A Sudden Fearful Death

chapter 3
Callandra Daviot had been deeply moved by the story that Monk had brought her regarding Julia Penrose and her sister, but she was helpless to do anything about it, and she was not a woman to spend time and emotion uselessly. There was too much else to do, and at the forefront of her mind was her work in the hospital of which she had spoken when Monk had called only a few short weeks before.

She was a member of the Board of Governors, which generally meant a fairly passive role of giving advice which doctors and treasurers would listen to more or less civilly, and then ignore, and of lecturing nurses on general morality and sobriety, a task she loathed and considered pointless.

There were so many better things to do, beginning with the reforms proposed by Florence Nightingale, which Hester had so fiercely advocated. Light and air in hospital wards were considered quite unnecessary here at home in England, if not downright harmful. The medical establishment was desperately conservative, jealous of its knowledge and privilege, loathing change. There was no place for women except as drudges, or on rare occasions administrators, such as hospital matron, or charitable workers such as herself and other ladies of society who played at the edges, watching other people's morality and using their connections to obtain donations of money.

She set out from home instructing her coachman to take her to the Gray's Inn Road with a sense of urgency which had only partly to do with her plans for reform. She would not have told Monk the truth of it-she did not even admit to herself how profoundly she looked forward to seeing Dr. Kristian Beck again, but whenever she thought of the hospital it was his face that came to her mind, his voice in her ears.

She brought her attention back sharply to the mundane matters in hand. Today she would see the matron, Mrs. Flaherty, a small tense woman who took offense extremely easily and forgave and forgot nothing. She managed her wards efficiently, terrorized the nurses into a remarkable degree of diligence and sobriety, and had a patience with the sick which seemed almost limitless. But she was rigid in her beliefs, her devotion to the surgeons and physicians who ruled the hospital, and her absolute refusal to listen to newfangled ideas and all those who advocated them. Even the name of Florence Nightingale held no magic for her.

Callandra alighted and instructed the coachman when to return for her, then climbed the steps and went in through the wide front doors to the stone-flagged foyer. A middle-aged woman trudged across with a pail of dirty water in one hand and a mop in the other. Her face was pale and her wispy hair screwed into a knot at the back of her head. She banged the pail with her knee and slopped the water over onto the floor without stopping. She ignored Callandra as if she were invisible.

A student surgeon appeared, scarlet arterial blood spatters on his collarless shirt and old trousers, mute evidence of his attendance in the operating theater. He nodded at Callandra and passed by.

There was a smell of coal dust, the heat of bodies in fevers and sickness, stale dressings, and of drains and undisposed sewage. She should go and see the matron about nurses' moral discipline. It was her turn to lecture them again. Then she should see the treasurer about funds and the disposition of certain monies to hand, the review of charity cases. She would do these things first, then she would be free to go and see Krislian Beck.

She found the matron in one of the wards filled with surgical patients, both those awaiting operations and those recovering. Several had developed fevers during the night or become worse, their infections already well advanced. One man was comatose and close to death. Although the recent discovery of anesthesia had made all sorts of procedures possible, many who survived operations died afterwards of infection. Those who survived were a minority. There was no way known to prevent septicemia or gangrene, and little that would treat even the symptoms, let alone provide a cure.

Mrs. Flaherty came out of the small room where the medicines and clean bandages were kept; her thin face was pale, her white hair screwed back so tightly it pulled the skin around her eyes. There were two spots of angry color on her cheeks.

"Good morning, your ladyship," she said brusquely. "There is nothing you can do here today, and I do not want to hear anything more about Miss Nightingale and fresh air. We've got poor souls dying of fevers, and outside air will kill the rest if we listen to you." She consulted the watch hanging from a pin on her thin shoulder, then she looked back at Callandra. "I'd be obliged, ma'am, if next time you talk to the nurses about morals and behavior, you would particularly mention honesty. We've had more thefts from patients. Just small things, of course, they haven't got much or they'd not be here. Although I don't know what good you think it will do, I'm sure."

She came out into the ward, a long room with a high ceiling, lined on both sides with narrow beds, each blanketed in gray and with someone either sitting or lying in it. Some were pale-faced, others feverish, some restless, tossing from side to side, some lying motionless, breathing shallowly, gasping for air. The room was hot and smelled stale and close.

A young woman in a soiled overall walked down the length of the floor between the beds carrying an uncovered pail of slops. The odor of it, strong and sour, assailed Callandra's nostrils as she passed.

"I'm sorry," Callandra replied, snatching her attention back to the matron's request. "Lecturing them isn't the answer. We need to get a different kind of woman into the trade, and then treat them accordingly."

Mrs. Flaherty's face creased with irritation. She had heard these arguments before and they were fanciful and completely impractical.

"All very nice, your ladyship," she said tartly. "But we have got to deal with what we have, and we have laziness, drunkenness, thieving, and complete irresponsibility. If you want to help, you'll do something about that, not talk about situations that will never be."

Callandra opened her mouth to argue, but her attention was distracted by a woman halfway down the ward starting to choke, and the patient next to her calling out for help.

A pale, obese woman appeared with an empty slop pail and lumbered over to the gasping patient, who began to vomit.

"That's the digitalis leaves," Mrs. Flaherty said matter-of-factly. "The poor creature is dropsical. Passed no urine for days, but this will help. She's been in here before and recovered." She turned away and looked back toward her table, where she had been writing notes on medications and responses. The heavy keys hanging in her belt jangled against each other. "Now if you will excuse me," she went on, her back to Callandra, "I've got a great deal to do, and I'm sure you have." Her voice on the last remark was tight with sarcasm.

"Yes," Callandra said equally tartly. "Yes I have. I am afraid you will have to ask someone else to lecture the nurses, Mrs. Flaherty; perhaps Lady Ross Gilbert would do that. She seems very capable."

"She is," Mrs. Flaherty said meaningfully, then sat down at her table and picked up her pen. It was dismissal.

Callandra left the ward, walking along a dim corridor past a woman with a bucket and scrubbing brush, and another woman seeming no more than a heap of laundry piled up against the wall, insensible with alcohol.

At the end of the corridor she encountered a group of three young student doctors talking together eagerly, heads close, hands gesticulating.

"It's this big," one red-haired youth said, holding up his clenched fist. "Sir Herbert is going to cut it out. Thank God I live when I do. Just think how hopeless that would have been twelve years ago before anesthetic. Now with ether or nitrous oxide, nothing is impossible."

"Greatest thing since Harvey and the circulation of blood," another agreed enthusiastically. "My grandfather was a naval surgeon in Nelson's fleet Had to do everything with a bottle of rum and a leather gag, and two men to hold you down. My God, isn't modern medicine wonderful. Damn, I've got blood all over my trousers." He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, dabbed at himself without effect, except to stain the handkerchief scarlet.

"Don't know why you're wasting your time," the third young man said, regarding his efforts with a smile. "You're assisting, aren't you? You'll only get covered again. Shouldn't have worn a good suit. I never do. That'll teach you to be vain just because it's Sir Herbert."

