Green for Danger (26 page)

“She's talking about Colonel Beaton having had all the rubbish bins repainted,” said Esther. “Ever since he came we've been tripping over tins of black and white paint in the hall and the corridors! Of course the murderer noticed one, and it put the idea into his head. He just took a tin and went into the theatre with it, and then put it back where he'd found it.”

“Or rather two tins, because, of course, an oxygen cylinder has a white collar, so he must have used black and white. Well, I think that's brilliant of you, Freddi, to have thought of that, really I do!”

“Good gracious, Woody, I thought of it the minute I knew about the paint having been used.”

“How could he be certain it would be used on Higgins, though?” said Esther.

Woods took Barney's cup and filled it; she said, standing over the little table with the tea-pot lolling, forgotten, in her hand: “That would be easy. The more you think of it, the more you see how easy it all was—if it came off. Higgins was second on the operating list. The murderer released some of the oxygen out of the cylinder on the trolley, so that there would be just about enough for one more operation—one long operation like a duodenal ulcer; and he knew we'd be bound to put in a fresh cylinder for the next case. Of course the cylinders come up from the Reserve Medical Store; but we have three or four in the storeroom off the theatre according to what sort of list we have for the day; and he simply put the repainted one on the rack so that I would take that next; naturally I'd choose the one nearest to hand.”

“How on earth could he know how much oxygen the duodenal ulcer would take?” said Barney. “I'd be very sorry to have to estimate it, myself.”

“Well, he made a guess at it then; and it was a jolly good guess because I remember that the oxygen had run right down after the duodenal was finished. That's why I started off on the new cylinder and didn't just switch to the spare. Of course if it was anyone in the theatre, they could have released the rest of the oxygen while nobody was noticing.…”

“And we were all in and out of the theatre between the two operations,” pointed out Eden.

“Except Frederica,” said Barnes.

“Does that make me a non-suspect?” said Freddi. “How lovely!”

“Wouldn't there have been one too many used oxygen cylinders, Woody,” said Eden, “and one too few carbon dioxides?”

“Oh, lawks!” said Woods, pop-eyed. “I wonder if there were!”

“You can bet your life there weren't,” said Barney, laughing at her startled face. “Cockrill checked the whole lot over next day. I expect a black one had been painted green, to tally.”

“But there isn't any green paint anywhere,” said Frederica.

“Well, then, the black paint may have been removed, afterwards; before the empties were counted. Easy enough in a theatre where there's lots of acetone and turpentine and things about; and the stuff wouldn't have hardened yet. It was only just dry.”

“Not even quite dry,” agreed Eden, “since it left a black mark on the front of Woody's overall.”

“Wouldn't the turps have taken off the underneath paint as well?”

“No, it's that hard, shiney, baked-on enamel; it may have marked it a little bit, but those cylinders get awfully shabby and knocked about. Nobody would ever notice it.”

“Woody, darling, do put down the tea-pot,” said Esther, mildly exasperated. “You're baptizing everything with tea.”

“So it couldn't have been me,
anyway
, Barney, could it?” said Frederica suddenly, having evidently been thinking things over in her mind. “Because all the time the cylinder was being doctored, I was in the ward with my suffering patients.”

“Any of the rest of us could have done it, though,” said Major Moon reluctantly. “It was such a hell of a night, and nobody would be noticing what anyone else was doing. Woody says she was sitting in the cottage; Esther says she joined her there as soon as she left the ward; Barney was out of the theatre for half an hour or so, soon after Higgins came in, and Eden was doing his night rounds.… I was in Reception, but not solidly all the time.”

“Any of us could have done the first murder,” said Gervase impatiently; “(all right, Frederica, not you!) and any of us could have killed poor little Bates; but none of us could have tried to kill Freddi with gas, that day. Take me, for example; I couldn't possibly have known that they were short of a shilling; and only anyone who knew that the gas had run out in the meter, could have thought of rigging up the turned-on gas tap and all the rest of it.”

