Dalgliesh’s bitter voice broke in on the silence.
The usual Teutonic plea of legality you note, Sergeant They didn’t waste much time with their killings did they? Admitted at seven thirty and injected soon after nine. And why evipan? They couldn’t be sure that death would be instantaneous unless they injected a heavy dose. I doubt whether less than 20 c.c. would kill immediately. Not that it would worry them. What saved Grobel was being on leave until late that evening. The Defense claimed that she was never told that the foreign prisoners had arrived, that no one knew until the morning of the fourth. That same plea gave the pharmacist his freedom. Technically they were born innocent, if yon can use that word of anyone who worked at Steinhoff.“
Masterson was silent It was all so long ago. Grobel had been a girt Ten years younger than he was now. The war was old history. It had no more relevance to his life than had the Wars of the Roses, less since it did not even evoke the faintly romantic and chivalrous overtones of the history learned in his boyhood. He had no particular feelings about the Germans, or indeed about any race other than the few he regarded as culturally and intellectually inferior. The Germans were not among these. Germany to him meant clean hotels and good roads, rippchen eaten with the local wine at the Apfel Wine Struben Inn, the Rhine curving below him like a silver ribbon, the excellence of the camping ground at Koblenz.
And if any of the accused from Felsenbeim were alive they would be well into middle age now. Irmgard Grobel herself would be forty-three. It was all such old history. It had relevance only because it touched this present case. He said:
“It happened so long ago. Is a secret like that worth killing to preserve? Who really cares now? Isn’t the official policy to forgive and forget?”
“We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends. Take a look at this book, Masterson. What do you notice?”
Masterson let the pages fall apart, shook them gently, lifted the book to eye level and examined the binding. Then he replaced it on the table and pressed back the middle pages. There, embedded deep in the folds were a few grains of sand.
Dalgliesh said: “We’ve sent a sample to the lab for analysis, but the result isn’t much in doubt. It’s almost certainly from one of the fire buckets in Nightingale House.”
“So that’s where it was hidden until he, or she, could return it to the library. The same person hid the book and the tin of rose spray. It all hangs together very neatly, sir.”
“A little too neatly, don’t you think?” said Dalgliesh.
But Sergeant Masterson had remembered something else.
That brochure, the one we found in Pearce’s room! Wasn’t it about the work of a Suffolk Refuge for Fascist War Victims? Suppose Pearce sent for it? Is this another example of making the punishment fit the crime?“
“I think so. We’ll get in touch with the place in the morning and find out what, if anything, she promised them. And we’ll talk again to Courtney-Briggs. He was in Nightingale House at about the time Fallon died. When we know who he came to see and why, we shall be close to solving this case. But all that must wait for tomorrow.”
Masterson stifled a yawn. He said: “It’s been tomorrow, sir, for nearly three hours.”
II
If the night porter of the Falconer’s Arms was surprised at the return of the two guests in the small hours of the morning, one obviously ill and with his head ostentatiously bandaged, he was trained not to show it. His inquiry whether there was anything he could get for the gentlemen was perfunctory; Masterson’s reply barely civil. They climbed the three flights of stairs to their floor since the old-fashioned lift was erratic and noisy. Dalgliesh, obstinately determined not to betray his weakness to his Sergeant, made himself take each step without grasping the banister. He knew it to be a foolish vanity and by the time he had gained his room he was paying for it. He was so weak that he had to lean against the closed door for a minute before weaving his unsteady way over to the wash-basin. Grasping the taps for support, he retched painfully and ineffectually, his forehead resting on his forearms. Without lifting his head he twisted on the right-hand tap. There was a gush of ice-cold water. He swilled it over his face and gulped it down from cupped hands. Immediately he felt better.
He slept fitfully. It was difficult to rest his cocooned head comfortably on the pillows, and loss of blood seemed to have left his mind preternaturally active and lucid, militating against sleep. When he did doze it was only to dream. He was walking in the grounds of the hospital with Mavis Gearing. She was skipping girlishly between the trees, brandishing her garden shears and saying kittenishly:
“It’s wonderful what you can find to make a show even in this dead time of the year.”
It didn’t strike him as incongruous that she was snipping full blown red roses from the dead branches, or that neither of them remarked on the body of Mary Taylor, white neck encircled by the hangman’s noose, as she swung gently from one of the boughs.
Towards morning he slept more deeply. Even so, the harsh incessant ring of the telephone woke him to instant consciousness. The illuminated dial of his traveling clock showed 5.49 a.m. He shifted his bead with difficulty from the hollowed pillow and felt for the receiver. The voice was instantly recognizable. But then he knew that he could have distinguished it from any other woman’s voice in the world.
“Mr. Dalgliesh? This is Mary Taylor. I’m sorry to disturb you but I thought you’d prefer me to ring. We have a fire here. Nothing dangerous; it’s only in the grounds. It seems to have started in a disused gardener’s hut about fifty yards from Nightingale House. The house itself isn’t in any danger but the fire spread very quickly among the trees.”
He was surprised how clearly he could think. His wound no longer ached. He felt literally light-headed and it was necessary to touch the rough gauze of the bandage to reassure himself that it was still there. He said:
“Morag Smith. Is she all right? She used that hut as a kind of refuge.”
“I know. She told me so this evening after she’d brought you in. I gave her a bed here for the night Morag is safe. That was the first thing I checked.”
“And the others in Nightingale House?”
There was a silence. Then she spoke, her voice sharper.
“I’ll check now. It never occurred to me…”
“Of course not Why should it? I’ll come over.”
“Is that necessary? Mr. Courtney-Briggs was insistent that you should rest. The fire brigade have things under control. At first they were afraid that Nightingale House was threatened but they’ve axed some of the nearer trees. The blaze should be out in half an hour. Couldn’t you wait till morning?”
“I’m coming over now,” he said.
Masterson was lying flat on his back, drugged with tiredness, his heavy face vacant with sleep, his mouth half-open. It took nearly a minute to rouse him. Dalgliesh would have preferred to leave him there in his stupor, but he knew that in his present weakened state, it wouldn’t be safe for him to drive. Masterson, shaken at last into wakefulness, listened to his Superintendent’s instructions without comment then pulled on his clothes in resentful silence. He was too prudent to question Dalgliesh’s decision to return to Nightingale House, but it was obvious by his sullen manner that he thought the excursion unnecessary, and the short drive to the hospital was spent in silence.