A Sudden, Fearful Death

by Anne Perry

  Back in the hospital it was entirely different. By the time they came in, in spite of Mrs. Flaherty’s best efforts, the news was everywhere. The chaplain hurried up to them, coattails flapping, his round eyes startled. Then when he realized just who Jeavis was, he recovered again hastily, muttered something no one could distinguish, offered a hurried imprecation, and disappeared clutching his prayer book in both hands.

  A young nurse stared inquisitively before going away about her duty. The treasurer shook his head with foreboding and directed them to Sir Herbert’s rooms.

  Sir Herbert met them at the door, opening it wide to show the gracious interior, carpeted in Prussian blue, gleaming with polished wood, and a bar of sunlight across the floor from the southern window.

  “Good day, Inspector,” he said gravely. “Please come in and I shall give you all the information I have in this affair. Thank you, Lady Callandra. You have discharged your duty excellently. Indeed, more than your duty, and we are all most obliged.” As he ushered Jeavis and Evan inside, at the same time he stood so that he blocked the way for Callandra. There was nothing she could do but accept the dismissal and go back down to the laundry room to see if Kristian was still there.

  The huge basement was full of steam again; copper pipes gurgled and clanked, the vast boiler hissed when the lid was lifted off and the laundrywomen poked in wooden poles to lever out the linen and carried it, arms straining, over to the sinks that lined the far wall. The sinks were mounted with giant mangles through which the linen was pressed to remove as much of the water as possible. Work had resumed, time and taskmasters waited for no one, and the corpse had lost their immediate interest. Most of the women had seen plenty of corpses before. Death came often enough.

  Kristian was still standing near the laundry basket, his back to it, leaning a little on its rim to take his weight. As soon as he saw Callandra his head lifted and his eyes met her questioningly.

  “The police are in with Sir Herbert,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “A man called Jeavis; I suppose he’s quite good.”

  He looked at her more closely. “You sound doubtful.”

  She sighed. “I wish it were William Monk.”

  “The detective who went into private work?” There was a flash of humor across his face, so quick she barely caught it.

  “He would have had …” She stopped, unsure what she meant. No one could say that Monk was sensitive. He was as ruthless as a juggernaut.

  Kristian was waiting, trying to read her meaning.

  She smiled at him. “Imagination, intelligence,” she said, knowing that was still not quite what she meant. “The perception to see beyond the obvious,” she went on. “And no one would have fobbed him off with a suitable answer if it was not the truth.”

  “You have a high regard for him,” Kristian observed, his dry rueful smile returning. “Let us hope Mr. Jeavis is as gifted.” He looked back at the basket. There was an unwashed sheet now folded over to cover the dead face. “Poor woman,” he said very gently. “She was a good nurse, you know; in fact, I think she was the best here. What a ridiculous tragedy that she should come all through the campaigns in the Crimea, the danger and the disease, and the ocean voyages, to die at the hands of some criminal in a London hospital.” He shook his head and there was a terrible sadness in his face. “Why would anyone want to kill such a woman?”

  “Why indeed?” Jeavis had arrived without either of them being aware of him. “You knew her, Dr. Beck?”

  Kristian looked startled. “Of course.” His voice rose with irritation. “She was a nurse here. We all knew her.”

  “But you knew her personally?” Jeavis persisted, his dark eyes fixed almost accusingly on Kristian’s face.

  “If you mean did I know her outside her duties here in the hospital, no I did not,” Kristian answered, his expression narrowing.

  Jeavis grunted and moved over to the laundry basket. With delicate fingers he picked up the sheet and pulled it back. He looked at the dead woman. Callandra looked at her again carefully.

  Prudence Barrymore had been in her early thirties, a very tall woman, slender. Perhaps in life she had been elegant; now with the awkwardness of death, there was no grace in her at all. She lay with arms and legs sprawled, one foot poking up, her skirts fallen back to reveal a long shapely leg. Her face was ashen now, but even with the blood coursing she must have been pale-skinned. Her hair was medium brown, her brows level and delicately marked, her mouth wide and sensitive. It was a passionate face, individual, full of humor and strength.

