Shroud for a Nightingale

V

A few minutes earlier the four people in the demonstration room had straightened up and looked at each other, white-faced, utterly exhausted. Heather Pearce was dead. She was dead by any criteria, legal or medical. They had known it for the last five minutes but had worked on, doggedly and without speaking, as if there were still a chance that the flabby heart would pulse again into life. Mr. Courtney-Briggs had taken off his coat to work on the girl and the front of his waistcoat was heavily stained with blood. He stared at the thickening stain, brow creased, nose fastidiously wrinkled, almost as if blood were an alien substance to him. The heart massage had been messy as well as ineffectual. Surprisingly messy for Mr. Courtney-Briggs, the Matron thought. But surely the attempt had been justified? There hadn’t been time to get her over to the theatre. It was a pity that Sister Gearing had pulled out the esophageal tube. It had, perhaps, been a natural reaction but it might have cost Pearce her only chance. While the tube was in place they could at least have tried an immediate stomach wash-out. But an attempt to pass another tube by the nostril had been frustrated by the girl’s agonized spasms and, by the time these had ceased, it was too late and Mr. Courtney-Briggs had been forced to open the chest wall and try the only measure left to him. Mr. Courtney-Briggs’ heroic efforts were well known. It was only a pity that they left the body looking so pathetically mangled and the demonstration room stinking like an abattoir. These things were better conducted in an operating theatre, shrouded and dignified by the paraphernalia of ritual surgery.

He was the first to speak.

This wasn’t a natural death. There was something other than milk in that feed. Well, that’s obvious to all of us I should have thought We’d better call the police. I’ll get on to the Yard. I know someone there, as it happens. One of the Assistant Commissioners.“

He always did know someone, thought the Matron. She felt the need to oppose him. Shock had left an aftermath of irritation and, irrationally, it focused on him. She said calmly:

“The local police are the ones to call and I think that the Hospital Secretary should do it I’ll get Mr. Hudson on the house telephone now. They’ll call in the Yard if they think it necessary. I cant think why it should be. But that decision is for the Chief Constable, not for us.”

She moved over to the wall telephone, carefully walking round the crouched figure of Miss Rolfe. The Principal Tutor was still on her knees. She looked, thought the Matron, rather like a character from a Victorian melodrama with her smoldering eyes in a deathly white face, her black hair a little disheveled under the frilly cap, and those reeking hands. She was turning them over slowly and studying the red mass with a detached, speculative interest as if she, too, found it difficult to believe that the blood was real. She said:

“If there’s a suspicion of foul play ought we to move the body?” Mr. Courtney-Briggs said sharply: “I have no intention of moving the body.”

“But we can’t leave ”her here, not like this!“ Miss Gearing was almost weeping in protest The surgeon glared at her.

“My dear woman, this girl’s dead! Dead! What does it matter where we leave the body? She can’t feel. She can’t know. For God’s sake don’t start being sentimental about death. The indignity is that we die at all, not what happens to our bodies.”

He turned brusquely and went over to the window. Sister Gearing made a movement as if to follow him, and then sank into the nearest chair and began to cry softly like a snuffling animal. No one took any notice of her. Sister Rolfe got stiffly to her feet Holding her hands raised in front of her in the ritual gesture of an operating theatre nurse she walked over to a sink in the corner, nudged on the tap with her elbow, and began to wash her hands. At the wall-mounted telephone the Matron was dialing a five-digit number. They heard her calm voice.

“Is that the Hospital Secretary’s office? Is Mr. Hudson there? If’s Matron.” There was a pause. “Good morning, Mr. Hudson. I am speaking from the ground floor demonstration room in Nightingale House. Could you please come over immediately? Yes. Very urgent I’m afraid something tragic and horrible has happened and it will be necessary for you to telephone the police. No, I’d rather not tell you on the telephone. Thank you.” She replaced the receiver and said quietly: “He’s coming at once. Hell have to put the Vice-Chairman in the picture, too-it’s unfortunate that Sir Marcus is in Israel- but the first thing is to get the police. And now I had better tell the other students.”

Sister Gearing was making an attempt to control herself. She blew loudly into her handkerchief, replaced it in her uniform pocket, and raised a blotched face.

“I’m sorry. It’s the shock, I suppose. It’s just that it was all so horrible. Such an appalling thing to happen. And the first time I’ve taken a class tool And everyone sitting and watching it like that The other students as well. Such a horrible accident.”

“Accident Sister?” Mr. Courtney-Briggs turned from the window. He strode over to her and bent his bull-like head close to hers. His voice was harsh, contemptuous as he almost spat the words into her face. “Accident? Are you suggesting that a corrosive poison found its way into that feed by accident? Or that a girl in her right mind would choose to kill herself in that particularly horrible way? Come, come, Sister, why not be honest for once? What we’ve just witnessed was murder!”