Shroud for a Nightingale

V

Fifteen minutes later, Masterson’s car passed the flat where Miss Beale and Miss Burrows, cozily dressing-gowned, were sipping their late night cocoa before the dying fire. They heard it as one brief crescendo in the intermittent flow of traffic, and broke off their chatter to speculate with desultory interest on what brought people out in the small hours of the morning. It was certainly unusual for them to be still up at this hour, but tomorrow was Saturday and they could indulge their fondness for late-night conversation in the comforting knowledge that they could lie in next morning.

They had been discussing the visit that afternoon of Chief Superintendent Dalgliesh. Really, they agreed, it had been a success, almost a pleasure. He bad seemed to enjoy his tea. He had sat there, deep in their most comfortable armchair, and the three of them had talked together as if he were as harmless and familiar as the local vicar.

He had said to Miss Beale: “I want to see Nurse Pearce’s death through your eyes. Tell me about it. Tell me everything you saw and felt from the moment you drove through the hospital gates.”

And Miss Beale had told him, taking a shameful pleasure in her half-hour of importance, in his obvious appreciation that she had observed so carefully and could describe with such clarity. He was a good listener, they conceded. Well, that was part of his job. He was clever, too, at making people talk. Even Angela, who had sat in watchful silence for most of the time, couldn’t explain why she had felt drawn to mention her recent encounter with Sister Rolfe in the Westminster library. And his eyes had flickered with interest, interest which had faded into disappointment when she told him the date. The friends agreed that they couldn’t have been mistaken. He had been disappointed. Sister Rolfe had been seen in the library on the wrong day.