by Joyce Porter
‘So she died in the best of health?’ asked Dover with heavy sarcasm.
‘Well, yes, if you want to put it like that,’ retorted Dr Austin, growing a little truculent in his turn, ‘ she did.’
‘You didn’t expect her to die at this stage, then?’
Dr Austin frowned. ‘ No, not really. As I told her sister only a couple of days ago, with reasonable medical care and attention she might have gone on like that for years. On the other hand, with these brain cases you never really know. She might have died at any time.’
‘Was there any chance of her regaining consciousness?’
‘Oh no!’ Dr Austin shook his head firmly. ‘There was no hope of that at all. In the beginning, perhaps. But after all these months, no – no chance at all.’
‘I see,’ said Dover, and eased his bowler hat slightly. ‘ Well, is that all you want to tell us?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Dr Austin almost squeaked in protest. ‘I’m just coming to the main thing! As I was saying, we were, well, surprised at her dying when she did as there’d been no marked degeneration in her condition at all. Naturally we were going to do a post-mortem, just to find out what had happened.’
‘Naturally,’ said Dover.
‘Well, just before we opened her up, the nurse who was stripping the bed reported that one of the pillow-cases was stained with lipstick. We thought this was a bit odd, but we found the answer all right when we did the P.M.’ Dr Austin paused dramatically in the hope that Dover would show some interest. He didn’t.
‘She’d been suffocated’ – Dr Austin dropped his bombshell sulkily – ‘presumably with the pillow.’
‘Really?’ said Dover. ‘ Well, that makes a difference, doesn’t it? You’re quite certain as to the cause of death?’
‘Quite certain,’ said Dr Austin.
‘What time was she killed?’
‘Well, she was found dead at about eleven-thirty AM I had an early lunch and began the P.M. at, say, about half past one. It’s difficult to tell in these cases, body temperature and things like that are a bit tricky, but I’d guess somewhere between nine and eleven that morning.’
‘H’m,’ said Dover. ‘Well, I’ll want that pillow-slip and I’d better see the nurse who found it. Where was Miss Slatcher, by the way, in a private ward?’
‘Yes, she was in a side room off Ward Seven.’
‘Well, I’d better see the nurse in charge there as well, then.’
‘They’re both waiting for you in Matron’s office. I’m afraid she insists on being present while you interview them, as a kind of chaperone, you know. She’s a bit old-fashioned about these things, you know.’
‘So,’ said Dover, dragging himself to his feet, ‘am I.’
The matron of the Emily Gorner Memorial Hospital was a kindly looking woman, very plump and with soft curly grey hair peeping out from underneath her starched white cap. She smiled sweetly as Dover was introduced to her.
‘I expect you’ll want to see the girl who stripped the bed first, Chief Inspector,’ she said, and without waiting for an answer pressed one of the numerous buttons on her desk.
A side door opened and a very young and very pretty girl came nervously into the room. She smiled shyly at no one in particular.
‘This,’ said Matron in a voice of doom, ‘is Probationer Nurse Pearson. Stand up straight, Pearson, answer the Chief Inspector’s questions clearly and quickly, and wipe that stupid grin off your face!’
‘Yes, Matron,’ said Pearson meekly.
Dover opened his mouth but Matron was too quick for him.
‘Who told you to strip Miss Slatcher’s bed?’
‘Sister told me, Matron. She told me that Miss Slatcher had died and that when they’d taken the body away I was to take all the bed linen off and send it to the laundry.’
‘What time did you enter Miss Slatcher’s room?’
‘About a quarter past twelve, Matron.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘I folded the counterpane and the blankets up and then I pulled the top sheet off and folded that up too. Then I started taking the pillow-cases off. I took the top one off, folded it and put the pillow on one side. Then I took the second pillow-case off, and that was when I saw the lipstick stain.’
‘And then what did you do?’ asked Matron grimly.
Poor Pearson gulped. ‘I went to find Doctor Austin and showed him what I’d found.’
‘And what should you have done, Pearson?’
‘I should have told Sister, Matron.’
‘Precisely. And Sister would have told me and I would have told Doctor Austin.’
