Green for Danger (25 page)

Woody recoiled, as ever, from this ugly thought. “But
why
—that's what I just can't see.”

“To make us think that the hole in the green gown had been made when the body was stabbed.”

They stared at him. “But wasn't it? When was it made then? And why—why was it made? Surely—surely it must have been made by the knife …?”

He picked up a piece of lint, gingerly fished a surgical knife from a tray of instruments in the trolley, and, with a single gesture, thrust it through the lint. It left a tiny, almost imperceptible slit.

“So what?” said Freddi, remaining unimpressed.

“So the hole in the gown was quite a big, jagged hole. It was made—not by the stabbing; but to cut something away.”

Freddi had lost all pretence of interest in the patient now. She came forward slowly from the table, fixing the little Inspector with her big grey eyes. “To cut what away? I don't understand. What did he want to cut away from the gown?”

“A smear of black paint,” said Cockrill and Eden and Moon and Barney and Esther and Woody, all impatiently.

3

Barnes announced that William might be taken back to his ward. Cockrill summoned sisters and orderlies and despatched him on a wheeled stretcher; he sent for the Matron and the Commanding Officer and talked to them at length—neither of them had felt so young for years. Finally he withdrew to the anæsthetic-room and went into a consultation with Sergeant Bray. “These six people must be guarded night and day; separately or together; they must never be allowed out of our sight. Never mind if they don't like it—all the better in fact. I want a confession. I've got everything but absolute proof and I must have a confession. Nobody can stand this pace for more than a day or two longer; we must break them down.”

“Is it safe to leave it, sir? With all that morphia …?”

“There's more morphia than you know, Bray. No, of course it isn't safe; it's very dangerous, but it's all that I can do. I haven't got a shred of proof, that I could make an arrest on, let alone offer to a jury. There's the motive, of course; there's the half-hour unaccounted for on the night that Higgins was brought in; there's that look of astonishment on Bates's face; there's the fantastic reason for Linley's being gassed; there's the wakefulness of certain patients in St. Elizabeth's ward; and finally there's that strange conversation in the lobby outside the theatre last night. Put them together, and the case is clear as daylight; separate them, and they fall apart in your hands. I've
got
to wait!”

Bray thought it over, pulling the lobe of his ear. “You couldn't work on a process of elimination, sir? For instance, the Linley girl: she didn't know last night that the operation was to be performed on this chap to-day. The theatre's been watched, sir, from ten minutes after that talk in the lobby, to this very moment. She couldn't have got in and painted the cylinder. She
must
be out.”

“You're working too fast, Sergeant. Barnes met the girl-friend on his way back to dinner in the Mess, told her what was in the wind and went straight on. She
says
she came over to see Esther Sanson and comfort her, but didn't find her; Woods
says
she looked for her also, but didn't find her and went back to her quarters; Esther
says
that was because she crept away to a dark corner somewhere to get herself back under control before she went on duty, which sounds feasible enough; but you see, this way, none of them has an alibi. Barnes and Eden and Moon, of course, had ample opportunity earlier in the day; they knew all about the suggested operation, naturally, and could have slipped into the theatre … it would only have taken a few minutes to coat the thing over with paint. They'd got it all taped; it wasn't the first time.…”

“'S'awkward, isn't it?” said Sergeant Bray, his ear by now very pink.

It was a full hour since Cockrill had remembered his desire for a cigarette.

CHAPTER X

1

B
arnes and Eden and Moon presented themselves at the cottage that afternoon, for tea. “We thought the band of murderers had better stick together,” explained Gervase, sliding a plate of bread and butter from the crook of his arm to the table, and producing a couple of biscuits out of a pocket. “The Mess was sitting around uneasily, jiggling their teaspoons in their saucers and jumping whenever we spoke to them, so we made ourselves scarce. We brought our rations with us.” He fished three more biscuits out of another pocket.

“Some rather doubtful sandwiches,” said Barney, unwrapping them from the lace paper doyley off a plate.

“And a whole cake,” said Major Moon gleefully. “I just picked it up off the table and marched out, and nobody dared to say a word.”

Esther lay on the narrow bed in the sitting-room looking very ill; but she smiled gratefully at their rather forced jollity and struggled to her feet. “
I'll
make tea, Woody.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” said Woods, pushing her down again. “Come on, Freddi, we'll cope.”

Frederica would rather have stayed perched on the edge of Barney's chair and twiddled his soft, fair hair into two little horns to make him look like Pan; but she trotted off obediently and they could hear her plaintive voice saying: “But I don't know where we
keep
them, darling.… But I never can cut it
straight
, Woody.…” as Woods clattered about among the cups and saucers and issued instructions. Moon sat down on the edge of the bed beside Esther. “How do you feel, my dear?”

“Oh, I'm all right, Major Moon. I had a bit of a shock, that's all. I—I stood there in the doorway, and you were all so still.… You were all standing so still.… I knew something must have gone wrong. I thought he was dead …” She broke off, leaving her sentence in the air.

“Is it true that Cockrill won't let you see William, Esther?” said Barnes.