  Callandra could remember her vividly, even though they had always met hastily, and about their separate duties. But Prudence Barrymore had been a reformer with a burning zeal, and few people in the hospital had been unaware of her. Not many were as interesting alive as she had been, and it seemed a vicious mockery that she should be lying here emptied of all that had made her vivid and special, nothing left but a vacated shell beyond feeling or awareness, and yet looking so terribly vulnerable.

  “Cover her up,” Callandra said instinctively.

  “In a moment, ma’am.” Jeavis held up his arm as if to prevent Callandra from doing it herself. “In a moment. Strangled, you said? Yes indeed. Looks like it. Poor creature.” He stared at the deep-colored marks on her neck. It was horribly easy to imagine them as fingerprints of someone pressing harder and harder until there was no air left, no breath, no life.

  “A nurse, was she?” Jeavis was looking at Kristian. “Work with you, did she, Doctor?”

  “Sometimes,” Kristian agreed. “She worked more often with Sir Herbert Stanhope, especially on his more difficult cases. She was an excellent nurse, and to the best of my belief, a fine woman. I never heard anyone speak ill of her.”

  Jeavis stood motionless, his dark eyes beneath their pale brows fixed on Kristian.

  “Most interesting. What made you look in the laundry chute, Doctor?”

  “It was blocked,” Kristian replied. “Two of the nurses were having trouble trying to put soiled sheets down, and unable to get them to go all the way. Lady Callandra and I went to their assistance.”

  “I see. And how did you dislodge the body?”

  “We sent one of the skivvies who works here, a child of about thirteen. She slid down the chute and her weight moved the body.”

  “Very efficient,” Jeavis said dryly. “If a little hard on the child. Still, I suppose working in a hospital she’s seen many dead bodies before.” His sharp nose wrinkled very slightly.

  “We did not know it was a dead body,” Kristian said in distaste. “We assumed it was a bundle of sheets.”

  “Did you?” Jeavis walked over, pushed the basket out of the way, and peered up the chute for several moments. “Where is the top of this?” he said at last, withdrawing to look at Callandra.

  “In the corridor on the ground floor,” she replied, disliking him more by the moment. “In the west wing corridor, to be precise.”

  “A very odd place to put a body, don’t you think?” Jeavis remarked. “Not easy to do without being observed.” He turned to Kristian, then back to Callandra, his eyes very wide open.

  “That is not entirely correct,” Kristian answered. “The corridor has no windows, and during the daytime the gas is not lit, it saves expense.”

  “Still,” Jeavis argued, “one would be bound to notice a person standing or sitting around, and certainly one would see a person lifting a body and putting it down the chute. Wouldn’t one?” There was a faint lift of inquiry in his tone, less than sarcasm but more than courtesy.

  “Not necessarily,” Callandra said defensively. “Bundles of sheets are sometimes left on the floor. The nurses occasionally sit in the corridors, if they are intoxicated. In the dim light a corpse could look like a pile of linen. And certainly if I saw someone putting laundry down the chute, I would assume it was merely a bundle of sheets. I image anyone else would also.”

  “Dear me.” Jeavis looked from one to the other of them
. “Are you saying that anyone could have stuffed the poor creature down the chute in full sight of respectable medical people, and no one would have thought anything amiss?”

  Callandra was uncomfortable. She glanced at Kristian.

  “More or less,” she agreed at length. “One is not usually watching what other people are doing, one has one’s own affairs.” In her imagination she visualized a dim figure, shapeless in the half-light, lifting a bundle, heavier than it should have been, shrouded in sheets, and pressing it down the open chute. Her voice, when she continued, was husky and a little choked. “I myself passed what I assumed was a nurse in either intoxication or sleep this morning. But I do not know which it was. I didn’t look at her face.” She swallowed with a sudden sick realization. “It could have been Prudence Barrymore!”

  “Really!” Jeavis’s pale brows rose. “Do your nurses often lie about in the corridor, Lady Callandra? Do they not have beds to sleep in?”

