The Nursing Home Murder

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Well, I—well, I chaffed him about the two tubes—said he was doing Sir Derek proud, and then I—I remarked that he used a lot of water.”

  “Did this seem to upset him at all?”

  “Oh, Lord—no. I mean, Sir John always stands a bit on his dignity. I mean, he rather shut me up. He hasn’t got what I call a sense of humour.”

  “Really? Did you go out together?”

  “Yes. I went into the anteroom and Sir John into the anæsthetic-room to give the injection. I went first.”

  “Sure, Mr. Thoms?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Thoms, opening his eyes very wide. “Why?”

  “I only want to get the order of events. Now let’s look at the theatre, shall we?”

  Once again Thoms butted the swing-doors with his compact little stern, and this time Inspector Alleyn followed him through.

  The theatre was scrupulously, monstrously immaculate— a place of tiles and chromium and white enamel. Thoms turned on a switch and for a moment an enormous high-powered cluster of lights poured down its truncated conical glare on the blank surface of the table. The theatre instantly became alive and expectant. He snapped it off and in its stead an insignificant wall bracket came to life over a side table on rubber castors.

  “Is this how it was for the operation?” asked Alleyn. “Everything in its right place?”

  “Er—yes, I think so. Yes.”

  “Which way did the patient lie?”

  “Head here. Eastward position, eh? Ha ha!”

  “I see. There would be a trolley alongside the table, perhaps?”

  “It would be wheeled away as soon as the patient was taken off it.”

  “That’s the side table, over by the windows, where the syringes were set out?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Can you show me just where you all stood at the time each of the injections was given? Wait a bit—I’ll make a sort of plan. My memory’s hopeless. Damn, where’s my pencil?”

  Alleyn opened his notebook and produced a small rule from his pocket. He measured the floor space, made a tiny plan and marked the positions of the two tables, and, as Thoms instructed him, those of the surgeons and nurses.

  “Sir John would be here, about half-way along the table, isn’t it? I stood opposite there. Marigold hovered round here, and the other two moved about a bit.”

  “Yes. Well, where, as near as you can give it, would they all be for the operation?”

  “The surgeons and anæsthetist where I have shown you. Marigold on Sir John’s right and the other two somewhere in the background.”

  “And for the camphor injection?”

  “As before, except for the Bolshie, who gave it. She would be here, by the patient’s arm, you see.”

  “Did you watch Nurse Banks give this injection?”

  “Don’t think so. I wouldn’t notice. Probably wouldn’t see her hands—they’d be hidden by the little screen across the patient’s chest.”

  “Oh. I’ll take a look at that afterwards if I may. Now the anti-gas injection.”

  “That was after Sir John had sewed him up. I dressed the wound and asked for the serum. I damned that girl to heaps for keeping me waiting—felt rather a brute when she hit the floor two minutes later—what? I stood here, on the inside of the table; Sir John was opposite; Marigold had moved round to my side. Roberts and Banks, if that’s her name, were fussing round over the patient, and Roberts kept bleating about the pulse and so on. They were both at the patient’s head.”

  “Wait a bit. I’ll fix those positions. Perhaps I’ll get you to help me to reconstruct the operation later on. You have no doubts, I suppose, about it being the correct syringe—the one you used, I mean?”

  “None. It seemed to be perfectly in order.”

  “Was there any marked change in the patient’s condition after this injection?”

  “Roberts is the man to ask about that. My own idea is that he was worried about the patient for some time before I gave the injection. He asked for camphor, remember. Naturally, you’ll think, I want to stress that point. Well, inspector, so I do. I suppose the serum injection is the dangerous corner as far as I’m concerned. Still, I did not prepare the syringe and I could hardly palm it and produce another from behind my left ear. Could I? What? Ha ha ha!”

  “Let’s have a look at it,” said Alleyn imperturbably, “and we’ll see.”

  Thoms went to one of the shelves and returned with a syringe at the sight of which the inspector gave a little shout of horror.

  “Good God, Mr. Thoms, are you a horse-coper? You don’t mean to tell me you jabbed that horror into the poor man? It’s the size of a fire extinguisher!”

