Ngaio Marsh
The Nursing Home Murder

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Chapter 1 10 Downing Street

Chapter 2 Introduces a Patent Medicine

Chapter 3 Sequel to a Scene in the House

Chapter 4 Post-operative

Chapter 5 Lady O’Callaghan Insists

Chapter 6 Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn

Chapter 7 Post-Mortem

Chapter 8 Hyoscine

Chapter 9 Three Nurses

Chapter 10 Thoms in the Theatre

Chapter 11 The Anaesthetist

Chapter 12 The Lenin Hall Lot

Chapter 13 Surprising Antics of a Chemist

Chapter 14 ‘Fulvitavolts’

Chapter 15 The ‘Clean Breast’ of Sir John Phillips

Chapter 16 Reconstruction Begun

Chapter 17 Reconstruction Concluded

Chapter 18 Retrospective

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CHAPTER 1 10 Downing Street

Friday, the fifth. Afternoon.

The Home Secretary, with an air of finality, laid down the papers from which he had been reading and glanced round the table. He was struck, not for the first time, by the owlish solemnity of the other members of the Cabinet. ‘Really,’ he thought, ‘we look for all the world like a Cabinet Meeting in a cinema. We are too good to be true.’ As if to confirm this impression, the Prime Minister flung himself back in his chair, laid the palms of his hands on the table, and cleared his throat.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said portentously, ‘there we have it.’

‘Strong!’ said the Foreign Secretary. He folded his arms and stared at the ceiling.

‘Drastic!’ added the Lord Chancellor. ‘I venture to think—drastic.’

‘But in my opinion,’ the Postmaster-General said, ‘neither too strong nor too drastic.’ He fidgeted with his tie and became almost human. ‘Damn it all,’ he said irritably, ‘we’ve got to do something.’

There was a pause. The Home Secretary drew in his breath sharply.

‘Well,’ repeated the Prime Minister, ‘we have talked a great deal, gentlemen, and now we’ve heard the proposed Bill. We have all the facts. To put it briefly, we are perfectly well aware of the activities of these anarchistic personages. We know what they are about and we know they mean to take definite action. We are agreed that the importance of the matter can hardly be overstated. The reports from the FO, the Secret Service and the CID are sufficiently conclusive. We have to deal with a definite menace and a growing menace. It’s a bad business. This Bill’—he made a gesture towards the Home Secretary—‘may be drastic. Does anyone think it too drastic? Should it be modified?’

‘No,’ said the Postmaster-General. ‘No.’

‘I agree,’ said the Attorney-General.

‘Has it occurred to you,’ asked the Lord Chancellor, looking across the table to the Home Secretary, ‘that you yourself, Sir Derek, have most cause to hesitate?’

The others looked at him. The Home Secretary smiled faintly.

‘As sponsor for this Bill,’ continued the Lord Chancellor, ‘you will get a lot of limelight. We know what these people are capable of doing. Assassination is a word that occurs rather frequently in the reports.’ The Home Secretary’s smile broadened a little. ‘I think I do not exaggerate if I say their attention will be focused on yourself. Have you considered this possibility, my dear fellow?’

‘I quite appreciate your point,’ answered the Home Secretary. ‘The Bill is my child—I’ll not disclaim parentship and I’ll look after myself.’

‘I think the Home Secretary should be given proper protection,’ said the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

‘Certainly,’ agreed the Prime Minister warmly. ‘We owe it to the country. Her valuable assets must be guarded. The Home Secretary is an extremely valuable asset.’

Sir Derek made a curious grimace.

‘I can assure you,’ he said, ‘that I’m in no hurry to play the hero’s part in a theatrical assassination. On the other hand, I really don’t feel there is any necessity for me to walk down to the House surrounded by policemen dressed up as private secretaries and journalists.’

‘I met Roderick Alleyn of the CID yesterday,’ said the Prime Minister ponderously, ‘and discussed this business quite unofficially with him. He’s had these gentry under his eye for some time. He’s the last man on earth to exaggerate a position of this sort. He considers that the Minister who introduces a Bill to deal with them will be in real danger from the organisation. I strongly urge you to let the Yard take any measures it thinks necessary for your protection.’

‘Very well,’ said Sir Derek. He moved uneasily in his chair and passed his hand over his face. ‘I take it,’ he added wearily, ‘that the Cabinet approves the introduction of the Bill?’

They fell to discussing again the suggested measures. Their behaviour was weirdly solemn. They used parliamentary phrases and politicians’ gestures. It was as though they had so saturated themselves with professional behaviourism that they had lost the knack of being natural. The Home Secretary sat with his eyes fixed on the papers before him, as though sunk in a profound and unwilling meditation.

At last the Prime Minister put the matter to the vote—did the Cabinet consider the introduction of the Home Secretary’s Bill advisable? It did.

‘Well,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘that is as far as we need go.’

The Home Secretary groaned slightly.

They all turned to him. His face was extremely white and he was leaning forward over the table.

‘O’Callaghan!’ exclaimed the Postmaster-General. ‘What’s the matter? You’re ill?’

‘It’s all right. Pain. Pass off in a moment.’

‘Brandy,’ said the Prime Minister and stretched out his hand to a bell.

‘Water,’ whispered Sir Derek. ‘Just water.’ When it came he drank it greedily and then mopped his face.

‘Better,’ he told them presently, ‘I’m sorry.’

They looked uncomfortable and concerned. The Lord Chancellor hovered uncertainly over him. The others eyed him with that horrified ineptitude with which we observe sudden illness in our fellow men.

‘I must apologize,’ said Sir Derek. ‘I’ve had one or two bouts like this lately. Appendix, I imagine. I’ll have to get vetted. It’s an infernal bore for myself and everyone else. I want to stave it off until after this business if I can.’ He drew himself up in his chair, paused a moment, and then got slowly to his feet.

‘Everything settled?’ he asked.

‘Yes, yes. Won’t you lie down for a little?’ suggested the Prime Minister.

‘Thank you so much, P.M.—no, I’ll go home, I think. If someone could tell my chauffeur—’ A secretary was summoned. O’Callaghan turned to the door. The Postmaster-General made as if to take his arm. Sir Derek nodded his thanks, but walked out independently. In the hall the secretary took his coat from the butler and helped him into it.

‘Shall I come out to the car, Sir Derek?’

‘No, thank you, my boy. I’m my own man again.’ With a word of farewell to the Prime Minister he went out alone.

‘He looks devilish ill,’ said the Prime Minister irritably. ‘I hope to heaven it’s not serious.’

‘It’ll be damned awkward if it is,’ said the Postmaster-General. ‘Poor old O’Callaghan,’ he added hurriedly.

In his car the Home Secretary looked out of the window drearily. They turned out of Downing Street into Whitehall. It was a cold, gusty evening. The faces of the people in the streets looked pinched and their clothes drab and uneventful. Their heads were bent to the wind. A thin rain was driving fitfully across the window-pane. He wondered if he was going to be very ill. He was overwhelmed with melancholy. Perhaps he would die of this thing that seized him with such devastating agony. That would save the anarchists and the CID a lot of trouble. It would also save him a lot of trouble. Did he really care tuppence about his Bill or about the machinations of people who wanted to revolutionize the system of British government? Did he care about anything or anybody? He was conscious only of a pallid indifference and an overwhelming inertia. He was going to be ill.

At the top of Constitution Hill his car was held up by a traffic jam. A taxi drew up close beside it. He could see that there was a fare inside, but no more than that. The driver looked several times at O’Callaghan’s chauffeur and called out something which his man answered gruffly. O’Callaghan had the feeling that the person inside the taxi stared in at his window. He was being watched. He had experienced this sensation many times lately. He thought, with a sort of amusement, of the Prime Minister’s anxiety. He pulled a cord and the inside of the car was flooded with light.

‘Give them a good view while I’m about it,’ he thought grimly.

To his surprise the windows of the taxi were lit up as if in answer. He peered across, shading the pane with his hand. The taxi’s fare was a solitary man in a dinner-jacket. He sat with his hands resting on the knob of a stick. His silk hat was worn at a slight angle, revealing a clear-cut and singularly handsome profile. It was an intelligent and well-bred face, with a straight nose, firm mouth and dark eyes. The man did not turn his head, and while Sir Derek O’Callaghan still watched him, the ranks of cars moved on and the taxi was left behind.

‘That’s someone I know,’ thought O’Callaghan with a kind of languid surprise. He tried for a moment to place this individual, but it was too much bother. He gave it up. In a few minutes his chauffeur pulled up outside his own house in Catherine Street and opened the door of the car.

The Home Secretary got out slowly and toiled up the steps. His butler let him in. While he was still in the hall his wife came downstairs. He stood and contemplated her without speaking.

‘Well, Derek,’ she said.

‘Hallo, Cicely.’

She stood at the foot of the stairs and watched him composedly.

‘You’re late,’ she observed after a moment.

‘Am I? I suppose I am. Those fellows jawed and jawed. Do you mind if I don’t change? I’m tired.’

‘Of course not. There’s only Ruth dining.’

He grimaced.

‘I really can’t help it if your sister likes to see you occasionally,’ remarked Lady O’Callaghan tranquilly.

‘All right,’ said her husband wearily. ‘All right.’

