Some Die Eloquent (14 page)

‘Our Dr McCavity been out for a drive, then?' enquired Crosby.

‘Friendly neighbourhood students, Inspector Harpe thought,' replied Sloan absently. ‘Souvenir hunting.' The ways of students remained obscure to him. ‘This way, I think.'

The constable, though, seemed curiously reluctant to move away from the hospital's entrance concourse. ‘What, sir, if anyone asks us who we are?'

Sloan, who made a point of wearing clothes as unremarkable as those of the next man, looked Crosby up and down. The constable's wearing apparel tended to be influenced by the silver screen. Sloan drew a breath. ‘Representatives from a pharmaceutical company, I think.' Then he caught sight of Crosby's trendy tie and added drily, ‘One of the lesser firms, I should say myself. Now, come on …'

Crosby looked up at the daunting array of signs – and perversely spotted a notice that Sloan had never seen at all.

‘What do they do at the Gut Club, sir?'

‘I have no idea,' said Sloan icily.

‘On Fridays at nine,' added Crosby gratuitously.

‘We are here on duty …'

Crosby looked round. ‘Do we have to wait until the lights go down or can we start straightaway?'

‘What we have to do,' said Sloan with some acerbity, ‘is to find the obstetrical registrar.'

Crosby said, ‘Lead on, MacDuff,' but he said it to Sloan's back.

In the end they got to the right department – chiefly by following a pretty young nurse.

‘She might have been going to radiotherapy,' objected Sloan. It really was a most unfair world.

‘Luck's better than judgement, sir,' said Crosby laconically. ‘Now, where's our man?'

He – Sloan – was definitely not one of those policemen who went in for much reading about police work these days. In his book practice had overtaken theory years ago. It had been different when he had been plain Police Constable Sloan and first feeling his way on the beat. Then he had read everything he could lay his hands on and one of the things that he had read then had stayed with him over the years. It had been advice on the easy identification of members of the medical profession.

A certain arrogance, his good book had said, went with the smell of antiseptic.

There was assuredly nothing tentative about Dr Roger Elspin's manner.

‘Yes?' he began peremptorily. Strange men did not often stray into his domain.

‘I am Detective-Inspector Sloan, Doctor, from Berebury Criminal Investigation Department.'

‘Well?'

‘With a few enquiries.'

‘You'll have to make them short.' Dr Elspin was not noticeably apprehensive either.

‘Yes, Doctor.'

Elspin indicated the radio receiver clipped to the pocket of his white coat. ‘I'm on call for the delivery ward.'

‘Big Brother is watching you, too,' murmured Crosby almost under his breath.

‘Big Sister actually,' murmured Elspin wryly.

‘I won't keep you long,' said Sloan mendaciously. Dr Elspin's sort of time-saving did not come into police work. Time was not money or anything else when law and order – let alone justice – were concerned.

‘Good,' said Elspin shortly.

‘It's about Miss Wansdyke,' said Sloan.

A frown crossed his forehead. ‘Well?'

‘I understand that you and her niece, Miss Briony Petforth are … want to …'

‘We're not just good friends, Inspector,' Elspin cut across his speech brusquely, ‘if that's what you want to know.'

‘No, sir?'

‘Moreover, old-fashioned as it may seem, we're going to get married into the bargain.'

‘I see, Doctor.' Elspin seemed determined enough to convince Sloan. He didn't know if Briony Petforth had taken any persuading.

‘Her aunt tried to stop us,' said the young man militantly. ‘That's the long and the short of that.'

‘Why?'

‘Because Briony hadn't finished her precious training, that's why.'

‘Ah.' Sloan nodded sagely. Training had been precious in the aunt's day and marriage a bar to finishing it. ‘The generation game.'

‘What?… Oh yes, of course.' Elspin relaxed slightly. ‘Beatrice said she should get her nursing registration first.'

‘I see.'

‘She was a schoolteacher, you see.'

‘They tend to think like that,' said Sloan.

‘The old brigade.' Elspin endorsed that with feeling. ‘They think that every woman should have a career to fall back on.'

‘Those that haven't,' observed Sloan moderately, ‘have sometimes regretted it.'

