The Nursing Home Murder ra-3

by Ngaio Marsh

  “I’d better give a warning bark or two,” thought Alleyn and addressed them collectively.

  “I’m quite sure,” he began, “that you all realise why we have asked you to meet us here. It is, of course, in order to enlist your help. We are faced with a difficult problem in this case and feel that a reconstruction of the operation may go far towards clearing any suspicion of guilt from innocent individuals. As you know, Sir Derek O’Callaghan died from hyoscine poisoning. He was a man with many political enemies, and from the outset the affair has been a complicated and bewildering problem. The fact that he, in the course of the operation, was given a legitimate injection of hyoscine has added to the complications. I am sure you are all as anxious as we are to clear up this aspect of the case. I ask you to look upon the reconstruction as an opportunity to free yourselves of any imputation of guilt. As a medium in detection the reconstruction has much to commend it. The chief argument against it is that sometimes innocent persons are moved, through nervousness or other motives, to defeat the whole object of the thing by changing the original circumstances. Under the shadow of tragedy it is not unusual for innocent individuals to imagine that the police suspect them. I am sure that you are not likely to do anything so foolish as this. I am sure you realise that this is an opportunity, not a trap. Let me beg you to repeat as closely as you can your actions during the operation on the deceased. If you do this, there is not the faintest cause for alarm.” He looked at his watch.

  “Now then,” he said. “You are to imagine that time has gone back seven days. It is twenty-five minutes to four on the afternoon of Thursday, February 4th. Sir Derek O’Callaghan is upstairs in his room, awaiting his operation. Matron, when you get word will you and the nurses who are to help you begin your preparations in the anteroom and the theatre? Any dialogue you remember you will please repeat. Inspector Fox will be in the anteroom and Inspector Boys in the theatre. Please treat them as pieces of sterile machinery.” He allowed himself a faint smile and turned to Phillips and Nurse Graham, the special.

  “We’ll go upstairs.”

  They went up to the next landing. Outside the door of the first room Alleyn turned to the others. Phillips was very white, but quite composed. Little Nurse Graham looked unhappy, but sensibly determined.

  “Now, nurse, we’ll go in. If you’ll just wait a moment, sir. Actually you are just coming upstairs.”

  “I see,” said Phillips.

  Alleyn swung open the door and followed Nurse Graham into the bedroom.

  Cicely and Ruth O’Callaghan were at the window. He got the impression that Ruth had been sitting there, perhaps crouched in that arm-chair, and had sprung up when the door opened. Cicely O’Callaghan stood erect, very grande dame and statuesque, a gloved hand resting lightly on the window-sill.

  “Good evening, Inspector Alleyn,” she said. Ruth gave a loud sob and gasped “Good evening.”

  Alleyn felt that his only hope of avoiding a scene was to hurry things along at a business-like canter.

  “It was extremely kind of you both to come,” he said briskly. “I shan’t keep you more than a few minutes. As you know, we are to go over the events of the operation, and I thought it better to start from here.” He glanced cheerfully at Ruth.

  “Certainly,” said Lady O’Callaghan.

  “Now.” Alleyn turned towards the bed, immaculate with his smooth linen and tower of rounded pillows. “Now, Nurse Graham has brought you here. When you come in you sit — where? On each side of the bed? Is that how it was, nurse?”

  “Yes. Lady O’Callaghan was here,” answered the special quietly.

  “Then if you wouldn’t mind taking up those positions— ”

  With an air of stooping to the level of a rather vulgar farce, Lady O’Callaghan sat in the chair on the right-hand side of the bed.

  “Come along, Ruth,” she said tranquilly.

  “But why? Inspector Alleyn — it’s so dreadful — so horribly cold-blooded — unnecessary. I don’t understand… You were so kind…” She boggled over her words, turned her head towards him with a gesture of complete wretchedness. Alleyn walked quickly towards her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I know it’s beastly. Take courage — your brother would understand, I think.”

