Ngaio Marsh - The Nursing Home Murder

“You notice this, Mr. Thoms?”

“Well, I’m afraid, inspector, I rather disgraced myself by kicking up a rumpus. What, nurse? Bit hard on you, what? Didn’t know how the land lay. Too bad, wasn’t it?”

“When you had finished, Nurse Harden brought the large syringe?”

“Yes.”

Jane came back with the syringe on a tray. “Thoms took it,” went the jingle in Alleyn’s head.

“I injected it,” said Thoms.

“Mr. Thoms then asked about the condition,” added Roberts. “I said it was disquieting. I remember Sir John remarked that although he knew the patient personally he had had no idea he was ill. Nurse Banks and I lifted the patient on to the trolley and he was taken away.”

They did this with the dummy.

“Then I fainted,” said Jane.

“A dramatic finish — what?” shouted Thoms, who seemed to have quite recovered his equilibrium.

“The end,” said Alleyn, “came later. The patient was then taken back to his room, where you attended him, Dr. Roberts. Was anyone with you?”

“Nurse Graham was there throughout. I left her in the room when I returned here to report on the general condition, which I considered markedly worse.”

“And in the meantime Sir John and Mr. Thoms washed up in the anteroom?”

“Yes,” said Phillips.

“What did you talk about?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh yes, sir, you do, surely,” said Thoms. “We talked about Nurse Harden doing a faint, and I said I could see the operation had upset you, and you—” he grinned —“you first said it hadn’t, you know, and then said it had. Very natural, really,” he explained to Alleyn, who raised one eyebrow and turned to the nurses.

“And you cleaned up the theatre, and Miss Banks gave one of her well-known talks on the Dawn of the Proletariat Day?”

“I did,” said Banks with a snap.

“Meanwhile Dr. Roberts came down and reported, and you and Mr. Thoms, Sir John, went up to the patient?”

“Yes. The matron, Sister Marigold, joined us. We found the patient’s condition markedly worse. As you know, he died about half an hour later, without regaining consciousness.”

“Thank you. That covers the ground. I am extremely grateful to all of you for helping us with this rather unpleasant business. I won’t keep you any longer.” He turned to Phillips. “You would like to get out of your uniforms, I’m sure.”

“If you’re finished,” agreed Phillips. Fox opened the swing-door and he went through, followed by Thoms, Sister Marigold, Jane Harden, and Banks. Dr. Roberts crossed to the anæsthetising apparatus.

“I’ll get this out of the way,” he said.

“Oh — do you mind leaving it while you change?” said Alleyn. “I just want to make a plan of the floor.”

“Certainly,” said Roberts.

“Would you be very kind and see if you can beat me up a sheet of paper and a pencil, Dr. Roberts? Sorry to bother you, but I hardly like to send one of my own people hunting for it.”

“Shall I ask?” suggested Roberts.

He put his head round the door into the anteroom and spoke to someone on the other side.

“Inspector Alleyn would like— ”

Fox walked heavily across from the other end of the theatre.

“I can hear a telephone ringing its head off out there, sir,” he said, looking fixedly at Alleyn.

“Really? I wonder if it’s that call from the Yard? Go and see, will you, Fox? Sister Marigold won’t mind, I’m sure.”

Fox went out.

“Inspector Alleyn,” ventured Roberts, “I do hope that the reconstruction has been satisfactory— ” He broke off. Phillips’s resonant voice could be heard in the anteroom. With a glance towards it Roberts ended wistfully: “—from every point of view.”

Alleyn smiled at him, following his glance.

“From that point of view, Dr. Roberts, most satisfactory.”

“I’m extremely glad.”

Jane Harden came in with a sheet of paper and pencil, which she gave Alleyn. She went out. Roberts watched Alleyn lay the paper on the side table and take out his steel tape measure. Fox returned.

“Telephone for Dr. Roberts, I believe, sir,” he announced.

“Oh — for you, is it?” said Alleyn.

Roberts went out through the anæsthetic-room.

“Shut that door, quick,” said Alleyn urgently.

Evidently he had changed his mind about making a plan. He darted like a cat across the room and bent over the frame of the anæsthetic apparatus. His fingers were busy with the nuts.

Boys stood in front of one door, Fox by the other.

“Hell’s teeth, it’s stiff,” muttered Alleyn.

The double doors from the anteroom opened suddenly, banging Inspector Boys in the broad of his extensive back.

“Just a minute, sir, just a minute,” he rumbled.

Under his extended arm appeared the face of Mr. Thoms. His eyes were fixed on Alleyn.

“What are you doing?” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Just a minute, if you please, sir,” repeated Boys, and with an enormous but moderate paw he thrust Thoms back and closed the doors.

“Look at this!” whispered Alleyn.

Fox and Boys, for a split second, glimpsed what he held in his hand. Then he bent down again and worked feverishly.

“What'll we do?” asked Fox quietly. “Go right into it — now?”

For an instant Alleyn hesitated. Then he said:

“No — not here. Wait! Work it this way.”

He had given his instructions when Roberts returned from the telephone.

“Nobody there,” he told them. “I rang up my house, but there’s no message. Whoever it was must have been cut off.”

“Bore for you,” said Alleyn.

Sister Marigold came in, followed by Thoms. Marigold saw the Yard men still in possession, and hesitated.

“Hullo, ’ullo,” shouted Thoms, “what’s all this. Caught Roberts in the act?”

“Really, Mr. Thoms,” said Roberts in a rage and went over to his apparatus.

“All right, matron,” said Alleyn, “I’m done. You want to clear up, I expect.”

“Oh, well — yes.”

“Go ahead. We’ll make ourselves scarce. Fox, you and Boys give Dr. Roberts a hand out with that cruet-stand.”

“Thank you,” said Roberts, “I’ll manage.”

“No trouble at all, sir,” Fox assured him.

Alleyn left them there. He ran downstairs and out into Brook Street, where he hailed a taxi.

In forty minutes the same taxi put him down in Wigmore Street. This time he had two plain-clothes sergeants with him. Dr. Roberts’s little butler opened the door. His face was terribly white. He looked at Alleyn without speaking and then stood aside. Alleyn, followed by his men, walked into the drawing-room. Roberts stood in front of the fireplace. Above him the picture of the little lake and the Christmas trees shone cheerfully in the lamplight. Fox stood inside the door, and Boys near the window. The anæsthetic apparatus had been wheeled over by the desk.

When Roberts saw Alleyn he tried to speak, but at first could not. His lips moved as though he was speaking, but there were no words. Then at last they came.

“Inspector Alleyn — why — have you sent these men — after me?”

For a moment they looked at each other.

“I had to,” said Alleyn. “Dr. Roberts, I have a warrant here for your arrest. I must warn you— ”

“What do you mean?” screamed Roberts. “You’ve no grounds — no proof — you fool — what are you doing?”

Alleyn walked over to the thing like a cruet. He stooped down, unscrewed something that looked like a nut and drew it out. With it came a hypodermic syringe. The “nut” was the top of the piston.

“Grounds enough,” said Alleyn.

It took the four men to hold Roberts and they had to put handcuffs on him. The insane are sometimes physically very strong.