He waited in the office while the matron was out, and he looked about the room with casual interest. There were photographs of royalty and other distinguished patients, and on every hand there were evidence of a discreet effort to impress visitors.
After five minutes he began to fidget. At the end of ten minutes he stood up, and almost immediately the door opened. A young nurse who looked a little scared entered, coughed in some confusion, and said:
“Matron says, sir, if you don’t mind, sir, perhaps it would be better if you were to come back to-morrow morning.”
“To-morrow,” ejaculated Rollison.
“Yes, sir. This way out, sir.”
“What room is the patient in?” asked Rollison.
“Number 4, sir, this way out, sir.” She led the way to the front door, and only when she reached it did she realize that Rollison was going in the opposite direction. She exclaimed in concern. Rollison ignored her; he had seen that the door of a room on the ground floor was marked 4. As he stood outside it for a moment the nurse came back, speaking in a low-pitched but appealing voice: the patient could not be allowed visitors that day. Rollison held up his hand, and succeeded in silencing her as he listened to the murmur of voices from the room beyond. First there were two voices, then only the matron’s, raised a little so that he could hear every word. She was holding a disjointed conversation.
“YesYes, doctor, she was perfectly all right at half-past
two, and had a good lunch . . . . Her pulse is very low and she
is running a hundred-and-one . . . One, yesYes,
coma.” There was a longer pause, before she went on: “I have done all that, doctor . . . . In half-an-hour, that’s splendid.”
After she finished there was the
Rollison put his fingers on the handle of the door.
“Oh,
“I shall tell matron that you did all you could to stop me,” promised Rollison, and opened the door.
The matron was standing by the side of a single bed, in a room where everything was white or green. A nurse in starched cap and white dress, was standing with a hand on the forehead of the woman who lay on the enamel-painted bed, a woman whose pallor was so marked that Rollison drew in his breath in surprise. The sound made the matron swing round.
“Hallo,” said Rollison. “Serious trouble?”
“You shouldn’t be in here!” whispered the matron. “Go out at once.”
“Not just yet,” said Rollison. He gave her a most charming smile, and approached the bed. There he stood looking down on the woman of the photograph. Because of her pallor she was remarkable. Apart from it, she looked as she had done in the newspaper photograph, and he got the impression that all vitality, all personality and charm had been drawn out of her. She seemed hardly to be breathing. Her high cheek-bones looked more prominent than in his photograph, and her lips were parted slightly. Now that he saw her with her eyes closed, the fact that they sloped upwards a little towards the temples confirmed his first impression—that she was not English.
“Mr.
“I’ll come into your office,” said Rollison, but instead he stepped across the room and examined the window carefully. The day had turned warm, and the window was wide open. It was of the modern type, with a patent, self-locking fitting, and, when ajar, could easily be opened from the outside. He stood there for some moments, and then turned to the cabinet by the side of die bed.
“Has anything been touched since you found her?”
“No, of course not,” said the matron, while the nurse looked at him with startled curiosity. “Mr. Rollison, I must insist”
Rollison ignored her and picked up a medicine glass. There was a little green liquid at the bottom.
“What time did she take this?”
“After lunch. I positively must insist—what are you doing?” The matron’s voice rose a shade as Rollison took a folded handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped it about the glass, and stuffed it back in his pocket. “You have no right to do that!”
“I want to make sure that nothing happens to it before the police arrive,” he said.
“The—police!”
“Obviously we must tell them of this at once,” said Rollison, and his expression was bleak. “It isn’t nice and it might be murder. But then, you know that, don’t you? What are the symptoms?” When she did not answer, he went on: “Acute narcotic poisoning, aren’t they?” He judged her agreement from her expression, and nodded. “I was afraid so. Have you any men on the staff?”
“We—Mr. Rollison!”
“Have you?” insisted Rollison, and added very gently: “The nursing home has an excellent reputation, matron, and I should not like anything to happen which would cause it harm.”
The matron became almost as pale as the patient.
“We have—two porters.”
“Have one of them stand outside the window and make sure that no one attempts to force an entrance,” said Rollison. “Have the other outside the door, with the same instructions. I’m afraid it’s a case of locking the stable door after the horse has gone, but it might come back, you know. Will you do what I ask?”