  She gazed miserably at him. With her large unlovely face blotched with tears, and her pale eyes staring doubtfully up into his, she seemed dreadfully vulnerable. Something in his manner may have given her a little help. Like an obedient and unwieldly animal she got up and blundered across to the other chair.

  “What now, nurse?”

  “The patient half regained consciousness soon after we came in. I heard Sir John and went out.”

  “Will you do that, please?”

  She went away quietly.

  “And now,” Alleyn went on, “what happened? Did the patient speak?”

  “I believe he said the pain was severe. Nothing else,” murmured Lady O’Callaghan.

  “What did you say to each other?”

  “I–I told him it was his appendix and that the doctor would soon be here — something of that sort. He seemed to lose consciousness again, I thought.”

  “Did you speak to each other?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Alleyn made a shot in the dark.

  “Did you discuss his pain?”

  “I do not think so,” she said composedly.

  Ruth turned her head and gazed with a sort of damp surprise at her sister-in-law.

  “You remember doing so, do you, Miss O’Callaghan?” said Alleyn.

  “I think — yes — oh, Cicely!”

  “What is it?” asked Alleyn gently.

  “I said something — about— how I wished— oh, Cicely!”

  The door opened and Nurse Graham came in again.

  “I think I came back about now to say Sir John would like to see Lady O’Callaghan,” she said with a troubled glance at Ruth.

  “Very well. Will you go out with her, please, Lady O’Callaghan?” They went out and Ruth and the inspector looked at each other across the smug little bed. Suddenly Ruth uttered a veritable howl and flung herself face-down among the appliqué-work on the counterpane.

  “Listen,” said Alleyn, “and tell me if I’m wrong. Mr. Sage had given you a little box of powders that he said would relieve the pain. Now the others have left the room, you feel you must give your brother one of these powders. There is the water and the glass on that table by your side. You unwrap the box, drop the paper on the floor, shake out one of the powders and give it to him in a glass of water. It seems to relieve the pain and when they return he’s easier? Am I right?”

  “Oh,” wailed Ruth, raising her head. “Oh, how did you know? Cicely said I’d better not say. I told her. Oh, what shall I do?”

  “Have you kept the box with the other powders?”

  “Yes. He — they told me not to, but — but I thought if they were poison and I’d killed him— ” Her voice rose with a shrill note of horror. “I thought I’d take them — myself. Kill myself. Lots of us do, you know. Great-Uncle Eustace did, and Cousin Olive Casbeck, and— ”

  “You’re not going to do anything so cowardly. What would he have thought of you? You’re going to do the brave thing and help us to find the truth. Come along,” said Alleyn, for all the world as if she were a child, “come along. Where are these terrible powders? In that bag still, I don’t mind betting.”

  “Yes,” whispered Ruth, opening her eyes very wide. “They are in that bag. You’re quite right. You’re very clever to think of that. I thought if you arrested me— ” She made a very strange gesture with her clenched hand, jerking it up across her mouth.

  “Give them to me,” said Alleyn. She began obediently to scuffle in the vast bag. All sorts of things came shooting out. He was in a fever of impatience lest the others should return, and moved to the door. At last the round cardboard box appeared. He gathered up the rest of Ruth’s junk and bundled it back as the door opened.
Nurse Graham stood aside to let Phillips in.

  “I think it was about now,” she said.

  “Right,” said Alleyn. “Now, Sir John, I believe Miss O’Callaghan left the room while you examined the patient, diagnosed the trouble, and decided on an immediate operation.”

  “Yes. When Lady O’Callaghan returned I suggested that Somerset Black should operate.”

  “Quite so. Lady O’Callaghan urged you to do it yourself. Everyone agree to that?”

  “Yes,” said Nurse Graham quietly. Ruth merely sat and gaped. Lady O’Callaghan turned with an unusual abruptness and walked to the window.

  “Then you, Sir John, went away to prepare for the operation?”

  “Yes.”

  “That finishes this part of the business, then.”

  “No!”

  Cicely O’Callaghan’s voice rang out so fiercely that they all jumped. She had faced round and stood with her eyes fixed on Phillips. She looked magnificent. It was as if a colourless façade had been flood-lit.

