A sudden, fearful death (14 page)

"Still," Jeavis argued,
"one would be bound to notice a person standing or sitting around, and
certainly one would see a person lifting a body and putting it down the chute.
Wouldn't one?" There was a faint lift of inquiry in his tone, less than
sarcasm but more than courtesy.

"Not necessarily,"
Callandra said defensively. "Bundles of sheets are sometimes left on the
floor. The nurses occasionally sit in the corridors, if they are intoxicated.
In the dim light a corpse could look like a pile of linen. And certainly if I
saw someone putting laundry down the chute, I would assume it was merely a
bundle of sheets. I image anyone else would also."

"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 woman, and blackmail. But there are others. She may have witnessed a
theft, or another murder that looked like natural death. Hospitals are full of
deaths. And there are always love, hate, and jealousy. Was she handsome?"

"Yes, yes she was."
Callandra stared at him. He had said so many ugly things in a bare handful of
words, and yet any one of them could be true. At least one of them almost
certainly was. One did not strangle a woman without some intense passion.
Unless it was the act of a lunatic.

As if reading her thoughts, he
spoke.

"I assume the hospital is for
the physically sick? It is not a madhouse?"

"No, not at all. What a vile
thought."

"A madhouse?"

"No, I meant that someone
quite sane murdered her."

"Is that what troubles
you?"

She considered lying to him, or at
least evading the truth, then looked at his face and decided against it.

"Not entirely. I'm afraid Jeavis
suspects Dr. Beck, primarily because he is a foreigner and it is he and I who
found the body."

He looked at her closely. "Do
you suspect Dr. Beck?"

"No!" Then she blushed
for the fierceness of her reply, but it was to late to retreat. He had seen her
eagerness and then her immediate knowledge that she had betrayed herself.
"No, I think it is extremely unlikely," she went on. "But I have
no confidence in Jeavis. Will you please look into the matter? I will employ
you myself, at your usual rate."

"Don't be ridiculous!" he
said acidly. "You have contributed to my well-being ever since I took up
this occupation. You are not paying me now because you wish a job done."

"But I have to." She
looked at him and the words he had intended died on his lips. Callandra
continued: "Will you please investigate the murder of Prudence Barrymore?
She died this morning, probably between six o'clock and half past seven. Her
body was found in the laundry chute at the hospital, and the cause of death
seems to have been strangulation. There is not a great deal more I can tell
you, except that she was an excellent nurse, one of Miss Nightingale's women
who served in the Crimea. I judge her to be in her early thirties, and of
course not married."

"All very pertinent
information," he agreed. "But I have no way of involving myself in
the matter. Jeavis certainly won't call upon me, and I think there is no chance
whatsoever that he will share with me any information that he might have. Nor
will anyone in the hospital answer my questions, should I have the temerity to
ask." Then his face softened with regret. "I'm sorry. I would if I
could."

But it was Kristian's features, not
Monk's, which were in her mind.

"I appreciate it will be
hard," she said without hesitation. "But it is a hospital. I shall be
there. I can observe things and tell you. And perhaps it would be more
effective if we could get Hester a position there? She would see much that I
would not, and indeed that Inspector Jeavis would not."

"Callandra!" he
interrupted. Calling her by her given name without her title was a
familiarity—indeed, an arrogance!—which she did not mind. If she had, she would
have corrected him rapidly enough. It was the pain in his voice which chilled
her.

"Hester has a gift for
observation," she carried on, disregarding him, Kristian's face still
vivid in her mind. "And she is as good as you are at piecing together
information. She has an excellent understanding of human nature, nor is she
afraid to pursue a cause."

"In that case you will hardly
need me." He said it wasp-ishly, but it was redeemed at the last instant
by a flash of humor in his eyes.

She was spoiling her own case by
pressing too hard.

"Perhaps I overstated it a
trifle," she conceded. "But she would certainly be an asset, and be
able to observe those things you were not in a position to. Then she could
report to you so you could make deductions and tell her what next to inquire
into?"

"And if there is a murderer in
this hospital of yours, have you considered what danger you might be putting
her into? One nurse has already been killed," he pointed out.

She saw in his face that he was
aware of his own victory.