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“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. Sh
e 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 waspishly, 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.
