The Mirror Crack'd - Agatha Christie [85]
‘I dare say you don’t, but I do,’ said Dr Haydock.
‘It seems to me you’re turning into a regular old fuss-budget,’ said Miss Marple unkindly.
‘And don’t call me names!’ said Dr Haydock. ‘You’re a very healthy woman for your age; you were pulled down a bit by bronchitis which isn’t good for the elderly. But to stay alone in a house at your age is a risk. Supposing you fall down the stairs one evening or fall out of bed or slip in the bath. There you’d lie and nobody’d know about it.’
‘One can imagine anything,’ said Miss Marple. ‘Miss Knight might fall down the stairs and I’d fall over her rushing out to see what had happened.’
‘It’s no good your bullying me,’ said Dr Haydock. ‘You’re an old lady and you’ve got to be looked after in a proper manner. If you don’t like this woman you’ve got, change her and get somebody else.’
‘That’s not always so easy,’ said Miss Marple.
‘Find some old servant of yours, someone that you like, and who’s lived with you before. I can see this old hen irritates you. She’d irritate me. There must be some old servant somewhere. That nephew of yours is one of the best-selling authors of the day. He’d make it worth her while if you found the right person.’
‘Of course dear Raymond would do anything of that kind. He is most generous,’ said Miss Marple. ‘But it’s not so easy to find the right person. Young people have their own lives to live, and so many of my faithful old servants, I am sorry to say, are dead.’
‘Well, you’re not dead,’ said Dr Haydock, ‘and you’ll live a good deal longer if you take proper care of yourself.’
He rose to his feet.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘No good my stopping here. You look as fit as a fiddle. I shan’t waste time taking your blood pressure or feeling your pulse or asking you questions. You’re thriving on all this local excitement, even if you can’t get about to poke your nose in as much as you’d like to do. Goodbye, I’ve got to go now and do some real doctoring. Eight to ten cases of German measles, half a dozen whooping coughs, and a suspected scarlet fever as well as my regulars!’
Dr Haydock went out breezily — but Miss Marple was frowning…Something that he had said…what was it? Patients to see…the usual village ailments…village ailments? Miss Marple pushed her breakfast tray farther away with a purposeful gesture. Then she rang up Mrs Bantry.
‘Dolly? Jane here. I want to ask you something. Now pay attention. Is it true that you told Inspector Craddock that Heather Badcock told Marina Gregg a long pointless story about how she had chicken pox and got up in spite of it to go and meet Marina and get her autograph?’
‘That was it more or less.’
‘Chicken pox?’
‘Well, something like that. Mrs Allcock was talking to me about vodka at the time, so I wasn’t really listening closely.’
‘You’re sure,’ Miss Marple took a breath, ‘that she didn’t say whooping cough?’
‘Whooping cough?’ Mrs Bantry sounded astounded. ‘Of course not. She wouldn’t have had to powder her face and do it up for whooping cough.’
‘I see — that’s what you went by — her special mention of make-up?’
‘Well, she laid stress on it — she wasn’t the making-up kind. But I think you’re right, it wasn’t chicken pox…Nettlerash, perhaps.’
‘You only say that,’ said Miss Marple coldly, ‘because you once had nettlerash yourself and couldn’t go to a wedding. You’re hopeless, Dolly, quite hopeless.’
She put the receiver down with a bang, cutting off Mrs Bantry’s astonished protest of ‘Really, Jane.’
Miss Marple made a ladylike noise of vexation like a cat sneezing to indicate profound disgust. Her mind reverted to the problem of her own domestic comfort. Faithful Florence? Could faithful Florence, that grenadier of a former parlourmaid be persuaded to leave her comfortable small house and come back to St Mary Mead to look after her erstwhile mistress? Faithful Florence had always been very devoted to her. But faithful Florence was very attached to her own