Knows how to get round women all right.” She chuckled. “I’ve seen too many like him to be taken in! Funny son for Thomas to have had, I must say. He was a staid old fogy if you like. Model of rectitude. Ah, well, bad blood somewhere. Mind you, I like the rascal–but he’s the kind who would murder his grandmother for a shilling or two quite cheerfully. No moral sense. Odd the way some people seem to be born without it.” “And his sister?” “Theresa?” Miss Peabody shook her head and said slowly, “I don’t know. She’s an exotic creature. Not usual. She’s engaged to that namby-pamby doctor down here.
You’ve seen him, perhaps?” “Dr. Donaldson.” “Yes. Clever in his profession, they say.
But he’s a poor stick in other ways. Not the sort of young man I’d fancy if I were a young girl. Well, Theresa should know her mind.
She’s had her experiences, I’ll be bound.” “Dr. Donaldson did not attend Miss Arundell?” “He used to when Grainger was away on holiday.” “But not in her last illness?” “Don’t think so.” Poirot said, smiling: “I gather. Miss Peabody, that you don’t think much of him as a doctor?” “Never said so. As a matter of fact, you’re wrong. He’s sharp enough, and clever enough in his way–but it’s not my way.
Take an instance. In the old days when a child ate too many green apples it had a bilious attack and the doctor called it a bilious attack and went home and sent you along a few pills from the surgery. Nowadays, you’re told the child suffers from pronounced acidosis, that its diet must be supervised and you get the same medicine, only it’s in nice little white tablets put up by manufacturing chemists and costs you about three times as much! Donaldson belongs to that school, and, mind you, most young mothers prefer it. It sounds better. Not that that young man will be in this place long ministering to measles and bilious attacks. He’s got his eye on London. He’s ambitious. He means to specialize.”
“In any particular line?” “Serum therapeutics. I think I’ve got it right. The idea being that you get one of these nasty hypodermic needles stuck into you no matter how well you feel, just in case you should catch something. I don’t hold with all these messy injections myself.” “Is Dr. Donaldson experimenting with any particular disease?” “Don’t ask me. All I know is a general practitioner’s practice isn’t good enough for him. He wants to set up in London. But to do that he’s got to have money and he’s as poor as a church mouse, whatever a church mouse may be.” Poirot murmured: “Sad that real ability is so often baulked by lack of money. And yet there are people who do not spend a quarter of their incomes.” “Emily Arundell didn’t,” said Miss Peabody.
“It was quite a surprise to some people when that will was read. The amount, I mean, not the way it was left.” “Was it a surprise, do you think, to the members of her own family?” “That’s telling,” said Miss Peabody, screwing up her eyes with a good deal of enjoyment. “I wouldn’t say yes, and I wouldn’t say no. One of ’em had a pretty shrewd idea.” “Which one?” “Master Charles. He’d done a bit of calculation on his own account. He’s no fool, Charles.” “But a little bit of a rogue, eh?” “At any rate, he isn’t a nambypamby stick,” said Miss Peabody viciously.
She paused a minute and then asked: “Going to get in touch with him?” “That was my intention,” Poirot went on solemnly. “It seems to me possible that he might have certain family papers relating to his grandfather?” “More likely to have made a bonfire of them. No respect for his elders, that young man.” “One must try all avenues,” said Poirot sententiously.
“So it seems,” said Miss Peabody drily.
There was a momentary glint in her blue eyes that seemed to affect Poirot disagreeably.
He rose.
“I must not trespass any longer on your time, madame. I am most grateful for what you have been able to tell me.” “I’ve done my best,” said Miss Peabody.