Elspin wasn't listening. ‘What did Beatrice think I was going to do? Abandon Briony six months after I'd married her?'

Sloan forbore to answer that. There was no use reminding the impetuous young man that that too had been known to happen to new brides.

‘There was something else she would keep harping on,' said Elspin morosely.

‘What was that?'

‘That having a professional qualification meant that a wife could always keep her independence.'

‘Ah yes. Of course.' He could see that the old schoolmistress would think like that.

‘I shan't stop Briony working if she wants to.'

‘No, sir,' said Sloan readily. ‘Naturally.' He saw no point in exploring the narrow line of demarcation between being a working wife and being a woman with a career. Helping to bring home the bacon before cooking it was something quite different from being a career woman in one's own right. Roger Elspin would find that out soon enough.

‘She'd only just started her third year,' said Elspin, a note of grievance creeping into his voice.

‘So that if the late Miss Wansdyke had had her way,' observed Sloan, ‘you would have had to wait nearly another year from now?'

‘And I didn't see why we should,' said Elspin.

‘Well …'

‘Just because some old bird who was fifty years behind the times thought it wasn't a good idea.'

‘No,' said Sloan, whose only real concern was whether the doctor had thought so strongly enough to take Draconian action in the matter; action outside the law.

‘Beatrice was living in the past,' he grumbled.

Sloan would have agreed with that straightaway. There had been nothing too modern about No. 59 Ridley Road. Furniture and decor both belonged to an earlier decade, and the Turkey carpet on the upstairs landing to an even older one still. There had been no sign of wealth either. That was what was so odd. Evidence of decent modest prosperity had abounded, and so had signs of care and attention to hearth and home, but there had been no indicators that spelt money on a large scale.

‘The time to marry,' pronounced the young man in the white coat sitting in front of him, ‘is when you feel like it.'

‘Ah,' said Sloan, who was older, ‘that's as may be.'

‘So,' responded Elspin smartly, ‘that's establishment heresy now, too, is it?'

‘No, Doctor. That's practical politics, that is.'

Detective-Constable Crosby stirred. ‘Depends if she'll have you when you feel like marrying, doesn't it, Doctor?'

Sloan cleared his throat authoritatively. This was no time to be discussing
marriage à la mode
. ‘Dr Elspin, exactly how much say did Miss Wansdyke have in the matter of her niece's marriage?'

‘Taking Miss Petforth's consent for granted, of course,' put in Crosby sedulously.

Elspin shot the constable an aggressive look but it was Sloan whom he answered. ‘None, Inspector.' He twisted his lips in a wry smile. ‘She didn't carry any real clout.'

‘Well, then …'

‘And yet she had the greatest pull of all.'

‘Which was?'

‘An appeal to Briony's better nature.'

‘I see,' said Sloan. And he did. In his experience people's better natures were only ever appealed to for causes that didn't respond to logic or common sense.

‘Below the belt,' commented Crosby insouciantly.

Sloan drew a savage breath …

‘All Beatrice said,' remarked Elspin more calmly, ‘was that she was her aunt and had brought her up after her parents were killed. Naturally Briony didn't want to hurt her feelings …' His irateness seemed to have evaporated now.

‘Miss Wansdyke had nothing and everything, didn't she?' agreed Sloan. ‘Now, sir, if …'

That was the moment at which Dr Elspin's radio receiver came to life.

‘Dr Roger Elspin,' intoned a nasally voice. ‘Calling Dr Elspin. To go to room three … delivery ward … now …'

He stood up with a shrug. ‘By the way, Inspector …'

‘Yes, Doctor.'

‘Your name's Sloan, isn't it?'

‘It is.'

‘Got a wife?'

‘Yes, Doctor.'

‘Called Margaret?'

Sloan nodded.

‘That's what I thought,' said Elspin. He essayed a formal smile. ‘Then we may meet again.'

‘Yes, Doctor,' said Sloan heavily.

‘Soon, perhaps.' Elspin waved a hand and was gone.

‘I think,' said Sloan to Crosby, as they stood in the corridor, ‘that we could well use another chat with Nurse Briony Petforth.'

