The Nursing Home Murder (8 page)

“Mr. Alleyn,” Ruth began, “what is this dreadful, dreadful suspicion about my brother’s death?”

“At the moment, Miss O’Callaghan, it can scarcely be called a suspicion.”

“I don’t understand. I’ve been talking to my sister-in-law. She said some dreadful things to me — terrible— appalling. She says my brother was”—Ruth drew in her breath noisily and on the crest of the intake uttered the word “murdered.”

“Lady O’Callaghan attaches a certain amount of importance to threatening letters which were sent to Sir Derek. You have heard of these letters, I expect.”

“You mean from those horrible anarchist people? Of course, I know they behaved very badly, but Derry — my brother, you know — always said they wouldn’t do anything, and I’m quite certain he was right. Nobody else could have any reason for wishing him harm.” (“She hasn’t heard about the other letters, then,” thought Alleyn.) “Everybody adored him, simply adored him, dear old boy. Mr. Alleyn, I’ve come to
beg
you not to go on with the case. The inquest was bad enough, but the other — the — you know what I mean. I can’t endure the thought of it. Please — please, Mr. Alleyn— ” She fumbled desperately in the bag and produced a colossal handkerchief.

“I’m so sorry,” said Alleyn. “I know it’s a beastly idea, but just think a little. Does it matter so much what they do to our bodies when we’ve finished with them? I can’t think so. It seems to me that the impulse to shrink from such things is based on a fallacy. Perhaps it is impertinent of me to speak so frankly.” Ruth gurgled and shook her head dolefully. “Well then, suppose there was no post-mortem, what about your feelings then? There would always be an unscotched suspicion whenever you thought of your brother.”

“He was ill. It was his illness. If only he had followed my advice! Mr. Alleyn, I have a friend, a brilliant young chemist, a rising man. I consulted him about my brother and he — generously and nobly — gave me a wonderful remedy, ‘Fulvitavolts,’ that would have cured my brother. I
begged
him to take it. It
would
have cured him; I know it” would. My friend assured me of it and he
knows
. He said— ” She broke off abruptly and darted a curiously frightened glance at Alleyn. “My brother always laughed at me,” she added quickly.

“And he refused to try this ‘Fultitavolts’?”

“Yes — at least — yes, he did. I left the tablets there but, of course — he just laughed. My sister-in-law is not very— ” Here Ruth floundered unhappily. “I’m sure he didn’t take them.”

“I see. People are generally very conservative about medicine.”

“Yes,
aren’t
they?” agreed Ruth eagerly and then stopped again and blew her nose.

“The lack of interest shown in chemical research must be very discouraging to a young man like your friend,” Alleyn went on. “I know a brilliant fellow— only twenty-five — who has already— ” He stopped and bent towards her. “I suppose we can’t possibly be speaking of the same person?” ‘ Ruth beamed at him through her tears.

“Oh no,” she assured him.

“Now, how do you know, Miss O’Callaghan?” said Alleyn gaily. “I’m a very great believer in coincidence. My man is James Graham.”

“No, no.” She hesitated again, oddly, and then in another burst of confidence: “I’m talking about Harold Sage. Perhaps you’ve heard of him too? He’s getting quite famous. He’s — he’s practically thirty.”

“The name seems to strike a chord,” lied Alleyn thoughtfully. The desk telephone rang.

“Will you excuse me?” he asked her, and took off the receiver.

“Hullo? Yes, speaking. Yes. Yes. I see. Thank you very much. I’m engaged at the moment, but if I may I’ll come round and see you to-morrow? Right.” He hung up the receiver. Ruth had just got to her feet.

“I mustn’t keep you, Mr. Alleyn. Only before I go— please, please let me beg you to go no further with these investigations. I’ve — I’ve got a reason — I mean I’m so sure Derry died naturally. It is all so dreadful. If I could be sure you were satisfied— ” She made an ineffectual movement with her hands, a clumsy gesture of entreaty. “Tell me you’ll go no further!” begged Ruth.

“I am extremely sorry,” said Alleyn formally, “but that would be impossible. The post-mortem has already been held. That message gave me the result.”

She stood gaping at him, her mouth half open, her big hands clutching at her bag.

“But what — what is it? What do they say?”

