Dalgliesh said: “We can prove that you flew to Germany last Friday night. And I think I can guess why. It was a quicker and surer way of getting the information you wanted than pestering the Judge Advocate’s Department You probably consulted the newspaper files and the record of the trial. That’s what I would have done. And, no doubt, you have useful contacts. But we can find out where you went and what you did. You can’t slip in and out of the country anonymously, you know.”
Courtney-Briggs said: “I admit that I knew. I admit, too, that I came to Nightingale House to see Mary Taylor on the night Fallon died. But I’ve done nothing illegal, nothing which could put me in jeopardy.”
“I can believe that.”
“Even if I’d spoken earlier I should have been too late to save Pearce. She was dead before Mrs. Dettinger came to see me. I’ve nothing with which to reproach myself.”
He was beginning to defend himself clumsily like a schoolboy. Then they heard the soft footfall and looked round. Mary Taylor had returned. She spoke directly to the surgeon.
“I can let you have the Burt twins. I’m afraid it means the end of this block but there’s no choice. They’ll have to be recalled to the wards.”
Courtney-Briggs said grudgingly: “They’ll do. They’re sensible girls. But what about a Sister?”
“I thought that Sister Rolfe might take over temporarily. But I’m afraid that’s impossible. She’s leaving the John Carpendar.”
“Leaving! But she can’t do that!”
“I don’t see how I can prevent her. But I don’t think I shall be given the opportunity to try.”
“But why is she leaving?” What’s happened?“
“She won’t say. I think something about the police investigation has upset her.”
Courtney-Briggs swung round at Dalgliesh.
“You see! Dalgliesh, I realize that you’re only doing your job, that you were sent here to clear up these girls’ deaths. But, for God’s sake, doesn’t it ever occur to you that your interference makes things a bloody sight worse?”
“Yes,” said Dalgliesh. “And in your job? Does it ever occur to you?”
V
She went with Courtney-Briggs to the front door. They didn’t linger. She was back in less than a minute, and walking briskly over to the fire, she slipped her cloak from her shoulders and laid it tidily over the back of the sofa. Then, kneeling, she took up a pair of brass tongs and began to build up the fire, coal carefully disposed on coal, each licking flame fed with its gleaming nugget Without looking up at Dalgliesh, she said:
“We were interrupted in our conversation, Superintendent You were accusing me of murder. I have faced that charge once before, but at least the court at Pelsenheim produced some evidence. What evidence have you?”
“None.”
“Nor will you ever find any.”
She spoke without anger or complacency but with an intensity, a quiet finality that had nothing to do with innocence.
Looking down at the gleaming head burnished by the firelight Dalgliesh said:
“But you haven’t denied it. You haven’t lied to me yet and I don’t suppose you’ll trouble to begin now. Why should she have killed herself in that way? She liked her comfort. Why be uncomfortable in death? Suicides seldom are unless they’re too psychotic to care. She had access to plenty of pain-killing drugs. Why not use one of them? Why trouble to creep away to a cold dark garden shed to immolate herself in lonely agony? She wasn’t ‘even fortified by the gratifications of a public show.”
There are precedents.“
“Not many in this country.”
“Perhaps she was too psychotic to care.”
“That will be said of course.”
“She may have realized that it was important not to leave an identifiable body if she wanted to convince you that she was Grobel. Faced with a written confession and a heap of charred bones, why should you bother any further? There was no point in killing herself to protect me if you could confirm her real identity without trouble.”
“A clever and far-sighted woman might argue like that. She was neither. But you are. It must have seemed just worth a try. And even if we never found out about Irmgard Grobel and Felsenheim, it had become important to get rid of Brumfett. As you’ve said, she couldn’t even kill without making a mess of it. She had already panicked once when she tried to murder me. She might easily panic again. She had been an encumbrance for years; now she had become a dangerous liability. You hadn’t asked her to kill for you. It wasn’t even a reasonable way out of the difficulty. Pearce’s threats could have been dealt with if Sister Brumfett had only kept her head and reported the matter to you. But she had to demonstrate her devotion in the most spectacular way she knew. She killed to protect you. And those two deaths bound you and she together indissolubly for life. How could you ever be free or secure while Brumfett lived?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me how I did it?”
They might, Dalgliesh thought, be two colleagues talking over a case together. Even through his weakness he knew that this bizarre conversation was dangerously unorthodox, that the woman kneeling at his feet was an enemy, that the intelligence opposed to his was inviolate. She had no hope now of saving her reputation, but she was fighting for freedom, perhaps even for her life. He said:
“I can tell you how I would have done it. It wasn’t difficult Her bedroom was the one nearest the door of your fiat I suppose she asked for that room, and nothing Sister Brumfett wanted could be denied. Because she knew about the Steinhoff Institution? Because she had a hold over you? Or merely because she had lumbered you with the weight of her devotion and you hadn’t the ruthlessness to break free? So she slept close to you.
“I don’t know how she died. It could have been a tablet, an injection, something you administered on the pretence that it would help her to sleep. She had already, at your request written the confession. I wonder how you persuaded her to do that? I don’t suppose she thought for one moment that it was going to be used. It isn’t addressed to me or to any particular person. I imagine you told her that there ought to be something in writing just in case anything happened to her or to you and it was necessary sometime in the future to have a record of what really happened, proof that would protect you. So she wrote that plain note, probably at your dictation. It has a directness and lucidity that has little, I imagine, to do with Sister Brumfett.
“And so she dies. You have only to carry her body two yards to gain the safety of your door. Even so, this is the most risky part of your plan. Suppose Sister Gearing or Sister Rolfe should appear? So you prop open Sister Brumfett’s door and the door of your flat and listen carefully to make sure that the corridor is clear. Then you hoist the body over your shoulder and move swiftly into your flat You lay the body on the bed and go back to shut her bedroom door and to shut and lock your own front door. She was a plump but short woman. You are tall and strong and have been trained to lift helpless patients. That part wasn’t so difficult.”
“But now you must move her to your car. It’s convenient having access to your garage from the downstairs hall and a private stairway. With both the outside and inside doors of the flat locked you can work without fear of interruption. The body is hoisted into the back of your car and covered with a traveling rug. Then you drive out through the grounds and reverse the car under the trees, as close as possible to the garden shed. You keep the engine running. It is important to make a quick getaway, be back in your flat before the fire is seen. This part of the plan is a little risky but the Winchester Road path is seldom used after dark. The ghost of Nancy Gorring sees to that It would be inconvenient but not catastrophic if you were seen. After all, you are the Matron, there is nothing to prevent you taking a night drive. If anyone passes, you will have to drive on and choose another place or another time. But no one does pass. The car is deep under the trees; the lights are out You carry the body to the shed. Then there is a second journey with the can of petrol. And after that there is-nothing to do but souse the body and the surrounding furniture and piles of wood and throw in a lighted match from the open doorway.