A sudden, fearful death (32 page)

"Of course you are
right," she agreed. "Perhaps I was losing my sense of
proportion."

A flash of humor crossed his face.
"It is not hard to do. Come." And he led the way out of the theater,
holding the door open for her. They were in the corridor, walking side by side
in silence, when they almost bumped into Callandra as she came out of one of
the wards.

She stopped abruptly, the color
rushing up her cheeks. There was no apparent reason she should have been flustered,
and yet it seemed she was. Hester drew breath to say something, then realized
that Callandra was looking only at Kristian; she was scarcely aware of Hester
to his left and half a step behind.

"Oil—good
morning—Doctor," Callandra said hastily, trying to regain her composure.

He looked a little puzzled.
"Good morning, Lady Callandra." His voice was soft and he spoke the
words very distinctly, as if he liked her name on his tongue. He frowned.
"Is all well?"

"Oh yes," she replied.
Then she realized how ridiculous that was, in the circumstances. She smiled,
but the effort it cost her was plain to Hester. "As good as we may hope,
with police all over the place, I suppose. They do not seem to have achieved
anything."

"I doubt they would tell us if
they had," Kristian said ruefully. Then he gave a thin answering smile,
full of doubt and self-mockery. "I'm sure they suspect me! Inspector
Jeavis keeps on asking me about having quarreled with poor Nurse Barrymore.
I've finally remembered it was over a mistake she felt one of the student
doctors had made, which I overruled. It makes one wonder just what was
overheard, and by whom." He shook his head a little.
"I
never
before worried greatly what people thought of me, but now I confess it is in my
mind more and more of the time."

Callandra did not look directly at
him, and the color was high in her cheeks. "You cannot govern your life by
what you fear others may think of you. If—if what you are doing is what you
believe to be right—they will have to think as they please." She took a
deep breath and then said nothing.

Both Hester and Kristian waited for
her to continue, but she did not. Left as it was it sounded bare, and a little
trite, hot like Callandra at all.

"Does ..." She looked at
Kristian directly. "Does Jeavis disturb you?" This time her eyes searched
his face.

"I dislike being
suspected," he answered frankly. "But I know the man is only doing
his duty. I wish I had some idea what actually happened to poor Nurse
Barrymore, but hard as I think, nothing conies to me."

"There are innumerable reasons
why someone might have killed her," Callandra said with sudden ferocity.
"A rejected lover, a jealous woman, an envious nurse, a mad or disaffected
patient, all sorts of people." She finished a little breathlessly, and
without looking at Hester.

"I expect Jeavis will have
thought of those things too."

Kristian pulled a slight face. His
eyes never left Callandra's. "I hope he is pursuing them with equal
diligence. Do you wish to speak to me about something? Or did we merely bump
into you?"

"Just ... chance,"
Callandra replied. "I am—on my way to see the chaplain."

Kristian bowed very slightly and
excused himself, leaving Hester and Callandra alone in the corridor.
Apparently without realizing it, Callandra watched him until he turned the
corner into a ward and disappeared, then she looked back at Hester.

"How are you, my dear?"
she asked with a sudden gentleness in her voice. "You look very
tired." She herself looked exhausted. Her skin was pale and her hair
wilder than ever, as if she had run her fingers through it distractedly.

Hester entirely dismissed her own
feelings. There was obviously some deep trouble in Callandra and her whole
concern- was how to help. She was uncertain as to whether she should even
acknowledge that she was aware of it, much less ask what it was. Something in
Callandra's manner made her feel it was private, and in all possibility that
was part of its burden.

She made herself assume a casual
expression.

"I'm tired at the
moment," she acknowledged. There was no point in a lie; it would be
unbearably patronizing. "But the work is most rewarding. Sir Herbert
really is a brilliant surgeon. He has not only skill but courage."

"Yes indeed," Callandra
agreed with a flash of enthusiasm. "I hear he is high in line for
appointment as medical adviser to someone in the Royal household—I forget
whom."

"No wonder he is looking
pleased with himself," Hester said immediately. "But I daresay it is
well deserved. Still, it is a great honor."

"Indeed." Callandra's
face darkened again. "Hester, have you seen William lately? Do you know
how he is doing—if he has learned anything ... pertinent?" There was an
edge to her voice and she looked at Hester with a nervousness she failed to
conceal.

"I haven't seen him for a day
or two," Hester replied, wishing she knew what better to say. What
troubled Callandra so much? Usually she was a woman of deep sensitivity, of
empathy and a great will to fight, but for all that, there was an inner calm in
her, a certainty that no outside forces could alter. Suddenly that peace at the
core of her was gone. Whatever it was she feared had struck at the root of her
being.

And it concerned Kristian Beck.
Hester was almost sure of that. Had she heard the rumors of his quarrel with
Prudence and feared he was guilty? Even so, why would that cause her anything
but the same grief it would bring everyone else? Why should it disturb her in
this quite fundamental way?

The answer was obvious. There was
only one possibility in Hester's mind, one reason such a thing would have disturbed
her. Her mind flew back to a bitter night during the siege of Sebastopol. The
snow had been deep, muffling the hills in white, deadening sound, laying a
biting cold upon everything. The wind had got up so it bit through the thin blankets
the men huddled in, shuddering with cold. Everyone was hungry. Even now she
could not bear to think of the horses.

She had thought herself in love
with one of the surgeons—although what was the difference between being in love
and thinking yourself so? Surely an emotion is the same whether it lasts or
not—like pain. If you believe you hurt, you feel it just the same.

It was that night that she had
realized he had been so terrified on the battlefield that he had left wounded
men to die. She could still remember the agony of that discovery now, years
after she had ceased to feel anything for him except compassion.