“Your brother died of an overdose of a dangerous drug,” said Alleyn.

She stared at him in utter dismay and then, without another word, turned and blundered out of the room.

Alleyn wrote the name “Harold Sage” in a minute notebook that he carried. Having done so, he stared at it with an air of incredulity, sighed, shut up his book and went to find Fox.

Tuesday, the sixteenth. Afternoon.

On the following afternoon, five days after his death, Derek O’Calaghan was buried with a great deal of pomp and ceremony. Alleyn was right about the funeral — there was no demonstration from the late Home Secretary’s obscure opponents, and the long procession streamed slowly down Whitehall without disturbance. Meanwhile the inquest had been resumed and concluded. After hearing the pathologist’s and the analyst’s report, the jury returned a verdict of murder against “a person or persons unknown.” Alleyn had had a few words in private with the pathologist before the inquest opened.

“Well,” said the great man, “there wasn’t much doubt about the hyoscine. The usual dose is a hundredth to a two-hundredth of a grain. My calculations, based on traces of hyoscine found in the organs, show that more than a quarter of a grain had been given. The minimum lethal dose would be something very much less.”

“I see,” said Alleyn slowly.

“Did you expect hyoscine, Alleyn?”

“It was on the
tapis
. I wish to heaven you hadn’t found it.”

“Yes. Unpleasant business.”

“Do they ever put hyoscine in patent medicines?”

“Oh, yes. Had Sir Derek taken patent medicines?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“The dosage would be too small to enter into the picture.”

“If he swallowed an entire packet?”

The pathologist shrugged his shoulders. “Would he take an entire packet?” Alleyn did not answer. “I can see you’ve got something in mind,” said the pathologist, who knew him.

“Sir John Phillips injected hyoscine. Suppose O’Callaghan had taken a patent medicine containing the drug?” Alleyn suggested.

“The average injection, as I have said, is about, say, a hundredth of a grain. The amount in patent medicines would be very much less. The two together, even if he had taken quantities of his rot-gut, could scarcely constitute a lethal dose — unless, of course, O’Callaghan had an idiosyncrasy for hyoscine, and even if there was an idiosyncrasy, it wouldn’t account for the amount we found. If you want my private opinion, for what it is worth, I consider the man was murdered.”

“Thank you for all the trouble you have taken,” said Alleyn glumly. “I shan’t wait to hear the verdict; it’s a foregone conclusion. Fox can grace the court for me. There’s one other point. Were you able to find the marks of the injections?”

“Yes.”

“How many were there?”

“Three.”

“Three. That tallies. Damn!”

“It’s not conclusive, Alleyn. There might be a fourth injected where we couldn’t see it. Inside the ear, under the hair, or even into the exact spot where one of the others was given.”

“I see. Oh, well, I must bustle away and solve the murder.”

“Let me know if there’s anything further I can do.”

“Thank you, I will. Good-bye.”

Alleyn went out, changed his mind and struck his head round the door.

“If I send you a pill or two, will you have them dissected for me?”

“Analysed?”

“If you’d rather. Good-bye.”

Alleyn took a taxi to the Brook Street home. He asked a lugubrious individual in a chastened sort of uniform if Sir John Phillips was in the hospital. Sir John had not yet come in. When would he be in? The lugubrious individual was afraid he “reely couldn’t say.”

“Please find someone who can say,” said Alleyn. “And when he’s free give Sir John this card.”

He was invited to wait in one of those extraordinary drawing-rooms that can only be found in expensive private hospitals in the West End of London. Thick carpet, subfusc curtains of pseudo-empire pattern and gilt-legged chairs combined to disseminate the atmosphere of a mausoleum. Chief Inspector Alleyn and a marble woman whose salient features were picked out embarrassingly in gilt stared coldly at each other. A nurse came in starchily, glanced in doubt at Alleyn, and went out again. A clock, flaunted aloft by a defiant bronze-nude, swung its pendulum industriously to and fro for twenty minutes. A man’s voice sounded somewhere and in a moment the door opened and Phillips came in.

He was, as usual, immaculate, a very model for a fashionable surgeon, with his effective ugliness, his eyeglass, his air of professional cleanliness, pointed by the faint reek of ether. Alleyn wondered if the extreme pallor of his face was habitual.