There was a short, uncomfortable pause. Everybody remembered that Gervase had been seen coming out of the cottage that morning, and had never acknowledged his presence there; but nobody liked to put it openly into words. He looked round at them with a little, puzzled movement of the eyebrows, but since nobody spoke, he went on: “The same applies for Barney and Moon—they might have done the other things, but they couldn't have tried to kill Freddi. I suppose Esther could have; but it was she who saved Freddi's life; and anyway, she obviously wouldn't have wanted to kill William, later on. As for Woody …”

“What about Woody?” asked Woods, as he paused.

He glanced up at her with his quick smile. “Actually you could have done them all,” he pointed out, laughing.

“So I could,” said Woody equably.

“
Could
you, darling?” said Freddi, staring.

“Well, of course. I was sitting here all alone waiting for Esther to come off St. Elizabeth's while the oxygen cylinder was being got ready for Higgins, so I've got no alibi for that time; in any case, I'd have endless opportunities for mucking about in the theatre by myself. I was alone while Sister Bates was being killed, and I could easily have pretended to ‘discover' her after she was dead. I knew all about the gas shortage on the morning that Frederica was put to sleep, and though it's true that I did know Barney was taking her up to town, that day, I might easily have forgotten about that, or thought he would be too late to save her. As for William—well, it would have been money for jam; above all, as I said before, I have lots of time all to myself in the operating theatre—for substituting repainted cylinders and seeing that they don't get used again and things like that.…”

“
So
you have,” said Frederica.

They glanced at her uneasily, and then at Woody's face, and then at everything or anything in the untidy little room, rather than meet those bright, dark eyes again. Out of a friendly, idle discussion, in mutual confidence, something sharp and ugly had suddenly raised its head. After all,
some
body had committed these crimes; and Gervase had just illustrated that it could be none of the others. A look of incredulous pain crossed the plain, lined face, and was replaced by one of defiant pride. She said harshly: “And since you all seem so ready to believe that it was me, I'd better give you the motives, too.”

Eden flung out a hand. He said sharply: “No, Woody!”

She hesitated for a moment, but took no further notice of him, and said, loudly and crudely: “Higgins and William … when they were buried under the debris, during the air-raid—what was the last thing they heard?”

Esther roused herself from a sort of terrified stupor. She said urgently: “Woody darling; don't tell us anything. Don't say anything. Of course we don't believe it was you. Don't say anything you'll be sorry for afterwards.…”

Woods was beyond reason. She repeated violently: “What was the last thing they heard?”

“The radio,” said Freddi, gazing with uncontrollable curiosity at Woody's face.

“The German radio,” said Woods. “Don't forget that! The German radio, telling them Goebbels' lies. And Higgins when he was going under the anæsthetic—when he was losing his consciousness, when he was in the same mental condition as he must have been in when the debris was falling on him—he heard my voice, he heard me say something about ‘Churchill' as I dare say the radio did then … and what did he do? What did he say? Esther, you were there, and you, Barney, and Gervase, and Major Moon—you were all there; what did Higgins say when he heard my voice?”

“He called out that he had heard it somewhere before,” said Esther, deliberately quiet and calm.

“William did the same thing afterwards. I passed his bed in the ward and stopped and said something to the Inspector, sitting by his side. I had just brought a case back from the theatre; I was probably smelling of ether—it may have been association of ideas, it may have taken him back to his own operation in the theatre on the night of the blitz when they did his leg, and so back to the time when he lay under the debris listening to the voice … it may have been just my voice, but William sat up in bed and called out, like Higgins had: ‘Where have I heard it before'?”

“Well, don't be silly, Woody,” said Frederica impatiently. “He hadn't heard
you
giving out the German broadcasts, I suppose?”

“She once had a very favourite brother,” said Major Moon, softly, and Woody sat down at the cluttered little table and put her head in her arms and burst into tears.

