Ngaio Marsh - The Nursing Home Murder

“I see,” said Alleyn slowly.

“Did you expect hyoscine, Alleyn?”

“It was on the tapis . I wish to heaven you hadn’t found it.”

“Yes. Unpleasant business.”

“Do they ever put hyoscine in patent medicines?”

“Oh, yes. Had Sir Derek taken patent medicines?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“The dosage would be too small to enter into the picture.”

“If he swallowed an entire packet?”

The pathologist shrugged his shoulders. “Would he take an entire packet?” Alleyn did not answer. “I can see you’ve got something in mind,” said the pathologist, who knew him.

“Sir John Phillips injected hyoscine. Suppose O’Callaghan had taken a patent medicine containing the drug?” Alleyn suggested.

“The average injection, as I have said, is about, say, a hundredth of a grain. The amount in patent medicines would be very much less. The two together, even if he had taken quantities of his rot-gut, could scarcely constitute a lethal dose — unless, of course, O’Callaghan had an idiosyncrasy for hyoscine, and even if there was an idiosyncrasy, it wouldn’t account for the amount we found. If you want my private opinion, for what it is worth, I consider the man was murdered.”

“Thank you for all the trouble you have taken,” said Alleyn glumly. “I shan’t wait to hear the verdict; it’s a foregone conclusion. Fox can grace the court for me. There’s one other point. Were you able to find the marks of the injections?”

“Yes.”

“How many were there?”

“Three.”

“Three. That tallies. Damn!”

“It’s not conclusive, Alleyn. There might be a fourth injected where we couldn’t see it. Inside the ear, under the hair, or even into the exact spot where one of the others was given.”

“I see. Oh, well, I must bustle away and solve the murder.”

“Let me know if there’s anything further I can do.”

“Thank you, I will. Good-bye.”

Alleyn went out, changed his mind and struck his head round the door.

“If I send you a pill or two, will you have them dissected for me?”

“Analysed?”

“If you’d rather. Good-bye.”

Alleyn took a taxi to the Brook Street home. He asked a lugubrious individual in a chastened sort of uniform if Sir John Phillips was in the hospital. Sir John had not yet come in. When would he be in? The lugubrious individual was afraid he “reely couldn’t say.”

“Please find someone who can say,” said Alleyn. “And when he’s free give Sir John this card.”

He was invited to wait in one of those extraordinary drawing-rooms that can only be found in expensive private hospitals in the West End of London. Thick carpet, subfusc curtains of pseudo-empire pattern and gilt-legged chairs combined to disseminate the atmosphere of a mausoleum. Chief Inspector Alleyn and a marble woman whose salient features were picked out embarrassingly in gilt stared coldly at each other. A nurse came in starchily, glanced in doubt at Alleyn, and went out again. A clock, flaunted aloft by a defiant bronze-nude, swung its pendulum industriously to and fro for twenty minutes. A man’s voice sounded somewhere and in a moment the door opened and Phillips came in.

He was, as usual, immaculate, a very model for a fashionable surgeon, with his effective ugliness, his eyeglass, his air of professional cleanliness, pointed by the faint reek of ether. Alleyn wondered if the extreme pallor of his face was habitual.

“Inspector Alleyn?” he said. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Not a bit, sir,” said Alleyn. “I must apologise for bothering you, but I felt you would like to know the report of the post-mortem as soon as it came through.”

Phillips went back to the door and shut it quietly. His face was turned away from his visitor as he spoke.

“Thank you. I shall be relieved to hear it.”

“I’m afraid ‘relieved’ is scarcely the word.”

“No?”

Phillips faced round slowly.

“No,” said Alleyn. “They have found strongly marked traces of hyoscine in the organs. He must have had at least a quarter of a grain.”

“ A quarter of a grain !” He moved his eyebrows and his glass fell to the floor. He looked extraordinarily shocked and astonished. “Impossible!” he said sharply. He stooped and picked up his monocle.

“There has been no mistake,” said Alleyn quietly.

Phillips glanced at him in silence.

“I beg your pardon, inspector,” he said at last. “Of course, you have made certain of your facts, but— hyoscine — it’s incredible.”

“You understand that I shall be forced to make exhaustive inquiries.”

“I — I suppose so.”

“In a case of this sort the police feel more than usually helpless. We must delve into highly technical matters. I will be quite frank with you, Sir John. Sir Derek died of the effects of a lethal dose of hyoscine. Unless it can be proved that he took the drug himself, we are faced with a very serious situation. Naturally I shall have to go into the history of his operation. There are many questions which I should like to put to you. I need not remind you that you are under no compulsion to answer them.”

Phillips took his time in replying to this. Then he said courteously:

“Of course, I quite understand. I shall be glad to tell you anything that will help — anxious to do so. I owe it to myself. O’Callaghan came here as my patient. I operated on him. Naturally I shall be one of the possible suspects.”

“I hope we shall dispose of your claims to that position very early in the game. Now, first of all — Sir Derek O’Callaghan, as you told us at the inquest, had been given hyoscine.”

“Certainly. One-hundredth of a grain was injected prior to the operation.”

“Exactly. You approved of this injection, of course?”

“I gave it,” said Phillips evenly.

“So you did. I’m afraid I know absolutely nothing about the properties of this drug. Is it always used in cases of peritonitis?”

“It had nothing to do with peritonitis. It is always my practice to give an injection of hyoscine before operating. It reduces the amount of anæsthetic necessary and the patient is more comfortable afterwards.”

“It is much more generally used nowadays than, say, twenty years ago?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you mind telling me just how, and at what stage of the proceedings, it is given? This was not stated specifically at the inquest, I think.

“It was given in the anæsthetising-room immediately before the operation and after the patient was under the anæsthetic. A hypodermic syringe was used.”

“Prepared, I imagine, by the nurse in charge of the theatre?”

“In this instance, no. I thought this was all perfectly clear, inspector. I prepared the injection myself.”

“Yes, of course — how stupid I am!” Alleyn exclaimed. “That makes it much simpler for me. What exactly did you do? Dip the syringe in a blue bottle and suck up a dram?”

“Not quite.” Phillips smiled for the first time and produced a cigarette-case. “Shall we sit down?” he said. “And will you smoke?”

“Do you mind if I have one of my own? Good cigarettes are wasted on me.”

They sat on two incredibly uncomfortable chairs under the right elbow of the marble woman.

“As regards the actual solution,” said Phillips, “I used a tablet of a hundredth of a grain. This I dissolved in twenty-five minims of distilled water. There was a stock solution of hyoscine in the theatre which I did not use.”

“Less reliable or something?”

“It’s no doubt perfectly reliable, but hyoscine is a drug that should be used with extreme care. By preparing it myself I am sure of the correct dosage. In most theatres nowadays it’s put out in ampoules. I shall see,” added Phillips grimly, “that this procedure is followed here in future.”