Nurse Kelsey Abroad

by Marjorie Norrell

  “Nurse Dawlish will act as anaesthetist,” Jim greeted them. “She’s done it before. The wound isn’t dangerous—as yet, but he’s lost a great deal of blood and the bullet is embedded in his left shoulder blade.”

  No one wasted time in asking what had happened.

  There was a uniformed member of Karl Brotnovitch’s force standing at the far end of the theatre, and none of them required Jim to say whatever they said would be understood—or misinterpreted—and remembered.

  Jim worked deftly and doggedly, and as she handed the sterilised instruments, the forceps, the towel clips, the surgical needles, the sutures and ligatures, half Jane’s mind was busily occupied in wondering precisely what had happened and how on earth Kevin had managed to meet up with a disaster such as this.

  She found she was watching, not particularly as a theatre nurse, but as a very interested spectator. When the bullet was extracted and dropped into a dish, the policeman left his position and moved nearer, so that it was perfectly evident to all of them that he was prepared to mount guard over the bullet and preserve it at any cost.

  Outside the hospital there was a sudden commotion and the sound of the one ambulance boasted by St. George’s. Jane did not dare leave her post although she burned with curiosity, but at length, as he completed the stitching of the shoulder and also placed a clamp in position, Jim nodded in her direction. She did not know whether or not she had interpreted the nod correctly, but she went quickly and quietly to see what was wrong now.

  In the corridor, directing men bearing a stretcher, Dorothy Wroe stood calm-eyed as ever. She spoke to Jane in a quiet, quick whisper.

  “When the guard fired it seems a large jar which contained phosporous crystals was shattered. The crystals were, of course, released from the liquid—oil, I think—which had rendered them safe. As soon as they were exposed to the air they burst into flames. Somehow or other ether’s been added, and the result is Professor Leczinska’s both shocked and badly burned. Poor man, nobody has dared to tell him most of his laboratory is now burned out. Years of work ruined!” and tut-tutting to herself, she hurried away to rig up an electric cradle to receive the professor.

  Jane felt shattered. She could not imagine as yet where Kevin’s part was in all this disaster, but he had been there, and perhaps his presence was the reason for the shot. Whatever it was, Jane decided, she was more than thankful she herself had refused to have anything to do with this mad scheme of his, particularly so since it had so severely injured the elderly professor who, according to Kevin, had helped his country in many ways for the past half century.

  She went thoughtfully back into the theatre. Jim had finished now and was scrubbing his hands again, divesting himself of his gown and mask.

  “This is a pretty kettle of fish, isn’t it?” he asked in a low tone and with a significant glance in the direction of the watchful young policeman. “He,” he jerked his head in the officer’s direction, “insists he must stay by Kevin’s bed and be there when he comes round. I should like someone else there too,” he added worriedly. “I should like to know myself, and at first hand, exactly what he does say when he comes conscious.”

  “I’ll try to arrange it, Doctor,” Jane promised, watching as he hurried off to see what he could do for the professor and for the two men who worked in the laboratory and who had been admitted suffering from minor burns which they had sustained as they had rescued the professor and tried to save something of his work.

  She had to supervise the cleaning up of the theatre, change her gown and prepare to help when and how she could in the main ward. For the first time since she had come to Seonyata she found herself really longing for the orderliness of the theatre and the wards, the whole general layout of Rawbridge General with all the amenities which, along with almost everyone else who worked there, she had once deemed so inefficient.

  She was walking towards what was known as the “emergency Unit”, to give it, as Kevin had once joked, a more dignified name than anything else they could think up on the spur of the moment, when there was the noise of a car being driven rapidly to the doors of the hospital, braking fiercely, the slam of a door and then Karl Brotnovitch strode in through the open doors.

  He stood still staring at Jane, taking in every detail of her appearance as he always did, and it seemed his eyes gleamed in approval as he noted she was obviously on duty and had not simply rushed in at that moment.

  “You were here when they brought Dr. Dean in, Staff Nurse?” he asked formally, but his eyes told her this was a routine questioning and not in the least personal. He, just as much as she was herself, was aware of the other two young officers who stood a respectful yard or so behind him.

  “No, Inspector,” Jane hoped her voice did not sound as feeble to him or the others as it did in her own ears. “I was in bed and asleep, when the bell rang.”

  “Bell?”

  “We have a bell which Dr. Lowth rings if our services are required in any emergency,” Jane informed him, although she was certain he knew this, just as he seemed to know everything about everyone, without their saying a word.

  “I see.” His glance was cold and clinical. There was nothing of the would-be suitor about him now. “And what sort of emergency did you have in mind when you heard the sound of the bell, Staff Nurse?” he queried, eyeing her fiercely.

  “I?” Jane was nonplussed. To say her thoughts had immediately flown to Kevin would have said, without words, that she had expected something like this, implied that she knew what had been about to happen, whereas even now she did not know exactly what had taken place.

  “I didn’t think of anything in particular,” she said bleakly, and hoped Granny had been wrong when she had said Karl saw things other people missed. “I just ... reacted to the bell as we’re expected to do,” she said simply. “I dressed as quickly as I could and came along to the operating theatre at once.”

