Read Online She Shoots to Conquer by Dorothy Cannell - Free Book Online

it would be better—quicker—for him to walk, as I had done on returning home, when he needed me again. Don’t remember such a fog! Not at all surprising what happened to the poor woman—Aubrey told me her name was Suzanne Varney.” Tommy’s round brown eyes shone more brightly than ever with what had to be the gloss of tears. My heart warmed to his childlike sensitivity. “Only forty-five, so Aubrey said. Severe blunt chest trauma. The autopsy will get to the nub of it. Only minor damage to the face. It was obvious she had been a pretty woman.” Atear trickled down a rounded cheek. “She won’t need much fixing up by the mortician to have her looking her very best for the funeral if the family chooses an open coffin. That’ll be a consolation.”
    “Let’s hope,” said Ben.
    Tommy wiped away the tear with his jacket sleeve and drew a shaky breath. “You’ll have to excuse me; I’m a sentimental old bachelor. My daily helper, Mrs. Spuds, keeps going on at me about getting a cat. It is a temptation. But I’m not sure I’m ready after losing Blackie. It still hurts too much after forty years. He was my birthday present when I was ten, and twelve and a half when he got out onto the road and was hit by a . . .”
    I wondered sadly—with thoughts of my own Tobias—if there had been any fixing Blackie up for the funeral.
    “But enough of myself.” Tommy blinked bravely.
    “My wife?” Ben prodded, not looking quite as moved as I was.
    “Indeed, yes. I think you have it right—although I could be wrong, we doctors so often are. A bad tension headache, possibly—or perhaps a migraine.”
    “She fainted.” Ben sounded determined on a bleak diagnosis.
    “Explained most likely by the stress she mentioned.”
    “She fell.”
    “Yes, well . . . uhmm.” Tommy appeared rattled. Maybe he wouldn’t be a doctor when he grew up. Clearly patients could be awkward, expecting a fellow to be sure of his facts. Better perhaps to go back to wanting to be a fireman or a bus driver. But hadn’t his mum and dad always told him not to be a wussy puss? Suddenly he straightened to his full five six, squared his shoulders, and stuck out his rounded chin. Time to assert himself. “People usually . . . generally . . . almost invariably, although this is arguable, don’t fall hard when they faint. They . . . crumple.”
    “The latest medical term?”
    “Oh, Ben, please! Dr. Rowley has to know what he’s talking about. He must see hundreds of patients.”
    “I can’t say that,” demurred the truthful boy. “Grimkirk is avery small village, just a couple of shops and a strip of cottages. But I do see the occasional farmer and person on holiday. Let’s say,” chuckling convincingly, “I keep my hand in.”
    “I’m sure you do.” My maternal instinct was aroused, and I was further touched on seeing when he bent to unlatch and relatch his bag that there was bald spot on the back of his head. What he needed more than a cat was a grown-up wife to tell him he was wonderfully clever. I wondered about his daily—Mrs. Spuds (who could forget such a name?). A woman who liked cats had to be nice, but like as not she already had a husband who wouldn’t take kindly to her marrying someone else, bigamy not having the cachet it once did.
    “Ellie,” Ben sat down beside me on the sofa, “what sort of husband would I be if I didn’t worry about you?”
    “But I’m feeling better,” I said, and realized it was true. Mrs. Foot’s gray biscuit and dreadful tea had settled. I felt less queasy and my headache was barely noticeable if I lay still.
    “My prescribed treatment,” Tommy puffed out his chest, “is for you to go immediately to bed and once there be given a light meal and a drink, after which you will take the tablets I will leave for you. Two to be repeated every four hours if you should wake and feel the need.”
    Lovely as this sounded, I had to explain the obvious. “But I can’t go straight to bed. We have