He glanced at her inimically and thought how tiresomely good-looking she was. Always so perfectly groomed, so admirably gowned, so maddeningly remote. Their very embraces were masked in a chilly patina of good form. Occasionally he had the feeling that she rather disliked him, but as a rule he had no feeling about her at all. He supposed he had married her in a brief wave of enthusiasm for polar exploration. There had been no children. Just as well since there was a taint of insanity in his own family. He supposed he was all right himself. His wife would have brought out any traces of it, he reflected sardonically. Cicely was an acid test for normality.

She walked away from him towards the drawing-room. At the door she paused for a moment to ask:

‘Have you been worried at all by that pain today?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said O’Callaghan.

‘What a bore it is,’ she murmured vaguely, and went into the drawing-room.

He looked after her for a moment and then crossed the little hall and entered his own study, a companionable room with a good fireplace, a practical desk and deep square-angled chairs. Cedar logs blazed in the grate and a tray with glasses and a decanter of his particular sherry waited near his particular chair. She certainly saw to it that he was adequately looked after.

He poured himself out a glass of sherry and opened his afternoon post. It was abysmally dull. His secretary had dealt with the bulk of his letters and evidently considered that these were all personal. Most of them were so marked. One writer begged for money, another for preferment, a third for information. A typewritten envelope had already been opened by his secretary. It contained an anonymous and threatening message and was merely the latest of a long series of such communications. He picked up the last letter, glanced at the envelope, raised his eyebrows and then frowned. He finished his sherry and poured out another glass before he opened the letter and read it.

It was from Jane Harden.

From Jane. He might have known he wouldn’t hear the end of that business in a hurry. He might have known he was a fool to suppose she would let him go without making difficulties. That weekend in Cornwall—it had been pleasant enough but before it was over he’d known he was in for trouble. Damn it all, women were never fair—never. They talked about leading their own lives, said they wanted to get their experience like men, and then broke all the rules of the game. He glanced again over the letter. She reminded him that she had ‘given herself’ to him (what nonsense that was. She’d wanted it as much as he had!), that their families had been neighbours in Dorset for generations before her father went bankrupt. He flinched away from the imputation of disloyalty which, since he was a tolerably honest and conservative man, made him profoundly uncomfortable. She said he’d treated her as though she was a suburban pick-up. He wished fretfully that she had been. She wrote that she was going to a post in a private nursing-home. Would he write to her at the Nurses’ Club? Up to this point the letter had apparently been written with a certain amount of self-control, but from then onwards O’Callaghan saw, with something like horror, that Jane’s emotions had run away with her pen. She loved him but what had she left to offer him? she asked. Must they both forget? She was fighting for her soul and nothing was too desperate. There was a devil tearing at her soul and if she lost him it would get her. She added again that she loved him and that if he persisted in ignoring her she would do something terrible. With a sudden petulant gesture he crumpled up the sheet of paper and threw it on the fire.

‘Blast!’ he said. ‘Blast! Blast! Blast!’

There was a light tap on the door, which opened far enough to disclose a large nose, a vague mouth, a receding chin, and a gigantic earring.

‘Affairs of state, Derry?’ asked a coy voice. ‘Affairs of state?’

‘Oh, come in, Ruth,’ said Sir Derek O’Callaghan.

CHAPTER 2 Introduces a Patent Medicine

Friday, the fifth. Evening.

During the following week the Home Secretary followed his usual routine. He had become more or less accustomed to the attacks of pain. If anything they occurred more often and with increasing severity. He told himself that the day after he had introduced his Bill, he would consult a doctor. Meanwhile he took three tablets of aspirin whenever the pain threatened to become unendurable, and grew more and more dispirited and wretched. The memory of Jane Harden’s letter lurked at the back of his thoughts, like a bad taste in the conscience.

His sister Ruth, an advanced hypochondriac, with the persistence of a missionary, continually pressed upon him strange boluses, pills and draughts. She made a practice of calling on him after dinner armed with chemists’ parcels and a store of maddening condolences and counsels. On Friday night he retreated to his study, begging his wife to tell Ruth, if she appeared, that he was extremely busy, and not to be interrupted. His wife looked at him for a moment.

‘I shall ask Nash,’ she said, ‘to say we are both out.’

He paused and then said uncomfortably:

‘I don’t think I quite like—’

‘I too,’ said his wife, ‘find myself bored by Ruth.’

‘Still, Cicely—after all she is exceedingly kind. Perhaps it would be better—’

‘You will see her then?’

‘No, damn it, I won’t.’

‘Very well, Derek. I’ll tell Nash. Has your pain been worrying you lately?’

‘Quite a lot, thank you.’

‘That, of course, is why you are irritable. I think you are foolish not to see a doctor.’

‘I think I told you I would call in John Phillips as soon as this Bill was through.’

‘It’s for you to decide, of course. Shall I ask Nash to take your coffee into the study?’

‘If you please.’

‘Yes.’ She had a curiously remote way of saying ‘Yes,’ as though it was a sort of bored comment on everything he uttered.

‘Good night, Derek. I am going up early and won’t disturb you.’

‘Good night, Cicely.’

She stepped towards him and waited. By some mischance his kiss fell upon her lips instead of her cheek. He almost felt he ought to apologize. However, she merely repeated ‘Good night’ and he went off to his study.

Here his secretary Ronald Jameson awaited him. Jameson, just down from Oxford, was an eager but not too tiresomely earnest young man. He did his work well, and was intelligent. Normally, O’Callaghan found him tolerable and even likeable. Tonight, the sight of his secretary irritated and depressed him.

‘Well, Ronald?’

He sank down into his chair, and reached for a cigar.

‘Sir John Phillips has rung up, sir, and would like to come and see you this evening if you are free.’

‘Phillips? Has anyone been talking about me to Phillips? What does he want? Is it a professional visit?’

‘I don’t think so, sir. Sir John didn’t mention your—indisposition.’

‘Ring him up and say I’ll be delighted. Anything else?’

‘These letters. There’s another of the threatening variety. I do wish, sir, that you’d let me talk to Scotland Yard.’

‘No. Anything else?’

‘Only one, marked personal. It’s on your desk.’

‘Give it to me, will you?’

Jameson brought the letter and handed it to him. He looked at it and experienced the sensation of going down in a lift. It was from Jane Harden. O’Callaghan let his arm swing down by the side of his chair. The letter hung from his fingers. He remained staring at the fire, the unlighted cigar between his lips.

Ronald Jameson waited uncomfortably. At last he produced his lighter and advanced it towards O’Callaghan’s cigar.

‘Thank you,’ said O’Callaghan absently.

‘Is there anything I can do, sir?’

‘No, thank you.’

Jameson hesitated, looked uneasily at his employer’s white face, reflected that Sir John Phillips still awaited his message, and left the room.

For some time after the door had shut behind his secretary O’Callaghan sat and stared at the fire. At last, with an enormous effort, he forced himself to read through the letter. Jane Harden had written a frantic, bitter arraignment, rather than an appeal. She said she felt like killing herself. A little further on, she added that if an opportunity presented itself she would not hesitate to kill him: ‘Don’t cross my path. I’m warning you for my own sake, not for yours. I mean it, Derek, for you and all men like you are better out of the way. This is my final word.—Jane Harden.’

O’Callaghan had a swift mental picture of the letter as it would appear in the columns of the penny Press. Rather to his surprise O’Callaghan heard his wife speak to the secretary in the hall outside. Something in the quality of her voice arrested his attention. He listened.

‘—something seems to be worrying him.’

‘I think so too, Lady O’Callaghan,’ Jameson murmured.

‘—any idea—any letters?’ The voice faded away.

‘Tonight—seemed to upset—of course this Bill—’

O’Callaghan got up and strode across the room. He flung open the door.

His wife and Ronald Jameson stood facing each other with something of the air of conspirators. As he opened the door they turned their faces towards him. Jameson’s became very red and he looked swiftly from husband to wife. Lady O’Callaghan merely regarded Sir Derek placidly. He felt himself trembling with anger.

‘Hitherto,’ he said to Jameson, ‘I have seen no reason to suppose you did not understand the essentially confidential nature of your job. Apparently I have been mistaken.’

‘I’m—I’m terribly sorry, Sir Derek—it was only because—’

‘You have no business to discuss my letters with anyone. With anyone. You understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Please don’t be absurd, Derek,’ said his wife. ‘I asked Mr Jameson a question that he could not avoid answering. We are both very worried about you.’

O’Callaghan jerked his head. Jameson made a miserable little bow and turned away. At the door of his own room he paused, murmured ‘I’m extremely sorry, sir,’ and disappeared.

‘Really, Derek,’ said Lady O’Callaghan, ‘I think you are unreasonable. I merely asked that unfortunate youth if you had received any letter that might account for your otherwise rather unaccountable behaviour. He said a letter in this evening’s mail seemed to upset you. What was this letter, Derek? Was it another threat from these people—these anarchists or whatever they are?’

He was not so angry that he did not hear an unusual note in her voice.

‘Such threats are an intolerable impertinence,’ she said hastily. ‘I cannot understand why you do not deal with these people.’

‘The letter had nothing whatever to do with them, and my “unaccountable behaviour,” as you call it, has nothing to do with the letter. I am unwell and I’m worried. It may satisfy you to hear that John Phillips is coming in this evening.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it.’

The front-door bell sounded. They looked at each other questioningly.

‘Ruth?’ murmured Lady O’Callaghan.

‘I’m off,’ he said quickly. Suddenly he felt more friendly towards her. ‘You’d better bolt, Cicely,’ he said.

She moved swiftly into his study and he followed her. They heard Nash come out and open the door. They listened, almost in sympathy with each other.

