At least it was activity. Miss Beale saw that the thin, fair student was shaking. She helped her into one of the easy chairs and the dark, sulky-looking girl promptly took the other. Trust her to look after number one, thought Miss Beale. She busied herself helping the other students to clear the desk and push it back against the wall. If only she could send one of them to make some teal Despite her intellectual assent to more modern methods of combating shock, Miss Beale still put her faith in warm strong sweet tea. But there wasn’t a chance of any. It wouldn’t do to upset and alert the kitchen staff.
“Now suppose we introduce ourselves,” she said encouragingly. “My name is Miss Muriel Beale. There’s no need to tell you I’m a G.N.C. Inspector. I know some of your names but I am not really sure who is who.”
Five pairs of eyes gazed at her with startled incomprehension. But the efficient student-as Miss Beale still thought of her-quietly identified them.
“The twins are Maureen and Shirley Burt. Maureen is the elder by about two minutes and has the most freckles. Otherwise we don’t find it easy to tell them apart Next to Maureen is Julia Pardoe. Christine Dakers is in one armchair and Diane Harper in the other. I’m Madeleine Goodale.”
Miss Beale, never good at remembering names, made her customary mental recapitulation. The Burt twins. Bonny and bouncing. It would be easy enough to remember their name, although impossible to decide which was which. Julia Pardoe. An attractive name for an attractive girl. Very attractive if one liked that blonde, rather feline prettiness. Smiling into the unresponsive violet-blue eyes, Miss Beale decided that some people, and not all of them men, might like it very much indeed. Madeleine Goodale. A good sensible name for a good sensible girl. She thought she would have no difficulty in remembering Goodale. Christine Dakers. Something very wrong there. The girl had looked ill throughout the brief demonstration and now seemed close to collapse. She had a poor skin, unusually so for a nurse. It was now drained of color so that the spots around the mouth and over the forehead stood out in an angry rash. She was huddled deep into the armchair, her thin hands alternately smoothing and plucking at her apron. Nurse Dakers was certainly the most affected of all the group. Perhaps she had been a particular friend of Nurse Pearce. Miss Beale superstitiously made a quick mental amendment of tense. Perhaps she was a particular friend. If only they could get the girl some hot reviving tea!
Nurse Harper, her lipstick and eye shadow garish on the whitened face said suddenly: “There must have been something in the feed.”
The Burt twins turned to her simultaneously. Maureen said:
“Of course there was! Milk.”
“I mean something beside the milk.” She hesitated. “Poison.”
“But there couldn’t be! Shirley and I took a fresh bottle of milk out of the kitchen fridge first thing this morning. Miss Collins was there and saw us. We left it in the demo room and didn’t pour it into the measuring jug until just before the demonstration, did we, Shirley?”
“That’s right It was a fresh bottle. We took it at about 7 o’clock.”
“And you didn’t add anything by mistake?”
“Like what? Of course we didn’t”
The twins spoke in unison, sounding sturdily confident, almost unworried. They knew exactly what they had done and when, and no one, Miss Beale saw, was likely to shake them. They weren’t the type to be tormented by unnecessary guilt or fretted by those irrational doubts which afflict less stolid, more imaginative personalities. Miss Beale thought that she understood them very well.
Julia Pardoe said: “Perhaps someone else mucked about with the feed.”
She looked round at her fellow students from under lowered lids, provocative, a little amused.
Madeleine Goodale said calmly: “Why should they?”
Nurse Pardoe shrugged and pursed her lips into a little secret smile. She said: “By accident Or it might have been a practical joke. Or perhaps it was done on purpose.”
“But that would be attempted murder!” It was Diane Harper who spoke. She sounded incredulous. Maureen Burt laughed.
“Don’t be daft, Julia. Who would want to murder Pearce?”
No one replied. The logic was apparently unassailable. It was impossible to imagine anyone wanting to murder Pearce. Pearce, Miss Beale realized, was either of the company of the naturally inoffensive or was too negative a personality to inspire the tormenting hatred which can lead to murder. Then Nurse Goodale said drily: “Pearce wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.”
Miss Beale glanced at the girl, surprised. It was an odd remark to come from Nurse Goodale, a little insensitive in the circumstances, disconcertingly out of character. She noted, too, the use of the past tense. Here was one student who didn’t expect to see Nurse Pearce alive again.
Nurse Harper reiterated stoutly: “It’s daft to talk about murder. No one would want to kill Pearce.”
Nurse Pardoe shrugged: “Perhaps it wasn’t meant for Pearce. Jo Fallon was supposed to act as patient today, wasn’t she? It was Fallon’s name next on the list If she hadn’t been taken ill last night, it would have been Fallon in that bed this morning.”
They were silent Nurse Goodale turned to Miss Beale.
“She’s right. We take it in strict turn to act as patient; it wasn’t really Pearce’s turn this morning. But Josephine Fallon was taken into the sick bay last night-you’ve probably heard that we have an influenza epidemic-and Pearce was next on the list Pearce was taking Fallon’s place.”
Miss Beale was momentarily at a loss. She felt that she ought to put a stop to the conversation, that it was her responsibility to keep their minds off the accident and surely it could only have been an accident. But she didn’t know how. Besides, there was a dreadful fascination in getting at the facts. For her, there always had been. Perhaps, too, it was better that the girls should indulge this detached, investigatory interest rather than sit there making unnatural and ineffective conversation. Already she saw that shock was giving way to that half-ashamed excitement which can follow tragedy, so long, of course, as it is someone else’s tragedy.
Julia Pardoe’s composed, rather childish voice went on: “So if the victim was really meant to be Fallon, it couldn’t have been one of us, could it? We all knew that Fallon wouldn’t be acting the patient this morning.”
Madeleine Goodale said: “I should think that everyone knew. Everyone at Nightingale House anyway. There was enough talk about it at breakfast”
They were silent again, considering this new development Miss Beale noted with interest that there were no protestations that no one would want to murder Fallon. Then Maureen Burt said:
“Fallon can’t be all that sick. She was back here in Nightingale House this morning, just after eight-forty. Shirley and I saw her slipping out of the side door just before we went into the demo room after breakfast.”
Nurse Goodale asked sharply: “What was she wearing?” Maureen was unsurprised at this apparently irrelevant question.
“Slacks. Her top coat That red headscarf she wears. Why?”
Nurse Goodale, obviously shaken and surprised, made an attempt to conceal it. She said:
“She slipped those on before we took her to the sick bay last night. I suppose she came back to fetch something she wanted from her room. But she shouldn’t have left the ward. It was stupid. She had a temperature of 103.8 when she was warded. Lucky for her that Sister Brumfett didn’t see her.”
Nurse Pardoe said maliciously: “Funny though, isn’t it?” No one replied. It was indeed funny, thought Miss Beale. She recalled her long damp drive from the hospital to the nurse training school. The road was a winding one; obviously there would be a short cut through the trees. But it was a strange journey for a sick girl to make on an early January morning. There must have been some compelling reason to bring her back to Nightingale House. After all, if she did want something from her room there was nothing to prevent her asking for it Any of the students would gladly have taken it across to the sick bay. And this was the girl who should have played the patient that morning, who should, logically, be lying next door among the tangle of tubes and linen.