Page
THE CHINA MAIL,
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1957
PART NINE OF OUR MYSTERY SERIAL: 'NO FLOWERS BY REQUEST — AND THE FIFTH AUTHOR TAKES OVER
Poison in a pink
cup?
MRS MERTON, widowed have said, as he had said to me
cock-housekeopor
to
to the Carringfords, is trying solve the battling mystory of the poisoning of invalid Mrs Carringford. She s piecing the clues together, when "The door opened slowly and there, if my guoss was right, stood Murder on the thres- hold."
66
H
AVE n cup of tea;" said Murder, very pleasantly.
to
mouth I opened my say something; and shut it again. The words wouldn't
come.
I managed to speak at last.
I said, "Thank you, Nurse,"
The nurse
A young woman, an attruc- tive woman.
fully n wer: 1 aware of her attractions, using them boldly, making the best of them with her short skins and her frizzy hair-to und her nyloned legs; burying herself away out here with a long, dull west, {111 unrewarding. attractive patient,
For love
un-
What for? What else for but for love of some mana men first encountered, perhaps, u the hospitals and doctors' wait- ing
of Kilchoster or Everdon?
rooms
As to whether Marcus had had the time 1 realised-by come to the end of my notes, 1 had known that of course he had not.
No man in love, or knowing himself beloved, could
Tweeds...
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hat first day in the agency's interviewing room: "Oh, lorti
forgot the nurse." Strong taste
Nurse Cutler-in love with Marcus Carringford.
Deluding herself,
no
doubt,
that he wag "130 much The Kentleman" to show his true
feelings while his wife-a help. less invalid--still lived.
Having recourse, at last, to #Q(4 small store of digitain; person who might the only have known what I, for one, unly afterwards realised--that digitalin hus a tuste reminiscent of strong binck ipa.
Nurse Culler, who ceaselessly male cup of tea for her patiunt, heavily sweetened with sugar- strong, black, Indian tea, from the special emidy on the sick- room window all; who could easily arrange her day off to with Buil of Dr coincide
so that ro skilled Gragling,
would be u medical attention hand.
-By
CHRISTIANNA
BRAND
housekeeper, and said to me:
The pink cup is yours."
There was a scrabbling at the window.
"Oh, poor Sennacherib," she Sho " disturbed him." said. went over to the window and struggled with the latch.
She knew the ways of the house and could so easily pop back in the course of that afternoon off-entering through The tinkle of spoon in sau- the French window, haul up the cer seemed like thunder in my patient, already deep in coma, cars as whipped out of sight to sitting position and leave the pink cup she had brought hir there knowing, as only she me and replaced it with the would know, that in so serious cup of tea that I had made for which still stood, a case, to raise the sufferer myself and
forgotten, would accelerate death
pushed aside on the desk.
The tea
Nurse Cutler, murderess; who now looked smilingly into the face of meddling Mrs Merion,
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she She heard nothing: struggled with the catch and meanwhlic Sennacherib, as is the way of cats, got bored with the whole affair and put his tail in the aid and walked away. She came back and took up th blue cup of tea.
I sipped
"Come on, don't let yours
cold." get
up- She sippedă
"I made provingly at her own.
it specially for you, To chris- ten the new gas ring-so typical
of the company to send over hot foot, when all urgent need was gone!"
I was still shaky but I sipped "But
at my own, innocent cup. they couldn't install it?"
She laughed again, Jeeringly. "Who? Who else do you think would have him, who do you think has been angling after him all this time? To get him for her own and pet, him and htm comfort him and
health--physical and
back to inental.
Murse
"Poor giri-brought up all her life among sick things, auffering things, longing to look after them, bilier and frustrated al her fe because her father won't let her quality as a vet herself."
Barnslow!
Juy Carringford!
And Trent
She drank off the rest of her off-hand tea and added, very but looking rather odly Into my face: "How do you feel- quite all right?"
How long?
I did not know how long the poison would take to work, nor what the symptoms would be. With a vague idea, however, of pleading sickness eventually and
1⁄2
I
Nathaniel Gubbins
AM the kind of sucker who still looks for- ward to the spring. All through Feb.
I am as exclied as a deb; i tell myself there will soon
and be sunshine
blossom and the birds will sing.'
*
*
About this time of the year i
even polish my boots. And order neto roots. Though I ought to know from experience that as soon as the blossom is out and we see pretty fiahs.
Out come the strikers, too. for higher wages or shorter
harhs.
TANAO
As the tap rises and Mother
Earth turns in her sleep. The blood of the worker also Ties because the cost of living is not cheap. And what with P.A.Ÿ‚E, and
instalments on the telly, He is inclined to say, "What
the helly, what the helly?”