‘Sir Derek and my lady are not at home, madam.’

‘But there’s a light in the study!’

They exchanged horrified glances.

‘Perhaps Mr Jameson—’ said Nash.

‘Just the man I want to see.’

They heard Nash bleating in dismay and the sound of Miss Ruth O’Callaghan’s umbrella being rammed home in the ship’s bucket. With one accord they walked over to the fireplace. Lady O’Callaghan lit a cigarette.

The door opened, and Ruth came in. They had a brief glimpse of Nash’s agonized countenance and then were overwhelmed in embraces.

‘There you are, darlings. Nash said you were out.’

‘We’re only “not at home,” Ruth darling,’ said Lady O’Callaghan, very tranquilly. ‘Derek expects his doctor. It was too stupid of Nash not to realize you were different.’

‘Ah-ha,’ said Ruth, with really terrifying gaiety, ‘you don’t defeat your old sister like that. Now, Derry darling, I’ve come especially to see you, and I shall be very cross and dreadfully hurt if you don’t do exactly what I tell you.’

She rummaged in an enormous handbag, and fetched up out of its depths the familiar sealed white parcel.

‘Really, Ruth, I can not swallow every patent medicine that commends itself to your attention.’

‘I don’t want you to do that, darling. I know you think your old sister’s a silly-billy’—she squinted playfully at him—‘but she knows what’s good for her big, famous brother. Cicely, he’ll listen to you. Please, please, persuade him to take just one of these teeny little powders. They’re too marvellous. You’ve only to read the letters—’

With eager, clumsy fingers she undid the wrapping and disclosed a round green box decorated with the picture of a naked gentleman, standing in front of something that looked like an electric shock.

‘There are six powders altogether,’ she told them excitedly, ‘but after the first, you feel a marked improvement. “Fulvitavolts”. Hundreds of letters, Derry, from physicians, surgeons, politicians—lots of politicians, Derry. They all swear by it. Their symptoms were precisely the same as yours. Honestly.’

She looked pathetically eager. She was so awkward and vehement with her thick hands, her watery eyes, and her enormous nose.

‘You don’t know what my symptoms are, Ruth.’

‘Indeed I do. Violent abdominal seizures. Cicely—do read it all.’

Lady O’Callaghan took the box and looked at one of the folded cachets.

‘I’ll give him one tonight, Ruth,’ she promised, exactly as though she was humouring an excitable child.

‘That’s topping!’ Ruth had a peculiar trick of using unreal slang. ‘I’m most awfully bucked. And in the morning all those horrid pains will have flown away.’ She made a sort of blundering, ineffectual gesture. She beamed at them.

‘And now, old girl, I’m afraid you’ll have to fly away yourself,’ said O’Callaghan with a desperate effort to answer roguishness with brotherly playfulness. ‘I think I hear Phillips arriving.’

‘Come along, Ruth,’ said his wife. ‘We must make ourselves scarce. Good night again, Derek.’

Ruth laid a gnarled finger on her lips and tiptoed elaborately to the door. There she turned and blew him a kiss.

He heard them greet Sir John Phillips briefly and go upstairs. In his relief at being rid of his sister, O’Callaghan felt a wave of good-fellowship for John Phillips. Phillips was an old friend. It would be a relief to tell him how ill he felt—to learn how ill he really was. Perhaps Phillips would give him something that would help him along for the time being. He already felt a little better. Very likely it was a trifling thing after all. Phillips would know. He turned to the door with an air of pleased expectancy. Nash opened the door and came in.

‘Sir John Phillips, sir.’

Phillips entered the room.

He was an extremely tall man with an habitual stoop. His eyes, full-lidded and of a peculiarly light grey, were piercingly bright. No one ever saw him without his single eye-glass and there was a rumour that he wore it ribbonless while he operated. His nose was a beak and his under lip jutted out aggressively. He was unmarried, and unmoved, so it was said, by the general tendency among his women patients to fall extravagantly in love with him. Perhaps next to actors medical men profit most by the possession of that curious quality that people call ‘personality’. Sir John Phillips was, very definitely, a personage. His rudeness was more glamorously famous than his brilliant ability.

O’Callaghan moved towards him, his hand extended.

‘Phillips!’ he said, ‘I’m delighted to see you.’

Phillips ignored the hand and stood stockstill until the door had closed behind Nash. Then he spoke.

‘You will be less delighted when you hear my business,’ he said.

‘Why—what on earth’s the matter with you?’

‘I can scarcely trust myself to speak to you.’

‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘Precisely what I say. I’ve discovered your are a blackguard and I’ve come to tell you so.’

O’Callaghan stared at him in silence.

‘Apparently you are serious,’ he said at last. ‘May I ask if you intend merely to call me names and then walk out? Or am I to be given an explanation?’

‘I’ll give you your explanation. In two words. Jane Harden.’

There was a long silence. The two men stared at each other. At last O’Callaghan turned away. A kind of mulish huffiness in his expression made him look ridiculous and unlikeable.

‘What about Jane Harden?’ he said at last.

‘Only this. She’s a nurse at my hospital. For a very long time her happiness has been an important thing for me. I have asked her to marry me. She has refused, over and over again. Today she told me why. It seems you made capital out of a friendship with her father and out of her present poverty. You played the “old family friend” combined with the distinguished philanderer.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t lie, O’Callaghan!’

‘Look here—’

‘I know the facts.’

‘What sort of tale have you listened to?’

‘One that brought me here tonight angrier than I ever remember myself before. I know the precise history of your—your friendship with her. You amused yourself, evidently. I dislike overstatement but I believe it would be no overstatement if I said, as I do say, that you’ve ruined Jane’s life for her.’

‘Damn’ sentimental twaddle!’ said O’Callaghan breathlessly. ‘She’s a modern young woman and she knows how to enjoy herself.’

‘That’s a complete misrepresentation.’ Phillips had turned exceedingly white, but he spoke evenly. ‘If, by the phrase “a modern young woman”, you mean a “loose woman” you must know yourself it’s a lie. This is the only episode of the sort in her life. She loved you and you let her suppose she was loved in return.’

‘Nothing of the sort. She gave me no reason to suppose she attached more importance to the thing than I did myself. You say she’s in love with me. If it’s true I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s true. What does she want? It’s not—’ O’Callaghan stopped short and looked frightened. ‘It’s not that she’s going to have a child?’

‘Oh, no. She has no actual claim on you. No legal claim. Evidently you don’t recognize moral obligations.’

‘I’ve sent her £300. What more will she want?’

‘I’m so near hitting you, O’Callaghan, I think I’d better go.’

‘You can go to hell if you like. What’s the matter with you? If you don’t want to marry her there’s an alternative. It ought to be quite simple—I had no difficulty.’

‘You swine!’ shouted Phillips. ‘My God—’ He stopped short. His lips moved tremblingly. When he spoke again it was more quietly. ‘You’d do well to keep clear of me,’ he said. ‘I assure you that if the opportunity presented itself I should have no hesitation—none—in putting you out of the way.’

Something in O’Callaghan’s face made him pause. The Home Secretary was looking beyond him, towards the door.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Nash quietly. He crossed the room with a tray holding glasses and a decanter. He put the tray down noiselessly and returned to the door.

‘Is there anything further, sir?’ asked Nash.

‘Sir John Phillips is leaving. Will you show him out?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

Without another word Phillips turned on his heel and left the room.

‘Good night, Nash,’ said O’Callaghan.

‘Good night, sir,’ said Nash softly. He followed Sir John Phillips out and closed the door.

O’Callaghan gave a sharp cry of pain. He stumbled towards his chair and bent over it, leaning on the arm. For a minute or two he hung on, doubled up with pain. Then he managed to get into the chair, and in a little while poured out half a tumbler of whisky. He noticed Ruth’s patent medicine lying on the table beside him. With a tremulous hand he shook one of the powders into the glass and gulped it down with the whisky.

CHAPTER 3 Sequel to a Scene in the House

Thursday, the eleventh. Afternoon.

The Home Secretary paused and looked round the House. The sea of faces was blurred and nightmarish. They were playing that trick on him that he had noticed before. They would swim together like cells under a microscope and then one face would come out clearly and stare at him. He thought: ‘I may just manage it—only one more paragraph’, and raised the paper. The type swirled and eddied, and then settled down. He heard his own voice. He must speak up.

‘In view of the extraordinary propaganda—’

They were making too much noise.

‘Mr Speaker—’

A disgusting feeling of nausea, a kind of vapourish tightness behind his nose.

‘Mr Speaker—’

He looked up again. A mistake. The sea of faces jerked up and revolved very quickly. A tiny voice, somewhere up in the attic, was calling: ‘He’s fainted.’

He did not feel himself pitch forward across the desk. Nor did he hear a voice from the back benches that called out: ‘You’ll be worse than that before you’ve finished with your bloody Bill.’

‘Who’s his doctor—anyone know?’

‘Yes—I do. It’s bound to be Sir John Phillips—they’re old friends.’

‘Phillips? He runs that nursing-home in Brook Street, doesn’t he?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Somebody must ring Lady O’Callaghan.’

‘I will if you like. I know her.’

‘Is he coming round?’

‘Doesn’t look like it. Tillotley went to see about the ambulance.’

‘Here he is. Did you fix up for an ambulance, Tillotley?’

‘It’s coming. Where are you sending him?’

‘Cuthbert’s gone to ring up his wife.’

‘God, he looks bad!’

