A sudden, fearful death (26 page)

" 'Oo? Sir 'Erbert?'

" 'Course Sir 'Erbert. 'Oo
else? Not old German George. 'E's a foreigner and full o' funny ideas anyway.
Wouldn't be surprised if it were 'im wot killed 'er. That's what them rozzers
are sayin' anyway."

"Are they?" Hester looked
interested. "Why? I mean, couldn't it just as easily have been anyone
else?"

They all looked at her.

"Wot yer mean?" the
red-haired one said with a frown.

Hester hitched herself onto the
edge of the laundry basket This was the sort of opportunity she had been
angling for. "Well, who was here when she was killed?"

They looked at her, then at each
other.

"Wot yer mean? Doctors, and
the like?"

" 'Course she means doctors
and the like," the fat woman said derisively. "She don't think one of
us did her in. If I were going to kill anyone, it'd be me oP man, not some
jumped-up nurse wi' ideas above 'erself. Wot do I care about 'er? I wouldn't
'av seen 'er dead, poor cow, but I wouldn't shed no tears either."

"What about the treasurer and
the chaplain?" Hester tried to sound casual. "Did they like
her?"

The fat woman shrugged. "Who
knows? Why should they care one way or the other?"

"Well she weren't
bad-looking," the old one replied with an air of generosity. "And if
they can chase Mary 'Iggins, they could certainly chase 'er."

"Who chases Mary
Higgins?" Hester inquired, not sure who Mary Higgins was, but assuming she
was a nurse.

"The treasurer," the
young one said with a shrug. "Fancies 'er, 'e does."

"So does the chaplain,"
the fat woman said with a snort.

"Dirty old sod. Keeps putting
'is arm 'round 'er an' calling 'er 'dear.' Mind, I wouldn't say as 'e didn't
fancy Pru' Barrymore neither, come ter think on it. Maybe 'e went too far, and
she threatened to report 'im? 'E could 'a done it."

"Would he have been here at
that time in the morning?" Hester asked dubiously. . They looked at each
other.

"Yeah," the fat one said
with certainty. '"E'd bin 'ere all night 'cos of someone important dying.
'E were 'ere all right. Maybe 'e did it, and not German George? An' 'is patient
snuffed it, an all," she added. "Wot were a surprise. Thought 'e were
goin' ter make it—poor sod."

There were several such
conversations in between the sweeping and fetching, rolling bandages, emptying
pails and changing beds. Hester learned a great deal about where everybody was
at about seven o'clock on the morning that Prudence Barrymore had died, but it
still left a great many possibilities as to who could have killed her. She
heard much gossip about motives, most of it scurrilous and highly speculative,
but when she saw John Evan she reported it to him in the brief moment they had
alone in one of the small side rooms where medicines were kept. Mrs. Flaherty
had just left, after instructing Hester to roll an enormous pile of bandages,
and Sir Herbert was not due for at least another half hour, after he had
finished luncheon.

Evan half sat on the table,
watching her fingers smoothing and rolling the cloth.

"Have you told Monk yet?"
he asked with a smile.

"I haven't seen him since
Sunday," she replied.

"What is he doing?" he
asked, his voice light but his hazel eyes watching her with brightness.

"I don't know," she
answered, piling another heap of bandages on the table beside him. "He
said he was going to learn more about various governors on the board, in case
one of them had some relationship with Prudence, or her family, that we don't
know about. Or even some connection with her in the Crimea, in any way."

Evan grunted, his eyes roaming over
the cabinet with its jars of dried herbs, colored crystals, and bottles of wine
and surgical spirits. "That's something we haven't even thought of."
He pulled a face. "But then Jeavis wouldn't. He tends to think in terms of
the obvious and usually he's right. Runcorn would never countenance disturbing
the gentry, unless there is no other choice. Does Monk think it's personal, in
that way?"

She laughed. "He's not told
me. It could be anybody. It seems the chaplain was here all that night—and Dr.
Beck ..."

