“Those weren’t her victims. They were mine.”
“Oh no,” he said. “There has only been one victim of yours in Nightingale House and she was Ethel Brumfett.”
She rose to her feet in one swift movement and stood facing him; those astonishing green eyes, speculative and unwavering, gazed into his. Part of his mind knew that there were words he ought to speak. What were they, those over-familiar phrases of statutory warning, the professional spiel which came almost unbidden to the lips at the moment of confrontation? They had slipped away, a meaningless irrelevancy, into some limbo of his mind. He knew that he was a sick man, still weak from loss of blood, and that he ought to stop now, to hand over the investigation to Masterson, and get to his bed. He, the most punctilious of detectives, had already spoken as if none of the rules had been formulated, as if he were facing a private adversary. But he had to go on. Even if he could never prove it, he had to hear her admit what he knew to be the truth.
As if it were the most natural question in the world he asked quietly: “Was she dead when you put her into the fire?”
4
It was at that moment that someone rang the doorbell of the flat. Without a word Mary Taylor swung her cape around her shoulders and went to open it. There was a brief murmur of voices; then Stephen Courtney-Briggs followed her into the sitting-room. Glancing at the clock, Dalgliesh saw that the hands stood at seven twenty-four a.m. The working day had almost begun.
Courtney-Briggs was already dressed. He showed no surprise at Dalgliesh’s presence and no particular concern at his obvious weakness. He spoke to them both impartially: “I’m told there was a fire in the night. I didn’t hear the engines.”
Mary Taylor, her face so white that Dalgliesh thought she might faint, said calmly: “They came in at the Winchester Road entrance and kept the bell silent so as not to wake the patients.”
“And what’s this rumour that they found a burnt body in the ashes of the garden shed? Whose body?”
Dalgliesh said: “Sister Brumfett’s. She left a note confessing to the murders of Nurse Pearce and Nurse Fallon.”
“Brumfett killed them! Brumfett!”
Courtney-Briggs looked at Dalgliesh belligerently, his large handsome features seeming to disintegrate into irritated disbelief.
“Did she say why? Was the woman mad?”
Mary Taylor said: “Brumfett wasn’t mad and no doubt she believed that she had a motive.”
“But what’s going to happen to my ward today? I start operating at nine o’clock. You know that, Matron. And I’ve got a very long list. Both the Staff Nurses are off with flu. I can’t trust dangerously sick patients to first-and second-year students.”
The Matron said calmly: “I’ll see to it at once. Most of the day nurses should be up by now. It isn’t going to be easy but, if necessary, we’ll have to withdraw someone from the school.”
She turned to Dalgliesh: “I prefer to do my telephoning from one of the Sisters’ sitting-rooms. But don’t worry. I realize the importance of our conversation. I shall be back to complete it.”
Both men looked after her as she went out of the door and closed it quietly behind her. For the first time Courtney-Briggs seemed to notice Dalgliesh. He said brusquely: “Don’t forget to go over to the radiography department and get that head X-rayed. You’ve no right to be out of bed. I’ll examine you as soon as I’ve finished my list this morning.” He made it sound like a tedious chore which he might find time to attend to.
Dalgliesh asked: “Who did you come to visit in Nightingale House the night Josephine Fallon was murdered?”
“I told you. No one. I never entered Nightingale House.”
“There are at least ten minutes unaccounted for, ten minutes when the back door leading to Matron’s flat was unlocked. Sister Gearing had let her friend out that way and was walking with him in the grounds. So you thought that the Matron must be in despite the absence of lights and made your way up the stairs to her flat. You must have spent some time there. Why? I wonder. Curiosity? Or were you searching for something?”
“Why should I visit the Matron? She wasn’t there. Mary Taylor was in Amsterdam that night.”