‘Did you hear that fellow yell out from the back benches?’

‘Yes. Who was it?’

‘I don’t know. I say, do you think there’s anything fishy about this?’

‘Oh, rot!’

‘Here’s Dr Wendover—I didn’t know he was in the House.’

They stood back from O’Callaghan. A little tubby man, Communist member for a North Country constituency, came through the group of men and knelt down.

‘Open those windows, will you?’ he said.

He loosened O’Callaghan’s clothes. The others eyed him respectfully. After a minute or two he looked round.

‘Who’s his medical man?’ he asked.

‘Cuthbert thinks it’s Sir John Phillips. He’s ringing his wife now.’

‘Phillips is a surgeon. It’s a surgical case.’

‘What’s the trouble, Dr Wendover?’

‘Looks like an acute appendix. There’s no time to be lost. You’d better ring the Brook Street Private Hospital. Is the ambulance there? Can’t wait for his wife.’

From the doorway somebody said: ‘The men from the ambulance.’

‘Good. Here’s your patient.’

Two men came in carrying a stretcher. O’Callaghan was got on to it, covered up, and carried out. Cuthbert hurried in.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s Phillips. She wants him taken to Phillips’s nursing-home.’

‘He’s going there,’ said little Dr Wendover, and walked out after the ambulance men.

O’Callaghan climbed up, sickeningly, from nowhere into semiconsciousness. Grandiloquent images slid rapidly downwards. His wife’s face came near and then receded. Somebody groaned close to him. Somebody was in bed beside him, groaning.

‘Is the pain very bad?’ said a voice.

He himself was in pain.

‘Bad,’ he said solemnly.

‘The doctor will be here soon. He’ll give you something to take it away.’

He now knew it was he who had groaned.

Cicely’s face came close.

‘The doctor’s coming, Derek.’

He closed his eyes to show he had understood.

‘Poor old Derry, poor old boy.’

‘I’ll just leave you with him for a minute, Lady O’Callaghan. If you want me, will you ring? I think I hear Sir John.’ A door closed.

‘This pain’s very bad,’ said O’Callaghan clearly.

The two women exchanged glances. Lady O’Callaghan drew up a chair to the bed and sat down.

‘It won’t be for long, Derek,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s your appendix, you know.’

‘Oh.’

Ruth had begun to whisper.

‘What’s Ruth say?’

‘Never mind me, Derry-boy. It’s just silly old Ruthie.’ He muttered something, shut his eyes, and seemed to fall asleep.

‘Cicely darling, I know you laugh at my ideas, but listen. As soon as I heard about Derry I went and saw Harold Sage. He’s the brilliant young chemist I told you about. I explained exactly what was the matter and he gave me something that he says will relieve the pain at once and can do no harm at all. It’s an invention of his own. In a few months all the hospitals will use it.’

She began a search in her handbag.

‘Suggest it to Sir John if you like, Ruth. Of course nothing can be done without his knowledge.’

‘Doctors are so bigoted. I know, my dear. The things Harold has told me—!’

‘You seem to be very friendly with this young man.’

‘He interests me enormously, Cicely.’

‘Really?’

The nurse came back.

‘Sir John would like to see you for a moment, Lady O’Callaghan.’

‘Thank you. I’ll come.’

Left alone with her brother, Ruth dabbed at his hand. He opened his eyes.

‘Oh, God, Ruth,’ he said, ‘I’m in such pain.’

‘Just hold on for one moment, Derry. I’ll make it better.’

She had found the little package. There was a tumbler of water by the bedside.

In a few minutes Phillips came back with the nurse.

‘Sir John is going to make an examination,’ said Nurse Graham quietly to Ruth. ‘If you wouldn’t mind joining Lady O’Callaghan for a moment.’

‘I shan’t keep you long,’ said Phillips and opened the door.

Ruth, with a distracted and guilty look at her brother, gathered herself up and blundered out of the room.

O’Callaghan had relapsed into unconsciousness. Nurse Graham uncovered the abdomen and Phillips with his long inquisitive fingers pressed it there—and there—and there. His eyes were closed and his brain seemed to be in his hands.

‘That will do,’ he said suddenly. ‘It looks like peritonitis. He’s in a bad way. I’ve warned them we may need the theatre.’ The nurse covered the patient and in answer to a nod from Phillips fetched the two women. As soon as they came in, Phillips turned to Lady O’Callaghan but did not look at her. ‘The operation should be performed immediately,’ he said. ‘Will you allow me to try to get hold of Somerset Black?’

‘But you, Sir John, won’t you do it yourself?’

Phillips walked over to the window and stared out.

‘You wish me to operate?’ he said at last.

‘Of course I do. I know that sometimes surgeons dislike operating on their friends, but unless you feel—I do hope—I beg you to do it.’

‘Very well.’

He returned to the patient.

‘Nurse,’ he said, ‘tell them to get Dr Thoms. He’s in the hospital and has been warned that an operation may be necessary. Ring up Dr Grey and arrange for the anæsthetic—I’ll speak to him myself. Tell the theatre sister I’ll operate as soon as they are ready. Now, Lady O’Callaghan, if you don’t mind leaving the patient, Nurse will show you where you can wait.’

The nurse opened the door and the others moved away from the bed. At the threshold they were arrested by a kind of stifled cry. They turned and looked back to the bed. Derek O’Callaghan had opened his eyes and was staring as if hypnotized at Phillips.

‘Don’t—’ he said. ‘Don’t—let—’

His lips moved convulsively. A curious whining sound came from them. For a moment or two he struggled for speech and then suddenly his head fell back.

‘Come along, Lady O’Callaghan,’ said the nurse gently. ‘He doesn’t know what he is saying, you know.’

In the anteroom of the theatre two nurses and a sister prepared for the operation.

‘Now you mustn’t forget,’ said Sister Marigold, who was also the matron of the hospital, ‘that Sir John likes his instruments left on the tray. He does not like them handed to him.’

She covered a tray of instruments and Jane Harden carried it into the theatre.

‘It’s a big responsibility,’ said the sister chattily, ‘for a surgeon, in a case of this sort. It would be a terrible catastrophe for the country if anything happened to Sir Derek O’Callaghan. The only strong man in the Government, in my opinion.’

Nurse Banks, an older woman than her superior, looked up from the sterilising apparatus.

‘The biggest tyrant of the lot,’ she remarked surprisingly.

‘Nurse! What did you say?’

‘My politics are not Sir Derek O’Callaghan’s, Matron, and I don’t care who knows it.’

Jane Harden returned from the theatre. Sister Marigold cast an indignant glance at Nurse Banks and said briefly:

‘Did you look at the hyoscine solution, Nurse, and the anti-gas ampoule?’

‘Yes, Matron.’

‘Gracious, child, you look very white. Are you all right?’

‘Quite, thank you,’ answered Jane. She busied herself with tins of sterilized dressings. After another glance at her, the matron returned to the attack on Nurse Banks.

‘Of course, Nurse, we all know you are a Bolshie. Still, you can’t deny greatness when you see it. Now Sir Derek is my idea of a big—a really big man.’

‘And for that reason he’s the more devilish,’ announced Banks with remarkable venom. ‘He’s done murderous things since he’s been in office. Look at his Casual Labour Bill of last year. He’s directly responsible for every death from undernourishment that has occurred during the last ten months. He’s the enemy of the proletariat. If I had my way he’d be treated as a common murderer or else as a homicidal maniac. He ought to be certified. There is insanity in his blood. Everybody knows his father was dotty. That’s what I think of your Derek O’Callaghan with a title bought with blood-money,’ said Banks, making a great clatter with sterilized bowls.

‘Then perhaps’—Sister Marigold’s voice was ominously quiet—‘perhaps you’ll explain what you’re doing working for Sir John Phillips. Perhaps his title was bought with blood-money too.’

‘As long as this rotten system stands, we’ve got to live,’ declared Banks ambiguously, ‘but it won’t be for ever and I’ll be the first to declare myself when the time comes. O’Callaghan will have to go and all his blood-sucking bourgeois party with him. It would be a fine thing for the people if he went now. There, Matron!’

‘It would be a better thing if you went yourself, Nurse Banks, and if I had another theatre nurse free, go you would. I’m ashamed of you. You talk about a patient like that—what are you thinking of?’

‘I can’t help it if my blood boils.’

‘There’s a great deal too much blood, boiling or not, in your conversation.’

With the air of one silenced but not defeated, Banks set out a table with hypodermic appliances and wheeled it into the theatre.

‘Really, Nurse Harden,’ said Sister Marigold, ‘I’m ashamed of that woman. The vindictiveness! She ought not to be here. One might almost think she would—’ Matron paused, unable to articulate the enormity of her thought.

‘No such—thing,’ said Jane. ‘I’d be more likely to do him harm than she.’

‘And that’s an outside chance,’ declared matron more genially. ‘I must say, Nurse Harden, you’re the best theatre nurse I’ve had for a long time. A real compliment, my dear, because I’m very particular. Are we ready? Yes. And here come the doctors.’

Jane put her hands behind her back and stood to attention. Sister Marigold assumed an air of efficient repose. Nurse Banks appeared for a moment in the doorway, seemed to recollect something, and returned to the theatre.

Sir John Phillips came in followed by Thoms, his assistant, and the anæsthetist. Thoms was fat, scarlet-faced and industriously facetious. Dr Roberts was a thin, sandy-haired man, with a deprecating manner. He took off his spectacles and polished them.

