Ngaio Marsh - The Nursing Home Murder

“Is that all — not that it isn’t enough?”

“There’s his special nurse. A nice sensible girl who could easily have given him poison. She found out about Miss O’Callaghan handing out the patent medicine.”

“Perhaps she lied.”

“Oh, do you think so? Surely not.”

“Don’t be facetious,” said Nigel.

“Thank you, Bathgate. No, but I don’t think Nurse Graham lied. Jane Harden did, over her letters. Well, there they all are. Have one of your celebrated lucky dips and see if you can spot the winner.”

“For a win,” Nigel pronounced at last, “the special nurse. For a place the funny little man.”

“Why?”

“On, the crime-fiction line of reasoning. The two outsiders. The nurse looks very fishy. And funny little men are rather a favourite line in villains nowadays. He might turn out to be Sir Derek’s illegitimate brother and that’s why he’s so interested in heredity. I’m thinking of writing detective fiction.”

“You should do well at it.”

“Of course,” said Nigel slowly, “there’s the other school in which the obvious man is always the murderer. That’s the one you favour at the Yard, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” agreed Alleyn.

“Do you read crime fiction?”

“I dote on it. It’s such a relief to escape from one’s work into an entirely different atmosphere.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” Nigel protested.

“Perhaps not quite as bad as that. Any faithful account of police investigations, in even the most spectacular homicide case, would be abysmally dull. I should have thought you’d seen enough of the game to realise that. The files are a plethora of drab details, most of them entirely irrelevant. Your crime novelist gets over all that by writing grandly about routine work and then selecting the essentials. Quite rightly. He’d be the world’s worst bore if he did otherwise.”

“May I speak?” inquired Angela.

“Do,” said Alleyn.

“I’m afraid I guess it’s Sir John Phillips.”

“I’ve heard you say yourself that the obvious man is usually the ace,” ruminated Nigel after a pause.

“Yes. Usually,” said Alleyn.

“I suppose, in this case, the obvious man is Phillips.”

“That’s what old Fox will say,” conceded Alleyn with a curious reluctance.

“I suppose it’s hopeless to ask, but have you made up your mind yet, inspector?”

Alleyn got up, walked to the fireplace, and then swung round and stared at his friend.

“I regret to say,” he said, “that I haven’t the foggiest notion who killed Cock Robin.”

Tuesday, the sixteenth. Night.

Of course,” said Angela suddenly, “it may be the matron. I always suspect gentily. Or, of course— ”

She stopped.

“Yes?” asked Alleyn. “There’s still some of the field left.”

“I knew you’d say that. But I do mistrust people who laugh too much.”

Alleyn glanced at her sharply.

“Do you? I must moderate my mirth. Well, there’s the case, and I’m glad to have taken it out and aired it. Shall we go to the Palladium?”

“Why?” asked Nigel, astonished.

“There’s a sketch on the programme that I am anxious to see. Will you both come? We’ll only miss the first two numbers.”

“We’d love to,” said Angela. “Are you up to. one of your tricks?” she added suspiciously.

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Angela. Bathgate, will you ring up for seats?”

They went to the Palladium and enjoyed themselves. Mr. Thoms’s sketch was the third number in the second half. It had not run three minutes before Nigel and Angela turned and stared owlishly at the inspector.

The sketch was well cast and the actor who played the surgeon was particularly clever. Alleyn sensed a strange feeling of alertness in the audience. Here and there people murmured together. Behind them a man’s voice asked: “Wonder if Sir John Phillips goes to the Palladium?”

“Ssh,” whispered a woman.

“The great British public twitching its nose.” thought Alleyn distastefully. The sketch drew to a close. The surgeon came back from the operating theatre, realistically bloody. A long-drawn “Ooooo” from the audience. He pulled off his mask, stood and stared at his gloved hands. He shuddered. A nurse entered up-stage. He turned to face her: “Well, nurse?”

“He’s gone.” The surgeon walked across to a practical basin and began to wash his hands as a drop curtain, emblazoned with an enormous question-mark, was drawn down like a blind over the scene.

“So that’s why we came?” said Angela, and remained very quiet until the end of the show.

They had supper at Alleyn’s flat, where Angela was made a fuss of by Vassily.

“Curious coincidence, that little play, didn’t you think?” asked Alleyn.

“Very rum,” agreed Nigel. “When did you hear about it?”

“Thoms told me that he and Phillips discussed it before the operation. Thoms seemed so anxious not to talk about it I thought it might be worth seeing. I can’t help wondering if he meant to convey precisely that suggestion.”

“Had Sir John seen it?” inquired Angela.

“No. Thoms told him about it?”

“I say,” said Nigel. “Do you think that could have given Phillips the big idea?”

“It might be that.”

“Or it might be — something quite different,” added Angela, watching him.

“I congratulate you, Miss Angela,” said Alleyn.

“Did Mr. Thoms tell you quite frankly about their conversation?”

“No, child, he didn’t. He flustered like an old hen.”

“And what did you deduce from that?” asked Angela innocently.

“Perhaps he was afraid of incriminating his distinguished colleague and senior.”

“Oh,” she said flatly. “What’s he like in other ways?”

“Besides being a bit of a buffoon? Well, I should say either rather forgetful or a bit of a liar. He says he came out of the theatre with Phillips after the latter had prepared the hyoscine injection. Phillips, matron and Banks say he didn’t.”

“Oh,” said Angela, “they do, do they.”

“I haven’t the least idea what you’re driving at, Angela,” complained Nigel. “I should like to hear more about the funny little man. Didn’t he behave at all queerly?”

“He behaved very queerly indeed,” said Alleyn. “He was as scary as a rabbit whenever the murder was mentioned. He’s obviously very frightened whenever he thinks of it. And yet I don’t think his alarm is purely selfish. He said it was, I believe. Thoms, in that asinine way of his, made very merry over Roberts’s alarm when he rang up.”

Alleyn looked steadily at Angela.

“Roberts is the man, depend upon it,” pronounced Nigel. “I’ll back him with you for a quid.”

“I won’t,” said Angela. “I’ll back— ”

“I’m afraid the official conscience won’t allow me to join in this cold-bloomed gamble,” said Alleyn. He looked at them both curiously. “The attitude of the intelligent layman is very rum,” he observed.

“I lay you two to one the field, bar Roberts, Angela,” said Nigel.

“Done,” said Angela. “In guineas,” she added grandly. “And what were you saying, inspector?”

“I was only reflecting. Does the decision rest with the judge?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well — if it does, you are betting on a man or woman who, if you’re right, will presumably be hanged. I can’t imagine you doing this over any other form of death. That’s what I mean about the attitude of the layman.”

Angela turned red.

“That’s the second time in our acquaintanceship you’ve made me feel a pig,” she said. “The first was because I was too sensitive. The bet’s off, Nigel.”