“One person did precisely that That was at twelve seventeen a.m. There was no warning scarf tied on the branches at that time.”
The ophthalmoscope moved to the other eye. The surgeon’s breathing was perfectly regular.
“He was mistaken.”
“He doesn’t think so.”
“So you deduce that I arrived at the fallen tree later than twelve seventeen a.m. It may have been so. As I wasn’t concocting an alibi, I didn’t check the time every two minutes.”‘
“But you’re not suggesting that it took you over seventeen minutes to drive from the main hospital to that particular place.”
“Oh, I think I could make out quite a case for the delay, don’t you know. I could claim that I needed, in your deplorable police jargon, to obey a call of nature and left my car to meditate among the trees.”
“And did you?”
“I may have done. When I’ve dealt with your head, which incidentally is going to need about a dozen stitches, I’ll give some thought to the matter. You’ll forgive me if I concentrate now on my own job.”
The matron had quietly returned. She took up her stance next to Courtney-Briggs like an acolyte waiting for orders. Her face was very white. Without waiting for her to speak the surgeon handed her the ophthalmoscope. She said:
“Everyone who should be in Nightingale House is in her room.”
Courtney-Briggs was running his hands over Dalgliesh’s left shoulder causing pain with every thrust of the strong probing fingers. He said:
“The collar-bone seems all right. Badly bruised but not fractured. Your attacker must have been a tall woman. You’re over six feet yourself.”
“If it were a woman. Or she may have had a long weapon, a golf club perhaps.”
“A golf club. Matron, what about your clubs? Where do yon keep them?”
She answered dully: “In the hall at the bottom of my staircase. The bag is usually left just inside the door.”
Then you’d better check them now.“
She was gone for less than two minutes and they waited her return in silence. When she came back she spoke directly to Dalgliesh.
“One of the irons is missing.”
The news seemed to hearten Courtney-Briggs. He said almost jovially:
“Well, there’s your weapon for you! But there’s not much point in searching for it tonight. It’ll be lying about somewhere in the grounds. Your men can find it and do everything necessary to it tomorrow; test it for finger-prints, look for blood and hair, all the usual tricks. You’re not in any fit state to bother yourself tonight. We’ve got to get this wound sutured. I shall have to get you over to the out-patient theatre. You’ll need an anesthetic.”
“I don’t want an anesthetic.”
“Then I can give you a local That just means a few injections around the wound. We could do this here, Matron.”
“I don’t want any anesthetic. I just want it stitched.”
Courtney-Briggs explained patiently as if to a child.
“It’s a very deep cut and it’s got to be sutured. It’s going to hurt badly if you won’t accept an anesthetic.”
“I tell you I don’t want one. And I don’t want a prophylactic injection of penicillin or anti-tetanus. I just want it sutured.”
He felt them look at each other. He knew that he was being obstinately unreasonable but he didn’t care. Why couldn’t they get on with it? Then Courtney-Briggs spoke, curiously formaclass="underline"
“If you’d prefer another surgeon…”
“No, I just want you to get on with it”
There was a moment’s silence. Then the surgeon spoke:
“All right. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
He was aware that Mary Taylor had moved behind “him. She drew his head back against her breast, supported in between cold, firm hands. He shut his eyes like a child. The needle felt immense, an iron rod simultaneously ice cold and red hot which pierced his skull time and time again. The pain was an abomination, made bearable only by anger and by his obstinate determination not to betray weakness. He set his features into a rigid mask. But it was infuriating to feel the involuntary tears seeping under his eyelids.
After an eternity he realized that it was over. He heard himself say:
“Thank you. And now I’d like to get back to my office. Sergeant Masterson has instructions to come on here if I’m not in the hotel. He can drive me home.”
Mary Taylor was winding a crepe bandage around his head. She didn’t speak. Courtney-Briggs said:
“I’d prefer you to go straight to bed. We can let you have a room in the Medical Officers’ quarters for tonight I’ll arrange for an X-ray first thing in the morning. Then I’d like to see you again.”
“You can arrange what you like for tomorrow. Just now I’d like to be left alone.”
He got up from the chair. She put a hand on his arm, supporting him. But he must have made some kind of gesture for she dropped her arm. He felt surprisingly light on his feet It was odd that such an insubstantial body could support the weight of so heavy a head. He put up an exploring hand and felt the scrape of the bandage; it seemed an immense distance from his skull. Then, focusing his eyes carefully, he walked unhindered across the room to the door. As he reached it, he heard Courtney-Briggs’s voice.
“You will want to know where I was at the time of the attack. I was in my room in the Medical Officers’ quarters. I’m staying there for tonight ready for an early operating session. I’m sorry I can’t oblige you with an alibi. I can only hope that you realize that, if I want to put anyone out of the way, I have subtler methods at my disposal than a golf iron.”
Dalgliesh didn’t reply. Without looking round and without a further word he left them and closed the door of the demonstration room quietly behind him. The stairs looked a formidable climb and, at first, he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to make it. But he grasped the banister resolutely and, step by careful step, made his way back to the office and settled down to wait for Masterson.
Chapter Eight
I
It was nearly two in the morning when the gate porter waved Masterson through the main entrance of the hospital. The wind was rising steadily as he drove along the twisting path to Nightingale House between an avenue of black rumbustious trees. The house was in darkness except for the one lit window where Dalgliesh was still working. Masterson scowled at it. It had been irritating and disconcerting to discover that Dalgliesh was still at Nightingale House. He expected to have to give his report on the day’s activities; the prospect wasn’t unpleasing since he was fortified by success. But it had been a long day. He hoped that they weren’t in for one of the Superintendent’s all-night sessions.
Masterson let himself in at the side door, double locking it behind him. The silence of the vast entrance hall received him, eerie and portentous. The house seemed to be holding its breath. He smelt again the alien but now familiar amalgam of disinfectant and floor polish, unwelcoming and faintly sinister. As if afraid to stir the sleeping house-half empty as it was- he did not switch on the light but made his way across the hall by the beam of his electric torch. The notices on the hall board gleamed white reminding him of mourning cards in the vestibule of some foreign cathedral. Of your charity pray for the soul of Josephine Fallon. He found himself tiptoeing up the stairs as if afraid to wake the dead.
In the first-floor office Dalgliesh was sitting at his desk with the file open before him. Masterson stood stock-still in the doorway, concealing his surprise. The Superintendent’s face was drawn and gray under an immense cocoon of white crepe bandage. He was sitting bolt upright, forearms resting on the desk, palms spread lightly each side of the page. The pose was familiar.“ Masterson reflected, not for the first time, that the Superintendent had remarkable hands and knew how to display them to advantage. He had long decided that Dalgliesh was one of the proudest men he knew. This essential conceit was too carefully guarded to be generally recognized, but it was gratifying to catch him out in the one of the lesser vanities. Dalgliesh looked up without smiling.