```l'hat
shoulJ

gu'
theC
15epm

a call
him affaY
br

tl%ly

	In the
	tered
Clinic,
	.spt,etl romic
uDDer	arB,
the awlt:d

k,
	siSl ant,

DOOr 0
	o ......

adinist,':t
	t. 1 nad Chise
through ti?
	:d tnrust}eeh a

vicious, c?
	d not onlsuge
that the kill'
	tomY bu a
knowledge°: y, ling o Uhs?ng'

as
adp. D.Ja,,eCp aong aued
departmet' establis

it0
leading po. er ost recs}ho
crime ficti(o;de orDeatOnt
bestseer s

Jacket design b3, pon lacpbers °n
FiNGIRlqlllqT SERIES

i

' .95 net


A
	MIND TO MURDER


By the same Author


COVER HER F^CE


UNNATURAL CAUSES


SHROUD FOR A NIGHTINGALE


AN UNSUITABLE JOB FOR A WOMAN
THE BLACK TOWER


DEATH OF AN EXPERT WITNESS
INNOCENT BLOOD


THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN


A TASTE FOR DEATH


A Mind to Murder


BI,

P. D. JAMES


HAMISH HAMILTON LTD


FINGERPRINT SERIES


HAMISH HAMILTON LTD


Published by the Penguin Group
27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

Viking Penguin Inc, 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R lB4
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand


Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England


First published by Faber 1963


First published in this edition 1984
by Hamish Hamilton Ltd


Copyright © 1963 by P. D. James


57910864


All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form
or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both
the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.


ISBN 0-241-89364-X


Printed in Great Britain by
Redwood Burn Limited
Trowbridge, Wiltshire


For


EDWARD GORDON JAMES


Author's Note


T

here is only a small number of autonomous psychiatric
out-patient clinics in London and it is obvious that
these units, dealing as they do with the same medical
specialty and organized within a unified National Health
Service, must inevitably have some methods of treatment and
administrative procedures in common. A number of these
they share with the Steen Clinic. It is the more important to
state clearly that the Steen is an imaginary clinic situated in
an imaginary London square, that none of its patients or staff,
medical or lay, represet living people, and that the deplorable
events which took place in its basement have their origin
only in that curious psychological phenomenon--the imagina-tion
of the crime novelist.

P. D. J.


9


Cha£ter One

D
r. Paul Steiner, consultant psychiatrist at the Steen
Clinic, sat in the front ground floor consulting, room
and listened to his patient's highly rationalized explana.
tion of the failure of his third marriage. Mr. Burge lay ia
comfort on a couchthe better to expound the complicttion's of
his psyche. Dr. Steiner sat at his head in a chair of the carefully
documented type which the Hospital Management Committee
had decreed for the use of consultants. It was functional and
not unattractive but it gave no support to the back of the head.
From time to time a sharp jerk of his neck muscles recalled
Dr. Steiner from momentary oblivion to the realities of his
Friday evening psychotheraphy clinic. The October day had
been very warm. After a fortnight of sharp frosts during which
the staff of the clinic had shivered and pleaded, the official date
for starting the central heating had coincided with one of those
perfect autumn days when the city square outside had brimmed
with yellow light and the late dahlias in the railed garden,
bright as a paintbox, had shone like the gauds of high summer.
It was now nearly seven o'clock. Outside, the warmth of the
day had long given way, first to mist and then to chilly dark.
ness. But here, inside the clinic, the heat of noon was trapped, the air, heavy and still, seemed spent with the breath of too
much talking.
Mr. Burge enlarged on the immaturity, coldness and insensitivity
of his wives in a querulous falsetto. Dr. Steiner's
clinical judgment, not uninfluenced by the late effects of a large
lunch and the unwise choice of a cream doughnut with his
afternoon tea, told him that the time was not yet ripe to point 11


out that the one defect shared by the three mesdames Burge
had been a singular lack of judgment in their choice of hus-band.
Mr. Burge was not yet ready to face the truth of his own
inadequacy.

Dr. Steiner felt no moral indignation about his patient's
behaviour. It would indeed have been most unethical had
any such improper emotion clouded his judgment. There
were few things in life which aroused Dr. Steiner's moral indig-nation
and most of them affected his own comfort. Many of
them were, indeed, concerned with the Steen Clinic and its
administration. He disapproved strongly of the administrative
officer, Miss Bolam, whose preoccupation with the number of
patients he saw in a session and the accuracy of his travelling
expense form he saw as part of a systematic policy of persecu-tion.
He resented the fact that his Friday evening clinic coin-cided
with Dr. James Baguley's electro-convulsive therapy
session so that his psychotherapy patients, all of them of high
intelligence and sensible of the privilege of being treated by
him, had to sit in the waiting-room with the motley crowd of
depressed suburban housewives and iii-educated psychotics
that Baguley seemed to delight in collecting. Dr. Steiner had
refused the use of one of the third-floor consulting-rooms.
These had been formed by partitioning the large and elegant
Georgian rooms and he despised them as badly proportioned
and unpleasing cells, ill-suited either to his grade or to the im-portance
of his work. Nor had he found it convenient to change
the time of his session.. Baguley, therefore, should change his.
But Dr. Baguley had stood firm and in this, too, Dr. Steiner
had seen the influence of Miss Bolam. His plea that the ground
floor consulting-rooms should be sound-proofed had been
turned down by the Hospital Management Committee on the
grounds of expense. There had, however, been no demur over
providing Baguley with a new and highly expensive contraption
for shocking his patients out of the few wits they still possessed.
The matter, had, of course,obeen considered by the Clinic Medi-cal
Committee, but Miss Bolam had made no secret of where
her sympathies lay. In his diatribes against the administrative
officer, Dr. Steiner found it convenient to forget that her


12


influence over the Medical Committee was ron-existent.
It was difficult to forget the irritationa of the E.C.T. session.
The clinic building had been put up when men built to last, but
even the sturdy oak door of the consulting-room could not
muffle the comings and goings of a Friday night. The front
door was closed at 6 p.m. and patienta at the evening clinics
were booked in and out since the time, over five years ago,
when a patient had entered unobserved, secreted herself in the
basement lavatory and chosen that insalubrious place in which
to kill herselfi Dr. Steiner's psychotherapy sessions were punctuated
by the ringing of the front-door bell, the passing of feet
as patients came and went, the hearty voices of relatives and
escorts exhorting the patient or calling good-byes to Sister
Ambrose. Dr. Steiner wondered why relatives found it necessary
to shout at the patients as if they were deaf as well as psychotic.
But possibly after a session with Baguley and his diabolic
machine they were. Worst of all was the clinic domestic assistant,
Mrs. Shorthouse. One might imagine that Amy Shorthouse
could do the cleaning early in the mornings as was surely the
normal arrangement. That way there Would be the minimum
of disturbance to the clinic staff. But Mrs. Shorthouse maintained
that she couldn't get through the work without an extra
two hours in the evenings and Miss Bolam had agreed. Naturally,
she would. It appeared to Dr. 8teiner that very little
domestic work was done on Friday evenings. Mrs. Shorthouse
had a predilection for the E.C.T. patimts--indeed, her own
husband had once been treated by Dr. Baguley--and she was
usually to be seen hanging around the hall and the ground
floor general office while the session was being held. Dr.
Steiner had mentioned it at the Medical Committee more than
once and had been irritated by his clleagues' general un-interest
in the problem. Mrs. Shorthouse should be kept out of
sight and encouraged to get on with her work, not permitted
to stand around gossiping with the patients. Miss Bolam, so
unnecessarily strict with other members of the staff, showed no
inclination to discipline Mrs. Shorthouse. Everyone knew that
good domestic workers were hard to get but an administrative
officer who knew her job would recruit them somehow. Weak13



ness solved nothing. But Baguley could not be persuaded to
complain about Mrs. Shorthouse and Bolam would never
criticize Baguley. The poor woman was probably in love with
him. It was up to Baguley to take a firm line instead of sloping
around the clinic in that ridiculously long white coat which
made him look like a second-rate dentist. Really, the man had
no idea of the dignity with which a consultant clinic should be
conducted.
Clump, clump went someone's boots along the passage. It
was probably old Tippett, a chronic schizophrenic patient of
Baguley's who, for the past nine years had regularly spent
Friday evenings carving wood in the art therapy department.
The thought of Tippett increased Dr. Steiner's petulance. The
man was totally unsuitable for the Steen. If he were well enough
to be out of hospital, which Dr. Steiner doubted, he ought to
attend a Day Hospital or one of the County Council's sheltered
workshops. It was patients like Tippett who gave the clinic a
dubious reputation and obscured its real function as an
analytically orientated centre of psychotherapy. Dr. Steiner
felt positively embarrassed when one of his own carefully
selected patients encountered Tippett creeping about the
clinic on a Friday evening. Tippett wasn't even safe to be out.
One day there would be an incident and Baguley would find
himself in trouble.
Dr. Steiner's happy contemplation of his colleague in
trouble was punctured by the ring of the front-door bell.
Really, it was impossible I This time it was apparently a hospital
car service driver calling for a patient. Mrs. Shorthouse went
to the door to speed them away. Her eldritch screech echoed
through the hall. "Cheerio, ducks. See you next week. If you
can't be good be careful."
Dr. Steiner winced and shut his eyes. But his patient, happily
engaged in his favourite hobby of talking about himself,
seemed not to have heard. Mr. Burge's high whine had not, in
fact, faltered for the past twenty minutes.
"I don't pretend I'm an easy person. I'm not, I'm a complicated
devil. That's something which Theda and Sylvia have
never understood. The roots of it go deep of course. You 14


remember that session we had in June? Some pretty basic
stuff came out then I thought."
His therapist did not recall the session in question but was
unconcerned. With Mr. Burge pretty basic stuff was invariably
near the surface and could be trusted to emerge. An' unaccountable
peace fell. Dr. Steiner doodled on his notepad, regarded
his doodle with interest, and concern, looked at it again with
the pad held upside down and became for a moment more
preoccupied with his own subconscious than with that of his
patient. Suddenly he became aware of another sound from outside,
faint at first and then becoming louder. Somewhere a
woman was screaming. It was a horrible noise, high, continuous,
and completely animal. Its effect on Dr. Steiner was peculiarly
unpleasant. He was naturally timid and highly strung. Although
'his job involved him in the occasional emotional crises he was
more adept at circumventing than coping with an emergency.
Fear gave vent to irritation and he sprang from his chair
exclaiming.
"No! Really, this is too bad! What's Miss Bolam doing?
Isn't anyone supposed to be in charge here ?"
"What's up ?" inquired Mr. Burge, sitting up like a jack-inthe-box
and dropping his voice half an octave to its more
normal tone.
"Nothing. Nothing. Some woman having an attack of
hysteria that's all. Stay where you are. I'll be back," commanded
Dr. Steiner.
Mr. Burge collapsed again but with eye and ear cocked for
the door. Dr. Steiner found himself in the hall.
Immediately a little group swung round to face him. Jennifer
Priddy, the junior typist, was clinging to one of the porters,
Peter Nagle, who was patting her shoulder in embarrassed pity
and looking puzzled. Mrs. Shorthouse was with them. The
girl's screams were subsiding into whimpers but her whole body
was shaking, and she was deathly pale.
"What's the matter?" asked Dr. Steiner sharply. "What's
wrong with her?"
Before anyone had a chance to reply the door of the E.C.T.
room opened and Dr. Baguley came out followed by Sister

15


Ambrose and his anaesthetist, Dr. Mary Ingram. The hall
seemed suddenly full of people. "Calm down, that's a good
girl," said Dr. Baguley mildly. "We're trying to run a clinic."
He turned to Peter Nagle and asked in a Low voice: "What's
the matter anyway ?"
Nagle seemed about to speak when, suddenly, Miss Priddy
gained control. Breaking free of him she turned to Dr. Baguley
and said with absolute clearness:
"It's Miss Bolam. She's dead. Someone's killed her. She's
in the basement record room and she's murdered. I found her.
Enid's been murdered!"
She dung to Nagle and began to cry again but more quietly.
The dreadful shaking had ceased. Dr. Baguley said to the
porter:
"Take her into the treatment-room. Make her lie down.
Better give her something to drink. Here's the key. I'll be
back."
He made for the basement stairs and the rest, abandoning
the girl to Nagle's ministrations, followed in a jostling bunch.
The basement at the Steen was well lit; all its rooms were used
by the clinic which, like most psychiatric units, was chronically
short of space. Here, below stairs, in addition to the boiler-room,
the telephone equipment-room and the porters' quarters,
was the art therapy department, a medical records storeroom
and, at the front of the building, a treatment-room for the
lysergic acid patients. As the little group reached the bottom
of the stairs the door of this room opened and Nurse Bolam,
Miss Bolam's cousin, looked out briefly--a shadowy wraith
in her white uniform against the darkness of the room behind.
Her gentle, puzzled voice floated to them down the corridor.
"Is there anything wrong? I thought I heard a scream a few
minutes ago."
Sister Ambrose said with brusque authority:
"There's nothing wrong, Nurse. Get back to your patient."
The white figure disappeared and the door was shut. Turning
to Mrs. Shorthouse, Sister Ambrose went on:
"And there's nothing for you to do here, Mrs. Shorthouse.
Please stay upstairs. Miss Priddy might like a cup of tea."
16


Mrs. Shorthouse was heard to mutter rebelliously but bea
a reluctant retreat. The three doctors, with sister in tow, pressed

on.

The medical record-room was on their right, between the
porters' rest-room and the art therapy department. The door
was ajar and the light was on.

Dr. Steiner, who had become unnaturally aware of every
small detail, noticed the key was in the lock. No one was
about. The steel racks, with their tight-packed rows of manilla
folders, ran ceiling high and at right angles to the door forming
a series of narrow aisles, each lit by a fluorescent light. The
four high windows were barred and dissected by the racks;
it was an airless little room rarely visited and seldom dusted.
