Green for Danger (11 page)

“Well, I never left the ward that night,” said Frederica stubbornly.

“Except before Miss Sanson left, to get yourself some food.” He said suddenly: “Where were you that morning—the morning Higgins was having his operation, I mean?”

“I was in bed in my quarters, of course,” said Freddi impatiently.

He looked at her intently. “Oh, were you? In bed in your quarters? That's interesting,” and added, not thinking: “Alone, of course?”

“Quite alone,” said Frederica, and marched out indignantly, her golden head in the air.

5

Barney was also going to the party, and he was not best pleased at being approached by Inspector Cockrill with a request to demonstrate his anæsthetising apparatus. “Wouldn't you rather wait till tomorrow?” he asked politely.

“No, I want to get back to Torrington to-morrow; I wouldn't have stayed at all if it hadn't been for the air-raid … and this business of Sergeant McCoy, of course,” added Cockie hurriedly. The airraid was still going on, rather mildly, over their heads, but it was one thing to be in a good solid building, and another to be bucketing along the country roads in a little car, with the guns going off all round you and Jerries overhead. He led the way imperiously to the theatre. “I won't keep you long; I just want to see what you do.”

Barney's grave eyes questioned him uncertainly. “If there
was
anything cockeyed about the man's death, it does seem like that it may have been connected with the anæsthetic, doesn't it?” suggested Cockrill apologetically. “It's really particularly for your sake that we want to get it straight.” His own opinion was that it was all a lot of military flammery and red tape.

Barnes led the way over to his trolley, switching on the great overhead lights of the theatre; he sat down on the little round revolving stool and pulled the trolley between his knees. It was green enamelled, about twenty-four inches square, with a bracket across the top from which hung three glass jars; on one side of the trolley were five circular metal bands into which were set the big, cast-iron cylinders of gas and oxygen; two were painted black, two black with a white collar, and one, in the centre, green. Barnes flicked them with a finger nail: “Black nitrous oxide; black and white, oxygen; and green carbon dioxide.”

Cockrill stood with his short legs apart, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, still in his droopy mackintosh with his hat on the back of his head. He hated to know less than the man he was talking to; and he had watched young Barnes grow up. He said at last gruffly: “Talk plain English.”

Barney smiled up at him suddenly, that rare and charming smile of his, that lit up his face into good humour again. He said apologetically: “Sorry, Cockie; I was being difficult. I want to go to a party”; and elaborated more clearly: “Nitrous oxide is just ordinary gas, like you get at the dentist's. For longer anæsthesia we use it with oxygen; those are the two outside cylinders. The green one in the middle is CO2—carbon dioxide; but we needn't bother about it, because we didn't use it on Higgins, and in fact it very seldom
is
used, except in special cases.”

“Is that why there's only one tube of it, and two of each of the others?”

“Yes, that's right. There's a spare of nitrous oxide and a spare of oxygen; they're connected up, and in emergency you only have to switch on the reducing valve; but, again, they don't concern Higgins, because as it happens we were using fresh cylinders of both, so of course we didn't run short. Anyway, we didn't have time to run short.”

“No possibility that the reducing valve wasn't turned off?”

“It wouldn't have made any difference; after all, they were still just gas and oxygen, and the flow is regulated up here.” He glanced at the glass jar on the bracket. “But, anyway, they were both firmly turned off, because of course we went over the whole thing afterwards.”

Cockie fiddled with his cigarette, longing to light it, but overawed by the formidable cleanliness of his surroundings. He said, rocking backwards and forwards slowly, from his toes to his heels: “What about all these rubber tubes and things?”

