The Nursing Home Murder (15 page)

Alleyn produced his notebook and took this,down. Mr. Rattisbon got up.

“I must keep you no longer, Inspector Alleyn. This is an extremely distressing affair. I trust that the police may ultimately — um— ”

“I trust so, sir,” said Alleyn. He rose and opened the door.

“Oh, thank-yer, thank-yer,” ejaculated Mr. Rattisbon. He shot across the room, paused, and darted a final look at Alleyn.

“My nephew tells me you were at school together,” he said. “Henry Rattisbon, Lady O’Callaghan’s brother.”

“I believe we were,” answered Alleyn politely.

“Yes. Interesting work here? Like it?”

“It’s not a bad job.”

“Um? Oh, quite. Well, wish you success,” said Mr. Rattisbon, who had suddenly become startlingly human. “And don’t let poor Miss Ruth mislead you.”

“I’ll try not to. Thank you so much, sir.”

“Um? Not at all, not at all. Quite the reverse. Good morning. Good morning.”

Alleyn closed the door and stood in a sort of trance for some minutes. Then he screwed his face up sideways, as though in doubt, appeared to come to a decision, consulted the telephone directory, and went to call upon Mr. Harold Sage.

Mr. Sage had a chemist’s shop in Knightsbridge. Inspector Alleyn walked to Hyde Park Corner and then took a bus. Mr. Sage, behind his counter, served an elderly lady with dog powders, designed, no doubt, for a dyspeptic pug which sat and groaned after the manner of his kind at her feet.

“These are our own, madam,” said Mr. Sage. “I think you will find they give the little fellow immediate relief.”

“I
hope
so,” breathed the elderly lady. “And you
really
think there’s no need to worry?”

The pug uttered a lamentable groan. Mr. Sage made reassuring noises and tenderly watched them out.

“Yes, sir?” he said briskly, turning to Alleyn.

“Mr. Harold Sage?” asked the inspector.

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Sage, a little surprised.

“I’m from Scotland Yard. Inspector Alleyn.”

Mr. Sage opened his eyes very wide, but said nothing. He was naturally a pale young man.

“There are one or two questions I should like to ask you, Mr. Sage,” continued Alleyn. “Perhaps we could go somewhere a little more private? I shan’t keep you more than a minute or two.”

“Mr. Brayght,” said Mr. Sage loudly.

A sleek youth darted out from behind a pharmaceutical display.

“Serve, please,” said Mr. Sage. “Will you just walk this way?” he asked Alleyn and led him down a flight of dark steps into a store-room which smelt of chemicals. He moved some packages off the only two chairs and stacked them up, very methodically, in a dark corner of the room. Then he turned to Alleyn.

“Will you take a chair?” he asked.

“Thank you. I’ve called to cheek up one or two points that have arisen in my department. I think you may be able to help us.”

“In what connection?”

“Oh, minor details,” said Alleyn vaguely. “Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. I don’t want to take up too much of your time. It’s in connection with certain medicines at present on the market. I believe you sell a number of remedies made up from your own prescriptions — such as the pug’s powders, for instance?” He smiled genially.

“Oh — quayte,” said Mr. Sage.

“You do? Right. Now with reference to a certain prescription which you have made up for a Miss Ruth O’Callaghan.”

“Pardon?”

“With reference to a certain prescription you made up for a Miss Ruth O’Callaghan.”

“I know the lady you mean. She has been a customer for quite a while.”

“Yes. This was one of your own prescriptions?”

“Speaking from memory, I think she has had several of my little lines — from tayme to tayme.”

“Yes. Do you remember a drug you supplied three weeks ago?”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember off-hand— ”

“This is the one that contained hyoscine,” said Alleyn. In the long silence that followed Alleyn heard the shop-door buzzer go, heard footsteps and voices above his head, heard the sound of the Brompton Road train down beneath them and felt its vibration. He watched Harold Sage. If there was no hyoscine in any of the drugs, the chemist would say so, would protest, would be bewildered. If there was hyoscine, an innocuous amount, he might or might not be flustered. If there was hyoscine, a fatal amount — what would he say?

“Yes,” said Mr. Sage.

“What was the name of this medicine?”