2

Esther was up from her bed in a flash, and Frederica off the arm of the chair. “
Dar
ling Woody …!
Sweetie
pie …! Woody,
don't
cry, darling …! Woody, it's terrible for you, pet, but as if it would make any difference to
us
…!” Major Moon broke into their affectionate twitterings, pointing out in his reasonable voice: “This is tragic for you, Woody, my dear; but it needn't have been—your brother—that was talking that night. It might have been Lord Haw-Haw. In fact William said it
was
Lord Haw-Haw. You told us so outside the theatre, last night.”

“I asked William to say it,” said Woods, not looking up. “I wouldn't go and see him at first, in case he should recognize my voice—my brother and I have a sort of—family likeness; a sort of way of saying things.… I forgot all about it when I spoke to Inspector Cockrill on the ward; but after William had recognised me, I went and talked to him. I told him—all this, and I asked him not to give me away.”

“You talk as though
you
had done something discreditable, child,” said Major Moon.

She lifted her head then and looked at him with her tear-stained eyes. “You're a funny person to talk, Major Moon! It was you who said last night that all such traitors should be ham-strung, and that their relatives and friends were probably just as bad as themselves.…”

“Your eye-black's all running, Woody, and you look most pec
u
liar,” said Freddi, into the ensuing silence.

Woods got up without a word and blundered out into the kitchen. Eden gave her two minutes and then followed her. She turned away from the cold water tap, holding a wet cloth to her eyes; he smiled at her and took the cloth away and mopped gently at her face with a dry towel. “My poor old Woody,” he said, as though he were speaking to a child.

“So now you know my ugly secret, Gervase,” said Woody, smiling bleakly.

“You shouldn't have borne this burden all by yourself, my dear; you should have told your friends.”

“
Told
you?” cried Woody. “Good God, I'd have done anything to keep it a secret!”

“Except murder,” suggested Eden, his head on one side.

“That was silly of me,” she confessed abruptly. “But for a moment you all looked as though you really thought I had done it. Of course I didn't murder Higgins: he could have given me away and it would all have been horrible and unpleasant and I'd probably have had to leave here.… But it wasn't a motive for murder. And even supposing I
had
killed him, and tried to kill William for the same reason—why Freddi?”

“And why Marion Bates?” said Eden.

“Ah, well, Bates was different,” said Woody honestly. “Of course I could have got hold of the gown any time without having to kill her for that; but I couldn't get rid of the knowledge in her head. If the paint on my gown had been any proof of my being the murderer, it would have been no use my destroying the gown if the knowledge were still in her head.”

“Yes, but—well, all right, pretend that you had to kill her that night. What would you have done then? Just put the gown back in the linen basket; picked off the worst of the paint, perhaps, and put it in with the rest. Only
you
knew how many gowns had been used, how many were to come back clean and all that kind of thing. You could wangle the lists. Was it likely that you were going to spend dangerous minutes dressing her up in the gown, laying her out on the table, adding the boots and the mask to draw attention away from the gown; and stabbing the poor girl a second time, when she was dead … when all you had to do was to dispose of the gown in some other way, which you could easily account for—you being the only person, especially now that Sister Bates was dead, who knew anything about the routine? No, no, Woody; you were the very last person of any of us who could be suspected of having killed Bates.” He added curiously: “All the same—I
would
like to know what the devil you went to the theatre for that night!”

She propped herself up against the little sink, as she so often stood, legs stretched out before her, ankles crossed. They could hear low voices in the adjoining room. She said, looking into his eyes: “Do you really not know that?”

“Well, of course not,” he said blankly.

She faced him squarely. “I thought you had killed Higgins!”

“
I
?” he said incredulously.

She turned away her eyes. “Well, Gervase, I didn't know. I couldn't make up my mind. But if you didn't—why was Marion Bates protecting you?”

“Protecting
me
?”

“Darling, don't go on and on saying ‘I?' and ‘Me?' and things. Surely you must have known that she'd only hidden her precious proof because she thought it was implicating you?”