Fog of Doubt by Christianna Brand

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    Thomas sat, looking rather lost in the big armchair. His short legs would not, comfortably, reach the ground and he had tucked them up under him, like a child. It gave him an oddly defenceless air, curled up there, with his pale face and untidy fair hair and the little bumps that came up under his eyes when he was tired or anxious or unwell. ‘Nothing to tell you. I went out to see a case, I couldn’t find the address, I milled about for hours in the fog looking for it, and finally I came home. By that time, this ruddy fellow was lying there dead, cluttering up my hall. That’s all I know.’
    â€˜You never saw the case?’ said Cockie, anxiously.
    â€˜I tell you, I couldn’t find the address. I don’t know that part very well, it’s outside my usual territory, I lost my way about forty times and there was nobody about in the fog to ask. And in the end I may have got it wrong, because when I did get there the house was all shut up and there was nobody there. It was in a little back street, a sort of mews thing, called Harrow Gardens—too small to be in the London Guide.’
    â€˜Well, but Thomas, that didn’t take you over two hours?’
    â€˜You don’t know what the fog was like, Cockie; damn it, it took Tedward twenty minutes to get from his place to here, and that’s not half as far, not a quarter as far, and what’s more, he knows the road, which I don’t round that Harrow Road part. But apart from that, when I found the house empty, I thought I might have mistaken the address so, having gone so far, I looked round a bit more. I found a Harrow Place and a Harrow Street and a few more Harrows, but none of them went up to the number I’d got, so I gave the whole thing up and came home.’
    â€˜You didn’t think of ringing up here?’
    â€˜I did, later, but by that time the line here was dead. Anyway, it was a forlorn chance; I thought Melissa had taken the message, and she’d still be out, so what could they tell me? I just went on searching.’
    â€˜Was it a serious case, that you took so much trouble?’
    â€˜It was a case,’ said Thomas, briefly.
    â€˜Oh, Thomas, now don’t get all cross and shut-up,’ implored Matilda. ‘This is what he does with Mr. Charlesworth, Cockie, when Mr. Charlesworth seems to think it’s fishy. It was a serious case, at least it might have been; it was a baby and it could easily have died. Couldn’t it, Thomas?’
    â€˜Were they private patients? Or would they be on your panel or whatever they call it with this National Health thing?’
    â€˜How do I know?’ said Thomas. ‘I haven’t got their name. But it was unlikely they’d be paying patients coming from that particular district.’
    â€˜Would it be in your area?’
    â€˜I haven’t got an area,’ said Thomas, increasingly cross. ‘I let my patients live where they like.’
    â€˜I’m merely putting it to you as the police on the job will put it, Thomas. You had an address and the fact that a child was ill. Out you went into practically impassable fog and spent over two hours searching for them. Wouldn’t they meanwhile have taken the child to hospital?’
    â€˜That’s what they probably did as the house was empty. But I couldn’t count on it. Once patients have rung up for the doctor, they just fold their hands and wait patiently in sublime confidence that sooner or later he’ll appear. And they wouldn’t want to take a sick child out into the fog. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong, I suppose, in a doctor going out to see a case? For Pete’s sake.…’
    â€˜Now, hold your horses, son: nobody’s accusing you of anything.’
    â€˜Don’t you believe it,’ said Thomas. ‘Wait till you hear! Where did I find the message?—written on a scrap of paper lying on the appointments pad, here on the