*
*
Though why he should feel
that way BU often in the spring
Is a very funny thing;
If life for him to helly
April and May.
in
It must be just as helly_tm June, July, August, Sep- tember, October, and Guy Fawkca Day.
*
Another thing
*
That ruins the spring Is Budget Day,
Causing deep depression when
we ought to feel gay.
咖
**
The poet should have written “Oh to be and of England note
the Budget's there, "For those who live in Eng- land better have a care, "Though birds may sing so bilthely it's the end of the financial pare.”
*
*
People who have any venit, And don't want to pay for de-
jence,
Or just hate
The Welfare Slate, Live so far away That they are not worried by
Budget Day.
*
Though you may think their
bekavíður vile,
And hope they will be hit by a
guided warlic,
I could be much ruder
To tax dodgers in Jamaica
and Bermuda,
Except that I know I would
soon be there myself If I had the welf.
#
Yet another thing
That happens in the spring Is the fussing of mothers and
aunte About debitantes
E
**
*
They seem to be having for
greater helly
Than strikers trying to pay
for the telly.
A gossip writer "In order to
survive "Their
must be 35-24-35
figures
And that before this problem
is solved
"Mental anguish is involved,”
If you ask, "Survive what?" ir only meana they will shed a girlish tear
If they are not selected the
deb. of the year, Or if some with over-deve-
loped briskets
Are not among, 20 with 1 the
right statistics.
The favourite in these orton-
ishing Werks
Is Mias Henrietta Tlarks;
She has "long, dark hair, a
plate face and poise,”. She also has "brains and
money."
always popular
with the bolse, "
She is tipped to win Because she is neither too fat
nor too thin,
Since writing the above I see the strikes have been called of
Which gives me a loff:
So long as spring is in the air The boys will think every
thing is unfair Particularly as on May Day
The workers of the world go cray-kay."
*
It will be the same is the spring of 1958, '50, '00, and
Katy-won,
And so on and so on and so
Hey ding-a-ding The merry, merry spring.
(World Copyright)
"You're just like this stuff they're going to send us from the States-guided missiles with no
She laughed. "Oh, couldn't they? A police Seal on a door perhaps getting away to lock coldness-a clamminess-here? | that any key will open, means
myself In my room till the A tightness-here?” Sho put nothing to the gas boys, 'Oh, that's only
old Joe from the others came home, I said that it her hand to her own threat to suddenly very bot. show me; and stretched it out station at Everdon,' they said, did seem
towards mine. "That's not meant for us,'
"But shall we need the gas ring in there now?" I said, privately thinking thai the housekeeper might have been consulted first.
"It'll come in useful; I sup- pose the happy couple will have that room now she's gone. It's big-make a nice bad sit."
She got up and drew the cur-
Panic rose in me. All of a tain half across the window to
Buddan her face seemed # shut out the afternoon sun. terrible face, white and mente- said in a faint voice, as though ing, a sick, mud face, peering making an effort to balefully into mine. I got up I were show polite interest: "His and backed away from her. from the outstretched hand, allowance?"
"Don't touch me!"
"Mrs Carringford made him a small allowance to add to his
disability pension and let him
But she came after me, she
caught me by the wrist, she
DOCTOR
BUSINESS
TN
a
country where the subtleties of atriking are cherished like the refinements of poisoning in fifteenth-century Florence or the nicoties of torture among the ancient Chinese, I am glad to find my own variant.
Thes
heads."
and omissions
tx-
Errors cepted."
The reluctance of · some doctors to discuss money must not be confused with the dislike of all doctors to accept private fees (unless in cash)
between the start of the Christian year and the financial one.
In this period you can get 50 gulnear worth of consultation
for a case of whisky or have half your inside out for a refer- tory table in good condition, and if some rural practitioners declared all their takings from Christmas
Easter their income-tax returns would re.
I had not realised that the get on with his book. Funny hauled me backs to her, and I profession sufficiently progressive to produce its own serrible the catalogue of a dairy
marriage was quite such a cof- tainty. "I don't quite see Mrs Deane making tasty snacks on a gas ring in a bed sit...."
They? Who?
She
stared at me over the rim of the big blue cup, "Who's talking about Mrs Deamo?"
"Well, you say she Trent....7"
wornan, she was--she treated them all like dirt but she was good to them. Familles should stick together, she used to say
was like a kitten in her strong hands.
I knew then he was 10
This must be the only dispute in history in which the strikers offer the public, free of charge, the services
to me, even if they dislike one longer content to wait for me they refuse their employers because they are not paid much of the charm of generál
another. Of course, the allow ance dies with her.'
to die; she was afraid of me, I enough for them. knew something or she thought
Next time tie National of hundred by the sort of tailor I knew something, and she Union of Railwaymen have their ing he is wearing.