“But you didn’t know that at the time, did you? Miss Taylor wasn’t accustomed to attending International Conferences. For reasons we can guess she didn’t want her face to be to widely known. This reluctance to undertake public duties was thought becomingly modest in a woman so able and so intelligent. She was only asked late on Tuesday to go to Amsterdam to deputize for the Chairman of the Area Nurse Training Committee. Your sessions are on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. Then, on Wednesday night, you were called to operate on a private patient. I don’t suppose that the operating-theatre staff, busy with an emergency, thought to mention that the Matron wasn’t in the hospital. Why should they?” He paused.
Courtney-Briggs said: “And when am I supposed to have planned to visit the Matron at midnight? You’re not supposing that I would have been a welcome visitor? You’re not suggesting that she was expecting me?”
“You came to see Irmgard Grobel.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Courtney-Briggs said: “How do you know about Irmgard Grobel?”
“From the same person who told you, Mrs. Dettinger.”
Another silence. Then he said with the obstinate finality of a man who knows he won’t be believed: “Irmgard Grobel is dead.”
“Is she?” asked Dalgliesh. “Didn’t you expect to find her in the Matron’s flat? Wasn’t this your first opportunity to confront her with what you knew? And you must have been looking forward to it. The exercise of power is always pleasurable, isn’t it?”
Courtney-Briggs said calmly: “You should know that.”
They stood looking at each other in silence. Dalgliesh asked: “What had you in mind?”
“Nothing. I didn’t connect Grobel with the deaths of Pearce or Fallon. Even if I had, I doubt whether I should have spoken. This hospital needs Mary Taylor. As far as I’m concerned Irmgard Grobel doesn’t exist. She was tried once and found not guilty. That was good enough for me. I’m a surgeon, not a moral theologian. I should have kept her secret.”
Of course he would, thought Dalgliesh. Its value would be lost to him once the truth were known. This was very special, very important information, gained at some cost, and he would use it in his own way. It put Mary Taylor for ever in his power. The Matron who so frequently and irritatingly opposed him; whose power was increasing; who was about to be appointed Director of Nursing Services over all the hospitals in the Group; who influenced the Chairman of the Hospital Management Committee against him. Sir Marcus Cohen. How much influence would she retain with that dedicated Jew once he learned about the Steinhoff Institution? It had become fashionable to forget these things. But would Sir Marcus Cohen forgive?
He thought of Mary Taylor’s words. There are more ways than one of blackmail. Heather Pearce and Ethel Brumfett both knew that. And perhaps the most subtly pleasurable was the blackmail which made no financial demands but enjoyed its secret knowledge under the cloak of generosity, kindness, complicity or moral superiority. Sister Brumfett hadn’t asked much after all, only a room next to her idol; the prestige of being known as the Matron’s friend; a companion for her off-duty hours. Poor stupid Pearce had asked only a few shillings a week and a verse or two of scripture. But how they must have relished their power. And how infinitely more gratifying would Courtney-Briggs have found his. No wonder that he had been determined to keep the secret to himself, that he hadn’t welcomed the thought of the Yard descending on Nightingale House.
Dalgliesh said: “We can prove that you flew to Germany last Friday night. And I think I can guess why. It was a quicker and surer way of getting the information you wanted than pestering the Judge Advocate’s Department. You probably consulted the newspaper files and the record of the trial. That’s what I would have done. And, no doubt, you have useful contacts. But we can find out where you went and what you did
. You can’t slip in and out of the country anonymously, you know.”
Courtney-Briggs said: “I admit that I knew. I admit, too, that I came to Nightingale House to see Mary Taylor on the night Fallon died. But I’ve done nothing illegal, nothing which could put me in jeopardy.”
“I can believe that.”
“Even if I’d spoken earlier I should have been too late to save Pearce. She was dead before Mrs. Dettinger came to see me. I’ve nothing with which to reproach myself.”
He was beginning to defend himself clumsily like a schoolboy. Then they heard the soft footfall and looked around. Mary Taylor had returned. She spoke directly to the surgeon.
“I can let you have the Burt twins. I’m afraid it means the end of this block but there’s no choice. They’ll have to be recalled to the wards.”
Courtney-Briggs said grudgingly: “They’ll do. They’re sensible girls. But what about a Sister?”