“Inspector Alleyn?” he said. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Not a bit, sir,” said Alleyn. “I must apologise for bothering you, but I felt you would like to know the report of the post-mortem as soon as it came through.”

Phillips went back to the door and shut it quietly. His face was turned away from his visitor as he spoke.

“Thank you. I shall be relieved to hear it.”

“I’m afraid ‘relieved’ is scarcely the word.”

“No?”

Phillips faced round slowly.

“No,” said Alleyn. “They have found strongly marked traces of hyoscine in the organs. He must have had at least a quarter of a grain.”

“
A quarter of a grain
!” He moved his eyebrows and his glass fell to the floor. He looked extraordinarily shocked and astonished. “Impossible!” he said sharply. He stooped and picked up his monocle.

“There has been no mistake,” said Alleyn quietly.

Phillips glanced at him in silence.

“I beg your pardon, inspector,” he said at last. “Of course, you have made certain of your facts, but— hyoscine — it’s incredible.”

“You understand that I shall be forced to make exhaustive inquiries.”

“I — I suppose so.”

“In a case of this sort the police feel more than usually helpless. We must delve into highly technical matters. I will be quite frank with you, Sir John. Sir Derek died of the effects of a lethal dose of hyoscine. Unless it can be proved that he took the drug himself, we are faced with a very serious situation. Naturally I shall have to go into the history of his operation. There are many questions which I should like to put to you. I need not remind you that you are under no compulsion to answer them.”

Phillips took his time in replying to this. Then he said courteously:

“Of course, I quite understand. I shall be glad to tell you anything that will help — anxious to do so. I owe it to myself. O’Callaghan came here as my patient. I operated on him. Naturally I shall be one of the possible suspects.”

“I hope we shall dispose of your claims to that position very early in the game. Now, first of all — Sir Derek O’Callaghan, as you told us at the inquest, had been given hyoscine.”

“Certainly. One-hundredth of a grain was injected prior to the operation.”

“Exactly. You approved of this injection, of course?”

“I gave it,” said Phillips evenly.

“So you did. I’m afraid I know absolutely nothing about the properties of this drug. Is it always used in cases of peritonitis?”

“It had nothing to do with peritonitis. It is always my practice to give an injection of hyoscine before operating. It reduces the amount of anæsthetic necessary and the patient is more comfortable afterwards.”

“It is much more generally used nowadays than, say, twenty years ago?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you mind telling me just how, and at what stage of the proceedings, it is given? This was not stated specifically at the inquest, I think.

“It was given in the anæsthetising-room immediately before the operation and after the patient was under the anæsthetic. A hypodermic syringe was used.”

“Prepared, I imagine, by the nurse in charge of the theatre?”

“In this instance, no. I thought this was all perfectly clear, inspector. I prepared the injection myself.”

“Yes, of course — how stupid I am!” Alleyn exclaimed. “That makes it much simpler for me. What exactly did you do? Dip the syringe in a blue bottle and suck up a dram?”

“Not quite.” Phillips smiled for the first time and produced a cigarette-case. “Shall we sit down?” he said. “And will you smoke?”

“Do you mind if I have one of my own? Good cigarettes are wasted on me.”

They sat on two incredibly uncomfortable chairs under the right elbow of the marble woman.

“As regards the actual solution,” said Phillips, “I used a tablet of a hundredth of a grain. This I dissolved in twenty-five minims of distilled water. There was a stock solution of hyoscine in the theatre which I did not use.”

“Less reliable or something?”

“It’s no doubt perfectly reliable, but hyoscine is a drug that should be used with extreme care. By preparing it myself I am sure of the correct dosage. In most theatres nowadays it’s put out in ampoules. I shall see,” added Phillips grimly, “that this procedure is followed here in future.”

“In this instance you went through the customary routine?”

“I did.”

“Were you alone when you prepared the syringe?”

“There may may have been a nurse in the theatre — I don’t remember.” He paused and then added: “Thoms came in just as I finished.”

“Did he go out with you?”

“I really don’t know. I rather think he returned to the anteroom a few moments later. I left him in the theatre. I went to the anæsthetic-room and gave the injection.”

“Of course, you have no doubt in your own mind about the dosage?”