‘Ready, Matron?’ asked Phillips.

‘Quite ready, Sir John.’

‘Dr Roberts will give the anæsthetic. Dr Grey is engaged. We were lucky to get you, Roberts, at such short notice.’

‘I’m delighted to come,’ said Roberts. ‘I’ve been doing a good deal of Grey’s work lately. It is always an honour, and an interesting experience, to work under you, Sir John.’

He spoke with a curious formality as if he considered each sentence and then offered it to the person he addressed.

‘If I may I’ll just take a look at the anæsthetising-room before we begin.’

‘Certainly.’

The truculent Banks reappeared.

‘Nurse Banks,’ said the matron, ‘go with Dr Roberts to the anæsthetising-room, please.’

Dr Roberts blinked at Banks, and followed her out.

Sir John went into the theatre and crossed to a small table, enamelled white, on which were various appliances concerned with the business of giving hypodermic injections. There were three syringes, each in a little dish of sterile water. Two were of the usual size known to the layman. The third was so large as to suggest it was intended for veterinary rather than human needs. The small syringes held twenty-five minims each, the larger at least six times as much. An ampoule, a bottle, a small bowl and a measure-glass also stood on the table. The bottle was marked: “Hyoscine solution 0.25 per cent. Five minims contains 1/100 a grain.” The ampoule was marked: “Gas-Gangrene Antitoxin (concentrated).” The bowl contained sterile water.

Phillips produced from his pocket a small hypodermic case from which he took a tiny tube labelled: “Hyoscine gr. 1/100.” The tube being completely covered by its label, it was difficult to see the contents. He removed the cork, examined the inside closely, laid down the tube and took another, similarly labelled, from his case. His fingers worked uncertainly, as though his mind was on something else. At last he took one of the smaller syringes, filled it with sterile water, and squirted its contents into the measure-glass. Then he dropped in the hyoscine, stirred it with the needle of the syringe, and finally, pulling back the piston, sucked the solution into the syringe.

Thoms came into the theatre.

‘We ought to get washed up, sir,’ he said.

He glanced at the table.

‘Hallo!’ he shouted. ‘Two tubes! You’re doing him proud.’

‘One was empty.’ Phillips picked them up automatically and put them back in his case.

Thoms looked at the syringe.

‘You use a lot of water, don’t you?’ he observed.

‘I do,’ said Phillips shortly. Taking the syringe with him, he walked out of the theatre into the anæsthetic-room. Thoms, wearing that air of brisk abstraction which people assume when they are determined to ignore a snub, remained staring at the table. He joined the others a few minutes later in the anteroom. Phillips returned from the anæsthetic-room.

Jane Harden and Sister Marigold helped the two surgeons to turn themselves into pieces of sterilized machinery. In a little while the anteroom was an austere arrangement in white, steel, and rubber-brown. There is something slightly repellent as well as something beautiful in absolute white. It is the negation of colour, the expression of coldness, the emblem of death. There is less sensuous pleasure in white than in any of the colours, and more suggestion of the macabre. A surgeon in his white robe, the warmth of his hands hidden by sleek chilly rubber, the animal vigour of his hair covered by a white cap, is more like a symbol in modern sculpture than a human being. To the layman he is translated, a priest in sacramental robes, a terrifying and subtly fascinating figure.

‘Seen this new show at the Palladium?’ asked Thoms. ‘Blast this glove! Give me another, Matron.’

‘No,’ said Sir John Phillips.

‘There’s a one-act play. Anteroom to a theatre in a private hospital. Famous surgeon has to operate on a man who ruined him and seduced his wife. Problem—does he stick a knife into the patient? Grand Guignol stuff. Awful rot, I thought it.’

Phillips turned slowly and stared at him. Jane Harden uttered a little stifled cry.

‘What’s that, Nurse?’ asked Thoms. ‘Have you seen it? Here, give me the glove.’

‘No, sir,’ murmured Jane, ‘I haven’t seen it.’

‘Jolly well acted it was, and someone had put them right about technical matters, but, of course, the situation was altogether too far-fetched. I’ll just go and see—’ He walked out, still talking, into the theatre, and after a minute or two called to the matron, who followed him.

‘Jane,’ said Phillips.

‘Yes?’

‘This—this is a queer business.’

‘Nemesis, perhaps,’ said Jane Harden.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ she said drearily. ‘Only it is rather like a Greek play, don’t you think? “Fate delivers our enemy into our hands.” Mr Thoms would think the situation very far-fetched.’

Phillips washed his hands slowly in a basin of sterilized water. ‘I knew nothing of this illness,’ he said. ‘It’s the merest chance that I was here at this hour. I’d only just got in from St. Jude’s. I tried to get out of it, but his wife insisted. Evidently she has no idea we—quarrelled.’

‘She could hardly know why you quarrelled, could she?’

‘I’d give anything to be out of it—anything.’

‘And I. How do you think I feel?’

He squeezed the water off his gloves and turned towards her, holding his hands out in front of him. He looked a grotesque and somehow pathetic figure.

‘Jane,’ he whispered, ‘won’t you change your mind? I love you so much.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I loathe him. I never want to see him again, but as long as he’s alive I can’t marry you.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ he said heavily.

‘I don’t understand myself,’ answered Jane, ‘so how should you?’

‘I shall go on—I shall ask you again and again.’

‘It’s no good. I suppose I’m queer, but as long as he’s there I—I’m in pawn.’

‘It’s insane—after his treatment of you. He’s—he’s discarded you, Jane.’

She laughed harshly.

‘Oh, yes. It’s quite according to Victorian tradition. I’m a “ruined girl”, you know!’

‘Well, stick to the Victorian tradition and let me make an honest woman of you.’

‘Look here,’ said Jane suddenly. ‘I’ll try and be an honest woman with you. I mean I’ll try and explain what’s inexplicable and pretty humiliating. I told him I wanted to live my own life, experience everything, all that sort of chat. I deceived myself as well as him. In the back of my mind I knew I was simply a fool who had lost her head as well as her heart. Then, when it happened, I realized just how little it meant to him and just how much it meant to me. I knew I ought to keep up the game, shake hands and part friends, and all that. Well—I couldn’t. My pride wanted to, but—I couldn’t. It’s all too grimly commonplace. I “loved and hated” him at the same time. I wanted to keep him, knew I hadn’t a chance, and longed to hurt him. I wrote to him and told him so. It’s a nightmare and it’s still going on. There! Don’t ask me to talk about it again. Leave me alone to get over it as best I may.’

‘Couldn’t I help?’

‘No. Someone’s coming—be careful.’

Thoms and Roberts returned and washed up. Roberts went away to give the anæsthetic. Phillips stood and watched his assistant.

‘How did your play end?’ he asked suddenly.

‘What? Oh. Back to the conversation we first thought of. It ended in doubt. You were left to wonder if the patient died under the anæsthetic, or if the surgeon did him in. As a matter of fact, under the circumstances, no one could have found out. Are you thinking of trying it out on the Home Secretary, sir? I thought you were a pal of his?’

The mask over Phillips’s face creased as though he were smiling. ‘Given the circumstances,’ he said, ‘I suppose it might be a temptation.’

He heard a movement behind him and turned to see Nurse Banks regarding him fixedly from the door into the theatre. Sister Marigold appeared behind her, said: ‘If you please, Nurse,’ in a frigid voice, and came through the door.

‘Oh, Matron,’ said Phillips abruptly, ‘I have given an injection of hyoscine, as usual. If we find peritonitis, as I think we shall, I shall also inject serum.’

‘I remembered the hyoscine, of course, Sir John. The stock solution had been put out, but I saw you had prepared your own injection.’

‘Yes, we won’t need the stock solution. Always use my own tablets—like to be sure of the correct dosage. Are we all ready?’

He went into the theatre.

‘Well,’ said Sister Marigold, ‘I’m sure the stock solution is good enough for most people.’

‘You can’t be too careful, Matron,’ Thoms assured her genially. ‘Hyoscine’s a ticklish drug, you know.’

The sickly reek of ether began to drift into the room.

‘I must say I don’t quite understand why Sir John is so keen on giving hyoscine.’

‘It saves anæsthetic and it has a soothing effect after the operation. I give it myself,’ added Thoms importantly.

‘What is the usual dose, sir?’ asked Nurse Banks abruptly.

‘From a hundredth to a two-hundredth of a grain, Nurse.’

‘As little as that!’

‘Oh, yes. I can’t tell you the minimum lethal dose—varies with different cases. A quarter-grain would do anyone in.’

‘A quarter of a grain,’ said Nurse Banks thoughtfully. ‘Fancy!’

CHAPTER 4 Post-operative

Thursday, the eleventh. Late afternoon.

Sir John waited in the theatre for his patient.

The matron, Jane and Nurse Banks came in with Thoms. They stood near the table, a group of robed and expressionless automata. They were silent. The sound of wheels. A trolley appeared with Dr Roberts and the special nurse walking behind it. Dr Roberts held the anæsthetic mask over the patient’s face. On the trolley lay the figure of the Home Secretary. As they lifted it on the table the head spoke suddenly and inconsequently.

‘Not today, not today, not today, damn’ the bloody thing,’ it said very rapidly.

The special nurse went away.

The reek of ether rose up like incense round the table. Dr Roberts wheeled forward his anæsthetising apparatus, an object that, with its cylinders of compressed gases carried in an iron framework, resembled a gigantic cruet. A low screen was fixed across the patient’s chest to shut off the anæsthetist. Thoms looked at the patient curiously.

