Ngaio Marsh - The Nursing Home Murder

“Well,” said Fox, “that’s so. They don’t amount to much. Perhaps he’s different, though. Perhaps he’s the fanatic.”

“Not that sort, I’d have thought. I’ll go and see him again. To-morrow. To-day. I rather like the bloke. We’ll have to get hold of the expert who’s doing the Kakaroff bunch and find out if he’s deep in. It’s been a field day, this. It seems an age since we sat here and waited for the report on the post-mortem. Damn. I feel we are as one about to be had. I feel we are about to give tongue and run off on a false scent. I feel we are about to put two and two together and make a mess.”

“That’s a pity,” said Fox.

“What’s the time? Half-past two. Perhaps Bathgate will be back in his own flat by now, having dropped Miss Angela, who looked tired, at her uncle’s house. I think I shall send him to bed happy.”

He dialled a number on his telephone and waited.

“Hullo, Bathgate. How much are you betting on your funny little man?”

“Roberts?” quacked Nigel’s voice clearly. “Yes, Roberts.”

“Two to one, wasn’t it? Why? What’s up?”

“Did you notice he was at the meeting to-night?”

“Roberts!”

“Yes, Roberts. Good night.” He hung up the receiver.

“Come on,” he said wearily. “Let’s put two and two together and make a mess.”

Wednesday, the seventeenth. Morning and afternoon.

The following morning Chief Inspector Alleyn and Inspector Fox reviewed their discussion.

“The Lenin Hall theory looks even shoddier by the light of day,” said Alleyn.

“Well, sir,” said Fox, “I won’t say it isn’t weak in places, but we can’t ignore the thing, can we?”

“No. I suppose not. No.”

“If there’s nothing in it, it’s a peculiar coincidence. Here’s this lady, deceased’s sister— ”

“Oh yes, Fox, and by the way, I’m expecting the family solicitor. Mr. Rattisbon, of Knightley, Knightley and Rattisbon, an uncle of Lady O’Callaghan’s, I believe. Unusually come-toish advance — rang up and suggested the visit himself. He mentioned Miss O’Callaghan so guardedly that I can’t help feeling she plays a star part in the will. You were saying?”

“I was going to say here’s this lady, deceased’s sister, giving him patent medicines. Here’s the Sage affair, the chemist, a member of the advanced party that threatened deceased, supplying them. Here’s the doctor that gave the anæsthetic turning up at the same meeting as the chemist and the nurse that gave the injection. The nurse knows the chemist; the chemist, so Mr. Bathgate says, isn’t so keen to know the nurse. The doctor, seemingly, knows neither of them. Well now, that may be bluff on the doctor’s part. Suppose they were all working in collusion? Sage wouldn’t be very keen on associating himself with Nurse Banks. Dr. Roberts might think it better to know neither of them. Suppose Sage had supplied Miss O’Callaghan with a drug containing a certain amount of hyoscine, Nurse Banks had injected a bit more, and Dr. Roberts had made a job of it by injecting the rest?”

“All of them instructed by Comrade Kakaroff?”

“Well — yes.”

“But why? Why involve three people when one might do the trick? And anyway, none of them knew O’Callaghan was going to throw a fit and lie-for-dead in the House of Commons and then be taken to Sir John Phillips’s nursing-home.”

“That’s so, certainly, but Sage would know, through Miss O’Callaghan, that her brother intended having Sir John to look at him as soon as the Bill was read. It seems they knew it was appendix. Mightn’t they even have said he’d better go to the hospital and have it out? The lady tells Mr. Sage about this. He reports. He and Nurse Banks and Dr. Roberts think they’ll form a plan of action.”

“And, lo and behold, it all comes to pass even as they had said. I don’t like it, Fox. And anyway, my old one, how did Dr. Roberts give the injection with no syringe? Why didn’t he take the golden opportunity of exercising his obvious right of giving the hypodermic? To establish his innocence, you will say. He gave it on the sly, all unbeknown. But how? You can’t carry a syringe all ready for use, complete with lethal dose, in your trouser pocket. And anyway, his trousers like all the rest of him, were covered with a white nightie. And he was never alone with the patient.”

“That’s so, and I admit it’s a bit of a facer. Well— perhaps he simply arranged the matter with Miss Banks and she gave the injection, using hyoscine instead of camphor.”

“Subsequently letting everyone know how delighted she was at the death. Do you think that was sublety or stupidity?”

Fox shook his head solemnly.

“I don’t say I support the theory, chief, but it is a theory.”

“Oh yes. There’s another point about the hyoscine. It’s kept in a bottle, which Thoms tells me is very out of date — it should be in an ampoule. Phillips, I suppose, doesn’t object, as he always uses his own tablets. Now Jane Harden says that the bottle was full and that one injection has since been used. I’ve checked that. When I saw the bottle it was almost full. Thoms brought it to me.”

“Thoms did?” repeated Fox in his slow way.

“Yes. I got a sample and am having it analysed. If anyone has added water, the solution will be below strength.”

“Yes — but they might have managed to add more solution.”

“I don’t see how. Where would they get it from? It would have to be done there and then.”

Alleyn got up and walked about the room.

“You’ve never told me your views on intuition,” he said.

“I can’t say I’ve got any. No views, I mean — and no intuition either, for a matter of that. Very unimaginative I’ve always been. I recollect at school I was a poor hand at writing compositions, as they called them. Still I wouldn’t say,” said Fox cautiously, “that there is no such thing as intuition. I’ve known you come out rather strong in that line yourself.”

“Thank you, Fox. Well, the weird is upon me now, if that’s the expression. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. I’ve got a hunch that the Bolshie lot is not one of the principal factors. It’s a secondary theme in the bloody cantata. And yet, blast it, we’ll have to follow it up.”

“Oh well,” Fox rose to his feet. “What’s my job of work for to-day, sir?”

“Get hold of Boys or whoever has been watching the comrades and see if Roberts’s connection with them can be traced. If there’s anything in this we’ll have to try and get evidence of collusion. Since the Krasinky-Tokareff affair Sumiloff has had to fade out, but there’s Comrade Robinson. He seems to have wormed his way into the foreground. You’d better call him in. We pay the brute enough; let him earn it. Call him in, Fox, and tell him to ferret. He might tell the comrades we’ve been asking questions and see how they respond. And, talking about ferreting, I’ve been going through the reports on the medical gentlemen. It’s the devil’s own game beating it all up and there’s a lot more to be done. So far there’s nothing very much to excite us.” He pulled forward a sheaf of papers. “Here you are. Phillips— Educated at Winchester and Cambridge. Medical training at Thomas’s. Brilliant record. Distinguished war service. You can read it. Inspector Allison has spent days on this stuff. Thomas’s was full of enthusiasm for one of its brightest boys. No bad marks anywhere. Here’s Detective-Sergeant Bailey on Roberts. Educated at home. Delicate child. Medical training at Edinburgh and abroad, in Vienna. After qualifying went to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, returning to England after war. Red Cross work, during war, in Belgium. Books on heredity — he lent me one and it seems damn’ good. I suppose we’ll have to go into the history abroad. I’ll ring up Toronto to-night. We’ll have to check up on that story about the overdose. Talk about routine! How long, O Lord, how long! Thoms — Educated St. Bardolph’s, Essex, and Guy’s. I rang up a friend of mine at Guy’s who was his contemporary. Very good assistant surgeon and never likely to get much further than that. Undistinguished but blameless career, punctuated by mild scandals about women. Little devil! My friend was rather uncomplimentary about Thoms. He called him a ‘lecherous little blight.’ That’s as far as we’ve got.”