Shroud for a Nightingale (14 page)

Sister Gearing’s voice became petulant:

“That’s all very well, but she ought to be here. God knows, we’re busy too! Brumfett lives in Nightingale House; she had as much opportunity to kill Fallon as anyone.”

Sister Rolfe said quietly: “She had more chance.”

“What do you mean, more chance?”

Sister Gearing’s sharp voice cut into the silence and one of the Burt twins lifted her head.

“She’s had Fallon in her power in the sick bay for the last ten days.”

“But surely you don’t mean…? Brumfett wouldn’t!”“

“Precisely,” said Sister Rolfe coldly. “So why make stupid and irresponsible remarks?”

There was a silence broken only by the rustle of paper and the hiss of the gas fire. Sister Gearing fidgeted.

“I suppose if Brumfett’s lost another two nurses with flu she’ll be pressing Matron to recall some of this block. She’s got her eyes on the Burt twins, I know.”

“Then she’ll be unlucky. This set have had their training disrupted enough already. After all, it’s their last block before their finals. Matron won’t let it be cut short”

“I shouldn’t be too sure. It’s Brumfett, remember. Matron doesn’t usually say no to her. Funny though, I did hear a rumor that they aren’t going on holiday together this year. One of the pharmacists’ assistants had it from Matron’s secretary that Matron plans to motor in Ireland on her own.”

My God, thought Sister Rolfe. Isn’t there any privacy in this place? But she said nothing, only shifting a few inches from the restless figure at her side.

It was then that the wall telephone rang. Sister Gearing leapt up and went across to answer it She turned to the rest of the group, her face creased with disappointment.

“That was Sergeant Masterson. Superintendent Dalgliesh would like to see the Burt twins next please. He’s moved to the visitors’ sitting-room on this floor.”

Without a word and with no signs of nervousness, the Burt twins closed their books and made for the door.

IV

It was half an hour later and Sergeant Masterson was making coffee. The visitors’ sitting-room had been provided with a miniature kitchen, a large recess fitted with a sink and Formica covered cupboard, on which stood a double gas-ring. The cupboard had been cleared of all its paraphernalia except for four large beakers, a canister of sugar and one of tea, a tin of biscuits, a large earthenware jug and strainer, and three transparent air-tight packets of fresh-ground coffee. By the side of the sink were two bottles of milk. The cream-line was easily discernible, but Sergeant Masterson prised the cap away from one of the bottles and sniffed at the milk suspiciously before heating a quantity in a saucepan. He warmed the earthenware jug with hot water from the tap, dried it carefully in the tea towel which hung by the side of the sink, spooned in a generous quantity of coffee and stood waiting for the kettle’s first burst of steam. He approved of the arrangements that had been made. If the police had to work in Nightingale House this room was as convenient and comfortable as any and the coffee was an unexpected bonus which mentally, he credited to Paul Hudson. The Hospital Secretary had struck him as an efficient and imaginative man. His couldn’t be an easy job. The poor devil probably had one hell of a life, sandwiched between those two old fools, Kealey and Grout, and that high-handed bitch of a Matron.

He strained the coffee with meticulous care and carried a beaker over to his chief. They sat and drank companionably together, eyes straying to the storm-wrecked garden. Both of them had a strong dislike of badly cooked food or synthetic coffee and Masterson thought that they never got closer to liking each other than when they were eating and drinking together, deploring the inadequacies of the meals at the inn, or as now, rejoicing in good coffee. Dalgliesh comforted his hands around the beaker and thought that it was typical of Mary Taylor’s efficiency and imagination to ensure that they had real coffee available. Hers couldn’t be an easy job. That ineffectual couple, Kealey and Grout, wouldn’t be much help to anyone, and Paul Hudson was too young to give much support.

After a moment of appreciative sipping, Masterson said:

That was a disappointing interview, sir.“

“The Burt twins? Yes, I must say I had hoped for something more interesting. After all, they were at the center of the mystery; they administered the fatal drip; they glimpsed the mysterious Nurse Fallon on her way out of Nightingale House; they met Sister Brumfett on her perambulations in the early hours. But we knew all that already. And we don’t know any more now.”

