He waited as she paused to gather her strength.
“When the doctor and his wife first came to Wellworthy all those years ago he was a young GP recently taken on as the junior partner in the only medical practice that existed here in those days. It was perhaps a fortunate co-incidence that Springwater House was up for sale at that time and at a very reasonable price because of its relatively remote location, and they fell in love with the place. I was already a widow when they came to Wellworthy, and I badly needed employment. I answered an advertisement for the position of a cook/housekeeper, and it was my good fortune to secure the situation. I took to the doctor and his wife at once and never once regretted going to work for them. They were a wonderful couple, they really were; they even paid for my orphaned daughter’s education! I think that I spent the happiest days of my life there. The doctor worked hard, while his wife was worshipped by everyone she met.
When Dr Maidstone retired, your uncle became the senior partner, and much later he took on Dr Rawlinson; I expect you have met him?”
“Yes indeed.”
“He’s a very good doctor, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, but he didn’t have your uncle’s knack of making people feel better just by chatting to them.”
He waited as she paused again to gather her strength.
“One day the doctor had a visitor, a man I had never seen before. He was a police Sergeant, and claimed to be an old friend of the doctor’s His name was Phillip Burton.”
She stopped again, as if trying to select her words.
“He became a fairly regular visitor,” she resumed, “and it was the doctor who told me that he had known him from school-days. Naturally I was mostly unaware of what passed between them on these visits. He never brought anyone with him so I suppose he was either a bachelor or a widower. It was some time before I realised that the doctor and his wife never returned these visits. Anyway, I don’t know what it was, yet there was something about the man I could never take to. He was always polite, mind you, and I couldn’t really accuse him of anything improper; I just instinctively distrusted him. I couldn’t help noticing that from the time his visits started, both the doctor and his wife began to look strained. It was as if all the fun in their life was being sucked out of them. Maybe it was all coincidence, I don’t know, perhaps they were upset about something totally unconnected with Sergeant Burton. All I can say is that I just felt that whatever was worrying the doctor and his wife had something to do with that man.”
She paused once more, closing her eyes as if the very effort of speaking was exhausting her. To Martin she looked extremely weak and frail, and he wondered what she was leading up to.
“This situation went on for some time,” she resumed after about a minutes silence. “The man kept coming and going at odd times. He always seemed to be so bright and cheerful, yet there were never any smiles from the doctor or his wife when he left.”
“What happened in the end?” Martin asked after she had relapsed into silence yet again.
“It must have been about nineteen eighty or thereabouts,” she responded tiredly, “I can’t remember exactly when, it was all so long ago. The doctor sent for me one day and announced that we were all going for a holiday to visit his wife’s parents who lived in Scotland at that time. He said that he was going to close Springwater House down for a week, leaving young George the gardener to keep an eye open when he came to work to make sure that nothing much happened to the place. I remember thinking that the doctor and his wife could both do with a break, for the pair of them now looked quite ill to me. I was surprised that they wanted me to go with them, but they insisted. Well, the day before we were due to leave, the doctor called me in to his study to say that something had come up that he had to deal with, which meant that he would have to cancel his holiday. He insisted however, that the holiday should go ahead and that I should accompany his wife. I could tell at once that she didn’t really want to go without him, but in the end she gave in when he promised to phone her every day.”
She paused, looking at him as if still debating the wisdom of unburdening her mind of what was really troubling her.
“Well, we went away as he insisted,” she continued. “Scotland’s a lovely place and we should have had a wonderful time, only I could tell that his wife never really settled down to relax. She put on an act for her parents, who were a lovely elderly couple who sadly died a few years later. The doctor phoned every day as he had promised, and sometimes he talked to her for an hour or more. When the time came for us to return I could tell that she really couldn’t get back quickly enough. There was a tearful reunion which I sort of half expected, and yet there was an undercurrent of something else I couldn’t understand.
What I did notice was that there were no more visits by the doctor’s friend Phillip Burton. Nothing was said about it, and after a few weeks went by without him putting in an appearance I did think it odd. I assumed that he had been transferred to another location which I think happens sometimes when a police officer gets promoted. Anyway, it was only a matter of days after we had returned from Scotland that you came with your mother on what proved to be your last visit. The doctor was always very close to his sister even though they lived such a long distance apart. Usually these visits were jolly affairs, with fun and games, tea out by the pool and all that sort of thing. This last visit was so different. No smiles, no games, no tea in the garden, and you were left pretty much to your own devices.”
“And you have no idea why; did they fall out about something?”
“No, I don’t think they had any sort of disagreement, at6 least, not that I could tell. I think that the doctor told his sister at least something about what was troubling him. I have no proof that he did, mind you, it’s just a feeling. When your mother came, she was all smiles, yet when she left she looked as worried as he did.”
“And nothing was ever said to explain it?”
“They never said a word to me.”
“How extremely odd.”
She rested her eyes again for a good minute, and then looked at him again.
