Shroud for a Nightingale (9 page)

Then the silence broke, the rigid figures relaxed. The two men Dalgliesh had already met—Stephen Courtney-Briggs and Paul Hudson, the Hospital Secretary—moved forward with formal welcoming smiles. Mr. Courtney-Briggs, who apparently took charge of any situation dignified by his presence, made the introductions. The Group Secretary, Raymond Grout, shook hands damply. He had a gently lugubrious face, puckered now with distress like that of the child on the verge of crying. His hair lay in strands of silver silk over a high-domed forehead. He was probably younger than he appeared, thought Dalgliesh, but even so, he must be very near retirement.

Beside the tall, stooped figure of Grout, Alderman Kealey looked as perky as a terrier. He was a ginger-haired, foxy little man, bandy as a jockey and wearing a plaid suit, the awfulness of its pattern emphasized by the excellence of its cut It gave him an anthropomorphic appearance, like an animal in a child’s comic; and Dalgliesh almost expected to find himself shaking a paw.

“It was good of you to come, Superintendent, and so promptly,” he said.

The folly of the remark apparently struck him as soon as he had made it, for he darted a keen glance from under spiky ginger eyebrows at his companions, as if defying them to smirk. No one did, but the Group Secretary looked as humiliated as if the solecism had been his, and Paul Hudson turned his face away to hide an embarrassed grin. He was a personable young man who, on Dalgliesh’s first arrival at the hospital, had shown himself as both efficient and authoritative. Now, however, the presence of his Vice-Chairman and the Group Secretary seemed to have inhibited his speech and he had the apologetic air of a man present on sufferance. Mr. Courtney-Briggs said:

“It’s too much to hope for any news yet, I suppose? We saw the mortuary van leaving, and I had a few words with Miles Honeyman. He couldn’t commit himself at this stage, of course, but he’ll be surprised if this was a natural death. The girl killed herself. Well, I should have though that was obvious to anyone.”

Dalgliesh said: “Nothing is obvious yet”

There was a silence. The Vice-Chairman seemed to find it embarrassing for he cleared his throat noisily and said:

“You’ll want an office, of course. The local C.I.D. worked from the police station here. They were really very little trouble to us. We hardly knew they were in the place.” He looked with faint optimism at Dalgliesh, as if hardly sanguine that the flying squad would be equally accommodating. Dalgliesh replied shortly:

“We shall want a room. Is it possible to make one available in Nightingale House? That would be the most convenient”

The request seemed to disconcert them. The Group Secretary said tentatively: “If Matron were here… it’s difficult for us to know what’s free. She shouldn’t be long now.”

Alderman Kealey grunted. “We can’t let everything wait for Matron. The Superintendent wants a room. Find him one.”

“Well there’s Miss Rolfe’s office on the ground floor, just next to the demonstration room.” The Group Secretary bent his sad eyes on Dalgliesh. “You’ve met Miss Rolfe, our Principal Tutor, of course. Now if Miss Rolfe can move temporarily into her secretary’s room… Miss Buckfield is off with flu, so it’s free. It’s rather cramped, only a cupboard really, but if Matron…”

“Get Miss Rolfe to move out any of her things she’ll need. The porters can shift the filing cabinets.” Alderman Kealey turned and barked at Dalgliesh: “Will that do?”

“If ifs private, reasonably soundproof, has a lock on the door, is large enough to take three men and has a direct telephone to the exchange, it will do. If it also has running water, so much the better.”

The Vice-Chairman, chastened by this formidable list of requirements, said tentatively: “There’s a small cloakroom and lavatory on the ground floor opposite Miss Rolfe’s room. That could be put at your disposal.”

Mr. Grout’s misery deepened. He glanced across at Mr. Courtney-Briggs as if seeking an ally but the surgeon had been unaccountably silent for the last few minutes and seemed reluctant to meet his eyes. Then the telephone rang. Mr. Hudson, apparently glad of a chance of activity, sprang to answer it He turned to his Vice-Chairman.

“It’s the
Clairon,
sir. They’re asking for you personally.”‘

Alderman Kealey grasped the receiver resolutely. Having decided to assert himself he was apparently ready to take command of any situation, and this one was well within his capabilities. Murder might be outside his normal preoccupations but dealing tactfully with the local Press was something he understood.

