“Quite five, I should think.”
“Notice anything else? Had he had a drink of water, do you think?”
“The glass on the bedside-table had been used.”
“You are a model witness. I suppose this glass has also been cleaned? Yes. A hospital is a poor hunting-ground for the likes of me. Now don’t worry too much about this. It may be quite beside the point. In any case it would have been criminal to withhold it. Consciousness of having done the right thing brings, I understand, solace to the troubled breast.”
“I can’t say it does to mine.”
“Nonsense. Now will you be very kind and get your scrap of paper for me? Bring Nurse Banks back with you, and don’t mention homicide. By the way, what did you think about her reception of the glad tidings— I gather she looked upon them as glad?”
“She’s an ass,” answered Nurse Graham unexpectedly, “but she’s no murderer.”
“What did she say exactly?”
“Oh, something out of the Bible about praising the Lord for He hath cast down our enemies.”
“Good lack!” apostrophised Alleyn. “What an old— I beg your pardon, nurse. Ask the lady to come here, will you? And if you hear me scream come in and rescue me. I’ve no desire to die at the feet of that marble goddess there — who is she, by the way— Anæsthesia?”
“I’ve no idea, inspector,” said Nurse Graham with a sudden broad smile. She went out briskly and returned in a few minutes to give him a small square of white paper such as chemists use in wrapping up prescriptions. Fragments of red sealing-wax remained on the margins and the creases suggested that it had contained a round box. Alleyn put it in his pocketbook.
“Nurse Banks is waiting,” remarked Nurse Graham.
“Loose her,” said Alleyn. “Good-bye, nurse.”
“Good-bye, inspector.”
Miss Banks made a somewhat truculent entrance. She refused a chair and stood uncomfortably erect, just inside the door. Alleyn remained politely on his feet.
“Perhaps Nurse Graham has told you of my business here?” he suggested.
“She said something about Scotland Yard,” sniffed Banks. “I didn’t know what she was talking about.”
“I am investigating the circumstances of Sir Derek O’Callaghan’s death.”
“I said all there was to say about it at that inquest.”
Alleyn decided that finesse was not indicated.
“You didn’t mention it was murder,” he remarked.
For a moment he thought she looked frightened. Then she said woodenly:
“It is?”
“Yes. What do you think of that?”
“How do you know?”
“The post-mortem revealed indications of at least a quarter of a grain of hyoscine.”
“A quarter of a grain!” exclaimed Banks. He was reminded of Phillips. Neither of these two had ejaculated “Hyoscine!” as one might have expected, but had exclaimed at the amount.
“Wouldn’t you have expected that to kill him?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. Mr. Thoms said— ” She stopped short.
“What did Mr. Thoms say?”
“Heard him say before the op. that a quarter-grain would be a fatal dose.”
“How did the subject arise?”
“Don’t remember.”
“I understand you prepared and gave the camphor injection and prepared the anti-gas injection.”
“Yes. I didn’t put hyoscine in either if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No doubt there will be some means of proving that,” said Alleyn smoothly. “I shall have the matter investigated, of course.”
“You’d better,” snorted Banks.
“Sir John prepared and gave the hyoscine.”
“Well, what if he did? Sir John Phillips wouldn’t poison his worst enemy in the theatre. Too much the little surgeon.”
“I’m glad you think so,” said Alleyn mildly.
Banks was silent.
“I hear you look upon the affair as a dispensation of Providence,” he added.
“I am an agnostic. I said ‘if’.”
“ ‘If’?”
“If I wasn’t, I would.”
“Oh,” said Alleyn. “It’s cryptic, but I get you. Can you tell me which members of the party were alone in the theatre before the operation?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Do try. Do you remember if you were?”
“No. Phillips was. Thoms was.”
“When?”
“Just before they washed up. We were in the anteroom. Phillips came in first and that little fool followed him.”
“Meaning Mr. Thoms?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
“Are you going to hear Nicholas Kakaroff speak to-night?”
This was a shot in the dark. Kakaroff was to address a large meeting of Soviet sympathisers. The Yard would think it worth while to put in an amiable appearance. Nurse Banks threw up her chin and glared at him.
“I shall be proud to be there,” she said loudly.
“That’s the spirit!” cried Alleyn.
Inspired perhaps by fiery recollections of former meetings, Nurse Banks suddenly came out strong with a speech.
“You may stand there with a smile on your lips,” she stormed, “but you won’t smile for long. I know your type — the gentleman policeman — the latest development of the capitalist system. You’ve got where you are by influence while better men do bigger work for a slave’s pittance. You’ll go, and all others like you, when the Dawn breaks. You think I killed Derek O’Callaghan. I didn’t, but I’ll tell you this much — I should be proud — proud, do you hear, if I had.”
She reeled all this out with remarkable fluency, as though it was a preposterous recitation. Alleyn had a swift picture of her covering her friends’ suburban tea-parties with exquisite confusion. Small wonder the other nurses fought shy of her.
“Do you know, nurse,” he said, “until the Dawn does break I rather think I’d pipe down a bit if I were you. Unless you really fancy the martyr’s crown, you’re talking like a remarkably silly woman. You had as good a chance as anyone else of pumping hyoscine into the deceased. You’re now shrieking your motive into my capitalist face. I’m not threatening you. No, you’d better not say anything more at the moment, but when the mantle of Mr. Kakaroff is laid aside you may think it advisable to make a statement. Until then, Nurse Banks, if you’ll forgive me the suggestion, I should really pipe down. Will you tell Nurse Harden I’m ready?”
He opened the door for her. She stood for a moment staring above his head. Then she walked to the door, paused, and looked directly at him.
“I’ll tell you this much,” she said. “Neither Phillips nor Harden did it. Phillips is a conscientious surgeon and Harden is a conscientious nurse. They are hidebound by their professional code, both of them.”
With which emphatic assertion she left him. Alleyn screwed his face sideways and opened his notebook.
Here, in an incredibly fine and upright hand he wrote: “Thoms — conversation about hyoscine,” and after a moment’s hesitation: “P. and H. — hidebound by their professional code, says the B.”
He wrote busily, shut his little book, glanced up, and gave a start of surprise. Jane Harden had come in so quietly that he had not heard her, There she stood, her fingers twisted together, staring at the inspector. He had thought at the inquest that she was very good-looking. Now, with the white veil behind it, the extreme pallor of her face was less emphatic. She was beautiful, with that peculiar beauty that covers delicate bone. The contour of the forehead and cheek-bones, the little hollows of the temples, and the fine-drawn arches of the eyes had the quality of a Holbein drawing. The eyes themselves were a very dark grey, the nose absolutely straight and the mouth, rather too small, with dropping corners, was at once sensuous and obstinate.
“I beg your pardon,” said Alleyn; “I did not hear you come in. Please sit down.”