The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
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he said briskly, holding out his hand. “I’m up to my eyes in arrears, you see. Just back from my holiday. What can I do for you?”
“We have called,” said Thorndyke, “about a man named Ingle.”
“Ingle—Ingle,” repeated Halbury. “Now, let me see—”
“Stock-Orchard Crescent, Holloway,” Thorndyke explained.
“Oh, yes. I remember him. Well, how is he?”
“He’s dead,” replied Thorndyke.
“Is he really?” exclaimed Halbury. “Now that shows how careful one should be in one’s judgments. I half suspected that fellow of malingering. He was supposed to have a dilated heart, but I couldn’t make out any appreciable dilatation. There was excited, irregular action. That was all. I had a suspicion that he had been dosing himself with trinitrine. Reminded me of the cases of cordite chewing that I used to meet with in South Africa. So he’s dead, after all. Well, it’s queer. Do you know what the exact cause of death was?”
“Failure of a dilated heart is the cause stated on the certificates—the body was cremated; and the ‘C’ Certificate was signed by you.”
“By me!” exclaimed the physician. “Nonsense! It’s a mistake. I signed a certificate for a Friendly Society. Ingle brought it here for me to sign—but I didn’t even know he was dead. Besides, I went away for my holiday a few days after I saw the man and only came back yesterday. What makes you think I signed the death certificate?”
Thorndyke produced Stalker’s précis and handed it to Halbury, who read out his own name and address with a puzzled frown. “This is an extraordinary affair,” said he. “It will have to be looked into.”
“It will, indeed,” assented Thorndyke; “especially as a suspicion of poisoning has been raised.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Halbury. “Then it was trinitrine, you may depend. But I suspected him unjustly. It was somebody else who was dosing him; perhaps that sly-looking baggage of a wife of his. Is anyone in particular suspected?
“Yes. The accusation, such as it is, is against the wife.”
“H’m. Probably a true bill. But she’s done us. Artful devil. You can’t get much evidence out of an urnful of ashes. Still, somebody has forged my signature. I suppose that is what the hussy wanted that certificate for—to get a specimen of my handwriting. I see the ‘B’ certificate was signed by a man named Meeking. Who’s he? It was Barber who called me in for an opinion.”
“I must find out who he is,” replied Thorndyke. “Possibly Dr. Barber will know. I shall go and call on him now.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Halbury, shaking hands as we rose to depart, “you ought to see Barber. He knows the history of the case, at any rate.”
From Wimpole Street we steered a course for Howland Street, and here we had the good fortune to arrive just as Dr. Barber’s car drew up at the door. Thorndyke introduced himself and me, and then introduced the subject of his visit, but said nothing, at first, about our call on Dr. Halbury.
“Ingle,” repeated Dr. Barber. “Oh, yes, I remember him. And you say he is dead. Well, I’m rather surprised. I didn’t regard his condition as serious.”
“Was his heart dilated?” Thorndyke asked.
“Not appreciably. I found nothing organic; no valvular disease. It was more like a tobacco heart. But it’s odd that Meeking didn’t mention the matter to me—he was my locum, you know. I handed the case over to him when I went on my holiday. And you say he signed the death certificate?”
“Yes; and the ‘B’ certificate for cremation, too.”
“Very odd,” said Dr. Barber. “Just con in and let us have a look at the day book.”
We followed him into the consulting room, and there, while he was turning over the leaves of the day book, I ran my eye along the shelf over the writing-table from which he had taken it; on which I observed the usual collection of case books and books of certificates and notification forms, including the book of death certificates.
“Yes;” said Dr. Barber, “here we are; ‘Ingle, Mr., Stock-Orchard Crescent.” The last visit was on the 4th of September, and Meeking seems to have given some sort of certificate. Wonder if he used a printed form.” He took down two of the books and turned over the counterfoils.
“Here we are,” he said presently; “Ingle, Jonathan, 4 September. Now recovered and able to resume duties.’ That doesn’t look like dying, does it? Still, we may as well make sure.”
He reached down the book of death certificates and began to glance through the most recent entries.
“No,” he said, turning over the leaves, “there doesn’t seem to be—Hullo! What’s this? Two blank counterfoils; and about the date, too; between the 2nd and 13th of September. Extraordinary! Meeking is such a careful, reliable man.”
He turned back to the day book and read through the fortnight’s entries. Then he looked up with an anxious frown.
“I can’t make this out,” he said. “There is no record of any patient having died in that period.”
“Where is Dr. Meeking at present?” I asked.
Somewhere in the South Atlantic,” replied Barber. “He left here three weeks ago to take up a post on a Royal Mail Boat. So he couldn’t have signed the certificate in any case.”
That was all that Dr. Barber had to tell us, and a few minutes later we took our departure.
“This case looks pretty fishy,” I remarked, as we turned down Tottenham Court Road.
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed. “There is evidently something radically wrong. And what strikes me especially is the cleverness of the fraud; the knowledge and judgment and foresight that are displayed.”
“She took pretty considerable risks,” I observed.
“Yes, but only the risks that were unavoidable. Everything that could be foreseen has been provided for. All the formalities have been complied with—in appearance. And you must notice, Jervis, that the scheme did actually succeed. The cremation has taken place. Nothing but the incalculable accident of the appearance of the real Mrs. Ingle, and her vague and apparently groundless suspicions, prevented the success from being final. If she had not come on the scene, no questions would ever have been asked.”
“No,” I agreed. “The discovery of the plot is a matter of sheer bad luck. But what do you suppose has really happened?”
Thorndyke shook his head.
“It is very difficult to say. The mechanism of the affair is obvious enough, but the motives and purpose are rather incomprehensible. The illness was apparently a sham, the symptoms being produced by nitro-glycerine or some similar heart poison. The doctors were called in, partly for the sake of appearances and partly to get specimens of their handwriting. The fact that both the doctors happened to be away from home and one of them at sea at the time when verbal questions might have been asked—by the undertaker, for instance—suggests that this had been ascertained in advance. The death certificate forms were pretty certainly stolen by the woman when she was left alone in Barber’s consulting-room, and, of course, the cremation certificates could be obtained on application to the crematorium authorities. That is all plain sailing. The mystery is, what is it all about? Barber or Meeking would almost certainly have given a death certificate, although the death was un expected, and I don’t suppose Halbury would have refused to confirm it. They would have assumed that their diagnosis had been at fault.”
“Do you think it could have been suicide, or an in advertent overdose of trinitrine?”
“Hardly. If it was suicide, it was deliberate, for the purpose of getting the insurance money for the woman, unless there was some further motive behind. And the cremation, with all its fuss and formalities,