The Nursing Home Murder

He followed her into that place of frozen elegance. She sat down leisurely, her back to the light.

‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘Sit down, Mr Jameson.’

Ronald said: ‘Thank you so much,’ nervously, and sat on the most uncomfortable chair.

‘I’ve just come back from the House,’ he began. ‘The Prime Minister saw me in his room. He is terribly distressed about—about yesterday. He wished me to tell you that—that he is entirely at your service should there be anything—’

‘So kind of him,’ she said.

‘Of course, he is also very much troubled about the Bill—Sir Derek’s Anarchy Bill, you know. The business arising from it has to go forward, you see, and this tragedy has complicated matters.’ He paused again.

‘I see—yes.’

‘It’s a question of Sir Derek’s private notes. They can do nothing without them. I said that the matter would have to wait until after the—until after tomorrow; but the Prime Minister thinks the whole business is so urgent that he ought to see them immediately. I believe they are in the desk in the study, but of course, before I could do anything about it, I felt I must have your permission.’

She took so long to answer that he felt quite alarmed. At last, looking at her hands which lay delicately clasped on her lap, she said: ‘This Bill. Will it deal with the persons who killed him?’

He was so completely dumbfounded by this amazing inquiry that he could think of nothing to say. He was a young man with a good deal of savoir-faire, but evidently her extraordinary assumption took him unawares.

‘I’m afraid I don’t—do you mean—surely, Lady O’Callaghan, you can’t believe—’ He could get no further with it.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said tranquilly, ‘I’m quite sure they killed him.’

‘But—who?’

‘These people. Anarchists, aren’t they? They threatened to kill my husband. I believe they have done so. I understand his Bill was designed to suppress such persons. Please do anything you can to help it to go forward.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ronald idiotically.

‘Yes. Is that all, Mr Jameson?’

‘But, Lady O’Callaghan—please—have you thought—honestly, you have simply amazed me. It’s a terrible idea. Surely the doctors’ report is clear! Sir Derek had acute peritonitis.’

‘Sir John Phillips said the operation was successful. He was poisoned.’

‘By peritonitis and a ruptured abscess. Really, I can’t think anything else. How could he be deliberately poisoned?’

‘One of the letters threatened poison. The one he had last Monday, it was.’

‘But many leading politicians get letters of that sort. Nothing ever happens. Forgive me, Lady O’Callaghan, but I’m sure you are utterly wrong. How could they have poisoned him? It’s—it’s impossible. I do beg you not to distress yourself.’ He glanced uncomfortably at her placid face. ‘I’m sure you are quite mistaken,’ ended Ronald wildly.

‘Let us go into his room,’ she murmured and, without another word, led the way into O’Callaghan’s study.

They unlocked the desk and she sat and watched, while Ronald went through the papers in the top pigeon-holes.

‘The drawers on the left,’ he explained to her, ‘were used for private correspondence—I did not have anything to do with them.’

‘They will have to be opened. I will do that.’

‘Of course. Here is one of the threatening letters—several—I think all of them. I wanted to show them to Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn at the Yard. Sir Derek wouldn’t allow me to do so.’

‘Let me see them.’

He gave her the bundle of letters and returned to the pigeonholes.

‘Here are his notes,’ he said presently. She did not answer, and he glanced up and was astonished to surprise in her face an expression of some sort of an emotion. She looked venomous.

‘Here is the letter I spoke of,’ she said. ‘You will see that they threaten to poison him.’

‘Yes. I see.’

‘You still do not believe me, Mr Jameson?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘I shall insist upon an inquiry.’

‘An inquiry? Oh Lord!’ said Ronald involuntarily. ‘I mean—I wouldn’t, really, Lady O’Callaghan. It’s—we’ve no grounds for it.’

‘Are you taking these notes to the Prime Minister today?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you tell him, if you please, what I propose to do? You may discuss it with him. In the meantime I shall go through the private letters. Have you the keys of those drawers?’

Ronald took a bunch of keys from the desk, and with an air of reluctance put them in her hand.

‘When is your appointment?’

‘For three o’clock.’

‘It is now only half-past two. Please come and see me before you leave.’

As he left her she was fitting a key to the bottom drawer.

To anybody who had the curiosity to watch him—Nash, the butler, for instance—Ronald Jameson would have appeared to be very much upset. He went up to his bedroom, wandered aimlessly about, smoked three cigarettes, and finally sat on the bed, staring in a sort of trance at a wood-engraving that hung above his dressing-table. At last he looked at his watch, went downstairs, got his hat and umbrella and returned to the study.

He found Lady O’Callaghan seated at the desk with a neatly arranged pile of letters in front of her. She did not turn her head when he came in. She simply stared very fixedly at a paper she held in her hand. It struck him that she had sat like that for some time—while he himself had done much the same thing upstairs in his room. Her face was always pale—she did not use rouge—but he thought now that it was deadly white. There was a thin ridge, like a taut thread, linking her nostrils with the corners of her mouth.

‘Come here,’ she said quietly.

He went and stood by the desk.

‘You told me that night, a week ago, I think, that my husband had received a letter that seemed to upset him. Was this the letter?’

He glanced at it and then looked away.

‘I did not see the letter,’ he stammered. ‘Only the envelope.’