  “The ones who live in the dormitory do,” she said tartly. “But many of them live out, and they have very little indeed. There is no place for them to sleep here, and precious little to eat. And yes, they frequently drink too much.”

  Jeavis looked temporarily disconcerted. He turned back to Kristian.

  “I shall want to speak to you again, Doctor. Anything you can tell me about this unfortunate woman.” He cleared his throat. “To begin with, how long do you estimate she has been dead? Not, of course, that we won’t have our own police surgeon tell us his opinion, but it will save time if you can give us yours now.”

  “About two hours, perhaps three,” Kristian replied succinctly.

  “But you haven’t looked at her,” Jeavis exclaimed.

  “I looked at her before you came,” Kristian answered.

  “Did you! Did you indeed?” Jeavis’s face sharpened. “I thought you said you had not disturbed the body! Was that not why you remained here, to see that no one tampered with the evidence?”

  “I looked at her, Inspector. I did not move her.”

  “But you touched her.”

  “Yes, to see if she was cold.”

  “And she was?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know she has not been dead all night?”

  “Because rigor had not yet passed away.”

  “You moved her!”

  “I did not.”

  “You must have,” Jeavis said sharply. “Otherwise how could you know whether she was stiff or not?”

  “She fell out of the chute, Inspector,” Kristian explained patiently. “I saw her fall, and how she collapsed into the basket, the movement of her limbs. It’s my estimate that she has been dead between two and four hours. But by all means ask your own surgeon.”

  Jeavis looked at him suspiciously. “You are not English, are you, sir? I detect a certain accent, shall we say? Very slight, but it is there. Where are you from?”

  “Bohemia,” Kristian replied with a faint flicker of amusement in his eyes.

  Jeavis drew in his breath, Callandra thought, to ask where that was, then realized even the laundrywomen were watching him, and changed his mind.

  “I see,” he said thoughtfully. “Well now, perhaps you would be good enough to tell me, Doctor, where you were early this morning? For example, what time did you come here?” He looked at Kristian inquiringly. “Take a note of it please, Sergeant,” he added with a nod at Evan, who had been watching silently some two or three yards away all through the exchange.

  “I have been here all night,” Kristian replied.

  Jeavis’s eyes widened. “Indeed. And why was that, sir?” He invested it with a great deal of meaning.

  “I had a patient who was extremely ill,” Kristian answered, watching Jeavis’s face. “I stayed with him. I believed I could save him, but I was wrong. He died a little after four in the morning. It was hardly worth going home. I lay down on one of the hospital beds and slept till about half past six.”

  Jeavis frowned, glanced at Evan to make sure he was noting everything down, then back at Kristian. “I see,” he said portentously. “So you were here when Nurse Barrymore met her death.”

  For the first time Callandra felt a sharp flick of anxiety. She looked at Kristian but saw nothing in his face beyond a mild curiosity, as if he did not entirely understand Jeavis’s implication.

  “Yes, it would seem so.”

  “And did you see this Nurse Barrymore?”

  Kristian shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. I certainly don’t recall speaking to her.”

  “And yet she seems to be very sharp in your mind?” Jeavis said quickly. “You know precisely who she is, and you speak very well of her.”

  Kristian looked down, his eyes full of sadness.

  “The poor creature is dead, Inspector. Of course she is sharp in my mind. And she was a fine nurse. There are not so many people dedicated to the care of others that one forgets them easily.”

  “Isn’t everyone here dedicated to the care of the sick?” Jeavis asked with some surprise.

  Kristian stared at him, then sighed deeply. “If there is nothing further, Inspector, I would like to go about my duties. I have been here in the laundry room nearly two hours. I have patients to see.”

  “By all means,” Jeavis said, pursing his lips. “But don’t go out of London, sir, if you please.”

  Kristian was startled, but he agreed without argument, and a few moments later he and Callandra left the steam and clank of the laundry room and climbed back up the stairs to the main hallway. Callandra’s mind was teeming with things she wished to say to him, but they all sounded officious or overconcerned, and above all, she did not want him to know of the fear that was beginning to rise in her. Perhaps it was foolish. There was no reason Jeavis should suspect Kristian, but she had seen miscarriages of justice before. Innocent men had been hanged. It was so easy to suspect anyone who was different, whether it was in manner, appearance, race, or religion. If only Monk were conducting the investigation.

