Shroud for a Nightingale

V

At two thirty-four p.m. precisely, in the largest and most luxurious of the private rooms, Sister Brumfett lost a patient She always thought of death in that way. The patient was lost; the battle was over; she, Sister Brumfett, had been personally defeated. The fact that so many of her battles were foredoomed to failure, that the enemy even if repulsed in the present skirmish, was always assured of final victory, never mitigated her sense of failure. Patients did not come into Sister Brumfett’s ward to die; they came in to get better, and with Sister’s indomitable will to fortify them, they usually did get better, often to their own surprise and occasionally despite their own wishes.

She had hardly expected to win this particular battle but it was only when Mr. Courtney-Briggs lifted his hand to turn off the blood drip that she accepted failure. The patient had certainly fought well; a difficult patient, a demanding patient, but a good fighter. He had been a wealthy business man whose meticulous plans for his future certainly didn’t include dying at forty-two. She recalled the look of wild surprise, almost of outrage, with which he had greeted the realization that death was something neither he nor his accountant could fix. Sister Brumfett had seen too much of his young widow on that lady’s daily visits to suppose that she would suffer much grief or inconvenience. The patient was the only one who would have been furious at the failure of Mr. Courtney-Briggs’s heroic and expensive efforts to save him, and happily for the surgeon, the patient was the one person in no position to demand either explanation or excuse.

Mr. Courtney-Briggs would see the widow and offer her his customary carefully phrased condolences, his assurance that everything humanly possible had been done. In this case, the size of the bill would be a guarantee of that and a powerful antidote, no doubt, to the inevitable guilt of bereavement Courtney-Briggs was really very good with the widows; and to do him justice, the poor as well as the rich received the consolation of his hand on their shoulder, of the stereotyped phrases of comfort and regret.

She drew the fold of the sheet up over the suddenly vacant face. Closing the dead eyes with practiced fingers, she felt the eyeballs still warm under the wrinkled lids. She was conscious neither of grief nor anger. There was only, as always, this dragging weight of failure tugging like a physical load at the tired muscles of her stomach and back.

They turned away from the bed together. Glancing at the surgeon’s face, Sister Brumfett was struck by his look of weariness. For the first time be, too, appeared threatened with failure and with age. It was, of course, unusual for a patient to die when he was there to see it happen. Still less frequently did they die on the operating table, even if the scramble from the theatre to the ward was sometimes a little undignified. But, unlike Sister Brumfett, Mr. Courtney-Briggs did not have to watch over his patients to the last gasp. All the same, she did not believe that this particular death had depressed him. It was, after all, not unexpected. He had nothing with which to reproach himself even if he had been given to self-criticism. She felt that he was stressed by some subtler worry, and she wondered whether it was something to do with Fallon’s death. He’s lost some of his bounce, thought Sister Brumfett He looks suddenly ten years older.

He preceded her down the passage to her office. As they neared the ward kitchen there was the sound of voices. The door was open. A student nurse was setting a trolley with the afternoon tea trays. Sergeant Masterson was leaning against the sink and watching her with the air of a man completely at home. As the Sister and Mr. Courtney-Briggs appeared in the doorway the girl flushed, muttered a low “good afternoon, sir” and pushed her trolley past them into the corridor with clumsy haste. Sergeant Masterson gazed after her with tolerant condescension, then transferred his level gaze to the Sister. He appeared not to notice Mr. Courtney-Briggs.

“Good afternoon, Sister, could I have a word with you?”

Baulked of the initiative, Sister Brumfett said repressively:

“In my office if you please, Sergeant That is where you should have waited in the first place. People do not wander in and out of my ward just as they please, and that includes the police.”

Sergeant Masterson, unchastened, looked slightly gratified at this speech as if it confirmed something to his satisfaction. Sister Brumfett bustled into her office, tight-lipped and ready for battle. Rather to her surprise Mr. Courtney-Briggs followed.

Sergeant Masterson said: “I wonder, Sister, if I could see the ward report book covering the period when Nurse Pearce was on this ward? I’m particularly interested in her last week here.”

Mr. Courtney-Briggs broke in roughly:

“Aren’t they confidential medical records, Sister? Surely the police will have to apply for a subpoena before they can make you produce them?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sir.” Sergeant Masterson’s voice, quiet, almost too respectful, yet held a tinge of amusement which wasn’t lost on his hearer. “Ward nursing records surely aren’t medical documents in the proper sense. I merely want to see who was being nursed here during that period and whether anything happened which might be of interest to the Superintendent. It’s been suggested that something occurred to upset Nurse Pearce while she was nursing on your ward. She went from here straight to the school, remember.”

Sister Brumfett, mottled and shaking with an anger which left small room for fear, found her voice.

“Nothing happened on my ward. Nothing! It’s all stupid, malicious gossip. If a nurse does her job properly and obeys orders there’s no need for her to be upset. The Superintendent is here to investigate a murder not to interfere with my ward.”

Mr. Courtney-Briggs broke in blandly:

“And even if she were-upset is the word I think you used, Sergeant-I don’t see what relevance that has to her death.”

Sergeant Masterson smiled at him as if humoring a willfully obstinate child.

“Anything that happened to Nurse Pearce in the week immediately before she was killed may have relevance, sir. That’s why I’m asking to see the ward report book.”

As neither Sister Brumfett nor the surgeon made any move to comply, he added:

“It’s only a matter of confirming information we already have. I know what she was doing on the ward during that week. I’m told she was devoting all her time to nursing one particular patient. A Mr. Martin Dettinger. ”Specializing him, I think you call it. My information is that she seldom left his room while she was on duty here during the last week of her life.“

So, thought Sister Brumfett, he had been gossiping with the student nurses. But of course! That was how the police worked. It was pointless to try to keep anything private from them. Everything, even the medical secrets of her ward, the nursing care of her own patients, would be nosed out by this impertinent young man and reported to his superior officer. There was nothing in the ward report book which he couldn’t find out by more devious means; ‘discover, magnify, misinterpret and use to make mischief. Inarticulate with anger and something close to panic she heard Mr. Courtney-Briggs’s bland and reassuring voice.

Then you’d better band the book over, Sister. If the police insist on wasting their own time there’s no need for us to encourage them to waste ours.“

Without another word, Sister Brumfett went to her desk and, bending down, opened the deep right-hand drawer and took out a large, hard-backed book. Silently and without looking at him, she banded it to Sergeant Masterson. The Sergeant thanked her profusely and turned to Mr. Courtney-Briggs:

“And now, sir, if the patient’s still with you, I’d like to have a word with Mr. Dettinger.”

Mr. Courtney-Briggs made no attempt to keep the satisfaction out of his voice.

“I think that is likely to challenge even your ingenuity, Sergeant Mr. Martin Dettinger died on the day Nurse Pearce left this ward. If I remember rightly, she was with him when he died. So both of them are safely out of reach of your inquisition. And now, if you’d be good enough to excuse us, Sister and I have work to do.”

He held open the door and Sister Brumfett strutted out before him. Sergeant Masterson was left alone, holding the ward record book in his hand.

“Bloody bastard,” he said aloud.

He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he went in search of the medical record department.