They jostled each other in mock battle, passing Callandra with a brief word of acknowledgment, and went on across the foyer toward the operating theater.

A moment later Sir Herbert Stanhope himself came out of one of the large oak doorways. He saw Callandra and hesitated, as if searching his mind to recollect her name. He was a large man, not especially tall but portly and of imposing manner. His face was ordinary enough at a glance: narrow eyes, sharp nose, high brow, and receding sandy hair. It was only with closer attention one was acutely aware of the power of his intellect and the emotional intensity of his concentration.

"Good morning, Lady Callandra," he said with sudden satisfaction.

"Good morning, Sir Herbert," she replied, smiling very slightly. "I'm glad I've managed to see you before you begin operating."

"I'm somewhat in a hurry," he said with a flicker of irritation. "My staff will be waiting for me in the theater, and I daresay my patient will be coming any moment."

"I have an observation which may be able to reduce infection to some extent," she continued, regardless of his haste.

"Indeed," he said skeptically, a tiny wrinkle of temper between his brows. "And what idea is that, pray?"

"I was in the ward a moment ago and observed, not for the first time, a nurse carrying a pail of slops the length of the room without a lid."

"Slops are inevitable, ma'am," he said impatiently. "People pass waste, and frequently it is disagreeable when they are ill. They also vomit. It is in the nature, both of disease and of cure."

Callandra kept her patience with difficulty. She was not a short-tempered woman, but being patronized she found exceedingly hard to bear.

"I am aware of that, Sir Herbert. But by the very nature that it is waste expelled by the body, the fumes are noxious and cannot be good to inhale again. Would it not be a simple thing to have the nurses use covers for the pails?"

There was a burst of raucous laughter somewhere around the corner of the corridor. Sir Herbert's mouth tightened with distaste.

"Have you ever tried to teach nurses to observe rules, ma'am?" He said it with a faint touch of humor, but there was no pleasure in it. "As was observed in the Times last year-I cannot quote precisely, but it was to the effect that nurses are lectured by committees, preached at by chaplains, scowled on by treasurers and stewards, scolded by matrons, bullied by dressers, grumbled at and abused by patients, insulted if old, treated with flippancy if middle-aged and agreeable-natured, seduced if young." He raised his thin eyebrows. "Is it any wonder they are such as they are? What manner of woman would one expect to take such employment?"

"I read the same piece," she agreed, moving to keep level with him as he began to walk toward the distant operating theater. "You omitted to mention that they are also sworn at by surgeons. It said that too." She ignored the momentary flicker of temper in his eyes. 'That is perhaps the best of all the arguments for employing a better class of woman, and treating them as professionals rather than the roughest of servants."

"My dear Lady Callandra, it is all very well to talk as if there were hundreds of wellborn and intelligent young women of good moral character queuing up to perform the service, but since the glamour of war is past that is very far from being the case." He shook his head sharply. "Surely a moment's investigation would show you that? Idealistic daydreams are all very pleasant, but I have to deal in reality. I can only work with what there is, and the truth is that the women you see keep the fire stoked, the slops emptied, the bandages rolled, and most of them, when sober, are kind enough to the sick."

The hospital treasurer passed them, dressed in black and carrying a pile of ledgers. He nodded in their direction but did not stop to speak.

"By all means," Sir Herbert continued even more brusquely, "if you wish to provide covers for the pails, do what you can to see that they are used. In the meantime, I must report to the operating theater where my patient will come any minute. Good day to you ma'am." And without waiting for her to reply, he turned on his well-shod and polished heel and went across the foyer to the far corridor.

Callandra had scarcely drawn breath when she saw an ashen-faced woman, supported on both sides by solemn-eyed men, making her painful way toward the corridor where Sir Herbert had gone. Seemingly she was the patient whom he had expected.

It was only after a tedious but dutiful hour with the black-coated treasurer discussing finances, donations, and gifts that Callandra encountered one of the other governors, the one of whom Mrs. Flaherty had spoken so approvingly, Lady Ross Gilbert. Callandra was on the landing at the top of the stairs when Berenice Ross Gilbert caught up with her. She was a tall woman who moved with a kind of elegance and ease which made even the most ordinary clothes seem as if they must be in the height of fashion. Today she wore a gown with a waist deeply pointed at the front and a soft green muslin skirt with three huge flounces, scattered randomly with embroidered flowers. It flattered her reddish hair and pale complexion, and her face with its heavy-lidded eyes and rather undershot jaw was extremely handsome in its own way.

"Good morning, Callandra," she said with a smile, swinging her skirts around the newel post and starting down the stairs beside her. "I hear you had a slight difference with Mrs. Flaherty earlier today." She pulled a face expressive of amused resignation. "I should forget Miss Nightingale if I were you. She is something of a romantic, and her ideas hardly apply to us."

"I didn't mention Miss Nightingale," Callandra replied, going down beside her. "I simply said I did not wish to lecture the nurses on honesty and sobriety."

Berenice laughed abruptly. "It would be a complete waste of your time, my dear. The only difference it would produce would be to make Mrs. Flaherty feel justified that she made an attempt."

"Has she not asked you to do it?" Callandra asked curiously.

"But of course. And I daresay I shall agree, and then say what I wish when the time comes."

"She will not forgive you," Callandra warned. "Mrs. Flaherty forgives nothing. By the way, what do you want to say?"

"I really don't know," Berenice replied airily. "Nothing as fiercely as you do."

They came to the bottom of the stairs.

"Really, my dear, you know you have no hope of getting people to keep windows open in this climate. They would freeze to death. Even in the Indies, you know, we kept the night air out. It isn't healthy, warm as it is."

"That is rather different," Callandra argued. "They have all manner of fevers out there."

"We have cholera, typhoid, and smallpox here," Berenice pointed out. "There was a serious outbreak of cholera near here only five years ago, which argues my point. One should keep the windows closed, in the sickroom especial-ly."

They began to walk along the corridor.

"How long did you live in the Indies?" Callandra asked. "Where was it, Jamaica?"

"Oh, fifteen years," Berenice answered. "Yes, Jamaica most of the time. My family had plantations there. A very agreeable life." She shrugged her elegant shoulders. "But tedious when one longs for society and the excitement of London. It is the same people week after week. After a time one feels one has met everyone of any significance and heard everything they have to say."

They had reached a turn in the corridor and Berenice seemed to intend going into a ward to the left. Callandra wished to find Kristian Beck and thought it most likely that at this time of day he would be in his own rooms, where he studied, saw patients, and kept his books and papers, and that lay to the right.

"It must have been a wrench for you to leave, all the same," she said without real interest. "England would be very different, and you would miss your family."

Berenice smiled. "There was not so much to leave by the time I came away. Plantations are no longer the profitable places they used to be. I can remember going to the slave market in Kingston when I was a child, but of course slaving is illegal now and has been for years." She brushed her hand over her huge skirts, knocking off a piece of loose thread that cling to the cloth.