  “You look tired, Lady Callandra,” he said quietly, intruding into her thoughts.

  “I beg your pardon?” She was startled, then realized what he had said. “Oh no, not tired so much as sad, afraid for what will come next.”

  “Afraid?”

  “I have seen investigations before. People become frightened. One learns so much more about them than one ever wishes to know.” She forced herself to smile. “But that is foolish. I daresay it will all be over quite quickly.” They reached the top of the stairs and stopped. Two student doctors were arguing fiercely a dozen yards away. “Take no notice of what I said,” she went on hastily. “If you have been up most of the night, I’m sure you must wish to rest for a while. It must be nearly time for luncheon by now.”

  “Of course. I am keeping you. I apologize.” And with a quick smile, meeting her eyes for a moment, he excused himself and went rapidly along the corridor toward the nearest ward.

  * * *

  It was early evening before Callandra found Monk, and she observed no ceremony, but plunged straight in to her purpose for coming to his rooms.

  “There has been a murder in the hospital,” she said bluntly. “One of the nurses, an exceptional young woman, both honest and diligent. She was strangled, or so it appears, and stuffed into the laundry chute.” She looked at him expectantly.

  His hard gray eyes searched her face for several moments before he answered. “What bothers you?” he said at length. “There is something more.”

  “Runcorn sent an Inspector Jeavis to investigate,” she replied. “Do you know him?”

  “Slightly. He’s very sharp. He’ll probably do an adequate job. Why? Who did it? Do you know, or suspect?”

  “No!” she said too quickly. “I have no idea at all. Why would anybody want to murder a nurse?”

  “Any number of reasons.” He pulled a face. “The most obvious that come to mind are a lover jilted, a jealous woman, and blackmail. But there are others. Sh
e may have witnessed a theft, or another murder that looked like natural death. Hospitals are full of deaths. And there are always love, hate, and jealousy. Was she handsome?”

  “Yes, yes she was.” Callandra stared at him. He had said so many ugly things in a bare handful of words, and yet any one of them could be true. At least one of them almost certainly was. One did not strangle a woman without some intense passion. Unless it was the act of a lunatic.

  As if reading her thoughts, he spoke.

  “I assume the hospital is for the physically sick? It is not a madhouse?”

  “No, not at all. What a vile thought.”

  “A madhouse?”

  “No, I meant that someone quite sane murdered her.”

  “Is that what troubles you?”

  She considered lying to him, or at least evading the truth, then looked at his face and decided against it.

  “Not entirely. I’m afraid Jeavis suspects Dr. Beck, primarily because he is a foreigner and it is he and I who found the body.”

  He looked at her closely. “Do you suspect Dr. Beck?”

  “No!” Then she blushed for the fierceness of her reply, but it was to late to retreat. He had seen her eagerness and then her immediate knowledge that she had betrayed herself. “No, I think it is extremely unlikely,” she went on. “But I have no confidence in Jeavis. Will you please look into the matter? I will employ you myself, at your usual rate.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” he said acidly. “You have contributed to my well-being ever since I took up this occupation. You are not paying me now because you wish a job done.”

  “But I have to.” She looked at him and the words he had intended died on his lips. Callandra continued: “Will you please investigate the murder of Prudence Barrymore? She died this morning, probably between six o’clock and half past seven. Her body was found in the laundry chute at the hospital, and the cause of death seems to have been strangulation. There is not a great deal more I can tell you, except that she was an excellent nurse, one of Miss Nightingale’s women who served in the Crimea. I judge her to be in her early thirties, and of course not married.”

  “All very pertinent information,” he agreed. “But I have no way of involving myself in the matter. Jeavis certainly won’t call upon me, and I think there is no chance whatsoever that he will share with me any information that he might have. Nor will anyone in the hospital answer my questions, should I have the temerity to ask.” Then his face softened with regret. “I’m sorry. I would if I could.”