  Thoms stared at him and then roared with laughter. “He didn’t feel it. Oh, yes, we plugged it into him. Well, now, I could hardly produce a thing like that by sleight of hand, could I?”

  “Heavens, no! Put it away, do; it makes me feel quite sick. A disgusting, an indecent, a revolting implement.”

  Thoms made a playful pass at the inspector, who seized the syringe and bore it away. He examined it, uttering little noises of disgust.

  “This is the type used for the other two injections,” explained Thoms, who had been peering into the array of instruments. He showed Alleyn a hypodermic syringe of the sort familiar to the layman.

  “Sufficiently alarming, hut not so preposterous. This would be the kind of thing Dr. Roberts handled?”

  “Yes—or rather, no. Roberts didn’t give the camphor injection. The nurse gave it.”

  “Oh, yes. Is that usual?”

  “It’s quite in order. Generally speaking, that injection is given by the anæsthetist, but there’s nothing in his asking the nurse to give it.”

  “This needle’s a delicate-looking thing. I suppose you never carry a syringe about ready for use?”

  “Lord, no! In the theatre, of course, they are laid out all complete.”

  “Would you mind filling this one for me?”

  He gave Thoms a small syringe. The surgeon poured some water into a measuring-glass, inserted the needle and pulled back the piston.

  “There you are. If a tablet’s used, the usual procedure is to squirt the syringe half full into the glass, dissolve the tablet, and then draw it up again.”

  “The whole business only takes a few seconds?”

  “Well—the tablet has to dissolve. In the case of the serum and the camphor the stuff was there ready.”

  “Yes, I’ve got that. May I see the bottle the serum is kept in?”

  “It’s not kept in a bottle, but in ampoules which hold the exact amount and are then thrown away. There aren’t any kicking about in the theatre. I’ll beat some up for you to see if you like.”

  “Very good of you, Mr. Thoms. I’m being a crashing bore, I’m afraid.”

  Thoms protested his freedom from boredom and fussed away. Alleyn prowled meditatively round the theatre until the fat man returned.

  “Here we are,” said Thoms cheerfully. “Here are ampoules of oil and camphor. Here’s the anti-gas serum and here’s the hyoscine solution. All labelled, as you see. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll set out the table as it would have been for the op. How will that do you?”

  “Splendid!”

  “Let’s see now—ampoules here, serum there. Here’s the bottle of hyoscine solution; thought you’d want to see that too. Old-fashioned idea—it should be in ampoules, but matron’s a bit of a dug-out.”

  “The bottle’s nearly full, I see.”

  “Yes. I believe one injection had been given.”

  Alleyn noted mentally that this tallied with Nurse Harden’s and the scally’s impression that the bottle had been full before the operation and had since been used once.

  “Can anyone have access to this bottle?” asked Alleyn suddenly.

  “What? Oh, yes—any of the theatre staff.”

  “May I have a small amount—I may have to get it tested?”

  He produced a tiny bottle from his po
cket and Thoms, looking rather intrigued, filled it with the solution.

  “There you are. Now—where were we? Oh! Along here, small syringe for the camphor, another small syringe for the hyoscine—they hold twenty-five minims each. That would be the one Sir John would use for his tablet. Now the whopper for the serum. It holds ten c.c.’s.”

  “Ten c.c.’s?”

  “That’s about a hundred and sixty minims,” explained Thoms.

  “What’s that in gallons?”

  Thoms looked at the inspector as if he had uttered something in Chinese and then burst out laughing.

  “Not quite as solid at that,” he said. “One hundred and sixty minims is equal to two and two-thirds drachms. That any better?”

  “Not much,” grumbled Alleyn. “The dawn may break later on. I’m talking like Nurse Banks. What’s the strength of this hyoscine?”

  “Quarter per cent.”

  “But—what does that mean? They’ll have to get someone cleverer than me for this game.”

  “Cheer up. It’s one grain in one point one ounces of water.”

