Spinsters in Jeopardy

‘That’s Cap St Gilles,’ Alleyn said. ‘Lovely, isn’t it, Rick?’

Ricky nodded. He had one ear tuned to his mother’s voice which could just be heard beyond Miss Truebody’s door.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is lovely.’ Alleyn wondered if Ricky was really as pedantically-mannered a child as some of their friends seemed to think.

‘Aren’t we getting a bit near?’ Ricky asked. ‘Bettern’t Mummy come now?’

‘It’s all right. We’ve ten minutes yet and the train people know we’re getting off. I promise it’s all right. Here’s Mummy now.’

She came out followed by a small bald gentleman with waxed moustaches, wearing striped professional trousers, patent leather boots and a frogged dressing-gown.

‘Your French is badly needed. This is the doctor,’ Troy said and haltingly introduced her husband.

The doctor was formally enchanted. He said crisply that he had examined the patient who almost certainly suffered from a perforated appendix and should undoubtedly be operated upon as soon as possible. He regretted extremely that he himself had an urgent professional appointment in St Celeste and could not, therefore, accept responsibility. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to discharge Miss Truebody at Roqueville and send her back by the evening train to St Christophe where she could go to hospital. Of course, if there was a surgeon in Roqueville the operation might be performed there. In any case he would give Miss Truebody an injection of morphine. His shoulders rose. It was a position of extreme difficulty. They must hope, must they not, that there would be a medical man and suitable accommodation available at Roqueville? He believed he had understood Madame to say that she and Monsieur l’Inspecteur-en-Chef would be good enough to assist their compatriot.

Monsieur l’Inspecteur-en-Chef glared at his wife and said they would, of course, be enchanted. Troy said in English that it had obviously comforted Miss Truebody and impressed the doctor to learn of her husband’s rank. The doctor bowed, delivered a few definitive compliments and lurching in a still dignified manner down the swinging corridor, made for his own carriage, followed by his own attendant.

Troy said: ‘Come and speak to her, Rory. It’ll help.’

‘Daddy?’ Ricky said in a small voice.

‘We won’t be a minute,’ Troy and Alleyn answered together, and Alleyn added, ‘We know how it feels, Rick, but one has got to get used to these things.’ Ricky nodded and swallowed.

Alleyn followed Troy into Miss Truebody’s compartment. ‘This is my husband, Miss Truebody,’ Troy said. ‘He’s had a word with the doctor and he’ll tell you all about it.’

Miss Truebody lay on her back with her knees a little drawn up and her sick hands closed vice-like over the sheet. She had a rather blunt face that in health probably was rosy but now was ominously blotched and looked as if it had shrunk away from her nose. This effect was heightened by the circumstance of her having removed her teeth. There were beads of sweat along the margin of her grey hair and her upper lip and the ridges where her eyebrows would have been if she had possessed any; the face was singularly smooth and showed none of the minor blemishes characteristic of her age. Over her head she wore, as Troy had noticed, a sort of net bag made of pink string. She looked terrified. Something in her eyes reminded Alleyn of Ricky in one of his travel-panics.

He told her, as reassuringly as might be, of the doctor’s pronouncement. Her expression did not change and he wondered if she had understood him. When he had finished she gave a little gasp and whispered indistinctly: Too awkward, so inconvenient. Disappointing.’ And her mottled hands clutched at the sheet.

‘Don’t worry,’ Alleyn said, ‘don’t worry about anything. We’ll look after you.’

Like a sick animal, she gave him a heart-rending look of gratitude and shut her eyes. For a moment Troy and Alleyn watched her being slightly but inexorably jolted by the train and then stole uneasily from the compartment. They found their son dithering with agitation in the corridor and the attendant bringing out the last of their luggage.

Troy said hurriedly: ‘This is frightful. We can’t take the responsibility. Or must we?’

‘I’m afraid we must. There’s no time to do anything else. I’ve got a card of sorts up my sleeve in Roqueville. If it’s no good we’ll get her back to St Christophe.’

‘What’s your card? Not,’ Troy ejaculated, ‘Mr Garbel?’

‘No, no, it’s – hi – look! We’re there.’

The little town of Roqueville, wan in the first thin wash of dawnlight, slid past the windows and the train drew into the station.

Fortified by a further tip from Troy and in evident relief at the prospect of losing Miss Truebody, the attendant enthusiastically piled the Alleyns’ luggage on the platform while the guard plunged into earnest conversation with Alleyn and the Roqueville station-master. The doctor reappeared fully clad and gave Miss Truebody a shot of morphine. He and Troy, in incredible association, got her into a magenta dressing-gown in which she looked like death itself. Troy hurriedly packed Miss Truebody’s possessions, uttered a few words of encouragement, and with Ricky and the doctor joined Alleyn on the platform.

Ricky, his parents once deposited on firm ground and fully accessible, forgot his terrors and contemplated the train with the hardboiled air of an experienced traveller.

The station-master with the guard and three attendants in support was saying to the doctor: ‘One is perfectly conscious Monsieur le Docteur, of the extraordinary circumstances. Nevertheless, the schedule of the Chemin de Fer des Alpes Maritimes cannot be indefinitely protracted.’

The doctor said: ‘One may, however, in the few moments that are being squandered in this unproductive conversation, M. le Chef de Gare, consult the telephone directory and ascertain if there is a doctor in Roqueville.’