The little group pushed its way down the first passage and
turned left to where there was a small windowless space clear
of shelving and furnished with a table and chair where records
could be sorted for filing or information copied from the notes
without the need to take the file away. Here was chaos. The
chair was overturned. The floor was littered with records.
Some had their covers wrenched apart and their pages torn,
others lay dumped in shifting layers beneath gaps on the
shelves which looked too narrow to have held such a weight of
paper. And in the middle of this confusion, like a plump and
incongruous Ophelia afloat On a tide of paper, was the body of
Enid Bolam. On her chest rested a heavy and grotesque image
carved in wood, her hands folded about its base so that she
looked, horribly, like a parody of motherhood with her creature
ritually laid to her breast.

There could be no doubt that she was dead. Even in the
midst of his fear and repugnance Dr. Steiner could not miss
that final diagnosis. Staring at the wooden figure he cried:

"Tippett! That's his fetish! That's the carving he's so proud
of. Where is he? Baguley, he's your patient! You'd better
handle this?'

He looked round nervously as if expecting Tippett to
materialize, arm raised to strike, the very personification of
violence.

Dr. Baguley was kneeling by the body. He said quietly:

17


	iiTiIpett isn't here this evening."
	,
	the ;tl,,t he's always here on Fridays! That's his fetish! That s

	thiiiioyuDt;onStoi!i;aMl!sa!;il'SsUet°ebl7h his
	W.
	'g P
	': ,
	pett's Lhad a phone call from St. Luke s this morning. Tip
	Ane?
admitted with pneumonia. Last Monday, I think.
	exela' 'Y, he wasn't here this evening." Suddenly he gave an

	- · -'ration The two women bent closer to the body. Dr.

	.who could not bring himself to watch the examination,

	,, llm say:

	it S's been stabbed, too Through the heart b the look o

	sis;;¢,ith a black-handled chisel Isn't this on of Nagle's[

	voice.' There was a pause and Dr. Steiner heard Sister's

	han[tle[°?s we like it, Doctor. All his tools have black

	defensi' e keeps them in the porters' rest-room." She added

	"It ;rely, "Anyone could get at them."

	Bagul°ks as if someone has." There was the sound of Dr.

	- · * getting to his feet Still kee in his e es on the bod
nc smq 	·
	P
g	y
	y
alarm
[? Phone Cully on the door, will you, Sister. Don't
leave
tim, but tell him that no one is to be admitted or
to
Ethere e building That includes the patients. Then get
Dr.
room- l:e- and ask,,im to come down. He'll
be in his consulting-
	"Ou- mginc.
nervotn t we to phone the pohce?" Dr. Ingram spoke
an o y and her pink face, so ridiculousl like that of an
	gr'	Y
	h: abit flushed ninker It
was not onl in moments of
	Ingrain ma that one was apt
to overlook the presence
of
Dr.
	moe} ao Dr.
Baguley stared blankly at her as if he had
	"e,anly forgotten her existence.	'
	, . 11 wait for the medical director," he said.

	TIBrose disappeared with a rustle of starched linen.
	but,
;[st telephone was just outside the
record-room door
	Steier [atd by tiers
of
paper
from
eveu
outside
noise,
Dr.

	or
the trm ed
his
ears
i vain
to
hear
the
lift
of
the
receiver

	once
m2nUr ur
of
Sister
s
voice.
He
for d himself
to
look


re
at
Miss
Bolam's
body.
In
life
he
had
thought
of

18


her as graceless and unattractive, and death had lent her no
dignity. She lay on her back, her knees raised and parted so
that there was an expanse of pink woollen knicker clearly
visible, looking far more indecent than naked flesh. Her round,
heavy face was quite peaceful. The two thick plaits which she
wore wound above her broad forehead were undisturbed. But
then, nothing had ever been known to disturb Miss Bolam's
archaic hair style. Dr. Steiner was reminded of his private
fantasy that the thick, lifeless plaits exuded their own mysterious
secretion and were fixed for ever, immutably, about that
placid brow. Looking at her in the defenceless indignity of
death, Dr. Steiner tried to feel pity and knew that he felt fear.
But he was fully conscious only of repugnance. It was impossible
to feel tenderly towards something so ridiculous, so
shocking, so obscene. The ugly word spun unbidden to the
surface of thought. Obscene! He felt a ridiculous rge to pull
down her skirt, to cover that puffy, pathetic face, to replace
the spectacles which had slipped from her nose and hung,
askew, from her left ear. Her eyes were half closed, her small
mouth pursed as if in disapproval of so undignified and unmerited
an end. Dr. Steiner was not unfamiliar with that look;
he had seen it on her face in life. He thought, "She looks as if
she's just confronting me with my travelling expense form."
Suddenly he was seized with an intolerable need to giggle.
Laughter welled up uncontrollably. He recognized that this
horrible urge .was the result of nervousness and shock but
understanding did not bring control. Helplessly, he turned his
back on his colleagues and fought for composure, grasping the
edge of a filing rack and pressing his forehead for support
against the cold metal, his mouth and nostrils choked with the
musty smell of old records.
He was not aware of Sister Ambrose's return but, suddenly,
he heard her speaking.
"Dr. Etherege is on his way down. Cully is on the door and
I've told him that no one is to leave. Your patient is making
rather a fuss, Dr. Steiner."
"Perhaps I'd better go up to him." Faced with the need for
decision, Dr. Steiner regained control. He felt that it was some19



how important that he should stay with the others and be
there when the medical director arrived; that it would be
wise to ensure that nothing important was said or done out of
his hearing. On the other hand he was not anxious to stay
with the body. The records-room, brightly lit as an operating
theatre, claustrophobic and overheated, made him feel like a
trapped animal. The heavy close-packed shelves seemed to
press upon him, compelling his eyes again and again to that
lumpen figure on its paper bier.
"I'll stay here," he decided. "Mr. Burge must wait like
everyone else."
They stood together without speaking. Dr. Steiner saw that
Sister Ambrose, white-faced but otherwise apparently unmoved,
stood stockily calm with her hands loosely clasped over
her apron. So must she have stood time without number in
nearly forty years of nursing, waiting at the bedside of a
patient, quietly deferential, for the doctor's orders. Dr.
Baguley pulled out his cigarettes, looked at the packet for a
moment as if surprised to find it in his hand, and replaced it
in his pocket. Dr. Ingram seemed to be silently crying. Once
Dr. Steiner thought he heard her murmur: "Poor woman.
Poor woman I"
Soon they heard footsteps and the medical director was
with them followed by the senior psychologist, Fredrica
Saxon. Dr. Etherege knelt down beside the body. He did not
touch it but Put his face close to Miss Bolam's as if he were about
to kiss her. Dr. Steiner's sharp little eyes did not miss the
glance that Miss Saxon gave Dr. Baguley, that instinctive
move towards each other and the quick withdrawal.
"What happened ?" she whispered. "Is she dead ?"
"Yes. Murdered apparently." Baguley's tone was flat.
Miss Saxon made a sudden gesture. For one unbelievable
moment Dr. Steiner thought that she was going to cross her-selfi
"Who did it? Not poor old Tippett? That's his fetish,
surely."
"Yes, but he isn't here. He's in St. Luke's with pneumonia."
"Oh, my God! Then who?" This time she moved close to


Dr. Baguley and they did not draw apart. Dr. £therege scrambled
to this feet.
"You're right, of course. She's dead. Stunned first apparently
and then stabbed through the heart. I'll go upstairs to phone
the police and let the rest of the staff know. We'd better keep
people together. Then we three had better search the building.
Nothing must be touched of course."
Dr. Steiner dared not meet Dr. Baguley's eyes. Dr. Etherege
in his role of the calm, authoritative administrator had always
struck him as slightly ridiculous. He suspected that Baguley
felt the same.
Suddenly they heard footsteps and the senior psychiatric
social worker Miss Ruth Kettle appeared from behind the
filing racks, peering at them shortsightedly.
"Ah, there are you, Director," said Miss Kettle, in her
fluting, breathless voice. (She was the only staff member,
thought Dr. Steiner, to give Dr. Etherege that ridiculous title
and God only knew why. It made the place sound like a nature-cure
'clinic.)
"Cully told me you were down here. Not busy, I hope ? I'm
so distressed, I don't want to make trouble but it really is too
bad! Miss Bolam has booked me a new patient for ten on
Monday. I've just seen the appointment in my diary. No consultation
with me of course. She knows I always see the
Worrikers then. It's quite deliberate, I'm afraid. You know,
Director, someone has really got to do something about Miss
Bolam."
Dr. Baguley stood aside and said grimly: "Someone has."

At the other end of the square Superintendent Adam
Dalgliesh of the Criminal Investigation Department was attending
the ritual autumn sherry party given by his publishers
which had coincided with the third reprint of his first book of
verse. He didn't overestimate his talent or the success of his
book. The poems, which reflected his detached, ironic and
fundamentally restless spirit, had happened to catch a public
mood. He did not believe that more than half a dozen would
live even in his own affections. Meanwhile he found himself

21


awash on the shallows of an unfamiliar sea in which agents,
royalties and reviews were agreeable hazards. And now there
was this party. He had thought of it without enthusiasm as
something to be endured, but it had proved unexpectedly enjoy-able.
Messrs Hearne and Illingworth were as incapable of
providing poor sherry as they were of publishing poor work;
Dalgliesh estimated that his publishers' share of his own book's
profits had been drunk in the first ten minutes. Old Sir Hubert
Illingworth had made his brief appearance in the course of it,
had shaken Dalgliesh sadly by the hand, and had shuffled off
muttering under his breath as if deploring that yet another
writer on the firm's list was exposing himself and his publisher
to the doubtful gratifications of success. To him all writers
were precocious children; creatures to be tolerated and
encouraged but not overexcited in case they cried before bed-time.

There were less welcome diversions than the brief appearance
of Sir Hubert. Few of the guests knew that Dalgliesh was a
detective and not all of them expected him to talk about his
job. But there were inevitably those who thought it inappro-priate
that a man who caught murderers should also write
verse and who said so with varying degrees of tact. Presumably
they wanted murderers caught however much they might argue
about what should happen to them afterwards; but they dis-played
a typical ambivalence towards those who did the catch-ing.
Dalgliesh was used to this attitude and found it less offen-sive
than the common assumption that there was a particular
glamour in being a member of the murder squad. But if there
had been the expected quota of furtive curiosity and the in-anities
common to all such parties, there had also been agree-able
people saying agreeable things. No writer, however
apparently detached about his talent, is immune to the subtle
reassurrance of disinterested praise and Dalgliesh, fighting the
suspicion that few of those who admired had actually read and
fewer still had bought, found that he was quietly enjoying
himself and was honest enough to admit why.

The first hour had been hectic but, soon after seven o'clock,
he found himself standing alone glass in hand beside the ornate
22


James Wyatt chimney-piece. A thin wood fire was burning,
filling the room with a faint country smell. It was one of those
inexplicable moments when one is suddenly completely alone
in the middle of a crowd, when the noise is muted and the
pressing bodies seem to recede and become remote and
mysterious as actors on some distant stage. Dalgliesh leaned
the back of his head against the mantelpiece, savouring this
momentary privacy and noting appreciatively the elegant pro-portions
of the room. Suddenly he saw Deborah Riscoe. She
must have come into the room very quietly. He wondered how
long she had been there. Immediately his diffuse sense of peace
and happiness gave way to a pleasure as keen and painful as
that of a boy in love for the first time. She saw him at once and,
glass in hand, edged her way across the room to him.

Her appearance was wholly unexpected and he did not
deceive himself that she was there on his account. After their
last encounter that would hardly be likely.

He said, "It's very pleasant to see you here."

"I should have come anyway," she replied. "But actually I
work here, Felix Hearne got me the job after Mummy died.
I'm quite useful. I'm the general dogsbody. Shorthand and

typing, too. I took a course."

He smiled.

"Yon make it sound like a cure."

"Well, in a way it was."

He did not pretend not to understand. They were both
silent. Dalgliesh knew that he was morbidly sensitive to any
allusion to the case which nearly three years ago, had led to
their first meeting. That sore could not stand even the gentlest
of probes. He had seen the announcement of her mother's
death in the paper about six months ago, but it had seemed
impossible and impertinent then to send her a message or to
speak the customary words of condolence. After all, he was
partly responsible for her death. It was no easier now. Instead
they talked of his verse and of her job. Taking his share of this
casual undemanding small talk he wondered what she would
say if he asked her to have dinner with him. If she didn't turn
him down flat--and she probably would--it could be for him

23


the beginning of involvement. He didn't deceive himself that
he only wanted an agreeable meal with a woman he happened
to think beautiful. He had no idea what she thought of him,
but, ever since their last meeting, he had known himself to be
on the brink of love. If she accepted--for this or for any evening
--his solitary life would be threatened. He knew this with
complete certainty and the knowledge frightened him. Ever
since the death of his wife in childbirth he had insulated himself
carefully against pain; sex little more than an exercise in skill;
a love affair merely an emotional pavanne, formalized, danced
according to the rules, committing one to nothing. But, of
course, she wouldn't accept. He had absolutely no reason to
think that she was interested in him. It was only this certainty
that gave him the confidence to indulge his thoughts. But he
was tempted to try his luck. As they talked he mentally rehearsed
the words, wryly amused to recognize after so many
years the uncertainties of adolescence.
The light tap on his shoulder took him by surprise. It was
the chairman's secretary to say that he was wanted on the
telephone. "It's the Yard, Mr. Dalgliesh,'" she said, with well-controlled
interest as if Hearne and Illingworth's authors were
accustomed to calls from the Yard.
He smiled his excuses at Deborah Riscoe and she gave a
little resigned shrug of her shoulders.