  “That sounds as though it means something. I must look up those horrid little things at the end of an arithmetic-book. Wait a moment, now. Don’t say a word, Mr. Thoms, if you please,” begged Alleyn. “I’m doing sums.”

  He screwed up face and did complicated things with his fingers. “Twenty-fives into ones, you can’t. No, anyway you don’t want to. Drat. Wait a bit.” He opened his eyes suddenly and began to speak rapidly. “The twenty-five-minim syringe could hold a twentieth of a grain of hyoscine, and the vet’s pump could hold eleven thirty-seconds of a grain. There!” he added proudly.

  “Quite correct—good for you!” shouted Thoms, clapping the inspector on the back.

  “There’s more to come. I can do better than that. Eleven thirty-seconds is three thirty-seconds more than a quarter, which is only eight thirty-seconds. How’s that?”

  “Brilliant, but I don’t see the application?”

  “Don’t you?” asked Alleyn anxiously. “And yet I know I thought it rather important a moment ago. Ah, well—it’s gone now. I’ll just write the others down.”

  Mr. Thoms moved to his elbow and looked curiously at his tiny hieroglyphics.

  “I can’t see,” complained Alleyn and walked over to the light.

  Mr. Thoms did not follow and so did not see the last of his minute entries, which read:

  “The large syringe could hold a little over the amount found at the P.M.”

  He shut his little book tenderly and put it in his pocket.

  “Thank you a thousand times, Mr. Thoms,” he said. “You’ve made it very easy for me. Now there’s only one more person I’ve got to see to-day and that’s Dr. Roberts. Can you tell me where I’ll find him?”

  “Well, he’s not the usual anæsthetist here, you know. He does a lot of Dr. Grey’s work for him. Hasn’t been in since this affair. I should think at this time you’d find him at his private address. I’ll ring up his house if you like.”

  “That’s very good of you. Where does he live?”

  “Not sure. His name’s Theodore. I know that because I heard Grey calling him Dora. Dora!” Mr. Thoms laughed extensively and led the way to a black hole with a telephone inside it.

  He witched on a light and consulted the directory.

  “Here we are. Roberts, Roberts, Roberts. Dr. Theodore. Wigmore Street. That’s your man.”

  He dialled the number. Alleyn leant patiently against the door.

  “Hullo. Dr. Roberts’s house? Is he in? Ask him if he can see Inspector—” He paused and put his hand over the receiver. “Alleyn, isn’t it? Yes—ask him if he can see Inspector Alleyn if he comes along now.”

  Thoms turned towards Alleyn. “He’s in—that’ll be all right, I expect. Hullo, is that you, Roberts? It’s Thoms here. Inspector Alleyn has just been over the O’Callaghan business with me. They’ve found hyoscine—quarter of a grain. That makes you sit up. What? I don’t know. Yes, of course it is. Well, don’t get all agitated. They’re not going to arrest you. Ha ha ha! What! All right—in about twenty minutes, I should think. Look out, my boy—don’t give yourself away—what!”

  He hung up, and taking Alleyn by the elbow, walked with him to the front door.

  “Poor old Roberts is in an awful hum about it, spluttering away down the telephone like I don’t know what. Well, let me know if there’s anything more I can do.”

  “I will indeed. Thank you so much. Good night.”

  “Good night. Got a pair of handcuffs for Roberts? Ha ha ha!”

  “Ha ha ha!” said Alleyn. “Good night.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Anæsthetist

  Tuesday, the sixteenth. Afternoon and evening.

  DR. ROBERTS LIVED in a nice little house in Wigmore Street. It was a narrow house with two windows on the first floor, and on the street level was a large vermilion front door that occupied a fair proportion of the wall.

  A man-servant, small and cheerful to suit the house, showed Alleyn into a pleasant drawing-room-study with apple-green walls and bookshelves, glazed chintz curtains, and comfortable chairs. Above the fireplace hung an excellent painting of lots of little people skating on a lake surrounded by Christmas trees. A wood fire crackled on the hearth. On a table near the bookcase was a sheaf of manuscript weighted down by the old wooden stethoscope that Mr. Thoms had found so funny.

