Free Mad Hatter's Holiday by Peter Lovesey Page B

wouldn’t do. He lifted his head and his eyes met Prothero’s.
    ‘Thought you were wearing ear-plugs for a moment. Is it cold this morning?’
    Small-talk. Best to go through the formalities and then swim out of earshot at the first opportunity. ‘Not excessively.’
    ‘I believe in accustoming the body to the water gradually,’ Prothero explained. ‘There’s no benefit in sudden shocks to the system.’
    Was this his way of saying he had observed the splash in the pool a few minutes before?
    ‘Mind you,’ the doctor went on, ‘once I’m in the water I don’t believe in paddling about. Oh no, it’s important not to catch cold. Used in the right way, sea-water’s the finest balm a doctor can prescribe, did you know that? Marvellous for scrofulous infections.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Oh yes, indeed. All forms of paralysis, nervous afflictions, hysteria, headaches, indigestion. Nothing like sea-water to cure ’em. I wouldn’t recommend bathing from a public beach, mind.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘By God, no! Contaminated water. The stuff you’re lying in is pumped from Cliftonville, or I shouldn’t have my feet in it, I can tell you. I’ve no liking for open-air bathing, anyway. Did my share of it as a young man, you know, but that was when a fellow wasn’t ashamed to swim in the buff.
    ‘Here for the season, are you?’
    ‘Er—yes.’
    ‘Me, too. I never miss it. There was one year when I was here from race-week to Christmas and I don’t think I missed more than half-a-dozen balls all season. That was a long time back, though. I’ve buried two wives since then and acquired a third.’
    Moscrop was not sure whether to offer condolences or congratulations. The doctor was not waiting for responses, anyway.
    ‘Emily died of smallpox. Solicitor’s daughter with a good dowry. Set me up in practice. Stella was my second. One of the Pelhams. D’you know ’em? Landed family. She ate some bad fish. Killed her overnight. You can see why I’m so strong on contamination.’
    ‘By Jove, yes. But you married again?’
    ‘My third?’ Prothero sniffed. ‘Yes. Went for good looks this time. Married a bit beneath my station. Shop-keeper’s daughter. Easy on the eye, but a bit of a liability on social occasions.’ He got to his feet. ‘Time I got my costume wet, I think.’ He entered the water with an agile header and struck out powerfully for the opposite side, using the new Trudgeon stroke. It would not be wise to under-estimate Dr. Prothero.
    Moscrop contrived to keep well clear of his new acquaintance, employing the more conventional side-stroke to cross the pool at a different angle. It was as well that he had the physical exercise to occupy him, for he was shaking with indignation, outraged by Prothero’s contemptuous description of the woman he was privileged to call his wife. To say that Zena—from now on, he refused to think of Prothero’s name in association with hers—was ‘easy on the eye’ was like calling the Crystal Palace a glass-house. The man was boorish and insensitive, totally unworthy of her. And, what worried Moscrop more, he had admitted to regarding her as a ‘liability’; what on earth did that mean?
    After four diameters, Prothero left the pool by putting his hands on the side and jumping out with a neat bunny-hop. ‘Don’t believe in staying in the water longer than necessary, you know,’ he called. ‘Danger of chills. I’m going to take off my costume and give myself a good rubbing with a coarse towel. Get the body glowing, what?’
    Moscrop waited for the sound of the bolt being turned in the door of Prothero’s cubicle before clambering out by way of the steps and locating his own clothes. For him, the process of towelling was necessarily brief; he needed to be ready to take up the pursuit as soon as the doctor quitted his cubicle. From now on, he would be exercising his wits to the full to avoid detection. It was no good bemoaning his lost anonymity. He should count himself