The Nursing Home Murder

CHAPTER XVIII Retrospective

Saturday, the twentieth. Evening.

Two evenings after the arrest Alleyn dined with Nigel and Angela. The inspector had already been badgered by Nigel for copy and had thrown him a few bones to gnaw. Angela, however, pined for first-hand information. During dinner the inspector was rather silent and withdrawn. Something prompted Angela to kick Nigel smartly on the shin when he broached the subject of the arrest. Nigel suppressed a cry of pain and glared at her. She shook her head slightly.

“Was it very painful, Bathgate?” asked Alleyn.

“Er — oh — yes,” said Nigel sheepishly.

“How did you know I kicked him?” Angela inquired. “You must be a detective.”

“Not so that you would notice it, but perhaps I am about to strike form again.”

“Hullo — all bitter, are you? Aren’t you pleased with yourself over this case, Mr. Alleyn?” Angela ventured.

“One never gets a great deal of gratification from a fluke.”

“A fluke!” exclaimed Nigel.

“Just that.”

He held his glass of port under his nose, glanced significantly at Nigel and sipped it.

“Go on,” he said resignedly. “Go on. Ask me. I know perfectly well why I’m here and you don’t produce a wine like this every evening. Bribery. Subtle corruption. Isn’t it, now?”

“Yes,” said Nigel simply.

“I won’t have Mr. Alleyn bullied,” said Angela.

“You would if he could,” rejoined Alleyn cryptically. “I know your tricks and your manners.”

The others were silent.

“As a matter of fact,” Alleyn continued, “I have every intention of talking for hours.”

They beamed.

“What an angel you are, to be sure,” said Angela. “Bring that decanter next door. Don’t dare sit over it in here. The ladies are about to leave the dining-room.”

She got up; Alleyn opened the door for her, and she went through into Nigel’s little sitting-room, where she hastily cast four logs on the fire, pulled up a low table between two arm-chairs, and sat down on the hearthrug.

“Come on!” she called sternly.

They came in. Alleyn put the decanter down reverently on the table, and in a moment they were all settled.

“Now,” said Angela, “I do call this fun.”

She looked from Nigel to Alleyn. Each had the contented air of the well-fed male. The fire blazed up with a roar and a crackle, lighting the inspector’s dark head and his admirable hands. He settled himself back and, easing his chin, turned and smiled at her.

“You may begin,” said Angela.

“But — where from?”

“From the beginning — well, from the operating theatre.”

“Oh. The remark I invariably make about the theatre is that it afforded the ideal setting for a murder. The whole place was cleaned up scientifically — hygienically — completely — as soon as the body of the victim was removed. No chance of a fingerprint, no significant bits and pieces left on the floor. Nothing. As a matter of fact, of course, had it been left exactly as it was, we should have found nothing that pointed to Roberts.” Alleyn fell silent again.

“Begin from where you first suspected Roberts,” suggested Nigel.

“From where you suspected him, rather. The funny little man, you know.”

“By gum, yes. So I did.”

“Did you?” Angela asked.