“ ‘Fulvitavolts.’ ”

“Ah, yes. Do you know if she used it herself or bought it for anyone else?”

“I reely can’t say. For herself, I think.”

“She did not tell you if she wanted it for her brother?”

“I reely don’t remember, not for certain. I think she said something about her brother.”

“May I see a packet of this medicine?”

Mr. Sage turned to his shelves, ferreted for some time and finally produced an oblong package. Alleyn looked at the spirited picture of a nude gentleman against an electric shock.

“Oh, this is not the one, Mr. Sage,” he said brightly. “I mean the stuff in the round box — so big — that you supplied afterwards. This has hyoscine in it as well, has it? What was the other?”

“It was simply a prescription. I–I made it up for Miss O’Callaghan.”

“From a doctor’s prescription, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Who was the doctor?”

“I reely forget. The prescription was returned with the powder.”

“Have you kept a record?”

“No.”

“But surely you have a prescription-book or whatever it is called?”

“I — yes — but — er — an oversight — it should have been entered.”

“How much hyoscine was there in this prescription?”

“May I ask,” said Mr. Sage, “why you think it contained hyoscine at all?”

“You have made that quite clear yourself. How much?”

“I — think — about one two-hundredth — something very small.”

“And in ‘Fulvitavolts’?”

“Less. One two-hundred-and-fiftieth.”

“Do you know that Sir Derek O’Callaghan was probably murdered?”

“My Gawd, yes.”

“Yes… With hyoscine.”

“My Gawd, yes.”

“Yes. So you see we want to be sure of our facts.”

“He ’ad no hoverdose of ’yoscine from ’ere,” said Mr. Sage, incontinently casting his aitches all over the place.

“So it seems. But, you see, if he had taken hyoscine in the minutest quantity before the operation we want to trace it as closely as possible. If Miss O’Callaghan gave him ‘Fulvitavolts’ and this other medicine, that would account for some of the hyoscine found at the post-mortem. Hyoscine was also injected at the operation. That would account for more.”

“You passed the remark that he was murdered,” said Mr. Sage more collectedly.

“The coroner did,” corrected Alleyn. “Still, we’ve got to explore the possibility of accident. If you could give me the name of the doctor who prescribed the powder, it would be a great help.”

“I can’t remember. I make up hundreds of prescriptions every week.”

“Do you often forget to enter them?”

Mr. Sage was silent.

Alleyn took out a pencil and an. envelope. On the envelope he wrote three names.

“Was it any of those?” he asked.

“No.”

“Will you swear to that?”

“Yes. Yes, I would.”

“Look here, Mr. Sage, are you sure it wasn’t your own prescription that you gave Miss O’Callaghan?”

“ ‘Fulvitavolts’ is my own invention. I told you that.”

“But the other?”

“No, I tell you — no.”

“Very well. Are you in sympathy with Comrade Kakaroff over the death of Sir Derek O’Callaghan?”

Mr. Sage opened his mouth and shut it again. He put his hands behind him and leaned against a shelf.

“To what do you refer?” he said.

“You were at the meeting last night.”

“I don’t hold with the remarks passed at the meeting. I never ’ave. I’ve said so. I said so last night.”

“Right. I don’t think there’s anything else.”

Alleyn put the packet of ‘Fulvitavolts’ in his pocket.

“How much are these?”

“Three and nine.”

Alleyn produced two half-crowns and handed them to Mr. Sage, who, without another word, walked out of the room and upstairs to the shop. Alleyn followed. Mr. Sage punched the cash register and conjured up the change. The sleek young man leant with an encouraging smile towards an incoming customer.

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Mr. Sage, handing Alleyn one and threepence.

“Thank you. Good morning.”

“Good morning, sir.”

Alleyn went to the nearest telephone-booth and rang up the Yard.

“Anything come in for me?”

“Just a moment, sir… Yes. Sir John Phillips is here and wants to see you.”

“Oh. Is he in my room?”

“Yes.”

“Ask him to speak to me, will you?”

A pause.

“Hullo.”

“Hullo. Is that Sir John Phillips?”

“Yes. Inspector Alleyn — I want to see you. I want to make a clean breast of it.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said Alleyn.

Wednesday to Thursday.

