Wimsey groaned.
“I shall be asked to resign if this goes on. Not that it’s much loss. But it would please Wetheridge so much to see the back of me. Never mind. I’ll make a Martha of myself. Come on.”
The entrance of the Bellona Club was filled with an unseemly confusion. Culyer was arguing heatedly with a number of men and three or four members of the committee stood beside him with brows as black as thunder. As Wimsey entered, one of the intruders caught sight of him with a yelp of joy.
“Wimsey — Wimsey, old man! Here, be a sport and get us in on this. We’ve got to have the story some day. You probably know all about it, you old blighter.”
It was Salcombe Hardy of the Daily Yell, large and untidy and slightly drunk as usual. He gazed at Wimsey with childlike blue eyes. Barton of the Banner, red-haired and pugnacious, faced round promptly.
“Ah, Wimsey, that’s fine. Give us a line on this, can’t you? Do explain that if we get a story we’ll be good and go.”
“Good lord,” said Wimsey, “how do these things get into the papers?”
“I think it’s rather obvious,” said Culyer, acidly.
“It wasn’t me,” said Wimsey.
“No, no,” put in Hardy. “You mustn’t think that. It was my stunt. In fact, I saw the whole show up at the Necropolis. I was on a family vault, pretending to be a recording angel.”
“You would be,” said Wimsey. “Just a moment, Culyer.” He drew the secretary aside. “See here, I’m damned annoyed about this, but it can’t be helped. You can’t stop these boys when they’re after a story. And, anyway, it’s all got to come out. It’s a police affair now. This is Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard.”
“But what’s the matter?” demanded Culyer.
“Murder’s the matter, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, hell!”
“Sorry and all that. But you’d better grin and bear it. Charles, give these fellows as much story as you think they ought to have and get on with it. And, Salcombe, if you’ll call off your tripe-hounds, we’ll let you have an interview and a set of photographs.”
“That’s the stuff,” said Hardy.
“I’m sure,” agreed Parker, pleasantly, “that you lads don’t want to get in the way, and I’ll tell you all that’s advisable. Show us a room, Captain Culyer, and I’ll send out a statement and then you’ll let us get to work.”
This was agreed, and, a suitable paragraph having been provided by Parker, the Fleet Street gang departed, bearing Wimsey away with them like a captured Sabine maiden to drink in the nearest bar, in the hope of acquiring picturesque detail.”
“But I wish you’d kept out of it, Sally,” mourned Peter.
“Oh, God,” said Salcombe, “nobody loves us. It’s a forsaken thing to be a poor bloody reporter.” He tossed a lank black lock of hair back from his forehead and wept.
* * *
Parker’s first and most obvious move was to interview Penberthy, whom he caught at Harley Street, after surgery hours.
“Now I’m not going to worry you about that certificate, doctor,” he began, pleasantly. “We’re all liable to make mistakes, and I understand that a death resulting from an over-dose of digitalin would look very like a death from heart failure.”
“It would be a death from heart failure,” corrected the doctor, patiently
Doctors are weary of explaining that heart-failure is not a specific disease, like mumps or housemaid’s knee. It is this incompatibility of outlook between the medical and the lay mind which involves counsel and medical witnesses in a fog of misunderstanding and mutual irritation.
“Just so,” said Parker. “Now, General Fentiman had got heart disease already, hadn’t he? Is digitalin a thing one takes for heart disease? ”
“Yes; in certain forms of heart disease, digitalin is a very valuable stimulant.”
“Stimulant? I thought it was a depressant.”
“It acts as a stimulant at first; in later stages it depresses the heart’s action.”
“Oh, I see.” Parker did not see very well, since, like most people, he had a vague idea that each drug has one simple effect appropriate to it, and is, specifically, a cure for something or the other. “It first speeds up the heart and then slows it down.”
“Not exactly. It strengthens the heart’s action by retarding the beat, so that the cavities can be more completely emptied and the pressure is relieved. We give it in certain cases of valvular disease — under proper safeguards, of course.”
“Were you giving it to General Fentiman?”
“I had given it him from time to time.”
“On the afternoon of November 10th, — you remember that he came to you in consequence of a heart attack. Did you give him digitalin then?”
Dr. Penberthy appeared to hesitate painfully for a moment. Then he turned to his desk and extracted a large book.
“I had better be perfectly frank with you,” he said. “I did. When he came to me, the feebleness of the heart’s action and the extreme difficulty in breathing suggested the urgent necessity of a cardiac stimulant. I gave him a prescription containing a small quantity of digitalin to relieve this condition. Here is the prescription. I will write it out for you.”
“A small quantity?” repeated Parker.
“Quite small, combined with other drugs to counteract the depressing after-effects.”
“It was not as large as the dose afterwards found in the body?”
“Good heavens, no — nothing like. In a case like General Fentiman’s, digitalin is a drug to be administered with the greatest caution.”
“It would not be possible, I suppose for you to have made a mistake in dispensing? To have given an overdose by error?”
“That possibility occurred to me at once, but as soon as I heard Sir James Lubbock’s figures, I realised that it was quite out of the question. The dose given was enormous; nearly two grains. But, to make quite certain, I have had my supply of the drug carefully checked, and it is all accounted for.”
“Who did that for you?”
“My trained nurse. I will let you have the books and chemists’ receipts.”
“Thank you. Did your nurse make up the dose for General Fentiman?”
“Oh, no; it is a prescription I always keep by me, ready made up. If you’d like to see her, she will show it to you.”
“Thanks very much. Now, when General Fentiman came to see you, he had just had an attack. Could that have been caused by digitalin?”
You mean, had he been poisoned before he came to me? Well, of course, digitalin is rather an uncertain drug.”
“How long would a big dose like that take to act?”