"I won't be a moment," he said. But even as he threaded his
way through the crush of chatterers he knew that he wouldn't
be back.
He took the call in a small office next to the boardroom,
struggling to the telephone through chairs heaped with manuscripts,
rolled galley proofs and dusty files. Hearne and Illing-worth
fostered an air of old-fashioned leisureliness and general
muddle which concealed--sometimes to their authors' discomfiture--a
formidable efficiency and attention to detail.
The familiar voice boomed in his ear.
"That you, Adam ? How's the party ? Good. Sorry to break
it up but I'd be grateful if you'd look in over the way. The
Steen Clinic, Number 31. You know the place. Upper class
neuroses catered for only. It seems that their secretary or
24


administrative officer or what have you has got herself murdered.
Bashed on the head in the basement and then stabbed
expertly through the heart. The boys are on their way. I've
sent you Martin, of course. He'll have your gear with him."
"Thank you, sir. When was it reported ?"
"Three minutes ago. The medical director rang. He gave
me a concise account of practically everyone's alibi for the
supposed time of death and explained why it couldn't possibly
be one of the patients. He was followed by a doctor called
Steiner. He explained that we met about five years ago at a
dinner party given by his late brother-in-law. Dr. Steiner
explained why it couldn't have been him and favoured me
with his interpretation of the psychological makeup of the
killer. They've read all the best detective fiction. No one has
touched the body, they're not letting anyone in or out of the
building and they've all collected into one room to keep an
eye on each other. You'd better hurry over, Adam, or they'll
solve the crime before you arrive."
"Who is the medical director?" asked Dalgliesh.
"Dr. Henry Etherege. You must have seen him on television.
He's the establishment psychiatrist, dedicated to making the
profession respectable. Distinguished looking, orthodox and
earnest."
"I've seen him in court," said Dalgliesh.
"Of course. Remember him in the Routledge case? He
practically had me weeping into my hankie and I knew Rout-ledge
better than most. Etherege is the natural choice of any
defence counsel--if he can get him. You know their bleat. Find
me a psychiatrist who looks respectable, speaks English and
won't shock the jury or antagonize the judge. Answer. Etherege.
Ah, well, good luck I"
The A.C. was optimistic in supposing that his message
could break up the party. It had long reached the stage when
the departure of a solitary guest disconcerted no one. Dalgliesh
thanked his host, waved a casual good-bye to the few people
who caught his eye and passed almost unnoticed out of the
building. He did not see Deborah Riscoe again. And made no
effort to find her. His mind was already on the job ahead and
25


he felt that he had been saved, at best from a snub and, at
worst, from folly. It had been a brief, tantalizing, inconclusive
and unsettling encounter but, already, it was in the past.

Walking across the square to the tall Georgian building that
housed the Stecn C. linic, Dalglicsh recalled some of the scant
items of information about the place that had come his way.
It was a well-known witticism that you had to be exceptionally
sane to be accepted for treatment at the Steen. Certainly it had
a reputation--Dalgliesh thought probably undeserved--for
selecting its patients with more regard to their intelligence and
social class than their mental condition, subjecting them to
diagnostic procedures designed to deter all but the most
enthusiastic, and then placing them on a waiting list for
treatment long enough to ensure that the curative effects of
time could exert their maximum influence before the patient
actually attended for his first psychotherapy session. The
Steen, Dalgliesh remembered, had a Modigliani. It was not a
well-known painting, nor did it represent the artist at his best,
but it was, undeniably, a Modigliani. It hung in the first-floor
boardroom, the gift of a former grateful patient, and it repre-sented
much that the clinic stood for in the public eye. Other
National Health Service clinics brightened their walls with
reproductions from the Red Cross picture library. The Steen
staff made no secret that they preferred a second-rate original
to a first-class reproduction any day. And they had a second-rate
original to prove it.

The house itself was one of a Georgian terrace. It stood at
the south corner of the square, comfortable, unpretentious and
wholly pleasing. At the rear a narrow passage ran into Lincoln
Square Mews. There was a railed basement; in front of the
house the railings curved on each side of the broad steps which
led to the door and supported two wrought-iron lamp stan-dards.
On the right of the door an unpretentious bronze plaque
bore the name of the Hospital Management Committee which
administered the unit and, underneath, the words, "The Steen
Clinic". No other information was given. The Steen did not
advertise its function to a vulgar world nor did it wish to invite
an influx of the local psychotics seeking treatment or reassur26


ance. There were four cars parked outside but no signs yet of
the police. The house looked Very quiet. The door was shut
but a light shone from the elegant Adam fanlight above the
door and between the folds of drawn curtains in the ground
floor rooms.
The door was opened almost before he had taken his finger
from the bell. They had been waiting for him. A stockily-built
young man in porter's uniform opened the door and let him in
without speaking. The hall blazed with light and struck very
warm after the coolness of the autumn night. To the left of
the door was a giass-panelled reception kiosk with a telephone
switchboard. A second, and much older, porter sat at the board
in an attitude of utter misery. He looked round and glanced
briefly at Dalgiiesh with rheumy eyes, then returned to his
contemplation of the board as if the arrival of the superintendent
was the last straw of an intolerable burden which, if
ignored, might be lifted from him. In the main body of the
hall the reception committee came forward, the medical
director with outstretched hand as if welcoming-a guest.
"Superintendent Dalgliesh ? We're very glad to see you. May I
introduce my colleague, Dr. James Baguley, and the secretary
of the Hospital Management Committee, Mr. Lauder."
"You got here very promptly, sir," said Dalgliesh to Lauder.
The group secretary said:
"I didn't know about the murder until I arrived ten minutes
ago. Miss Bolam telephoned me at lunchtime today and said
she wanted to see me urgently. Something was going on at the
clinic and she needed advice. I came as soon as I could and
found that she'd been murdered. In the circumstances, I had
more reasons than one for deciding to stay around. It looks as
if sh needed advice more than she knew."
"Whatever it was you've come too late, I'm afraid," said
Dr. Etherege.
Dalgliesh saw that he was much shorter than his television
tppearances suggested. His large, high-domed head with its
aureole of white hair soft and fine as a baby's, looked too
weighty for the slight supporting body which seemed to have
aged independently giving him an oddly disintegrated appear27


ance. It was difficult to guess his age but Dalgliesh thought
that he must be nearer seventy than sixty-five, the normal
retiring age for a consultant. He had the face of an indestruc-tible
gnome, the cheeks mottled with high colour so that they
looked painted, the eyebrows springing above eyes of a piercing
blue. Dalgliesh felt that those eyes and the soft, persuasive
voice were not the least of the medical director's professional
assets.

In contrast, Dr. James Baguley was six feet tall, nearly as tall
as Dalgliesh, and the immediate impression he gave was of
intense weariness. He was wearing a long white coat which
hung loosely from his bowed shoulders. Although he was much
the younger man he had none of the medical director's vitality.
His hair was straight and turning iron-grey. From time to time
he swept it out of his eyes with long nicotine-stained fingers.
His was a handsome, bony face, but the skin and eyes were

dulled as if with permanent tiredness.

The medical director said:

"You will, of course, want to see the body straight away.
I'll ask Peter Nagle, our second porter, to come down with us
if you've no objection. His chisel was one of the weapons used
--not that he could help that, poor fellow--and no doubt you
will want to ask him questions."

"I shall want to question everyone here in due course,"
replied Dalgliesh.

It was apparent that the medical director had taken charge.
Dr. Baguley, who had not yet spoken, seemed glad to accept
that position. Lauder had apparently decided to adopt a
watching brief. As they moved towards the basement stairs
at the back of the hall he caught Dalgliesh's eye. The momen-tary
glance was hard to analyse, but Dalgliesh thought he
detected an amused gleam and a certain wry detachment.

They stood in silence as Dalgliesh knelt by the body. He
did not touch it except to part the cardigan and blouse, both
of which were unbuttoned, and expose the handle, of the chisel.
It had been driven in up to the hilt. There was very little
bruising of the tissues and no blood. The woman's vest had
been rolled up above her breasts to expose the flesh for that


28


vicious, calculated thrust. Such deliberation suggested that the
killer had a confident knowledge of anatomy. There were
easier ways of killing than to pierce the heart with one thrust.
But for those with the knowledge and the strength there were
few ways so sure.

He got to his feet and turned to Peter Nagle.

"Is that your chisel ?"

"Apparently. It looks like it and mine isn't in the box."
Despite the omission of the usual "sir" the voice, educated
and unemphatic, held no trace of insolence or resentment.
Dalgliesh asked:

"Any idea how it got here ?"

"None at all. But I'd hardly be likely to say if I had, would
l?"

The medical director gave Nagle a quick frown of warning
or admonition and placed his hand briefly on the porter's
shoulder. Without consulting Dalgliesh he said gently:

"That will be all for the present, Nagle. Just wait outside,
will you ?"

Dalgliesh made no demur as the porter quietly detached
himself from the group and left without another word.

"Poor boy! The use of his chisel has naturally shocked him.
It looks unpleasantly like an attempt to implicate him. But
you will find, Superintendent, that Nagle is one of the few
members of the staff with a complete alibi for the presumed
time of death." Dalgliesh did not point out that this was, in
itself, highly suspicious.

"Did you make any estimate of the time of death ?" he asked.
Dr. Etherege replied:

"I thought that it must have been very recent. That is Dr.
Baguley's view too. The clinic is very warm today--we've just
started our central heating--so that the body would cool very
slowly. I didn't try for rigor. I am, of course, little more than
a layman in such matters. Subsequently I knew that she must
have died within the hour. Naturally we have been talking
among ourselves while waiting for you and it appears that
Sister Ambrose was the last person to see Miss Bolam alive.
That was at twenty-past six. Cully, our senior porter, tells me

29


that Miss Bolam rang him on the internal phone at about six-fifteen
to say that she was going down to the basement and
that Mr. Lauder should be directed to her office if he arrived.
A few minutes later, as far as she can judge, Sister came out
of the E.C.T. room on the ground floor and crossed the hall
to the patients' waiting-room to let a husband know that his
wife was ready to be taken home. Sister saw Miss Bolam going
down the hall towards the basement stairs. No one saw her
alive again after that."

"Except her murderer," said Dalgliesh.

Dr. Etherege looked surprised.

"Yes, that would be so, of course. I mean that none of us
saw her alive again. I have asked Sister Ambrose about the
time and Sister is quite sure..."

"I shall be seeing Sister Ambrose and the other porter."
"Of course. Naturally you will want to see everybody. We
expect that. While waiting we telephoned our homes to say
that we would be delayed tonight but gave no explanation. We
had already searched the building and ascertained that the
basement door and the ground floor rear entrance were both
bolted. Nothing has been touched in here naturally. I arranged
for the staff to stay together in the front consulting-room
except for Sister and Nurse Bolam who are with the remaining
patients in the waiting-room. No one but Mr. Lauder and
you have been allowed in."

"You seem to have thought of everything, Doctor," said
Dalgliesh. He got up from his knees and stood looking down
at the body.

"Who found her ?" he asked.

"One of our medical secretaries, Jennifer Priddy. Cully, the
senior porter, has been complaining of stomach-ache most of
the day and Miss Priddy went to find Miss Bolam to ask if he
could go home early. Miss Priddy is very upset but she was
able to tell me...'

"I think it would be better if I heard it from her direct. Was
this door kept locked ?"

His tone was perfectly courteous but he felt their surprise.
The medical director's tone did not change as he replied:

30


"Usually it is. The key is kept on a board with other clinic
keys in the porters' duty-room here in the basement. The chisel

was kept there, too."

"And this fetish ?"

"Taken from the basement art-therapy-room across the
passage. It was carved by one of our patients."

It was still the medical director who replied. So far Dr.
Baguley hadn't spoken a word. Suddenly he said:

"She was knocked out with the fetish and then stabbed
through the heart by someone who was either knowledgeable
or damned lucky. That much is obvious. What isn't obvious is
why they had this free-for-all with the medical records. She's

lying on them so it must have happened before the murder."
"The result of a struggle, perhaps," suggested Dr. Etherege.
"It doesn't look like it. They were pulled out of the shelves
and deliberately chucked about. There must have been a
reason. There wasn't anything impulsive about this murder."

It was then that Peter Nagle, who had apparently been
standing outside the door, came into the room.

"There's been a ring at the door, sir. Would that be the rest
of the police ?"

Dalgliesh noted that the records-room was almost sound-proof.
The front-door bell was strident but he had not heard
it.

"Right," he said. "We'll go up."

As they moved together towards the stairs Dr. Etherege
said:

"I wonder, Superintendent, if you could see the patients
fairly soon. We have only two still with us, a male psycho-therapy
patient of my colleague Dr. Steiner, and a woman who
has been receiving lysergic acid treatment down here in the
basement front treatment-room. Dr. Baguley will be able to
explain the treatment to you--she is his patient--but you can
be assured that she wasn't capable of leaving her bed until
twenty minutes ago and certainly wouldn't know anything
about the murder. These patients become quite disorientated
during treatment. Nurse Bolam was with her all the evening."

"Nurse Bolam ? She is a relation of the dead woman ?"

31


"Her cousin," said Dr. Baguley briefly.
"And your disorientated patient, Doctor. Would she know
if Nurse Bolam left her alone during treatment ?"
Dr. Baguley said curtly:
"Nurse Bolam would not have left her."
They mounted the stairs together to meet the murmur of
voices in the hall.

That ring at the door brought into the Steen Clinic the paraphernalia
and skills of an alien world. Quietly and without fuss
the experts in violent death got busy. Dalgliesh disappeared
into the record-room with the police surgeon and photographer.