With that she laughed a little dryly and walked away along the corridor, leaving Callandra to go the other way toward Kristian Beck's rooms. Suddenly she was nervous, her hands hot, her tongue clumsy. This was ridiculous. She was a middle-aged widow, of no glamour at all, going to call upon a busy doctor, nothing more, nothing of any other meaning.

She knocked on the door abruptly.

"Come in." His voice was startlingly deep and touched by an almost imperceptible trace of accent she could not place. It was mid-European, but from which country she did not know, and had not asked him.

She turned the handle and pushed the door open.

He was standing at the table in front of the window, papers spread out in front of him, and he looked around to see who it was who had come in. He was not a tall man but there was a sense of power in him, both physical and emotional. His face was dominated by dark eyes that were of a beautiful shape and a mouth both sensual and humorous. His expression of preoccupation vanished when he saw her and was replaced immediately with one of pleasure.

"Lady Callandra. How good to see you again. I hope your visit does not mean that there is something wrong?"

"Nothing new." She closed the door behind her. Before she came she had formulated a good excuse for being here, but now the words escaped her. "I have been trying to prevail upon Sir Herbert to have the nurses cover the slop pails," she said rather too quickly. "But I don't think he sees much purpose to it. He was on his way to the operating theater, and I had the feeling his mind was on his patient."

"So you are going to persuade me instead?" His smile was sudden and wide. "I have never yet found above two or three nurses in the hospital who can remember an order for more than a day at a time, never mind carrying it out. The poor souls are harried from every quarter, hungry half the time and drunk the other half." His smile vanished again. "They do their best according to their lights, for the most part."

His eyes lit with enthusiasm and he leaned against the table, engaging her attention. "You know, I have been reading the most interesting paper. This doctor, sailing from the Indies home to England, contracted a fever and treated himself by going out on deck at night, stripped of his clothes, and taking a cold shower with buckets of seawater. Can you believe that?' He was watching her, searching the expression in her eyes. "It relieved his symptoms marvelously and he slept well and was restored by morning. Then in the evening his fever returned and he treated it the same way, and was again restored. Each time the attack was slighter, and by the time the ship docked he was fully himself."

She was astounded, but his eagerness carried her along.

"Can you imagine Mrs. Flaherty if you tried drenching your patients with buckets of cold water?" She tried not to laugh but her voice was shaking, not so much with amusement as with nervousness. "I cannot even persuade her to open the windows in the sunlight let alone at night!"

"I know," he said quickly. "I know, but we are making new discoveries every year." He grasped the chair between them and turned it so it was convenient for her to sit, but she ignored it. "I've just been reading a paper by Carl Vierordt on counting human blood corpuscles." He moved closer to her in his keenness. "He has devised a way, can you imagine that?" He held up the paper as he said it, his eyes alight. "With this kind of precision, think what we might learn!" He offered her the paper as if he would share with her his pleasure.

She took it, smiling in spite of herself and meeting his gaze.

"Look," he commanded.

Obediently she looked down at the paper. It was in German. He saw her confusion, "Oh, I'm sorry." A faint pink flushed up his cheeks. "I find I speak with you so easily, I forget you do not read German. Shall I tell you what it says?" He so obviously wanted to that it was impossible to deny him, even had she thought of it.

"Please do," she encouraged. "It sounds a most desirable treatment."

He looked surprised. "Do you think so? I should hate to be drenched with buckets of cold water."

She smiled broadly. "Not from the patient's view perhaps. I was thinking of ours. Cold water is cheap and readily available almost everywhere, and requires no skill to administer, nor can the dosage be mistaken, A bucketful too much or too little will make no difference."

His face relaxed into sudden, delightful laughter. "Oh, of course. I fear you are far more practical than I. I find women often are." Then as quickly his expression became grim again, brows drawn down. "That is why I wish we could draw more intelligent and confident women into the treatment of the sick. We have one or two nurses here who are excellent, but there is little future for them unless beliefs change a great deal." He regarded her earnestly. "There is one in particular, a Miss Barrymore, who was with Miss Nightingale in the Crimea. She is remarkable in her perception, but I regret not everyone admires her as they might." He sighed, smiling at her with sudden total candor, an intimacy that sent a warmth racing through her. "I seem to have caught your zeal for reform."

He was saying it as if joking, but she knew he meant it with the utmost seriousness, and that he intended her to know it.

She was about to reply when there was a shout of anger in the passage outside, a woman's voice raised in furious temper. Instinctively both of them turned toward the door, listening.

Another angry shout followed a moment later, then a shriek as of pain and rage.

Kristian went to the door and opened it. Callandra followed and looked outside. There were no windows, and no gas lit during the day. A few yards along in the dim light two women were struggling together, the long hair of one of them hanging loose and untidy, and even as they watched, her opponent made another lunge to snatch at it and pull.

"Stop it!" Callandra shouted as she passed Kristian and advanced on the women. "What is it? What's the matter with you?"

They stopped for a moment, largely out of sheer surprise. One of them was in her late twenties, plain-faced, but not unappealing. The other was at least ten years older and already looking worn and aged by hard living and too many drunken nights.

"What is it?" Callandra demanded again. "What are you fighting about?"

"The laundry chute," the younger said sullenly. "She blocked it by putting the linen in it all in a bundle." She glared at the older woman. "Now nothing will go through and we'll all have to carry everything right down to the boilers ourselves. As if there weren't enough to do without going up and down them stairs every time there is a sheet to change."

For the first time, Callandra noticed the bundle of soiled sheets on the floor by the wall.

"I didn't," the older woman said defiantly. "I put one sheet down. How can you block it with one sheet?" Her voice rose in indignation. "You've got to be a real clever bitch to put down less than one at a time. What do you want? I should tear it in 'alf, then sew it back together when it's clean again?" She stared belligerently at her foe.

"Let us see," Kristian said behind Callandra. He excused himself between the nurses and looked down the open chute which took linen straight to the laundry and the huge copper boilers where it was washed. He peered down it for several seconds and they all waited in silence.

"I cannot see anything," he said finally, stepping back again. 'There must be something blocking the way or I would be able to see the baskets at the bottom, or at least a light. But we will argue later as to who put it there. In the meantime, the thing is to remove it" He looked around for something to accomplish the task, and saw nothing.

"A broom?" Callandra suggested. "Or a window pole. Anything with a long handle."

The nurses stood still.

"Go on," Callandra commanded impatiently. "Go and find one. There must be a window pole in the ward." She pointed at the nearest ward entrance along the corridor. "Don't stand around, fetch it!"

Grudgingly the younger woman started, hesitated, and glared back at her companion, then continued on her way.

Callandra peered down the chute. She could see nothing either. Obviously the obstruction blocked it entirely, but how far down it was, she could not judge. = The nurse came back with a long-handled window pole and gave it to Kristian, who poked it down the chute. But even when he leaned as far as he could, he met with no resistance. The obstruction, whatever it was, was beyond his reach.

"We'll have to go down and see if we can dislodge it from below," he said after another unsuccessful try.

"Er-" The younger nurse cleared her throat.

They all turned and looked at her.

