Читать книгу A Town Like Alice онлайн

30 страница из 48

He was a cheerful, fresh-faced man not more than thirty-five years old; he had a keen sense of humour, if rather a macabre one at times. He looked as healthy and fit as if he had spent the whole of his life in England in a country practice. I got to him just as he was finishing off the last of his patients, and he had leisure to talk for a little.

"Lieutenant Paget," he said thoughtfully. "Oh yes, I know. Donald Paget--was his name Donald?" I said it was. "Oh, of course, I remember him quite well. Yes, I can write a death certificate. I'd like to do that for him, though I don't suppose it'll do him much good."

"It will help his sister," I remarked. "There is a question of an inheritance, and the shorter we can make the necessary formalities the better for her."

He reached for his pad of forms. "I wonder if she's got as much guts as her brother."

"Was he a good chap?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said. "He was a delicate-looking man, dark and rather pale, you know, but he was a very good type. I think he was a planter in civil life--anyway, he was in the Malay volunteers. He spoke Malay very well, and he got along in Siamese all right. With those languages, of course, he was a very useful man to have in the camp. We used to do a lot of black market with the villagers, the Siamese outside, you know. But quite apart from that, he was the sort of officer the men like. It was a great loss when he went."