Callandra was in love with Kristian
Beck. Of course. Now that she realized it, she wondered how she had ever failed
to see it. And she was terrified that he was guilty.

Was that merely because of Jeavis's
suspicions over the half-heard quarrel? Or had she learned something further
herself?

She looked at Callandra's pale,
tired face and knew that she would tell her nothing, not that Hester would have
asked. In her place, Hester would have told no one. She would have gone on
believing there must be some reason, some explanation that cast a different
light. She remembered the murder of Joscelin Grey, and all the doubt and pain
that had cost, and knew that to be true.

"I had better find him and
tell him my progress, though," she said aloud, jerking Callandra's
attention back. "Little as it is."

"Yes—yes of course,"
Callandra agreed. "Then I shall not detain you longer. But do get some
sleep, my dear. Everyone has to rest some time, or they cannot have the
strength to be useful."

Hester smiled briefly, as if in
agreement, and excused herself.

* * * * *

Before she found Monk again she
wanted to have another look at the corridor near the laundry chute at seven in
the morning, roughly the time at which Prudence had been killed. She took steps
to see that she was awake at half past six, and by seven she was alone beside
the chute. It was broad daylight, and it had been for nearly three hours, but the
stretch of the passage was dim because there were no windows, and at this time
of the year the gas was not lit.

She stood against the wall and
waited. In thirty-five minutes one dresser passed her carrying a bundle of
bandages, looking neither to right nor left. He appeared tired, and Hester
thought that quite possibly he did not even see her. If he had, she doubted
very much he could have said afterwards who she was.

One nurse passed, going in the
opposite direction. She swore at Hester in a general impersonal anger without
looking at her. She was probably tired, hungry, and saw nothing ahead of her
but endless days and nights the same. Hester had no heart to swear back.

After another quarter hour, having
seen no one, she was about to leave. She had learned all she wished to. Maybe
Monk already knew it, but if he did, it was by other evidence. She knew it for
herself. Anyone would have had time to kill Prudence and put her in the laundry
chute without fear of being observed, or even if they were, of being
recognized by a witness who would testify against them.

She turned and walked toward the
stairs down—and almost bumped into the huge form of Dora Parsons, standing
with her arms folded.

"Oh!" Hester stopped
abruptly, a sudden chill of fear running through her.

Dora grasped hold of her like an
immovable clamp. Struggle would have been pointless.

"And what were you doing
standing there in the shadows by the laundry chute, miss?" Dora said very
quietly, her voice no more than a husky whisper.

Hester's mind went numb. It was
instinctive to deny the truth, but Dora's bright odd eyes were watching her intently,
and there was nothing gullible in her—in fact, she looked hideously knowing.

"I—" Hester began, chill
turning to hot panic. There was no one else within hearing. The deep stairwell
was only two feet away. A quick lift by those huge shoulders and she would be
over it, to fall twenty or thirty feet down onto the stone floor of the laundry
room. Was that how it had been for Prudence? A few moments of throat-closing
terror and then death? Was the whole answer as simple as this—a huge, ugly,
stolid nurse with a personal hatred of women who were a threat to her
livelihood with their new ideas and standards?

"Yeah?" Dora demanded.
"What? Cat got your tongue? Not so smart now, are we?" She shook
Hester roughly, like a rat. "What were you doing there? What were you
waiting for, eh?"

There was no believable lie. She
might as well die, if she were going to, telling the truth. It did occur to her
to scream, but that might well panic Dora into killing her instantly.

"I was ..." Her mouth was
so dry she had to gulp and swallow before she could form the words. "I was
..." she began again, "trying to see how deserted the—the corridor
was at this time of day. Who usually passed." She swallowed again. Dora's
huge hands were gripping her arms so tightly she was going to have purple
bruises there tomorrow—if there was a tomorrow.

Dora moved her face a fraction
closer till Hester could see the open pores of her skin and the separate short
black eyelashes.

"O' course you were,"
Dora hissed softly. "Just 'cos I ain't bin to school don't mean I'm
stupid! 'Oo did yer see? An' why do you care? You weren't even 'ere when that
bitch were done. What's it to you? That's wot I wanna know." She looked
her up and down. "You just a nosy cow, 'r yer got some reason?"

Hester had a strong belief that
merely being nosy would not excuse her in Dora's eyes. And a reason would be
more believable.

"A—a reason," she gasped.

"Yeah? So what is it
then?"

They were only a foot from the
banister now, and the drop down the stairwell. A quick turn of those great
shoulders and Hester would be over.

What would she believe? And what
would she not hate her for? At this point truth was irrelevant.

"I—I want to make sure they
don't blame Dr. Beck just because he's foreign," she gasped.

"Why?" Dora's eyes
narrowed. "Wot's it ter you if they do?" she demanded. "You only
just got here. Why do you care if they 'ang 'im?"

"I knew him before."
Hester was warming to the lie now. It sounded good.

"Did yer, now? And where was
that then? 'E didn't work in your 'ospital in the war! 'E were 'ere."

"I know that," Hester
answered. "The war only lasted two years."

"Got a thing for 'im, 'ave
yer?" Dora's grip relaxed a little. "Won't do yer no good. 'E's
married. Cold bitch with a face like a dead 'addock and a body to match. Still,
that's your trouble, not mine. I daresay as yer wouldn't be the first fine lady
to take 'er pleasures wrong side of the blanket." She squinted at Hester
narrowly, a new expression in her face, not entirely unkind. "Mind, you be
careful as yer don't get yerself inter no trouble." Her grasp loosened
even more. "Wot you learn, then?"

Hester took a deep breath.

"That hardly anyone comes
along there, and those who do aren't looking right or left, and probably
wouldn't recognize anyone in the shadows even if they noticed them. There's
plenty of time to kill someone and stuff them into me chute."