Evan's head jerked up. "The
chaplain. I didn't know that. He didn't say so when we spoke to him. Although
to be honest I'm not sure Jeavis asked him. He was more concerned with his
opinion of Prudence, and anybody's feelings about her that the chaplain might
know of."

"And did he know of any?"
she asked.

He smiled, his eyes bright with
amusement. He knew she would tell Monk whatever he said.

"Nothing promising," he
began. "Mrs. Flaherty didn't like her, but that's not surprising. The
other nurses largely tolerated her, but they had little in common. One or two
of the younger ones admired her—a little hero worship there, I think. One of
the student doctors seems to have felt rather the same, but she gave him little
encouragement." His expression took on a shadow of wry sympathy, as if he
could imagine it clearly. "Another one of the students, tall fellow with
fair hair that falls over his brow, he didn't like her. Thought she had
ambitions above a woman's place." His eyes met Hester's. "Arrogant
fellow, he seemed to me," he added. "But then he doesn't care for
policemen either. We get in the way of the real work, which of course is his
work."

"You didn't like him,"
she stated the obvious, reaching for another heap of bandages. "But was he
in the hospital that morning?"

He pulled a face.
"Unfortunately not. Nor was the one who admired her."

"Who was, that you know?"

"About half the nurses, the
treasurer, Dr. Beck, Sir Herbert, two student doctors named Howard and
Cantrell, Mrs. Flaherty, one of the Board of Governors called Sir Donald
MacLean, another called Lady Ross Gilbert. And the front doors were open so
anyone could have come in unobserved. Not very helpful, is it?"

"Not very," she agreed.
"But then I suppose opportunity was never going to be our best chance for
evidence."

He laughed. "How very
efficient you sound. Monk's right-hand man—I mean, woman."

She was about to explode in
argument that she was most certainly not Monk's hand of any sort when Mrs.
Flaherty's thin upright figure appeared in the doorway, her face pink with
anger, her eyes brilliant.

"And what are you doing, Nurse
Latterly, standing about talking to this young man? You are very new here, and
regardless of your friendship with certain well-placed persons, I would
remind you we set a very high moral standard, and if you fall below it, you
will be dismissed!"

For an instant Hester was furious.
Then she saw the absurdity of her morality's being questioned in regard to
John Evan.

"I am from the police, Matron
Flaherty," Evan said coldly, standing upright. "I was questioning
Miss Latterly. She had no alternative but to answer me, as have all the staff
in the hospital, if they wish to assist the law rather than be charged with obstructing
it."

Color flared up Mrs. Flaherty's
cheeks. "Fiddlesticks, young man!" she said. "Nurse Latterly was
not even here when poor Nurse Barrymore met her death. If you have not even
learned that, then you are hopelessly incompetent. I don't know what we pay you
for!"

"Of course I am aware of
that," Evan said angrily. "It is precisely because she could not be
guilty that her observation is so useful."

"Observation of what?"
Mrs. Flaherty's white eyebrows rose very high. "As I have just pointed
out, young man, she was not here. What could she have seen?"

Evan affected extreme patience.
"Mrs. Flaherty, seven days ago someone strangled one of your nurses and
stuffed the body down the laundry chute. Such an act is not an isolated piece
of lunacy. Whoever did it had a powerful motive, something which springs from
the past Similarly, the memory of that crime, and the fear of being caught,
will carry forward into the future. There is much to observe now for those with
the ability to see it."

Mrs. Flaherty grunted, looked at
Hester her strong face, her slender almost lean figure, very square-shouldered,
very upright; then at Evan standing beside the table piled with bandages, his
soft wing of brown hair waving off the brow, his long nosed, sensitive,
humorous face; and snorted her disbelief. Then she swung on her heel and
marched off.

Evan did not know whether to be
angry or to laugh; the mixed emotions were plain in his expression.

"I'm sorry," he
apologized. "I did not mean to compromise your reputation. It never
occurred to me."

"Nor to me," Hester
admitted with a faint heat in her cheeks. It was all so ridiculous.
"Perhaps if we meet again, it had better be outside the hospital?"

