 UNNATURAL DEATH by Dorothy L. Sayers Read by Ian Carmichael Part 1 The Medical Problem But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, what stuff is made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. Merchant of Venice Chapter 1 Overheard The death was certainly sudden, unexpected, and to me, mysterious. Letter from Dr. Patterson to the registrar in the case of Regina v. Pritchard. But if he thought the woman was being murdered, my dear child, said the young man with a monocle. It doesn't do for people, especially doctors, to go about thinking things. They may get into frightful trouble. In Pritchard's case, I consider Dr. Patterson did all he reasonably could by refusing a certificate for Mrs. Taylor, and sent in that uncommonly disquieting letter to the registrar. He couldn't help the man's being a fool. If there'd only been an inquest on Mrs. Taylor, Pritchard would probably have been frightened off and left his wife alone. After all, Patterson hadn't a spark of real evidence, and suppose he'd been quite wrong what a dust-up there had been. All the same urged the nondescript young man dubiously extracting a bubbling hot helix pomartia from its shell, and eyeing it nervously before putting it in his mouth. Surely it's a clear case of public duty to voice one's suspicions. Of your duty, yes, said the other. By the way, it's not a public duty to eat snails if you don't like them. No, I thought you didn't know. Well, why wrestle with a harsh fate any longer? Waiter, take the gentleman's snails away and bring oysters instead. No, no, as I was saying. It may be part of your duty to have suspicions and invite investigation and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you're mistaken, nobody says much beyond that you're a smart, painstaking officer, though a little overzealous. But doctors, poor devils, are everlastingly walking a kind of social tightrope. People don't fancy calling in a man who was liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation. Excuse me. The thin-faced young man sitting alone at the next table had turned round eagerly. Look, it's frightfully rude of me to break in, but every word you say is absolutely true, and mine is a case in point. A doctor, you can't have any idea how dependent he is on the fancies and prejudices of his patients. They resent the most elementary precautions. If you dare to suggest a post-mortem, they're up in arms at the idea of cutting poor dear so-and-so up, and even if you only ask permission to investigate an obscure disease in the interest of research, they imagine you're hinting at something unpleasant. Of course, if you let things go, and it turns out afterwards there's been any jiggery percury, the coroner jumps down your throat and the newspapers make a butt of you, and whichever way it is, you wish you'd never been born. You speak. Sample complete. Ready to continue?