The print man, small and plump-cheeked as a hamster,
with tiny delicate hands, gave his attention to door
handles, locks, the tool case and Tippett's fetish. Plainclothes
men, looking disconcertingly like television actors playing
plain-clothes men, made their methodical search of every room
and cupboard in the clinic verifying that there was indeed no
unauthorized person on the premises and that the back doors
both of the ground floor and the basement were securely locked
from the inside. The clinic staff, excluded from these activities
and congregated in the front ground-floor consulting-room,
which had been hastily furnished with additional easy chairs
from the patients' waiting-room, felt that their familiar ground
had been taken over by strangers and that they were caught
up in the inexorable machinery of justice and being ground
forward to God knew what embarrassments and disasters.
Only the group secretary appeared unperturbed. He had
stationed himself in the hall like a watchdog and sat there
patient and alone until his turn came to be interviewed.
Dalgliesh took Miss Bolam's office for his use. It was a
small room on the ground floor situated between the large
general office at the front of the building and the E.C.T. treat-ment-room
and recovery-room at the rear. Opposite it was a
suite of two consulting-rooms and the patients' waiting-room.
The office had been formed by partitioning the end of a larger
room so that it was oddly proportioned and unattractively
narrow for its height. It was sparsely furnished and lacked all 32


evidence of personal taste except for a large bowl of chrysanthe-mums
set on one of the filing cabinets. There was an old-fashioned
safe against one wall and the other was lined with
green metal filing cabinets. The desk was unostentatious and
held nothing but a stationery office desk calendar, a jotting
pad, and a small stack of manilla folders. Dalgliesh looked
through them and said. "This is odd. These are staff dossiers
apparently, but only of the female staff. Her own isn't here
incidentally. I wonder why she got these out?"

"Checking on people's annual leave entitlement or some-thing
like that perhaps," suggested Sergeant Martin.

"Could be, I suppose. But why only the women? Oh well,
it's hardly of immediate importance. Let's have a look at that
jotter."

Miss Bolam was apparently one of those administrators who
prefer not to trust to memory. The top leaf of the jotter, headed
with the date, was well filled with notes in a sloping, rather
childish handwriting.

Medical Committee--speak M.D. re proposed Adolescent
Dept.

Speak Nagle--broken sash cord Miss Kallinski's room.
Mrs. Shorthouse--? leave.

These notes were at least self-explanatory but the jottings
below them--written it appeared in some hurry--were less
explicit.

Woman. Here eight years. To arrive 1st Monday.

Dalgliesh said: "These look like the jottings of a telephone
call. It could have been a private call, of course, and nothing
to do with the clinic. It could have been a doctor trying to
trace a patient, or vice versa. Something, or someone, is
apparently expected to arrive on the first Monday or on
Monday the first. There are a dozen possible interpretations
and none of them relevant to the murder. Still, someone
phoned recently about a woman and Miss Bolam was obvi-ously
examining the dossiers of every woman on the staff
except herself. Why ? To check which of them were here eight
years ago ? It's all pretty far-fetched. We'll leave the pleasures
of conjecture for the moment and get down to seeing these

33


people. I'd like that typist in first. The girl who found the body.
Etherege said she was upset. Let's hope she's calmed down by
now or we'll be here half the night."
But Jennifer Priddy was perfectly calm. She had obviously
been drinking and her grief was overlaid with a barely suppressed
excitement. Her face, still swollen from crying, was
blotched with high colour and her eyes were unnaturally bright.
But the drink had not fuddled her and she told her story well.
She had been busy in the ground-floor general office for most
of the evening and had last seen Miss Bolam at about five-forty-five
when she had gone into the A.O.'s office with a query
about a patient's appointment. Miss Bolam 'had seemed the
same as usual to her. She had returned to the general office and
had been joined by Peter Nagle at about six-ten. He was wearing
his coat and had come to collect the outgoing post. Miss
Priddy had registered the last few letters in the post book and
handed them to him. At about quarter- or twenty-past six Mrs.
Shorthouse had joined them. Mrs. Shorthous¢ had mentioned
that she had just come from Miss Bolam's office where she had
been settling a query about her annual leave entitlement. Peter
Nagle had gone out with the post and she and Mrs. Shorthouse
had stayed together until his return some ten minutes later.
Nagle had then gone down to the basement porters' room to
hang up his coat and feed Tiggcr, the office cat, and she had
followed him down almost immediately. She had helped him
feed Tiggcr and they had returned to the general office to-gerber.
At about seven the senior porter, Cully, complained
again about his stomach-ache which had been troubling him
all day. Miss Priddy, Mrs. Bostock, the other medical secretary,
and Peter Nagle had all had to take Cully's place at the
switchboard from time to time because of his stomach-ache, but
he had refused to go home. Now he was willing to go and Miss
Priddy had gone to the A.O.'s office to ask Miss Bolam if he
could leave early. Miss Bolam wasn't in her office so she had
looked in the nurses' duty-room on the ground floor. Sister
Ambrose told her that she had seen the A.O. passing down the
hall towards the basement stairs about thirty minutes or so
earlier, so Miss Priddy had looked in the basement. The record34


room was usually kept locked but the key was in the lock and
the door just ajar, so she had looked inside. The light was on.
She had found the body--here Miss Priddy's voice faltered--and
had rushed upstairs at once to get help. No, she hadn't
touched anything. She didn't know why the medical records
were strewn around. She didn't know how she had known that
Miss Bolam was dead. It was just that Miss Bolam had looked
so very dead. She didn't know why she had been so sure it was
murder. She thought she had seen a bruise on Miss Bolam's
head. And, then, there had been Tippett's fetish laying on the
body. She was afraid that Yippett was hiding among the
record racks and would jump out at her. Everyone said that
he wasn't dangerous--at least everyone except Dr. Steiner--but
he had been in a mental hospital and, after all, you couldn't
be really sure, could you ? No, she hadn't known that Tippett
wasn't in the clinic. Peter Nagle had taken the call from the
hospital and had told Miss Bolam but he hadn't told her. She
hadn't seen the chisel in Miss Bolam's chest but Dr. Etherege
had told the staff about the stabbing when they were gathered
together in the front consulting-room waiting for the police.
She thought that' most of the staff knew where Peter Nagle
kept his tools and also which key opened the door of the base-ment
record room. It hung on hook number 12 and was shinier
than the other keys, but it wasn't labelled. Dalgliesh said:

"I want you to think very hard and very carefully. When
you went downstairs to help Mr. Nagle feed the cat was the
record-room door ajar and the light on as it was when you
went down later and found Miss Bolam ?"

The girl pushed back her dank blonde hair and said with
sudden weariness:

"I... I can't remember. I didn't go past that door you see.
I went straight into the porters' room at the bottom of the
stairs. Peter was there clearing up Tigger's plate. He hadn't
eaten all of his last meal so we scraped it off his plate and
washed it at the sink. We didn't go near the record-room."

"But you could see the door as you came down the stairs.
Would you be likely to notice if the door were ajar? The room
isn't often used, is it?"


35


"No, but anyone might go there if they wanted a record. I
mean, if the door were open I wouldn't go to see who was there
or anything like that. I think I would notice if the door was
wide open so I suppose it wasn't, but I can't remember,
honestly I can't."

Dalgliesh ended by asking her about Miss Bolam. It appeared
that Miss Priddy knew her outside the clinic, that the Priddy
family attended the same church and that Miss Bolam had
encouraged her to take the job at the clinic.

"I shouldn't have got this job if it hadn't been for Enid. Of
course, I never called her that inside the clinic. She wouldn't
have liked it." Miss Priddy gave the impression that she had
only reluctantly brought herself to use the Christian name out-side
the clinic. She went on: "I don't mean she actually ap-pointed
me. I had to be interviewed by Mr. Lauder and by
Dr. Etherege, but I know she spoke up for me. My shorthand
and typing weren't very good then--it was nearly two years
ago when I came--and I was lucky to get here. I didn't see
very much of Enid at the clinic but she was always very kind
and keen for me to get on. She wanted me to take the Institute
of Hospital Administration Diploma so that I needn't be a
shorthand typist all my life."

This ambition for Miss Priddy's future career struck Dal-gliesh
as a little odd. The child gave no impression of being
ambitious and she would surely marry in time. It hardly
needed the Institute's diploma, whatever that might be, to save
her from being a shorthand typist for life. He felt a little sorry
for Miss Bolam who could scarcely have picked a less promising
prot6g6e. She was pretty, honest and naive, but not, he thought,
particularly intelligent. He had to remind himself that she had
given her age as twenty-two not seventeen. She had a shapely
and oddly mature body, but her thin face with its frame of
long, straight hair, was the face of a child.

There was little she could tell him about the administrative
officer. She hadn't noticed any change recently in Miss Bolam.
She didn't know that the A.O. had sent for Mr. Lauder and
had no idea what could be worrying Miss Bolam at the clinic.
Everything was going on very much as usual. Miss Bolam had
36


no enemies as far as she knew, certainly no one who would
wish to kill her.

"She was happy here, then, as far as you know ? I was won-dering
whether she had asked for a move. A psychiatric clinic
can't be the easiest unit to administer."

"Oh, it isn't! I don't know how Enid carried on sometimes.
But I'm sure she would never ask for a move. Someone must
have given you the wrong impression. She was never one to
give up. If she thought people wanted her to go she'd dig her
toes in. The clinic was a kind of challenge to her."

It was probably the most illuminating thing she had said
about Miss Bolam. As he thanked her and asked her to wait
with the rest of the staff until his preliminary interviews were
over, Dalgliesh pondered on the possible nuisance value of
an administrator who regarded her job as a challenge, a battle-ground
from which she would never willingly retreat. He asked
next to see Peter Nagle.

If the junior porter was worried by the killer's choice of his
chisel as a weapon he gave no sign. He answered Dalgliesh's
questions calmly and politely, but so dispassionately that they
might have been discussing some minor point of clinic pro-cedure
which was only doubtfully his concern. He gave his
age as twenty-seven and an address in Pimlico and confirmed
that he had been employed at the clinic for just over two years
and was previously at a provincial art school. His voice was
level and educated, his mud-brown eyes were large, almost
expressionless. Dalgliesh noticed that he had unusually long
arms which, held loosely from his short and powerful body,
gave an impression of simian strength. His hair was black,
coiling tightly over the scalp. It was an interesting face, with-drawn
but intelligent. There could scarcely have been a greater
contrast with poor old Cully, long since despatched home to
nurse both his stomach-ache and his grievance at being kept
late.

Nagle confirmed Miss Priddy's story. He again identified
his chisel with no more emotion than a brief moue of distaste
and said that he had last seen it at eight o'clock that morning
when he had arrived on duty and--for no particular reason--


37


had made a check of his toolbox. Everything was in order then.
Dalgliesh asked whether it was generally known where the box
was kept. Nagle replied:

"I'd be a fool if I said no, wouldn't I ?"

"You'd be a fool to say anything but the truth now or later."
"I suppose most of the staff knew. Those who didn't could
find out easily enough. We don't keep the porters' room
locked."

"Isn't that rather unwise? What about the patients ?"
"They don't go down to the basement on their own. The
lysergic acid patients are always escorted and the art therapy
people usually have someone keeping an eye on them. The
department hasn't been down there for long. The light's bad

and it isn't really suitable. It's a temporary department."
"Where used it to be, then?"

"On the third floor. Then the clinic Medical Committee
decided they wanted the large room there for the marital prob-lems
discussion groups, so Mrs. Baumgarten--she's the art
therapist--lost it. She's been agitating to get it back, but the
M.P.D. patients say it would be psychologically disturbing for

them to meet in the basement."

"Who runs the M.P.D. ?"

"Dr. Steiner and one of the psychiatric social workers, Miss
Kallinski. It's a club where the divorced and the single tell
the patients how to be happy though married. I don't see how
it can concern the murder."

"Nor do I. I asked about it to satisfy my curiosity as to
why the art therapy department was so unsuitably housed.
When did you hear that Tippett wasn't attending today, by the
way?"

"At about nine o'clock this morning. The old boy had
been worrying St. Luke's Hospital to telephone and let us
know what had happened. So they did. I told Miss Bolam and
Sister."

"Anyone else?"

"I think I mentioned it to Cully when he came back on the
board. He's had belly-ache for most of the day."

"So I'm told. What's wrong with him ?"

38


"Cully? Miss Bolam made him go to hospital for an ex-amination
but nothing was found. He gets these belly-aches if

anyone upsets him. They say here it's psychosomatic."
"What upset him this morning?"

"I did. He got here before me this morning and started sorting
the post. That's my job. I told him to concentrate on his own
work."

Dalgliesh took him patiently over the events of the evening.
His story agreed with Miss Priddy's and, like her, he was un-able
to say whether the door of the basement record-room had
been ajar when he returned from posting the letters. He admit-ted
that he had passed the door when he went to ask Nurse
Bolam if the laundry was sorted. It was usual for the door to
be closed as the room was seldom visited and he thought
he would have noticed had it been open. It was frustrating and
maddening that this crucial point could not be cleared up, but
Nagle stood firm. He hadn't noticed. He couldn't say. He
hadn't noticed, either, whether the record-room key was on the
board in the porters' rest-room. This was easier to understand.
There were twenty-two hooks on the board and most of the
keys were in use and missing. Dalgliesh said:

"You realize that Miss Bolam's body was almost certainly
lying in the record-room when you and Miss Priddy were to-gether
feeding the cat? You realize how important it is to
remember whether the door was open or shut ?"

"It was ajar when Jenny Priddy went down later. That's
what she says and she's no liar. If it was shut when I got back
from the post someone must have opened it between six-twenty-five
and seven. I don't see what's so impossible about
that. It would be better for me if I could remember about the
door, but I can't. I hung up my coat in my locker, went
straight to ask Nurse Bolam about the clean laundry, and then
returned to the rest-room. Jenny met me at the bottom of the
stairs."

He spoke without heat, almost unemotionally. It was as if
he said. "That's what happened. Like it or not, it happened
that way." He was too intelligent not to see that he was in
some danger. Perhaps he was also intelligent enough to know


39


that the danger was minimal to an innocent man who kept his
head and told the truth.
