The Big Over Easy

A few moments later, an elegantly dressed woman of Jack’s age walked brusquely in from an anteroom, removed a pair of surgical gloves and tossed them in a bin. Under her white lab coat, she was dressed in a wool suit and blouse with a ring of pearls high on her neck. Her features were delicately chiseled, she wore only the merest hint of makeup and had her hair swept up in the tightest bun Mary had ever seen. She didn’t look as mad as a barrel of skunks; she looked quite sophisticated.

“Dr. Deborah Quatt?” said Jack. “My name is Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division, and this is Detective Sergeant Mary Mary.”

“Jack Spratt?” she asked, staring at him quizzically. “Have we met before?”

“We were in the same year at Caversham Park Junior School,” replied Jack, astounded that she remembered.

“Of course we were. You always insisted on being the pencil monitor—a policeman at heart, clearly.”

She said it with a slight derogatory air that he didn’t like.

“And you were expelled for sewing the school cat to the janitor.”

“The joyous experimentation of children,” she declared, laughing fondly at the memory. “What fun that was! Did you come all this way for a reunion?”

“Not at all. We wanted to talk to you about one of your patients—a Mr. Dumpty.”

Dr. Quatt shook her head slowly. “I never discuss patients’ records, Inspector. It is a flagrant breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. However, I could stretch a point given some form of fiscal reparation. Shall we say fifty pounds?”

“Doctor, you do know that he’s dead?”

“I was nowhere near him,” declared Dr. Quatt haughtily. “If you want to try me for malpractice, you’ll have to mount a good case. I’ve plenty of experience defending them, believe you me.” She stared at Jack for a moment. “Mr. Dumpty? Dead? What a pity. A very, very great pity.”

“His death was tragic, I agree,” admitted Jack.

“Death comes to us all, Inspector. No, it’s a pity the patient-confidentiality clause is null and void—I could have done with fifty pounds. The price of lab equipment these days is simply scandalous.”

She looked around, lowered her voice and leaned forwards. “Did you know that I have successfully grafted a kitten’s head onto a haddock?”

“Should you be telling me this?” asked Jack, also in a quiet voice.

She leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “It’s not against the law—I just can’t get any funding to do proper research because of that damnable Jellyman and his outdated moral principles. In the world of cutting-edge genetic research, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

“Which brings us back to Mr. Dumpty,” said Jack. “How long had you been his doctor?”

“For five years,” she said as she sat behind her large desk and indicated for them to be seated, “ever since I arrived in this dump. I was a psychiatrist before I moved into genetic research. What do you want to know?”

“His state of mind.”

“Ah!” she said, getting up to rifle through a rusty filing cabinet. “You are considering suicide, Inspector?”

“It is possible.”

“Indeed it is,” replied Dr. Quatt, looking at the files carefully.

“Physically, he was in a pretty ropy state. He was a lifelong salmonella sufferer, with frequent recurrences; when he had a bad bout, it was most debilitating. He drank more than was good for him, frequently overate and didn’t get much exercise—he never could walk far on those short legs.”

“And mentally?”

“Not good—but functional. He suffered from a sense of extreme low worth that manifested itself in frequent and self-destructive binges of drinking and womanizing. He also had depressive fits that sometimes lasted for days; all he could do was sit on his wall. Aside from that, he sometimes had problems differentiating reality from fantasy. He was particularly fearful that a giant mongoose was after him, was phobic about soufflé, meringue, and egg whisks, and had a recurring nightmare of being boiled alive for exactly three minutes.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Six days ago. Easter was a bad time for him, as you can imagine, with all those chocolate eggs being eaten and real ones dyed—he was a virtual prisoner in his own home. We had two sessions last week, and I think we really made some headway.”

“Did he talk about his work?”

She shook her head. “Never. It was all purely domestic.”

“But could he have been suicidal?”

Dr. Quatt thought for a moment. “I’m sorry to say that I can’t rule it out, despite my best attentions.”

Jack nodded slowly. It was what he had been expecting to hear.

“One more thing: How long had he been coming to St. Cerebellum’s?”

“For forty years, Inspector. It was almost his second home.”

Jack got up. “Thank you, Dr. Quatt; you’ve been most helpful. Tell me—and this is just personal curiosity—were you serious when you said you’d grafted a kitten’s head onto a haddock?”

Dr. Quatt’s eyes lit up, and she looked at them in turn, her youthful enthusiasm boiling to the surface. “Do you want to see?”