Ngaio Marsh: The Nursing Home Murder

“Good night, Cicely.”

She stepped towards him and waited. By some mischance his kiss fell upon her lips instead of her cheek. He almost felt he ought to apologise. However, she merely repeated “Good night” and he went off to study.

Here his secretary Ronald Jameson awaited him. Jameson, just down from Oxford, was an eager but not too tiresomely earnest young man. He did his work well, and was intelligent. Normally, O’Callaghan found him tolerable and even likeable. To-night, the sight of his secretary irritated and depressed him.

“Well, Ronald?”

He sank down into his chair, and reached for a cigar.

“Sir John Phillips has rung up, sir, and would like to come and see you this evening if you are free.”

“Phillips? Has anyone been talking about me to Phillips? What does he want? Is it a professional visit?”

“I don’t think so, sir. Sir John didn’t mention your— indisposition.”

“Ring him up and say I’ll be delighted. Anything else?”

“These letters. There’s another of the threatening variety. I do wish, sir, that you’d let me talk to Scotland Yard.”

“No. Anything else?”

“Only one, marked personal. It’s on your desk.”

“Give it to me, will you?”

Jameson brought the letter and handed it to him. He looked at it and experienced the sensation of going down in a lift. It was from Jane Harden. O’Callaghan let his arm swing down by the side of his chair. The letter hung from his fingers. He remained staring at the fire, the unlighted cigar between his lips.

Ronald Jameson waited uncomfortably. At last he produced his lighter and advanced it towards O’Callaghan’s cigar.

“Thank you,” said O’Callaghan absently.

“Is there anything I can do, sir?”

“No, thank you.”

Jameson hesitated, looked uneasily at his employer’s white face, reflected that Sir John Phillips still awaited his message, and left the room.

For some time after the door had shut behind his secretary O’Callaghan sat and stared at the fire. At last, with an enormous effort, he forced himself to read through the letter. Jane Harden had written a frantic, bitter arraignment, rather than an appeal. She said she felt like killing herself. A little further on, she added that if an opportunity presented itself she would not hesitate to kill him: “Don’t cross my path. I’m warning you for my own sake, not for yours. I mean it, Derek, for you and all men like you are better out of the way. This is my final word. — Jane Harden.”

O’Callaghan had a swift mental picture of the letter as it would appear in the columns of the penny Press. Rather to his surprise O’Callaghan heard his wife speak to the secretary in the hall outside. Something in the quality of her voice arrested his attention. He listened.

“—something seems to be worrying him.”

“I think so too, Lady O’Callaghan,” Jameson murmured.

“—any idea — any letters?” The voice faded away.

“Tonight — seemed to upset — of course this Bill— ”

O’Callaghan got up and strode across the room. He flung open the door.

His wife and Ronald Jameson stood facing each other with something of the air of conspirators. As he opened the door they turned their faces towards him. Jameson’s became very red and he looked swiftly from husband to wife. Lady O’Callaghan merely regarded Sir Derek placidly. He felt himself trembling with anger.

“Hitherto,” he said to Jameson, “I have seen no reason to suppose you did not understand the essentially confidential nature of your job. Apparently I have been mistaken.”

“I’m — I’m terribly sorry, Sir Derek-it was only because— ”

“You have no business to discuss my letters with anyone. With anyone . You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please don’t be absurd, Derek,” said his wife. “I asked Mr. Jameson a question that he could not avoid answering. We are both very worried about you.”

O’Callaghan jerked his head. Jameson made a miserable little bow and turned away. At the door of his own room he paused, murmured “I’m extremely sorry, sir,” and disappeared.

“Really, Derek,” said Lady O’Callaghan, “I think you are unreasonable. I merely asked that unfortunate youth if you had received any letter that might account for your otherwise rather unaccountable behaviour. He said a letter in this evening’s mail seemed to upset you. What was this letter, Derek? Was it another threat from these people — these anarchists or whatever they are?”

He was not so angry that he did not hear an unusual note in her voice.

“Such threats are an intolerable impertinence,” she said hastily. “I cannot understand why you do not deal with these people.”

“The letter had nothing whatever to do with them, and my ‘unaccountable behaviour,’ as you call it, has nothing to do with the letter. I am unwell and I’m worried. It may satisfy you to hear that John Phillips is coming in this evening.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

The front door bell sounded. They looked at each other questioningly.

“Ruth?” murmured Lady O’Callaghan.

“I’m off,” he said quickly. Suddenly he felt more friendly towards her. “You’d better bolt, Cicely,” he said.

She moved swiftly into his study and he followed her. They heard Nash come out and open the door. They listened, almost in sympathy with each other. “Sir Derek and my lady are not at home, madam.”

“But there’s a light in the study!” They exchanged horrified glances.

“Perhaps Mr. Jameson— ” said Nash.

“ Just the man I want to see.”

They heard Nash bleating in dismay and the sound of Miss Ruth O’Callaghan’s umbrella being rammed home in the ship’s bucket. With one accord they walked over to the fireplace. Lady O’Callaghan lit a cigarette.

The door opened, and Ruth came in. They had a brief glimpse of Nash’s agonised countenance and then were overwhelmed in embraces.

“ There you are, darlings. Nash said you were out.”

“We’re only ‘not at home,’ Ruth darling,” said Lady O’Callaghan, very tranquilly. “Derek expects his doctor. It was too stupid of Nash not to realise you were different.”

“Ah-ha,” said Ruth, with really terrifying gaiety, “you don’t defeat your old sister like that. Now, Derry darling, I’ve come especially to see you, and I shall be very cross and dreadfully hurt if you don’t do exactly what I tell you.”

She rummaged in an enormous handbag, and fetched up out of its depths the familiar sealed white parcel.

“Really, Ruth, I can not swallow every patent medicine that commends itself to your attention.”

“I don’t want you to do that, darling. I know you think your old sister’s a silly-billy”—she squinted playfully at him—“but she knows what’s good for her big, famous brother. Cicely, he’ll listen to you. Please, please, persuade him to take just one of these teeny little powders. They’re too marvellous. You’ve only to read the letters— ”

With eager, clumsy fingers she undid the wrapping and disclosed a round green box decorated with the picture of a naked gentleman, standing in front of something that looked like an electric shock.

“There are six powders altogether,” she told them excitedly, “but after the first, you feel a marked improvement. ‘Fulvitavolts.’ Hundreds of letters, Derry, from physicians, surgeons, politicians— lots of politicians, Derry. They all swear by it. Their symptoms were precisely the same as yours. Honestly.”

She looked pathetically eager. She was so awkward and vehement with her thick hands, her watery eyes, and her enormous nose.