“I had no definite theory about him,” said Alleyn. “That’s why I talked about a fluke. I was uneasy about him. I had a hunch, and I hate hunches. The first day I saw him in his house I began to feel jumpy about him, and fantastic ideas kept dodging about at the back of my mind. He was, it seemed, a fanatic. That long, hectic harangue about hereditary taints — somehow it was too vehement. He was obviously nervous about the case and yet he couldn’t keep off it. He very delicately urged the suicide theory and backed it up with a lecture on eugenics. He was certainly sincere, too sincere, terribly earnest. The whole atmosphere was unbalanced. I recognised the man with an idée fixe. Then he told me a long story about how he’d once given an overdose, and that was why he never gave injections. That made me uncomfortable, because it was such a handy proof of innocence. ‘He can’t have done the job, because he never gives an injection.’ Then I saw his stethoscope with rows of notches on the stem, and again there was a perfect explanation. He said it was a sort of tally for every anæsthetic he gave successfully to patients with heart disease. I was reminded of Indian tomahawks and Edward S. Ellis, and more particularly of a catapult I had as a boy and the notches I cut in the handle for every bird I killed. The fantastic notion that the stethoscope was that sort of tally-stick nagged and nagged at me. When we found he was one of the Lenin Hall lot I wondered if he could possibly be their agent, and yet I didn’t somehow think there was anything in the Lenin Hall lot. When we discovered he had hoped to egg them on over the Sterilization Bill I felt that accounted perfectly for his association with them. Next time I saw him I meant to surprise him with a sudden question about them. He completely defeated me by talking, about them of his own accord. That might have been a subtle move, but I didn’t think so. He lent me his book and here again I found the fanatic. I don’t know why it is that pursuit of any branch of scientific thought which is greatly concerned with sex so often leads to morbid obsession. Not always, by any means — but very often. I’ve met it over and over again. It’s an interesting point and I’d like to know the explanation. Roberts’s book is a sound, a well-written plea for rational breeding. It is not in the least hysterical, and yet, behind it, in the personality of the writer, I smelt hysteria. There was one chapter where he said that a future civilization, might avoid the expense and trouble of supporting its a-ments and de-ments, by eliminating them altogether. ‘Sterilization,’ he wrote, ‘might in time be replaced by extermination.’ After reading that I forced myself to face up to that uneasy idea that had worried me ever since I first spoke to him. O’Callaghan came of what Roberts would regard as tainted stock. Suppose — suppose, thought I, blushing at my own credulity, suppose Roberts had got the bright idea of starting the good work by destroying such people every time he got the opportunity? Suppose he had brought it off several times before, and that every time he’d had a success he ticked it up on his stethoscope?”

“Oh, murder!” Nigel apostrophised.

“You may say so.”

“Have some port.”

“Thank you. It sounded so incredibly far-fetched that I simply hadn’t the nerve to confide in Fox. I carried on with all the others — Mr. Sage and his remedies, Phillips and his girl, Banks and the Bolshies. Well, the patent medicine Sage provided through Miss O’Callaghan—‘Fulvitavolts,’ he calls it — has an infinitestimal amount of hyoscine. The second lot that Miss O’Callaghan administered in the hospital was an unknown quantity until I got the remnant from her. Of course, the fact that he had been responsible for O’Callaghan taking any hyoscine at all threw our Harold into a fearful terror, especially as he was one of the Lenin Hall lot. He tried to get me to believe the second concoction was a doctor’s prescription, and very nearly led himself into real trouble. We have since found that this drug, too, only contained a very small amount of hyoscine. Exit Mr. Sage. Banks might have substituted hyoscine for camphor when she prepared the syringe, but I found that the stock solution of hyoscine contained the full amount minus one dose that was accounted for. She might have smuggled in another somehow, or she might have filled up the jar afterwards, but it didn’t seem likely. Phillips remained and Phillips worried me terribly. He loomed so large with his threats, his opportunity, his motive. Roberts paled beside him. I caught myself continually opposing these two men. After all, as far as one could see, Roberts had had no chance of giving a hypodermic injection, whereas Phillips, poor devil, had had every opportunity. I staged the reconstruction partly to see if there was any way in which Roberts could have done it. I called for him at his house. Now, although I had asked Phillips specifically to have the anæsthetic appliance, Roberts was coming away without it. When I reminded him, he went and got it. I noticed that he wasn’t keen on my handling it, and that several times he touched the nuts. It was perfectly reasonable, but it made me look at them and kept them in my mind. Remember I was by no means wedded to my fantastic idea — rather the reverse. I was ashamed of it and I still reasoned, though I did not feel, that Phillips was the principal suspect. We watched them all closely. Then came the fluke — the amazing, the incredible fluke. Old Marigold lost her nerve and did a trip over the cruet-thing that holds the gasometers, Thoms helped Roberts, in a way, by a spirited rendering of the jack-in-office. Thoms is a bit of a funk and he was scared. He made a rumpus. If it hadn’t been for my ‘idea,’ I shouldn’t have watched Roberts. As it was, he gave a magnificent performance. But he went green round the gills and he was most careful to let no one touch the nuts. As a matter of fact, I believe Thoms’s funk was entirely superfluous — it is most unlikely that the cylinder would blow up. Think what a shock it must have been to Roberts. Suppose the syringe had fallen out! Practically an impossibility— but in the panic of the moment his imagination, his ‘guilty knowledge’ if you like, would play tricks with his reason. I rather felt I had allowed mine to do the same. My dears, my head was in a whirl, I promise you.”