Dalgliesh told him to let the police know at once if he remembered
anything fresh and let him go.
Sister Ambrose was seen next. She strutted into the room,
armour-plated in white linen, belligerent as a battleship. The
bib of her apron, starched rigid as a board, curved against
a formidable bosom on which she wore her nursing badges like
medals of war. Grey hair spurted from each side of her cap
which she wore Low on her forehead above a face of uncompromising
plainness. Her colour was high; Dalgliesh thought
that she was finding it difficult to control her resentment and distrust.
He dealt with her gently, but his questions were answered
in an atmosphere of rigid disapproval. She confirmed briefly
that she had last seen Miss Bolam walking through the hall
towards the basement stairs at about twenty-past six. They had
not spoken and the administrative officer had looked the same
as usual. Sister Ambrose was back in the E.C.T. room before
Miss Bolam was out of sight and had been there with Dr.
Ingram until the body was found. In reply to Dalgliesh's
question whether Dr. Baguley had also been with them for the
whole of that time, Sister Ambrose suggested that he should
ask the doctor direct. Dalgliesh replied mildly that this was his
intention. He knew that the Sister could give him a great deal
of useful information about the clinic if she chose but, apart
from a few questions about Miss Bolam's personal relationships
from which he gained nothing, he did not press her. He
thought that she was probably more shocked by the murder,
by the calculated violence of Miss Bolam's death, than anyone
he had yet seen. As sometimes happens with unimaginative and
inarticulate people, this shock gave vent to ill-temper. She was
very cross; with Dalgliesh because his job gave him the right
to ask impertinent and embarrassing questions; with herself
because she could not conceal her feelings; with the victim,
even, who had involved the clinic in this bizarre predicament.
It was a reaction Dalgliesh had met before and no good came
of trying to force co-operation on such a witness. Later on
Sister Ambrose might be induced to talk more freely; at 40


present, it was a waste of time to do more than elicit the facts
which she was prepared to give. One fact at least was crucial.
Miss Bolam was alive and making her way towards the base-ment
stairs at about twenty-past six. At seven o'clock her body
was discovered. Those forty minutes were vital and any
member of the staff who could produce an alibi covering them
could be eliminated from the enquiry. On the face of it the
case presented little difficulty. Dalgliesh did not believe that
an outsider had somehow gained access to the clinic and lain
in wait for Miss Bolam. The killer was almost certainly still in
the building. It was now a matter for careful questioning, for
the methodical checking of alibis, for the seeking out of a
motive. Dalgliesh decided to talk to the one man whose alibi
appeared unassailable and who would have the detached, out-sider's
view of the clinic and its varied personalities. He thanked
Sister Ambrose for her valuable co-operation--a flicker of the
eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles suggested that the irony
was not lost on her--and asked the constable at the door to
send in Mr. Lauder.


41


Chapter Two


I

t was the first chance Dalgliesh had had to observe the
group secretary closely. He saw a thick-set, chubby-featured
man, mild-eyed behind the heavy square spectacles,
who looked, in his well-cut tweeds, more like a country doctor
or small-town solicitor than a bureaucrat. He was completely
at ease and bore himself like a man confident of his powers,
unwilling to be hurried, keeping always something in reserve,
including, Dalgliesh thought, a keener intelligence than his
appearance might suggest.

He seated himself opposite Dalgliesh, drew his chair com-fortably
forward and, without either apology or excuse, took
a pipe from one pocket and sought in the other for his tobacco
pouch. Nodding towards Martin and his open note book he
said, in a slow voice with a trace of north-country accent:

"Reginald Iven Lauder. Date of birth, 21st April 1905.
Address, 42 Makepeace Avenue, Chigwell, Essex. Occupa-tion,
Group Secretary, East Central Hospital Management
Committee. And now, Superintendent, what do you want to
know ?"

"A great deal, I'm afraid," said Dalgliesh. And firstly, have
you any idea at all who could have killed Miss Bolam ?" The
group secretary established his pipe and, leaning his elbows on
the desk, regarded its glowing head with satisfaction.

"I wish I had. I'd have been in here to tell you before now,
never fear. But, no. I've no help of that kind for you."

"Miss Bolam had no enemies as far as you were aware ?"
"Enemies ? Well now, Superintendent, that's a strong word!

42


She had people who didn't much like her, the same as I have.
You, too, no doubt. But we don't go in fear of being murdered.
No, I wouldn't have said she had enemies. Mind you, I know
nothing of her private life. That's not my concern."

"Could you tell me something about the Steen and the
position she held ? I know something of the clinic's reputation,
of course, but it would be helpful if I could have a clear picture
of what goes on here."

"A clear picture of what goes on?" It might have been
imagination, but Dalgliesh thought he saw the group secre-tary's
mouth twitch.

"Well, the medical director could tell you more about that
than I--on the medical side, that is. But I can give you a
gist. The place was founded between the wars by the family
of a Mr. Hyman Stein. The story goes that the old man suffered
from impotence, got himself some psychotherapy and subse-quently
fathered five children. So far from impoverishing him
they all did well and when papa died they put the clinic on a
sound financial footing as a memorial to him. After all, they
did owe the place something. 'The sons all changed their name
to Steen--for the usual reason I suppose--and the clinic was
given the anglicized name. I often wonder what old Hyman
would have thought."

"Is it well endowed?"

"It was. The state got the endowments of course on the
Appointed Day following the 1946 Act. A bit has come in
since, but not much. People aren't so keen to will money to
institutions run by the Government. But the place was quite
well off before 1948 as these places go. They did themselves
well in the way of equipment and facilities. The Hospital
Management Committee's had quite a job providing for them
in the way to which they'd become accustomed."

"Is the clinic difficult to administer? I imagine there may be
personality problems."

"No more difficult than any other small unit. You get per-sonality
problems anywhere. I'd rather deal with a difficult
psychiatrist than a difficult surgeon any day. They're the real
prima donnas."


43


"Did you consider Miss Bolam a successful administrative
officer ?"
"Well... she was efficient. I hadn't really any complaints.
She was a bit rigid, I suppose. After all, Ministry circulars
haven't even the force of law, so there's no sense in treating
them as if they are personally dictated by God Almighty. I
doubt whether Miss Bolam would have got much further.
Mind you, she was a competent, methodical and highly
conscientious officer. I don't think she ever sent in an inaccurate
return."
"Poor devil I" thought Dalgliesh, stung by the bleak anonymity
of that official epitaph. He asked:
"Was she popular here? With the medical staff, for example
?"
"Well, now, Superintendent, you'll have to ask them. I
can't think of any reason why she shouldn't be."
"You were not then under any pressure from the medical
committee to remove her from the clinic?"
The mild grey eyes grew suddenly blank. There was a
momentary pause before the group secretary calmly replied: "I have had no official request of that kind made to me."
"But unofficially?"
"There has been a feeling here from time to time, I believe,
that a change of job might be helpful to Miss Bolam. Now
that's not such a bad idea, Superintendent! Any officer in a
small unit, particularly a psychiatric clinic, can benefit from
a change of experience. But I don't transfer my staff at the
whim of medical committees. Bless me, no! And, as I said, no
official request was made. If Miss lolam herself had asked for a transfer, that would have been a different matter. Even so,
it wouldn't have been easy. She was a general administrative
officer and we haven't many posts in that grade."
Dalgliesh then asked again about Miss Bolam's telephone
call and Lauder confirmed that he had spoken to her at about
ten to one. He remembered the time because he was just about
to go for lunch. Miss Bolam had asked to speak to him personally
and had been put through by his secretary. She had asked
whether she could see him urgently.


"Can you remember the exact conversation ?"

"More or less. She said: 'Can I have an appointment to see
you as soon as possible ? I think there may be something going
on here that you ought to know about. I should like your
advice. Something that started well before my time here.' I
said that I couldn't see her this afternoon as I would be in the
Finance and General Purposes Committee from two-thirty
onwards and had a Joint Consultative Committee immediately
afterwards. I asked whether she could give me any idea what
it was all about and whether it couldn't wait until Monday.
She hesitated, so, before she could reply, I said I'd drop in
on my way home this evening. I knew they had a late clinic on
Fridays. She said that she would arrange to be alone in her
office from six-thirty onwards, thanked me, and rang off. The
J.C.C. lasted longer than I expected--that Committee always
does--and I got here just before seven-thirty. But you know
that. I was still in Committee at the time they found the body,
as no doubt you'll be checking in due course."

"Did you take Miss Bolam's message seriously ? Was she the
sort of woman who ran to you with trifles or would a request
to see you really mean that something serious was wrong?"

The group secretary thought for a moment before replying:

"I took it seriously. That's why I came round tonight."
"And you have no idea at all what it might be ?"

"None, I'm afraid. It must have been something that she
learned about since Wednesday. I saw Miss Bolam then at
the House Committee meeting in the late afternoon and she
told me afterwards that things were pretty quiet here at present.
That is the last time I saw her incidentally. She was looking
rather well I thought. Better than for some time."

Dalgliesh asked the group secretary what, if anything, he
knew of Miss Bolam's private life.

"Very little. I believe she has no near relations and lives
alone in a flat in Kensington. Nurse Bolam will be able to tell
you more about her. They're cousins, and Nurse Bolam is
probably the nearest living relative. I've got an idea that she
had private means. All the official information about her
career will be on her dossier. Knowing Miss Bolam, I expect


45


her file will be as meticulously kept as any other staff dossier.
It'll be here no doubt."

Without moving from his chair he leaned sideways, jerked
open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and inserted a chubby
hand between the manilla folders.

"Here we are. Bolam, Enid Constance. I see she came to us
in October 1949 as a shorthand typist. She spent eighteen
months in Group Headquarters, was transferred to one of our
chest clinics on 19th April 1951 on Grade B and applied for
the vacant post of administrative officer here on 14th May 1957.
The post was then Grade D and she was lucky to get it. We
hadn't a very strong field, I remember. All administrative and
clerical jobs were regraded in 1958 following the Noel Hall
report and, after some argument with the Regional Board we
managed to get this one graded as general administrative. It's
all down here. Date of birth, 12th December 1922. Address,
37a Ballantyne Mansions, S.W.8. Then come details about her
tax code, national insurance number and incremental date.
She's only had one week off sick since she came here and that
was in 1959 when she had 'flu. There isn't much more here. Her
original application form and letters of appointment will be
on her main dossier at Group Headquarters."

He handed the file to Dalgliesh who looked through it and
then said:

"This states that her previous employers were the Botley
Research Establishment. Isn't that Sir Mark Etherege's show?
They dabble in Aeronautical research. He's Dr. Etherege's
brother, isn't he?

"I think Miss Bolam did mention to me when she was
appointed to this post that she knew Dr. Etherege's brother
slightly. Mind you now, it can't have been more than that. She
was only a shorthand typist at Botley. It's a bit of a coincidence,
I suppose, but then she had to come from somewhere. I seem
to remember it was Sir Mark who gave her a reference when
she applied to us. That will be on her Group dossier, of course."

"Would you mind telling me, Mr. Lauder, what arrange-ments
you propose making here now that she's dead?"

The group secretary replaced the file in the cabinet.

46


"I don't see why not. I shall have to consult my Committee,
of course, as the circumstances are unusual, but I shall recom-mend
that the senior medical stenographer here, Mrs. Bostock,
takes over in an acting capacity. If she can do the job---and I
think she can--she'll be a strong candidate for the vacancy,
but the post will be advertised in the usual way."

Dalgliesh did not comment but he was interested. Such a
quick decision on Miss Bolam's successor could only mean that
Lauder had earlier given some thought to it. The approaches
of the medical staff may have been unofficial, but they had prob-ably
been more effective than the group secretary cared to
admit. Dalgliesh returned to the telephone call which had
brought Mr. Lauder to the clinic. He said:

"The words Miss Bolam used strike me as significant. She
said that there may be something very serious going on here
which you ought to know about and that it started before her
time. That suggests, firstly that she wasn't yet certain but only
suspicious, and secondly that she wasn't worried about a
particular incident but about something of long standing. A
systematic policy of thieving, for example, as opposed to one
isolated theft."

"Well now, Superintendent, its odd you should mention
theft. We have had a theft recently, but it was an isolated inci-dent,
the first we've had here for years, and I can't see how it
could be connected with murder. It was just over a week ago,
last Tuesday if I remember rightly. Cully and Nagle were the
last to leave the clinic as usual and Cully asked Nagle to have
a drink with him at the 'Queen's Head'. You know it, I expect.
It's the pub on the far corner of Beefsteak Street. There are
one or two odd things about this story and one of the strangest
is that Cully should invite Nagle for a drink. They've never
struck me as buddies. Anyway, Nagle accepted and they were
in the 'Queen's Head' together from about seven. At about
half-past, a pal of Cully's came in and said he was surprised
to see Cully there as he had just passed the clinic and there was
a faint light in one of the windows--as if someone was moving
around with a torch, he said. Nagle and Cully went off to
investigate and found one of the back basement windows


47


broken, or rather, cut out. Quite a clever job it was. Cully
didn't feel inclined to investigate further without reinforce-ments
and I'm not sure that I blame him. He's sixty-five,
remember, and not strong. After some whispering together,
Nagle said that he'd go in and Cully had better telephone the
police from the kiosk on the corner. Your people came pretty
smartly but they didn't get the intruder. He gave Nagle the slip
inside the building, and when Cully got back from telephoning
he was just in time to see the man slip out of the mews."

"I'll check how far our people have got with the investiga-tion,''
said Dalgliesh. "But I agree that a connection between
the crimes seems unlikely on the face of it. Was much taken ?"

"Fifteen pounds from a drawer in the psychiatric social
worker's office. The door was locked but he wrenched it open.