Dalgliesh thought about the two girls. Masterson had drawn up a second chair on their entrance and they had sat there side by side, freckled hands ritualistically disposed in their laps, legs modestly crossed, each girl a mirror image of her twin. Their polite antiphonal answers to his questions, spoken in a West Country burr, were as agreeable to the ear as their shining good health to the eye. He had rather taken to the Burt twins. He might, of course, have been facing a couple of experienced accomplices in evil. Anything was possible. Certainly they had had the best opportunity to poison the drip and as good a chance as anyone in Nightingale House to doctor Fallon’s nightcap. Yet they had seemed perfectly at ease with him, a little bored perhaps at having to repeat much of their story, but neither frightened nor particularly worried. From time to time they had gazed at him with a gentle speculative concern rather as if he were a difficult patient whose condition was beginning to give rise to some anxiety. He had noticed this intent and compassionate regard on the faces of the other nurses during their first encounter in the demonstration room and had found it disconcerting.

“And you noticed nothing odd about the milk?”

They had answered almost in unison, rebuking him in the calm voice of common sense.

“Oh no! Well, we wouldn’t have gone ahead with the drip if we had, would we?”

“Can you remember taking the cap off the bottle; was it looser?”

Two pairs of blue eyes looked at each other, almost as if in signal. Then Maureen replied:

“We don’t remember that it was. But even if it had been, we wouldn’t have suspected that someone had been at the milk. We would just have thought that the dairy put it on like that-Then Shirley spoke on her own:

“I don’t think we would have noticed anything wrong with the milk anyway; You see, we were concentrating on the procedures for giving the drip, making sure that we had all the instruments and equipment we needed. We knew that Miss Beale and Matron would arrive at any minute.”

That, of course, was the explanation. They were girls who had been trained to observe, but their observation was specific and limited. If they were watching a patient they would miss nothing of his signs or symptoms, not a flicker of the eyelids or a change of pulse; anything else happening in the room, however dramatic, would probably be unnoticed. Their attention had been on the demonstration, the apparatus, the equipment, the patient The bottle of milk presented no problems. They had taken it for granted. And yet they were farmer’s daughters. One of them—it had been Maureen—had actually poured the stuff from the bottle. Could they really have mistaken the color, the texture, the smell of milk?

As if reading his thoughts Maureen said:

“It wasn’t as if we could smell the carbolic The whole demo room stinks of disinfectant Miss Collins throws the stuff around as if we’re all lepers.”

Shirley laughed: “Carbolic isn’t effective against leprosy!”

They looked at each other, smiling in happy complicity.

And so the interview had gone on. They had no theories to propound, no suggestions to offer. They knew no one who could wish Pearce or Fallon dead, and yet both deaths—since they had occurred—seemed to cause them no particular surprise. They could recall every word of the conversation between Sister Brumfett and themselves in the small hours of that morning, yet the encounter apparently had made little impression on them. When Dalgliesh asked if the Sister had seemed unusually worried or distressed, they gazed at him simultaneously, brows creased in perplexity, before replying that Sister had seemed just the same as usual.

As if following his chiefs thoughts, Masterson said:

“Short of asking them outright, if Sister Brumfett looked as if she’d just come straight from murdering Fallon you couldn’t have put it much plainer. They’re an odd uncommunicative couple.”

“At least they’re sure of the time. They took that milk shortly after seven o’clock and went straight to the demonstration room with it They stood the bottle unopened on the instrument trolley while they made preliminary preparations for the demonstration. They left the demonstration room at seven twenty-five for breakfast and the bottle was still on the trolley when they returned at about twenty-to-nine to complete their preparations. They then stood it still unopened, in a jug of hot water to bring it to blood heat and it remained there until they poured the milk from the bottle into a measuring jug about two minutes before Miss Beale and Matron’s party arrived. Most of the suspects were at breakfast together from eight until eight twenty-five, so that the mischief was either done between seven twenty-five and eight o’clock or in the short period between the end of breakfast and the twins’ return to the demonstration room.”

Masterson said: “I still find it strange that they noticed nothing odd about that milk.”