Phillips stared at Chief Inspector Alleyn’s locked desk, at his chair, at the pattern of thick yellow sunlight on the floor of his room. He looked again at his watch. Ten minutes since Alleyn had rung up. He had said he would be there in ten minutes. Phillips knew what he was going to say. There was no need to go over that again. He went over it again. A light footstep in the passage outside. The door handle turned. Alleyn came in.

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve kept you waiting.” He hung up his hat, pulled off his gloves and sat down at his desk. Phillips watched him without speaking. Alleyn unlocked the desk and then turned towards his visitor.

“What is it you want to tell me, Sir John?”

“I’ve come to make a statement. I’ll write it down afterwards if you like. Sign it. That’s what you have to do, isn’t it?”

“Suppose I hear what it’s all about first,” suggested Alleyn.

“Ever since you went away yesterday I’ve been thinking about this case. It seems to me I must be suspected of the murder. It seems to me things look very black for me. You know what I wrote to O’Callaghan. You know I injected a lethal drug. I showed you the tablets — analysis will prove they only contain the normal dosage, but I can’t prove the one I gave was the same as the ones you analysed. I can’t prove I only gave one tablet. Can I?”

“So far as I know, you can’t.”

“I’ve thought of all that. I didn’t kill O’Callaghan. I threatened to kill him. You’ve seen Thoms. Thoms is a decent little ass, but I can see he thinks you suspect me. He’s probably told you I used a lot of water for the injection and then bit his head off because he said so. So I did. He drove me nearly crazy with his bloody facetiousness. Jane — Nurse Harden — told me what you’d said to her. You know a hell of a lot — I can see that. You possibly know what I’m going to tell you. I want her to marry me. She won’t, because of the other business with O’Callaghan. I think she believes I killed him. I think she was afraid at the time. That’s why she was so upset, why she hesitated over the serum, why she fainted. She was afraid I’d kill O’Callaghan. She heard Thoms tell me about that play. D’ypu know about the play?”

“Thoms mentioned that you discussed it.”

“Silly ass. He’s an intelligent surgeon, but in other matters he’s got as much
savoir-faire
as a child. He’d swear his soul away I didn’t do it and then blurt out something like that. What I want to make clear to you is this. Jane Harden’s distress in the theatre was on my account. She thinks I murdered O’Callaghan. I know she does, because she won’t ask me. Don’t, for God’s sake, put any other interpretation on it. She’s got a preposterous idea that she’s ruined my life. Her nerves are all to blazes. She’s anæmic and she’s hysterical. If you arrest me, she may come forward with some damn’ statement calculated to drag a red herring across my trail. She’s an idealist. It’s a type I don’t pretend to understand. She did nothing to the syringe containing the serum. When Thoms cursed her for delaying, I turned and looked at her. She simply stood there dazed and half fainting. She’s as innocent as — I was going to say as I am, but that may not carry much weight. She’s completely innocent.”

He stopped abruptly. To Alleyn it had seemed a most remarkable little scene. The change in Phillips’s manner alone was extraordinary. The smooth, guarded courtesy which had characterised it during their former interview had vanished completely. He had spoken rapidly, as if urged by some appalling necessity. He how sat glaring at Alleyn with a hint of resigned ferociousness.

“Is that all you came to tell me, Sir John?” asked Alleyn in his most non-committal voice.

“All? What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, you prepared me for a bombshell. I wondered what on earth was coming. You talked of making a clean breast of it, but, forgive me, you’ve told me little that we did not already know.”

Phillips took his time over answering this. At last he said:

“I suppose that’s true. Look here, Alleyn. Can you give me your assurance that you entertain no suspicions as regards Jane Harden?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I shall consider everything you have told me very carefully, but I cannot, as this stage, make any definite announcement of that sort. Miss Harden is in a very equivocal position. I hope she may be cleared, but I cannot put her aside simply because, to put it baldly, you tell me she’s innocent.”

Phillips was silent. After a moment he clasped his well-shaped, well-kept hands together, and looking at them attentively, began to speak again.

“There’s something more. Has Thoms told you that I opened a new tube of tablets for the hyoscine injection?”

Alleyn did not move, but he seemed to come to attention.

