Alleyn took a glass of a respectable port to a banquette at the farthest remove from the other tables and opened the evening paper. A distant roar of voices from the two bars bore witness to the Duke’s popularity. At five to nine Sister Jackson walked in. He received the slight shock caused by an encounter with a nurse seen for the first time out of uniform. Sister Jackson was sheathed in clinging blue with a fairly reckless cleavage. She wore a velvet beret that rakishly shaded her face, and insistent gloves. He saw that her makeup was more emphatic than usual, especially about the eyes. She had been crying.
“How punctual we both are,” he said. He turned a chair to the table with its back to the room and facing the banquette. She sat in it without looking at him and with a movement of her shoulders that held a faint suggestion of what might have passed as provocation under happier circumstances. He asked her what she would have to drink and when she hesitated and bridled a little, proposed brandy.
“Well — thank you,” she said. He ordered a double one. When it came she took a sudden pull at it, shuddered and said she had been under a severe strain. It was the first remark of more than three words that she had offered.
“This seems quite a pleasant pub,” he said. “Do you often come here?”
“No. Never. They — we — all use the Crown at Greendale. That’s why I suggested it. To be sure.”
“I’m glad,” Alleyn said, “that whatever it’s all about you decided to tell me.”
“It’s very difficult to begin.”
“Never mind. Try. You said something about blackmail, didn’t you? Shall we begin there?”
She stared at him for an awkwardly long time and then suddenly opened her handbag, pulled out a folded paper and thrust it across the table. She then took another pull at her brandy.
Alleyn unfolded the paper, using his pen and a fingernail to do so. “Were you by any chance wearing gloves when you handled this?” he asked.
“As it happened. I was going out. I picked it up at the desk.”
“Where’s the envelope?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I do. I think. On the floor of my car. I opened it in the car.”
The paper was now spread out on the table. It was of a kind as well-known to the police as a hand-bilclass="underline" a piece of off-white commercial paper, long and narrow, that might have been torn from a domestic aide-mémoire. The message was composed of words and letters that had been cut from newsprint and gummed in two irregular lines.
“Post £500 fives and singles to C. Morris 11 Port Lane Southampton otherwise will inform police your visit to room 20 Genuine”
Alleyn looked at Sister Jackson and Sister Jackson looked like a mesmerized rabbit at him.
“When did it come?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“To Greengages?”
“Yes.”
“Is the envelope addressed in this fashion?”
“Yes. My name’s all in one. I recognized it — it’s from an advertisement in the local rag for Jackson’s Drapery and it’s the same with Greengages Hotel. Cut out of an advertisement.”
“You didn’t comply, of course?”
“No. I didn’t know what to do. I — nothing like that’s ever happened to me — I–I was dreadfully upset.”
“You didn’t ask anyone to advise you?”
She shook her head.
“Dr. Schramm, for instance?”
He could have sworn that her opulent flesh did a little hop and that for the briefest moment an extremely vindictive look flicked on and off. She wetted her mouth. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “No, thank you!”
“This is the only message you’ve received?”
“There’s been something else. Something much worse. Last evening. Soon after eight. They fetched me from the dining-room.”
“What was it? A telephone call?”
“You knew!”
“I guessed. Go on, please.”
“When the waiter told me, I knew. I don’t know why but I did. I knew. I took it in one of the telephone boxes in the hall. I think he must have had something over his mouth. His voice was muffled and peculiar. It said: ‘You got the message.’ I couldn’t speak and then it said: ‘You did or you’d answer. Have you followed instructions?’ I — didn’t know what to say so I said: ‘I will’ and it said ‘you better.’ It said something else, I don’t remember exactly, something about the only warning, I think. That’s all,” said Sister Jackson, and finished her cognac. She held the unsteady glass between her white-gloved paws and put it down awkwardly.
Alleyn said:“Do you mind if I keep this? And would you be kind enough to refold it and put it in here for me?” He took an envelope from his pocket and laid it beside the paper.
She complied and made a shaky business of doing so. He put the envelope in his breast pocket.
“What will he do to me?” asked Sister Jackson.
“The odds are: nothing effective. The police may get something from him but you’ve anticipated that, haven’t you? Or you will do so.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sister Jackson,” Alleyn said. “Don’t you think you had better tell me about your visit to Room Twenty?”
She tried to speak. Her lips moved. She fingered them and then looked at the smudge of red on her glove.
“Come along,” he said.
“You won’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I can’t.”
“Then why have you asked to see me? Surely it was to anticipate whatever the concocter of this message might hâve to say to us. You’ve got in first.”
“I haven’t done anything awful. I’m a fully qualified nurse.”
“Of course you are. Now then, when did you pay this visit?”
She focussed her gaze on the couple in the far corner, stiffened her neck and rattled off her account in a series of disjointed phrases.
It had been at about nine o’clock on the night of Mrs. Foster’s death (Sister Jackson called it her “passing”). She herself walked down the passage on her way to her own quarters. She heard the television bawling away in Number 20. Pop music. She knew Mrs. Foster didn’t appreciate pop and she thought she might have fallen asleep and the noise would disturb the occupants of neighbouring rooms. So she tapped and went in.
Here Sister Jackson paused. A movement of her chin and throat indicated a dry swallow.When she began again her voice was pitched higher but not by any means louder than before.
“The patient—” she said, “Mrs. Foster, I mean — was, as I thought she would be. Asleep. I looked at her and made sure she was — asleep. So I came away. I came away. I wasn’t there for more than three minutes. That’s all. All there is to tell you.”
“How was she lying?”
“On her side, with her face to the wall.”
“When Dr. Schramm found her she was on her back.”
“I know. That proves it. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it!”
“Did you turn off the television?”
“No. Yes! I don’t remember. I think I must have. I don’t know.”
“It was still going when Dr. Schramm found her.”
“Well, I didn’t, then, did I? I didn’t turn it off.”
“Why, I wonder?”
“It’s no good asking me things like that. I’ve been shocked. I don’t remember details.”
She beat on the table. The amorous couple unclinched and one of the card players looked over his shoulder. Sister Jackson had split her glove.
Alleyn said: “Should we continue this conversation somewhere else?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
With a most uncomfortable parody of coquettishness she leant across the table and actually smiled or seemed to smile at him.
“I’ll be all right,” she said.
Their waiter came back and looked enquiringly at her empty glass.