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“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.
He took the words out of her mouth.
“Sir Bartholomew Strange. Sir Bartholomew Humbug. I’d like to know what goes on in that precious Sanatorium of his. Nerve cases. That’s what they say. You’re in there and you can’t get out. And they say you’ve gone of your own free will. Free will! Just because they get hold of you when you’ve got the horrors.”
He was shaking now. His mouth drooped suddenly.
“I’m all to pieces,” he said apologetically. “All to pieces.” He called to the waiter, pressed Egg to have another drink, and when she refused, ordered one himself.
“That’s better,” he said as he drained the glass. “Got my nerve back now. Nasty business losing your nerve. Mustn’t make Cynthia angry. She told me not to talk.” He nodded his head once or twice. “Wouldn’t do to tell the police all this,” he said. “They might think I’d bumped old Strange off. Eh? You realize, don’t you, that someone must have done it? One of us must have killed him. That’s a funny thought. Which of us? That’s the question.”
“Perhaps you know which,” said Egg.
“What d’you say that for? Why should I know?”
He looked at her angrily and suspiciously.
“I don’t know anything about it, I tell you. I wasn’t going to take that damnable ‘cure’ of his. No matter what Cynthia said—I wasn’t going to take it. He was up to something—they were both up to something. But they couldn’t fool me.”
He drew himself up.
“I’m a shtrong man, Mish Lytton Gore.”
“I’m sure you are,” said Egg. “Tell me, do you know anything of a Mrs. de Rushbridger who is at the Sanatorium?”
“Rushbridger? Rushbridger? Old Strange said something about her. Now what was it? Can’t remember anything.”
He sighed, shook his head.
“Memory’s going, that’s what it is. And I’ve got enemies—a lot of enemies. They may be spying on me now.”
He looked round uneasily. Then he leant across the table to Egg.
