“I suppose so,” agreed Roberts, looking perturbed. “It will be a distressing experience for all of us. Except, no doubt, Mr. Thoms.”
He waited a moment and then said nervously: “Perhaps this is a question that I should not ask, Inspector Alleyn, but I cannot help wondering if the police have a definite theory as regards this crime?”
Alleyn was used to this question.
“We’ve got several theories, Dr. Roberts, and all of them more or less fit. That’s the devil of it.”
“Have you explored the possibility of suicide?” asked Roberts wistfully.
“I have considered it.”
“Remember his heredity.”
“I have remembered it. After he had the attack in the House his physical condition would have rendered suicide impossible, and he could hardly have taken hyoscine while making his speech.”
“Again remember his heredity. He might have carried hyoscine tablets with him for some time and under the emotional stimulus of the occasion suffered a sudden ungovernable impulse. In the study of suicidal psychology one comes across many such cases. Did his hand go to his mouth while he was speaking? I see you look incredulous, Inspector Alleyn. Perhaps you even think it suspicious that I should urge the point. I — I — have a reason for hoping you find that O’Callaghan killed himself, but it does not spring from a sense of guilt.”
A strangely exalted look came into the little doctor’s eyes as he spoke. Alleyn regarded him intently.
“Dr. Roberts,” he said as last, “why not tell me what is in vour mind?”
“No,” said Roberts emphatically, “no — not unless — unless the worst happens.”
“Well,” said Alleyn, “as you know, I can’t force you to give me your theory, but it’s a dangerous business, withholding information in a capital charge.”
“It may not be a capital charge,” cried Roberts in a hurry.
“Even suppose your suicide theory is possible, it seems to me that a man of Sir Derek’s stamp would not have done it in such a way as to cast suspicion upon other people.”
“No,” agreed Roberts. “No. That is undoubtedly a strong argument — and yet inherited suicidal mania sometimes manifests itself very abruptly and strangely. I have known instances…”
He went to his bookcase and took down several volumes, from which he read in a rapid, dry and didactic manner, rather as though Alleyn was a collection of students. This went on for some time. The servant brought in tea, and with an air of patient benevolence, poured it out himself. He placed Roberts’s cup on a table under his nose, waited until the doctor closed the book with which he was at the moment engaged, took it firmly from him and directed his attention to the tea. He then moved the table between the two men and left the room.
“Thank you,” said Roberts vaguely some time after he had gone.
Roberts, still delivering himself of his learning, completely forgot to drink his tea or to offer some to Alleyn, but occasionally stretched out a hand towards the toast. The time passed rapidly. Alleyn looked at his watch.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “it’s half-past four. We’ll have to collect ourselves, I’m afraid.”
“Teh!” said Roberts crossly.
“I’ll call a taxi.”
“No, no. I’ll drive you there, inspector. Wait a moment.” He darted out into the hall and gave flurried orders to the little servant, who silently insinuated him into his coat and gave him his hat. Roberts shot back into the sitting-room and fetched his stethoscope.
“What about your anæsthetising apparatus?” ventured Alleyn.
“Eh?” asked Roberts, squinting round at him.
“Your anæsthetising apparatus.”
“D’you want that?”
“Please — if it’s not a great bore. Didn’t Sir John tell you?”
“I’ll get it,” said Roberts. He darted off across the little hall.
“Can I assist you, sir?” asked the servant.
“No, no. Bring out the car.”
He reappeared presently, wheeling the cruet-like apparatus with its enormous cylinders.
“You can’t carry that down the steps by yourself,” said Alleyn. “Let me help.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said Roberts. He bent down and examined the nuts that fastened the frame at the bottom. “Wouldn’t do for these nuts to come loose,” he said. “You take the top, will you? Gently. Ease it down the steps.”
With a good deal of bother they got the thing into Roberts’s car and drove off to Brook Street, the little doctor talking most of the time.
As they drew near the hospital, however, he grew quieter, seemed to get nervous, and kept catching Alleyn’s eye and hurriedly looking away again. After this had happened some three or four times Roberts laughed uncomfortably.
“I–I’m not looking forward to this experiment,” he said. “One gets moderately case-hardened in our profession, I suppose, but there’s something about this affair” — he blinked hard twice —“something profoundly disquieting. Perhaps it is the element of uncertainty.”
“But you have got a theory, Dr. Roberts?”
“I? No. No. I did hope it might be suicide. No — I’ve no specific theory.”
“Oh, well. If you won’t tell me, you won’t,” rejoined Alleyn.
Roberts looked at him in alarm, but said no more.
At Brook Street they found Fox placidly contemplating the marble woman in the waiting-room. He was accompanied by Inspector Boys, a large red-faced officer with a fruity voice and hands like hams. Boys kept a benevolent but shrewd eye on the activities of communistic societies, on near-treasonable propagandists, and on Soviet-minded booksellers. He was in the habit of alluding to such persons who came into these categories as though they were tiresome but harmless children.
“Hullo,” said Alleyn. “Where are the star turns?”
“The nurses are getting the operating theatre ready,” Fox told him. “Sir John Phillips asked me to let him know when we are ready. The other ladies are upstairs.”
“Right. Mr. Thoms here?”
“Is that the funny gentleman, sir?” asked Boys.
“It is.”
“He’s here.”
“Then in that case we’re complete. Dr. Roberts has gone up to the theatre. Let us follow him. Fox, let Sir John know, will you?”
Fox went away and Alleyn and Boys took the lift up to the theatre landing, where they found the rest of the dramatis personæ awaited them. Mr. Thoms broke off in the middle of some anecdote with which he was apparently regaling the company.
“Hullo, ’ullo, ’ullo!” he shouted. “Here’s the Big Noise itself. Now we shan’t be long.”
“Good evening, Mr. Thoms,” said Alleyn. “Good evening, matron. I hope I haven’t kept you all waiting.”
“Not at all,” said Sister Marigold.
Fox appeared with Sir John Phillips. Alleyn spoke a word to him and then turned and surveyed the group. They eyed him uneasily and perhaps inimically. It was a little as though they drew together, moved by a common impulse of self-preservation. He thought they looked rather like sheep, bunched together, their heads turned watchfully towards their protective enemy, the sheep-dog.
“I’d better give a warning bark or two,” thought Alleyn and addressed them collectively.
“I’m quite sure,” he began, “that you all realise why we have asked you to meet us here. It is, of course, in order to enlist your help. We are faced with a difficult problem in this case and feel that a reconstruction of the operation may go far towards clearing any suspicion of guilt from innocent individuals. As you know, Sir Derek O’Callaghan died from hyoscine poisoning. He was a man with many political enemies, and from the outset the affair has been a complicated and bewildering problem. The fact that he, in the course of the operation, was given a legitimate injection of hyoscine has added to the complications. I am sure you are all as anxious as we are to clear up this aspect of the case. I ask you to look upon the reconstruction as an opportunity to free yourselves of any imputation of guilt. As a medium in detection the reconstruction has much to commend it. The chief argument against it is that sometimes innocent persons are moved, through nervousness or other motives, to defeat the whole object of the thing by changing the original circumstances. Under the shadow of tragedy it is not unusual for innocent individuals to imagine that the police suspect them. I am sure that you are not likely to do anything so foolish as this. I am sure you realise that this is an opportunity, not a trap. Let me beg you to repeat as closely as you can your actions during the operation on the deceased. If you do this, there is not the faintest cause for alarm.” He looked at his watch.