The money was in an envelope addressed in green ink to the
administrative secretary of the clinic and had been received a
week earlier. There was no letter with it, only a note to say
that the money was from a grateful patient. The other contents
of the drawer were torn and scattered but nothing else was
stolen. Some attempt had been made to force open the cabinets
of records in the general office and Miss Bolam's desk drawers
had been forced but nothing taken."

Dalgliesh asked whether the fifteen pounds should have
been placed in the wall safe.

"Well now, Superintendent, you're fight, of course. It should
have been. But there was a little difficulty about using the
money. Miss Bolam phoned me about its arrival and said that
she thought it should be paid immediately into the clinic's free
money account to be used in due course on the authority of
the House Committee. That was a very proper course of action,
and so I told her. Shortly afterwards 'the medical director
phoned me to ask if he could have authority to spend the
money on some new flower vases for the patients' waiting-room.
The vases were certainly needed and it seemed a correct use for
non-Exchequer funds, so I rang the chairman of the House
Committee and got his approval. Apparently Dr. Etherege
wanted Miss Kettle to choose the vases and asked Miss Bolam
to hand over the cash. I had already notified Miss Bolam of the
48


decision so she did so, expecting that the vases would be bought
at once. Something happened to change Miss Kettle's plans
and, instead of returning the cash to the A.O. for safe custody,
she locked it in her drawer."

"Do you know how many of the staff knew that it was
there ?"

"That's what the police asked. I suppose most people knew
that the vases hadn't been bought or Miss Kettle would have
shown them around. They probably guessed that, having been
handed the cash, she wouldn't be likely to return it even
temporarily. I don't know. The arrival of that fifteen pounds
was mysterious. It caused nothing but trouble and its dis-appearance
was equally mysterious. Anyway, Superintendent,
no one here stole it. Cully only saw the thief for a second but
he was certain that he didn't know the man. He did say, though,
that he thought the chap looked like a gentleman. Don't ask
me how he knew or what his criteria are. But that's what he
said."

Dalgliesh thought that the whole incident was odd and
would bear further investigation but he could see no apparent
connection between the two crimes. It was not even certain
that Miss Bolam's call to the group secretary for advice was
related to her death, but here the presumption was much
stronger. It was very important to discover, if possible, what
she had suspected. He asked Mr. Lauder once more whether
he could help.

"I told you, Superintendent, I haven't an idea what she
meant. If I suspected that anything was wrong I shouldn't
wait for Miss Bolam to phone me. We're not quite so remote
from the units at group offices as some people think and I
usually get to know anything I ought to know. If the murder is
connected with that phone message something pretty serious
must be happening here. After all, you don't kill just to prevent
the group secretary knowing that you've fiddled your travelling
claim or overspent your annual leave. Not that anyone has as
far as I know."

"Exactly," said Dalgliesh. He watched the group secretary's
face very closely and said, without emphasis:

49


"It suggests something that might ruin a man professionally.
A sexual relationship with a patient perhaps--something as
serious as that." Mr. Lauder's face did not change.

"I imagine every doctor knows the seriousness of that,
particularly psychiatrists. They must have to be pretty careful
with some of the neurotic women they treat. Frankly, I don't
believe it. All the doctors here are eminent men, some of them
with world-wide reputations. You don't get that sort of reputa-tion
if you're a fool and men of that eminence don't commit
murder."

"And what about the rest of the staff? They may not be

eminent, but presumably you consider them honest?"
Unruffled, the group secretary replied:

"Sister Ambrose has been here for nearly twenty years and
Nurse Bolam for five. I would trust them both absolutely. All
the clerical staff came with good references and so did the
two porters, Cully and Nagle." He added wryly: "Admittedly
I didn't check that they hadn't committed murder but none of
them strike me as homicidal maniacs. Cully drinks a bit and is
a pathetic old fool with only another four months' service to
complete. I doubt whether he could kill a mouse without
making a hash of it. Nagle is a cut above the usual hospital
porter. I understand he's an art student and works here for
pocket money. He's only been with us a couple of years so he
wasn't here before Miss Bolam's time. Even if he's been
seducing all the female staff, which seems unlikely, the worst
that could happen to him would be the sack and that wouldn't
worry 'him as things are today. Admittedly she was killed with
his chisel but anyone could have got their hands on that."

"I'm afraid this was an inside job, you know," said Dalgliesh
gently. "The murderer knew where Tippett's fetish and Nagle's
chisel were kept, knew which key opened the old record-room,
knew where that key was hung on the board in the porters'
duty-room, probably wore one of the rubber aprons from the
art therapy room as a protection, certainly had medical know-ledge.
Above all, of course, the murderer couldn't have left the
clinic after the crime. The basement door was bolted and so was
the ground floor back door. Cully was watching the front door."


50


"Cully had a belly-ache. He could have missed someone."
"Do you really believe that's possible?" asked Dalgliesh.
And the group secretary did not reply.

At first sight Marion Bolam could be thought beautiful.
She had the fair, classical good looks which, enhanced by her
nurse's uniform, gave an immediate impression of serene loveliness.
Her blonde hair, parted above a broad forehead and
twisted into a high roll at the back of her head, was bound by
the simple white cap. It was only at second glance that the
illusion faded and beauty gave way to prettiness. The features,
individually analysed, were unremarkable, the nose a little too
long, the lips a little too thin. In ordinary clothes, hurrying
home perhaps at the end of the day, she would b undistinguished.
It was the combination of the starched formal
linen with that fair skin and yellow hair which dazzled the
eye. Only in the broad forehead and the sharpness of the nose
could Dalgliesh detect any tikeness to her dead cousin. But
there was nothing ordinary about the large grey eyes which
met his fully for a brief second before she lowered her glance
and gazed fixedly at the clasped hands in her lap.
"I understand that you are Miss Bolam's next of kin. This
must be a terrible shock for you."
"Yes. Oh, yes, it is I Enid was my cousin."
"You have the same name. Your fathers were brothers?"
"Yes, they were. Our mothers were sisters, too. Two brothers
married two sisters so that we were doubly related."
"Had she no other relations living?"
"Only Mummy and me."
"I shall have to see Miss Bolam's solicitor, I expect," said
Dalgliesh, "but it Would be helpful if you would tell me as
much as you know about her affairs. I'm afraid I have to ask
these personal questions. Usually they have no bearing on the
crime, but one must know as much as possible about everyone
concerned. Had your cousin any income apart from her salary ?"
"Oh, yes. Enid was quite well off. Uncle Sydney left her
mother about £25,000 and it all came to Enid. I don't know
how much was left, but I think she had about £1,000 a year

51


coming in apart from her salary here. She kept on auntie's flat
in Ballantyne Mansions and she.., she was always very good

to US."

"In what way, Miss Bolam? Did she make you an allow-ance
?"

"Oh, no! Enid wouldn't want to do that. She gave us
presents. Thirty pounds at Christmas and fifty in July for our
summer holiday. Mummy has disseminated sclerosis and we
couldn't go away to an ordinary hotel."

"And what happens to Miss Bolam's money now?"

The grey eyes lifted to meet his with no trace of embarrass-ment.
She answered simply:

"It will come to Mummy and me. There wasn't anyone else
to leave it to, was there ? Enid always said it would come to us
if she died first. But, of course, it wasn't likely that she would
die first; not while Mummy was alive anyway."

It was indeed unlikely, in the ordinary course of events, that
Mrs. Bolam would ever have benefited from that 20,000 pounds or
what was left of it, thought Dalgliesh. Here was the obvious
motive, so understandable, so universal, so dear to any prose-cuting
counsel. Every juryman understood the lure of money.
Could Nurse Bolam really be unaware of the significance of the
information which she was handing him with such unembar-rassed
candour? Could innocence be so naive or guilt so con-fident?
He said suddenly:

"Was your cousin popular, Miss Bolam ?"

"She hadn't many friends. I don't think she would have
called herself popular. She wouldn't want that. She had her
church activities and the Guides. She was a very quiet person
really."

"But you know of no enemies ?"

"Oh, no! None at all. Enid was very much respected."
The formal, old-fashioned epithet was almost inaudible.
Dalgliesh said:

"Then it looks as if this is a motiveless, unpremeditated
crime. Normally that would suggest one of the patients. But
it hardly seems possible and you are all insistent that it isn't
likely."

52


"Oh, no! It couldn't be a patient! I'm quite sure none of
our patients would do a thing like that. They aren't violent."
"Not even Mr. Tippett?"
"But it couldn't have been Tippett. He's in hospital."
"So I'm told. How many people here knew that Mr. Tippett
wouldn't be coming to the clinic this Friday ?"
"I don't know. Nagle knew because he took the message
and he told Enid and Sister. Sister told me. You see, I usually
try to keep an eye on Tippett when I'm specialling the LSD
patients on Fridays. I can't leave my patient for more than a
second, of course, but I do pop out occasionally to see ifTippett
is all right. Tonight it wasn't necessary. Poor Tippett, he does
love his art therapy! Mrs. Baumgarten has been away ill for
six months now, but we couldn't stop Tippett from coming.
He wouldn't hurt a fly. It's wicked to suggest that Tippett
could have anything to do with it. Wicked I"
She spoke with sudden vehemence. Dalgliesh said mildly:
"But no one is suggesting anything of the sort. If Tippett is
in hospital--and I haven't the least doubt we shall find that he
is--then he couldn't have been here."
"But someone put his fetish on the body, didn't they? If
Tippett had been here you would have suspected him straight
away and he would have been so upset and confused. It was a
wicked thing to do. Really wicked I"
Her voice broke and she was very near to tears. Dalgliesh
watched the thin fingers twisting in her lap. He said gently:
"I don't think we need worry about Mr. Tippett. Now I
want you to think carefully and tell me everything that you
know happened in the clinic from the time you came on duty
this evening. Never mind about other people, I just want to
know what you did."
Nurse Bolam remembered very clearly what she had done
and, after a second's hesitation, she gave a careful and logical
account. It was her job on Friday evenings to "special" any
patient undergoing treatment with lysergic acid. She explained
that this was a method of releasing deep-seated inhibitions so
that the patient was able to recall and recount the incidents
which were being repressed in his subconscious and were
53


responsible for his illness. As she spoke about the treatment
Nurse Bolam lost her nervousness and seemed to forget that
she was talking to a layman. But Dalgliesh did not interrupt.

"It's a remarkable drug and Dr. Baguley uses it quite a lot.
It's name is lysergic acid diethylamide and I think it was dis-covered
by a German in 1942. We administer it orally, and the
usual dose is 0.25 mg. It's produced in ampoules of 1 mg. and
mixed with from 15 to 30 c.c.'s of distilled water. The patients
are told not to have any breakfast. The first effects are noticed
after about half an hour and the more disturbing subjective
experiences occur from one to one and a half hours after
administration. That's when Dr. Baguley comes down to be
with the patient. The effects can last for as lo. ng as four
hours and the patient is flushed and restless and quite with-drawn
from reality. They're never left alone, of course, and we
use the basement room because it's secluded and quiet and
other patients aren't distressed by the noise. We usually give
LSD treatments on Friday afternoon and evening, and I
always 'special' the patient."

"I suppose that, if any noise, such as a cry, were heard on
Fridays in the basement most of the staff would assume that
it was the LSD patient?"

Nurse Bolam looked doubtful.

"I suppose they might. Certainly these patients can be very
noisy. My patient today was more disturbed than usual which
was why I stayed close to her. Usually I spend a little time in
the linen-room which adjoins the treatment-room sorting the
clean laundry as soon as the patient is over the worst. I keep
the door open between the rooms, of course, so that I can
watch the patient from time to time."

Dalgliesh asked what exactly had happened during the
evening.

"Well, the treatment began just after three-thirty and Dr.
Baguley looked in shortly after four to see if all was well. I
stayed with the patient until four-thirty when Mrs. $horthouse
came to tell me that tea was made. Sister came down while I
went upstairs to the nurses' duty-room and drank tea. I came
down again at quarter to five and rang for Dr. Baguley at five.

54


He was with the patient for about three-quarters of an hour.
Then he left to return to his E.C.T. clinic. I stayed with the
patient, and as she was so restless I decided to leave the laundry
until later in the evening. At about twenty to seven Peter Nagle
knocked on the door and asked for the laundry. I told him
that it wasn't sorted and he looked a bit surprised but didn't
say anything. A little time after that I thought I heard a scream.
I didn't take any notice at first as it didn't seem very close and
I thought it was children playing in the square. Then I thought
I ought to make sure and I went to the door. I saw Dr. Baguley
and Dr. Steiner coming into the basement with Sister and Dr.
Ingram. Sister told me that nothing was wrong and to go back
to my patient, so I did."
"Did you leave the treatment-room at all after Dr. Baguley
left you at about quarter to six ?"
"Oh, no! There wasn't any need. If I'd wanted to go to the
cloakroom or anything like that (Nurse Bolam blushed faintly)
I would have phoned for Sister to come and take my place."
"Did you make any telephone calls from the treatment-room
at all during the evening ?"
"Only the one to the E.C.T. room at five to call Dr. Baguley."
"Are you quite sure you didn't telephone Miss Bolam?"
"Enid ? Oh, no! There wouldn't be any reason to call Enid.
She... that is, we, didn't see very much of each other in the
clinic. I am responsible to Sister Ambrose, you see, and Enid
wasn't concerned with the nursing staff."
"But you saw quite a lot of her outside the clinic?"
"Oh, no! I didn't mean that. I went to her flat once or twice,
to collect the cheque at Christmas and in the summer, but it
isn't easy for me to leave Mummy. Besides, Enid had her own
life to live. And then she's quite a lot older than me. I didn't
really know her very well."
Her voice broke and Dalgliesh saw that she was crying.
Fumbling under her apron for the pockf in her nurse's dress,
she sobbed:
"It's so dreadful I Poor Enid I Putting that fetish on her body
as if he was making fun of her, making it look as if she was
nursing a baby!"

