'Dear me.' Jeavis looked from one to the other of them. 'Are you saying that anyone could have stuffed the poor creature down the chute in full sight of respectable medical people, and no one would have thought anything amiss?'
Callandra was uncomfortable. She glanced at Kristian.
'More or less,' she agreed at length. 'One is not usually watching what other people are doing, one has one's own affairs.' In her imagination she visualized a dim figure, shapeless in the half-light, lifting a bundle, heavier than it should have been, shrouded in sheets, and pressing it down the open chute. Her voice, when she continued, was husky and a little choked. 'I myself passed what I assumed was a nurse in either intoxication or sleep this morning. But I do not know which it was. I didn't look at her face.' She swallowed with a sudden sick realization. 'It could have been Prudence Barrymore!'
'Really!' Jeavis's pale brows rose. 'Do your nurses often lie about in the corridor, Lady Callandra? Do they not have beds to sleep in?'
'The ones who live in the dormitory do,' she said tartly. 'But many of them live out, and they have very little indeed. There is no place for them to sleep here, and precious little to eat. And yes, they frequently drink too much.'
Jeavis looked temporarily disconcerted. He turned back to Kristian.
'I shall want to speak to you again, Doctor. Anything you can tell me about this unfortunate woman.' He cleared his throat. 'To begin with, how long do you estimate she has been dead? Not, of course, that we won't have our own police surgeon tell us his opinion, but it will save time if you can give us yours now.'
'About two hours, perhaps three,' Kristian replied succinctly.
'But you haven't looked at her,' Jeavis exclaimed.
'I looked at her before you came,' Kristian answered.
'Did you! Did you indeed?' Jeavis's face sharpened. 'I thought you said you had not disturbed the body! Was that not why you remained here, to see that no one tampered with the evidence?'
'I looked at her, Inspector. I did not move her.'
'But you touched her.'
'Yes, to see if she was cold.'
'And she was?'
'Yes.'
'How do you know she has not been dead all night?'
'Because rigor had not yet passed away.'
'You moved her!'
'I did not.'
'You must have,' Jeavis said sharply. 'Otherwise how could you know whether she was stiff or not?'
'She fell out of the chute, Inspector,' Kristian explained patiently. 'I saw her fall, and how she collapsed into the basket, the movement of her limbs. It's my estimate that she has been dead between two and four hours. But by all means ask your own surgeon.'
Jeavis looked at him suspiciously. 'You are not English, are you, sir? I detect a certain accent, shall we say? Very slight, but it is there. Where are you from?'
'Bohemia,' Kristian replied with a faint flicker of amusement in his eyes.
Jeavis drew in his breath, Callandra thought, to ask where that was, then realized even the laundrywomen were watching him, and changed his mind.
'I see,' he said thoughtfully. 'Well now, perhaps you would be good enough to tell me, Doctor, where you were early this morning? For example, what time did you come here?' He looked at Kristian inquiringly. 'Take a note of it please, Sergeant,' he added with a nod at Evan, who had been watching silently some two or three yards away all through the exchange.
'I have been here all night,' Kristian replied.
Jeavis's eyes widened. 'Indeed. And why was that, sir?' He invested it with a great deal of meaning.
'I had a patient who was extremely ill,' Kristian answered, watching Jeavis's face. 'I stayed with him. I believed I could save him, but I was wrong. He died a little after four in the morning. It was hardly worth going home. I lay down on one of the hospital beds and slept till about half past six.'
Jeavis frowned, glanced at Evan to make sure he was noting everything down, then back at Kristian. 'I see,' he said portentously. 'So you were here when Nurse Barrymore met her death.'
For the first time Callandra felt a sharp flick of anxiety. She looked at Kristian but saw nothing in his face beyond a mild curiosity, as if he did not entirely understand Jeavis's implication.
'Yes, it would seem so.'
'And did you see this Nurse Barrymore?'
Kristian shook his head. 'I don't think so, but I can't be sure. I certainly don't recall speaking to her.'
'And yet she seems to be very sharp in your mind?' Jeavis said quickly. 'You know precisely who she is, and you speak very well of her.'
Kristian looked down, his eyes full of sadness.
'The poor creature is dead, Inspector. Of course she is sharp in my mind. And she was a fine nurse. There are not so many people dedicated to the care of others that one forgets them easily.'
'Isn't everyone here dedicated to the care of the sick?' Jeavis asked with some surprise.
Kristian stared at him, then sighed deeply. 'If there is nothing further, Inspector, I would like to go about my duties. I have been here in the laundry room nearly two hours.x I have patients to see.'
'By all means,' Jeavis said, pursing his lips. 'But don't go out of London, sir, if you please.'
Rristian was startled, but he agreed without argument, and a few moments later he and Callandra left the steam and clank of the laundry room and climbed back up the stairs to the main hallway. Callandra's mind was teeming with things she wished to say to him, but they all sounded officious or overconcerned, and above all, she did not want him to know of the fear that was beginning to rise in her. Perhaps it was foolish. There was no reason Jeavis should suspect Kristian, but she had seen miscarriages of justice before. Innocent men had been hanged. It was so easy to suspect anyone who was different, whether it was in manner, appearance, race, or religion. If only Monk were conducting the investigation.
'You look tired, Lady Callandra,' he said quietly, intruding into her thoughts.
'I beg your pardon?' She was startled, then realized what he had said. 'Oh no, not tired so much as sad, afraid for what will come next.'
'Afraid?'
'I have seen investigations before. People become frightened. One learns so much more about them than one ever wishes to know.' She forced herself to smile. 'But that is foolish. I daresay it will all be over quite quickly.' They reached the top of the stairs and stopped. Two student doctors were arguing fiercely a dozen yards away. 'Take no notice of what I said,' she went on hastily. 'If you have been up most of the night, I'm sure you must wish to rest for a while. It must be nearly time for luncheon by now.'
'Of course. I am keeping you. I apologize.' And with a quick smile, meeting her eyes for a moment, he excused himself and went rapidly along the corridor toward the nearest ward.
It was early evening before Callandra found Monk, and she observed no ceremony, but plunged straight in to her purpose for coming to his rooms.
'There has been a murder in the hospital,' she said bluntly. 'One of the nurses, an exceptional young woman, both honest and diligent. She was strangled, or so it appears, and stuffed into the laundry chute.' She looked at him expectantly.
His hard gray eyes searched her face for several moments before he answered. 'What bothers you?' he said at length. 'There is something more.'
'Runcorn sent an Inspector Jeavis to investigate,' she replied. 'Do you know him?'
'Slightly. He's very sharp. He'll probably do an adequate job. Why? Who did it? Do you know, or suspect?'
'No!' she said too quickly. 'I have no idea at all. Why would anybody want to murder a nurse?'
'Any number of reasons.' He pulled a face. 'The most obvious that come to mind are a lover jilted, a jealous