  “No! Why do you deliberately ignore what we all heard, what I myself have told you? Ask Sir John what my husband said when he saw who it was we had brought here to help him.” She turned deliberately to Phillips. “What did Derek say to you — what did he say?”

  Phillips looked at her as though he saw her for the first time. His face expressed nothing but a profound astonishment. When he answered it was with a kind of reasonableness and with no suggestion of heroics. “He was frightened,” he said.

  “He cried out to us: ‘Don’t let— ’ You remember” — she appealed with assurance to Nurse Graham—“you remember what he looked like — you understood what he meant?”

  “I said then,” said Nurse Graham with spirit, “and I say now, that Sir Derek did not know what he was saying.”

  “Well,” remarked Alleyn mildly, “as we all know about it, I think you and I, Sir John, will go downstairs.” He turned to the O’Callaghans.

  “Actually, I believe, you both stayed on in the hospital during the operation, but, of course, there is no need for you to do so now. Lady O’Callaghan, shall I ask for your car to take you back to Catherine Street? If you will forgive me, I must go to the theatre.”

  Suddenly he realised that she was in such a fury that she could not answer. He took Phillips by the elbow and propelled him through the door.

  “We will leave Nurse Graham,” he said, “alone with her patient.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Reconstruction Concluded

  Thursday, the eighteenth. Late afternoon.

  The “theatre party” appeared to have entered heartily into the spirit of the thing. A most convincing activity was displayed in the anteroom, where Sister Marigold, Jane Harden and a very glum-faced Banks washed and clattered while Inspector Fox, his massive form wedged into a corner, looked on with an expressionless countenance and a general air of benignity. A faint bass drone from beyond the swing-door informed Alleyn of the presence in the theatre of Inspector Boys.

  “All ready, matron?” asked Alleyn.

  “Quite ready, inspector.”

  “Well, here we all are.” He stood aside and Phillips, Thoms and Roberts walked in.

  “Are you at about the same stage as you were when the doctors came in?”

  “At exactly the same stage.”

  “Good. What happens now?” He turned to the men. No one spoke for a moment. Roberts turned deferentially towards Phillips, who had moved across to Jane Harden. Jane and Phillips did not look at each other. Phillips appeared not to have heard Alleyn’s question. Thoms cleared his throat importantly.

  “Well now, let’s see. If I’m not speaking out of my turn, I should say we got down to the job straight away. Roberts said he’d go along to the anæsthetic-room and Sir John, I believe, went into the theatre? That correct, sir?”

  “Did you go into the theatre immediately, Sir John?” asked Alleyn.

  “What? I? Yes, I believe so.”

  “Before you washed?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Well, let’s start, shall we? Dr. Roberts, did you go alone to the anæsthetic-room?”

  “No. Nurse — er—?” Roberts blinked at Banks. “Nurse Banks went with me. I looked at the anæsthetising apparatus and asked Nurse Banks to let Sir Derek’s nurse know when we were ready.”

  “Will you go along, then? Fox, you take over with Dr. Roberts. Now, please, Sir John.”

  Phillips at once went through into the theatre, followed by Alleyn. Boys broke off his subterranean humming and at a word from Alleyn took his place in the anteroom. Phillips, without speaking, crossed to the side table, which was set out as before with the three syringes in dishes of water. The surgeon took his hypodermic case from his pocket, looked at the first tube, appeared to find it empty, took out the second, and having squirted a syringeful of water into a measure-glass, dropped in a single tablet.

  “That is what — what I believe I did,” he said.

  “And then? You returned to the anteroom? No. What about Mr. Thoms?”

  “Yes. Thoms should be here now.”

  “Mr. Thoms, please!” shouted Alleyn.

  The door swung open and Thoms came in.

  “Hullo, hullo. Want me?”

  “I understood you watched Sir John take up the hyoscine solution into the syringe.”

  “Oh! Yes, b’lieve I did,” said Thoms, rather less boisterously.

  “You commented on the amount of water.”