"Dr. Beck, sir."

"Yes?"

"Lally, she's one of the skivvies what does in the operating theater and like. She's only thirteen and she's made like a nine-penny rabbit. She could slide down there easy, and there's laundry baskets at the bottom, so she wouldn't hurt herself."

Kristian hesitated only a moment.

"Good idea. Fetch her, will you?" He turned to Callandra. "We should go down to the laundry room to make sure there's a soft landing for her."

"Yes sir, I'll go for her," the younger nurse said, and she went quickly, breaking into a run as she turned the corner.

Callandra, Kristian, and the other nurse went the opposite way, to the stairs and down to the basement and the dark, gas-lit passages to the laundry room where the huge coppers belched steam and the pipes clanked and rattled and poured out boiling water. Women with rolled-up sleeves heaved wet linen on the end of wooden poles, muscles straining, faces flushed, hair dripping. One or two looked around at the unusual intrusion of a man, then immediately returned to their labor.

Kristian went over to the base of the laundry chute and peered up, then backed out again and glanced at Callandra. He shook his head.

She pushed one of the large wicker baskets closer under the bottom of the chute and picked up a couple of bundles of dirty sheets to soften the fall.

"It shouldn't have got stuck," Kristian said, frowning. "Sheets are soft enough to slide, even if too many are poked down at once. Maybe someone has been putting rubbish in as well."

"We'll soon know," she replied, standing beside him and looking up expectantly.

They had not long to wait. There was a muffled call from above, faint and completely indistinguishable, then a moment's silence, a shriek, a curious shuffling noise, another shriek. A woman landed in the laundry basket, her skirts awry, arms and legs awkward. Straight after came the small, thin form of the skivvy, who shrieked again and scrambled to her feet, clambering like a monkey to escape the basket and falling onto the floor, wailing loudly.

Kristian bent forward to help the other woman up, then his face darkened and he moved his hand to hold Callandra back. But it was too late. She had already looked down and knew as soon as she saw her that the woman was dead. There was no mistaking the ashen quality of her skin, the bluish lips, and above all, the terrible bruises on her throat.

"It's Nurse Barrymore," Kristian said huskily, his voice catching in his throat. He did not add that she was dead; he saw in Callandra's eyes that she knew not only that, but also that it had been no illness or accident which had caused it. Instinctively he stretched out his hand as if to touch her, almost as if some compassion could still reach her.

"No," Callandra said softly. "Don't..."

He opened his mouth as though to remonstrate, then realized its uselessness. He stared down at the dead woman's body, his eyes rilled with sadness. "Why would anyone want to do this to her?" he said helplessly. Without thinking, Callandra put her hand on his arm, gripping it gently.

"We can't know yet. But we must call the police. It seems to be murder."

One of the laundry women turned around, perhaps her attention caught by the skivvy, who was beginning to shriek again, and she saw the arm of the dead woman above the edge of the laundry basket. She came over and gaped at the corpse, then screamed.

"Murder!" She drew in her breath and screamed again, piercingly, her voice high and shrill even above the hiss of steam and clatter of pipes. "Murder! Help! Murder!"

All the other women stopped their work and crowded around, some wailing, some shrieking, one slithering to the floor in a faint. No one took any notice of the skivvy.

"Stop it!" Kristian ordered sharply. "Stop this minute and go back to your work!"

Some power in him, some tone or manner, caught their innate fear of authority, and one by one they fell silent, then retreated. But no one returned to the coppers or the piles of steaming laundry gradually cooling on the slabs and in the tubs.

Kristian turned to Callandra.

"You had better go and inform Sir Herbert, and have him call the police," he said quietly. "This is not something we can deal with ourselves. I'll stay here and make sure no one disturbs her. And you'd better take the skivvy, poor child, and have someone look after her."

"She'll tell everyone," Callandra warned. "No doubt with a great deal added. We'll have half the hospital thinking there's been a massacre. There'll be hysterics and the patients will suffer."

He hesitated a moment, weighing what she had said.

"Then you'd better take her to the matron and explain why. Then go and see Sir Herbert. I'D keep the laundry-women here."

She smiled and nodded very slightly. There was no need for further words. She turned away and went to where the skivvy was standing, pressed up against the capacious form of one of the silent laundrywomen. Her thin face was bloodless and her skinny arms were folded tightly around her body as if hugging herself to keep from shaking so violently she would fall over.

Callandra held out her hand toward her.

"Come," she said gently. "I'll take you upstairs where you can sit down and have a cup of tea before you go back to work." She did not mention Mrs. Flaherty; she knew most of the nurses and skivvies were terrified of her, and justly so.

The child stared at her, but there was nothing awe-inspiring in her mild face and untidy hair and rather comfortable figure in its stuff gown. She bore no resemblance whatever to the thin fierce person of Mrs. Flaherty.

"Come on," she said again, (his time more briskly.

Obediently the child detached herself and followed a step behind as she was accustomed.

It did not take long to find Mrs. Flaherty. All the hospital knew where she was. Word ran like a warning whenever she passed. Bottles were put away, mops were pushed harder, heads bent in attention to labor.

"Yes, your ladyship, what is it now?" she said grimly, her eyes going to the skivvy with displeasure. "Not sick, is she?"

"No, Matron, only badly frightened," Callandra answered. "I'm afraid we have discovered a corpse in the laundry chute, and this poor child was the one who found her. I'm about to go to Sir Herbert and have him fetch the police."

"Whatever for?" Mrs. Flaherty snapped. "For goodness sake, there's nothing odd about a corpse in a hospital, although for the life of me, I can't think how it got to be in the laundry chute." Her face darkened with disapproval. "I hope it is not one of the young doctors with a puerile sense of what is amusing."

"No one could find this amusing, Mrs. Flaherty." Callandra was surprised to find her voice so calm. "It was Nurse Barrymore, and she has not died naturally. I am going to report the matter to Sir Herbert and I should be obliged if you would see to this child and make sure she does not unintentionally cause hysteria by speaking of it to others. It will be known soon enough, but for the meantime it would be better if we were prepared for it."

Mrs. Flaherty looked startled. "Not naturally? What do you mean?"

But Callandra was not going to discuss it further. She smiled bleakly and left without answering, Mrs. Flaherty staring after in confusion and anger.

Sir Herbert Stanhope was in the operating theater and apparently due to remain there for some considerable time. The matter would not wait, so she simply opened the door and went in. It was not a large room; a side table with instruments laid out took much of the space and there were already several people inside. Two student doctors assisted and learned, a third more senior watched the bottles of nitrous oxide and monitored the patient's breathing. A nurse stood by to pass instruments as required. The patient lay insensible upon the table, white-faced, her upper body naked and a bloody wound in the chest half closed. Sir Herbert Stanhope stood at her side, needle in his hand, blood staining his shirtsleeves and forearms.

Everyone stared at Callandra.

"What are you doing here, madam?" Sir Herbert demanded. "You have no business to interrupt an operation! Will you please leave immediately!"

She had expected a reception of this nature and she was not perturbed.