‘He’s a striking-looking chap, isn’t he?’ he remarked lightly. ‘Curious head. What do you make of it, Roberts? You’re a bit of a dog at that sort of thing, aren’t you? Read your book the other day. There’s insanity somewhere in the racial make-up here, isn’t there? Wasn’t his old man bats?’

Roberts looked scandalized.

‘That is so,’ he said stiffly, ‘but one would hardly expect to find evidence of racial insanity clearly defined in the facial structure, Mr Thoms.’

The sister arranged the sterile coverings over the abdomen. With the head screened, the patient was no longer an individual. A subject for operation lay on the table—that was all.

Sir John took up a scalpel and made the first incision.

‘Peritonitis, all right,’ said Thoms presently.

‘Hal-lo!’ he added a little later. ‘Ruptured abscess. He’s made a job of it.’

‘Accounts for the attacks of pain,’ Phillips grunted.

‘Of course, sir. Wonder he kept going so long—look there.’

‘Nasty mess,’ said Phillips. ‘Good God, Matron, are you deaf? I said forceps.’

Sister Marigold bridled slightly and gave a genteel cough. There was silence for some time. Sir John’s fingers worked, nervously, inquisitively, and with a kind of delicate assurance.

‘The pulse is weak, Sir John,’ said Roberts suddenly.

‘Oh? Look at this, Thoms.’

‘I don’t like this pulse.’

‘What’s the matter, Roberts? Pulse?’

‘Yes. It’s rather weak. I don’t like his looks. Get me an injection of camphor, will you, Nurse?’

Nurse Banks filled the second small hypodermic syringe and brought it to him.

‘Give it, Nurse, at once, please.’

She did so.

‘Serum,’ grunted Phillips.

‘Serum, Nurse Harden,’ murmured the sister.

Jane crossed to the table of apparatus. There was a little delay.

‘Well—well, where is it?’ asked Phillips impatiently.

‘Nurse!’ called Thoms angrily. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m sorry—but—’

‘It’s the large syringe,’ said Nurse Banks.

‘Very well,’ said Jane faintly.

She bent over the table.

Phillips finished sewing up the incision.

‘Nurse,’ repeated Thoms, ‘will you bring me that syringe? What’s the matter with you?’

An agitated drop appeared on the end of his nose. Sister Marigold cast an expert glance at it and wiped it off with a piece of gauze.

Jane came back uncertainly, holding the tray. Phillips straightened his back and stood looking at the wound. Thoms put on the dressing and then gave the injection.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s that. Very nasty case. I suppose he’s neglected it.’

‘I believe so,’ answered Phillips slowly, ‘I saw him the other evening and I had no idea he was ill—no idea of it.’

‘How’s the condition now, Roberts?’ asked Thoms.

‘Not too brilliant.’

‘Well—take him to bed,’ said Phillips.

‘And take that tray away,’ added Thoms irritably to Jane who still stood at his elbow.

She turned her head and looked into Phillips’s eyes. He seemed to avoid her gaze and moved away. She turned towards the other table. Her steps grew more uncertain. She stopped, swayed a little, and fell forward on the tiled floor.

‘Good God, what’s the girl up to now?’ shouted Thoms.

Phillips strode across the theatre and stood staring down at her.

‘Fainted,’ he said behind his mask. He looked at his bloodstained gloves, pulled them off and knelt beside her. Sister Marigold ‘Tut-tut-tutted’ like a scandalized hen and rang a bell. Nurse Banks glanced across and then stolidly helped Thoms to cover the patient and lift him back on the trolley. Dr Roberts did not even look up. He had bent over the patient in an attitude of the most intense concentration. Two nurses came in.

‘Nurse Harden’s fainted,’ said the matron briefly.

They managed to get Jane to her feet. She opened her eyes and looked vaguely at them. Between them they half carried her out of the theatre.

The patient was wheeled away.

Phillips walked off into the anteroom followed by Thoms.

‘Well, sir,’ remarked Thoms cheerfully, ‘I think the usual state of things has been reversed. You are the fierce member of the party as a rule, but today you’re a perfect sucking-dove and I damned that poor girl to heaps. I’m sorry about it. Suppose she was feeling groggy all through the op.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Phillips, turning on a tap.

‘I’m sorry about it. She’s a nice girl and a good nurse. Attractive. Wonder if she’s engaged.’

‘No.’

‘Not?’

‘No.’

Thoms paused, towel in hand, and stared curiously at his senior. Sir John washed up sedately and methodically.

‘Unpleasant game, operating on your friends, isn’t it?’ ventured Thoms, after a pause. ‘And such a distinguished friend, too. Jove, there are lots of Bolshie-minded gentlemen that wouldn’t be overwhelmed with grief if O’Callaghan faded out! I can see it’s hit you up a bit, sir. I’ve never before seen the faintest tremor in your hands.’

‘My dear Thoms, there’s nothing the matter with my hands.’

‘Oh—I’m sorry.’

‘Nothing to be sorry about.’ He took off his gown and cap and brushed his hair. ‘You’re quite right,’ he said suddenly, ‘I didn’t enjoy the operation.’

Thoms grinned good-naturedly and then looked sympathetic.

The door opened and Dr Roberts came in.

‘I just looked in to report, Sir John,’ he began. ‘The patient’s condition is rather disquieting. The camphor injection helped matters at the time but the pulse is still unsatisfactory.’ He glanced nervously from one surgeon to the other and polished his glasses. ‘I must confess I feel rather anxious,’ he said. ‘It’s—it’s such an important case.’

‘All cases are important,’ said Phillips.

‘Of course, Sir John. What I meant to convey was my possible over-anxiety, occasioned by the illustriousness of the patient.’

‘You speak like your books, Roberts,’ said Thoms facetiously.

‘However,’ continued Roberts with a doubtful glance at the fat little man. ‘However, I am anxious.’

‘I’ll come and look at him,’ answered Phillips. ‘I can understand your concern. Thoms, you’d better come along with us.’

‘I won’t be a minute, sir.’

‘There’s something about his condition that one doesn’t quite expect,’ Roberts said. He went into details. Phillips listened attentively. Thoms darted a complacent glance at the mirror.

‘I’m ready,’ he told them.

He turned to Roberts.

‘That’s a rum-looking old stethoscope you sport, Roberts,’ he said jovially.

Roberts looked at it rather proudly. It was an old-fashioned straight instrument of wood with a thick stem, decorated by a row of notches cut down each quadrant.

‘I wouldn’t part with that for the latest and best thing on the market, Mr Thoms,’ said Roberts.

‘It looks like a tally-stick. What are the notches in aid of?’

Roberts looked self-conscious. He glanced deprecatingly at Phillips.

‘I’m afraid you’ll set me down as a very vain individual,’ he said shyly.

‘Come on,’ said Thoms. ‘Spill the beans! Are they all the people you’ve killed or are they your millionaire patients?’

‘Not that—no. As a matter of fact, it is a sort of tally. They represent cases of severe heart disease to whom I have given anæsthetic successfully.’

Thoms roared with laughter and Roberts blushed like a schoolboy.

‘Are you ready?’ asked Phillips coldly.

They all went out together.

In the theatre Sister Marigold, Nurse Banks, and a nurse who had appeared to ‘scally’, cleaned up and prepared for another operation, an urgent bronchoscopy, to be performed by a throat specialist. Jane had been taken off to the nurses’ quarters.

‘Two urgent ops. in one evening!’ exclaimed the matron importantly; ‘we are busy. What’s the time, Nurse?’

‘Six thirty-five,’ said Banks.

‘Whatever was the matter with Harden, Matron?’ asked the scally.

‘I’m sure I don’t know, Nurse,’ rejoined Sister Marigold.

‘I do,’ said Nurse Banks grimly.

Sister Marigold cast upon her a glance in which curiosity struggled with dignity. Dignity triumphed. Fortunately the scally was not so handicapped.

‘Well, Banks,’ she said, ‘come clean. Why did she faint?’

‘She knew the patient.’

‘What! Knew Sir Derek O’Callaghan? Harden?’

‘Oh, yes! Their people were neighbours down in Dorset, don’t you know,’ aped Banks with what she imagined to be the accent of landed proprietorship.

Sister Marigold’s starch seemed to crackle disapproval.

‘Nurse Harden comes of a very nice family,’ she said pointedly to the scally.

‘Oh, most fraytefully nayce,’ jeered Banks. ‘Yes, she knew O’Callaghan all right. I happened to say, about a month ago it was, that he was probably the most completely unscrupulous of the Tories and she didn’t half flare up. Then she told me.’

‘Thank you, Nurse Banks, that will do,’ said Matron icily. ‘The theatre is not the place for politics. I think we are ready now. I want a word with the doctor about this case.’

She rustled out of the theatre.

‘You’ve got a nerve, Banks,’ said the scally. ‘Fancy talking like that about Sir Derek. I think he looks lovely in his photos.’

‘You think because he’s got a face like Conrad Veidt he’s a suitable leader of the people—a man to make laws. Typical bourgeois ignorance and stupidity! However, he’s probably the last of his species and he’ll be the first to go when the Dawn breaks.’

‘Whatever are you talking about?’

‘I know what I’m talking about.’

‘Well, I’m sure I don’t. What Dawn?’

‘The Dawn of the Proletariat Day.’

‘What’s that? No, don’t lose your hair, Banks. I’d like to know.’

