âas I told you over the phone.â
âSo you did,â piped Dr. Appleton nastily, âand itâs awfully queer. Slaterâs keeling over like this, I mean. Are you sure heâs dead?â
âEveryone keeps asking me that! Go see for yourself, Dr. Appleton. Thatâs why I called you. Aunt Lallie and Peet and Twig and my brother Brady are in the living room. Do you want them?â
âGood God, no. If thereâs one thing I canât stand, itâs relatives of dead patients. Who found Slater?â
âI did.â
âDid you touch him?â
âNo.â
âDid anyone?â
âThe only other one whoâs looked at Uncle Slater was my brother, who went upstairs after I came down. And Iâm sure Brady didnât get farther than the doorway. Heâs one of those tough, rugged lads who faint at the sight of their own blood.â
âYouâd better come along with me.â
Prin dutifully followed Dr. Appleton upstairs to Uncle Slaterâs room. Brady had left the door open, and the doctor went briskly in. Prin hesitated; she would much have preferred to stay in the hall. But she supposed Dr. Appleton needed her to answer questions or something, so she followed him into the bedroom. And there was Uncle Slater, lying on the floor exactly as she had left him, which for some reason was rather a shock. Dr. Appleton was just getting down on his knees. He rolled Uncle Slater over, felt the temple where Uncle Slater used to have a pulse, thumbed up Uncle Slaterâs eyelids and peered, opened his black bag and took out his stethoscope and listened here and there; finally he got to his feet and stuck the stethoscope in his hip pocket, so that it hung down in a loop under his seat.
âHeâs dead, all right.â
âWell,â said Prin. â Thatâs settled.â
âAnd,â the doctor went on thoughtfully, âitâs damned odd.â
âOdd?â Prin said. âWhatâs odd about it, Doctor? Peopleâespecially people Uncle Slaterâs ageâdie all the time.â
âNot for no apparent reason.â
âWell, for goodnessâ sake, Doctor, Iâm no doctor and even I know that . His heart stopped.â
âAgreed,â snapped the little old doctor. âIâve never known a dead man whose heart kept on beating.â
Prin blushed. âWhat I meant, Dr. Appleton, was that Uncle Slater must have had a heart attack.â
âThat,â said Dr. Appleton in a very queer way, âis questionable.â
âBut why?â Prin cried, bewildered.
âBecause Slater OâShea has come to my office for regular checkups every six months since he married Millie Quimby. I have a file on him a foot thick, including electrocardiograms. I last examined him no later than a week or ten days ago. He had a heart like a bull and the blood pressure of a young man. Thereâs never been the slightest indication of a coronary condition, incipient or otherwise.â
âBut, but,â said Prin, âcouldnât he have had a heart attack, anyway? Or couldnât there have been something wrong that you missed?â
âPossible,â said Dr. Appleton frostily, âand no doubt it would be convenient to think so. But I donât. There wasnât a thing wrong with your Uncle Slater except a very slight kidney condition from his drinking.â
âBut youâve got to put something down on the death certificate, Doctor. What are you going to do?â
âWhat I am going to do,â piped the little doctor, âis call the police.â
He motioned her peremptorily to precede him, and Prin did so. She noticed that he removed the key from the room side of the door and moved the little doo-jigger by the knob into the lock position before he shut it. Then he tucked the key away in his vest pocket. Prin frowned. It seemed to her that Dr. Appleton was making a great