"There is a matter which cannot wait until you are concluded, Sir Herbert," she replied.

"Get some other doctor!" he snapped, turning away from her and resuming his stitching.

"Please keep your attention upon what I am doing, gentlemen," he went on, addressing the student doctors. He obviously assumed that Callandra would accept his dismissal and leave without further ado.

"There has been a murder in the hospital, Sir Herbert," Callandra said loudly and distinctly. "Do you wish me to inform the police, or would you prefer to do that yourself?"

He froze, his hands in the air with needle poised. Still he did not look at her. The nurse sucked in her breath sharply. One of the student doctors made a choking sound and grasped the edge of the table.

"Don't be absurd!" Sir Herbert snapped. "If a patient has died unexpectedly I will attend to it when I'm finished here." He turned slowly to look at Callandra. His face was pale and there were sharp lines of anger between his brows.

"One of the nurses has been strangled and stuffed down the laundry chute," Callandra said slowly and very clearly. "That can hardly be called a misjudgment. It is beyond question a crime, and if you cannot leave here to summon the police, I will do so on your behalf. The body will remain where it is. Dr. Beck is seeing that it is not disturbed."

There was a sharp hiss of breath between teeth. One of the student doctors let slip a blasphemy.

Sir Herbert lowered his hands, still holding the bloody needle and its long thread. He faced Callandra, his eyes bright, his face tight.

"One of the nurses?" he repeated very slowly. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Callandra answered. "It is Barrymore."

"Oh." He hesitated. "That is appalling. Yes, by all means, you'd better call the police. I shall finish here and be available to meet them by the time they arrive. You had better take a hansom yourself rather than send a messenger, and for goodness sake be as discreet as you can. We don't want a panic in the place. The sick will suffer." His expression darkened. "Who else knows of it already, apart from Dr. Beckf'

"Mrs. Flaherty, the laundrywomen, and one skivvy whom I asked Mrs. Flaherty to watch over, for that reason."

"Good." His expression relaxed a little. "Then you had better leave immediately. I should be ready when you return." He did not apologize for not having listened to her immediately, or for his rudeness, not that she had expected him to.

She took a hansom cab, as he had suggested, and ordered the driver to take her to Monk's old police station. It was probably the closest, and it was certainly the one of which she knew the address and where she was confident of finding a senior officer with a proper sense of discretion. She used her title to obtain immediate attention.

"Lady Callandra." Runcorn rose from his seat as soon as she was shown in. He came over to greet her, extending his hand, then changing his mind and bowing very slightly instead. He was a tall man with a narrow face bordering on handsome in a certain manner, but it was belied by lines of temper around his mouth and a lack of assurance which one would not have expected in an officer of his seniority. One had only to look at him to know that he and Monk could never be at ease with each other. Monk was assured, even arrogant, his convictions deeply seated and dominated by intellect, his ambition boundless. Runcorn held his convictions equally deeply, but lacked the personal confidence. His emotions were uncertain, his humor simple. His ambition was also keen but his vulnerability was plain in his face. He could be swayed and cut by what other people thought of him.

"Good morning, Mr. Runcom," Callandra replied with a light smile. She accepted the seat he offered her. "I regret I have a crime to report and it may prove to be a sensitive matter. I wished to tell you of it in person rather than find a constable in the street. I'm afraid it is very serious."

"Indeed." Already he looked in some indefinable way satisfied, as though the fact she had confided in him were an accolade. "I am sorry to hear it. Is it a matter of robbery?"

"No." She dismissed robbery as of no consequence. "It is murder."

His complacency disappeared but his attention quickened. "Who has been killed, ma'am? I will see that my very best officer is on the case straightaway. Where did this happen?"

"In the Royal Free Hospital on the Gray's Inn Road," she replied. "One of the nurses has been strangled and placed down the laundry chute. I have come straight from there. Sir Herbert Stanhope is the chief medical officer and a surgeon of some note."

"I've heard of him, of course. An excellent man." Runcorn nodded. "Indeed, an excellent man. He sent you to report this matter?"

"In a sense." It was foolish to resent the reference to Sir Herbert, as if he had taken charge and she were merely a messenger, and yet she knew that was what it would come to in the end. "I was one of those who found the body," she added.

"Most distressing for you," Runcorn said sympathetically. "May I send for something to restore you? Perhaps a cup of tea?"

"No thank you," she said rather more briskly than she had meant. She was shaken and her mouth felt dry. "No thank you. I should prefer to return to the hospital and allow your officer to begin his investigation of the matter," she added. "I have left Dr. Beck standing guard over the corpse to see that nothing is moved or altered. He has been there for some time by now."

"Of course. Most commendable of you, ma'am." Runcorn said it with what he doubtless intended to be approval, but to Callandra it sounded intolerably condescending. She nearly asked him if he had expected her to behave like a fool and leave the body for anyone to move or alter, but recalled herself only just in time. She was more distressed than she had thought. She found to her surprise that her hands were trembling. She thrust them into the concealing folds of her skirt so Runcom would not see them. She stared at him expectantly.

He rose to his feet, excusing himself, and went to the door, opening it and calling in a constable. "Send Inspector Jeavis up here right away. I have a new case for him and Sergeant Evan."

The answer was indistinguishable, but it was barely a few moments before a dark saturnine man put his head around the door inquiringly, then followed immediately, his lean body dressed in very formal black trousers and a black frock coat. A white winged collar made him look like a city clerk or an undertaker. His manner was peculiarly both hesitant and assured. He looked at Runcorn and then at Callandra, as if to ask permission, though he did not wait for it but stood equally between them.

"Jeavis, this is Lady Callandra Daviot," Runcorn began, then he realized he had made a social error. He should have presented him to her, not the other way around. He blushed angrily but there was no way to retrieve it.

Without thought Callandra rescued him. It was the instinctive thing to do.

"Thank you for sending for Mr. Jeavis so rapidly, Mr. Runcorn. I'm sure it will prove to be the best arrangement possible. Good morning, Mr. Jeavis."

"Good morning, ma'am." He bowed very slightly, and she found him instantly irritating. He had a sallow face and thick black hair and very fine eyes, the darkest she had ever seen, but curiously light brows. It was unfair to prejudge the man, and she knew it even while she did it. "Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what crime you have suffered?" he inquired.

"None at all," she replied hastily. "I am on the Board of Governors at the Royal Free Hospital in the Gray's Inn Road. We have just discovered the corpse of one of our young nurses in the laundry chute. She appears to have been strangled."

"Oh dear. How very unpleasant. When you say 'we,' ma'am, whom precisely do you mean?" Jeavis asked. In spite of his obsequious manner his look was penetrating and highly intelligent. She had the sense of being very thoroughly weighed and that the judgment would have none of the social deference he suggested outwardly.

"Myself and Dr. Kristian Beck, who is one of the physicians at the hospital," she replied. "And in a sense the women in the laundry room, and a child who is employed as a skivvy."

"Indeed. What caused you to be examining the laundry chute, ma'am?" His head cocked curiously to one side. "Surely that is not part of the duties of a lady such as yourself?"

