Shroud for a Nightingale (27 page)

He paused as if defying Dalgliesh to interrupt with another question. Meeting only a bland interrogatory gaze, he went on:

“So much for Nurse Pearce’s death. I can’t help you further there. It’s rather a different matter with Nurse Fallon.”

“Something that happened last night; someone you saw?”

The irritation snapped out: “Nothing to do with last night, Superintendent, Miss Gearing has already told you about last night. We saw no one. We left her room immediately after twelve o’clock and went out down the back stairs through Miss Taylor’s flat. I retrieved my bicycle from the bushes at the rear of the house—I see no reason why my visits here should be advertised to every mean-minded female in the neighborhood—and we walked together to the first turn in the path. Then we paused to talk and I escorted Miss Gearing back to Nightingale House and watched her in through the back door. She had left it open. I finally rode off and as I have told you, got to the fallen elm at twelve seventeen a.m. If anyone passed that way after me and fixed a white scarf to a branch, I can only say that I didn’t see him. If he came by car it must have been parked at the other side of Nightingale House. I saw no car.”

Another pause. Dalgliesh made no sign, but Masterson permitted himself a sigh of weary resignation as he rustled over a page of his note pad.

“No, Superintendent, the event which I am about to relate took place last spring when this present set of students, including Nurse Fallon, were in their second-year block. As was customary, I gave them a lecture on poisons. At the end of my talk all the students except Nurse Fallon had gathered up their books and left She came up to the desk and asked me for the name of a poison which could kill painlessly and instantaneously and which an ordinary person might be able to obtain. I thought it an unusual question but saw no reason why I should refuse to answer it. It never occurred to me for one moment that the question had any personal application and, in any case, it was information she could have obtained from a book in the hospital library on materia medica or forensic medicine.”

Dalgliesh said: “And what exactly did you tell her, Mr. Morris?”

“I told her that one such poison was nicotine and that it I could be obtained from an ordinary rose spray.”

Truth or a lie? Who could tell? Dalgliesh fancied that he I could usually detect lying in a suspect; but not this suspect And if Morris stuck to his story, how could it ever be disproved? And if it were a lie, its purpose was plain—to suggest that Josephine Fallon had killed herself. And the obvious reason why he should wish to do that was to protect Sister Gearing. He loved her. This slightly ridiculous, pedantic man; that silly, flirtatious, ageing woman—they loved each other. And why not? Love wasn’t the prerogative of the young and desirable. But it was a complication in any investigation—pitiable, tragic or ludicrous, as the case might be, but never negligible. Inspector Bailey, as he knew from the notes on the first crime, had never full believed in the story of the greetings card. It was in his opinion a foolish and childish gesture for a grown man, and particularly out of character for Morris; therefore he distrusted it But Dalgliesh thought differently. It was one with Morris’s lonely, unromantic cycle rides to visit his mistress; the machine hidden ignominiously in the bushes behind Nightingale House; the slow walk together through the cold of a January midnight prolonging those last precious minutes; his clumsy but strangely dignified defense of the woman he loved. And this last statement true or false, was inconvenient to say the least. If he stuck to it, it would be a powerful argument for those who preferred to believe that Fallon had died by her own hand. And he would stick to it He looked at Dalgliesh now with the steadfast exalted gaze of a prospective martyr, holding his adversary’s eyes, daring him to disbelieve. Dalgliesh sighed:

“All right” he said. “We won’t waste time in speculation. Let’s go once again over the timing of your movements last night.”

IV

Sister Brumfett, true to her promise, was waiting outside the door when Masterson let Leonard Morris out. But her previous mood of cheerful acquiescence had vanished and she settled herself down opposite Dalgliesh as if to do battle. Before that matriarchal glare he felt something of the inadequacy of a junior student nurse newly arrived on the private ward; and something stronger and horribly familiar. His mind traced the surprising fear unerringly to its source. Just so had the Matron of his prep, school once looked at him, producing in the homesick eight-year-old the same inadequacy, the same fear. And for one second he had to force himself to meet her gaze.

