A sudden, fearful death - Anne Perry [43]
“You look tired, Lady Callandra,” he said quietly, intruding into her thoughts.
“I beg your pardon?” She was startled, then realized what he had said. “Oh no, not tired so much as sad, afraid for what will come next.”
“Afraid?”
“I have seen investigations before. People become frightened. One learns so much more about them than one ever wishes to know.” She forced herself to smile. “But that is foolish. I daresay it will all be over quite quickly.” They reached the top of the stairs and stopped. Two student doctors were arguing fiercely a dozen yards away. “Take no notice of what I said,” she went on hastily. “If you have been up most of the night, I’m sure you must wish to rest for a while. It must be nearly time for luncheon by now.”
“Of course. I am keeping you. I apologize.” And with a quick smile, meeting her eyes for a moment, he excused himself and went rapidly along the corridor toward the nearest ward.
* * *
It was early evening before Callandra found Monk, and she observed no ceremony, but plunged straight in to her purpose for coming to his rooms.
“There has been a murder in the hospital,” she said bluntly. “One of the nurses, an exceptional young woman, both honest and diligent. She was strangled, or so it appears, and stuffed into the laundry chute.” She looked at him expectantly.
His hard gray eyes searched her face for several moments before he answered. “What bothers you?” he said at length. “There is something more.”
“Runcorn sent an Inspector Jeavis to investigate,” she replied. “Do you know him?”
“Slightly. He’s very sharp. He’ll probably do an adequate job. Why? Who did it? Do you know, or suspect?”
“No!” she said too quickly. “I have no idea at all. Why would anybody want to murder a nurse?”
“Any number of reasons.” He pulled a face. “The most obvious that come to mind are a lover jilted, a jealous woman, and blackmail. But there are others. She may have witnessed a theft, or another murder that looked like natural death. Hospitals are full of deaths. And there are always love, hate, and jealousy. Was she handsome?”
“Yes, yes she was.” Callandra stared at him. He had said so many ugly things in a bare handful of words, and yet any one of them could be true. At least one of them almost certainly was. One did not strangle a woman without some intense passion. Unless it was the act of a lunatic.
As if reading her thoughts, he spoke.
“I assume the hospital is for the physically sick? It is not a madhouse?”
“No, not at all. What a vile thought.”
“A madhouse?”
“No, I meant that someone quite sane murdered her.”
“Is that what troubles you?”
She considered lying to him, or at least evading the truth, then looked at his face and decided against it.
“Not entirely. I’m afraid Jeavis suspects Dr. Beck, primarily because he is a foreigner and it is he and I who found the body.”
He looked at her closely. “Do you suspect Dr. Beck?”
“No!” Then she blushed for the fierceness of her reply, but it was to late to retreat. He had seen her eagerness and then her immediate knowledge that she had betrayed herself. “No, I think it is extremely unlikely,” she went on. “But I have no confidence in Jeavis. Will you please look into the matter? I will employ you myself, at your usual rate.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” he said acidly. “You have contributed to my well-being ever since I took up this occupation. You are not paying me now because you wish a job done.”
“But I have to.” She looked at him and the words he had intended died on his lips. Callandra continued: “Will you please investigate the murder of Prudence Barrymore? She died this morning, probably between six o’clock and half past seven. Her body was found in the laundry chute at the hospital, and the cause of death seems to have been strangulation. There is not a great deal more I can tell you, except that she was an excellent nurse, one of Miss Nightingale’s women who served in the Crimea. I judge her to be in her early thirties, and of course not married.”
“All very pertinent information,” he agreed.