Green for Danger (19 page)

Cockrill got up from the bed and stood at the window, looking down at the cold greyness of the park. “Of
course
it wasn't Gervase,” insisted Woody anxiously, frightened at his thoughtful silence.

“Then who was it?” asked Cockrill, turning back from the window. “Who else do you suggest it was? Which of your five friends?”

“I don't know,” said Woods helplessly.

“It wasn't you yourself, for example,” said Cockrill with a twinkle. “You would hardly be likely to make these elaborate arrangements for gassing Frederica Linley, and then come and put the shilling in the meter yourself! Similarly it couldn't be Miss Linley, could it? for she was one of the victims, or Miss Sanson, because she saved Miss Linley; and it wouldn't be Captain Barnes, for whatever else he may be, he is definitely very sincerely in love with Miss Linley and would never attempt to harm her. You insist that it isn't Major Eden, so that only leaves Major Moon.”

“And it couldn't be Major Moon,” said Woods, smiling at the bare idea. She added anxiously: “You
don't
think it could be him?”

“Ah, that would be telling,” said Cockie. He flapped with a corner of his mackintosh at the cigarette ash scattered over the window-Sill, and suddenly turned and stumped out of the room and down the narrow stairs.

Woody followed him; she said urgently, her hand gripping the thin wooden bannister: “Does that mean that you know? You know who did it?”

“Of course,” said Cockrill. He picked up the hat from the kitchen table and thrust it rakishly on the back of his head.

She stood transfixed, staring at him. “You know, Inspector? But how on earth? I mean, how could you …? what can you …? when did you find out?”

“Oh, just a few minutes ago,” said Cockie gaily, and was just in time to wink at her before the hat fell like an extinguisher over his bright brown eyes.

CHAPTER VII

1

T
he fractured tib. and fib. lay in the corner bed where Higgins had spent his single night in the hospital; the screens round the bed next door cut him off from the rest of the ward. He complained rather plaintively that his leg was hurting a lot; and added incautiously that this time it really was.

“What do you mean?” said Esther innocently. “Doesn't it always?”

“Oh yes, of course, always, abominably,” said William hurriedly; but again he could not help laughing and adding, “Though oddly enough, only when
you're
on duty!”

Esther, having slept off the effects of her rescue work, had, as she had expected, been put on night duty in the ward until Frederica should be fit to work again. She said, uncertainly, standing at his bedside: “Are you trying to flirt with me again?”

“Yes,” said William, and caught her hand and kissed it, and turned it over and kissed the palm and each of the fingers, and then lay still with his cheek against it, holding it very closely in both his own; for a moment they were silent in the sweet, warm, infinitely peaceful joy of emotional surrender.

It was true that his leg was hurting more these days; and his back ached and he was bored and miserable and out of sorts, and his ship would sail without him while he lay here in hospital, and all the friends and companions he had made aboard her would sail with her, out of his life; he would be stuck in this gloomy ward for weeks and weeks, and God knew whether, when he finally got out, the Navy would ever take him back again. But, meanwhile, he held this small, slim hand in his own, and looked up into brown eyes suddenly alight with tenderness, and he smiled and said, “Oh
dar
ling!” and pulled her down to him and held her close to his heart.

Chaos reigned in St. Elizabeth's that evening. “Hey, nurse, you haven't given me my hot drink! Have one of mine, mate, she's given me three! What's this, nurse?—there's nothing but 'ot water in my mug? Oi, nurse, there's only a bit o' cocoa powder in mine!” They laughed and grumbled and argued and pulled her leg. “You must be in love, nurse; that's what it is! Nurse Sanson's in love!”

Nurse Sanson's in love. How warm and comfortable and safe and
final
it felt, after all the pain and bitterness of the past. William would look after her; she would put her hand in his and wrap herself about in his love and find a refuge there. “I will begin again,” she thought; “I won't worry and agonise and crave after Mummy any more. She would want me to forget now, and be safe and happy and contented, and so I will. William will look after me.…” And she went back to him and said, “Oh
dar
ling!” and gave him her hand again, and they gazed for a quite ridiculous length of time into each other's eyes.

“Oh, darling!” said William.

“Oh,
dar
ling!” said Esther.

“As I can't go on calling you Oh-darling indefinitely,” suggested William at last, “I think perhaps, sweetheart, you had better tell me your name.”

“Darling, you
can't
want a girl to marry you when you don't even know her name!”

“Well, tell me your name quickly then,” said William.

“My name's Esther, dearest.”

“Now, isn't that a coincidence,” said William; “I never was in love with a girl called Esther before!”

She sat by his bed for a long time in the darkened ward, jumping up now and then to attend to a patient, sleepless or in pain, but always coming back to sit with her little roughened hands in his; to talk, not of the past, but of the future; not of her mother and the air-raids, but of their life together when the blitz should be a thing of the past. By the time the Orderly Officer was due on his round, they had brought the war to a successful conclusion, had built themselves a white house on the hill overlooking Godlistone, had furnished themselves with three children, two boys and a girl, and were changing the honeymoon two-seater Chrysler for a sedate family Daimler. Esther dragged herself away at last. “You're supposed to be an invalid, my sweet; you really must go to sleep.…”

“Talking about sleeping, Esther … have you ever given any serious thought to the double-versus-twin-beds controversy?”