‘You will know,’ said Banks. ‘Very shortly.’

Upon which the throat specialist appeared and inquired if they were all ready for him. In ten minutes’ time the figure of a child was wheeled into the theatre and once again the fumes of the anæsthetic rose like incense about the table. In another ten minutes the child was taken away. Nurse Banks and the scally began to clear up again. The throat specialist whistled as he washed up in the anteroom. He thrust his head in at the door, remarked: ‘No rest for the wicked, Nurse,’ and took himself off.

The two women worked in silence for a little while. Nurse Banks seemed preoccupied and rather morose.

‘Hallo,’ said the scally, ‘there’s Pips growling on the stairs.’ (‘Pips’ was hospital slang for Sir John Phillips.) ‘And Thomcat. Wonder how he is now. Sir Derek, I mean.’

Nurse Banks did not answer.

‘I don’t believe you care.’

‘Oh, I’m quite interested.’

The voices grew louder but neither of the two nurses could hear what was said. They stood very still, listening intently.

Presently there seemed to be some kind of movement. A woman’s voice joined in the conversation.

‘Who’s that?’ asked the scally.

‘Sounds like Marigold,’ said Banks. ‘God, that woman infuriates me!’

‘Ssh! What’s it all about, I wonder?’

Sir John Phillips’s voice sounded clearly above the others.

‘I’d better attend to that,’ it said.

‘Pip sounds absolutely rampant’ breathed the scally.

‘Yes,’ said Thoms clearly. ‘Yes.’

A sound of footsteps. Then suddenly the door into the theatre opened and O’Callaghan’s special nurse burst into the room.

‘Isn’t it frightful!’ she said. ‘Oh, isn’t it frightful!’

‘What? What’s the matter with you?’

‘He’s dead—Sir Derek O’Callaghan’s dead!’

‘Nurse!’ The scally gazed at her speechless.

‘It really is awful,’ said Nurse Graham. ‘Lady O’Callaghan is there now—she wanted to be left alone with him. I felt I simply must tell somebody.’

There was a dead silence, and then, prompted perhaps by some kind of mental telepathy, they both turned and stared at Banks.

The older woman’s head was tipped back. She held her arms stiffly at her sides. Her eyes shone and her lips worked convulsively.

‘Banks!’ said the scally, ‘Banks! How can you behave like that? I believe you’re glad he’s gone!’

‘If I hadn’t cast off the worn-out shackles of religion,’ said Banks, ‘I should say “Praise the Lord for He hath cast down our Enemy”.’

‘You disgusting old horror,’ said the special, and went out of the theatre.

CHAPTER 5 Lady O’Callaghan Insists

Friday, the twelfth. Afternoon.

‘Lady O’Callaghan, I’m terribly sorry to bother, but may I speak to you for a moment?’

Ronald Jameson paused and looked apologetically at the widow of his late employer. She was very handsome in black. Her hair—he could never make up his mind whether it was a warm white or a white blonde—looked as though it had been ironed into place. Her hands, thin and elegant, hung relaxed against the matt surface of her dress. Her pale blue eyes under their heavy lids regarded him with a kind of polite detachment.

‘Yes,’ she said vaguely. ‘Come into my room, Mr Jameson.’

He followed her into that place of frozen elegance. She sat down leisurely, her back to the light.

‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘Sit down, Mr Jameson.’

Ronald said: ‘Thank you so much,’ nervously, and sat on the most uncomfortable chair.

‘I’ve just come back from the House,’ he began. ‘The Prime Minister saw me in his room. He is terribly distressed about—about yesterday. He wished me to tell you that—that he is entirely at your service should there be anything—’

‘So kind of him,’ she said.

‘Of course, he is also very much troubled about the Bill—Sir Derek’s Anarchy Bill, you know. The business arising from it has to go forward, you see, and this tragedy has complicated matters.’ He paused again.

‘I see—yes.’

‘It’s a question of Sir Derek’s private notes. They can do nothing without them. I said that the matter would have to wait until after the—until after tomorrow; but the Prime Minister thinks the whole business is so urgent that he ought to see them immediately. I believe they are in the desk in the study, but of course, before I could do anything about it, I felt I must have your permission.’

She took so long to answer that he felt quite alarmed. At last, looking at her hands which lay delicately clasped on her lap, she said: ‘This Bill. Will it deal with the persons who killed him?’

He was so completely dumbfounded by this amazing inquiry that he could think of nothing to say. He was a young man with a good deal of savoir-faire, but evidently her extraordinary assumption took him unawares.

‘I’m afraid I don’t—do you mean—surely, Lady O’Callaghan, you can’t believe—’ He could get no further with it.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said tranquilly, ‘I’m quite sure they killed him.’

‘But—who?’

‘These people. Anarchists, aren’t they? They threatened to kill my husband. I believe they have done so. I understand his Bill was designed to suppress such persons. Please do anything you can to help it to go forward.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ronald idiotically.

‘Yes. Is that all, Mr Jameson?’

‘But, Lady O’Callaghan—please—have you thought—honestly, you have simply amazed me. It’s a terrible idea. Surely the doctors’ report is clear! Sir Derek had acute peritonitis.’

‘Sir John Phillips said the operation was successful. He was poisoned.’

‘By peritonitis and a ruptured abscess. Really, I can’t think anything else. How could he be deliberately poisoned?’

‘One of the letters threatened poison. The one he had last Monday, it was.’

‘But many leading politicians get letters of that sort. Nothing ever happens. Forgive me, Lady O’Callaghan, but I’m sure you are utterly wrong. How could they have poisoned him? It’s—it’s impossible. I do beg you not to distress yourself.’ He glanced uncomfortably at her placid face. ‘I’m sure you are quite mistaken,’ ended Ronald wildly.

‘Let us go into his room,’ she murmured and, without another word, led the way into O’Callaghan’s study.

They unlocked the desk and she sat and watched, while Ronald went through the papers in the top pigeon-holes.

‘The drawers on the left,’ he explained to her, ‘were used for private correspondence—I did not have anything to do with them.’

‘They will have to be opened. I will do that.’

‘Of course. Here is one of the threatening letters—several—I think all of them. I wanted to show them to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn at the Yard. Sir Derek wouldn’t allow me to do so.’

‘Let me see them.’

He gave her the bundle of letters and returned to the pigeonholes.

‘Here are his notes,’ he said presently. She did not answer, and he glanced up and was astonished to surprise in her face an expression of some sort of an emotion. She looked venomous.

‘Here is the letter I spoke of,’ she said. ‘You will see that they threaten to poison him.’

‘Yes. I see.’

‘You still do not believe me, Mr Jameson?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘I shall insist upon an inquiry.’

‘An inquiry? Oh Lord!’ said Ronald involuntarily. ‘I mean—I wouldn’t, really, Lady O’Callaghan. It’s—we’ve no grounds for it.’

‘Are you taking these notes to the Prime Minister today?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you tell him, if you please, what I propose to do? You may discuss it with him. In the meantime I shall go through the private letters. Have you the keys of those drawers?’

Ronald took a bunch of keys from the desk, and with an air of reluctance put them in her hand.

‘When is your appointment?’

‘For three o’clock.’

‘It is now only half-past two. Please come and see me before you leave.’

As he left her she was fitting a key to the bottom drawer.

To anybody who had the curiosity to watch him—Nash, the butler, for instance—Ronald Jameson would have appeared to be very much upset. He went up to his bedroom, wandered aimlessly about, smoked three cigarettes, and finally sat on the bed, staring in a sort of trance at a wood-engraving that hung above his dressing-table. At last he looked at his watch, went downstairs, got his hat and umbrella and returned to the study.

He found Lady O’Callaghan seated at the desk with a neatly arranged pile of letters in front of her. She did not turn her head when he came in. She simply stared very fixedly at a paper she held in her hand. It struck him that she had sat like that for some time—while he himself had done much the same thing upstairs in his room. Her face was always pale—she did not use rouge—but he thought now that it was deadly white. There was a thin ridge, like a taut thread, linking her nostrils with the corners of her mouth.

‘Come here,’ she said quietly.

He went and stood by the desk.

‘You told me that night, a week ago, I think, that my husband had received a letter that seemed to upset him. Was this the letter?’

He glanced at it and then looked away.

‘I did not see the letter,’ he stammered. ‘Only the envelope.’

‘Is that the envelope?’

‘I—I think so. I can’t be sure.’

‘Read it.’

With an expression of extreme distaste he read the letter. It was Jane Harden’s.

‘If an opportunity presented itself,’ Jane had written, ‘I would not hesitate to kill you.’

Ronald put it down on the desk.

‘Now read this.’

The second letter was from Sir John Phillips. Phillips had written it at fever-heat on the night he got home from his interview with O’Callaghan, and had posted it before he had time to cool down.

I gather you’re going to cut your losses and evade what, to any decent man, would be a responsibility. You talked of sending Jane a cheque. She will, of course, either tear it up or return it. I cannot force your hand, for that would do still more harm to a lady who is already deeply wronged. I warn you, however, to keep clear of me. I’ve a certain devil in me that I thought was scotched, but you have brought it to life again, and I think I could very easily kill you. This may sound like hyperbole; as a matter of fact it is meiosis.

JOHN PHILLIPS

‘Have you seen that before?’ asked Lady O’Callaghan.

‘Never,’ said Ronald.

‘You notice the signature? It was written by the man who operated on my husband.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who is this woman—Jane Harden?’

‘Honestly, I have no idea, Lady O’Callaghan.’