  After an appreciative glance at the picture, Alleyn walked over to the bookcase, where he found a beguiling collection of modern novels, a Variorum Shakespeare that aroused his envy, and a number of works on heredity, eugenics and psycho-analysis. Among these was a respectable-looking volume entitled Debased Currency, by Theodore Roberts. Alleyn took it out and looked at the contents. They proved to be a series of papers on hereditary taints. Roberts evidently had read them at meetings of the International Congress on Eugenics and Sex Reform.

  Alleyn was still absorbed in this evidence of Roberts’s industry when the author himself came in.

  “Inspector Alleyn, I believe,” said Roberts.

  With a slight effort Alleyn refrained from answering “Dr. Roberts, I presume.” He closed the book over his thumb and came forward to meet the anæsthetist. Roberts blinked apprehensively and then glanced at the volume in the inspector’s hand.

  “Yes, Dr. Roberts,” said Alleyn, “you’ve caught me red-handed. I never can resist plucking from bookshelves and I was so interested to see that you yourself wrote.”

  “Oh,” answered Roberts vaguely, “the subject interests me. Will you sit down, inspector?”

  “Thank you. Yes, the problems of heredity have an extraordinary fascination, even for a layman like myself. However, I haven’t come here to air my ignorance of your country, but to try and fill out some of the blanks in my own. About this O’Callaghan business—”

  “I am extremely sorry to hear of the result of the autopsy,” said Roberts formally. “It is terribly distressing, shocking, an irreplaceable loss.” He moved his hands nervously, gulped, and then added hurriedly: “I am also exceedingly distressed for more personal reasons. As anæsthetist for the operation I feel that I may be held responsible, that perhaps I should have noticed earlier that all was not well. I was worried, almost from the start, about his condition. I said so to Sir John and to Thoms.”

  “What did they answer?”

  “Sir John was very properly concerned with his own work. He simply left me to deal with mine, after, I think, commenting in some way on my report. I do not remember that Thoms replied at all. Inspector Alleyn, I sincerely hope you are able to free Sir John from any possibility of the slightest breath of suspicion. Any doubt in that direction is quite unthinkable.”

  “I hope to be able to clear up his part in the business as soon as the usual inquiries have been made. Perhaps you can help me there, Dr. Roberts?”

  “I should be glad to do so. I will not attempt to deny that I am also very selfishly nervous on my own account.�
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  “You gave no injection, did you?”

  “No. I am thankful to say, no.”

  “How was that? I should have imagined the anæsthetist would have given the camphor and the hyoscine injections.”

  Roberts did not speak for a moment, but sat gazing at Alleyn with a curiously helpless expression on his sensitive face. Alleyn noticed that whenever he spoke to Roberts the doctor seemed to suppress a sort of wince. He did this now, tightening his lips and drawing himself rigidly upright in his chair.

  “I—I never give injections,” he said. “I have a personal and very painful reason for not doing so.”

  “Would you care to tell me what it is? You see, the fact that you did not give an injection is very important from your point of view. You did not see the patient while he was conscious and so—to be frank—could hardly have poured hyoscine down his throat without someone noticing what you were up to.”

  “Yes. I see. I will tell you. Many years ago I gave an overdose of morphia and the patient died as the result of my carelessness. I—I have never been able to bring myself to give an injection since. Psychologically my behaviour has been weak and unsound. I should have overcome this repulsion, but I have been unable to do so. For some time I even lost my nerve as an anæsthetist. Then I was called in for an urgent case with heart disease and the operation was successful.” He showed Alleyn his stethoscope and told him its history. “This instrument represents an interesting experiment in psychology. I began to mark on it all my successful cases of heart disease. It helped enormously, but I have never been able to face an injection. Perhaps some day I may. Sir John is aware of this—peculiarity. I told him of it the first time I gave an anæsthetic for him. It was some time ago in a private house. He very thoughtfully remembered. I believe that in any case he prefers to give the hyoscine injection himself.”

  He turned very white as he made this unhappy confession, and it was curious to see how, in spite of his obvious distress, he did not lose his trick of formal phraseology.