Ngaio Marsh - The Nursing Home Murder

“Oh,” wailed Ruth, raising her head. “Oh, how did you know? Cicely said I’d better not say. I told her. Oh, what shall I do?”

“Have you kept the box with the other powders?”

“Yes. He — they told me not to, but — but I thought if they were poison and I’d killed him— ” Her voice rose with a shrill note of horror. “I thought I’d take them — myself. Kill myself. Lots of us do, you know. Great-Uncle Eustace did, and Cousin Olive Casbeck, and— ”

“You’re not going to do anything so cowardly. What would he have thought of you? You’re going to do the brave thing and help us to find the truth. Come along,” said Alleyn, for all the world as if she were a child, “come along. Where are these terrible powders? In that bag still, I don’t mind betting.”

“Yes,” whispered Ruth, opening her eyes very wide. “They are in that bag. You’re quite right. You’re very clever to think of that. I thought if you arrested me— ” She made a very strange gesture with her clenched hand, jerking it up across her mouth.

“Give them to me,” said Alleyn. She began obediently to scuffle in the vast bag. All sorts of things came shooting out. He was in a fever of impatience lest the others should return, and moved to the door. At last the round cardboard box appeared. He gathered up the rest of Ruth’s junk and bundled it back as the door opened. Nurse Graham stood aside to let Phillips in.

“I think it was about now,” she said.

“Right,” said Alleyn. “Now, Sir John, I believe Miss O’Callaghan left the room while you examined the patient, diagnosed the trouble, and decided on an immediate operation.”

“Yes. When Lady O’Callaghan returned I suggested that Somerset Black should operate.”

“Quite so. Lady O’Callaghan urged you to do it yourself. Everyone agree to that?”

“Yes,” said Nurse Graham quietly. Ruth merely sat and gaped. Lady O’Callaghan turned with an unusual abruptness and walked to the window.

“Then you, Sir John, went away to prepare for the operation?”

“Yes.”

“That finishes this part of the business, then.”

“No!”

Cicely O’Callaghan’s voice rang out so fiercely that they all jumped. She had faced round and stood with her eyes fixed on Phillips. She looked magnificent. It was as if a colourless façade had been flood-lit.

“No! Why do you deliberately ignore what we all heard, what I myself have told you? Ask Sir John what my husband said when he saw who it was we had brought here to help him.” She turned deliberately to Phillips. “What did Derek say to you — what did he say?”

Phillips looked at her as though he saw her for the first time. His face expressed nothing but a profound astonishment. When he answered it was with a kind of reasonableness and with no suggestion of heroics. “He was frightened,” he said.

“He cried out to us: ‘Don’t let— ’ You remember” — she appealed with assurance to Nurse Graham—“you remember what he looked like — you understood what he meant?”

“I said then,” said Nurse Graham with spirit, “and I say now, that Sir Derek did not know what he was saying.”

“Well,” remarked Alleyn mildly, “as we all know about it, I think you and I, Sir John, will go downstairs.” He turned to the O’Callaghans.

“Actually, I believe, you both stayed on in the hospital during the operation, but, of course, there is no need for you to do so now. Lady O’Callaghan, shall I ask for your car to take you back to Catherine Street? If you will forgive me, I must go to the theatre.”

Suddenly he realised that she was in such a fury that she could not answer. He took Phillips by the elbow and propelled him through the door.

“We will leave Nurse Graham,” he said, “alone with her patient.”

Thursday, the eighteenth. Late afternoon.

The “theatre party” appeared to have entered heartily into the spirit of the thing. A most convincing activity was displayed in the anteroom, where Sister Marigold, Jane Harden and a very glum-faced Banks washed and clattered while Inspector Fox, his massive form wedged into a corner, looked on with an expressionless countenance and a general air of benignity. A faint bass drone from beyond the swing-door informed Alleyn of the presence in the theatre of Inspector Boys.

“All ready, matron?” asked Alleyn.

“Quite ready, inspector.”

“Well, here we all are.” He stood aside and Phillips, Thoms and Roberts walked in.

“Are you at about the same stage as you were when the doctors came in?”

“At exactly the same stage.”

“Good. What happens now?” He turned to the men. No one spoke for a moment. Roberts turned deferentially towards Phillips, who had moved across to Jane Harden. Jane and Phillips did not look at each other. Phillips appeared not to have heard Alleyn’s question. Thoms cleared his throat importantly.

“Well now, let’s see. If I’m not speaking out of my turn, I should say we got down to the job straight away. Roberts said he’d go along to the anæsthetic-room and Sir John, I believe, went into the theatre? That correct, sir?”

“Did you go into the theatre immediately, Sir John?” asked Alleyn.

“What? I? Yes, I believe so.”

“Before you washed?”

“Naturally.”

“Well, let’s start, shall we? Dr. Roberts, did you go alone to the anæsthetic-room?”

“No. Nurse — er—?” Roberts blinked at Banks. “Nurse Banks went with me. I looked at the anæsthetising apparatus and asked Nurse Banks to let Sir Derek’s nurse know when we were ready.”

“Will you go along, then? Fox, you take over with Dr. Roberts. Now, please, Sir John.”

Phillips at once went through into the theatre, followed by Alleyn. Boys broke off his subterranean humming and at a word from Alleyn took his place in the anteroom. Phillips, without speaking, crossed to the side table, which was set out as before with the three syringes in dishes of water. The surgeon took his hypodermic case from his pocket, looked at the first tube, appeared to find it empty, took out the second, and having squirted a syringeful of water into a measure-glass, dropped in a single tablet.

“That is what — what I believe I did,” he said.

“And then? You returned to the anteroom? No. What about Mr. Thoms?”

“Yes. Thoms should be here now.”

“Mr. Thoms, please!” shouted Alleyn.

The door swung open and Thoms came in.

“Hullo, hullo. Want me?”

“I understood you watched Sir John take up the hyoscine solution into the syringe.”

“Oh! Yes, b’lieve I did,” said Thoms, rather less boisterously.

“You commented on the amount of water.”

“Yes, I know, but — look here, you don’t want to go thinking— ”

“I simply want a reconstruction without comment, Mr. Thoms.”

“Oh, quite, quite.”

Phillips stood with the syringe in his hand. He looked gravely and rather abstractedly at his assistant. At a nod from Alleyn he filled the syringe.

“It is now that Thoms remarks on the quantity of water,” he said quietly. “I snub him and go back into the anæsthetic-room, where I give the injection. The patient is there with the special nurse.” He took up the syringe and walked away. Thoms moved away with a grimace at Alleyn, who said abruptly:

“Just a moment, Mr. Thoms. I think you stayed behind in the theatre for a minute or two.”

“No, I didn’t — beg your pardon, inspector. I thought I went out to the anteroom before Sir John moved.”

“Sir John thought not, and the nurses had the impression you came in a little later.”

“Maybe,” said Thoms. “I really can’t remember.”