“He won't let anybody see him. He told me he was going to have him watched night and day, and that it would be better if none of us went near him, even me. It's all so terrifying, Barney!”

“It's over now, Esther,” said Eden soothingly. “Now that he knows how it was done, it won't be long.…” But that was not a happy thought either, and he went off on a slightly different tangent. “Anyway, we've all got a holiday. Officer Commanding Surgical Division is taking over all the operating lists for the next few days.…” He blew out his cheeks in a lightning sketch of Lieutenant Colonel Greenaway taking over the operating lists with much pomp and ceremony: “and Perkins is giving the anæsthetics. Heaven help the patients, that's all I can say.”

“Isn't Colonel Greenaway good, Gervase?”

“Oh, he's all right, I suppose. He's so
slow
he drives you to drink, though.… I assisted him in an emergency appendix the other day.…” He drifted off into hospital gossip, and they were deep in reminiscence when Woods and Frederica returned with a large, chipped earthenware teapot and an assortment of cups and plates. “By the way, are
you
being followed about by coppers, too?” asked Woody, dumping a jug of tinned milk on the table and rummaging in a drawer for knives and spoons.

“Yes, a chap came over here with us; he's walking up and down outside, now.”

“Poor pet,” said Woody. She filled a cup with tea and tinned milk, grudgingly added some sugar, and went out to the back door. “Oi! You—mister! Want a cuppa?” They could hear her assuring him cheerfully that there was no arsenic in it.

“As far as we know,” corrected Freddi, under her breath.

Barnes heard her. He said tenderly: “Darling;—it isn't getting you down? You're not frightened?”

Frederica was practically incapable of being unnerved. It pleased her, however, to parade his little show of tenderness; to demonstrate to Gervase how very much she and Barney were in love. She was uneasily ashamed of her infatuation for Eden and was now seeking, subconsciously, to throw the onus on to him. She sat on the arm of Barney's chair and allowed herself to be made a fuss of. Esther lay on the narrow bed with Major Moon's hand on her wrist. Woody dispensed tea. Nobody made a fuss of her.

Conversation waxed and waned. How long would their enforced holiday last? How would the theatre get on without Major Moon and Barney and Woods? How could St. Elizabeth's survive without Esther and Freddi? How could the surgical division plod along with nobody left but Greenaway and a general duties officer and the orthopod? But they could not keep away for ever from the subject that was in all their minds, and it was Woods who finally said, breaking in upon an impassioned defence of Chalk and Cheese and how marvellously Esther thought they would manage in the ward: “Well, don't let's talk about inanities any longer. Let's talk about black paint.”

Perhaps, after all, it would be rather a relief to talk about the black paint. “It was so incredibly simple,” said Barney, still apparently lost in astonishment at the trick that had been played on him. “You can't alter the gas in a cylinder; so you alter the cylinder. The gases are colourless and odourless—in a thousand years one couldn't possibly tell.”

“Doesn't carbon dioxide prickle, Barney?”

“If you get a strong enough concentration it does; if you could put your nose right into a bowl of it, you'd get a faint sort of creeping sensation like soda water bubbles; but you don't get it through a mask. I couldn't have got it by sniffing round the trolley. Besides, I never even tried. An oxygen cylinder is an oxygen cylinder; one just doesn't doubt it.”

“Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much,” said Woody.

“I don't protest at all,” said Barnes, not too pleased. “There was not the slightest reason to suppose that Higgins had been murdered; and under the circumstances no anæsthetist in the world would have dreamed of questioning the contents of the cylinders. Even if I'd known he'd been killed, that would have been the last thing that would have occurred to me—or to anyone in my position.”

“All right, sweetie, no offence meant,” said Woody pacifically.

“Cockrill has been doing experiments,” said Major Moon. “He seems to have proved to his own satisfaction that the cylinder must have been painted well before midnight, on the night before Higgins died, to have allowed it to dry in the time.”

“Of course the theatre's hot …” said Eden.

“He's allowed for all that. He says definitely about twelve hours. That would bring it to about ten o'clock in the evening, or a bit later.”

“Which couldn't be more significant,” said Freddi.

“Significant—in what way?”

“Only that it proves all over again that it
must
be one of our lot,” said Eden, interpreting Frederica's vague assertion. “At ten o'clock, or even eleven, to be on the safe side, there were definitely only the six of us, and Bates, who could have known that the man was in the hospital.…”

They knew it; and yet their minds would not accept it; reason told them that one of themselves was a killer but sentiment rebelled against reason. For, after all,
who
? Not dear old Moon. Not Gervase, with his ugly charm, his bright intelligence, his impatient honesty. And, God knew, not Barney! And not Esther, the gentle and dignified, or Freddi the exquisite, or Woody with her big, warm, generous, laughing heart. “What I can't make out,” said Eden, drawing their attention away from these painful thoughts, “is how anyone can have worked it out in the time. Dash it all, Higgins was only brought in at about half-past nine. How can the murderer have made up his mind and evolved the whole plan, all in an hour or so? What gave him the idea?”

“Oh, it was the
sal
vage tins,
was
n't it?” said Freddi, as if this must, surely, have been obvious to all.

“The salvage tins? What
are
you talking about?”