’s seven years’ bad luck, or something, I believe.’

‘Lancelot.’ She ignored everyone in the room. ‘I’ve got to speak to you. In private.’

‘Then let’s step into the dean’s study next door. It’s getting horribly crowded in here, anyway. Do you mind if I bring my champagne?’

They went into the small study next door. ‘Lancelot–’

‘You look awfully smart, Tottie. Wedding-gear suits you.’

‘That’s the point, Lancelot. There isn’t going to be a wedding.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Oh, Lancelot!’ She started to cry. ‘How can I do this to you?’

‘Come, come.’ He offered his red-and-white handkerchief. ‘Tell me the trouble. Are you married already, or somesuch?’

‘Almost.’ She shook her head miserably. ‘You know when I left St Swithin’s for America? I ended up working in an expensive private clinic in Los Angeles. It was there I met Eric Cavendish, as a patient.’

‘You told me this when we all three had dinner after that students’ prank.’

‘But what I didn’t tell you was that we lived together afterwards.’

‘I see.’

‘Until we had a row, and I went back to nursing.’

‘I see.’

‘The row was about women. Young women. Very young women. Eric has a sort of kink about them. I don’t know what the psychologists call it, a Lolita complex or something. I managed to restrain him.
Only
I managed to restrain him. Once he was loose from me, he got into all sorts of trouble. There’s no knowing where it might end.’