“I thought that Sister Rolfe might take over temporarily. But I’m afraid that’s impossible. She’s leaving the John Carpendar.”
“Leaving! But she can’t do that!”
“I don’t see how I can prevent her. But I don’t think I shall be given the opportunity to try.”
“But why is she leaving? What’s happened?”
“She won’t say. I think something about the police investigation has upset her.”
Courtney-Briggs swung round at Dalgliesh.
“You see! Dalgliesh, I realize you’re only doing your job, that you were sent here to clear up these girls’ deaths. But, for God’s sake, doesn’t it ever occur to you that your interference makes things a bloody sight worse?”
“Yes,” said Dalgliesh. “And in your job? Does it ever occur to you?”
5
She went with Courtney-Briggs to the front door. They didn’t linger. She was back in less than a minute, and walking briskly over to the fire, she slipped her cloak from her shoulders and laid it tidily over the back of the sofa. Then, kneeling, she took up a pair of brass tongs and began to build up the fire, coal carefully disposed on coal, each licking flame fed with its gleaming nugget. Without looking up at Dalgliesh, she said: “We were interrupted in our conversation, Superintendent. You were accusing me of murder. I have faced that charge once before, but at least the court at Felsenheim produced some evidence. What evidence have you?”
“None.”
“Nor will you ever find any.” She spoke without anger or complacency but with an intensity, a quiet finality that had nothing to do with innocence.
Looking down on the gleaming head burnished by the firelight Dalgliesh said: “But you haven’t denied it. You haven’t lied to me yet and I don’t suppose you’ll trouble to begin now. Why should she have killed herself in that way? She liked her comfort. Why be uncomfortable in death? Suicides seldom are unless they’re too psychotic to care. She had access to plenty of pain-killing drugs. Why not use one of them? Why trouble to creep away to a cold dark garden shed to immolate herself in lonely agony? She wasn’t even fortified by the gratifications of a public show.”
“There are precedents.”
“Not many in this country.”
“Perhaps she was too psychotic to care.”
“That will be said of course.”
“She may have realized that it was important not to leave an identifiable body if she wanted to convince you that she was Grobel. Faced with a written confession and a heap of charred bones, why should you bother any further? There was no point in killing herself to protect me if you could confirm her real identity without trouble.”
“A clever and far-sighted woman might argue like that. She was neither. But you are. It must have seemed just worth a try. And even if we never found out about Irmgard Grobel and Felsenheim, it had become important to get rid of Brumfett. As you’ve said, she couldn’t even kill without making a mess of it. She had already panicked once when she tried to murder me. She might easily panic again. She had been an encumbrance for years; now she had become a dangerous liability. You hadn’t asked her to kill for you. It wasn’t even a reasonable way out of the difficulty. Pearce’s threats could have been dealt with if Sister Brumfett had only kept her head and reported the matter to you. But she had to demonstrate her devotion in the most spectacular way she knew. She killed to protect you. And those two deaths bound you and she together indissolubly for life. How could you ever be free or secure while Brumfett lived?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me how I did it?”
They might, Dalgliesh thought, be two colleagues talking over a case together. Even through his weakness he knew that this bizarre conversation was dangerously unorthodox, that the woman kneeling at his feet was an enemy, that the intelligence opposed to his was inviolate. She had no hope now of saving her reputation, but she was fighting for freedom, perhaps even for her life.
He said: “I can tell you how I would have done it. It wasn’t difficult. Her bedroom was the one nearest the door of your flat. I suppose she asked for that room, and nothing Sister Brumfett wanted could be denied. Because she knew about the Steinhoff Institution? Because she had a hold over you? Or merely because she had lumbered you with the weight of her devotion and you hadn’t the ruthlessness to break free? So she slept close to you.