She explained to him how it had come about and he listened without taking his eyes from her face.

Runcorn fidgeted from one foot to the other, uncertain whether to interrupt or not, and at a loss for something to say to keep his place in the proceedings.

There was a knock on the door, and on Runcorn's command John Evan came in. His lean young face lit up when he saw Callandra, but in spite of past circumstances and commitments shared he had enough aplomb to affect merely recognition and no more.

"Good morning, Sergeant," she said formally.

"Good morning, ma'am," he replied, then looked inquiringly at Runcorn.

"A murder in the Royal Free Hospital," Runcorn said, seizing the chance to regain control. "You will go with Inspector Jeavis and investigate. Keep me informed of all your findings."

"Yes sir."

"Oh, Jeavis," Runcorn added as Jeavis opened the door for Callandra.

"Yes sir."

"Don't forget to report to Sir Herbert Stanhope at the hospital. Don't go blundering in as if it were a manhunt down the Whitechapel Road. Remember who he is!"

"Naturally sir," Jeavis said soothingly, but his face tightened with a quick flick of temper. He did not like to be reminded of social niceties.

Evan shot a rapid glance at Callandra, amusement glinting in his hazel eyes, and a wealth of memory and silent humor passed between them.

Back in the hospital it was entirely different By the time they came in, in spite of Mrs. Flaherty's best efforts, the news was everywhere. The chaplain hurried up to them, coattails flapping, his round eyes startled. Then when he realized just who Jeavis was, he recovered again hastily, muttered something no one could distinguish, offered a hurried imprecation, and disappeared clutching his prayer book in both hands.

A young nurse stared inquisitively before going away about her duty. The treasurer shook his head with foreboding and directed them to Sir Herbert's rooms.

Sir Herbert met them at the door, opening it wide to show the gracious interior, carpeted in Prussian blue, gleaming with polished wood, and a bar of sunlight across the floor from the southern window.

"Good day, Inspector," he said gravely. "Please come in and I shall give you all the information I have in this affair. Thank you, Lady Callandra. You have discharged your duty excellently. Indeed, more than your duty, and we are all most obliged." As he ushered Jeavis and Evan inside, at the same time he stood so that he blocked the way for Callandra. There was nothing she could do but accept the dismissal and go back down to the laundry room to see if Kristian was still there.

The huge basement was full of steam again; copper pipes gurgled and clanked, the vast boiler hissed when the lid was lifted off and the laundrywomen poked in wooden poles to lever out the linen and carried it, arms straining, over to the sinks that lined the far wall. The sinks were mounted with giant mangles through which the linen was pressed to remove as much of the water as possible. Work had resumed, time and taskmasters waited for no one, and the corpse had lost their immediate interest. Most of the women had seen plenty of corpses before. Death came often enough.

Kristian was still standing near the laundry basket, his back to it, leaning a little on its rim to take his weight. As soon as he saw Callandra his head lifted and his eyes met her questioningly.

"The police are in with Sir Herbert," she said in answer to his unspoken question. "A man called Jeavis; I suppose he's quite good."

He looked at her more closely. "You sound doubtful."

She sighed. "I wish it were William Monk."

"The detective who went into private work?" There was a flash of humor across his face, so quick she barely caught it.

"He would have had..." She stopped, unsure what she meant. No one could say that Monk was sensitive. He was as ruthless as a juggernaut.

Kristian was waiting, trying to read her meaning.

She smiled at him. "Imagination, intelligence," she said, knowing that was still not quite what she meant. "The perception to see beyond the obvious," she went on. "And no one would have fobbed him off with a suitable answer if it was not the truth."

"You have a high regard for him," Kristian observed, his dry rueful smile returning. "Let us hope Mr. Jeavis is as gifted." He looked back at the basket. There was an unwashed sheet now folded over to cover the dead face. "Poor woman," he said very gently. "She was a good nurse, you know; in fact, I think she was the best here. What a ridiculous tragedy that she should come all through the campaigns in the Crimea, the danger and the disease, and the ocean voyages, to die at the hands of some criminal in a London hospital." He shook his head and there was a terrible sadness in his face. "Why would anyone want to kill such a woman?"

"Why indeed?" Jeavis had arrived without either of them being aware of him. "You knew her, Dr. Beck?"

Kristian looked startled. "Of course." His voice rose with irritation. "She was a nurse here. We all knew her."

"But you knew her personally?" Jeavis persisted, his dark eyes fixed almost accusingly on Kristian's face.

"If you mean did I know her outside her duties here in the hospital, no I did not," Kristian answered, his expression narrowing.

Jeavis grunted and moved over to the laundry basket. With delicate fingers he picked up the sheet and pulled it back. He looked at the dead woman. Callandra looked at her again carefully.

Prudence Barrymore had been in her early thirties, a very tall woman, slender. Perhaps in life she had been elegant; now with the awkwardness of death, there was no grace in her at all. She lay with arms and legs sprawled, one foot poking up, her skirts fallen back to reveal a long shapely leg. Her face was ashen now, but even with the blood coursing she must have been pale-skinned. Her hair was medium brown, her brows level and delicately marked, her mouth wide and sensitive. It was a passionate face, individual, full of humor and strength.

Callandra could remember her vividly, even though they had always met hastily, and about their separate duties. But Prudence Barrymore had been a reformer with a burning zeal, and few people in the hospital had been unaware of her. Not many were as interesting alive as she had been, and it seemed a vicious mockery that she should be lying here emptied of all that had made her vivid and special, nothing left but a vacated shell beyond feeling or awareness, and yet looking so terribly vulnerable.

"Cover her up," Callandra said instinctively.

"In a moment, ma'am." Jeavis held up his arm as if to prevent Callandra from doing it herself. "In a moment. Strangled, you said? Yes indeed. Looks like it. Poor creature." He stared at the deep-colored marks on her neck. It was horribly easy to imagine them as fingerprints of someone pressing harder and harder until there was no air left, no breath, no life.

"A nurse, was she?" Jeavis was looking at Kristian. "Work with you, did she, Doctor?"

"Sometimes," Kristian agreed. "She worked more often with Sir Herbert Stanhope, especially on his more difficult cases. She was an excellent nurse, and to the best of my belief, a fine woman. I never heard anyone speak ill of her."

Jeavis stood motionless, his dark eyes beneath their pale brows fixed on Kristian.

"Most interesting. What made you look in the laundry chute, Doctor?"

"It was blocked," Kristian replied. 'Two of the nurses were having trouble trying to put soiled sheets down, and unable to get them to go all the way. Lady Callandra and I went to their assistance."

"I see. And how did you dislodge the body?"

"We sent one of the skivvies who works here, a child of about thirteen. She slid down the chute and her weight moved the body."

"Very efficient," Jeavis said dryly. "If a little hard on the child. Still, I suppose working in a hospital she's seen many dead bodies before." His sharp nose wrinkled very slightly.

"We did not know it was a dead body," Kristian said in distaste. "We assumed it was a bundle of sheets."

