“I’ve seen the body of one of her victims and read the autopsy report on the other. I’ll take your word for her kindness to children.”
“Those weren’t her victims. They were mine.”
“Oh no,” he said. “There has only been one victim of yours in Nightingale House and she was Ethel Brumfett”
She rose to her feet in one swift movement and stood facing him, those astonishing green eyes, speculative and unwavering, gazed into his. Part of his mind knew that there were words he ought to speak. What were they, those over-familiar phrases of statutory warning, the professional spiel which came almost unbidden to the lips at the moment of confrontation? They had slipped away, a meaningless irrelevancy, into some limbo of his mind. He knew that he was a sick man, still weak from loss of blood, and that he ought to stop now, to hand over the investigation to Masterson, and get to his bed. He, the most punctilious of detectives, had already spoken as if none of the rules had been formulated, as if he were facing a private adversary. But he had to go on. Even if he could never prove it, he had to hear her admit what he knew to be the truth. As if it were the most natural question in the world he asked quietly:
“Was she dead when you put her into the fire?”
IV
It was at that moment that someone rang the doorbell of the flat Without a word Mary Taylor swung her cape around her shoulders and went to open it There was a brief murmur of voices; then Stephen Courtney-Briggs followed her into the sitting-room. Glancing at the clock, Dalgliesh saw that the hands stood at 7:24 a.m. The working day had almost begun.
Courtney-Briggs was already dressed. He showed no surprise at Dalgliesh’s presence and no particular concern at his obvious weakness. He spoke to them both impartially:
“I’m told there was a fire in the night I didn’t hear the engines.”
Mary Taylor, her face so white that Dalgliesh thought she might faint said calmly:
“They came in at the Winchester Road entrance and kept the bells silent so as not to wake the patients.”
“And what’s this rumor that they found a burnt body in the ashes of the garden shed? Whose body?”
Dalgliesh said: “Sister Brumfett’s. She left a note confessing to the murders of Nurse Pearce and Nurse Fallon.”
“Brumfett killed them! Brumfett!”
Courtney-Briggs looked at Dalgliesh belligerently, his large handsome features seeming to disintegrate into irritated disbelief.
“Did she say why? Was the woman mad?”
Mary Taylor said: “Brumfett wasn’t mad and no doubt she believed that she had a motive.”
“But what’s going to happen to my ward today? I start operating at nine o’clock. You know that, Matron. And I’ve got a very long list. Both the staff nurses are off with flu. I can’t trust dangerously sick patients to first and second-year students.”
The Matron said calmly: “I’ll see to it at once. Most of the day nurses should be up by now. It isn’t going to be easy but, if necessary, we’ll have to withdraw someone from the school.”
She turned to Dalgliesh: “I prefer to do my telephoning from one of the Sisters’ sitting-rooms. But don’t worry. I realize the importance of our conversation. I shall be back to complete it”
Both men looked after her as she went out of the door and closed it quietly behind her. For the first time Courtney-Briggs seemed to notice Dalgliesh. He said brusquely:
“Don’t forget to go over to the radiography department and get that head X-rayed. You’ve no right to be out of bed. Ill examine you as soon as I’ve finished my list this morning.” He made it sound like a tedious chore which he might find time to attend to.
Dalgliesh asked: “Who did you come to visit in Nightingale House the night Josephine Fallon was murdered?”
“I told you. No one. I never entered Nightingale House.”
“There are at least ten minutes unaccounted for, ten minutes when the back door leading to the Matron’s flat was unlocked. Sister Gearing had let her friend out that way and was walking with him in the grounds. So you thought that the Matron must be in despite the absence of lights and made your way up the stairs to her flat. You must have spent some time there. Why, I wonder? Curiosity? Or were you searching for something?”‘
“Why should I visit the Matron? She wasn’t there. Mary Taylor was in Amsterdam that night”
“But you didn’t know that at the time, did you? Miss Taylor wasn’t accustomed to attending International Conferences. For reasons we can guess she didn’t want her face to be too widely known. This reluctance to undertake public duties was thought becomingly modest in a woman so able and so intelligent She was only asked late on Tuesday to go to Amsterdam to deputize for the Chairman of the Area Nurse Training Committee. Your sessions are on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. Then, on Wednesday night, you were called to operate on a private patient I don’t suppose that the operating theatre staff, busy with an emergency, thought to mention that the Matron wasn’t in the hospital. Why should they?” He paused.
Courtney-Briggs said: “And why am I supposed to have planned to visit the Matron at midnight? You’re not supposing that I would have been a welcome visitor? You’re not suggesting that she was expecting me?”
“You came to see Irmgard Grobel.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Courtney-Briggs said:
“How do you know about Irmgard Grobel?”
“From the same person who told you, Mrs. Dettinger.”
Another silence. Then he said with the obstinate finality of a man who knows he won’t be believed:
“Irmgard Grobel is dead.”
“Is she?” asked Dalgliesh. “Didn’t you expect to find her in the Matron’s flat? Wasn’t this your first opportunity to confront her with what you knew? And you must have been looking forward to it The exercise of power is always pleasurable, isn’t it?”
Courtney-Briggs said calmly: “You should know that”
They stood looking at each other in silence. Dalgliesh asked:
“What had you in mind?”
“Nothing. I didn’t connect Grobel with the deaths of Pearce or Fallon. Even if I had, I doubt whether I should have spoken. This hospital needs Mary Taylor. As far as I’m concerned Irmgard Grobel doesn’t exist. She was tried once and found not guilty. That was good enough for me. I’m surgeon, not a moral theologian. I should have kept her secret”
Of course he would, thought Dalgliesh. Its value would be lost to him once the truth were known. This was very special, very important information, gained at some cost and he would use it in his own way. It put Mary Taylor for ever in his power. The Matron who so frequently and irritatingly opposed him; whose power was increasing; who was about to be appointed Director of Nursing Services over all the hospitals in the Group; who influenced the Chairman of the Hospital Management Committee against him. Sir Marcus Cohen. How much influence would she retain with that dedicated Jew once he learned about the Steinhoff Institution? It had become fashionable to forget these things. But would Sir Marcus Cohen forgive?
He thought of Mary Taylor’s words. There are more ways than one of blackmail. Heather Pearce and Ethel Brumfett both knew that. And perhaps the most subtly pleasurable was the blackmail which made no financial demands but enjoyed its secret knowledge under the cloak of generosity, kindness, complicity or moral superiority. Sister Brumfett hadn’t asked much after all, only a room next to her idol; the prestige of being known as the matron’s friend; a companion for her off-duty hours. Poor stupid Pearce had asked only a few shillings a week and a verse or two of scripture. But how they must have relished their power. And how infinitely more gratifying would Courtney-Briggs have found his. No wonder that he had been determined to keep the secret to himself, that he hadn’t welcomed the thought of the Yard descending on Nightingale House.