“This brings me to what I wanted to talk to your uncle about,” she said at last. “Only of course he is dead now. I never intended to tell a living soul about what I know, and what I suspect, and now that he has gone, well, I think you, as his heir, have a right to know. You see, I truly think that something terrible happened at Springwater House during that time when the doctor was there on his own.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Three things; firstly, I couldn’t help notice when we returned from our holiday that the hallway had been thoroughly cleaned. Being the housekeeper, the general state of cleanliness of the place was one of my first concerns on my return. I noticed this curious fact at once and was at a loss to understand why it had taken place. It’s the sort of thing a man might not notice, and even if you had been there and noticed it, you might not think it suspicious. You must bear in mind that there was only the doctor in the house, so who did the cleaning, and why?”
“Maybe the doctor spilled something there and had no choice other than to clear it up himself?”
“Maybe; it is what I thought myself at first, and I didn't think it my place to ask him. The second thing happened during your mother’s last visit. I had to take a tea tray into the study where they were all seated. I don’t think the doctor heard me tap the door before entering, and I caught just a few words of what he was saying. I certainly didn’t mean to eavesdrop and I paid little attention to what I heard at the time; later, I did wonder.”
“What did you overhear?”
“The doctor was talking directly to you mother. He said: ‘It is for your own safety and the safety of the boy, believe me.’ He stopped then, and nothing further was said until I left the room. It meant nothing at the time, but when there were no more visits and not even a letter, I started to wonder.”
“And the third thing?”
“The third thing is what has been on my mind all these long years. Without it, the other two things would have made no sense, and I expect that I would have soon forgotten all about them. Now that I am at the end of my life, I don’t want to take all of this to the grave with me. When I tell you now of the third thing, it will be up to you to decide what needs to be done.”
She paused again, the effort of so much talking obviously exhausting her, yet there was that grim look about her that bespoke of her determination to finish what she had set out to do.
“Some weeks after your last visit to Springwater House,” she continued after a while. “I decided that the hallway needed a further good clean. It was something I did to all the rooms of the house at different times. I was younger and healthier in those days, and liked to keep everything in perfect condition. I chose a day when both the doctor and his wife were out until evening-time so as to cause as little inconvenience as possible.
When I moved the hall-stand away from its usual position against the wall I saw something lying on the floor. I picked it up and studied it, and suddenly an awful possibility took root in my mind. I felt sick, and needed to sit down for a while as I tried to convince myself that I was wrong, only from that day onwards I never did.”
“What was it you found?”
“If you look in the drawer of my bedside table, you will find a small tin; would you get it out for me please?”
Martin opened the drawer, and in a corner he found the tin she had asked for, and at her request he opened it. Inside were a number of small lace handkerchiefs. She asked him to look under these, and to take out what was there. Again, he did as he was bid, and then held up a small object rapped in tissue paper. Carefully removing the wrapping he peered at what was inside. To his surprise he realised that it was a spent bullet!
“Now you can understand how I felt,” she said, as he gazed in disbelief at what was lying in the bottom of the tin. “Putting everything together, it suddenly occurred to me that the doctor had deliberately sent his wife and myself out of the house because he planned to kill someone!”
“But that doesn’t make sense” he protested, tearing his eyes away from the bullet and looking at her drawn but earnest face. “It goes against everything I have ever heard about my uncle, a man devoted to the care of others, a man universally liked and respected. How can you possibly imagine that such a man would deliberately plan to kill someone just because you found something like this lying in the hallway?”
“Then how do you explain the presence of bullet?”
“It could have been there for ages without you noticing it, it could have been dropped by a visitor and kicked under the hall stand where you found it; it doesn’t mean that someone was shot!”
“Then why was the hallway cleaned so thoroughly?” she persisted. “Why did Phillip Burton never return? Why was your mother warned off? Why did the light of happiness vanish from the doctor and his wife? Not only that, I can tell you for a fact that that bullet was definitely not there before we went away, because I had cleaned the hallway all through only days earlier, and I most certainly would have seen it! No, it is my firm conviction that Phillip Burton had some sort of hold over the doctor. I think matters were getting to such a pitch that the doctor knew that he had to do something about it. I believe he planned this out weeks ahead, and deliberately used the excuse of a holiday to ensure that there would be no witnesses to what he intended to do. I think the doctor invited Phillip Burton back when he knew that he would have the house to himself. I think he then shot him and killed him in the hallway. I think he took the body and buried it somewhere out in the grounds before getting rid of the gun he had used.”
Martin looked at the frail old housekeeper in shocked astonishment.
“I’ve kept that bullet all these years,” she added in a tired voice. “A hundred times I was going to speak to the doctor about it, but I never could. When I realised that I was dying, it preyed on my mind. I wanted to ask him to his face, because more than anything in the world, I wanted to know that I was wrong! Well, I will never know now, will I? But at least you know as much as I do. My only comfort is that if the doctor did murder Phillip Burton, he must have had the very strongest of reasons.”
There was silence for two or three minutes as the full import of the old lady’s words and beliefs sank into Martin’s mind. It was inconceivable to him that his uncle could have cold bloodedly set out to murder someone, yet at the same time he could well appreciate what had aroused the old housekeeper’s suspicions. Without a doubt something of a serious nature had transpired between his uncle and his sister at that last meeting, and the echoes of that mystery were still alive today. But murder?