Death at the Jesus Hospital Read Free Page A

glacial voice. ‘Tell us if you would, Inspector, if you have identified any of the dead man’s enemies, maybe even arrested them. He’s been dead for some time, after all.’
    Inspector Fletcher looked at Sir Peregrine more in sorrow than in anger. There was another of those pauses. ‘The old men aren’t making much sense at the moment, Sir Peregrine,’ he said at last. ‘It’s impossible to say at this stage if he had any enemies or who they might be.’
    ‘Course the man had enemies, you fool, he’s dead, isn’t he? One of his enemies must have killed him. I’d have thought even one of the swans on the bloody river could have worked that out by now. Christ Almighty!’
    Inspector Fletcher was saved further thrusts from Sir Peregrine by the reappearance of Dr Ragg. Even before he was introduced, the doctor took a violent dislike to Sir Peregrine. There were many of his sort living in and around Marlow, often in sub-Palladian villas by the Thames. The doctor thought them arrogant, self-satisfied and smug, with little regard for their fellow men. He had even changed his golf club to escape their pomposity and their braying self-regard.
    ‘I’ll give you my report, gentlemen,’ Dr Ragg began, ‘and then I must be off on my rounds. In my judgement Abel Meredith was killed by a sharp knife being forced across his throat sometime between four and six o’clock this morning. The knife may have had an irregular and uneven blade likethe kris knife often brought home by travellers and military men from Ceylon and the Malay Peninsula. Death will have been instantaneous. I fear he was probably awake at the time of the incident. That is all.’
    ‘Surely you must know something more than that, Doctor?’ Sir Peregrine felt he, too, would be in need of medical attention soon if the natives continued to infuriate him. ‘You’ve been poking about in the corpse’s innards for some time now, haven’t you? You must have found something out.’
    ‘Are you experienced in the examination of dead bodies, Sir Peregrine? I rather doubt it. We doctors are not obliged to reveal the secrets of our patients’ medical history, even the dead ones. So why don’t you write the insurance policies and I’ll write the medical reports.’
    With that Dr Ragg closed his bag and headed off towards the nervous headaches and the insomnia of his morning rounds. He had not told the people in the Jesus Hospital anything about the strange mark on the dead man’s chest. It was such an unusual piece of information that gossip would start circulating along the river and through the City of London. Soon Abel Meredith would have been found dead with the imprint of fifty pineapples all over his body. He would tell Inspector Fletcher, of course, but only in the privacy of the police station. Dr Ragg had no idea what had caused the strange mark and even less idea what it might mean.
    Sir Peregrine, meanwhile, was metaphorically pawing the ground as one of his potential victims fled the field. He made mental notes on the key players he had met this morning who were involved in the bizarre death of Abel Meredith. The doctor? Barely competent, in his view, but he had tangled too often with the medical profession in the past and failed to get his way. Better to leave Theophilus Ragg in peace. Thomas Monk, the Warden? Another incompetent, in Sir Peregrine’s opinion. Why was it so difficult toget hold of sensible men once you were out of London? It was as if there was a whole world of inefficiency clogging up the nation beyond the City walls, a world stretching west to Bristol and north to the people Sir Peregrine had always referred to as the Caledonians in the wilder parts of Scotland. His fiercest wrath, however, was reserved for Inspector Albert Fletcher. That officer of the law had marked Sir Peregrine down from the beginning as a man to beware of, a man who could damage your career through his contacts in high places, and who would take pleasure in