private?”
“It isn’t cozy over in Nightingale House. And it isn’t cozy in the resident staff ‘ostel either. I like it ”ere. It smells like my dad’s shed on the allotment And nobody comes after dark. They’re all afraid of the ghost.“
“And you aren’t?”
“I don’t believe in ”em.“
It was, thought Dalgliesh, the ultimate vindication of sturdy skepticism. You didn’t believe in a thing, therefore it didn’t exist. Untortured by imagination, you could enjoy the reward of your own certainty even if it were only the undisputed possession of a garden shed when you were feeling upset. He found this admirable. He wondered whether he ought to inquire the cause of her grief, suggest perhaps that she should confide in Matron. Had that wild crying really been caused by nothing more than Bill Bailey’s passionately resented attentions? Bailey was a good detective, but not particularly subtle with people. One couldn’t afford to be critical. Every detective, however competent knew what it was unwittingly to antagonize a witness. Once this happened it was the devil to get anything useful out of her- and it usually was a woman-even if the antipathy were partly subconscious. Success in a murder investigation depended largely on making people want to help you, getting them to talk. Bill Bailey had singularly failed with Morag Smith. Adam Dalgliesh, too, had failed in his time.
He remembered what Inspector Bailey, in that brief hour’s colloquy when the case had been handed over, had told him about the two maids.
They’re out of it. The old one. Miss Martha Collins, hat been at the hospital for forty years and if she had homicidal tendencies would have shown them before now. She’s mainly concerned about the theft of the lavatory disinfectant. Seems to regard it as a personal affront. Probably takes the view that the lavatory is her responsibility and the murder isn’t The young girl, Morag Smith, is half dotty if you ask me, and as obstinate as an army mule. She might have done it, I suppose, but I can’t for the life of me see why. Heather Pearce hadn’t done anything to upset her as far as I know. And in any case she hardly had the time. Morag was only transferred from the doctors’ residence to Nightingale House on the day before Pearce died. I gather that she wasn’t too pleased about the change, but that’s scarcely a motive for starting to kill off the student nurses. Besides, the girl isn’t frightened. Obstinate, but not frightened. If she did it, I doubt whether you’ll ever prove it.“
They sat on in silence. He wasn’t anxious to probe into her grief and suspected that she had been indulging an irrational need for a good cry. She had chosen her secret place for it and was entitled to emotional privacy even if her physical privacy had been invaded. He was too reticent himself to have any stomach for the emotional prying which gives so many people the comforting illusion that they care. He seldom did care. Human beings were perpetually interesting to him, and nothing about them surprised him any more. But he didn’t involve himself. He wasn’t surprised that she should like the shed, smelling as it did of home.
He became aware of a confused background mumbling. She had returned to a recital of her grievance.
“Kept looking at me all the time ‘e did. And asking the same old thing over and over again. Stuck up too. You could see that he fancied himself.”
Suddenly she turned to Dalgliesh.
“You feeling sexy?”
Dalgliesh gave the question serious attention.
“No. I’m too old to feel sexy when I’m cold and tired. At my age you need the creature comforts if you’re to perform with any pleasure to your partner or credit to yourself.”
She gave him a look in which disbelief struggled with commiseration.
“You’re not that old. Thanks for the ‘anky anyway.”
She gave one last convulsive blow before handing it back. Dalgliesh slipped it quickly into his pocket, resisting the temptation to drop it unobtrusively behind the bench. Stretching his legs ready to move, he only half heard her next words.
“What did you say?” he asked, careful to keep his voice level, uninquisitorial.
She answered sulkily.
“I said that ‘e never found out about me drinking the milk anyway, bugger ’im. I never told ”im.“
“Was that the milk used for the demonstration feed? When did you drink it?”
He tried to sound conversational, only mildly interested. But he was aware of the silence in the hut and the two sharp eyes staring at him. Could she really be unaware of what she was telling him?
“It was at eight o’clock, maybe a minute before. I went into the demo room to see if I’d left my tin of polish there. And there was this bottle of milk on the trolley and I drank some of it Just a bit off the top.”
“Just out of the bottle?”
“Well, there wasn’t any cup ”andy was there? I was thirsty and I saw the milk and I just fancied a bit. So I took a swig.“
He asked the crucial question.
“You just had the cream off the top?”
“There wasn’t no cream. It wasn’t that kind of milk.”
His heart leapt.
“And what did you do then?”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“But weren’t you afraid that Sister Tutor would notice that the bottle wasn’t full?”
“The bottle was full. I filled it up with water from the tap. Anyway, I only took a couple of gulps.”
“And replaced the seal on top of the bottle?”
“That’s right. Careful like so as they wouldn’t notice.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“No one asked me. That Inspector asked me if I’d been in the demo room and I said only before seven o’clock when I did a bit of cleaning. I wasn’t going to tell ‘im nothing. It wasn’t ’is bloody milk anyway; ‘e never paid for it”
“Morag, are you quite, quite sure of the time?”
“Eight o’clock. The demo clock said eight anyway. I looked at it because I was supposed to help serve the breakfasts, the dining-room maids being off with flu. Some people think you can be in three places at once. Anyway, I went into the dining-room where the Sisters and the students had all started eating. Then Miss Collins gave me one of ‘er looks. Late again Morag! So it must ’ave been eight The students always start breakfast at eight.”
“And were they all there?”
“Of course they was all there! I told yer! They was at their breakfast”
But he knew that they had been there. The twenty-five minutes from eight until eight twenty-five was the only time in which all the female suspects had been together, eating under the eye of Miss Collins and full in each other’s gaze. If Morag’s story were true, and he didn’t for one moment doubt it then the scope of the inquiry had been dramatically narrowed. There were only six people who had no firm alibi for the whole of the period from eight o’clock until the class assembled at eight forty. He would have to check the statements of course, but he knew what he would find. This was the sort of information he had been trained to recall at will and the names came obediently to mind. Sister Rolfe, Sister Gearing, Sister Brumfett, Nurse Goodale, Leonard Morris and Stephen Courtney-Briggs.
He pulled the girl gently to her feet.
“Come on, Morag, I’m going to see you back to the hostel. You’re a very important witness and I don’t want you to get pneumonia before I’ve had a chance to take your statement.”
“I don’t want to write nothing down. I’m no scholar.”
“Someone will write it down for you. You’ll only have to sign it.”
“I don’t mind doing that I’m not daft. I can sign my name I ‘ope.”
And he would have to be there to see that she did. He had a feeling that Sergeant Masterson would be no more successful than Inspector Bailey in dealing with Morag. It would be safer to take her statement himself even if it meant a later start than he had planned for his journey to London.
But it would be time well spent As he turned to pull the died door firmly closed behind them-it had no lock-he felt happier than at any time since the finding of the nicotine. Now he was making progress. On the whole, it hadn’t been too bad a day.