‘Yes, Matron,’ said Pearson with downcast mien.
‘Well, Chief Inspector’ – Matron turned briskly to Dover – ‘have you any more questions?’
‘Er, yes, I have got a couple,’ said Dover, rather disconcerted. ‘Can you tell me, Miss Pearson, where exactly the lipstick stain was? I know it was on the pillow, but was it next to the sheet or where?’
Matron now obliged with the answers. ‘The lipstick stain was in the centre of the bottom of the two pillows,’ she announced. ‘The side with the lipstick on it was next to the bottom sheet It is perfectly obvious what happened. Whoever killed Miss Slatcher, came in and removed one of the pillows from under her head. He then suffocated her with it – quite an easy job, the poor girl would offer no resistance. When she was dead, he merely lifted up the top pillow, supporting the girl’s head on it, and slipped the stained pillow underneath. Anything else, Chief Inspector?’
Dover glared helplessly at her. ‘Are you sure the lipstick on the pillow is the same as the stuff Miss Slatcher was wearing?’
‘I have here,’ said Matron, tapping a neat brown paper parcel which lay on her desk, ‘both the stained pillow-slip and Miss Slatcher’s lipstick, and a smear taken from her lips after she was dead. No doubt you have laboratories which can do scientific tests to prove that they are identical. I, personally, am perfectly sure that they are.’
‘Hm,’ said Dover. ‘But can you be perfectly sure that Miss Slatcher didn’t move about in the bed, turn her head, for example, and get her lipstick on to the pillow that way?’
‘Completely out of the question,’ snorted Matron. ‘ In the first place the girl was in a very deep coma and, apart from breathing, completely motionless. In the eight months we have been nursing her she hasn’t, so to speak, moved a muscle. Besides, a turning of the head, such as you have mentioned, would leave a smudge on the top pillow. We have a completely clear and full imprint on the bottom pillow. If you are suggesting that she suddenly, against all her medical history, recovered consciousness, turned her head completely round, pressed her lips on the pillow and then put that pillow underneath the other, I shall have to inform you that your suggestion is pure poppycock! Besides’ (Matron held up a hand to stop an interruption from Dover) ‘– kindly let me finish, Chief Inspector – besides, the post-mortem showed definitely that she had been suffocated. The very faint bruising on the face clearly indicated that something soft had been used, like a pillow.’
‘Oh, all right!’ snapped Dover crossly. ‘ But what I don’t understand is why she was wearing lipstick at all. Is this some new-fangled idea or something? I thought the girl had been completely unconscious for eight months?’
‘So she had,’ said Matron calmly, ‘and normally, of course, we wouldn’t have permitted her any make-up at all. But on this occasion I allowed one of my nurses to put lipstick and powder on Miss Slatcher’s face. I did so in answer to a specific request from her sister.’
‘It was for the newspaper pictures, sir,’ explained Pearson helpfully.
‘That will do, Pearson!’ Matron squashed her subordinate quietly and efficiently. ‘You see, what happened was this, Chief Inspector. On Thursday our local paper, the Curdley and District Custodian, published a completely irresponsible and sensational article about Miss Slatcher. As you doubtless know, she had been labelled the Sleeping Beauty and fr
om time to time the Custodian has put in a bit about her – generally when they were short of news, as far as I can see. So, in Thursday’s issue, it was reported that Miss Slatcher was on the verge of recovery and that her doctors were confident that she would regain consciousness within the next few days and would, no doubt, be able to give the police full information about the man who shot her. On Thursday afternoon Miss Slatcher’s elder sister (and her only relation, to the best of my knowledge) came round to see me. She’s a rather unbalanced woman, though devoted to her younger sister. She said that now this story had appeared in our local paper, reporters from the London Press would be sure to arrive the following day and want to take pictures, and would I allow the unconscious girl to have some make-up on. Not only that, but the unconscious girl’s fiancé, a young man who is in one of the Armed Forces, was coming in to see her, also on the Friday morning. It would be less painful for him if her, I must admit, quite deathly pallor were brightened up a little by the use of lipstick. Well, to cut a long story short, I eventually gave my consent, for the elder sister’s sake. Nurse Horncastle – it was she, wasn’t it, Pearson? – yes, Nurse Horncastle made her up at half past nine on the Friday morning, an hour or so, if we can believe Doctor Austin’s findings, before she died.’