“Oh yes,” he said quietly.

“He has! Lord, what an ingenuous little creature it is! Did you attach any significance to this second tube?”

“I remembered it.”

“Then listen. During the week before the operation I’d been pretty well at the end of my tether. I suppose when a man of my age gets it, he gets it badly — the psychologists say so — and — well, I could think of nothing but the ghastly position we were in — Jane and I. That Friday when I went to see O’Callaghan I was nearly driven crazy by his damned insufferable complacence. I
could
have murdered him then. I wasn’t sleeping. I tried alcohol and I tried hypnotics. I was in a bad way, Alleyn. Then on top of it he came in, a sick man, and I had to operate. Thoms rubbed it in with his damn-fool story of some play or other. I scarcely knew what I did. I seemed to behave like an automaton.” He stopped short and raised his eyes from the contemplation of his hands. “It’s possible,” he said, “that I may have made a mistake over the first tube. It may not have been empty.”

“Even if the tube had been full,” suggested Alleyn, “would that explain how the tablets got into the measure-glass?”

“I… what do you say?”

“You say that the first tube may not have been empty, and you wish me to infer from this that you are responsible for Sir Derek’s death?”

“I… I… That is my suggestion,” stammered Phillips.

“Deliberately responsible or accidentally?”

“I am not a murderer,” said Phillips angrily.

“Then how did the tablets get into the measure-glass?”

Phillips was silent.

The inspector waited for a moment and then, with an unsual inflexion in his deep voice, he said:

“So you don’t understand the idealistic type?”

“What? No!”

“I don’t believe you.”

Phillips stared at him, flushed painfully and then shrugged his shoulders. “Do you want a written statement of all this?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Later, if it’s necessary. You have been very frank. I appreciate both the honesty and the motive. Look here — what can you tell me to help yourself? It’s an unusual question from a police officer, but — there it is.”

“I don’t know. I suppose the case against me, apart from the suggestion I have just made, is that I had threatened O’Callaghan, and that when the opportunity came I gave him an overdose of hyoscine. It looks fishy, my giving the injection at all, but it is my usual practice, especially when Roberts is the anæsthetist, as he dislikes the business. It looks still more suspicious using a lot of water. That, again, is my usual practice. I can prove it. I can prove that I suggested another surgeon to Lady O’Callaghan and that she urged me to operate. That’s all. Except that I don’t think— No, that’s all.”

“Have you any theories about other people?”

“Who did it, you mean? None. I imagine it was political. How it was done, I’ve no idea. I can’t possibly suspect any of the people who worked with me. It’s unthinkable. Besides — why? You said something about patent medicines. Is there anything there?”

“We’re on that tack now. I don’t know if there’s anything in it. By the way, why does Dr. Roberts object to giving injections?”

“A private reason. Nothing that can have any bearing on the case.”

“Is it because he once gave an overdose?”

“If you knew that, why did you ask me? Testing my veracity?”

“Put it like that. He was never alone with the patient?”

“No. No, never.”

“Was any one of the nurses alone in the theatre before the operation?”

“The nurses? I don’t know. I wouldn’t notice what they did. They’d been preparing for some time before we came on the scene.”

“We?”

“Thoms, Roberts and myself.”

“What about Mr. Thoms?”

“I can’t remember. He may have dodged in to have a look round.”

“Yes. I think I must have a reconstruction. Can you spare the time to-day or to-morrow?”

“You mean you want to go through the whole business in pantomime?”

“If I may. We can hardly do it actually, unless I discover a P.C. suffering from an acute abscess of the appendix.”

Phillips smiled sardonically.

“I might give him too much hyoscine if you did,” he said. “Do you want the whole pack of them?”

“If it’s possible.”

“Unless there’s an urgent case, nothing happens in the afternoon. I hardly think there will be an urgent case. Business,” added Phillips grimly, “will probably fall off. My last major operation is enjoying somewhat unfavourable publicity.”

“Well — will you get the others for me for to-morrow afternoon?”

“I’ll try. It’ll be very unpleasant. Nurse Banks has left us, but she can be found.”

“She’s at the Nurses’ Club in Chelsea.”

Phillips glanced quickly at him.

