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“Who chases Mary Higgins?” Hester inquired, not sure who Mary Higgins was, but assuming she was a nurse.
“The treasurer,” the young one said with a shrug. “Fancies ’er, ’e does.”
“So does the chaplain,” the fat woman said with a snort. “Dirty old sod. Keeps putting ’is arm ’round ’er an’ calling ’er ‘dear.’ Mind, I wouldn’t say as ’e didn’t fancy Pru’ Barrymore neither, come ter think on it. Maybe ’e went too far, and she threatened to report ’im? ’E could ’a done it.”
“Would he have been here at that time in the morning?” Hester asked dubiously.
They looked at each other.
“Yeah,” the fat one said with certainty. “ ’E’d bin ’ere all night ’cos of someone important dying. ’E were ’ere all right. Maybe ’e did it, and not German George? An’ ’is patient snuffed it, an all,” she added. “Wot were a surprise. Thought ’e were goin’ ter make it—poor sod.”
There were several such conversations in between the sweeping and fetching, rolling bandages, emptying pails and changing beds. Hester learned a great deal about where everybody was at about seven o’clock on the morning that Prudence Barrymore had died, but it still left a great many possibilities as to who could have killed her. She heard much gossip about motives, most of it scurrilous and highly speculative, but when she saw John Evan she reported it to him in the brief moment they had alone in one of the small side rooms where medicines were kept. Mrs. Flaherty had just left, after instructing Hester to roll an enormous pile of bandages, and Sir Herbert was not due for at least another half hour, after he had finished luncheon.
Evan half sat on the table, watching her fingers smoothing and rolling the cloth.
“Have you told Monk yet?” he asked with a smile.
“I haven’t seen him since Sunday,” she replied.
“What is he doing?” he asked, his voice light but his hazel eyes watching her with brightness.
“I don’t know,” she answered, piling another heap of bandages on the table beside him. “He said he was going to learn more about various governors on the board, in case one of them had some relationship with Prudence, or her family, that we don’t know about. Or even some connection with her in the Crimea, in any way.”
Evan grunted, his eyes roaming over the cabinet with its jars of dried herbs, colored crystals, and bottles of wine and surgical spirits. “That’s something we haven’t even thought of.” He pulled a face. “But then Jeavis wouldn’t. He tends to think in terms of the obvious and usually he’s right. Runcorn would never countenance disturbing the gentry, unless there is no other choice. Does Monk think it’s personal, in that way?”
She laughed. “He’s not told me. It could be anybody. It seems the chaplain was here all that night—and Dr. Beck …”
Evan’s head jerked up. “The chaplain. I didn’t know that. He didn’t say so when we spoke to him. Although to be honest I’m not sure Jeavis asked him. He was more concerned with his opinion of Prudence, and anybody’s feelings about her that the chaplain might know of.”
“And did he know of any?” she asked.
He smiled, his eyes bright with amusement. He knew she would tell Monk whatever he said.
“Nothing promising,” he began. “Mrs. Flaherty didn’t like her, but that’s not surprising. The other nurses largely tolerated her, but they had little in common. One or two of the younger ones admired her—a little hero worship there, I think. One of the student doctors seems to have felt rather the same, but she gave him little encouragement.” His expression took on a shadow of wry sympathy, as if he could imagine it clearly. “Another one of the students, tall fellow with fair hair that falls over his brow, he didn’t like her. Thought she had ambitions above a woman’s place.” His eyes met Hester’s. “Arrogant fellow, he seemed to me,” he added. “But then he doesn’t care for policemen either. We get in the way of the real work, which of course is his work.”
“You didn’t like him,” she stated the obvious, reaching for another heap of bandages. “But was he in the hospital that morning?”
He pulled a face. “Unfortunately not. Nor was the one who admired her.”
“Who was, that you know?”
“About half the nurses, the treasurer, Dr. Beck, Sir Herbert, two student doctors named Howard and Cantrell, Mrs. Flaherty, one of the Board of Governors called Sir Donald MacLean, another called Lady Ross Gilbert. And the front doors were open so anyone could have come in unobserved. Not very helpful, is it?”
“Not very,” she agreed. “But then I suppose opportunity was never going to be our best chance for evidence.”
He laughed. “How very efficient you sound. Monk’s right-hand man—I mean, woman.”
She was about to explode in argument that she was most certainly not Monk’s hand of any sort when Mrs. Flaherty’s thin upright figure appeared in the doorway, her face pink with anger, her eyes brilliant.
“And what are you doing, Nurse Latterly, standing about talking to this young man? You are very new here, and regardless of your friendship with certain well-placed persons, I would remind you we set a very high moral standard, and if you fall below it, you will be dismissed!”
For an instant Hester was furious. Then she saw the absurdity of her morality’s being questioned in regard to John Evan.
“I am from the police, Matron Flaherty,” Evan said coldly, standing upright. “I was questioning Miss Latterly. She had no alternative but to answer me, as have all the staff in the hospital, if they wish to assist the law rather than be charged with obstructing it.”
Color flared up Mrs. Flaherty’s cheeks. “Fiddlesticks, young man!” she said. “Nurse Latterly was not even here when poor Nurse Barrymore met her death. If you have not even learned that, then you are hopelessly incompetent. I don’t know what we pay you for!”
“Of course I am aware of that,” Evan said angrily. “It is precisely because she could not be guilty that her observation is so useful.”