“I know quite well what you are thinking, Inspector Alleyn. It is a perfectly reasonable suspicion. I am absolutely assured that I dissolved one tablet and one tablet only. I filled the syringe with distilled water, squirted it into a measuring-glass, shook one tablet into my hand, saw that it
was
a single tablet, and dropped it into the glass.”

Phillips leant back, looked steadily into Alleyn’s eyes, and thrust his hands into his pockets. “I am prepared to swear to that,” he said.

“It’s perfectly clear, sir,” said Alleyn, “and although I had to consider the possibility of a mistake, I realise that even if you had dropped two tablets into the water it would have only meant a dosage of a fiftieth of a grain. Probably the entire contents of the tube would not be a quarter of a grain — the amount estimated.”

For the first time Phillips hesitated. “They are packed in tubes of twenty,” he said at last, “so an entire tube would contain a fifth of a grain of hyoscine.” He felt in his coat pocket and produced a hypodermic case which he handed to Alleyn.

“The actual tube is still in there. I have since used one tablet.”

Alleyn opened the case and took out a glass tube completely covered by its paper label. He pulled out the tiny cork and looked in.

“May I?” he asked, and shook out the contents into his hand. There were eighteen tablets.

“That settles it,” he said cheerfully. “Do you mind if I take these for analysis? Purely a matter of routine, as one says in crime fiction.”

“Do,” said Phillips, looking rather bored.

Alleyn took an envelope from his pocket, put the tablets back into the tube, the tube into the envelope, and the envelope into his pocket.

“Thank you so much,” he said. “You’ve been extremely courteous. You’ve no idea how scared we are of experts at the Yard.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, indeed. This must have been a distressing business for you.”

“Very.”

“I believe Sir Derek was a personal friend.”

“I knew him personally — yes.”

“Had you seen much of him recently?”

Phillips did not answer immediately. Then, looking straight in front of him, he said: “What do you call recently?”

“Well — a fortnight or so.”

“I called at his house on the Friday evening before the operation.”

“A professional call?”

“No.”

“Did you think he was heading for a serious illness then?”

“I did not know there was anything the matter with him.”

“He did not mention a patent medicine?”

“No,” said Phillips sharply. “What is this about patent medicines?”

“Merely a point that arises.”

“If there is any question of his taking a drug,” said Phillips more cordially, “it should be gone into most thoroughly.”

“That is my view,” Alleyn answered coolly.

“He may,” Phillips went on, “have had an idiosyncrasy for hyoscine and if he had been taking it— ”

“Exactly.”

The two men seemed to have changed positions. It was the surgeon who now made the advances. Alleyn was polite and withdrawn.

“Is there any evidence that O’Callaghan had taken a patent medicine?”

“It’s possible.”

“Damn’ fool!” ejaculated Phillips.

“Strange he didn’t tell you he was ill on the Friday.”

“He — I—we discussed another matter altogether.”

“Would you care to tell me what it was?”

“It was purely personal.”

“Sir John,” said Alleyn mildly, “I think I should let you know at once that I have seen your letter to Sir Derek.”

Phillips’s head jerked up as though he had come suddenly face to face with a threatening obstacle. He did not speak for perhaps half a minute and then he said very softly:

“Do you enjoy reading other people’s private correspondence?”

“About as much as you enjoy glaring into a septic abdomen, I should think,” rejoined Alleyn. “It has a technical interest.”

“I suppose you’ve spoken to the butler?”

“Would you like to give me your own explanation of the business?”

“No,” said Phillips. “No.”

“Speaking unofficially — a thing I am far too prone to do — I am extremely sorry for you, Sir John.”

Phillips looked at him.

“Do you know, I think I believe you,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No, I’ve kept you quite long enough. Would it be an awful bore for everyone if I had a word with the nurses who attended the case?”

“I don’t think they can tell you very much further.”

“Probably not, but I think I ought to see them unless they are all heavily engaged in operations.”

“The theatre is not in use at the moment. The matron and the nurse who assists her — Nurse Banks — will be free.”

“Splendid. What about Sir Derek’s personal nurse and the other one from the theatre — Nurse Harden, wasn’t it?”

“I will find out,” said Phillips. “Do you mind waiting?”

“Not at all,” murmured Alleyn with an involuntary glance at the marble woman. “May I see them one by one — it will be less violently embarrassing for all of us?”