P James - Shroud for a Nightingale

Dalgliesh said gravely: “I have already seen the card. Did you know what the demonstration would be about?”

“I knew that it was on intra-gastric feeding but I didn’t know that Nurse Fallon had been taken ill in the night or who was to act the part of the patient.”

“Have you any idea at all how the corrosive poison got into the drip?”

“If you would just let me take my own time. I was about to tell you. I have none. The most likely explanation is that someone was playing a stupid joke and didn’t realize that the result would be fatal. That, or an accident. There are precedents. A new-born baby was killed in the maternity wing of a hospital-not happily one of ours-only three years ago when a bottle of disinfectant was mistaken for milk. I can’t explain how the accident here could have occurred or who in Nightingale House could have been so ignorant and stupid as to think that the result of putting a corrosive poison in the milk feed would entertain anyone.”

He paused as if defying Dalgliesh to interrupt with another question. Meeting only a bland interrogatory gaze, he went on:

“So much for Nurse Pearce’s death. I can’t help you further there. It’s rather a different matter with Nurse Fallon.”

“Something that happened last night; someone you saw?”

The irritation snapped out: “Nothing to do with last night, Superintendent, Miss Gearing has already told you about last night. We saw no one. We left her room immediately after twelve o’clock and went out down the back stairs through Miss Taylor’s flat. I retrieved my bicycle from the bushes at the rear of the house-I see no reason why my visits here should be advertised to every mean-minded female in the neighborhood-and we walked together to the first turn in the path. Then we paused to talk and I escorted Miss Gearing back to Nightingale House and watched her in through the back door. She had left it open. I finally rode off and as I have told you, got to the fallen elm at twelve seventeen a.m. If anyone passed that way after me and fixed a white scarf to a branch, I can only say that I didn’t see him. If he came by car it must have been parked at the other side of Nightingale House. I saw no car.”

Another pause. Dalgliesh made no sign, but Masterson permitted himself a sigh of weary resignation as he rustled over a page of his note pad.

“No, Superintendent, the event which I am about to relate took place last spring when this present set of students, including Nurse Fallon, were in their second-year block. As was customary, I gave them a lecture on poisons. At the end of my talk all the students except Nurse Fallon had gathered up their books and left She came up to the desk and asked me for the name of a poison which could kill painlessly and instantaneously and which an ordinary person might be able to obtain. I thought it an unusual question but saw no reason why I should refuse to answer it. It never occurred to me for one moment that the question had any personal application and, in any case, it was information she could have obtained from a book in the hospital library on materia medica or forensic medicine.”

Dalgliesh said: “And what exactly did you tell her, Mr. Morris?”

“I told her that one such poison was nicotine and that it I could be obtained from an ordinary rose spray.”

Truth or a lie? Who could tell? Dalgliesh fancied that he I could usually detect lying in a suspect; but not this suspect And if Morris stuck to his story, how could it ever be disproved? And if it were a lie, its purpose was plain-to suggest that Josephine Fallon had killed herself. And the obvious reason why he should wish to do that was to protect Sister Gearing. He loved her. This slightly ridiculous, pedantic man; that silly, flirtatious, ageing woman-they loved each other. And why not? Love wasn’t the prerogative of the young and desirable. But it was a complication in any investigation-pitiable, tragic or ludicrous, as the case might be, but never negligible. Inspector Bailey, as he knew from the notes on the first crime, had never full believed in the story of the greetings card. It was in his opinion a foolish and childish gesture for a grown man, and particularly out of character for Morris; therefore he distrusted it But Dalgliesh thought differently. It was one with Morris’s lonely, unromantic cycle rides to visit his mistress; the machine hidden ignominiously in the bushes behind Nightingale House; the slow walk together through the cold of a January midnight prolonging those last precious minutes; his clumsy but strangely dignified defense of the woman he loved. And this last statement true or false, was inconvenient to say the least. If he stuck to it, it would be a powerful argument for those who preferred to believe that Fallon had died by her own hand. And he would stick to it He looked at Dalgliesh now with the steadfast exalted gaze of a prospective martyr, holding his adversary’s eyes, daring him to disbelieve. Dalgliesh sighed:

“All right” he said. “We won’t waste time in speculation. Let’s go once again over the timing of your movements last night.”

Sister Brumfett, true to her promise, was waiting outside the door when Masterson let Leonard Morris out. But her previous mood of cheerful acquiescence had vanished and she settled herself down opposite Dalgliesh as if to do battle. Before that matriarchal glare he felt something of the inadequacy of a junior student nurse newly arrived on the private ward; and something stronger and horribly familiar. His mind traced the surprising fear unerringly to its source. Just so had the Matron of his prep, school once looked at him, producing in the homesick eight-year-old the same inadequacy, the same fear. And for one second he had to force himself to meet her gaze.

It was the first opportunity he had had to observe her closely and on her own. It was an unattractive and yet an ordinary face. The small shrewd eyes glared into his through steel spectacles, their bridge half embedded in the deep fleshy cleft above the mottled nose. Her iron gray hair was cut short, framing in ribbed waves the plump marsupial cheeks and the obstinate line of the jaw. The elegant gophered cap which on Mavis Gearing looked as delicate as a meringue of spun lace and which flattered even Hilda Rolfe’s androgynous features was bound low on Sister Brumfett’s brow like a pie frill circling a particularly unappetizing crust. Take that symbol of authority away and replace it by an undistinguished felt hat, cover the uniform with a shapeless fawn coat, and you would have the prototype of a middle-aged suburban housewife strutting through the supermarket, shapeless bag in hand, eyes shrewd for this week’s bargain. Yet here, apparently, was one of the best ward Sisters John Carpendar had ever had. Here, more surprisingly, was Mary Taylor’s chosen friend.

Before he could begin to question her, she said:

“Nurse Fallon committed suicide. First she killed Pearce and then herself. Fallon murdered Pearce. I happen to know that she did. So why don’t you stop worrying Matron and let the work of the hospital go on? There’s nothing you can do to help either of them now. They’re both dead.”

Spoken in that authoritative and disconcertingly evocative tone the statement had the force of a command. Dalgliesh’s reply was unreasonably sharp. Damn the woman! He wouldn’t be intimidated.

“If you know that for certain, you must have some proof.

And anything you know ought to be told. I’m investigating murder. Sister, not the theft of a bedpan. You have a duty not to withhold evidence.“

She laughed; a sharp, derisive hoot like an animal coughing.

“Evidence! You wouldn’t call it evidence. But I know!”

“Did Nurse Fallon speak to you when she was being nursed on your ward? Was she delirious?”