He became aware of a confused background mumbling. She had returned to a recital of her grievance.
“Kept looking at me all the time ‘e did. And asking the same old thing over and over again. Stuck up too. You could see that he fancied himself.”
Suddenly she turned to Dalgliesh.
“You feeling sexy?”
Dalgliesh gave the question serious attention.
“No. I’m too old to feel sexy when I’m cold and tired. At my age you need the creature comforts if you’re to perform with any pleasure to your partner or credit to yourself.”
She gave him a look in which disbelief struggled with commiseration.
“You’re not that old. Thanks for the ‘anky anyway.”
She gave one last convulsive blow before handing it back. Dalgliesh slipped it quickly into his pocket, resisting the temptation to drop it unobtrusively behind the bench. Stretching his legs ready to move, he only half heard her next words.
“What did you say?” he asked, careful to keep his voice level, uninquisitorial.
She answered sulkily.
“I said that ‘e never found out about me drinking the milk anyway, bugger ’im. I never told ”im.“
“Was that the milk used for the demonstration feed? When did you drink it?”
He tried to sound conversational, only mildly interested. But he was aware of the silence in the hut and the two sharp eyes staring at him. Could she really be unaware of what she was telling him?
“It was at eight o’clock, maybe a minute before. I went into the demo room to see if I’d left my tin of polish there. And there was this bottle of milk on the trolley and I drank some of it Just a bit off the top.”
“Just out of the bottle?”
“Well, there wasn’t any cup ”andy was there? I was thirsty and I saw the milk and I just fancied a bit. So I took a swig.“
He asked the crucial question.
“You just had the cream off the top?”
“There wasn’t no cream. It wasn’t that kind of milk.”
His heart leapt.
“And what did you do then?”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“But weren’t you afraid that Sister Tutor would notice that the bottle wasn’t full?”
“The bottle was full. I filled it up with water from the tap. Anyway, I only took a couple of gulps.”
“And replaced the seal on top of the bottle?”
“That’s right. Careful like so as they wouldn’t notice.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“No one asked me. That Inspector asked me if I’d been in the demo room and I said only before seven o’clock when I did a bit of cleaning. I wasn’t going to tell ‘im nothing. It wasn’t ’is bloody milk anyway; ‘e never paid for it”
“Morag, are you quite, quite sure of the time?”
“Eight o’clock. The demo clock said eight anyway. I looked at it because I was supposed to help serve the breakfasts, the dining-room maids being off with flu. Some people think you can be in three places at once. Anyway, I went into the dining-room where the Sisters and the students had all started eating. Then Miss Collins gave me one of ‘er looks. Late again Morag! So it must ’ave been eight The students always start breakfast at eight.”
“And were they all there?”
“Of course they was all there! I told yer! They was at their breakfast”
But he knew that they had been there. The twenty-five minutes from eight until eight twenty-five was the only time in which all the female suspects had been together, eating under the eye of Miss Collins and full in each other’s gaze. If Morag’s story were true, and he didn’t for one moment doubt it then the scope of the inquiry had been dramatically narrowed. There were only six people who had no firm alibi for the whole of the period from eight o’clock until the class assembled at eight forty. He would have to check the statements of course, but he knew what he would find. This was the sort of information he had been trained to recall at will and the names came obediently to mind. Sister Rolfe, Sister Gearing, Sister Brumfett, Nurse Goodale, Leonard Morris and Stephen Courtney-Briggs.
He pulled the girl gently to her feet.
“Come on, Morag, I’m going to see you back to the hostel. You’re a very important witness and I don’t want you to get pneumonia before I’ve had a chance to take your statement.”
“I don’t want to write nothing down. I’m no scholar.”
“Someone will write it down for you. You’ll only have to sign it.”
“I don’t mind doing that I’m not daft. I can sign my name I ‘ope.”
And he would have to be there to see that she did. He had a feeling that Sergeant Masterson would be no more successful than Inspector Bailey in dealing with Morag. It would be safer to take her statement himself even if it meant a later start than he had planned for his journey to London.
But it would be time well spent As he turned to pull the died door firmly closed behind them-it had no lock-he felt happier than at any time since the finding of the nicotine. Now he was making progress. On the whole, it hadn’t been too bad a day.
Chapter Seven
I
It was five minutes to seven the next morning. Sergeant Masterson and Detective Constable Greeson were in the kitchen at Nightingale House with Miss Collins and Mrs. Muncie. It seemed like the middle of the night to Masterson, dark and cold. The kitchen smelt agreeably of new baked bread, a country smell, nostalgic and comforting. But Miss Collins was no prototype of the buxom and welcoming country cook. She watched, lips tight and arms akimbo, as Greeson placed a filled milk bottle in the front of the middle shelf of the refrigerator, and said:
“Which one are they supposed to take?”
“The first bottle to hand. That’s what they did before, didn’t they?”
“So they say. I had something better to do than sit and watch them. I’ve got something better to do now.”
“That’s okay by us. We’ll do the watching.”
Four minutes later the Burt twins came in together. No one spoke. Shirley opened the refrigerator door and Maureen took out the first bottle to hand. Followed by Masterson and Greeson the twins made their way to the demonstration room through the silent and echoing hall. The room was empty and the curtains drawn. The two fluorescent lights blazed down on a semicircle of vacant chairs and on the high narrow bed where a grotesque demonstration doll, round mouthed, nostrils two black and gaping apertures, was propped against the pillows. The twins set about their preparations in silence. Maureen set down the bottle on the trolley, then dragged out the drip-feed apparatus and positioned it by the side of the bed. Shirley collected instruments and bowls from the various cupboards and set them out on the trolley. The two policemen watched. After twenty minutes Maureen said:
“That’s as much as we did before breakfast We left the room just like it is now.”
Masterson said: “Okay. Then we’ll put forward our watches to eight forty when you came back here. There’s no point in hanging about We can call the rest of the students in now.”
Obediently the twins adjusted their pocket watches while Greeson rang the library where the remaining students were waiting. They came almost immediately and in the order of their original appearance. Madeleine Goodale first followed by Julia Pardoe and Christine Dakers who arrived together. No one made any attempt to talk and they took their places silently on the semicircle of chairs, shivering a little as if the room were cold. Masterson noticed that they kept their eyes averted from the grotesque doll in the bed. When they had settled themselves he said:
“Right Nurse. You can go ahead with the demonstration now. Start heating the milk.”