P James - Shroud for a Nightingale

“And were they all there?”

“Of course they was all there! I told yer! They was at their breakfast”

But he knew that they had been there. The twenty-five minutes from eight until eight twenty-five was the only time in which all the female suspects had been together, eating under the eye of Miss Collins and full in each other’s gaze. If Morag’s story were true, and he didn’t for one moment doubt it then the scope of the inquiry had been dramatically narrowed. There were only six people who had no firm alibi for the whole of the period from eight o’clock until the class assembled at eight forty. He would have to check the statements of course, but he knew what he would find. This was the sort of information he had been trained to recall at will and the names came obediently to mind. Sister Rolfe, Sister Gearing, Sister Brumfett, Nurse Goodale, Leonard Morris and Stephen Courtney-Briggs.

He pulled the girl gently to her feet.

“Come on, Morag, I’m going to see you back to the hostel. You’re a very important witness and I don’t want you to get pneumonia before I’ve had a chance to take your statement.”

“I don’t want to write nothing down. I’m no scholar.”

“Someone will write it down for you. You’ll only have to sign it.”

“I don’t mind doing that I’m not daft. I can sign my name I ‘ope.”

And he would have to be there to see that she did. He had a feeling that Sergeant Masterson would be no more successful than Inspector Bailey in dealing with Morag. It would be safer to take her statement himself even if it meant a later start than he had planned for his journey to London.

But it would be time well spent As he turned to pull the died door firmly closed behind them-it had no lock-he felt happier than at any time since the finding of the nicotine. Now he was making progress. On the whole, it hadn’t been too bad a day.

It was five minutes to seven the next morning. Sergeant Masterson and Detective Constable Greeson were in the kitchen at Nightingale House with Miss Collins and Mrs. Muncie. It seemed like the middle of the night to Masterson, dark and cold. The kitchen smelt agreeably of new baked bread, a country smell, nostalgic and comforting. But Miss Collins was no prototype of the buxom and welcoming country cook. She watched, lips tight and arms akimbo, as Greeson placed a filled milk bottle in the front of the middle shelf of the refrigerator, and said:

“Which one are they supposed to take?”

“The first bottle to hand. That’s what they did before, didn’t they?”

“So they say. I had something better to do than sit and watch them. I’ve got something better to do now.”

“That’s okay by us. We’ll do the watching.”

Four minutes later the Burt twins came in together. No one spoke. Shirley opened the refrigerator door and Maureen took out the first bottle to hand. Followed by Masterson and Greeson the twins made their way to the demonstration room through the silent and echoing hall. The room was empty and the curtains drawn. The two fluorescent lights blazed down on a semicircle of vacant chairs and on the high narrow bed where a grotesque demonstration doll, round mouthed, nostrils two black and gaping apertures, was propped against the pillows. The twins set about their preparations in silence. Maureen set down the bottle on the trolley, then dragged out the drip-feed apparatus and positioned it by the side of the bed. Shirley collected instruments and bowls from the various cupboards and set them out on the trolley. The two policemen watched. After twenty minutes Maureen said:

“That’s as much as we did before breakfast We left the room just like it is now.”

Masterson said: “Okay. Then we’ll put forward our watches to eight forty when you came back here. There’s no point in hanging about We can call the rest of the students in now.”

Obediently the twins adjusted their pocket watches while Greeson rang the library where the remaining students were waiting. They came almost immediately and in the order of their original appearance. Madeleine Goodale first followed by Julia Pardoe and Christine Dakers who arrived together. No one made any attempt to talk and they took their places silently on the semicircle of chairs, shivering a little as if the room were cold. Masterson noticed that they kept their eyes averted from the grotesque doll in the bed. When they had settled themselves he said:

“Right Nurse. You can go ahead with the demonstration now. Start heating the milk.”

Maureen looked at him puzzled.

“The milk? But no one’s had a chance to…” Her voice died away.

Masterson said: “No one’s had a chance to poison it? Never mind. Just go ahead. I want you to do precisely what you did last time.”

She filled a large jug with hot water from the tap then stood the unopened bottle in it for a few seconds to warm the milk. Receiving Masterson’s impatient nod to get on with it she prised the cap off the bottle and poured the liquid into a glass measuring jug. Then she took a glass thermometer from the instrument trolley and checked the temperature of the liquid. The class watched in fascinated silence. Maureen glanced at Masterson. Receiving no sign, she took up the esophageal tube and inserted it into the rigid mouth of the doll. Her hand was perfectly steady. Lastly she lifted a glass funnel high over her head and paused. Masterson said:

“Go ahead, Nurse. It isn’t going to hurt the doll to get a bit damp. That’s what it’s made for. A few ounces of warm milk isn’t going to rot its guts.”

Maureen paused. This time the fluid was visible and all their eyes were on the white curving stream. Then suddenly the girl paused, arm still poised high, and stood motionless, like a model awkwardly posed.

“Well” said Masterson: “Is it or isn’t it?”

Maureen lowered the jug to her nostrils, then without a word passed it to her twin. Shirley sniffed and looked at Masterson.

“This isn’t milk, Is it? It’s disinfectant You wanted to test whether we really could tell?”

Maureen said: “Are you telling us that it was disinfectant last time; that the milk was poisoned before we took the bottle out of the fridge.”

“No. Last time the milk was all right when you took it out of the fridge. What did you do with the bottle once the milk had been poured into the measuring jug?”

Shirley said: “I took it over to the sink in the corner and rinsed it out I’m sorry I forgot I should have done that earlier.”

“Never mind. Do it now.”

Maureen had placed the bottle on the table by the side of me sink, its crumpled cap at its side. Shirley picked it up. Then she paused. Masterson said very quietly:

“Well?”

The girl turned to him, perplexed.

“There’s something different, something wrong. It wasn’t like this.”

“Wasn’t it? Then think. Don’t worry yourself. Relax. Just relax and think.”

The room was preternaturally silent Then Shirley swung round to her twin.

“I know now, Maureen! It’s the bottle top. Last time we took one of the homogenized bottles from the fridge, the kind with the silver cap. But when we came back into the demonstration room after breakfast it was different Don’t you remember? The cap was gold. It was Channel Island milk.”

Nurse Goodale said quietly from her chair: “Yes. I remember too. The only cap I saw was gold.”

Maureen looked across at Masterson in puzzled inquiry.

“So someone must have changed the cap?”

Before he had a chance to reply they heard Madeleine Goodale’s calm voice.

“Not necessarily the cap. Somebody changed the whole bottle.”