He pulled forward the nearest of the preposterous chairs, turning it towards the window. The afternoon had darkened and a chilly sort of gloom masked the ceiling and corners of the room. Jane Harden sat down and clasped the knobs of the chair-arms with long fingers that even the exigencies of nursing had not reddened.
“I expect you know why I’m here?” said Alleyn.
“What was the — is the post-mortem finished?” She spoke quite evenly, but with a kind of breathlessness.
“Yes. He was murdered. Hyoscine.”
She seemed to stiffen and became uncannily still.
“So the hunt is up,” added Alleyn calmly.
“Hyoscine,” she whispered. “Hyoscine. How much?”
“At least a quarter of a grain. Sir John injected a hundredth, he tells me. Therefore someone else gave the patient a little more than a fifth of a grain — six twenty-fifths, to be exact. It may have been more, of course. I don’t know if the post-mortem can be relied upon to account for every particle.”
“I don’t know either,” said Jane.
“There are one or two questions I must ask you.”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid this is all very distressing for you. You knew Sir Derek personally, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“I’m terribly sorry to have to bother you. Let’s get it over as soon as possible. As regards the anti-gas injection. At the close of the operation Sir John or Mr. Thoms asked for it. Sister Marigold told you to get it. You went to a side table, where you found the syringe. Was it ready — prepared for use?”
“Yes.”
“At the inquest it appeared that you delayed a little while. Why was this?”
“There were two syringes. I felt faint and could not think, for a moment, which was the right one. Then Banks said: ‘The large syringe,’ and I brought it.”
“You did not hesitate because you thought there might be something wrong with the large syringe?”
This suggestion seemed to startle her very much. She moved her hands nervously and gave a soft exclamation.
“Oh! No. No—. Why should I think that?”
“Nurse Banks prepared this syringe, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Jane.
Alleyn was silent for a minute. He got up and walked across to the window. From where she sat his profile looked black, like a silhouette with blurred edges. He stared out at the darkening roofs. Something about a movement of his shoulders suggested a kind of distaste. He shoved his hands down into his trouser pockets and swung round, facing the room. He looked shadowy, but larger than life against the yellowish window-pane.
“How well did you know Sir Derek?” he asked suddenly. His voice sounded oddly flat in the thickly furnished room.
“Quite well,” she said after another pause.
“Intimately?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well — did you meet often — as friends, shall I say?”
She stared at his darkened face. Her own, lit by the sallow light from the window, looked thin and secret.
“Sometimes.”
“Recently?”
“No. I can’t see what my acquaintanceship with him has to do with the matter.”
“Why did you faint?”
“I was — I wasn’t well; I’m run down.”
“It had nothing to do with the identity of the patient? It wasn’t because Sir Derek was so ill?”
“Naturally that distressed me.”
“Have you ever written to him?”
She seemed to shrink back into the chair as though he had actually hurt her.
“You need not answer any of these questions if you think it better not to,” he announced. “Still, I shall, of course, go to other people for the information.”
“I have done nothing to hurt him,” she said loudly.
“No. But have you ever written to him? That was my question, you know.”
She took a long time to answer this. At last she murmured: “Oh, yes.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know— ”
“Recently?”
“Fairly recently.”
“Threatening letters?”
She moved her head from side to side as though the increasing dusk held a menace.
“No,” said Jane.
He saw now that she looked at him with terror in her eyes. It was a glance to which he had become accustomed, but, since in his way he was a sensitive man, never quite reconciled.
“I think it would be better,” he pronounced slowly, “if you told me the whole story. There is no need, is there, for me to tell you that you are one of the people whom I must take into consideration? Your presence in the operating theatre brings you into the picture. Naturally I want an explanation.”
“I should have thought my — distress — would have given you that,” she whispered, and in that half-light he saw her pallor change to a painful red. “You see, I loved him,” added Jane.
“I think I understand that part of it,” he said abruptly. “I am extremely sorry that these beastly circumstances oblige me to pry into such very painful matters. Try to think of me as a sort of automaton, unpleasant but quite impersonal. Can you do that, do you think?”
“I suppose I must try.”
“Thank you. First of all — was there anything beyond ordinary friendship between you and O’Callaghan?”
She made a slight movement.
“Not— ” She paused and then said: “Not really.”
“Were you going to say ‘Not now’? I think there had been. You say you wrote to him. Perhaps your letters terminated a phase of your friendship?”
She seemed to consider this and then answered uneasily: “The second did.”
He thought: “Two letters. I wonder what happened to the other?”
Aloud, he said: “Now, as I understand it, you had known Sir Derek for some time — an old family friendship. Recently this friendship changed to a more intimate association. When was this?”
“Last June — three months ago.”
“And it went on — for how long?”
Her hands moved to her face. As if ashamed of this pitiful gesture she snatched them away, and raising her voice, said clearly: “Three days.”
“I see,” said Alleyn gently. “Was that the last time you saw him?”
“Yes — until the operation.”
“Had there been any quarrel?”
“No.”
“None?”
“No.” She tilted her head back and began to speak rapidly.
“It was a mutual agreement. People make such a fuss about sex. It’s only a normal physical experience, like hunger or thirst. The sensible thing is to satisfy it in a perfectly reasonable and natural way. That’s what we did. There was no need to meet again. We had our experience.”
“My poor child!” Alleyn ejaculated.
“What do you mean!”
“You reel it all off as if you’d learnt it out of a textbook. ‘First Steps in Sex.’ ‘O Brave New World,’ as Miranda and Mr. Huxley would say! And it didn’t work out according to the receipt?”
“Yes, it did.”
“Then why did you write those letters?”
Her mouth opened. She looked pitifully ludicrous and for a moment, not at all pretty.
“You’ve seen them — you’ve— ”
“I’m afraid so,” said Alleyn.
She gave a curious dry sob and put her hands up to the neck of her uniform as though it choked her.
“You see,” Alleyn continued, “it would be better to tell me the truth, really it would.”
She began to weep very bitterly.
“I can’t help it. I’m sorry. It’s been so awful — I can’t help it.”
Alleyn swung round to the light again.
“It’s all right,” he said to the window-pane. “Don’t mind about me — only an automaton, remember.”