The Y-tubes led from the cylinders, black from the nitrous oxide, red from the oxygen and green from the central cylinder of carbon dioxide, to the first of the glass jars hanging from the bracket above the trolley; and each was controlled by a tap. Two of the jars were coloured, but the first was plain; it was half filled with water, and three metal tubes, each with a line of little holes, like a flute, stuck down into the jar and well below the surface of the water. Barney turned a tap and bubbles appeared from the first tube at the water line, and spread down to the bottom of the tube as the tap was turned more fully on. “The nitrous oxide,” said Barnes. He left it bubbling and turned on another tap, and the third tube bubbled. “That's the oxygen. They mix above the surface of the water and pass along a single metal pipe to the mask over the patient's face. If we used the carbon dioxide, it would bubble out of the centre tube; but we didn't.” He let a line of bubbles run up and down the centre tube for a moment, and then switched off.

“So only these two are being used,” summed up Cockrill, pointing to the two outside cylinders with the toe of his shoe. “And only the corresponding outside tubes in the jar are bubbling?”

“Yes, that's right.”

“And that's all that was used on this man Higgins?”

“Yes, that's right,” said Barney again. He got up off the stool. “You sit down and try.”

Cockie sat down, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the sickly familiar smell of ether and antiseptic, but concentrating deeply upon the trolley in front of him. He twiddled the taps for a minute or so, and bubbles played madly up and down the little tubes. “What about all these bits and pieces—bottles and jars and things?”

“Oh, those are mostly emergency stuff; adrenalin and strychnine and so forth; and the usual collection of gags and tongue clips and what-have-you. This funny short, fat red tube is the air-way; we put it down the patient's throat when he's well under, to keep it from closing up or getting obstructed. It's got a metal mouthpiece, you see, to keep him from biting on it and closing it.”

“Charming,” said Cockrill dryly. He looked at the rows of bottles and jars and instruments. “Which of these was actually used on Higgins?”

“Well, none of them until things began to go wrong. Then I put in the air-way—that's why I mentioned it to you; and, of course, I used a gag between his teeth while I put it in. After that I gave an injection of adrenalin and after that we gave him a shot of coramine, intramuscularly; finally I gave him some into a vein; but it was all no use.”

“And these are literally the only things that were used on him?”

“Yes, definitely; unless you count the injection of morphia and atropine an hour before the operation began?”

Cockrill considered. “No, for the moment I'm only interested in what happened here in the theatre.”

“Well, that's absolutely all,” said Barney, looking surreptitiously at his watch.

Cockrill observed the glance and grinned to himself; he made no comment on it, however, but continued steadily with his questions: “These injections—you gave them all yourself?”

“I gave the adrenalin, and the second lot of coramine, intravenously. The V.A.D. gave the other dose, into the muscle.”

“Who, Miss Woods?”

“Yes, that's right.” He pointed to a row of little glass ampoules, similar to those sold by tobacconists for filling cigarette lighters. “This is the coramine. You just break the thing open and suck the stuff up into a hypodermic.”

“And the adrenalin?”

“In a bottle.”

“Could there have been anything wrong with the bottle?”

“There could, I suppose, though heaven knows what or how; but I've used it since, and anyway the man was already collapsing when I gave him the first injection.”

“I see. So that all that was used before things began to go wrong was really just the gas and oxygen?”

“That's absolutely all. I gave pure nitrous oxide first, to get him under.…”

“The black cylinder,” said Cockie, scowling at it.

“That's right; and then added oxygen till the mixture was about fifty-fifty.…”

“The black cylinder with the white top …?”

“Yes,” said Barney again, grinning faintly at this naïve summary of his lesson.

“And they both passed through the water in the first bottle on the bracket, the clear glass one; bubbling out of the two outside tubes in the bottle, and mixing above the surface of the water and then passing along this big rubber tube to the patient.”

“You'd better come and give the next lot yourself, Cockie,” said Barney, laughing.

Cockrill made a little movement of irritation at this misplaced levity; he continued stolidly: “And all these tubes from the cylinders to the glass bottle—they definitely weren't crossed or mixed up in any way?”

“No, definitely not. Moon and Eden and I all checked them over till we were blue in the face. There was nothing wrong with the trolley.”

Cockrill was silent, swivelling gently to and fro on the stool. He said at last: “I suppose you will think this is funny too—but would it be possible to have the wrong gas in a cylinder? Would it be possible to empty one and fill it with something else?”