55


Dalgliesh hadn't realized that she had seen the body and
said so.

"Oh, I didn't! Dr. Etherege and Sister wouldn't let me go
in to her. But we were all told what had happened."

Miss Bolam had indeed looked as if she were nursing a baby.
But he was surprised that someone who hadn't seen the body
should say so. The medical director must have given a graphic
description of the scene.

Suddenly Nurse Bolam found her handkerchief and drew it
out of her pocket. With it came a pair of thin, surgical gloves.

They fell at Dalgliesh's feet. Picking them up he asked:

"I didn't realize that you used surgical gloves here."

Nurse Bolam seemed unsurprised by his interest. Checking
her sobs with surprising control she replied:

"We don't use them very often but we keep a few pairs.
The whole Group's gone over to disposable gloves now, but
there are a few of the old kind about. That's one of them. We
use them for odd cleaning jobs."

"Thank you," said Dalgliesh. "I'll keep this pair if I may.
And I don't think I need worry you any more at present."

With a murmured word which could have been "thank you",
Nurse Bolam almost backed out of the room.


The minutes dragged heavily to the clinic staff waiting in the
front consulting-room to be interviewed. Fredrica Saxon had
fetched some papers from her room on the third floor and was
scoring an intelligence test. There had been some discussion
about whether she ought to go upstairs alone, but Miss Saxon
had stated firmly that she didn't intend to sit there wasting
time and biting her nails until the police chose to see her, that
she hadn't the murderer hidden upstairs, nor was she proposing
to destroy incriminating evidence and that she had no objection
to any member of the staff accompanying her to satisfy them-selves
on this point. This distressing frankness had provoked
a murmur of protests and reassurance, but Mrs. Bostock had
announced abruptly that she would like to fetch a book from
the medical library and the two women had left the room and
returned together. Cully had been seen early, having estab

56


lished his right to be classed as a patient, and had been
released to cosset his stomach-ache at home. The only remain-ing
patient, Mrs. King, had been interviewed and allowed to
depart with her husband in attendance. Mr. Burge had also
left, protesting loudly at the interruption of his session and the
trauma of the whole experience.

"Mind you, he's enjoying himself, you can see that," con-fided
Mrs. Shorthouse to the assembled staff. "The Superin-tendent
had a job getting rid of him, I can tell you."

There was a great deal which Mrs. Shorthouse seemed able
to tell them. She had been given permission to make coffee
and prepare sandwiches in her small ground-floor kitchen at
the rear of the building, and this gave her an excuse for frequent
trips up and down the hall. The sandwiches were brought in
almost singly. Cups were taken individually to be washed. This
coming and going gave her an opportunity of reporting the
latest situation to the rest of the staff who awaited each instal-ment
with an anxiety and eagerness which they could only
imperfectly conceal. Mrs. Shorthouse was not the emissary they
would have chosen but any news, however obtained and by
whomever delivered, helped to lighten the weight of suspense
and she was certainly unexpectedly knowledgeable about police
procedure.

"There's several of them searching the building now and
they've got their own chap on the door. They haven't found
anyone, of course. Well, it stands to reason! We know he
couldn't have got out of the building. Or in for that matter. I
said to the sergeant: 'This clinic has had all the cleaning from
me that it's getting today, so tell your chaps to mind where
they plant their boots .... "

"The police surgeon's seen the body. The fingerprint man is
still downstairs and they're taking everyone's prints. I've seen
the photographer. He went through the hall with a tripod and
a big case, white on top and black at the bottom .... '

"Here's a funny thing now. They're looking for prints in the
basement lift. Measuring it up, too."

Fredrica Saxon lifted her head, seemed about to say some-thing,
then went on with her work. The basement lift, which
57


was about four feet square and operated by a rope pulley, had
been used to transport food from the basement kitchen to the
first-floor dining-room when the clinic was a private house. It
had never been taken out. Occasionally medical records from
the basement record-room were hoisted in it to the first- and
second-floor consulting-rooms, but it was otherwise little used.
No one commented on a possible reason why the police should
test it for prints.

Mrs. Shorthouse departed with two cups to be washed. She
was back within five minutes.

"Mr. Lauder's in the general office phoning the chairman.
Telling him about the murder, I suppose. This'll give the
H.M.C. something to hatter about and no mistake. Sister is
going through the linen inventory with one of the police.
Seems there's a rubber apron from the art therapy-room miss-ing.
Oh, and another thing. They're letting the boiler out. Want
to rake it through, I suppose. Nice for us, I must say. This
place'll be bloody cold on Monday .... "

"The mortuary van's arrived. That's what they call it. The
mortuary van. They don't use an ambulance, you see. Not
when the victim's dead. You probably heard it arrive. I dare say
if you draw the curtains back a bit you'll see her being took
in."

But no one cared to draw back the curtains and, as the soft,
careful feet of the stretcher-bearers shuffled past the door no
one spoke. Fredrica Saxon laid down her pencil and bowed
her head as if she were praying. When the front door closed
their relief was heard in the soft hiss of breath released. There
was a brief silence and then the van drove off..Mrs. Shorthouse
was the only one to speak.

"Poor little blighter! Mind you I only gave her another six
months here what with one thing and another, but I never
thought she'd leave feet first."

Jennifer Priddy sat apart from the rest of the staff on the
edge of the treatment couch. Her interview with the superin-tendent
had been unexpectedly easy. She didn't know quite
what she had expected but certainly it wasn't this quiet, gentle,
deep-voiced man. He hadn't bothered to commiserate with her


58


on the shock of finding the body. He hadn't smiled at her. He
hadn't been paternal or understanding. He gave the impression
that he was interested only in finding out the truth as quickly
as possible and that he expected everyone else to feel the same.
She thought that it would be difficult to tell him a lie and she
hadn't tried. It had all been quite easy to remember, quite
straightforward. The Superintendent had questioned her closely
about the ten minutes or so she had spent in the basement
with Peter. That was only to be expected. Naturally he was
wondering whether Peter could have killed Miss Bolam after
he returned from the post and before she joined him. Well,
it wasn't possible. She had followed him downstairs almost
immediately and Mrs. Shorthouse could confirm it. Probably
it hadn't taken long to kill Enid--she tried not to think about
that sudden, savage, calculated violence--but however quickly
it was done, Peter hadn't time.

She thought about Peter. Thinking about him occupied most
of her few solitary hours. Tonight, however, the familiar .warm
imaginings were needled with anxiety. Was he going to be
cross about the way she had behaved ? She remembered with
shame her delayed scream of terror after finding the body, the
way she had thrown herself into his arms. He had been very
kind and considerate, of course, but then he always was con-siderate
when he wasn't working and remembered she was there.
She knew that he hated fuss and that any demonstration of
affection irked him. She had learned to accept that their love,
and she dared no longer doubt that it was love, must be taken
on his terms. Since their brief time together in the nurses'
duty-room after the finding of Miss Bolam she had scarcely
spoken to him. She couldn't guess what he felt. She was only
sure of one thing. She couldn't possibly pose for him tonight.
It hadn't anything to do with shame or guilt; he had long since
cut her free of those twin encumbrances. He would expect her
to arrive at the studio as planned. After all, her alibi was fixed
and her parents would accept that she was at her evening class.
He would see no reasonable grounds for altering their arrange-ments
and Peter was a great one for reason. But she couldn't
do it! Not tonight. It wasn't so much the posing as what would

59


follow. She wouldn't be able to refuse him. She wouldn't want
to refuse him. And tonight, with Enid dead, she felt that she
couldn't bear to be touched.

When she returned from her talk with the Superintendent,
Dr. Steiner had come to sit beside her and had been very kind.
But then Dr. Steiner was kind. It was easy enough to criticize
his indolence or laugh at his odd patients. But he did care
about people, whereas Dr. Baguley, who worked so hard and
wore himself out with his heavy clinics, didn't really like people
at all, but only wished that he did. Jenny wasn't sure how she
knew this so clearly. She hadn't really thought about it before.
Tonight, however, now that the first shock of finding the body
had passed, her mind was unnaturally clear. And not only her
mind. All her perceptions were sharpened. The tangible
objects about her, the chintz covering on the couch, the red
blanket folded at its foot, the bright varied greens and golds
of the chrysanthemums on the desk, were clearer, brighter,
more real to her than ever before. She saw the line of Miss
Saxon's arm as it rested on the desk curved around the book
she was reading and the way in which the small hairs on her
forearm were tipped with light from the desk lamp. She won-dered
whether Peter always saw the life around him with this
wonder and clarity as if one were born into an unfamiliar
world with all the first bright hues of creation fresh upon it.
Perhaps this was what it felt like to be a painter.

"I suppose it's the brandy," she thought, and giggled a little.
She remembered hearing the muttered grumblings of Sister
Ambrose half an hour earlier.

"What's Nagle been feeding to Priddy? That child's half
drunk." But she wasn't drunk and she didn't really believe it
was the brandy.

Dr. Steiner had drawn his chair close to her and had laid his
hand briefly on her shoulder. Without thinking, Miss Priddy
had said:

"She was kind to me and I didn't like her."

She no longer felt sad or guilty about it. It was a statement
of fact.

"You mustn't worry about it," he said gently, and patted

6O


her knee. She didn't resent the pat. Peter would have said:
"Lecherous old goat! Tell him to keep his paws to himself."
But Peter would have been wrong. Jenny knew that it was a
gesture of kindliness. For a moment she was tempted to put her
hand over his to show that she understood. He had small and
very white hands for a man, so different from Peter's long,
bony, paint-stained fingers. She saw how the hairs curled

neath his shirt cuffs, the stubble of black along the knuckles.
On his little finger he wore a gold signet ring, heavy as a
weapon.

"It's natural to feel as you do," he said. "When people die
we always wish that we had been kinder to them, had liked
them better. There is nothing to be done about it. We shouldn't
pretend about our feelings. If we understand them we learn in
time to accept them and to live with them."

But Jenny was no longer listening. For the door had opened
quietly and Peter Nagle had come in.

Bored with sitting in the reception desk and exchanging
commonplace remarks with the uncommunicative policeman
on duty there, Nagle sought diversion in the front consulting-room.
Although his formal interview was over he wasn't yet
free to leave the clinic. The group secretary obviously expected
him to stay until the building could be locked for the night and
it would be his job to open it again on Monday morning. The
way things were going it looked as if he would be stuck in the
place for another couple of hours at least. That morning he had
planned to get home early and work on the picture, but it was
no use thinking of that now. It might well be after eleven
o'clock before this business was settled and he was free to go
home. But even if they could go to the Pimlico flat together
Jenny wouldn't pose for him tonight. One glance at her face
told him that. She did not come across to him as he entered the
room and he was grateful for that amount of restraint at least.
But she gave him her shy, elliptical glance, half conspiratorial
and half pleading. It was her way of asking him to understand,
of saying sorry. Well, he was sorry, too. He had hoped to put
in a good three hours tonight and time was getting short. But
if she was only trying to convey that she wasn't in the mood for
61


making love, well, that suited him all right. It suited him most
nights if she only knew. He wished that he could take her--since
she was so tiresomely insistent on being taken--as simply
and quickly as he took a meal, a means of satisfying an appetite
that was nothing to be ashamed of but nothing to fuss
about either. But that wasn't Jenny. He hadn't been as clever
as he thought and Jenny was in love. She was hopelessly,
passionately and insecurely in love, demanding a constant
reassurance, facile tenderness and time-consuming technique
which left him exhausted and barely satisfied. She was terrified
of becoming pregnant so that the preliminaries to lovemaking
were irritatingly clinical, the aftermath, more often than not,
her wild sobbing in his arms. As a painter he was obsessed by
her body. He couldn't think of changing his model now and
he couldn't afford to change. But the price of Jenny was getting
too high.
He was almost untouched by Miss Bolam's death. He suspected
that she had always known just how little work he did
for his money. The rest of the staff, deluded by comparing him
with that poor fool, Cully, thought they had a paragon of
industry and intelligence. But Bolam had been no fool. It was
not that he was lazy. One could have an easy life at the Steen
--and most people, including some psychiatrists, did--without
risking that imputation. Everything required of him was well
within his capabilities and he gave no more than was required.
Enid Bolam knew that all right, but it worried neither of them.
If he went she could only hope to replace him by a porter who
did less and did it less efficiently. And he was educated, personable
and polite. That had meant a great deal to Miss Bolam.
He smiled as he remembered how much it had meant. No,
Bolam had never bothered him. But he was less confident
about her successor.
He glanced across the room to where Mrs. Bostock sat
alone, gracefully relaxed in one of the more comfortable
patients' chairs that he had brought in from the waiting-room.
Her head was studiously bent over a book, but Nagle had little
doubt that her mind was otherwise occupied. Probably working
out her incremental date as A.O., he thought. This murder 62


was a break for her all right. You couldn't miss compulsive
ambition in a woman. They burnt with it. You could almost
smell it sizzling their flesh. Underneath that air of calm un-flappability
she was as restless and nervous as a cat on heat. He
sauntered across the room to her and lounged against the wall

beside her chair, his arm just brushing her shoulder.

"Nicely timed for you, isn't it ?" he said.

She kept her eyes on the page but he knew that she would
have to answer. She could never resist defending herself even
when defence only made her more vulnerable. She's like the

rest of them, he thought. She can't keep her bloody mouth shut.
"I don't know what you mean, Nagle."

"Come off it. I've been admiring your performance for the
last six months. Yes, Doctor. No, Doctor. Just as you like,
Doctor. Of course, I'd like to help, Doctor, but there are certain
complications here .... You bet there were! She wasn't giving
up without a struggle. And now she's dead. Very nice for you.
They won't have to look far for their new A.O."

"Don't be impertinent and ridiculous. And why aren't you
helping Mrs. Shorthouse with the coffee ?"