‘No? A nurse, evidently. Look at the address, Mr Jameson.’

‘Good God,’ said Ronald. ‘It’s—it’s the nursing-home.’

‘Yes. We sent him to a strange place for his operation.’

‘But—’

‘Will you please take these letters with you?’

‘But, Lady O’Callaghan, I can’t possibly show them to the P.M.—the Prime Minister—really!’

‘Then I shall have to do so myself. Of course, there must be an inquest.’

‘Forgive me, but in the shock of reading these letters and—and realising their inferences, have you considered the effect any publicity would have on yourself?’

‘What do you mean? What shock? Do you suppose I did not know he had mistresses?’

‘I’ve no idea, I’m sure,’ said poor Ronald unhappily.

‘Of course I knew,’ she said composedly. ‘That seems to me to have nothing to do with the point we are discussing. I knew he had been murdered. I thought at first that these other people—’ She made a slight gesture towards the neat little pile on the desk. ‘Now I find he had bitter enemies nearer to him than that.’ Her hand closed over the letters on her knee. ‘He has been murdered. Probably by this nurse or by Sir John Phillips; possibly by both of them in collaboration. I shall demand an inquest.’

‘An inquest! You know, I doubt very much if you would be given permission.’

‘To whom does one apply?’

‘One can’t just order an inquest,’ Ronald said evasively.

‘Who can do so, Mr Jameson?’

‘The—well, the coroner for the district, I imagine.’

‘Or the police?’

Ronald winced.

‘I suppose so—yes.’

‘Yes. Thank you, Mr Jameson.’

Ronald, in a panic, took himself off to the House.

Lady O’Callaghan put a jade paper-weight on the little heap of letters and opened the telephone directory. The number she wanted was printed in large letters on a front page. She dialled it, and was answered immediately.

‘Is that New Scotland Yard?’ she asked, pitching her voice in a sort of serene falsetto. ‘It is Lady O’Callaghan speaking. My husband was Sir Derek O’Callaghan, the late Home Secretary. I want to speak to someone in authority, in reference to the death of my husband. No, not on the telephone. Perhaps someone would call? Immediately, if possible. Thank you.’

She hung up the receiver and leant back in her chair. Then she rang for Nash, who came in looking like a Stilton in mourning.

‘Nash,’ she said, ‘an officer from Scotland Yard is calling in ten minutes. It is in reference to the funeral. I wish to speak to him myself. If Miss O’Callaghan calls, will you tell her I am unable to see her? Show the officer in here when he comes.’

‘Very good, m’lady,’ breathed Nash and withdrew.

Cicely O’Callaghan then went to the room where her husband lay, awaiting his last journey down Whitehall. She was an Anglo-Catholic, so candles burned, small golden plumes, at the head and foot of the coffin. The room, a large one, was massed heavily with flowers. It smelt like a tropical island, but was very cold. A nun from the church that the O’Callaghans attended knelt at a little distance from the coffin. She did not look up when Lady O’Callaghan came in.

The wife knelt beside her for a moment, crossed herself with a thin vague movement of her hand, and then rose and contemplated her husband.

Derek O’Callaghan looked impressive. The heavy eyebrows, black hair, jutting nose and thin wide mouth were striking accents in the absolute pallor of his face. His hands, stiffly crossed, obediently fixed a crucifix to the hard curve of his breast. His wife, only a little less pale than he, stared at him. It would have been impossible to guess her thoughts. She simply looked in the direction of the dead face. In the distance a door opened and shut. She turned away from the bier, and walked out of the room.

In the hall Nash waited gloomily, while a tall, thickly built man handed him hat and umbrella.

‘Inspector Fox, my lady.’

‘Will you come in here?’

She took the inspector into the study. Nash had lit the fire, and she held her thin hands towards it.

‘Please sit down,’ she murmured. They sat facing each other. Inspector Fox regarded her with respectful attention.

‘I asked you to come and see me,’ she began very quietly, ‘because I believe my husband to have been murdered.’

Fox did not speak for a moment. He sat stockily, very still, looking gravely before him.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Lady O’Callaghan,’ he said at last. ‘It sounds rather serious.’

Apparently she had met her match in understatement.

‘Of course, I should not have called you in unless I had material evidence to put before you. I believe the police are aware of the activities of those persons against whom my husband’s Anarchy Bill was directed?’

‘We know a good deal about them.’

‘Yes. My husband had received many threatening letters which were believed to come from these people. I wished him to let the police see the letters, but he refused.’

‘We were informed of the matter from another source,’ said Fox.

‘The Prime Minister, perhaps?’

Fox regarded her placidly, but did not reply.

‘I have the letters here,’ she continued, after a moment, ‘and would like you to read them.’ She took them from the desk and gave them to him.

Fox took a spectacle case from an inner pocket and put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He looked extremely respectable.

He read the letters through stolidly, laying them down neatly one on top of the other. When the last was finished, he clasped his enormous hands together and said:

‘Yes. That’s the sort of things these people write.’

‘Now, will you read these?’

She gave him the letters from Sir John Phillips and Jane Harden. He read them carefully, in exactly the same way.

‘Sir John Phillips is the surgeon who operated upon my husband. I understand the other letter is from a nurse in the hospital.’

‘Is that so, Lady O’Callaghan?’ said Fox politely.

‘My husband had peritonitis but I believe he died of poisoning. I believe he was poisoned.’

‘In view of these letters? These two, or the others?’

‘I do not know. I am inclined to regard the personal ones as being more important. They definitely threaten his life.’

‘Yes. Very vindictive, they seem to be.’

‘I wish to have an inquest.’

‘I see,’ said Fox. ‘Now that’s quite a serious matter, Lady O’Callaghan.’

A faint redness appeared in her cheeks. Another woman would possibly have screamed in his face.

‘Of course it is serious,’ she said.

‘I mean, if you understand me, that before an order is made for an inquest, the coroner who makes it has to be certain of one or two points. What about the death certificate, for instance?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, was one signed?’

‘Yes.’

‘By Sir John Phillips?’

‘I don’t know. Possibly. Mr Thoms, the assistant surgeon, may have signed it.’

‘Yes. Well, now, Mr Thoms is a well-known surgeon. Sir Derek was a distinguished patient. He would take every care before he signed. I think that would be considered sufficiently conclusive by the coroner.’

‘But these threats! I am convinced he was murdered. I shall demand an inquest.’

Fox stared gravely into the fire.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, rather ponderously, ‘perhaps you would like me to ring up the coroner and put the case before him.’

‘Certainly, if you will.’

‘It would be better if you could tell him, definitely, who signed the certificate.’

‘Mr Jameson, my husband’s secretary, may know. He had an appointment with the Prime Minister at three.’

‘It’s fifteen minutes to four.’

‘I shall ring up the House,’ she said, and did.

She got Ronald at last and asked her question.

‘It was Mr Thoms?’ she said into the telephone. Ronald’s voice quacked audibly in the room. ‘Yes. Thank you. Have you discussed the matter? I see. No, I think not, Mr Jameson; I am communicating directly with the police.’

She hung up the receiver and informed Fox that Thoms had signed the certificate.

Inspector Fox then rang up the coroner. He held a long and muffled conversation. The coroner talked a great deal and appeared to be agitated. Lady O’Callaghan listened. Her fingers drummed bonily on the arm of her chair. For her, it was a terrific gesture. At last Fox rang off.

‘It’s as I thought,’ he said. ‘He says he cannot interfere.’

‘Then I shall go direct to the Prime Minister.’

He got rather ponderously to his feet.

‘I don’t think I’d do that, Lady O’Callaghan—at least not yet. If you’ll allow me to I’d like to talk it over with my superior, Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn.’

‘Alleyn? I think I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he—’ She paused. Cicely O’Callaghan had nearly dropped a brick. She had been about to say ‘Isn’t he a gentleman?’ She must have been really very much perturbed to come within hail of such a gaffe. Inspector Fox answered her very simply.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he’s rather well known. He’s a very highly educated man. Quite a different type from me, you might say.’

Again a faint pink tinged her cheeks.

‘I’m grateful to you for the trouble you are taking,’ she told him.

‘It’s all in the day’s work,’ said Fox. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Lady O’Callaghan, I’ll get along. I’ll speak to the chief at once. If you’re agreeable, I’ll show him the correspondence.’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you very much. I’ll wish you good afternoon.’

‘Will you have something to drink before you go?’

‘No, thank you. Very kind of you, I’m sure.’ He tramped to the door, turned and made a little bow.

‘I hope you’ll allow me to offer my sympathy,’ he said. ‘It’s a great loss to the nation.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Good afternoon, Lady O’Callaghan.’

‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’

So Inspector Fox went to the Yard to see Alleyn.

CHAPTER 6 Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn

Friday, the twelfth. Afternoon and evening.

‘Hallo, Brer Fox,’ said Alleyn, looking up from his desk. ‘Where’ve you been in your new bowler?’

‘Paying a call on the Snow Queen,’ replied Fox with unexpected imaginativeness. ‘And when I say “Snow Queen” I don’t mean cocaine, either.’

‘No? Then what do you mean? Sit down and have a smoke. You look perturbed.’

‘Well, I am,’ said Fox heavily. He produced a pipe and blew down it, staring solemnly at his superior. ‘I’ve been to see the wife of the late Home Secretary,’ he said.

‘What? You are coming on.’

‘Look here, chief. She says it’s murder.’

‘She says what’s murder?’

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