Phillips smiled sardonically.
“I might give him too much hyoscine if you did,” he said. “Do you want the whole pack of them?”
“If it’s possible.”
“Unless there’s an urgent case, nothing happens in the afternoon. I hardly think there will be an urgent case. Business,” added Phillips grimly, “will probably fall off. My last major operation is enjoying somewhat unfavourable publicity.”
“Well — will you get the others for me for to-morrow afternoon?”
“I’ll try. It’ll be very unpleasant. Nurse Banks has left us, but she can be found.”
“She’s at the Nurses’ Club in Chelsea.”
Phillips glanced quickly at him.
“Is she?” he said shortly. “Very well. Will five o’clock suit you?”
“Admirably. Can we have it all as closely reproduced as possible — same impedimenta and so on?”
“I think it can be arranged. I’ll let you know.”
Phillips went to the door.
“Good-bye for the moment,” he said. “I’ve no idea whether or not you think I killed O’Callaghan, but you’ve been very polite.”
“We are taught manners at the same time as point-duty,” said Alleyn. Phillips went away and Alleyn sought out Detective-Inspector Fox, to whom he related the events of the morning. When he came to Phillips’s visit Fox thrust out his under lip and looked at his boots.
“That’s your disillusioned expression, Fox,” said Alleyn. “What’s it in aid of?”
“Well, sir, I must say I have my doubts about this self-sacrifice business. It sounds very nice, but it isn’t the stuff people hand out when they think it may be returned to them tied up with rope.”
“I can’t believe you were no good at composition. Do you mean you mistrust Phillips’s motive in coming here, or Nurse Harden’s hypothetical attempt to decoy my attention?”
“Both, but more particularly number one. To my way of thinking, we’ve got a better case against Sir John Phillips than any of the others. I believe you’re right about the political side — it’s not worth a great deal. Now Sir John knows how black it looks against him. What’s he do? He comes here, says he wants to make a clean breast of it, and tells you nothing you don’t know already. When you point this out to him he says he may have made a slip over the two tubes. Do you believe that, chief?”
“No — to do the job he’d have had to dissolve the contents of a full tube. However dopey he felt he couldn’t do that by mistake.”
“Just so. And he knows you’ll think of that. You ask me, sir,” said Fox oratorically: “ ‘What’s the man’s motive?’ ”
“What’s the man’s motive?” repeated Alleyn obediently.
“Spoof’s his motive. He knows it’s going to be a tricky business bringing it home to him and he wants to create a good impression. The young lady may or may not have been in collusion with him. She may or may not come forward with the same kind of tale. ‘Oh, please don’t arrest him; arrest me. I never did it, but spare the boy-friend,’ ” said Fox in a very singular falsetto and with dreadful scorn.
Alleyn’s mouth twitched. Rather hurriedly he lit a cigarette.
“You seem very determined all of a sudden,” he observed mildly. “This morning you seduced me with tales of Sage, Banks, and Roberts.”
“So I did, sir. It was an avenue that had to be explored. Boys is exploring, and as far as he’s got it’s a wash-out.”
“Alack, what news are these! Discover them.”
“Boys got hold of Robinson, and Robinson says it’s all my eye. He says he’s dead certain the Bolshie push hasn’t an idea who killed O’Callaghan. He says if they’d had anything to do with it he’d have heard something. It was Kakaroff who told him about it and Kakaroff was knocked sideways at the news. Robinson says if there had been any organization from that quarter they’d have kept quiet and we’d have had no rejoicing. They’re as pleased as punch and as innocent as angels.”
“Charming! All clapping their hands in childish glee. How about Dr. Roberts?”
“I asked him about the doctor. It seems they don’t know anything much about him and look upon him as a bit of an outsider. They’ve even suspected him of being what they call ‘unsound.’ Robinson wondered if he was one of our men. You recollect Marcus Barker sent out a lot of pamphlets on the Sterilization Bill. They took it up for a time. Well, the doctor is interested in the Bill.”
“Yes, of course,” agreed Alleyn thoughtfully. “It’s in his territory.”
“From the look of some of the sons of the Soviet,” said Fox, “I’d say they’d be the first to suffer. The doctor saw one of these pamphlets and went to a meeting. He joined the Lenin Hall lot because he thought they’d push it. Robinson says he’s always nagging at them to take it up again.”
“So that’s that. It sounds reasonable enough, Fox, and certainly consistent with Roberts’s character. With his views on eugenics he’d be sure to support sterilization. You don’t need to be a Bolshie to see the sense of it, either. It looks as though Roberts had merely been thrown in to make it more difficult.”
Fox looked profound.
“What about Miss Banks and little Harold?” asked Alleyn.
“Nothing much. The Banks party has been chucking her weight about ever since the operation, but she doesn’t say anything useful. You might call it reflected glory.”
“How like Banks. And Sage?”
“Robinson hasn’t heard anything. Sage is not a prominent member.”
“He was lying about the second dose Miss O’Callaghan gave O’Callaghan. He admitted he had provided it, that it was from a doctor’s prescription, and that he had not noted it in his book. All my eye. We can sift that out easily enough by finding out her doctor, but of course Sage may simply be scared and as innocent as a babe. Well, there we are. Back again face to face with the clean breast of Sir John Phillips.”
“Not so clean, if you ask me.”
“I wonder. I’m doing a reconstruction to-morrow afternoon. Phillips is arranging it for me. Would you say he was a great loss to the stage?”
“How d’you mean, chief?”
“If he’s our man, he’s one of the best actors I’ve ever met. You come along to-morrow to the hospital, Fox, and see what you shall see. Five o’clock. And now I’m going to lunch. I want to see Lady O’Callaghan before the show, and Roberts too, if possible. I may as well get his version of the Lenin Hall lot. Au revoir, Fox.”
“Do you mind repeating that, sir?”
“Au revoir.”
“Au revoir, monsieur,” said Fox carefully.
“I’m coming to hear those records of yours one of these nights, if I may.”
Fox became plum-coloured with suppressed pleasure.
“I’d take it very kindly,” he said stiffly and went out.
Alleyn rang up the house in Catherine Street and learnt that Lady O’Callaghan would be pleased to receive him at ten to three the following afternoon. He spent half an hour on his file of the case. The analyst’s report on Phillips’s tablets and the hyoscine solution had come in. Both contained the usual dosage. He sent off the “Fulvitavolts” and the scrap of paper that had enclosed Ruth O’Callaghan’s second remedy. It was possible, but extremely unlikely, that there might be a trace of the drug spilt on the wrapper. At one o’clock he went home and lunched. At two o’clock he rang up the Yard and found there was a message from Sir John Phillips to the effect that the reconstruction could be held the following afternoon at the time suggested. He asked them to tell Fox and then rang Phillips up and thanked him.
Alleyn spent the rest, of the day adding to the file on the case and in writing a sort of résumé for his own instruction. He sat over it until ten o’clock and then deliberately put it aside, read the second act of Hamlet, and wondered, not for the first time, what sort of a hash the Prince of Denmark would have made of a job at the Yard. Then, being very weary, he went to bed.