  “Yes, I know, but — look here, you don’t want to go thinking— ”

  “I simply want a reconstruction without comment, Mr. Thoms.”

  “Oh, quite, quite.”

  Phillips stood with the syringe in his hand. He looked gravely and rather abstractedly at his assistant. At a nod from Alleyn he filled the syringe.

  “It is now that Thoms remarks on the quantity of water,” he said quietly. “I snub him and go back into the anæsthetic-room, where I give the injection. The patient is there with the special nurse.” He took up the syringe and walked away. Thoms moved away with a grimace at Alleyn, who said abruptly:

  “Just a moment, Mr. Thoms. I think you stayed behind in the theatre for a minute or two.”

  “No, I didn’t — beg your pardon, inspector. I thought I went out to the anteroom before Sir John moved.”

  “Sir John thought not, and the nurses had the impression you came in a little later.”

  “Maybe,” said Thoms. “I really can’t remember.”

  “Have you no idea what you did during the two or three minutes?”

  “None.”

  “Oh. In that case I’ll leave you. Boys!”

  Inspector Boys returned to the theatre and Alleyn went out. In about a minute Thoms joined him.

  Sir John appeared in the anteroom and washed up, assisted by Jane Harden and the matron, who afterwards helped the surgeons to dress up.

  “I feel rather an ass,” said Thoms brightly. Nobody answered him.

  “It is now, said Phillips in the same grave, detached manner, “that Mr. Thoms tells me about the play at the Palladium.”

  “All agreed?” Alleyn asked the others. The women murmured an assent.

  “Now what happens?”

  “Pardon me, but I remember Mr. Thoms went into the theatre and then called me in to him,” murmured Sister Marigold.

  “Thank you, matron. Away you go, then.” Alleyn waited until the doors had swung to and then turned to where Phillips, now wearing his gown and mask, stood silently beside Jane Harden.

  “So you were left alone together at this juncture?” he said, without stressing it.

  “Yes,” said Phillips.

  “Do you mind telling me what was said?”

  “Oh, please,” whispered Jane. “Please, please!” It was the first time she had spoken.

  “Can’t you let her off this?” said Phillips. There was a sort of urgency in his voice now.

  “I’m sorry — I would if I could.”

 
“I’ll tell him, Jane. We said it was a strange situation. I again asked her to marry me. She said no — that she felt she belonged to O’Callaghan. Something to that effect. She tried to explain her point of view.”

  “You’ve left something out — you’re not thinking of yourself.” She stood in front of him, for all the world as though she was prepared to keep Alleyn off. “He said then that he didn’t want to operate and that he’d give anything to be out of it. His very words. He told me he’d tried to persuade — her—his wife — to get another surgeon. He hated the idea of operating. Does that look as though he meant any harm? Does it? Does it? He never thinks of himself — he only wants to help me, and I’m not worth it. I’ve told him so a hundred times— ”

  “Jane, my dear, don’t.”

  There was a tap on the outer door and Roberts looked in.

  “I think it’s time I came and washed up,” he said.

  “Come in, Dr. Roberts.”

  Roberts glanced at the others.

  “Forgive me, Sir John,” he began with the deference that he always used when he spoke to Phillips, “but as I remember it, Mr. Thoms came in with me at this juncture.”

  “You’re quite right, Roberts,” agreed Phillips courteously.

  “Mr. Thoms, please,” called Alleyn again.

  Thoms shot back into the room.

  “Late again, am I?” he remarked. “Truth of the matter is I can’t for the life of me remember all the ins and outs of it. I suppose I wash up now? What?”

  “If you please,” said Alleyn sedately.

  At last they were ready and Roberts returned to Inspecter Fox and the anæsthetic-room. The others, accompanied by Alleyn, went to the theatre.

  The cluster of lights above the table had been turned up and Alleyn again felt that sense of expectancy in the theatre. Phillips went immediately to the window end of the table and waited with his gloved hands held out in front of him. Thoms stood at the foot of the table. Sister Marigold and Jane were farther away.