‘What I could use,' said the constable, ‘is food and drink.'

‘If,' said Sloan somewhat maliciously, ‘you can spot a sign made up of a knife and fork then I think you might be on to something – unless that means surgery.'

Crosby pointed to a notice-board. ‘They don't eat there, do they, sir, do you think?'

‘Where?'

‘The Gut Club.'

‘I hope not,' said Sloan repressively. ‘This way.'

Fleming Ward had not been reduced to a symbol. It proclaimed itself in alphabetical terms from afar and the two policemen had no difficulty in finding the right direction.

‘They don't mention distances, though, sir, do they?' grumbled Crosby as one long white corridor belayed into another long white corridor.

‘I think we're getting warmer,' murmured Sloan. ‘Slow down a bit.'

‘Sir?'

‘I may be wrong,' said Sloan softly, ‘but I think we may not be the only ones making for Fleming Ward.

‘The man ahead, Crosby … the one in the donkey-jacket.'

‘Auburn hair, five foot five, slight build …'

‘Remind you of anyone?'

‘Nicholas Petforth,' breathed Crosby.

‘Going to see his sister,' concluded Sloan neatly.

‘Hiding up in the hospital?'

‘Nobody's asked us what we're up to yet,' said Sloan reasonably.

The man ahead turned to the right and quickened his pace slightly. Sloan and Crosby lengthened their steps.

‘One on either side,' instructed Sloan quietly, ‘when I say the word.'

They had reckoned, though, without that primordial sense given even to man to tell him when he is being watched or followed. No sooner had the two policemen started to draw close when the man looked round. As soon as he saw them he began to run.

‘After him!' shouted Sloan, starting to give chase.

‘He's got freckles,' said Crosby.

‘Never mind that now. Get him!'

Had that particular corridor been long and straight too the two policemen might have had a better chance of catching the man ahead. Instead their quarry ducked down the next turning and then took the next opening after that. Half a minute later he had put a stretcher case between himself and his pursuers.

Crosby dipped swiftly to one side of porters and patient and shot round the next corner after him, shouting, ‘Hey, you there! Stop!'

If anything, the man put on an extra spurt.

Sloan pelted down the new corridor after him. This one at least was long and straight and Crosby appeared to be gaining on his man. Sloan summoned up his reserves for an extra spurt and prepared to fall upon the man in front when Crosby had caught up with him. His added weight would come in useful then.

And then – quite suddenly – the man whom they were chasing wasn't anywhere to be seen any more.

He had disappeared abruptly through a pair of swing doors.

To Sloan's surprise, Detective-Constable Crosby did not follow him through them. Instead the younger policeman skidded to a sudden halt.

‘What the … Crosby!'

The constable straightened up and pointed.

Above the double doors were the unmistakable words ‘Quarantine Area – Keep Out'. And on either side of the doorway there were equally unequivocal signs proclaiming ‘Bio-Activity – Do Not Enter'.

CHAPTER XI

Our furnace too for calcifying action,

Our waters in a state of albefaction.

‘What!' bellowed Leeyes. ‘Do you mean to just stand there and tell me you lost him?'

‘We did,' said Sloan. Sometimes with the Superintendent a short answer stood one in better stead than a long one.

‘And what were you afraid of?' snarled Superintendent Leeyes in a transport of rage. ‘Foot and mouth disease?'

‘Quarantine,' said Sloan, speaking for himself. Detective-Constable Crosby had been muttering about the Black Death.

‘He was within your reach …' moaned Leeyes, taking a deep breath.

‘But he slipped through our fingers,' finished Sloan for him.

Unwisely, as it happened.

‘Sloan, this isn't one of your fancy games of cricket. This is for real.'

‘So is the Bio-activity, sir.'

‘What does it mean?' asked Leeyes suspiciously.

Sloan, too, had had to ask. ‘It's the place in the hospital – in the whole of Calleshire, actually – where they keep the cultures of the stuff that they don't want to get out and about. Viruses, mostly.'

That hadn't been quite how the Administrators had put it to the two policemen but it had been what they had meant.

‘Catching,' said Leeyes, reducing the matter to its simplest.