Medicine for Murder
by Norbert Davis
Death stalks the fog.
Gregory saw it floating up toward him slowly — limp and dead and wavering a little in the deep blue-greenness of the water. He leaned farther over the edge of the boat to see it, and its eyes were staring up at him through the water, brown and wide with mute animal agony.
It was a dog; a small wire-haired terrier with the blunt, square muzzle of a thoroughbred. Its throat had been cut, and the wound was a deep purple slash against the fur, not bleeding now, with the severed muscles showing in gristly white strings.
Then the creamy white spray thrown back and over by the boat’s knife-like prow covered the body with a rush, and it was gone to its grave deep under the water.
Gregory looked back over his shoulder. “Stop!” he ordered.
The boatman was neat and natty in a white yacht-crew uniform. He was a young man, thick through the shoulders. His blond hair was bleached by sun and water. His face was deeply tanned. He moved a stubby fingered hand on the throttle of the engine, and the boat slowed.
“What?” he asked, over the rumble of the motor sound.
Gregory was looking back at the spot where he had seen the dog. He thought he saw it for a second in a vague white splotch near the surface, and then it was gone again.
“What’re you looking for?” the boatman asked.
“I saw a dog,” Gregory told him.
The boatman stared. “A dog? Here?”
“Yes,” Gregory said. “Turn the boat around.”
“Listen, mister. You mean you’re tellin’ me you think you saw a dog out here on the water? You ain’t got the d.t.’s, have you? That’d be a hell of a thing for a doctor to have.”
“Turn the boat,” Gregory said. “I saw a dog. It was dead. I want another look at it.”
“Why?” the boatman asked. “What do you want to go lookin’ at dead dogs for? You ain’t a dog doctor, are you?”
“Turn the boat,” said Gregory.
Bruce Gregory was a slender man, neat and dark and unobtrusive in a tailored blue business suit. He had a high forehead with black hair receding sharply above his temples. He had thinly regular features, and his normal expression was that of a research scientist, detached and impersonal, yet observant. He kept his emotions carefully under control, and his facial expression never indicated what he was thinking. Only his eyes gave him away. They were a deep blue, wide set, warm and alive with human understanding, sympathy.
The boatman shrugged. “Why not? I get paid by the hour. I ain’t a doctor. I’ve got no patients dyin’ on me while I look for dead dogs.”
The motorboat circled back toward the spot where Gregory had seen the dog, and he leaned again over the side, staring down into the shifting blueness of the water. He could see nothing but the moving flecks of light and shadow. After a moment, he straightened up.
“Well,” said the boatman. “You got anything else you wanta look for? If you have, we can go back and get a diving helmet. Maybe we could find a dead cat.”
“Take me to Van Tellen’s,” Gregory said.
“Well, sure,” said the boatman. “And about time, too, I think.”
The sound of the motor changed to deep thunder, and the prow tilted up a little from the water. Small stinging drops of spray felt cold and salty on Gregory’s lips. He was frowning a little. The incident of the dead dog bothered him. He liked dogs, and this one had been killed brutally and thrown into the water, and there was a reason for that, Gregory knew. He wanted to find out the reason. The bright, clear beauty of the late afternoon seemed to dull slightly, and he was remembering the silent agony in the dog’s eyes.
The prow of the boat swung a little, as the boatman changed his course. The Van Tellen estate was dead ahead now, looming enormous and dark with its spired towers and narrow, close-set windows, brooding over the blueness of the bay. Even the sun turned the brightness of its rays away from the cold granite walls, and the house was darkly sullen and sinister.
There was a man standing on the edge of the small dock as the motor boat nosed gently in against the pilings. He was tall and bent a little bit, and he had an air of flabby looseness about him that was emphasized by the petulant droop of his wide mouth. He looked worn and tired, nervously irritable. His voice had a deep, measured resonance that Gregory knew was acquired, not natural.
“Dr. Gregory?” he asked anxiously, and when Gregory nodded, climbing out of the boat, he offered a pallid, white hand. “I’m Richard Danborn — Mrs. Van Tellen’s attorney. I called you.”
Gregory shook his hand. There were firm, strong muscles under the flabby skin.
“I’ve been waiting very anxiously,” Danborn said.
“Don’t blame me,” said the boatman. “It ain’t my fault we’re late. I—”
“That will be all, Floyd,” Danborn said flatly.
“Well, don’t blame me, though, if we’re late. I just follow orders around here.”
Danborn’s grayish face flushed. “Then try following this one. I said that would be all.”
The boatman muttered sullenly to himself, tying up the boat.
Danborn swallowed hard. “This way, Doctor.” He led the way off the dock.
The slope of the lawn down to the water’s edge was graduated in neatly even terraces. Danborn and Gregory went up a brick walk with flat steps at intervals.
“These servants around here,” Danborn said. “That’s an example. Mrs. Van Tellen doesn’t know how to handle them at all. This damned estate has given me more trouble...” He was silent for a second, then looked up side-wise at Gregory. “You’ll pardon me, Doctor. I’m a little overwrought this afternoon. I suppose there are problems in all professions.”
“There are,” Gregory agreed.
“I called you to see Mrs. Van Tellen,” Danborn said. “I’m very worried about her.”
“Her regular physician?” Gregory questioned. “Why didn’t you call him? I’m not familiar with her case.”
Danborn shook his head irritably. “She has no regular physician. She’s afraid of doctors. Never has one. You wouldn’t be here now, if I hadn’t insisted on calling you against her will.”
Gregory stopped. “If Mrs. Van Tellen doesn’t wish medical attention, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Wait,” Danborn said anxiously. “Don’t go. She really needs attention. Her fear of doctors is just an eccentricity. I can assure you, she has plenty of others... Are you familiar at all with the history of the family?”
“No,” said Gregory.
Danborn patted at his forehead nervously with a wadded handkerchief. “Let me tell you something about it. Mrs. Van Tellen had a brother by the name of Herman Borg. They came from a poor immigrant family, and they were left orphaned at an early age.”
“I don’t see what this—”
“Wait,” said Danborn. “Herman Borg had a vicious and ungovernable temper. During his youth he quarreled with his sister, Mrs. Van Tellen. He never saw or communicated with her again during his life time. He made a great deal of money, and despite their quarrel, he left her all of his property. All this.” Danborn waved an arm jerkily to indicate the house that towered darkly above them.
“He had no children?” Gregory asked, interested.
Danborn moved his shoulders. “One son. His wife died when the boy was born. Herman Borg quarreled with his son, too, and the boy ran away. I don’t know as I blame Borg, at that. The boy was bad clear through. I wasn’t acting as Borg’s attorney at the time, but I know that Borg had a lot of trouble keeping him out of jail on several occasions. The boy died in a train accident in the West. He was bumming his way on freights.”