"Did you?" Jeavis walked over, pushed the basket out of the way, and peered up the chute for several moments. "Where is the top of this?" he said at last, withdrawing to look at Callandra.

"In the corridor on the ground floor," she replied, disliking him more by the moment. "In the west wing corridor, to be precise."

"A very odd place to put a body, don't you think?" Jeavis remarked. "Not easy to do without being observed." He turned to Kristian, then back to Callandra, his eyes very wide open.

'That is not entirely correct," Kristian answered. "The corridor has no windows, and during the daytime the gas is not lit, it saves expense."

"Still," Jeavis argued, "one would be bound to notice a person standing or sitting around, and certainly one would see a person lifting a body and putting it down the chute. Wouldn't one?" There was a faint lift of inquiry in his tone, less than sarcasm but more than courtesy.

"Not necessarily," Callandra said defensively. "Bundles of sheets are sometimes left on the floor. The nurses occasionally sit in the corridors, if they are intoxicated. In the dim light a corpse could look like a pile of linen. And certainly if I saw someone putting laundry down the chute, I would assume it was merely a bundle of sheets. I image anyone else would also."

"Dear me." Jeavis looked from one to the other of them. "Are you saying that anyone could have stuffed the poor creature down the chute in full sight of respectable medical people, and no one would have thought anything amiss?"

Callandra was uncomfortable. She glanced at Kristian.

"More or less," she agreed at length. "One is not usually watching what other people are doing, one has one's own affairs." In her imagination she visualized a dim figure, shapeless in the half-light, lifting a bundle, heavier than it should have been, shrouded in sheets, and pressing it down the open chute. Her voice, when she continued, was husky and a little choked. "I myself passed what I assumed was a nurse in either intoxication or sleep this morning. But I do not know which it was. I didn't look at her face." She swallowed with a sudden sick realization. "It could have been Prudence Barrymore!"

"Really!" Jeavis's pale brows rose. "Do your nurses often lie about in the corridor, Lady Callandra? Do they not have beds to sleep in?"

"The ones who live in the dormitory do," she said tartly. "But many of them live out, and they have very little indeed. There is no place for them to sleep here, and precious little to eat. And yes, they frequently drink too much."

Jeavis looked temporarily disconcerted. He turned back to Kristian.

"I shall want to speak to you again, Doctor. Anything you can tell me about this unfortunate woman." He cleared his throat. "To begin with, how long do you estimate she has been dead? Not, of course, that we won't have our own police surgeon tell us his opinion, but it will save time if you can give us yours now."

"About two hours, perhaps three," Kristian replied succinctly.

"But you haven't looked at her," Jeavis exclaimed.

"I looked at her before you came," Kristian answered.

"Did you! Did you indeed?" Jeavis's face sharpened. "I thought you said you had not disturbed the body! Was that not why you remained here, to see that no one tampered with the evidence?"

"I looked at her, Inspector. I did not move her."

"But you touched her."

"Yes, to see if she was cold."

"And she was?"

"Yes."

"How do you know she has not been dead all night?"

"Because rigor had not yet passed away."

"You moved her!"

"I did not."

"You must have," Jeavis said sharply. "Otherwise how could you know whether she was stiff or not?"

"She fell out of the chute, Inspector," Kristian explained patiently. "I saw her fall, and how she collapsed into the basket, the movement of her limbs. It's my estimate that she has been dead between two and four hours. But by all means ask your own surgeon."

Jeavis looked at him suspiciously. "You are not English, are you, sir? I detect a certain accent, shall we say? Very slight, but it is there. Where are you from?"

"Bohemia," Kristian replied with a faint flicker of amusement in his eyes.

Jeavis drew in his breath, Callandra thought, to ask where that was, then realized even the laundrywomen were watching him, and changed his mind.

"I see," he said thoughtfully. "Well now, perhaps you would be good enough to tell me, Doctor, where you were early this morning? For example, what time did you come here?" He looked at Kristian inquiringly. 'Take a note of it please, Sergeant," he added with a nod at Evan, who had been watching silently some two or three yards away all through the exchange.

"I have been here all night," Kristian replied.

Jeavis's eyes widened. "Indeed. And why was that, sir?" He invested it with a great deal of meaning.

"I had a patient who was extremely ill," Kristian answered, watching Jeavis's face. "I stayed with him. I believed I could save him, but I was wrong. He died a little after four in the morning. It was hardly worth going home. I lay down on one of the hospital beds and slept till about half past six."

Jeavis frowned, glanced at Evan to make sure he was noting everything down, then back at Kristian. "I see," he said portentously. "So you were here when Nurse Barrymore met her death."

For the first time Callandra felt a sharp flick of anxiety. She looked at Kristian but saw nothing in his face beyond a mild curiosity, as if he did not entirely understand Jeavis's implication.

"Yes, it would seem so."

"And did you see this Nurse Barrymore?"

Kristian shook his head. "I don't think so, but I can't be sure. I certainly don't recall speaking to her."

"And yet she seems to be very sharp in your mind?" Jeavis said quickly. "You know precisely who she is, and you speak very well of her."

Kristian looked down, his eyes full of sadness.

"The poor creature is dead, Inspector. Of course she is sharp in my mind. And she was a fine nurse. There are not so many people dedicated to the care of others that one forgets them easily."

"Isn't everyone here dedicated to the care of the sick?" Jeavis asked with some surprise.

Kristian stared at him, then sighed deeply. "If there is nothing further, Inspector, I would like to go about my duties. I have been here in the laundry room nearly two hours.x I have patients to see."

"By all means," Jeavis said, pursing his lips. "But don't go out of London, sir, if you please."

Rristian was startled, but he agreed without argument, and a few moments later he and Callandra left the steam and clank of the laundry room and climbed back up the stairs to the main hallway. Callandra's mind was teeming with things she wished to say to him, but they all sounded officious or overconcerned, and above all, she did not want him to know of the fear that was beginning to rise in her. Perhaps it was foolish. There was no reason Jeavis should suspect Kristian, but she had seen miscarriages of justice before. Innocent men had been hanged. It was so easy to suspect anyone who was different, whether it was in manner, appearance, race, or religion. If only Monk were conducting the investigation.

"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. "But I have no way of involving myself in the matter. Jeavis certainly won't call upon me, and I think there is no chance whatsoever that he will share with me any information that he might have. Nor will anyone in the hospital answer my questions, should I have the temerity to ask." Then his face softened with regret. "I'm sorry. I would if I could."

But it was Kristian's features, not Monk's, which were in her mind.

"I appreciate it will be hard," she said without hesitation. "But it is a hospital. I shall be there. I can observe things and tell you. And perhaps it would be more effective if we could get Hester a position there? She would see much that I would not, and indeed that Inspector Jeavis would not."

"Callandra!" he interrupted. Calling her by her given name without her title was a familiarity-indeed, an arrogance!-which she did not mind. If she had, she would have corrected him rapidly enough. It was the pain in his voice which chilled her.