"I see," I mid; and added could not afford to wait for me wage claim turned down peg-
So if you are going to be 1 the others como hape they will shut only the private patient, perhaps very foolishly, that to die, lest
remember to soon and dying, ticket offices and give free rides présent a genteelly two that made
suspects less, back too
the something she 10 all comers.
threadbare since these two would obviously blurt out
appearance and say the pain is want above all things to keep thought I
This should start an interest due to worrying about Income and Aunt
Eleanor and the pre-
ing new chapter in industrial tax. relations, cious allowanco--alive.
A bit faint
"She and Trent? She went off into peats of crudo laughter, "MJ dear-aren't you in nocent! Phlippa Detine take on that poor follow with his
She WES watching me, I cockded-up face and his gamuty, arms and legs; and not a penny thought, with increasing anodaty. to bless himself with besides," "You do feel quite well?"
She gestured with her cup at mine. "Come on-drinis up." I fancied that tho watched me narrowly while I drank, said: "They? Who?"
"A bit muzzy,' I said. "A bit sort of faint."
She got up out of her, chair. I She came close to me and put
her hand on my forehead.
Characters in the Case
A
Central
figure in the story in widowed MRS MEETON, Zook-housekeeper to the Carringfords, They are co- mercial artist MAROUS CARRINGFORD and his invalid wife, who dies of poisoning, TRENT CARRINGFORD,' s'war=
·wounded" nephew, and MRS PHILIPPA DEANE, a niece, Airs Carringtord was looked after by NURSE CUTLER and ́♥lated by ›DR GRAYLING, An Interesting outsider, 3OX ZBARNBLÓW, helpe in? Use gardens, and anolling outsider to-
MEB/HUTCHINSON, the daily botp, Bennscherib, the est, 2 ・complejas: thé kezeshold.
'MYTH'
- misunder-
system were officially encouraged it would not only prevent the strike but restore
practice, as well as meaning if your doctor that you would not think twice asiced you to dianer.
TO RULE..
THE
THE British Medical Associn. How much
tion's strike tactics, are. In standing there would bo if genious but really wholly un- every patient were presented necessary, with a clear estimate:
I am surprised that no one “Bir, F.R.C.6.` Esti- mate for works and general re. on its General Medical Services
knew. I wrenched and struggled but she held on to me, my plump wrist was helpless in the grasp of her thin, steely fingers.
Her face was terrible, thrust older members of the medical profession complain into mine, deathly white and glistening with sweat, under that a strike of any sort 19 as Par to be carried out on above Committes remembered enough
body.
of his undergraduate instruction to see how the mop of her frizzy red hair: degrading for doctors as a street
To:
the Ministry Hilee some Hallowe'en lantern, selves to blame for fostering the deminsi incision to be enlarged knees by a decision to works to
brawl, they have only them-
#b- one dix-inch Health could be brought to Is turnip with hollowed-out mouth and eyes, conted all over with
best quality rua, → oil and sat affome,
myth of the gentlemm. practi
Making
KS 25000EKTY,
materials forʼanalhemin.:
a
and stood for a moment look veids. (as well as being forward, and making good. Joobed
ing at me with eyes that soesoem indifferent to money the
with them.
of
tioner"
All medical
are toli studente This pretends that a doctor Securing hemostalis, fylog off on their
Afternood: works only to provide himself expound arteries with fully
first I backed into the
whole furthest
'mist, examine the with a little intellectual exercise erilised Unen, thread. of the and to save humanity", "and in-
patient in every care corner, in an alcove
Lowing, woouring and retho, old, dears queueing up room. "Let me alone, let me sists on his always being paid movie gall bladder, konta their bottle of medicine, aria alone, I'll scream.....
In guiciona: na mono dignified than
Fully washing down, bringing change of bondage were
complots clinical She lifted her terrible face Han
more profitable).*
Baturing with high w grade" examinations (heblading: gam If doctors are, no-anxious
to stock
skin elips. Tidsfag and troscopy, baritin mantend
extensive" paychio - analyýšle ed utterly witloss, utterly mad. Government can hardly being site as before, Pressed back into the corner, blamed for agreeing
The muni of •. One hundred public outcry would double the pinned in, helpless. I opened particularly
fonttive and ninety guiness. the accounting
doctors' pay overnight. my mouth to scroom, knowing system of the medical profession though I did that there was no is wore even than the Angya help anywhere near; "aid alo A surgeon facing the customer flung herself forward upon whomo gall, bladder he intende (mith · arpraised clape to remove in week's Ume ing hands and I new no more, introduces the topic of foosa Author of
thorach z zasutioning the post- zamorTOW
bility of fatal complications, ană mystory at the old romany, analytascidos whether to sting.
10
of the sullow 20 guiones or u, CORIDŽE.
by Richard Gordon
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE DOCTOR AT LARGE DOCTOR AT SEA