Egg allowed three minutes to elapse, then she crossed the road and entered the building.
Egg pressed the doorbell of No. 3. Dacres himself opened the door.
He was still engaged in taking off his overcoat.
“Oh,” said Egg. “How do you do? You do remember me, don’t you?
We met in Cornwall, and again in Yorkshire.”
“Of course - of course.
In at the death both times, weren’t we?
Come in, Miss Lytton Gore.”
“I wanted to see your wife.
Is she in?”
“She’s round in Bruton Street - at her dressmaking place.”
“I know.
I was there today. I thought perhaps she’d be back by now, and that she wouldn’t mind, perhaps, if I came here - only, of course, I suppose I’m being a frightful bother - ”
Egg paused appealingly.
Freddie Dacres said to himself: “Nice looking filly. Damned pretty girl, in fact.”
Aloud he said: “Cynthia won’t be back till well after six. I’ve just come back from Newbury.
Had a rotten day and left early.
Come round to the Seventy-Two Club and have a cocktail?”
Egg accepted, though she had a shrewd suspicion that Dacres had already had quite as much alcohol as was good for him.
Sitting in the underground dimness of the Seventy-Two Club, and sipping a Martini, Egg said: “This is great fun. I’ve never been here before.”
Freddie Dacres smiled indulgently.
He liked a young and pretty girl. Not perhaps as much as he liked some other things - but well enough.
“Upsettin’ sort of time, wasn’t it?” he said. “Up in Yorkshire, I mean. Something rather amusin’ about a doctor being poisoned - you see what I mean - wrong way about.
A doctor’s a chap who poisons other people.” He laughed uproariously at his own remark and ordered another pink gin.
“That’s rather clever of you,” said Egg. “I never thought of it that way before.”
“Only a joke, of course,” said Freddie Dacres.
“It’s odd, isn’t it,” said Egg, “that when we meet it’s always at a death.”
“Bit odd,” admitted Captain Dacres. “You mean the old clergyman chap at what’s him name’s - the actor fellow’s place?”
“Yes.
It was very queer the way he died so suddenly.”
“Damn’ disturbin’,” said Dacres. “Makes you feel a bit gruey, fellows popping off all over the place. You know, you think ‘my turn next,’ and it gives you the shivers.”
“You knew Mr. Babbington before, didn’t you, at Gilling?”
“Don’t know the place.
No, I never set eyes on the old chap before.
Funny thing is he popped off just the same way as old Strange did. Bit odd, that.
Can’t have been bumped off, too, I suppose?”
“Well, what do you think?”
Dacres shook his head.
“Can’t have been,” he said decisively. “Nobody murders parsons.
Doctors are different.”
“Yes,” said Egg. “I suppose doctors are different.”
“Course they are. Stands to reason. Doctors are interfering devils.”
He slurred the words a little. He leant forward. “Won’t let well alone. Understand?” “No,” said Egg. “They monkey about with fellows’ lives. They’ve got a damned sight too much power. Oughtn’t to be allowed.”
“I don’t quite see what you mean.”
“M’ dear girl, I’m telling you.
Get a fellow shut up - that’s what I mean - put him in hell. God, they’re cruel. Shut him up and keep the stuff from him - and however much you beg and pray they won’t give it you.
Don’t care a damn what torture you’re in. that’s doctors for you. I’m telling you - and I know.” His face twitched painfully. His little pinpoint pupils stared past her. “It’s hell, I tell you - hell.
And they call it curing you! Pretend they’re doing a decent action.
Swine!”
“Did Sir Bartholomew Strange - ?” began Egg cautiously.