"Hester has a gift for observation," she carried on, disregarding him, Kristian's face still vivid in her mind. "And she is as good as you are at piecing together information. She has an excellent understanding of human nature, nor is she afraid to pursue a cause."

"In that case you will hardly need me." He said it wasp-ishly, but it was redeemed at the last instant by a flash of humor in his eyes.

She was spoiling her own case by pressing too hard.

"Perhaps I overstated it a trifle," she conceded. "But she would certainly be an asset, and be able to observe those things you were not in a position to. Then she could report to you so you could make deductions and tell her what next to inquire into?"

"And if there is a murderer in this hospital of yours, have you considered what danger you might be putting her into? One nurse has already been killed," he pointed out.

She saw in his face that he was aware of his own victory.

"No, I had not thought of that," she confessed. "She would have to be most careful, and look without asking. Still, even so, she would be of invaluable assistance to you."

"You speak as though I were going to take the case."

"Am I mistaken?" This time it was her victory, and she also knew it.

Again the smile lit his face, showing an unaccustomed gentleness. "No, no you are not. I shall do what I can."

"Thank you." She felt a rush of relief which surprised her. "Did I mention it, John Evan is the sergeant assisting Jeavis?"

"No, you did not mention it, but I happened to know that he was working with Jeavis."

"I thought you might. I am glad you are still keeping your friendship with him. He is an excellent young man."

Monk smiled.

Callandra rose to her feet and he rose automatically also.

"Then you had' better go and see Hester," she instructed. "There is no time to be lost. I would do it myself, but you can tell her what you wish her to do for you better man I. You may tell her I shall use my influence to see that she obtains a position. They will be looking for someone to take poor Prudence Barrymore's place."

"I shall ask her," he agreed, pulling a slight face. "I promise," he added.

"Thank you. I shall arrange it all tomorrow." And she went out of the door as he held it for her, and then through the front door into the warm evening street. Now that there was nothing more that she could do, she felt tired and extraordinarily sad. Her coach was waiting for her and she rode home in somber mood.

* * * * *

Hester received Monk with a surprise which she did not bother to conceal. She led him into the tiny front room and invited him to sit She looked far less tired today; there was a vigor about her, a good color to her skin. Not for the first time he was aware of how intensely alive she was-not so much physically, but in the mind and in the will.

"This cannot be a social call," she said with a slight smile of amusement. "Something has happened." It was a statement, not a question.

He did not bother with prevarication.

"Callandra came to see me earlier this evening," he began. "This morning there was a nurse murdered in the hospital where she is on the Board of Governors. A nurse from the Crimea, not just a woman to fetch and carry." He stopped, seeing the shock in her face and quite suddenly realizing that in all probability it was someone she knew, maybe well, someone she might even have cared for. Neither he nor Callandra had thought of that.

"I'm sorry." He meant it. "It was Prudence Barrymore. Did you know her?"

"Yes." She took a deep, shaky breath, her face pale. "Not well, but I liked her. She had great courage-and great heart. How did if happen?"

"I don't know. That is what Callandra wants us to find out."

"Us?" She looked startled. "What about the police? Surely they have called the police?"

"Yes of course they have," he said tartly. Suddenly all his old contempt for Runcorn boiled up again, and his own resentment that he was no longer on the force with his rank and power and the respect he had worked so long and hard to earn, even had it been laced with fear. "But she doesn't have any confidence that they will solve it."

Hester frowned and looked at him carefully.

"Is that all?"

"All? Isn't it enough?" His voice rose incredulously. "We have no power, no authority, and there are no obvious answers so far." He stabbed his finger viciously on the chair arm. "We have no right to ask questions, no access to the police information, medical reports, or anything else. What more do you want to provide a challenge?"

"An arrogant and disagreeable colleague," she said. "Just to make it really difficult!" She stood up and walked over to the window. "Really, there are times when I wonder how you succeeded for so long in the police." She looked at him. "Why is Callandra so concerned, and why does she doubt that the police will be able to solve it? Isn't it a little early to be so skeptical?"

He could feel his body tighten with anger, and yet there was also a strange kind of comfort in being with someone so quick to grasp the essential facts-and the nuances that might in the end matter even more. There were times when he loathed Hester, but she never bored him, nor had he ever found her trivial or artificial. Indeed, sometimes to quarrel with her gave him more satisfaction than to be agreeable with someone else.

"No," he said candidly. "I think she is afraid they may blame a Dr. Beck because he is a foreigner, and it may well be easier than questioning an eminent surgeon or dignitary.

With luck it may turn out to have been another nurse"-his voice was hard-edged with contempt-"or someone equally socially dispensable, but it may not. And there are no men in the hospital who are not eminent in some way, either as doctors, treasurers, chaplains, or even governors."

"What does she think I can offer?" Hester frowned, leaning a little against the windowsill. "I know less of the people of the hospital than she does. London is nothing like Scutari! And I was hardly in any hospital here long enough to learn much." She pulled a rueful face, but he knew the memory of her dismissal still hurt.

"She wishes you to take a position at the Royal Free." He saw her expression harden and hurried on. "Which she will obtain for you, possibly even as soon as tomorrow. They will require someone to take Nurse Barry more's place. From that position of advantage, you might be able to observe much that would be of use, but you are not to indulge in questioning people."

"Why not?' Her eyebrows shot up. "I can hardly learn a great deal if I don't."

"Because you may well end up dead yourself, you fool," he snapped back. "For Heaven's sake, use your wits! One outspoken, self-opinionated young woman has already been murdered there. We don't need a second to prove the point."

"Thank you for your concern." She swung around and stared out of the window, her back to him. "I shall be discreet. I did not say so because I had assumed that you would take it for granted, but apparently you did not. I have no desire to be murdered, or even to be dismissed for in-quisitiveness. I am perfectly capable of asking questions in such a way that no one realizes my interest is more than casual and quite natural."

"Are you," he said with heavy disbelief. "Well, I shall not permit you to go unless you give me your word that you will simply observe. Just watch and listen, no more. Do you understand me?"

"Of course I understand you. You are practically speaking in words of one syllable," she said scathingly. "I simply do not agree, that is all. And what makes you imagine you can give me orders, I have no idea. I shall do as I think fit. If it pleases you that is good. If it does not, as far as I am concerned that is just as good."

"Then don't come screaming to me for help if you're attacked," he said. "And if you are murdered I shall be very sorry, but not very surprised!"

"You will have the satisfaction, at my funeral, of being able to say that you told me so," she replied, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Very little satisfaction," he retorted, "if you are not there to hear me."

She swung away from the window and walked across the room.

"Oh do stop being so ill-tempered and pessimistic about it. It is I who have to go back and work in the hospital, and obey all the rules and endure their suffocating incompetence and their old-fashioned ideas. All you have to do is listen to what I report and work out who killed Prudence, and of course why."

"And prove it," he added.

"Oh yes." She flashed him a sudden brilliant smile. "That at least will be good, won't it?"

"It would, it would be very good indeed," he admitted frankly. It was another of those rare moments of perfect understanding between them, and he savored it with a unique satisfaction.