“There is nothing else to say except that no one knew what I intended to do and no one helped me. Ethel Brumfett”
Mary Taylor said: “It’s her handwriting, of course. I found it on her mantelshelf when I came back after I had telephoned you to check that everyone was safe. But is it true?”
“Oh yes, it’s true. She killed both of them. Only the murderess could have known where the tin of nicotine was hidden. It was obvious that the second death was meant to look like suicide. Why then wasn’t the tin left on the bedside table? It could only have been because the killer was interrupted in her plan. Sister Brumfett was the one person in Nightingale House who was called out that night and who was prevented on her return from going into Fallon’s room. But she was always the first suspect The bottle of poison must have been prepared at leisure and by someone who had access to milk bottles and to the disinfectant and who could carry the lethal bottle about with her undetected. Sister Brumfett went nowhere without that large tapestry bag. It was bad luck for her that she happened to choose a bottle with the wrong colored cap. I wonder if she even noticed. Even if she did, there wouldn’t be time to change it The whole plan depended on a substitution which would take merely a second. She would have to hope that no one noticed. And, in fart, no one did. And there is one way in which she was unique among the suspects. She was the only one who wasn’t present to witness either of the deaths. She couldn’t lift a hand against Fallon while the girl was her patient That would have been impossible for her. And she preferred to watch neither murder. It takes a psychopathic killer or a professional willingly to watch their victim die.”
She said: “We know that Heather Pearce was a potential blackmailer. I wonder what pathetic incident from poor Brumfett’s dreary past she’d raked up for her entertainment?”
“I think you know that just as I know. Heather Pearce had found out about Felsenheim.”
She seemed to freeze into silence. She was curled on the edge of the armchair at his feet, her face turned away from him. After a moment she turned and looked at him.
“She wasn’t guilty, you know. Brumfett was conforming, authoritarian, trained to think of unquestioning obedience as a nurse’s first duty. But she didn’t kill her patients. The verdict of that court at Felsenheim was just And even if it wasn’t, it was the verdict of a properly constituted court of law. She is officially innocent.”
Dalgliesh said: “I’m not here to question the verdict at Felsenheim.”
As if he had not spoken she went on eagerly, as if willing him to believe.
“She told me about it when we were both students together at Nethercastle General Infirmary. She lived in Germany most of her childhood but her grandmother was English. After the trial she naturally went free and eventually in 1944 married an English sergeant, Ernest Brumfett She had money and it was a marriage of convenience only, a way of getting out of Germany and into England. Her grandmother was dead by now but she still had some ties with this country. She went to Nethercastle as ward orderly and was so efficient that, after eighteen months, there was no difficulty in getting the Matron to take her on as a student. It was a clever choice of hospital. They weren’t likely to delve too carefully into anyone’s past, particularly into the past of a woman who had proved her worth. The hospital is a large Victorian building, always busy, chronically understaffed. Brumfett and I finished our training together, went together to the local maternity hospital to train as midwives, came south together to the John Carpendar. I’ve known Ethel Brumfett for nearly twenty years. I’ve watched her pay over and over again for anything that happened at the Steinhoff Institution. She was a girl then. We can’t know what happened to her during those childhood years in Germany. We can only know what the grown woman did for this hospital and for her patients. The past has no relevance.”
Dalgliesh said: “Until the thing which she must always have subconsciously dreaded happened at last. Until someone from that past recognized her.”
She said: “Then all the years of work and striving would come to nothing. I can understand that she felt it necessary to kill Pearce. But why Fallon?”
“For four reasons. Nurse Pearce wanted some proof of Martin Dettinger’s story before she spoke to Sister Brumfett The obvious way to get it seemed to be to consult a record of the trial. So she asked Fallon to lend her a library ticket She went up to the Westminster library on the Thursday and again on the Saturday when the book was produced. She must have shown it to Sister Brumfett when she spoke to her, must have mentioned where she got the ticket. Sooner or later Fallon would want that ticket back. It was essential that no one ever found out why Nurse Pearce had wanted it or the name of the book she had borrowed from the library. That was one of several significant facts which Sister Brumfett chose to omit from her confession. After she had substituted the bottle of poison for the one of milk, she came upstairs, took the library book from Nurse Pearce’s room, and hid it in one of the fire buckets until she had an opportunity to return it anonymously to the library. She knew only too well that Pearce would never come out of that demonstration room alive. It was typical of her to choose the same hiding place later for the tin of nicotine. Sister Brumfett wasn’t an imaginative woman.
“But the problem of the library book wasn’t the main reason for killing Nurse Fallon. There were three others. She wanted to confuse the motives, to make it look as if Fallon were the intended victim. If Fallon died there would always be the probability that Pearce had been killed by mistake. It was Fallon who was listed to act as patient on the morning of the inspection. Fallon was a more likely victim. She was pregnant; that alone might provide a motive. Sister Brumfett had nursed her and could have known or guessed about the pregnancy. I don’t think there were many signs or symptoms that Sister Brumfett missed in her patients. Then there was the possibility that Fallon would be held responsible for Pearce’s death. After all, she had admitted returning to Nightingale House on the morning of the murder and had refused to give any explanation. She could have put the poison in the drip. Then afterwards, tormented by remorse perhaps, she killed herself. That explanation would dispose very neatly of both mysteries. It’s an attractive theory from the hospital’s point of view and quite a number of people preferred to believe it.”
“And the last reason? You said there were four. She wanted to avoid inquiries about the library ticket; she wanted to suggest that Fallon had been the intended victim; alternatively she wanted to implicate Fallon in Pearce’s death. What was the fourth motive?”