Dover Three

shoulders. ‘They sent for me. As usual. I keep telling them but you might as well talk to a brick wall. They don’t take any notice.’
‘Why did you move the body?’ demanded Dover in a roar that bounced menacingly off the walls and nearly blasted Dr Hawnt back to the foot of the stairs.
‘I’m eighty-four,’ said Dr Hawnt, ‘and don’t tell me I don’t look it. I do, every day of it and more. Do you realize’ – he peered at Dover through his glasses – ‘I qualified as a doctor in 1904? And I can assure you without fear of contradiction I’ve hardly opened a textbook since.’ He paused and frowned. ‘What body?’
‘Miss Gullimore’s, you old fool!’ rasped Dover, who didn’t have much patience for the elderly and decrepit.
‘Oh, yes, that’s her name, isn’t it? Oh, I sent her off to hospital. I may not be much of a doctor but I flatter myself I’ve got some sense of responsibility. It’s what I always do. They keep calling me in and I keep coming and the first thing I say is “Send for the ambulance!” Well,’ he appealed to Dover, ‘what would you do?’ He came nearer to Dover and clutched at him. ‘Suppose you were lying out in a field with a broken leg and they brought me along, would you so much as let me touch you? Because, by all that’s holy, I wouldn’t! Look at these hands!’ He held up a pair of nobbled claws in front of Dover’s nose. ‘See that tremble? How’d you like an emergency appendix operation done with a pair of wobblers like that? And on a kitchen table with no anaesthetic. Makes the blood run cold, doesn’t it, just to think about it?’ He paused for breath but, before Dover could get a word in edgeways, old Dr Hawnt was off again. ‘She’s not dead, you know.’
‘Who isn’t?’ Dover had taken about as much as he could stand.
Dr Hawnt jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Her. The one upstairs. You know. She’s not dead.’ He scratched his head. ‘At least, I don’t think she is. That’s why I sent for the ambulance. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Don’t hear so well, either. I’m cracking up, you know. Senile, that’s what I am. They ought to put me in a Home, that’s what they ought to do.’ He sat down suddenly on the chair next to the mahogany hall-stand.
Dover shook himself, stalked down the hall and slammed the front door shut. Then he came back and plonked himself squarely in front of Dr Hawnt. The old man’s eyes were closed.
Dover spoke loudly. ‘I am a police officer.’
Dr Hawnt’s eyes crawled open. ‘Oh yes,’ he said politely. ‘How very interesting.’
‘I want to know,’ enunciated Dover through clenched teeth, ‘what the hell’s going on here.’
‘Well, nothing, really,’ said Dr Hawnt, taking a pill box out of his pocket and dosing himself thoughtfully. ‘Mrs What’s-her-name who lives here came in and found Miss What’s-her-name unconscious on the floor of her room. Naturally she came rushing round to me. They always do. One of these days’ – he cocked a rheumy eye at Dover – I’ll be had up for murder. Of course, they’ll cover it up by calling it professional incompetence and strike me off, but if I’ve killed somebody, I’ve killed somebody – haven’t I?’
‘Miss Gullimore!’ shouted Dover.
‘Eh? Oh, that’s her name, is it? The memory’s going, too. I’ll be forgetting my own name one of these days.’
‘What had she done?’ screamed Dover.
‘Who?’
‘Miss Gullimore!’
‘Oh, yes. Well, when I got here she was unconscious. In a coma, we call it – at least, I think we do. There was a bottle of aspirins on the rug beside her. Oh, and there was a glass as well.’
‘She’d taken an overdose of aspirins?’ Dover tried a short cut.
‘How should I know?’ Dr Hawnt blinked reproachfully at Dover. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably. It looked to me as though that’s what happened but I’m not one to force my opinions down anybody else’s throat. Silly girl! She was a school-teacher, wasn’t she? You’d have thought she’d have known better. Aspirins! Good heavens, even I know you can’t commit suicide with aspirins. Well,’ – he glared belligerently at Dover who hadn’t said a word – ‘have you ever heard of anybody really killing themselves with aspirins? No, I thought not. And why not? Because it can’t be done, that’s why not.’
‘Oh?’ said Dover.
‘I can’t remember who it was who told me,’ mused Dr Hawnt, ‘but he was a very good chap, a fine specialist in his line, whatever it was. I did think he’d offer me a partnership at one time, but he said he’d got his patients to consider. I could quite see his point, mind you. I was never much good, even in my prime. There was something about me, don’t you know, that seemed to frighten people who probably weren’t feeling too chirpy in the first place.’
‘The aspirins!’ bellowed Dover, nobly restraining a powerful desire to grab Dr Hawnt by his tartan rug and shake him till he rattled.
‘Eh? Oh, yes. Well, you’ve got to take a terrific number of ’em before they get anywhere near killing you. I forget how many exactly but let’s say a couple of hundred for the sake of argument. Now, apart from the fact that you’d be gagging long before you got a quarter of that lot down your gullet, you’d be unconscious, too, wouldn’t you? You’d pass out before you’d time to finish ’em.’
‘Are you sure of this?’ asked Dover.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Dr Hawnt, somewhat offended. ‘Well, something like that, anyhow. Typical of the younger generation. No sticking powers. Slip-shod. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, that’s what I always say. Anyhow,’ he added with a sudden spitefulness, ‘that Miss What’s-her-name’s not succeeded in taking the easy way out. She’ll be as right as