“They may have noticed more than they realize at present After all, this is the umpteenth time they’ve told their story. During the weeks since Pearce’s death, their first statements have become fixed in their minds as the immutable truth. That’s why I haven’t asked them the crucial question about the milk bottle. If they gave me the wrong answer now they’d never change it They need to be shocked into total recall. They’re not seeing anything that happened with fresh eyes. I dislike reconstructions of the crime; they always make me feel like a fictional detective. But I think there may be a case for reconstruction here. I shall have to be in London early tomorrow, but you and Greeson can see to it Greeson will probably enjoy himself.”

He told Masterson briefly what he proposed and ended:

“You needn’t bother to include the Sisters. I expect you can get a supply of the disinfectant from Miss Collins. But for God’s sake keep an eye on the stuff and chuck it away afterwards. We don’t want another tragedy.”

Sergeant Masterson took up the two beakers and carried them over to the sink. He said:

“Nightingale House does seem to be touched with ill-luck, but I can’t see the killer having another go while we’re around.

It was to prove a singularly unprophetic remark.

V

Since her encounter with Dalgliesh in the nurses’ utility room earlier that morning Sister Rolf e had had time to recover from shock and to consider her position. As Dalgliesh had expected she was not far less forthcoming. She had already given to Inspector Bailey a clear and unambiguous statement about the arrangements for the demonstration and the intra-gastric feeding and about her own movements on the. morning that Nurse Pearce died. She confirmed the statement accurately and without fuss. She agreed that she had known that Nurse Pearce was to act the part of the patient and pointed out sarcastically that there would be little point in denying the knowledge since it was she whom Madeleine Goodale bad called when Fallon was taken ill.

Dalgliesh asked: “Did you have any doubt of the genuineness of her illness?”

“At the time?”

“Then or now.”

“I suppose you’re suggesting that Fallon could have feigned influenza to ensure that Pearce took her place, and then sneaked back to Nightingale House before breakfast to doctor the drip? I don’t know why she did come back, but you can put any idea that she was pretending to be ill out of your head. Even Fallon couldn’t simulate a temperature of 103.8, a minor rigor and a racing pulse. She was a very sick girl that night, and she remained sick for nearly ten days.”

Dalgliesh pointed out that it was all the more odd that she should have been well enough to make her way back to Nightingale House next morning. Sister Rolf e replied that it was so odd that she could only assume that Fallon had had an imperative need to return. Invited to speculate on what that need could have been she replied that it wasn’t her job to propound theories. Then, as if under a compulsion, she added:

“But it wasn’t to murder Pearce. Fallon was highly intelligent, easily the most intelligent of her year. If Fallon came back to put the corrosive in the feed she would know perfectly well that there was a considerable risk of her being seen in Nightingale House even if she weren’t missed on the ward, and she’d have taken good care to have a story ready. It wouldn’t have been difficult to think of something. As it is, I gather she merely declined to give Inspector Bailey any explanation.”

“Perhaps she was clever enough to realize that this extraordinary reticence would strike another intelligent woman in exactly that way.”

“A kind of double bluff? I don’t think so. It would be banking too heavily on the intelligence of the police.”

She admitted calmly that she had no alibi for any of the time from seven o’clock when the twins had collected the bottle of milk from the kitchen until ten minutes to nine when she had joined the Matron and Mr. Courtney-Briggs in Miss Taylor’s sitting-room to await the arrival of Miss Beale, except for the period from eight to eight twenty-five when she had breakfasted at the same table as Sister Brumfett and Sister Gearing. Sister Brumfett had left the table first and she had followed at about eight twenty-five. She had gone first to her office next door to the demonstration room, but finding Mr. Courtney-Briggs in occupation, had made her way at once to her bed-sitting-room on the third floor.

When Dalgliesh asked whether Sister Gearing and Sister Brumfett had appeared their usual selves at breakfast she replied drily that they exhibited no signs of impending homicidal mania if that was what he meant. Gearing had read the
Daily Mirror
and Brumfett the
Nursing Times,
if that were of any significance, and the conversation had been minimal. She regretted she could offer no witnesses to her own movements before or after the meal but that was surely understandable; for some years now she had preferred to wash and go to the lavatory in private. Apart from that, she valued the free time before the day’s work and preferred to spend it alone.