‘’Strewth!’ said Dover, rather overwhelmed by all this. ‘And the newspaper story – about her imminent recovery – that was quite untrue?’
‘Quite untrue!’ said Matron. ‘We have known for a long time that she would never recover. Miracles do happen, of course, even under the National Health, but not to people with brain injuries like that. It was only last week that Doctor Austin, at my request, had a talk with the girl’s sister and finally convinced her, or so he said, that there was no hope. He explained, for the umpteenth time, that the girl might live on for years, but there wasn’t a chance in a million that she would ever come out of the coma, and if she did she would be a gibbering idiot. Very serious deterioration of the brain tissues had already taken place, to say nothing of the initial damage caused by the shots.’
‘I see,’ said Dover slowly. ‘Who was supposed to be looking after Miss Slatcher on the Friday morning? I’d like to have a word with them.’
‘It was Staff Nurse Horncastle,’ said Matron. ‘You can go now, Pearson, and ask Nurse Horncastle to come in.’
Chapter Two
Nurse Horncastle, as befitted her seniority, was allowed to tell her own story, and Matron contented herself with frequent interruptions and explanations.
Nurse Horncastle hadn’t much to add. She was supposed to look in on Miss Slatcher in her private room every hour or so, just to see that she was all right On the morning of the girl’s death she had made her up, in accordance with the matron’s instructions, at half past nine. At ten o’clock Miss Slatcher’s fiancé had arrived, in his uniform, and carrying a large bunch of flowers. Nurse Horncastle had shown him into Miss Slatcher’s room and had left him alone there. An emergency case had been brought into the main ward and Nurse Homcastle didn’t get a chance to return to Miss Slatcher until half past eleven. The boyfriend had already gone, and Isobel Slatcher was dead.
‘I see,’ said Dover, and glanced meaningfully at Sergeant MacGregor. ‘Now, just let me get this straight. If you hadn’t been busy elsewhere you would normally have popped in to see Miss Slatcher at about eleven o’clock, right? At which time she might or might not still have been alive?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Nurse Horncastle, rather hesitantly.
‘But, as it is, the last time you saw her alive and well was at ten o’clock when you showed this boyfriend fellow into her room?’
Nurse Horncastle blushed, painfully. ‘Well, not really,’ she muttered, gazing resolutely at her feet ‘ I only opened the door for Mr Purseglove. I didn’t actually go inside the room and I didn’t actually see Miss Slatcher. I was in a hurry, you see.’
‘Oh?’ said Dover, very significantly.
Matron chose to take this monosyllabic comment as an implied slur on the entire nursing profession. She launched herself with fury and enthusiasm into the attack.
‘Well,’ she thundered, her kindly blue eyes flashing, ‘that’s one idea you can get out of your head right away! Oh, you needn’t look surprised! I know exactly what you were thinking. Well, neither you nor anybody else is going to imply for one second that Isobel Slatcher’s death was due in the slightest degree to any hint of negligence by the nurses in my hospital! My nurses have looked after Miss Slatcher with unparalleled devotion for the last eight months. It’s due solely to their care and attention that she lived as long as she did. Can you even begin to imagine what has to be done for a patient who is completely helpless? The washing, intravenous feeding, the injections, the drips and heaven only knows what? And can you imagine what it is like, doing all these things with meticulous care for someone who is never going to recover, never going to get one iota better? My nurses have many demands on their time, demands from people they can help, who will respond to their treatment. But, in spite of this, they continued to nurse Isobel Slatcher to the very utmost of their skill!’
While Matron proceeded at full spate with her tirade she half unconsciously picked up a pen from her desk. Without a break in the flow of words she made a neat note in her appointments book. “2. PM‘, it read. ‘See Horncastle. Negligence re Slatcher. Severe reprimand!’