It was the first opportunity he had had to observe her closely and on her own. It was an unattractive and yet an ordinary face. The small shrewd eyes glared into his through steel spectacles, their bridge half embedded in the deep fleshy cleft above the mottled nose. Her iron gray hair was cut short, framing in ribbed waves the plump marsupial cheeks and the obstinate line of the jaw. The elegant gophered cap which on Mavis Gearing looked as delicate as a meringue of spun lace and which flattered even Hilda Rolfe’s androgynous features was bound low on Sister Brumfett’s brow like a pie frill circling a particularly unappetizing crust. Take that symbol of authority away and replace it by an undistinguished felt hat, cover the uniform with a shapeless fawn coat, and you would have the prototype of a middle-aged suburban housewife strutting through the supermarket, shapeless bag in hand, eyes shrewd for this week’s bargain. Yet here, apparently, was one of the best ward Sisters John Carpendar had ever had. Here, more surprisingly, was Mary Taylor’s chosen friend.

Before he could begin to question her, she said:

“Nurse Fallon committed suicide. First she killed Pearce and then herself. Fallon murdered Pearce. I happen to know that she did. So why don’t you stop worrying Matron and let the work of the hospital go on? There’s nothing you can do to help either of them now. They’re both dead.”

Spoken in that authoritative and disconcertingly evocative tone the statement had the force of a command. Dalgliesh’s reply was unreasonably sharp. Damn the woman! He wouldn’t be intimidated.

“If you know that for certain, you must have some proof.

And anything you know ought to be told. I’m investigating murder. Sister, not the theft of a bedpan. You have a duty not to withhold evidence.“

She laughed; a sharp, derisive hoot like an animal coughing.

“Evidence! You wouldn’t call it evidence. But I know!”

“Did Nurse Fallon speak to you when she was being nursed on your ward? Was she delirious?”

It was no more than a guess. She snorted her derision.

“If she did, it wouldn’t be my duty to tell you. What a patient lets out in delirium isn’t gossip to be bandied about Not on my ward anyway. It isn’t evidence either. Just accept what I tell you and stop fussing. Fallon killed Pearce. Why do you think she came back to Nightingale House that morning, with a temperature of 103? Why do you think she refused to give the police a reason? Fallon killed Pearce. You men like to make things so complicated. But it’s all so simple really. Fallon killed Pearce, and there’s no doubt she had her reasons.”

“There are no valid reasons for murder. And even if Fallon did kill Pearce, I doubt whether she killed herself. I’ve no doubt your colleagues have told you about the rose spray. Remember that Fallon hadn’t been in Nightingale House since that tin of nicotine was placed in the conservatory cupboard. Her set haven’t been in Nightingale House since the spring of last year and Sister Gearing bought the rose spray in the summer. Nurse Fallon was taken ill on the night that this block began and didn’t return to Nightingale House until the evening before she died. How do you account for the fact that she knew where to find the nicotine?”

Sister Brumfett looked surprisingly disconcerted. There was a moment’s silence and then she muttered something unintelligible. Dalgliesh waited. Then she said defensively:

“I don’t know how she got hold of it That’s for you to discover. But if’s obvious that she did.”

“Did you know where the nicotine had been put?”

“No. I don’t have anything to do with the garden or the conservatory. I like to get out of the hospital on my free days. I usually play golf with Matron or we go for a drive. We try to arrange our off duty together.”

Her tone was smug with satisfaction. She made no attempt to hide her complacency. What was she trying to convey, he wondered. Was this reference to the Matron her way of telling him that she was teacher’s pet, to be treated with deference?

He said: “Weren’t you in the conservatory that evening last summer when Miss Gearing came in with the stuff?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I think you’d better try to remember, Sister. It shouldn’t be difficult Other people remember perfectly well.”

“If they say I was there, I probably was.”

“Miss Gearing says that she showed you all the bottle and made a facetious remark about being able to poison the whole school with a few drops. You told her not to be childish and to make sure the tin was locked away. Do you remember now?”

“If s the sort of silly remark Mavis Gearing would make and I daresay I did tell her to be careful. If’s a pity she didn’t take notice of me.”

“You take these deaths very calmly, Sister.”

