Ngaio Marsh - The Nursing Home Murder

Mr. Sage opened his mouth and shut it again. He put his hands behind him and leaned against a shelf.

“To what do you refer?” he said.

“You were at the meeting last night.”

“I don’t hold with the remarks passed at the meeting. I never ’ave. I’ve said so. I said so last night.”

“Right. I don’t think there’s anything else.”

Alleyn put the packet of ‘Fulvitavolts’ in his pocket.

“How much are these?”

“Three and nine.”

Alleyn produced two half-crowns and handed them to Mr. Sage, who, without another word, walked out of the room and upstairs to the shop. Alleyn followed. Mr. Sage punched the cash register and conjured up the change. The sleek young man leant with an encouraging smile towards an incoming customer.

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Mr. Sage, handing Alleyn one and threepence.

“Thank you. Good morning.”

“Good morning, sir.”

Alleyn went to the nearest telephone-booth and rang up the Yard.

“Anything come in for me?”

“Just a moment, sir… Yes. Sir John Phillips is here and wants to see you.”

“Oh. Is he in my room?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him to speak to me, will you?”

A pause.

“Hullo.”

“Hullo. Is that Sir John Phillips?”

“Yes. Inspector Alleyn — I want to see you. I want to make a clean breast of it.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said Alleyn.

Wednesday to Thursday.

Phillips stared at Chief Inspector Alleyn’s locked desk, at his chair, at the pattern of thick yellow sunlight on the floor of his room. He looked again at his watch. Ten minutes since Alleyn had rung up. He had said he would be there in ten minutes. Phillips knew what he was going to say. There was no need to go over that again. He went over it again. A light footstep in the passage outside. The door handle turned. Alleyn came in.

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve kept you waiting.” He hung up his hat, pulled off his gloves and sat down at his desk. Phillips watched him without speaking. Alleyn unlocked the desk and then turned towards his visitor.

“What is it you want to tell me, Sir John?”

“I’ve come to make a statement. I’ll write it down afterwards if you like. Sign it. That’s what you have to do, isn’t it?”

“Suppose I hear what it’s all about first,” suggested Alleyn.

“Ever since you went away yesterday I’ve been thinking about this case. It seems to me I must be suspected of the murder. It seems to me things look very black for me. You know what I wrote to O’Callaghan. You know I injected a lethal drug. I showed you the tablets — analysis will prove they only contain the normal dosage, but I can’t prove the one I gave was the same as the ones you analysed. I can’t prove I only gave one tablet. Can I?”

“So far as I know, you can’t.”

“I’ve thought of all that. I didn’t kill O’Callaghan. I threatened to kill him. You’ve seen Thoms. Thoms is a decent little ass, but I can see he thinks you suspect me. He’s probably told you I used a lot of water for the injection and then bit his head off because he said so. So I did. He drove me nearly crazy with his bloody facetiousness. Jane — Nurse Harden — told me what you’d said to her. You know a hell of a lot — I can see that. You possibly know what I’m going to tell you. I want her to marry me. She won’t, because of the other business with O’Callaghan. I think she believes I killed him. I think she was afraid at the time. That’s why she was so upset, why she hesitated over the serum, why she fainted. She was afraid I’d kill O’Callaghan. She heard Thoms tell me about that play. D’ypu know about the play?”

“Thoms mentioned that you discussed it.”

“Silly ass. He’s an intelligent surgeon, but in other matters he’s got as much savoir-faire as a child. He’d swear his soul away I didn’t do it and then blurt out something like that. What I want to make clear to you is this. Jane Harden’s distress in the theatre was on my account. She thinks I murdered O’Callaghan. I know she does, because she won’t ask me. Don’t, for God’s sake, put any other interpretation on it. She’s got a preposterous idea that she’s ruined my life. Her nerves are all to blazes. She’s anæmic and she’s hysterical. If you arrest me, she may come forward with some damn’ statement calculated to drag a red herring across my trail. She’s an idealist. It’s a type I don’t pretend to understand. She did nothing to the syringe containing the serum. When Thoms cursed her for delaying, I turned and looked at her. She simply stood there dazed and half fainting. She’s as innocent as — I was going to say as I am, but that may not carry much weight. She’s completely innocent.”

He stopped abruptly. To Alleyn it had seemed a most remarkable little scene. The change in Phillips’s manner alone was extraordinary. The smooth, guarded courtesy which had characterised it during their former interview had vanished completely. He had spoken rapidly, as if urged by some appalling necessity. He how sat glaring at Alleyn with a hint of resigned ferociousness.

“Is that all you came to tell me, Sir John?” asked Alleyn in his most non-committal voice.

“All? What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, you prepared me for a bombshell. I wondered what on earth was coming. You talked of making a clean breast of it, but, forgive me, you’ve told me little that we did not already know.”

Phillips took his time over answering this. At last he said:

“I suppose that’s true. Look here, Alleyn. Can you give me your assurance that you entertain no suspicions as regards Jane Harden?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I shall consider everything you have told me very carefully, but I cannot, as this stage, make any definite announcement of that sort. Miss Harden is in a very equivocal position. I hope she may be cleared, but I cannot put her aside simply because, to put it baldly, you tell me she’s innocent.”

Phillips was silent. After a moment he clasped his well-shaped, well-kept hands together, and looking at them attentively, began to speak again.

“There’s something more. Has Thoms told you that I opened a new tube of tablets for the hyoscine injection?”

Alleyn did not move, but he seemed to come to attention.

“Oh yes,” he said quietly.

“He has! Lord, what an ingenuous little creature it is! Did you attach any significance to this second tube?”

“I remembered it.”

“Then listen. During the week before the operation I’d been pretty well at the end of my tether. I suppose when a man of my age gets it, he gets it badly — the psychologists say so — and — well, I could think of nothing but the ghastly position we were in — Jane and I. That Friday when I went to see O’Callaghan I was nearly driven crazy by his damned insufferable complacence. I could have murdered him then. I wasn’t sleeping. I tried alcohol and I tried hypnotics. I was in a bad way, Alleyn. Then on top of it he came in, a sick man, and I had to operate. Thoms rubbed it in with his damn-fool story of some play or other. I scarcely knew what I did. I seemed to behave like an automaton.” He stopped short and raised his eyes from the contemplation of his hands. “It’s possible,” he said, “that I may have made a mistake over the first tube. It may not have been empty.”

“Even if the tube had been full,” suggested Alleyn, “would that explain how the tablets got into the measure-glass?”

“I… what do you say?”

“You say that the first tube may not have been empty, and you wish me to infer from this that you are responsible for Sir Derek’s death?”