Perhaps, too, it was better that the girls should indulge this detached, investigatory interest rather than sit there making unnatural and ineffective conversation. Already she saw that shock was giving way to that half-ashamed excitement which can follow tragedy, so long, of course, as it is someone else’s tragedy.
Julia Pardoe’s composed, rather childish voice went on: “So if the victim was really meant to be Fallon, it couldn’t have been one of us, could it? We all knew that Fallon wouldn’t be acting the patient this morning.”
Madeleine Goodale said: “I should think that everyone knew. Everyone at Nightingale House anyway. There was enough talk about it at breakfast”
They were silent again, considering this new development Miss Beale noted with interest that there were no protestations that no one would want to murder Fallon. Then Maureen Burt said:
“Fallon can’t be all that sick. She was back here in Nightingale House this morning, just after eight-forty. Shirley and I saw her slipping out of the side door just before we went into the demo room after breakfast.”
Nurse Goodale asked sharply: “What was she wearing?” Maureen was unsurprised at this apparently irrelevant question.
“Slacks. Her top coat That red headscarf she wears. Why?”
Nurse Goodale, obviously shaken and surprised, made an attempt to conceal it. She said:
“She slipped those on before we took her to the sick bay last night. I suppose she came back to fetch something she wanted from her room. But she shouldn’t have left the ward. It was stupid. She had a temperature of 103.8 when she was warded. Lucky for her that Sister Brumfett didn’t see her.”
Nurse Pardoe said maliciously: “Funny though, isn’t it?” No one replied. It was indeed funny, thought Miss Beale. She recalled her long damp drive from the hospital to the nurse training school. The road was a winding one; obviously there would be a short cut through the trees. But it was a strange journey for a sick girl to make on an early January morning. There must have been some compelling reason to bring her back to Nightingale House. After all, if she did want something from her room there was nothing to prevent her asking for it Any of the students would gladly have taken it across to the sick bay. And this was the girl who should have played the patient that morning, who should, logically, be lying next door among the tangle of tubes and linen.
Nurse Pardoe said: “Well, there’s one person who knew that Fallon wouldn’t be acting patient this morning. Fallon herself.”
Nurse Goodale, white-faced, looked across at her.
“If you want to be stupid and malicious I suppose I can’t stop you. But if I were you, I would stop short of slander.”
Nurse Pardoe looked unconcerned, even a little pleased. Catching sight of her sly, gratified smile, Miss Beale decided that it was time this talking stopped. She was searching for a change of topic when Nurse Dakers said faintly from the depths of her chair: “I feel sick.”
There was immediate concern. Only Nurse Harper made no move to help. The rest gathered around the girl, glad of the chance to be doing something. Nurse Goodale said: “I’ll take her to the downstairs cloakroom.”
She supported the girl out of the room. To Miss Beale’s surprise Nurse Pardoe went with her, their recent antagonism apparently forgotten as they supported Nurse Dakers between them. Miss Beale was left with the Burt twins and Nurse Harper. Another silence fell but Miss Beale had learned her lesson. She had been unforgivably irresponsible. There was to be no more talk of death or murder. While they were here and in her charge they might as well work. She gazed sternly at Nurse Harper and invited her to describe the signs, symptoms and treatment of pulmonary collapse.
Ten minutes later the absent three returned. Nurse Dakers still looked pale but was composed. It was Nurse Goodale who looked worried. As if unable to keep it to herself, she said:
“The bottle of disinfectant is missing from the lavatory. You know the one I mean. It’s always kept there on the little shelf. Pardoe and I couldn’t find it-Nurse Harper interrupted her bored but surprisingly competent recital and said:
“You mean that bottle of milky-looking mixture? It was there after supper last night”
“That’s a long time ago. Has anyone been in that loo this morning?”
Apparently no one had. They looked at each other in silence.
It was then that the door opened. Matron came quietly in and shut it behind her. There was a creak of starched linen as the twins slipped from the desk and stood to attention. Nurse Harper rose gracelessly from her chair. All of them turned towards Miss Taylor.
“Children,” she said, and the unexpected and gentle word told them the truth before she spoke.
“Children, Nurse Pearce died a few minutes ago. We don’t yet know how or why, but when something inexplicable like this happens we have to call the police. The Hospital Secretary is doing that now. I want you to be brave and sensible as I know you will be. Until the police arrive, I think it would be better if we don’t talk about what has happened. You will collect your textbooks and Nurse Goodale win take you to wait in my sitting-room. I shall be ordering some strong hot coffee and it will be brought up to you soon. Is that understood?”
There was a subdued murmur of, “Yes, Matron.”
Miss Taylor turned to Miss Beale.
I’m so very sorry, but it will mean your waiting here too.“
“Of course, Matron, I quite understand.”
Across the heads of the students their eyes met in bewildered speculation and wordless sympathy.
But Miss Beale was a little horrified to remember afterwards the banality and irrelevance of her first conscious thought.
“This must be the shortest inspection on record. What on earth will I say to the General Nursing Council?”
V
A few minutes earlier the four people in the demonstration room had straightened up and looked at each other, white-faced, utterly exhausted. Heather Pearce was dead. She was dead by any criteria, legal or medical. They had known it for the last five minutes but had worked on, doggedly and without speaking, as if there were still a chance that the flabby heart would pulse again into life. Mr. Courtney-Briggs had taken off his coat to work on the girl and the front of his waistcoat was heavily stained with blood. He stared at the thickening stain, brow creased, nose fastidiously wrinkled, almost as if blood were an alien substance to him. The heart massage had been messy as well as ineffectual. Surprisingly messy for Mr. Courtney-Briggs, the Matron thought. But surely the attempt had been justified? There hadn’t been time to get her over to the theatre. It was a pity that Sister Gearing had pulled out the esophageal tube. It had, perhaps, been a natural reaction but it might have cost Pearce her only chance. While the tube was in place they could at least have tried an immediate stomach wash-out. But an attempt to pass another tube by the nostril had been frustrated by the girl’s agonized spasms and, by the time these had ceased, it was too late and Mr. Courtney-Briggs had been forced to open the chest wall and try the only measure left to him. Mr. Courtney-Briggs’ heroic efforts were well known. It was only a pity that they left the body looking so pathetically mangled and the demonstration room stinking like an abattoir. These things were better conducted in an operating theatre, shrouded and dignified by the paraphernalia of ritual surgery.
He was the first to speak.
This wasn’t a natural death. There was something other than milk in that feed. Well, that’s obvious to all of us I should have thought We’d better call the police. I’ll get on to the Yard. I know someone there, as it happens. One of the Assistant Commissioners.“
He always did know someone, thought the Matron. She felt the need to oppose him. Shock had left an aftermath of irritation and, irrationally, it focused on him. She said calmly:
“The local police are the ones to call and I think that the Hospital Secretary should do it I’ll get Mr. Hudson on the house telephone now. They’ll call in the Yard if they think it necessary. I cant think why it should be. But that decision is for the Chief Constable, not for us.”
She moved over to the wall telephone, carefully walking round the crouched figure of Miss Rolfe. The Principal Tutor was still on her knees. She looked, thought the Matron, rather like a character from a Victorian melodrama with her smoldering eyes in a deathly white face, her black hair a little disheveled under the frilly cap, and those reeking hands. She was turning them over slowly and studying the red mass with a detached, speculative interest