“Alderman Kealey here. The Vice-Chairman of the Management Committee. Yes, we’ve got the Yard here. The victim? Oh, I don’t think we want to talk about a victim. Not yet anyway. Fallon. Josephine Fallon. Age?” He placed his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the Group Secretary. Oddly enough, it was Mr. Courtney-Briggs who replied.

“She was thirty-one years, ten months,” he said. “She was precisely twenty years younger than me to the day.”

Alderman Kealey. unsurprised by the gratuitous information, returned to his listener.

“She was thirty-one. No, we don’t know yet how she died. No one knows. We are awaiting the post mortem report Yes, Chief Superintendent Dalgliesh. He’s here now but he’s too busy to talk. I hope to issue a Press statement this evening. We ought to have the autopsy report by then. No, there’s no reason to suspect murder. The Chief Constable has called in the Yard as a precautionary measure. No, as far as we’re aware, the two deaths aren’t connected in any way. Very sad. Yes, very. If you care to telephone about six I may have some more information. Ml we know at present is that Nurse Fallon was found dead in her bed this morning shortly after seven. It could very well have been a heart attack. She was just recovering from flu. No, there wasn’t a note. Nothing like that.”

He listened for a moment then again placed his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Grout.

“They’re asking about relatives. What do we know about them7”

“She hadn’t any. Fallon was an orphan.” Again it was Mr. Courtney-Briggs who replied.

Alderman Kealey passed on this information and replaced the receiver. Smiling grimly he gave Dalgliesh a look of mingled self-satisfaction and warning. Dalgliesh was interested to hear that the Yard had been called in as a precautionary measure. It was a new conception of the flying squad’s responsibilities and one which he felt was unlikely to deceive the local Press boys, still less the London reporters who would soon be on the scent He wondered how the hospital was going to cope with the publicity. Alderman Kealey was going to need some advice if the inquiry were not to be hampered. But there was plenty of time for that. Now all he wanted was to get rid of them, to get started with the investigation. These social preliminaries were always a time-consuming nuisance. And soon there would be a Matron to propitiate, to consult, possibly even to antagonize. From the Group Secretary’s unwillingness to move a step without her consent, it looked as if she were a strong personality. He didn’t relish the prospect of making it clear to her, tactfully, that there would be room for only one strong personality in this investigation.

Mr. Courtney-Briggs, who had been standing at the window, staring out at the storm-wrecked garden, turned, shook himself free of his preoccupations and said:

“I’m afraid I can’t spare any more time now. I have a patient to see in the private wing and then a ward round. I was due to lecture to the students here later this morning but that’ll have to be cancelled now. You’ll let me know, Kealey, if there’s anything I can do.”

He ignored Dalgliesh. The impression given, and no doubt intended, was that he was a busy man who had already wasted too much time on a triviality. Dalgliesh resisted the temptation to delay him. Agreeable as it would be to tame Mr. Courtney-Brigg’s arrogance, it was an indulgence which he couldn’t afford at present There were more pressing matters.

It was then that they heard the sound of a car. Mr. Courtney-Briggs returned to the window and looked out but did not speak. The rest of the little group stiffened and turned as if pulled by a common force to face the door. A car door slammed. Then there was silence for a few seconds followed by the clip of hurried footsteps on a tessellated floor. The door opened and Matron came in.

Dalgliesh’s first impression was of a highly individual yet casual elegance and a confidence that was almost palpable. He saw a tall slender woman, hatless, with pale honey-gold skin and hair of almost the same color, drawn back from a high forehead and swathed into an intricate coil at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a gray tweed coat with a bright green scarf knotted at her neck and carrying a black handbag and a small traveling case. She came into the room quietly and, placing her case on the table, drew off her gloves and surveyed the little party silently. Almost instinctively, as if watching a witness, Dalgliesh noticed her hands. The fingers were very white, long and tapering but with unusually bony joints. The nails were clipped short On the third finger of the right hand an immense sapphire ring in an ornate setting gleamed against the knuckle. He wondered irrelevantly whether she took it off when she was on duty and, if so, how she forced it over those nodular joints.

Mr. Courtney-Briggs, after a brief, “Good morning, Matron,” made his way to the door and stood there like a bored guest, demonstrating his anxiety to make a quick get-away. But the others crowded around her. There was an immediate sense of relief. Muttered introductions were made.

