Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online Page B

‘that if she says she’s going to issue a public repudiation of the Spring, remove the enclosure and stop the festival, you’d come down on her side?’
    ‘I shouldn’t try to dissuade her.’
    The Mayor made an explosive ejaculation and turned on him: ‘If you’ll pardon my frankness, Mr Carstairs,’ he began, ‘I’d be obliged if you’d tell the company what you reckon would have happened to your Church Restoration Fund if Portcarrow hadn’t benefited by the Spring to the extent it has done. Where’d you’ve got the money to repair your tower? You wouldn’t have got it, no, nor anything like it.’
    Mr Carstairs’s normally sallow face reddened painfully. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose we should.’
    ‘Hah!’ said Miss Cost, ‘there you are!’
    ‘I’m a Methodist myself,’ said the Mayor in triumph.
    ‘Quite so,’ Mr Carstairs agreed.
    ‘Put it this way. Will you egg the woman on, sir, in her foolish notions. Will you do that?’
    ‘No. It’s a matter for her own conscience.’
    The Mayor, Major Barrimore and Miss Cost all began to expostulate. Dr Maine said with repressed impatience: ‘I really don’t think there’s any future in pressing the point.’
    ‘Nor do I,’ said Mrs Barrimore unexpectedly.
    Miss Cost, acidly smiling, looked from her to Dr Maine and then, fixedly, at Major Barrimore.
    ‘Very good, Doctor,’ Mr Nankivell said. ‘What about yourself, then?’
    Dr Maine stared distastefully at his own hands and said: ‘Paradoxically, I find myself in some sort of agreement with the Rector. I, too, haven’t disguised my views. I have an open mind about these cases. I have neither encouraged nor discouraged my patients to make use of the Spring. When there has been apparent benefit I have said nothing to undermine anyone’s faith in its permanency. I am neutral.’
    ‘And from that impregnable position,’ Major Barrimore observed, ‘you’ve added a dozen rooms to your bloody nursing home. Beg pardon, Rector.’
    ‘Keith!’
    Major Barrimore turned on his wife. ‘Well, Margaret?’ he demanded. ‘What’s your objection?’
    Miss Cost gave a shrill laugh.
    Before Mrs Barrimore could answer, Dr Maine said very coolly, ‘You’re perfectly right. I have benefited like all the rest of you. But as far as my practice is concerned, I believe Miss Pride’s activities will make very little difference, in the long run. Either to it or to the popular appeal of the Spring. Sick people who are predisposed to the idea, will still think they know better. Or hope they know better,’ he added. ‘Which is, I suppose, much the same thing.’
    ‘That’s all damn’ fine but it won’t be the same thing to the community at large,’ Barrimore angrily pointed out. ‘Tom, Dick and Harry and their friends and relations, swarming all over the place. The Island, a tripper’s shambles, and the Press making a laughing-stock of the whole affair.’ He emptied his glass.
    ‘And the Festival!’ Miss Cost wailed. ‘The Festival! All our devotion! The response! The disappointment. The humiliation!’ She waved her hands. A thought struck her. ‘And Wally! He has actually memorized! After weeks of patient endeavour, he has memorized his little verses. Only this afternoon. One trivial slip. The choir is utterly committed.’
    ‘I’ll be bound!’ said Mr Nankivell heartily. ‘A credit to all concerned and a great source of gratification to the borough if looked at in the proper spirit. We’m all waiting on the doctor, however,’ he added. ‘Now, Doctor, what is it to be? What’ll you say to the lady?’
    ‘Exactly what I said two minutes ago to you,’ Dr Maine snapped. ‘I’ll give my opinion if she wants it. I don’t mind pointing out to her that the thing will probably go on after a fashion, whatever she does.’
    ‘I suppose that’s something,’ said the Mayor gloomily. ‘Though not much, with an elderly female so deadly set on destruction.’
    ‘I,’ Miss Cost