Barney, far from being amused, was shocked to the core by such a suggestion. “Good heavens, no. It would be impossible. It takes terrific pressure to fill these things; that's why they're made so strong.”

“Oh,” said Cockrill, continuing to swivel.

“Even supposing it could happen—supposing you got nitrous oxide in an oxygen cyclinder, for example—it wouldn't work, because the reducing valves of the oxygen and nitrous oxide cylinders are different. The things wouldn't fit and you'd soon find out what was happening.”

“What about the green tube in the middle—the carbon dioxide?”

“Well, yes, that's the same size valve,” admitted Barney.

“All right then; supposing, just for the sake of argument, that you somehow got carbon dioxide in an oxygen cylinder, a black and white cylinder … supposing the manufacturers made a mistake, for example.…”

“My dear Cockie, as if such a thing could happen!”

“I'm not saying it
could
happen,” said Cockrill irritably; “do use your imagination: I say pretending for the sake of argument that it did happen … what then?”

“Well, the carbon dioxide cylinders are very often smaller than the others,” said Barnes; “however, in our case, they certainly were all the same size. I suppose—yes, if such a thing happened, you would connect up the cylinder quite cheerfully, and go right ahead.”

“And the patient would die?”

“Yes, the patient would die all right. Instead of getting nitrous oxide and oxygen, he'd be getting nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide; and he'd collapse for want of—well, for want of oxygen!”

“But all the little bubbles in the glass jar would appear quite normal?”

“Yes, obviously, because the cylinder would be in the right position with the proper tubes and everything duly connected up.”

Cockrill considered again. “Couldn't you smell the wrong gas coming out of the cylinder if such a thing were to happen?”

“No, all the gases are colourless and odourless.…”

“I thought you said nitrous oxide was ordinary gas like you get at the dentist's?”

“Well, that doesn't smell.”

The bare thought of it sent Cockrill into a sickly warm, swoony daze; for a horrible half second he was fighting against gas, great nauseating waves of it, strong and pungent and thick.… He said indignantly: “It smells like a thousand drains!”

“No, honestly. That's the rubber mask that you smell; nitrous oxide is absolutely odourless.”

Cockie remained unconvinced. “It's quite true,” said Barney, laughing.

“Well, all right, if you say so; I suppose you should know. And the others don't smell either?”

“Carbon dioxide gives off a little prickly feeling if you get it in a strong enough concentration; like sniffing a glass of soda water; but it doesn't smell.”

“Did you sniff at the cylinders after Higgins' death to see if there was any prickly feeling?”

“No, of course I didn't,” said Barnes. “The whole thing was properly fixed up, and though we seem to have demonstrated that you could kill a patient by getting carbon dioxide into an oxgyen cylinder, the solid fact remains that it would be physically impossible to get the CO
₂
into the cylinder in the first place.”

Cockrill stood up and stretched himself. “Wouldn't it have been—I don't want to seem offensive, my boy, but other people will ask the same question if anything develops from this inquiry—wouldn't it have been a reasonable precaution to have taken?”

“No, it wouldn't,” said Barnes, impatiently. “You couldn't possibly tell by sniffing at a cylinder, what was in it … you have to have a very strong concentration to be able to detect CO
₂
and smelling the mask or the cylinder certainly wouldn't give it to you. Besides, we were looking for accidents, not miracles; you don't expect an elephant to come out of a rabbit hole. Short of a mistake on the part of the manufacturers, which is out of the question, it would not have been possible to have had anything in the oxygen cylinder but oxygen, and that's flat. You can ask all the anæsthetists in Kent and none of them will say that he would have dreamed of examining the cylinders. Of course there was nothing on earth wrong with them.”

“Were these particular cylinders used again?”

“I suppose they were, on the next patients; I don't know anything about that. The theatre staff are responsible for seeing that enough gas is ready on the trolley; we used hardly any nitrous oxide on Higgins, and only a certain amount of oxygen; so I suppose the cylinders will have been practically full, and we're almost sure to have just carried on with them.”