命案目睹记37
时间：2025-10-20 07:27:08
（单词翻译:单击）
Seventeen
I
Craddock had to wait a few minutes whilst Quimper finished his evening
surgery, and then the doctor came to him. He looked tired and depressed.
He offered Craddock a drink and when the latter accepted he mixed one
for himself as well.
“Poor devils,” he said as he sank down in a worn easy-chair. “So scared
and so stupid—no sense. Had a painful case this evening. Woman who
ought to have come to me a year ago. If she’d come then, she might have
been operated on successfully. Now it’s too late. Makes me mad. The truth
is people are an extraordinary mixture of heroism and cowardice. She’s
suffering agony, and borne it without a word, just because she was too
scared to come and find out that what she feared might be true. At the
other end of the scale are the people who come and waste my time be-
cause they’ve got a dangerous swelling causing them agony on their little
finger which they think may be cancer and which turns out to be a com-
mon or garden chilblain! Well, don’t mind me. I’ve blown off steam now.
What did you want to see me about?”
“First, I’ve got you to thank, I believe, for advising Miss Crackenthorpe
to come to me with the letter that purported to be from her brother’s
widow.”
“Oh, that? Anything in it? I didn’t exactly advise her to come. She
wanted to. She was worried. All the dear little brothers were trying to hold
her back, of course.”
“Why should they?”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“Afraid the lady might be proved genuine, I suppose.”
“Do you think the letter was genuine?”
“No idea. Never actually saw it. I should say it was someone who knew
the facts, just trying to make a touch. Hoping to work on Emma’s feelings.
They were dead wrong, there. Emma’s no fool. She wouldn’t take an un-
known sister-in-law to her bosom without asking a few practical questions
first.”
He added with some curiosity:
“But why ask my views? I’ve got nothing to do with it?”
“I really came to ask you something quite different—but I don’t quite
know how to put it.”
Dr. Quimper looked interested.
“I understand that not long ago—at Christmas-time, I think it was—Mr.
Crackenthorpe had rather a bad turn of illness.”
He saw a change at once in the doctor’s face. It hardened.
“Yes.”
“I gather a gastric disturbance of some kind?”
“Yes.”
“This is difficult… Mr. Crackenthorpe was boasting of his health, saying
he intended to outlive most of his family. He referred to you—you’ll ex-
cuse me, Doctor….”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m not sensitive as to what my patients say about
me!”
“He spoke of you as an old fuss-pot.” Quimper smiled. “He said you had
asked him all sorts of questions, not only as to what he had eaten, but as to
who prepared it and served it.”
The doctor was not smiling now. His face was hard again.
“Go on.”
“He used some such phrase as—‘Talked as though he believed someone
had poisoned me.’”
There was a pause.
“Had you—any suspicion of that kind?”
Quimper did not answer at once. He got up and walked up and down.
Finally, he wheeled round on Craddock.
“What the devil do you expect me to say? Do you think a doctor can go
about flinging accusations of poisoning here and there without any real
evidence?”
“I’d just like to know, off the record, if — that idea — did enter your
head?”
Dr. Quimper said evasively:
“Old Crackenthorpe leads a fairly frugal life. When the family comes
down, Emma steps up the food. Result—a nasty attack of gastro-enteritis.
The symptoms were consistent with that diagnosis.”
Craddock persisted.
“I see. You were quite satisfied? You were not at all—shall we say—
puzzled?”
“All right. All right. Yes, I was Yours Truly Puzzled! Does that please
you?”
“It interests me,” said Craddock. “What actually did you suspect — or
fear?”
“Gastric cases vary, of course, but there were certain indications that
would have been, shall we say, more consistent with arsenic poisoning
than with plain gastro-enteritis. Mind you, the two things are very much
alike. Better men than myself have failed to recognize arsenic poisoning—
and have given a certificate in all good faith.”
“And what was the result of your inquiries?”
“It seemed that what I suspected could not possibly be true. Mr. Crack-
enthorpe assured me that he had similar attacks before I attended him—
and from the same cause, he said. They had always taken place when
there was too much rich food about.”
“Which was when the house was full? With the family? Or guests?”
“Yes. That seemed reasonable enough. But frankly, Craddock, I wasn’t
happy. I went so far as to write to old Dr. Morris. He was my senior part-
ner and retired soon after I joined him. Crackenthorpe was his patient ori-
ginally. I asked about these earlier attacks that the old man had had.”
“And what response did you get?”
Quimper grinned.
“I got a flea in the ear. I was more or less told not to be a damned fool.
Well”—he shrugged his shoulders—“presumably I was a damned fool.”
“I wonder,” Craddock was thoughtful.
Then he decided to speak frankly.
“Throwing discretion aside, Doctor, there are people who stand to bene-
fit pretty considerably from Luther Crackenthorpe’s death.” The doctor
nodded. “He’s an old man—and a hale and hearty one. He may live to be
ninety odd?”
“Easily. He spends his life taking care of himself, and his constitution is
sound.”
“And his sons—and daughter—are all getting on, and they are all feeling
the pinch?”
“You leave Emma out of it. She’s no poisoner. These attacks only happen
when the others are there—not when she and he are alone.”
“An elementary precaution—if she’s the one,” the inspector thought, but
was careful not to say aloud.
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
“Surely—I’m ignorant on these matters—but supposing just as a hypo-
thesis that arsenic was administered — hasn’t Crackenthorpe been very
lucky not to succumb?”
“Now there,” said the doctor, “you have got something odd. It is exactly
that fact that leads me to believe that I have been, as old Morris puts it, a
damned fool. You see, it’s obviously not a case of small doses of arsenic ad-
ministered regularly—which is what you might call the classic method of
arsenic poisoning. Crackenthorpe has never had any chronic gastric
trouble. In a way, that’s what makes these sudden violent attacks seem un-
likely. So, assuming they are not due to natural causes, it looks as though
the poisoner is muffing it every time—which hardly makes sense.”
“Giving an inadequate dose, you mean?”
“Yes. On the other hand, Crackenthorpe’s got a strong constitution and
what might do in another man, doesn’t do him in. There’s always personal
idiosyncrasy to be reckoned with. But you’d think that by now the pois-
oner—unless he’s unusually timid—would have stepped up the dose. Why
hasn’t he?
“That is,” he added, “if there is a poisoner which there probably isn’t!
Probably all my ruddy imagination from start to finish.”
“It’s an odd problem,” the inspector agreed. “It doesn’t seem to make
sense.”
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