“I don’t know how she died. It could have been a tablet, an injection, something you administered on the pretence that it would help her to sleep. She had already, at your request, written the confession. I wonder how you persuaded her to do that? I don’t suppose she thought for one moment that it was going to be used. It isn’t addressed to me or to any particular person. I imagine you told her that there ought to be something in writing just in case anything happened to her or to you and it was necessary sometime in the future to have a record of what really happened, proof that would protect you. So she wrote that plain note, probably at your dictation. It has a directness and lucidity that has little, I imagine, to do with Sister Brumfett.
“And so she dies. You have only to carry her body two yards to gain the safety of your door. Even so, this is the most risky part of your plan. Suppose Sister Gearing or Rolfe should appear? So you prop open Sister Brumfett’s door and the door of your flat and listen carefully to make sure that the corridor is clear. Then you hoist the body over your shoulder and move swiftly into your flat. You lay the body on the bed and go back to shut her bedroom door and to shut and lock your own front door. She was a plump but short woman. You are tall and strong and have been trained to lift helpless patients. That part wasn’t so difficult.
“But now you must move her to your car. It’s convenient having access to your garage from the downstairs hall and a private stairway. With both the outside and inside doors of the flat locked you can work without fear of interruption. The body is hoisted into the back of your car and covered with a travelling rug. Then you drive out through the grounds and reverse the car under the trees, as close as possible to the garden shed. You keep the engine running. It is important to make a quick getaway, be back in your flat before the fire is seen. This part of the plan is a little risky but the Winchester Road path is seldom used after dark. The ghost of Nancy Gorringe sees to that. It would be inconvenient but not catastrophic if you were seen. After all, you are the Matron, there is nothing to prevent you taking a night drive. If anyone passes, you will have to drive on and choose another place or another time. But no one does pass. The car is deep under the trees; the lights are out. You carry the body to the shed. Then there is a second journey with the can of petrol. And after that there is nothing to do but souse the body and the surrounding furniture and piles of wood and throw in a lighted match from the open doorway.
“It takes only a moment to get in the car and to drive straight back through the garage doors. Once they are closed behind you, you are safe. Certainly you know that the fire will burn with such fierceness that it will be seen almost at once. But by then you are back in your own flat, ready to receive the telephone call which tells you t
hat the fire engine is on its way, ready to ring me. And the suicide note which she left in your charge, perhaps never to be used, is ready to be handed over.”
She asked quietly: “And how will you prove it?”
“Probably never. But I know that is how it happened.”
She said: “But you will try to prove it, won’t you? After all, failure would be intolerable for Adam Dalgliesh. You will try to prove it no matter what the cost to yourself or anyone else. And after all, there is a chance. There isn’t much hope of finding tyre marks under the trees of course. The effects of the fire, the wheels of the fire engine, the trampling of the men, will have obliterated any clues on the ground. But then you will examine the inside of the car surely, particularly the rug. Don’t neglect the car rug, Superintendent. There may be fibres from the clothes, even a few hairs, perhaps. But that wouldn’t be surprising. Miss Brumfett often drove with me; the car rug actually belongs to her; it’s probably covered with her hairs. But what about clues in my flat? If I carried her body down the narrow back staircase surely there will be marks on the walls where they were grazed by her shoes? Unless, of course, the woman who killed Brumfett had sufficient sense to remove the victim’s shoes and carry them separately, perhaps slung by the laces around her neck. They couldn’t be left in the flat. You might check on the number of pairs that Brumfett owned. After all, someone in Nightingale House could tell you. We have so little privacy from each other. And no woman would walk through the woods barefoot to her death.
“And the other clues in the flat? If I killed her, ought there not to be a syringe, a bottle of pills, something to indicate how I did it? But her medicine cupboard and mine both contain a supply of aspirin and sleeping tablets. Suppose I gave her those? Or simply stunned or suffocated her? Any method would be as good as another provided it didn’t make a mess. How can you possibly prove how she died when all you have for the autopsy are a few charred bones? And there’s the suicide note, a note in her own handwriting and containing facts which only the killer of Pearce and Fallon could have known. Whatever you may choose to believe, Superintendent, are you going to tell me that the Coroner won’t be satisfied that Ethel Brumfett intended that note as a confession before burning herself to death?”