To Love and Perish. Ernest Dudley
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The pool was one of several along this stretch of the river caused by erosion of the banks which the waters had whittled away rushing on their way down to the estuary; and here a mass of rock had jutted out to form a shoulder brushing the river aside. It was only a few yards across the pool towards which they were now heading; it was deep and clear, and under a rocky ledge the boss-trout had its holt.
Dr. Griffiths had the first cast while Vane stood out of range and waited. The silence pressed down on them, only the faintest rustle from the tree tops, and the distant mutter of thunder now somewhere out over the sea beyond Conway. Vane didn’t hear Dr. Griffiths’s fly settle on the water, although he thought he caught a glimpse of it as it flicked the surface.
The minutes passed, and then there came a sudden flash out of the darkness of the pool. Dr. Griffiths gave a grunt, and then the flash had vanished, and Vane felt sure he could see the rod bending, silhouetted against the stars.
‘It’s hit,’ Dr. Griffiths said, mingled disbelief and excitement in his low tones.
A boss-trout is generally old, Dr. Griffiths had told Vane earlier that evening, often past its prime, who seeks out a holt in some big water which offers him maximum security. Lying in the shadowy recesses, the colour of his body altering to match his surroundings, he takes on a dark, sinister appearance; his massive curved jaw fits his ferocity and cunning. He slides from his holt, a menacing shadow through the night-time water, all set to act with deadly precision, striking and ripping into small trout, salmon fry, even small eels.
For twenty minutes Dr. Griffiths played the trout until gradually its curving shape was held suspended while it thrashed the surface of the pool. Then it was caught in the gaff, and it lay there flapping helplessly on the bank. It was the boss-trout all right; in the light of their torches he looked lean and his great black head ugly and vicious-looking. It must have weighed several pounds; Vane had expected it to be a more massive specimen. But he wasn’t prepared for Dr. Griffiths’s comment as he bent over it.
He straightened suddenly and looking at Vane, with his dark eyes abstracted in the glow from their torches. ‘My God,’ he said, under his breath, ‘Mrs. Merrill.’
Vane stared at him without knowing what he was talking about, and when he asked him what he meant, Dr. Griffiths brushed it aside, saying it was just something that had occurred to him; it was nothing really, he said.
Later Vane supposed he could have said that he had noticed when they had gone out this night that Dr. Griffiths had appeared a little more thoughtful than usual, but in retrospect it seemed merely that he’d been concerned with the boss-trout.
Dr. Griffiths didn’t say anything more about Mrs. Merrill, but Vane could tell he was distracted going back in the car. The thrill of landing the boss-trout seemed to have gone.
Vane remembered afterwards that the white Jag he had noticed in the headlights on their way up to Penybryn was no longer parked by the side of the road. But he didn’t connect it with Dr. Griffiths’s remark about Mrs. Merrill.
Dr. Griffiths dropped him at the Antelope Inn, where Vane was staying. They said goodbye, Vane was returning to London next day, and Dr. Griffiths went on home. But it wasn’t until the dawn crept down the valley that the doctor finally fell asleep, to be woken by his housekeeper an hour and a half later, at his usual time. By then Vane had left for London.
CHAPTER THREE
1.
The telephone rang in Castlebay police station and the desk-sergeant got it. He listened and then he put down the receiver, and went out and across the passage to Inspector Owen’s office, and knocked and went in. ‘It’s Dr. Griffiths, sir,’ he said. ‘On the phone he is.’
‘What about?’
‘He didn’t say; he didn’t want to discuss the matter on the telephone, he said.’
‘All right, tell him to look in, anytime this morning. I shall be here.’
The police station was a red-brick building in the middle of one side of Castle Square; at the back a cliff rose up on top of which towered the ruined old castle from which the town took its name. An hour later, as the clock in Castlebay clock-tower in the centre of the square was striking midday, Dr. Griffiths arrived at the police station, and the desk-sergeant showed him into Inspector Owen’s room.
Inspector Owen got up from a large oak desk, and pulled out a chair and asked Dr. Griffiths what his visit was in aid of.
‘It’s difficult,’ Dr. Griffiths said slowly, as he faced the other. ‘I don’t exactly know. The truth is I’m worried about something, and I don’t know what to do. Truth to tell, I don’t know if I ought to do anything at all.’
Inspector Owen had sat down again in his old, creaking swivel-chair and he leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, his square chin resting on his stubby hands. ‘Afraid of disclosing anything that might be regarded as contrary to the ethics of the medical profession and all that?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Someone going to have a baby who shouldn’t?’
‘If only it was as simple as that.’ Dr. Griffiths shifted uneasily. Then he opened his mouth and let the words come out. ‘It concerns Dick Merrill and Mr. Stone,’ he said.
‘And no doubt Mrs. Stone,’ Inspector Owen said slowly. ‘Gossip gets around here as quickly as any other small town.’
Dr. Griffiths reflected for a moment or two. Then looking straight at the other he said: ‘Look here, the night before last I had a telephone call from Mrs. Stone. Would I come and see her husband. She said he was sick, terribly sick. I went at once. I found him in bed, and his wife said they had both been to dinner with Dick Merrill. Her husband must have eaten something, she thought.’
‘Was she sick?’
‘No, she was perfectly all right.’
‘Had she had the same to eat as her husband?’
Inspector Owen had picked up one of the three pipes that were on his desk, and he got a tin of tobacco out of his desk drawer, pushing his swivel-chair back to rummage for the tin.
Dr. Griffiths nodded. ‘Consommé, roast lamb, and fruit salad and ice cream.’
‘Anything special to drink?’
‘Just some wine. I think Stone had a brandy as he was leaving.’ He paused and then squaring his shoulders, took the plunge. ‘That’s not the only thing that puzzles me. You know Merrill’s wife died about six months ago?’ Inspector Owen stopped tapping the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. ‘The symptoms are precisely the same. Only difference is that Mrs. Merrill died and Stone hasn’t.’
‘From where I’m sitting it sounds as if you’re suggesting there’s some connection between Mrs. Merrill’s death and Mr. Stone’s illness.’
‘I have no evidence in either case.’
‘Evidence of what?’
Dr. Griffiths sat silent, his face set in bitter lines.
Inspector Owen looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I know the spot you’re in. I want to help you. But for instance, why should Merrill have wanted to get rid of his wife? Or why should he want to get rid of Stone?’
‘All I know is that when I was hooking a trout last night, the thought suddenly flashed through my mind that the symptoms in both cases were identical. Now you see why I’m worried. If I make any allegation against Merrill, and it proved to be unfounded it’s the end of me. Quite apart from the fact that I’m a friend of his, and I was a friend of his late wife. Fine sort of friend, eh, to start thinking what I’m thinking?’
The other made a sympathetic noise behind his pipe. Dr. Griffiths eyed him anxiously, then drew some comfort from his expression. ‘What am I to do?’ he said. ‘At the same time, if there has been an attempt on Stone’s life, mind you I don’t say