“But when,” asked Angela, “did Dr. Roberts inject the hyoscine?”

“I think soon after the patient was put on the table. The screen over the chest would hide his hands.”

“I see.”

“After the reconstruction Roberts wouldn’t leave us alone. He hung about in the theatre, intent, of course, on keeping me away from the cruet. Fox, bless his heart, rumbled this ruse and staged a bogus telephone call. He saw I wanted to be rid of Roberts. As soon as we were alone I fell on the cruet, and, after a nerve-racking fumble, unearthed the syringe. Eureka! Denouement! Fox nearly had a fit of the vapours.”

“So you arrested him there and then!” cried Angela.

“No. No, I didn’t. For one thing I hadn’t a warrant and for another — oh, well— ”

Alleyn rested his nose on his clasped hands.

“Now what’s coming?” asked Angela.

“I rather liked the little creature. It would have been an unpleasant business pulling him in there. Anyway, I went off and got a warrant, and Fox and Boys accompanied him home. They watched him carefully in case he tried to give himself the coup de grâce, but he didn’t. When I arrested him he had, I believe, a sudden and an appalling shock, a kind of dreadful moment of lucidity. He fought us so violently that he seemed like a sane man gone mad, but I believe he was a madman gone sane. It only lasted a few minutes. Now I don’t think he cares at all. He has made a complete confession. He’s batty. He’ll have to stand his trial, but I think they’ll find that the nut in the cruet-stand is not the only one loose. It may even be that Roberts, recognizing the taint of madness in himself, felt the eugenic urge the more strongly and the need for eliminating the unfit. In that point of view there is precisely the kind of mad logic one would expect to find in such a case.”

“If it hadn’t been for the matron’s trip, would you never have got him?” asked Nigel.

“I think we should — in the end. We should have got his history from Canada and Australasia. It’s coming through now. When it’s complete I am pretty certain we shall find a series of deaths after anæsthetics given by Roberts. They will all prove to be cases where there were signs of hereditary insanity. I shouldn’t mind betting they correspond with the notches on the stethoscope — minus one.”

“Minus one?” asked Nigel.

“He added a fresh notch, no doubt, on Thursday, the eleventh. The last one does look more recent, although he’d rubbed a bit of dirt into it. You may think, as judges say when they mean you ought to think, that it was an extremely rum thing for him to leave the syringe in the cruet after the job was done. Not so rum. It was really the safest place imaginable. Away from there it would have been a suspicious-looking object, with a nut, instead of the ordinary top, to the piston. I believe that extraordinary little man filled it up with hyoscine whenever he was called out to give an anæsthetic to someone he did not know, just on the off-chance the patient should turn out to be what I understand sheep-farmers call a ‘cull.’ It’s a striking example of the logic of the lunatic.”

“Oh,” cried Angela, “I do hope they find him insane.”

“Do you?”

“Don’t you?”

“I hardly know. That means a criminal lunatic asylum. It’s a pity we are not allowed to hand him one of his own hypodermics.”

There was a short silence.

“Have some port?” said Nigel.

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. He did not pour it out, however, but sat looking abstractedly into the fire.

“You see,” he murmured at last, “he’s done his job. From his point of view it’s all a howling success. He does nothing but tell us how clever he’s been. His one anxiety is lest he may not be appreciated. He’s busy writing a monograph for which all your gods of Fleet Street, Bathgate, will offer fabulous prices. At least he is assured of competent defense.”

“What about Sir John Phillips and Jane Harden?” ‘ asked Angela.

“What about them, Miss Angela?”

“Is she going to marry him now?”

“How should I know?”

“She’ll be a fool if she doesn’t,” said Angela emphatically.

“I’m afraid you’ve got the movie-mind. You want a final close-up. ‘John — I want you to know that— that— ’ Ecstatic glare at short distance into each other’s faces. Sir John utters an amorous growl: ‘You damned little fool,’ and snatches her to his bosom. Slow fade-out.”

“That’s the stuff,” said Angela. “I like a happy ending.”

“We don’t often see it in the Force,” said Alleyn.

“Have some port?”

“Thank you.”

The End