“Is she?” he said shortly. “Very well. Will five o’clock suit you?”

“Admirably. Can we have it all as closely reproduced as possible — same impedimenta and so on?”

“I think it can be arranged. I’ll let you know.”

Phillips went to the door.

“Good-bye for the moment,” he said. “I’ve no idea whether or not you think I killed O’Callaghan, but you’ve been very polite.”

“We are taught manners at the same time as point-duty,” said Alleyn. Phillips went away and Alleyn sought out Detective-Inspector Fox, to whom he related the events of the morning. When he came to Phillips’s visit Fox thrust out his under lip and looked at his boots.

“That’s your disillusioned expression, Fox,” said Alleyn. “What’s it in aid of?”

“Well, sir, I must say I have my doubts about this self-sacrifice business. It sounds very nice, but it isn’t the stuff people hand out when they think it may be returned to them tied up with rope.”

“I can’t believe you were no good at composition. Do you mean you mistrust Phillips’s motive in coming here, or Nurse Harden’s hypothetical attempt to decoy my attention?”

“Both, but more particularly number one. To my way of thinking, we’ve got a better case against Sir John Phillips than any of the others. I believe you’re right about the political side — it’s not worth a great deal. Now Sir John knows how black it looks against him. What’s he do? He comes here, says he wants to make a clean breast of it, and tells you nothing you don’t know already. When you point this out to him he says he may have made a slip over the two tubes. Do you believe that, chief?”

“No — to do the job he’d have had to dissolve the contents of a full tube. However dopey he felt he couldn’t do that by mistake.”

“Just so. And he knows you’ll think of that. You ask me, sir,” said Fox oratorically: “ ‘What’s the man’s motive?’ ”

“What’s the man’s motive?” repeated Alleyn obediently.

“Spoof’s his motive. He knows it’s going to be a tricky business bringing it home to him and he wants to create a good impression. The young lady may or may not have been in collusion with him. She may or may not come forward with the same kind of tale. ‘Oh, please don’t arrest him; arrest me. I never did it, but spare the boy-friend,’ ” said Fox in a very singular falsetto and with dreadful scorn.

Alleyn’s mouth twitched. Rather hurriedly he lit a cigarette.

“You seem very determined all of a sudden,” he observed mildly. “This morning you seduced me with tales of Sage, Banks, and Roberts.”

“So I did, sir. It was an avenue that had to be explored. Boys is exploring, and as far as he’s got it’s a wash-out.”

“Alack, what news are these! Discover them.”

“Boys got hold of Robinson, and Robinson says it’s all my eye. He says he’s dead certain the Bolshie push hasn’t an idea who killed O’Callaghan. He says if they’d had anything to do with it he’d have heard something. It was Kakaroff who told him about it and Kakaroff was knocked sideways at the news. Robinson says if there had been any organization from that quarter they’d have kept quiet and we’d have had no rejoicing. They’re as pleased as punch and as innocent as angels.”

“Charming! All clapping their hands in childish glee. How about Dr. Roberts?”

“I asked him about the doctor. It seems they don’t know anything much about him and look upon him as a bit of an outsider. They’ve even suspected him of being what they call ‘unsound.’ Robinson wondered if he was one of our men. You recollect Marcus Barker sent out a lot of pamphlets on the Sterilization Bill. They took it up for a time. Well, the doctor is interested in the Bill.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Alleyn thoughtfully. “It’s in his territory.”

“From the look of some of the sons of the Soviet,” said Fox, “I’d say they’d be the first to suffer. The doctor saw one of these pamphlets and went to a meeting. He joined the Lenin Hall lot because he thought they’d push it. Robinson says he’s always nagging at them to take it up again.”

“So that’s that. It sounds reasonable enough, Fox, and certainly consistent with Roberts’s character. With his views on eugenics he’d be sure to support sterilization. You don’t need to be a Bolshie to see the sense of it, either. It looks as though Roberts had merely been thrown in to make it more difficult.”

Fox looked profound.

“What about Miss Banks and little Harold?” asked Alleyn.

“Nothing much. The Banks party has been chucking her weight about ever since the operation, but she doesn’t say anything useful. You might call it reflected glory.”

“How like Banks. And Sage?”