"And outside Jeavis's
knowledge too," he said quickly. "He would not appreciate me giving
aid and comfort to the enemy." _ "The enemy. Am I the enemy?"

"By extension, yes." He
put his hands in his pockets. "Runcorn still hates Monk and never ceases
to tell Jeavis how much more satisfactory he is, but the men still speak of
Monk, and Jeavis is no fool. He knows why Runcorn prefers him, and he's
determined to prove himself and lay Monk's ghost." He smiled. "Not
that he ever will. Runcorn can't forget all the years Monk trod on his heels,
the times he was right when Runcorn was wrong, the little things, the unspoken
contempt, the better-cut suits, the voice a little rounder." He was
watching Hester's eyes. "Just the fact that he tried so often to humiliate
Monk, and could never quite succeed. He won in the end, but it didn't taste
like victory.

He keeps wanting to bring him back
so he can win again, and this time savor it properly."

"Oh dear." Hester rolled
the last of the bandages and tied the end. She was sorry for Jeavis, and in a
faint equivocal way for Runcorn, but mostly she had a sharp prickle of satisfaction
on Monk's account. She was not quite smiling, but very nearly. "Poor
Inspector Jeavis."

Evan looked startled for a moment,
then comprehension lit his face, and an inner gentleness. "I had better go
and see the chaplain." He inclined his head. "Thank you!"

That afternoon Hester was sent for
to assist Sir Herbert in an operation. She was told by a large nurse with powerful
shoulders, a coarse-featured face, and remarkable eyes. Hester had seen her
several times, always with a feeling of unease, and it was only this time that
she realized why her eyes were so arresting. One was blue and the other quite
clear cold green. How could she have failed to notice it before? Perhaps the
sheer physical strength of the woman had so filled her mind as to leave no room
for other impressions.

"Sir 'Erbert wants yer,"
the woman said grimly. Her name was Dora Parsons; that much Hester remembered.

Hester put down the pail she was
carrying. "Where?'

"In 'is office, o' course. I
s'pose your goin' to take her place then? Or yer think y'are!"

"Whose place?"

The woman's huge, ugly face was
sharp with contempt. "Don't act gormless wi' me, miss 'igh 'n' mighty.
Jus' 'cos yer've bin ter the Crimea an' everybody's fallen over their-selves
about yer, don't think yer can get away wi' anything at all, 'cos yer can't!
Givin' yerself airs like yer too good fer the rest of us." She spat
viciously to demonstrate her scorn.

"I assume you mean Nurse
Barrymore?" Hester said icily, although the woman's physical power was
intimidating. She would guard very carefully against finding herself alone with
her in the laundry room, out of earshot. But bullies chase those in whom they
sense fear.

"O' course I mean Nurse
Barrymore." Dora mimicked Hester's voice. "Are there any other fancy
Crimean nurses around 'ere?"

"Well, you are in a better
position than I to know that," Hester retorted. "I assume from your
words that you disliked her?"

"Me and 'alf a score
others," Dora agreed. "So don't you go tryin' ter say I was the one
what done 'er in, or I'll 'ave yer." She leered. "I could break your
skinny little neck in two shakes, I could."

"It would seem unnecessary to
tell the police." Hester controlled her voice with an effort. Deliberately
she thought of Prudence in the surgeon's tent on the battlefield, and then
lying dead in the laundry room, to make herself angry. It was better than being
afraid of this wretched woman. "Your behavior makes it so obvious that the
stupidest constable could see it for himself. Do you often break people's
necks if they annoy you?"

Dora opened her mouth to reply,
then realized that what she had been going to say led her straight into a trap.

"Well are you goin' ter Sir
'Erbert, or shall I tell him as yer declines to, seein' as yer too busy?"

"I'm going." Hester moved
away, around the huge figure of Dora Parsons and swiftly out of the room and
along the corridor, boot heels clattering on the floor. She reached Sir
Herbert's door and knocked sharply, as if Dora were still behind her.

"Come!" Sir Herbert's
voice was peremptory.