  “And you were surprised to find the patient was Dr. Dean, I suppose?” Karl said smoothly.

  Was he, Jane wondered, trying to trap her? He would be unlucky. She had no intention of lying, since she felt suddenly perfectly sure the line from Dr. Jim’s telephone had been tapped perhaps for days, ever since Karl had been certain his suspicions of Kevin were not without foundation.

  “No,” she said quietly, “I wasn’t surprised. Dr. Lowth had told me that Dr. Dean had been shot and that he was operating at once. What did surprise me,” she admitted, “was the explosion shortly afterwards, that and the admission to St. George’s of Professor Leczinska, and in such a condition...”

  “That,” Karl sounded genuinely regretful, “was an unavoidable accident. So often those who do the damage are allowed to escape scot-free, isn’t that what you people say? And those who are only doing their duty as they see it suffer. Professor Leczinska is a remarkable man. He had almost completed his experiments for the growing of more food in the same amount of space for our country, that would help enormously, for we have to import so much. In the course of his experiments he developed something else. It was that something else your friend sought to possess,” he looked sternly at Jane. “Do you understand what it is to which I refer?” he asked.

  “Not altogether.” Jane felt a little afraid. Someone, maybe it had been Dr. Jim, had said Karl would prosecute anyone if he felt he was in the right to do so, and she had no desire to see what the inside of a Dalasalavian jail looked like.

  “No one will possess it now,” Karl remarked gloomily, and in such a low tone he might have been talking to himself. “It is burned, along with most of the Professor’s notes on his cultural developments. Years and years of work, to say nothing of money, have been destroyed tonight,” Karl went on sternly. “And for what?”

  “I ... I don’t know,” Jane said slowly, thinking how Kevin had boasted there would be “money and to spare” from even a “cut” of the whole amount promised to the members of the New Thought.

  “So that...” Karl was beginning in a hectoring ton
e, when Marietta came into the corridor, looking for Jane.

  “Dr. Dean is conscious, Staff Nurse,” she said in a whisper, “and he’s asking for you.”

  “Do not tell him I am here ... not yet,” Karl ordered, and as Jane walked away to Kevin’s bedside she knew the Inspector was not far behind her, keeping out of sight by means of the screens which had been placed around Kevin’s bed, but well within earshot.

  She longed desperately for Jim to arrive, but Jim was in the small closed-off side-ward, doing what he could for the Professor. With all the inner force at her command she tried to will Kevin to say nothing which would incriminate herself, not because she would have been afraid had this been a cause she believed in, but because she had done her best to persuade him to have nothing to do with it, and she had failed.

  “Hello, Staff!” Kevin greeted her, grimacing a little with pain as he strove to sit up, gave up the attempt and sank back, regarding her with eyes which still strove to twinkle but which were failing lamentably in the attempt. It was the first time she had seen him in any but the confident mood of the mischievous schoolboy who, although aware others might be injured by his pranks, sees no harm in their continuance.

  “You did right to warn me,” he commented. “This would never have happened, though, if you’d come along! They’d have let me in without a murmur with you by my side! The Professor would have felt flattered that you’d shown an interest ... as it was, I had to sneak in. I’d have done it too,” the old boastful, adolescent note was back in his tone, and desperately she tried to signal a warning with her eyes, but he would not accept the hint, “but for that confounded guard dog! It began to growl just after I’d made it through the fence. That brought the guard back... I’d waited until he’d passed, you see. The blessed dog tracked me right to the lab, and then...” he touched his shoulder with the uninjured hand, “this,” he ended.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt, Kevin,” Jane said quietly, “but I’m not sorry you didn’t succeed in doing as you’d planned. I’m even more sorry that an elderly man, who has worked so hard for his country’s good, is now lying burned and shocked, as a direct result of your interference with what’s no concern of ours.”

  “It’s the concern of everyone,” Kevin said defiantly. “The young people here don’t get a chance to show what they can do...”

  “They’ve shown ... tonight.”

  Karl had put the screen on one side and stood there, stern and unrelenting, looking down on Kevin and then back again to Jane.

  “Do I understand you were aware of this ... plot, Staff Nurse?” he demanded in a cold tone. “That you knew what was being planned, and yet you did not say a word to me when I visited you this morning?”

  “She knew what we were hoping to do, and why,” Kevin said clearly. “She didn’t know when, but she knew about it, because I tried to make her see it could mean a new life for herself and for me ... if we succeeded, not for ourselves, but for your own young people. What I was to be given would only have been a small part, a bonus, for helping. I went to Jane and told her about it.”

  “In that case, then, Staff Nurse,” Karl’s voice did not hold a trace of emotion, although for the first time since she had known him, Jane felt he looked faintly shocked, “I must take you along to Headquarters with me. I am determined to discover the names of all who are behind this sort of thing in Seonyata, and to stamp it out. This is not progress they say they long for. This is, a step backwards, and that we will not allow.”

  “But ... but I don’t know any of them,” Jane stammered, for the first time feeling really frightened. She looked appealingly in Kevin’s direction, and now he appeared to have some compunction for what he had done, at least so far as Jane was concerned.