‘One may do so undoubtedly, but I can assure M. le Docteur that such a search will be fruitless. Our only doctor is at a conference in St Christophe. Therefore, since the train is already delayed one minute and forty seconds …’

He glanced superbly at the guard who began to survey the train like a sergeant-major. A whistle was produced. The attendants walked towards their several cars.

‘Rory!’ Troy cried out. ‘We can’t …’

Alleyn said: ‘All right,’ and spoke to the station-master. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, M. le Chef de Gare, you are aware of the presence of a surgeon – I believe his name is Dr Baradi – among the guests of M. Oberon some twenty kilometres back at the Château de la Chèvre d’Argent. He is an Egyptian gentleman. I understand he arrived two weeks ago.’

‘Alors, M. l’Inspecteur-en-Chef …’ the doctor began but the station-master, after a sharp glance at Alleyn, became alert and neatly deferential. He remembered the arrival of the Egyptian gentleman for whom he had caused a taxi to be produced. If the gentleman should be – he bowed – as M. l’Inspecteur-en-Chef evidently was informed, a surgeon, all their problems were solved, were they not? He began to order the sleeping-car attendants about and was briskly supported by the guard. Troy, to the renewed agitation of her son, and with the assistance of their attendant, returned to the sleeping-car and supported Miss Truebody out of it, down to the platform and into the waiting-room, where she was laid out, horribly corpse-like, on a bench. Her luggage followed. Troy, on an afterthought, darted back and retrieved from a tumbler in the washing cabinet, Miss Truebody’s false teeth, dropping them with a shudder into a tartan sponge-bag. On the platform the doctor held a private conversation with Alleyn. He wrote in his notebook, tore out the page and gave it to Alleyn with his card. Alleyn, in the interests of Franco-British relationships, insisted on paying the doctor’s fee and the train finally drew out of Roqueville in an atmosphere of the liveliest cordiality. On the strangely quiet platform Alleyn and Troy looked at each other.

‘This,’ Alleyn said, ‘is not your holiday as I had planned it.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘Ring up the Chèvre d’Argent and ask for Dr Baradi, who, I have reason to suppose, is an admirable surgeon and an unmitigated blackguard.’

They could hear the dawn cocks crowing in the hills above Roqueville.

III

In the waiting-room Ricky fell fast asleep on his mother’s lap. Troy was glad of this as Miss Truebody had begun to look quite dreadful. She too had drifted into a kind of sleep. She breathed unevenly, puffing out her unsupported lips, and made unearthly noises in her throat. Troy could hear her husband and the station-master talking in the office next door and then Alleyn’s voice only, speaking on the telephone and in French! There were longish pauses during which Alleyn said: ‘Allô! Allô!’ and ‘Ne coupez pas, je vous en prie, Mademoiselle,’ which Troy felt rather proud of understanding. A grey light filtered into the waiting-room; Ricky made a touching little sound, rearranged his lips, sighed, and turned his face against her breast in an abandonment of relaxation. Alleyn began to speak at length, first in French, and then in English. Troy heard fragments of sentences.

‘… I wouldn’t have roused you up like this if it hadn’t been so urgent … Dr Claudel said definitely that it was really a matter of the most extreme urgency … He will telephone from St Celeste. I am merely a fellow passenger … yes: yes, I have a car here … Good … Very well … Yes, I understand. Thank you.’ A bell tinkled.

There was a further conversation and then Alleyn came into the waiting-room. Troy, with her chin on the top of Ricky’s silken head, gave him a nod and an intimate familiar look: her comment on Ricky’s sleep. He said: ‘It’s not fair.’

‘What?’

‘Your talent for turning my heart over.’

‘I thought,’ Troy said, ‘you meant about our holiday. What’s happened?’

‘Baradi says he’ll operate if it’s necessary.’ Alleyn looked at Miss Truebody. ‘Asleep?’

‘Yes. So, what are we do do?’

‘We’ve got a car. The Sûreté rang up the local Commissioner yesterday and told him I was on the way. He’s actually one of their experts who’s been sent down here on a special job, superseding the local chap for the time being. He’s turned on an elderly Mercedes and a driver. Damn’ civil of him. I’ve just been talking to him. Full of apologies for not coming down himself but he thought, very wisely, that we’d better not be seen together. He says our chauffeur is a reliable chap with an admirable record. He and the car are on tap outside the station now and our luggage will be collected by the hotel wagon. Baradi suggests I take Miss Truebody straight to the Chèvre d’Argent. While we’re on the way he will make what preparations he can. Luckily he’s got his instruments and Claudel has given me some pipkins of anaesthetic. Baradi asked if I could give the anaesthetic.’

‘Can you?’

‘I did once, in a ship. As long as nothing goes very wrong, it’s fairly simple. If Baradi thinks it is safe to wait he’ll try to get an anaesthetist from Douceville or somewhere. But it seems there’s some sort of doctors’ jamboree on today at St Christophe and they’ve all cleared off to it. It’s only ten kilometres from here to the Chèvre d’Argent by the inland road. I’ll drop you and Ricky at the hotel here, darling, and take Miss Truebody on.’

‘Are there any women in the house?’

‘I don’t know.’ Alleyn stopped short and then said: ‘Yes. Yes I do. There are women.’

Troy watched him for a moment and then said: ‘All right. Let’s get her aboard. You take Ricky.’