And Thereby Hangs a Tale by Jeffrey Archer Read Free Book Online Page B

magazine revealed that Florida was the state with the greatest
number of millionaires per capita, and that the majority of them had retired and
had a life expectancy of less than ten years. However, she quickly realized
that she would need to carry out much more research if she hoped to graduate
top of that particular class, as she was likely to come up against some
pretty formidable rivals who had the same thing in mind as she did.
    In the course of a long weekend spent with a
middle-aged married doctor, Lynn discovered, without once having to refer to a textbook,
not only that Jackson Memorial Hospital was the most expensive rest home in the
state, but also that it didn't offer special rates for deserving cases.
    Once Lynn had graduated with a nursing diploma,
and a grade which came as a surprise to her fellow students but not to her professor,
she applied for a job at Jackson Memorial.
    She was interviewed by a panel of three, two
of whom, including the Medical Director, were not convinced that Ms Beattie came
from the right sort of background to be a Jackson nurse. The third bumped into
her in the car park on his way home, and the following morning he was able to
convince his colleagues to change their minds.
    Lynn Beattie began work as a probationary nurse
on the first day of the following month.
    She did not rush the next part of her plan, aware
that if the Medical Director found out what she was up to, he would dismiss her
without a second thought.
    From the first day, Lynn went quietly and conscientiously
about her work, melting into the background while keeping her eyes wide open.
She quickly discovered that a hospital, just like any other workplace, has its
gossip-mongers, who enjoy nothing more than to pass on the latest snippet of
information to anyone willing to listen. Lynn was willing to listen. After a
few weeks Lynn had discovered the one thing she needed to know about the
doctors, and, later, a great deal more about their patients.
    There were twenty-three doctors who
ministered to the needs of seventy-one residents.
    Lynn had no interest in how many nurses there
were, because she had no plans for them, provided she didn't come across a rival.
    The gossip-monger told her that three of the
doctors assumed that every nurse wanted to sleep with them, which made it far
easier for Lynn to continue her research. After another few weeks, which included
several 'stopovers', she found out, without ever being able to make a note,
that sixty-eight of the residents were married, senile or, worse, received
regular visits from their devoted relatives. Lynn had to accept the fact that
90 per cent of women either outlive their husbands or end up divorcing them. It's
all part of the American dream. However, Lynn still managed to come up with a
shortlist of three candidates who suffered from none of these deficiencies:
Frank Cunningham Jr, Larry Schumacher III and Arthur J. Sommerfield.
    Frank Cunningham was eliminated when Lynn
discovered that he had two mistresses, one of whom was pregnant and had
recently served a paternity suit on him, demanding that a DNA test be carried
out.
    Larry Schumacher III also had to be crossed off
the list when Lynn found out he was visited every day by his close friend
Gregory, who didn't look a day over fifty. Come to think of it, not many people
in Florida do.
    However, the third candidate ticked all her boxes.
    Arthur J. Sommerfield was a retired banker whose
worth according to Forbes magazinea publication which had replaced Playboy as Lynn's
postgraduate reading -- was estimated at around a hundred million dollars: a fortune
that had grown steadily through the assiduous husbandry of three generations of
Sommerfields. Arthur was a widower who had only been married once (another
rarity in Florida), to Arlene, who had died of breast cancer some seven years
earlier. He had two children, Chester and Joni, both of whom lived abroad.
Chester worked for an engineering company in Brazil, and was