“Good morning, Superintendent.” Her voice was deep, a little husky, a voice as individual as herself. She seemed hardly aware of him, yet he was conscious of a swift appraisal from the green exophthalmic eyes. Her handshake was firm and cool, but so momentary that it seemed a fleeting meeting of palms, nothing more.

The Vice-Chairman said: “The police will want a room. We thought perhaps Miss Rolfe’s office?”

“Too small, I think, and not private enough, so close to the main hall. It would be better if Mr. Dalgliesh bad the use of the visitors’ sitting-room on the first floor and the cloakroom next door to it. The room has a key. There’s a desk with lock-able drawers in the general office and that can be moved up. That way the police will get some privacy and there’ll be a minimum of interference with the work of the school”

There was a murmur of assent. The men looked relieved. The Matron said to Dalgliesh: “Will you need a bedroom? Do you want to sleep in the hospital?”

“That won’t be necessary. We shall be staying in the town. But I would prefer to work from here. We shall probably be here late every night so that it would be helpful if we could have keys.”

“For how long?” asked the Vice-Chairman suddenly. It was on the face of it, a stupid question, but Dalgliesh noticed that all their faces turned to him as if it were one he could be expected to answer. He knew his reputation for speed. Did they perhaps know it too?

“About a week,” he said. Even if the case dragged on for longer, he would learn all he needed from Nightingale House and its occupants within seven days. If Nurse Fallon had been murdered—and he believed she had—the circle of suspects would be small. If the case didn’t break within a week it might never break. He thought there was a small sigh of relief.

Matron said: “Where is she?”

They took the body to the mortuary, Matron.“

“I didn’t mean Fallon. Where is Nurse Dakers? I understood it was she who found the body.”

Alderman Kealey replied. “She’s being nursed in the private ward. She was pretty shaken up so we asked Dr. Snelling to take a look at her. He’s given her a sedative and Sister Brumfett’s looking after her.”

He added: “Sister Brumfett was a little concerned about her. On top of that she’s got rather a sick ward. Otherwise she would have met you at the airport. We all felt rather badly about your arriving with no one to meet you, but the best thing seemed to be to telephone a message for you, asking you to ring us here as soon as you landed. Sister Brumfett thought that the shock would be less if you learnt it in that way. On the other hand it seemed wrong not to have someone there. I wanted to send Grout but…”

The husky voice broke in with its quiet reproof: “I should have thought that sparing me shock was the least of your worries.”‘ She turned to Dalgliesh:

“I shall be in my sitting-room here on the third floor in about forty-five minutes’ time. If it’s convenient for you, I should be glad to have a word with you then.”

Dalgliesh, resisting the impulse to reply with a docile, “Yes, Matron,” said that it would. Miss Taylor turned to Alderman Kealey.

“I’m going to see Nurse Dakers now. Afterwards the Superintendent will want to interview me and then I shall be in my main office in the hospital if you or Mr. Grout want me. I shall, of course, be available all day.”

Without a further word or look she gathered up her traveling case and handbag and went oat of the room. Mr. Courtney-Briggs perfunctorily opened the door for her, then prepared to follow. Standing in the open doorway, he said with jovial belligerence:

“Well, now that Matron’s back and the important matter of accommodation for the police has been settled, perhaps the work of the hospital can be permitted to continue. I shouldn’t be late for your interview if I were you, Dalgliesh. Miss Taylor isn’t accustomed to insubordination.”

He shut the door behind him. Alderman Kealey looked for a moment perplexed, then he said:

“He’s upset, of course. Well, naturally. Wasn’t there some kind of rumor…”

Then his eyes lit on Dalgliesh. He checked himself suddenly, and turned to Paul Hudson:

“Well, Mr. Hudson, you heard what Matron said. The police are to use the visitors’ sitting-room on this floor. Get on with it, my dear fellow. Get on with it!”

V

Miss Taylor changed into uniform before she went over to the private ward. At the time it seemed an instinctive thing to do, but, wrapping her cloak tightly around her as she walked briskly along the small footpath leading from Nightingale House to the hospital, she realized that the instinct had been prompted by reason. It was important to the hospital that Matron was back, and important that she should be seen to be back.