“I take every death very calmly. If I didn’t I couldn’t do my job. Death is happening all the time in a hospital. It’s probably happening now on my ward as it did this afternoon to one of patients!”

She spoke with sudden and passionate protest, stiffening as if in outrage that the dread finger could touch anyone for whom she was responsible. Dalgliesh found the sudden change of mood disconcerting. It was as if this thickening, unattractive body housed the temperament of a
prima donna,
passionate and irrational. At one moment the eyes, small and unremarkable behind their thick lenses, met his in dull resentment, the obstinate little mouth snapped out its grievances. And then, suddenly, there was this metamorphosis. She blazed at him, her face flaming with indignation so that it came fiercely alive. He had a glimpse of that fervent and possessive love with which she encompassed those in her care. Here was a woman, outwardly unremarkable, who had dedicated her life to a single aim with formidable determination. If something—or someone—got in the way of what she regarded as the greater good, how far would that determination carry her? She seemed to Dalgliesh a fundamentally unintelligent woman. But murder was frequently the last resort of the unintelligent. And were these murders, for all their complexity, the work of a clever woman? A bottle of disinfectant quickly seized; a tin of nicotine readily available. Didn’t both these deaths speak of a sudden uncontrolled impulse, an unthinking reliance on the easiest means? Surely in a hospital there were more subtle methods of disposal?

The shrewd eyes were regarding him with watchful dislike. The whole interrogation was an outrage to her. It was hopeless to try to propitiate such a witness and he had no stomach to try. He said:

“I want to go through your movements on the morning Nurse Pearce died, and last night.”

“I’ve already told Inspector Bailey about the morning Pearce died. And I’ve sent you a note.”

“I know. Thank you for it Now I want you to tell me yourself.”

She made no further protest but recited the sequence of her movements and actions as if they were a railway timetable.

Her account of her movements on the morning of Heather Pearce’s death agreed almost exactly with the written statement she had already given to Inspector Bailey. She described only her own actions, put forward no theories, gave no opinion. After that first revealing outburst she had apparently decided to stick to facts.

She had woken at six thirty on the Monday the twelfth of January, and had then joined the Matron for early morning tea which it was their habit to drink together in Miss Taylor’s flat She bad left Matron at seven fifteen and had then bathed and dressed. She had stayed in her own room until about ten minutes to eight when she had collected her paper from the rack in the hall and had gone in to breakfast She had seen no one on the stairs or in the hall. Sister Gearing and Sister Rolfe had joined her in the dining-room and they had breakfasted together. She had finished her breakfast and had left the room first; she was unable to say precisely when but it was probably not later than twenty-past eight had returned briefly to her sitting-room on the third floor, and had then walked over to the hospital where she had arrived on her ward shortly before nine o’clock. She had known about the General Nursing Council Inspection since, obviously, Matron had talked to her about it. She had known about the demonstration since details of the nurse training program were on the hall notice-board. She had known about Josephine Fallon’s illness since Sister Rolfe had telephoned her during the night. She had not, however, known that Nurse Pearce was to take Fallon’s place. She agreed that she could have discovered this easily by a glance at the notice-board, but she had not troubled to look. There was no reason why she should be concerned. Taking an interest fat the general nurse training program was one thing, bothering to check on who was to act as the patient was quite another.

She had not known that Nurse Fallon had returned to Nightingale House that morning. Had she done so, she would have reprimanded the girl severely. By the time she had reached the ward Nurse Fallon was in her room and in bed. No one in the ward had noticed her absence. Apparently the Staff Nurse had thought she was in the bathroom or the lavatory. It was reprehensible of the Staff Norse not to have checked, but the ward was particularly busy and one did not expect patients, particularly student nurses, to behave like idiots. Nurse Fallon had probably only left the ward for about twenty minutes. Her walk through the dark morning had apparently done her no harm. She had made a quick recovery from the influenza and there had been no complications. She had not seemed particularly depressed while she was in the ward, and if there was anything worrying her, she had not confided in Sister Brumfett In Sister Brumfett’s opinion, the girl had been perfectly well enough on discharge from the ward to rejoin her set in Nightingale House.