“But when did it come into your mind that she’d been drinking brandy? You say you didn’t know the brandy bottle had gone until Sergeant Peel opened the cupboard.”
“No. Not till sergeant opened it, like ’tis now. Then I saw ’twere gone.”
“Did you think Sister had taken it when you saw the bottle wasn’t there any longer?” Macdonald’s voice was as even as ever, his tone pleasantly conversational. Hannah sidled up to him and put out her knobbly hand and twitched his coat, looking up at him in a way that was oddly childlike, but something about her eyes was different: their silly complacency had given way to a distraught look, half wild, half sly. “She’s going to tell she murdered the woman,” flashed through Macdonald’s mind, but Hannah whispered:
“I smelt her breath when I went to pick her up.” The knotted fingers still twitched at Macdonald’s coat, and her words came in a rush now. “’Twas so long ago since I smelled that. Years and years ’twas. But I knew it. My pa, he drank. In Bristol us lived, down by the docks, and us was poor…poor. Hungry and cold I was. Him was like a mad thing when him was drunk. He beat my ma, beat her like a dog. I mind the smell o’s breath, all that time ago. I’d forgotten that; never give it a thought all these years, but I minded it when I picked Sister up.” Her breath was coming fast and she was nearly sobbing, struggling to get her words out, her hand still pulling at Macdonald’s sleeve. “I never thought o’ that, not all these years. I put that behind me. I’d not smelled that since he hit ma over head with poker: him killed she, poor besom…and me there…”
Her laboured voice broke off in a clucking sound, and then she began to scream, and went on screaming with a shrill dreadful iteration, while her fingers still clawed at Macdonald’s sleeve.
Chapter XV
1
Hannah’s screams were dying away as Cook came pounding upstairs, her heavy tread slamming on the linoleum, shaking the staircase.
“Sakes alive, what be that?” she burst out as she flung the door open. “’Twas like a soul in torment. God ha’ mercy, what be you done to her?”
Macdonald had got Hannah on to the chair and she sat crumpled up in it, her puckered face clay coloured now. Her eyes were shut, though tears still trickled down her cheeks, and her mouth was open. Macdonald found the pulse in the skinny wrist and realised that Hannah hadn’t even fainted. She had screamed her nerve storm out and exhaustion had claimed her. Her head fell sideways grotesquely, and she sobbed jerkily, in the exhausted state that can come suddenly to children and the subnormal after a crisis of excitement.
“I haven’t done anything to her. She started talking about her own mother’s death and worked herself into a state of hysteria over it,” said Macdonald. “I’d better carry her upstairs to her room and get the doctor to come and see to her.”
“Sakes, her do look in a bad way,” said Cook. “Had us better get her summat—brandy or somesuch?”
“Have you got any brandy?” asked Macdonald.
She flashed him a glance. “In this house? O’ course not. But I could run across to Mr. Barracombe. Sister wouldn’t have no liquor in this house.”
Macdonald picked up the skinny little form. “Go on upstairs and open her bedroom door for me. It’s not brandy she wants. It’s something to get her quiet.”
Cook thudded out of the room and on up the stairs, panting and muttering, and Macdonald followed and laid Hannah on a narrow bed in a room almost as bare as a prison cell.
“Cover her up with some blankets and then get a hot water bottle,” he said, “but don’t give her anything. I’ll go and ring up the doctor.”
“Her do look mortal bad,” groaned Cook.
Macdonald ran downstairs to the office again and called Ferens’ number on the telephone. “Is that Dr. Ferens? Macdonald here. Will you come over to Gramarye, at once, please.”
“Gramarye? You want Dr. Brown.”
“I don’t. I want you. At once, please.”
Ferens expostulated. “My God…what for…” as he hung up the receiver. But he was at the front door within two minutes, case in hand.
“It’s Hannah Barrow,” said Macdonald. “She got talking and worked herself up into a screaming fit and she’s flat out. I carried her up to her bedroom. D’you know your way?”
“No. I’ve never been inside this house before. She’s not my patient, you know.”
“So you’ve told me. I called you because I judged you’d be better primed to cope with the occasion,” said Macdonald, as he led the way upstairs. “Having studied the contents of the medicine cupboard here, I thought another opinion was indicated.”
Ferens stopped dead. “You don’t mean…”
“No, I don’t,” retorted Macdonald. “She screamed herself to exhaustion, that’s all. Give her a bromide, or whatever suits the occasion and let the poor little cuss go to sleep. I’ll tell you about it when you’re through.”
Hannah Barrow was now covered up in grey blankets, (good ‘government surplus’), her cap was over one ear and her hands clawed feebly at the blankets as she sobbed and hiccoughed. Cook was standing beside the bed.
“I’d be glad if you’d take my notice. Me nerves won’t stand any more of this,” she said as she saw Macdonald.
“Have you filled those hot water bottles?” he snapped, as Ferens came into the room.
Cook gaped at him. “’Tis Dr. Brown should come to see to her,” she proclaimed. “Her’s registered with Dr. Brown.”
“I’m doing locum for Dr. Brown this time,” said Ferens cheerfully. “You go and do what the Chief Inspector tells you and fill some hot water bottles. He’s got more sense than you have.”
Cook sniffed noisily and followed Macdonald to the door.
“Us haven’t got no hot water bottles. Sister didn’t hold with
