Murder Begets Murder by Roderic Jeffries Read Free Book Online Page B

poisoning.’
    ‘That’s what I’d guessed. Only it would have had to be very virulent, wouldn’t it, to have prevented her calling for help?’
    ‘She was on her own, the house hasn’t a telephone, and it’s a good way up the track from the next house. Perhaps she tried to ignore the symptoms at first and by the time she realized they were serious, she was in too bad a condition to leave the house to seek help.’
    ‘A sad way to die.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, the post-mortem will tell us for certain.’ He was surprised that although Roldán had obviously initially been shocked by the news, he had shown little sympathy: a doctor should surely know sympathy for all his patients? ‘I need to find out what kind of a man Señor Heron was — you can tell me that, can’t you?’
    Roldán adjusted the tooled leather blotter which was immediately in front of him on his large, ornately inlaid desk. ‘Why should I be able to answer you? I was his doctor, not his personal friend.’
    ‘You’ll have gained some sort of impression.’
    ‘Only as to his medical state. And as to his ridiculous stubbornness.’ He examined his nails, then opened the left-hand top drawer of his desk and took out a small pad and briefly polished the nails of his right hand with quick, precise movements. ‘He was a. very sick man who should never have come out to the island.’
    ‘What exactly was wrong with him?’
    ‘Put as simply as possible, mitral stenosis subsequent to a bad attack of rheumatic fever when young. This was quite serious, and then on top of that he contracted a bacterial endocarditis, which is the condition in which he was when I first treated him. Surgery would probably have relieved the primary complaint, but he said he had a horror of operations and had always refused to undergo one. Then the bacterial endocarditis made it impossible for an operation to be performed, even had he been willing. My immediate advice, put very strongly, was that he should consult a specialist in Palma, but he refused. I treated him with antibiotics, but although I kept changing them he raped to respond. I again said it was essential he went into a clinic for treatment, again he refused.’ Roldán replaced the nail pad in the drawer and shut this. ‘There are some patients, Inspector, for whom one can do very little, thanks to their characters.’
    ‘Did you speak to the señorita about persuading him to go into a clinic?’
    ‘I don’t see what any of this has to do with the death of the señorita?’
    ‘Please bear with me a bit longer.’
    ‘Very well. I told the señorita that the señor was a seriously ill man and it was more than ever essential he went into a clinic for treatment. She said she’d do what she could to persuade him, but she was no more successful than I had been.’
    ‘How did you find her — eager to help?’
    ‘Of course. Why shouldn’t she have been?’
    ‘There seems to have been a possibility that she was rather too friendly with another man. Did you ever get any suggestion of that?’
    ‘No. Furthermore, I am not in the habit of listening to poisonous gossip.’
    ‘Then there has been such gossip?’
    ‘I was not inferring that.’
    ‘Do you think that she looked after the señor as well as she could?’
    ‘I think your questions are becoming not only unnecessary, but offensive.’
    ‘I’m sorry, doctor. What finally finished off the señor?’
    ‘It is inaccurate to suggest that anything “finally” was responsible for his death, unless he developed a sudden allergy to the latest antibiotic I tried. The course of his illness, without there being surgery, had inevitably to lead to his death. It is possible, too, that his state of emotional excitability not long before his death played some part: I have always been of the opinion that a patient’s mental condition plays a far greater part in his physical condition than many fellow doctors will admit.’
    ‘What did he get emotionally excited