At last Dover managed to get a word in. ‘I didn’t,’ he observed testily, ‘think for one minute that Miss Slatcher’s death was caused in any way by negligence on the part of your staff. I was merely trying to ascertain at what time the girl was last seen alive. Well, according to Nurse Horncastle here she was still alive at nine-thirty that morning.’
‘Ah yes,’ Matron pointed out, somewhat mollified by Dover’s remarks, ‘but this boy friend of hers saw her after that.’
‘Would he have known if she was already dead?’ asked Dover doubtfully. ‘ I mean, if she didn’t move or anything?’
‘Oh, good heavens, man, you could see her breathing!’ retorted Matron. ‘And in any case’ – she spoke as an expert – ‘you can always tell.’
‘Oh well,’ Dover sighed, and got reluctantly to his feet, ‘I suppose we’d better go and see the room, and the corpse. By the way, Matron, how many people know Isobel Slatcher was murdered? I suppose it’s all round the blinking hospital by now?’
‘Indeed it is not!’ Matron got ready to flare up again. ‘The only people who know are Doctor Austin, Pearson, Nurse Horncastle here and myself. I gave strict instructions that the matter was not to be mentioned to anyone else.’
‘Well, at least that’s something,’ said Dover grudgingly. ‘ Perhaps you could tell your nurses to keep quiet about it for a bit longer. I’d better have a word with Doctor Austin and warn him to keep his trap shut.’
‘There’s no need to bother,’ said Matron. ‘I will give my instructions to the nurses, and to Doctor Austin. Nothing will be said by the staff of this hospital, you can take my word for that.’
Dover grunted.
‘By the way, Chief Inspector,’ she smiled sweetly, ‘I suppose you must be one of Superintendent Roderick’s colleagues? What a marvellous man he must be!’
Dover scowled blackly and stumped out without a word. MacGregor apologetically collected the brown paper parcel containing the lipstick-stained pillow-case, said thank you and goodbye politely and rushed off after his infuriated lord and master.
‘Bossy old bitch!’ muttered Dover, and lumbered off to inspect the room in which Isobel Slatcher had been killed. He was reasonably pleased to see that the only way of entering the room was through the door. It made things simpler. Then they went down to the mortuary and had a rather hasty look at the body.
‘All right,’ growled Dover when they got outside, ‘let’s go and see the Chief Constable. Which way is it?’
‘Down here, I think, sir,’ said MacGregor, trying to orientate himself.
‘Think?’ snorted Dover. ‘You walk me all
round this blasted town, mate, and I’ll give you something to think about!’
On their way to police headquarters they passed the premises of the Curdley and District Custodian. Dover stopped and gazed moodily at the selection of Press photographs which were displayed in the windows. He examined, without much interest, the pictures of newly-married couples, smirking inanely and triumphantly at the camera, and at the action shots of the town’s Rugby football team, in their last match.
‘I think we might as well pop in here now,’ he said to MacGregor, ‘and get hold of a copy of this paper that had the report of the girl’s recovery in it. Might be significant, that.’
‘You mean it might have been a motive for the murder, sir?’
‘Looks damned like it,’ grunted Dover. ‘If the chap who took a pot-shot at her in the first place thought she was on the point of regaining consciousness and spilling the beans, he might well have had another go at shutting her mouth permanently.’
‘The fiancé looks very well placed for the final attack, doesn’t he, sir?’ observed MacGregor thoughtfully. ‘Seems as though he was alone with the girl in that hospital room at just about the right time.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Dover somewhat sarcastically, ‘that point had occurred to me, too, Sergeant. ‘Course, we’ll have to find out where he was at the time of the first attempt last February.’
‘If he’s a Serviceman, sir, he probably knows how to use a revolver.’
‘That’s another point which, as it happens, had not escaped me.’
MacGregor, seeing which way the wind was blowing, very sensibly shut up and let his chief inspector do the talking.
‘Mind you,’ Dover went on, addressing his sergeant’s reflection in the plate-glass window, ‘ I should have had a good look at this fiancé fellow in any case. Money or sex – that’s what people commit murder for.’