  “Of course she doesn’t know anyone, Inspector!” he said in a scornful tone. “She hasn’t been here long enough to have been admitted to the group as I’ve been.”

  “She has been seen at the New Thought Club,” Karl said stonily. “I have the date, the time and all the facts.”

  “I took her there one night,” Kevin said defiantly from the bed. “She needed cheering up a little bit, as everyone does around here! There was no harm in it. Nobody said anything that night ... and if they had said anything she wouldn’t have understood.”

  “Staff Nurse can tell me all about it when we get to Headquarters, Doctor,” Karl said smoothly. Then he turned to Jane. “Pack a small case, please, Nurse,” he said quietly. “One of my men will accompany you to supervise.”

  “I ... why are you taking me?” Jane tried to defend herself, looking wildly into Karl’s cold eyes in the hope of finding some sign of even the little emotion he had shown early that morning. There was no trace of it, or indeed of his ever having known her except as a foreigner working in their midst. Even the customary admiring glance which he always seemed to have for her hair was missing. There was no emotion whatsoever in his face. “Just a moment!”

  None of them had heard Jim’s approach through the small unit. He came quietly to Jane’s side now and took her elbow in a firm, very reassuring grip.

  “I think there has been some sort of a mistake, if you’ll pardon my saying so, Inspector,” he said pleasantly. “If you’ll be so good as to explain what this is all about I will endeavour to set your mind at rest.”

  “There has been no mistake,” Karl said formally. “It is all quite clear. I am aware that this will deplete your hospital staff by two of its most important members, but no doubt,” and he bowed, a little ironically, Jane felt, “your friends at the Embassy will see to it you have replacements here as quickly as possible. It would be unthinkable if your wonderful work for our country were not to carry on!”

  “Unthinkable indeed,” Jim agreed pleasantly, “and I see no reason why I should require further staff ... except, perhaps,” he glanced at Kevin’s prone form, “another qualified doctor.”

  “I listened just now,” Karl said with deliberate emphasis, “to your Doctor Dean. He said Staff Nurse knew what was to happen. It is evident he expected her cooperation...”

  “Now, wait a minute!” Jim said quietly but with such authority in his voice Jane knew he would not be interrupted. “Staff Nurse is ... someone special,” he said gravely. “And she has been charged with a special task over these past six months. That task, I’m afraid, was to prove too much even for her,” he bent a smile on Jane which seemed to turn her very bones to water. It was the sort of smile she had longed to see on his face when he looked at her. For that smile she would have said anything, she felt.

  “And the task?” Karl was pursuing the point relentlessly. Jim’s smile deepened.

  “It’s not the sort of matter one talks about unless, as now, circumstances force matters into open conversation,” he said glibly. “Staff Nurse was charged with the task of making certain Dr. Dean did nothing which would damage the country, its people, our own work here. In short,” Jim said, drawing a deep breath and looking directly at Kevin as though daring him to challenge the truth of his statements, “she was asked to look after him, to try and keep him out of mischief while her term of office here was ended. For that reason she accompanied him to the New Thought Club. For that reason she listened to the wild plans they had made for some time in the near future. She did not know when they planned to put their plot into operation, she refused to have anything to do with it, and that is when they decided to try it alone ... with this result,” he ended, gesticulating towards Kevin once more.

  Karl’s keen glance raked Jim’s face, but Jim’s eyes did not flicker.

  “How do I know this is the truth?” Karl demanded at length. “It is natural that you should protect your own countrymen and women, although you have been a wonderful friend to Dalasalavia.”

  “You will know I’m speaking the truth,” Jim said quietly, “when I tell you—all of you—a secret. Staff Nurse Kelsey is my fiancée. We did not wish anyone to know until we decided whether to stay here together or return home, when
my term of office here is ended next year, and make our lives together... at home.”

  CHAPTER 10

  JANE could have laughed out loud. She had often read the expression “one could have heard a pin drop”, but never in her life had she expected to come face to face with just such a situation. She could not look at Karl. When curiosity finally persuaded her to glance in his direction, she saw he had turned completely white about the mouth and that a little pulse was throbbing visibly in his left temple. With a tremendous effort he controlled himself.

  “In that case,” he bowed to Jane, the most formal bow she had yet seen him make, “I owe an apology to you, Staff Nurse Kelsey.”

  He straightened and turn to Jim, drawing himself to his full height, clicked his heels and bowed again.

  “This morning, Doctor,” he said stiffly, “I asked Staff Nurse to be my wife. I did not know, of course, that she was your fiancée. You have kept your secret well, both of you. I thought,” he glanced at Kevin and back to Jim, “she might be in need of ... protection from the foreseeable outcome of some of the doings of these so-called friends of hers. I did not think she was ... one of them,” he had hesitated a moment before saying the last few words, then, apparently having recovered himself, continued, “but I wanted to afford her the protection of my name and standing in the community.”

  “You were most kind, Inspector,” Jim answered equally formally, “and we are both very grateful, but you will understand now why it was that Staff Nurse could not give an answer to your question this morning?”