“Oh, William!” she protested, laughing and blushing.

“I think I'm definitely anti-twin,” said William, pulling her back to him by the corner of her apron.

2

Night Sister came round with the Orderly Medical Officer. “We had three new operation cases to-day, Major Jones; will you prescribe for them? And one of the hernias that was done yesterday is having a good deal of pain still. The fractured tib. and rib. seems to have been complaining that his leg is hurting him more than it did; how is he to-night, nurse?”

In the brief intervals during which he had had time to notice it, William had said that his leg really was a bit troublesome; he might as well have a good night, anyway, thought Esther, and reported that a sleeping draught would be welcome. The O.M.O. scribbled prescriptions and Sister handed out morphia and sleeping powders from the poison cupboard. Esther, going off up the ward with a syringe in her hand, heard her say to the doctor: “I suppose it's all right to let her give the injections? After all she
is
one of ‘them' …”

Major Moon arrived in the bunk at half-past ten. “Got any tea going, Esther, my dear?” As she assented, smiling, he came up to her suddenly and took her chin in his hand, turning her face to the light. “What's happened to you, child? You look positively lovely to-night!”

“Do I?” she said, foolishly happy.

He took his hand away, but his fingers seemed to linger over the smooth, soft skin. “You always were a beautiful creature, Esther, with that perfect oval face of yours, like a madonna in a church; but to-night the madonna seems to have gone all—fey.”

“The madonna's fallen in love,” she confessed, laughing.

He caught his breath sharply, but almost at once he said gaily: “In love! You're in love, Esther; that's what it is, it's written all over your face. Tell me about it and who is the lucky young man …”

She told him all about it. William slept peacefully in the bed next door to the bunk and she poured out the happy story of their love affair, of all that it meant to her. “Don't think that the—the security and money and all that mean
any
thing, Major Moon, compared with just being in love with him; but of course they do count, they must. I was so frightened of the future, because after the war I'd have had to keep myself and I just wouldn't have known where to begin. Mummy had a pension and she lived on that, and—well, you know what mothers are, she didn't want me to work and she always thought I would get married and not have to.… I never had any training, and being a V.A.D. doesn't get you anywhere, though I used to think it would help, that was why I took it up.… But it doesn't does it …? I just don't know how I would have lived. But now … and, oh, Major Moon, he
is
so sweet and I
am
so much in love.… It's quite absurd, I know, we've only known each other a week or so, but—well, there it is, these things happen.…”

“I'm very glad for you, my dear,” he said and he put his arm round her and kissed her on the lips.

It was a tiny shock, for it was not the kiss of an elderly man, saluting a young girl with her heart engaged elsewhere; but of a lover. He released her at once, however, and said humbly: “I'm sorry, Esther; I meant to give you just a fatherly peck and my blessing, and it got out of hand a bit.… You must forgive me; it's your fault—you're so very lovely to-night!”

Woods appeared at the door with her arms outstretched before her, moaning, “Unclean! Unclean!” At sight of Major Moon, she dropped her hands to her sides and said, laughing: “Oh, I'm sorry, sir; I didn't think anyone would be here. But still, you're one of us, too …”

“What
is
the matter with you, Woody?” said Esther.

“My dear, the inmates of our shelter have petitioned that when there are air-raids, I shall sleep somewhere else; they think I'm going to rise up in the night and set fire to their palliasses with oil from the paraffin lamps!”

“Oh, nonsense, darling.…”

“They do really. Can I have some tea? No, honestly, Esther, you and I and Freddi, when she gets well, have got to use the little Anderson shelter outside the cottages. Com thinks we shall ‘feel more comfortable' there.”

“What happens if we slaughter each other? Nobody cares about that, I suppose?”

“Well, we're all potential criminals and we're supposed to be hardened to attempted murder. Are you an outcast too, Major Moon?”

“There's a tendency to allow Barnes and Eden and me to monopolise the ante-room fire undisturbed,” confessed Major Moon. “But everyone is very polite and friendly, and they do make great efforts not to let us feel our position too acutely! The Press is seething round the hospital, and the C.O.s put a sentry on the main gates, and on the gates of the Mess with orders to let nobody in without a pass.…”

“What fun we do have,” said Woody. She stood with her elbows on the mantelpiece, staring down unhappily into the fire, and repeated what was uppermost in her mind: “The Inspector says it's one of us; and he knows which!”

One of us. One of
us
! “Of course Frederica's out of it,” continued Woody, as though it did them any good to narrow the circle even further down, “because she'd hardly have tried to gas herself.…”

“No, of course; Freddi's right out of it,” said Esther, glad of that, anyway.

“On the other hand, she might have, knowing that she would be rescued; I mean, then all of us would have said, just as we're doing, that of course Freddi couldn't be suspected. For that matter, Esther, so might you have fixed the gas tap, knowing that you would be able to save her, and throw us all off the scent.”

“So I might,” acknowledged Esther, much struck.