"Because I don't choose to. You're not the A.O. yet,
remember."

"I've no doubt the police will be interested in knowing where
you were this evening. After all, it was your chisel."

"I was out with the post and fetching my evening paper.
Disappointing, isn't it ? And I wonder where you were at six-twenty-two."

"How do you know she died at six-twenty-two?"

"I don't. But Sister saw her going down to the basement at
six-twenty and there wasn't anything in the basement to keep
her as far as I know. Not unless your dear Dr. Etherege was
there, of course. But surely he wouldn't demean himself
cuddling Miss Bolam. Not quite his type I'd have said. But you
know his tastes in that direction better than I do, of course."

Suddenly she was out of her chair and, swinging her right
arm, she slapped his cheek with a force that momentarily
rocked him. The sharp crack of the blow echoed in the room.
Everyone looked at them. Nagle heard Jennifer Priddy's gasp,

63


saw Dr. Steiner's worried frown as he looked from one to the
other in puzzled inquiry, saw Fredrica Saxon's contemptuous
glance at them before her eyes fell again to her book. Mrs.
Shorthouse, who was piling plates on to a tray at a side table,
looked round a second too late. Her sharp little eyes darted
from one to the other, frustrated at having missed something
worth seeing. Mrs. Bostock, her colour heightened, sank back
in her chair and picked up her book. Nagle, holding his hand
to his cheek, gave a shout of laughter.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Dr. Steiner. "What hap-pened
?"

It was then that the door opened and a uniformed policeman
put his head in and said:

"The superintendent would like to see Mrs. Shorthouse
now, please."


Mrs. Amy Shorthouse had seen no reason why she should
stay in her working clothes while waiting to be interviewed so
that, when called in to Dalgliesh, she was dressed ready to go
home. The metamorphosis was striking. Comfortable working
slippers had been replaced by a modish pair of high-heeled
court shoes, white overall by a fur coat, and head scarf by the
latest idiocy in hats. The total effect was curiously old-fashioned.
Mrs. Shorthouse looked like a relic of the gay twenties, an
effect which was heightened by the shortness of her skirt and
the careful curls of peroxided hair which lay cunningly
arranged on forehead and cheeks. But there was nothing false
about her voice and little, Dalgliesh suspected, about her per-sonality.
The little grey eyes were shrewd and amused. She
was neither frightened nor distressed. He suspected that Amy
Shorthouse craved more excitement than her life customarily
afforded and was enjoying herself. She would not wish anyone
violently dead but, since it had happened, one might as well
make the most of it.

When the preliminaries were over and they got down to the
events of the evening, Mrs. Shorthouse came out with her prize
piece of information.

"No good saying I can tell you who did it because I can't.
64


Not that I haven't got my own ideas. But there's one thing I
can tell you. I was the last person to talk to her, no doubt about
that. No, scrub that out! I was the last person to talk to her,
face to face. Excepting the murderer, of course."

"You mean that she subsequently spoke on the telephone?
Hadn't you better tell me about it plainly? I've got enough
mystery here for one evening."

"Smart, aren't you ?" said Mrs. Shorthouse without rancour.
"Well, it was in this room. I came in at about ten-past six
to ask how much leave I'd got left on account of wanting a day
off next week. Miss Bolam got out my dossier--leastwise it
was already out come to think of it--and we fixed that up and
had a bit of a chat about the work. I was on my way out
really, just standing at the door for a few last words as you
might say, when the phone rang."

"I want you to think very carefully, Mrs. Shorthouse," said
Dalgliesh. "That call may be important. I wonder if you can
remember what Miss Bolam said ?"

"Think someone was enticing her down to her death, do
you?" said Mrs. Shorthouse with alliterative relish. "Well,
could be, come to think of it."

Dalgliesh thought that his witness was far from being a fool.
He watched while she screwed up her face in a simulated agony
of effort. He had no doubt that she remembered very well what
had been said.

After a nicely judged pause for suspense, Mrs. Shorthouse
said:

"Well, the phone rang like I said. That would be about six-fifteen,
I suppose. Miss Bolam picked up the receiver and said,
'Administrative officer speaking.' She always answered like
that. Very keen on her position she was. Peter Nagle used to
say, 'Who the hell does she think we're expecting to hear?
Khruschev?' Not that he said it to her. No fear! Anyway, that's
what she said. Then there was a little pause'and she looked up
at me and said: 'Yes, I am.' Meaning, I suppose, that she was
alone, not counting me. Then there was a longer pause while
the chap at the other end spoke. Then she said: 'All right, stay
where you are. I'll be down.' Then she asked me to show Mr.
65


Lauder into her office if I was about when he arrived, and I
said I would and pushed off."

"You're quite sure about her conversation on the tele-phone?''

"Sure as I'm sitting here. That's what she said all right."

"You talked about the chap at the other end. How could you
tell it was a man9."

"Never said I could. Just assumed it was a chap, I suppose.
Mind you, if I'd been closer I might have known. You can
sometimes get an idea who's speaking from the crackly noise

the phone makes. But I was standing against the door."
"And you couldn't hear the other voice at all ?"
"That's right. Suggests he was talking low."
"What happened then, Mrs. Shorthouse ?"

"I said cheerio and toddled off to do a bit in the general
office. Peter Nagle was there taking young Priddy's mind off
her work as usual, and Cully was in the reception kiosk, so it
wasn't them. Peter went out with the post as soon as I arrived.
He always does at about a quarter-past six."

"Did you see Miss Bolam leaving her office ?"

"No, I didn't. I told you. I was in with Nagle and Miss
Priddy. Sister saw her, though. You ask her. Sister saw her
going down the hall."

"So I understand. I have seen Sister Ambrose. I wondered
whether Miss Bolam followed you out of the room."

"No, she didn't. Not at once anyway. Perhaps she thought
it would do the chap good to be kept waiting."

"Perhaps," said Dalgliesh. "But she would have gone down

promptly I expect if a doctor had phoned for her."

Mrs. Shorthguse gave a shriek of laughter.

"Maybe. Maybe not. You didn't know Miss Bolam."
"What was she like, Mrs. Shorthouseg."

"All right. We got on. She liked a good worker and I'm a

good worker. Well--you can see how the place is kept."

"I can indeed."

"Her yea was yea and her nay, nay, I'll say that for her.
Nothing unpleasant behind your back. Mind you, quite a bit of
unpleasantness in front of your face sometimes if you didn't

66


watch out. Still, I'd rather have it that way. She and me under-stood
each other."

"Had she any enemies--anyone who bore her a grudge ?"
"Must have had, mustn't she ? That wasn't no playful tap on
the head. Carrying a grudge a bit far, if you ask me." She planted
her feet apart and leaned towards Dalgliesh confidentially.

"Look, ducks," she said. "Miss B put people's backs up.
Some people do. You know how it is. They can't make no
allowances. Right was right and wrong was wrong and nothing
in between. Rigid. That's what she was. Rigid." Mrs. Short-house's
tone and tightened mouth expressed the ultimate in
virtuous inflexibility. "Take the little matter of the attendance
book now. All the consultants are supposed to sign it so that
Miss Bolam could make her monthly return to the Board. All
very right and proper. Well, the book used to be kept on a table
in the doctors' cloakroom and no trouble to anyone. Then
Miss B gets to noticing that Dr. Steiner and Dr. McBain are
coming in late, so she moves the book to her office and they all
have to go in there to sign. Mind you, as often as not Dr.
Steiner won't do it. 'She knows I'm here,' he says. 'And I'm a
consultant not a factory hand. If she wants her stupid book
signed she can put it back in the medical cloakroom.' The
doctors have been trying to get rid of her for a year or more, I
do know that."

"How do you know, Mrs. Shorthouse?"

"Let's just say that I know. Dr. Steiner couldn't stand her.
He goes in for psychotherapy. Intensive psychotherapy. Ever
heard of it?"

Dalgliesh admitted that he had. Mrs. Shorthouse gave him
a look in which disbelief fought with suspicion. Then she
leaned forward conspiratorially as if about to divulge one of
Dr. Steiner's less reputable idiosyncrasies.

"He's analytically orientated, that's what he is. Analytically

orientated. Know what that means ?"

"I've some idea."

"Then you know that he doesn't see many patients. Two a
session, three if you're lucky, and a new patient once every
eight weeks. That doesn't push up the figures."

67


"The figures ?"

"The attendance figures. They go to the Hospital Manage-ment
Committee and the Regional Board every quarter. Miss
Bolam was a great one for pushing up the figures."

"Then she must have approved thoroughly of Dr. Baguley.

I understand that his E.C.T. sessions are usually very busy."
"She approved all right. Not about his divorce, though."

"How could that affect the figures ?" asked Dalgliesh, inno-cently
obtuse. Mrs. Shorthouse looked at him pityingly.

"Who said anything about the figures? We were talking
about the Baguleys. Getting a divorce, they were, on account of
Dr. Baguley having an affair with Miss Saxon. It was in all the
papers, too. Psychiatrist's wife cites psychologist. Then sud-denly
Mrs. Baguley withdrew the case. Never said why. No
one said why. Didn't make any difference here, though. Dr. B
and Miss Saxon went on working together easy as you please.
Still do."

"And Dr. Baguley and his wife were reconciled ?"

"Who said anything about reconciled ? They stay married.
That's all I know. Miss Bolam couldn't say a good word for
Miss Saxon after that. Not that she ever talked about it; she
wasn't one for gossip I'll give her that. But she let Miss Saxon
see what she felt. She was against that sort of thing Miss Bolam
was. No carrying on with her, I can tell you!"

Dalgliesh inquired whether anyone had tried. It was a
question he usually put with the maximum of tact, but he felt
that subtlety would be lost on Mrs. Shorthouse. She gave a
scream of laughter.

"What do you think ? She wasn't one for the men. Not as
far as I know, anyway. Mind you, some of the cases they have
here would put you off sex for life. Miss Bolam went to the
medical director once to complain about some of the reports
Miss Priddy was given to type. Said they weren't decent. Of
course, she was always a bit odd about Priddy. Tried to fuss
round the kid too much if you ask me. Priddy used to be in Miss
Bolam's Guide Company or something when she was young,
and I suppose Bolam wanted to keep an eye on her in case she
forgot what captain had taught her. You could see the kid

68


was embarrassed by it. There wasn't anything wrong, though.
Don't you go believing it if they hint that there was. Some of
them here have dirty minds and there's no denying it."
Dalgliesh asked whether Miss Bolam had approved of Miss
Priddy's friendship with Nagle.
"Oh, you're on to that, are you ? Nothing to approve of, if
you ask me. Nagle's a cold fish and as mean as hell. Just try
getting his tea money out of him! He and Priddy play around
a bit and I dare say Tigger could tell a thing or two if cats
could speak. I don't think Bolam noticed though. She kept
pretty much to her own office. Anyway, Nagle isn't encouraged
in the general office and the medical stenogs are kept pretty
busy, so there isn't much time for hanky-panky. Nagle took
good care to keep in Miss B's good books. Quite the little blue-eyed
boy he was. Never absent, never late, that's our Peter.
Leastways, he got stuck in the Underground one Monday and
wasn't he in a state about it I Spoilt his record, you see. He even
came in on May first when he had the 'flu because we had a visit
from the Duke and, naturally, Peter Nagle had to be here to
see everything was done proper. Temperature of 103 he had.
Sister took it. Miss Bolam sent him home pretty soon, I can
tell you. Dr. Steiner took him in his car."
"Is it generally known that Mr. Nagle keeps his tools in the
porters' duty-room ?"
"Of course it is I Stands to reason. People are always wanting
him to mend this or that and where else would he keep his
tools ? A proper old woman he is about them, too. Talk about
fussy. Cully isn't allowed to touch them. Mind you they aren't
clinic tools. They belong to Nagle. There wasn't half a row
about six weeks ago when Dr. Steiner borrowed a screwdriver
to do something to his car. Being Dr. Steiner he mucked up the
job and bent the screwdriver. Talk about trouble! Nagle
thought it was Cully and they had one hell of a row which
brought on Cully's belly-ache again, poor old blighter. Then
Nagle found out that someone had seen Dr. Steiner coming out
of the porters' duty-room with the tool so he complained to
Miss Bolam and she spoke to Dr. Steiner and made him buy
another screwdriver. We do see life here, I can tell you. Never 69


a dull moment. Never had a murder before, though. That's
something new. Nice goings-on, I don't think."

"As you say. If you've any idea who did it, Mrs. Shorthouse,
now's the time to say so."

Mrs. Shorthouse adjusted one of the curls on her forehead
with a licked finger, wriggled more comfortably into her coat
and got to her feet, thus indicating that, in her opinion, the
interview was over.

"No fear! Catching murderers is your job, mate, and you're
welcome to it. I'll say this much, though. It wasn't one of the
doctors. They haven't the guts. These psychiatrists are a timid
lot. Say what you like about this killer, the chap has nerve."


Dalgliesh decided to question the doctors next. He was
surprised and interested by their patience, by their ready
acceptance of his role. He had kept them waiting because he
judged it mi>re important to his inquiry to see other people
first, even such an apparently less important witness as the
domestic assistant. It looked as if they appreciated that he
wasn't trying to irritate them or keep them unnecessarily in
suspense. He wouldn't have hesitated to do either if it would
have served his purpose, but it was his experience that useful
information could most often be obtained when a witness
hadn't been given time to think and could be betrayed by shock
or fear into garrulity and indiscretion. The doctors had not kept
themselves apart. They had waited in the front consulting-room
with the others, quietly and without protest. They gave him the
credit of knowing his job and let him get on with it. He won-dered
whether consultant surgeons or physicians would have
been so accommodating and felt with the group secretary that
there were worse people to deal with than psychiatrists.

Dr. Mary Ingram was seen first by request of the medical
director. She had three young children at home and it was im-portant
that she get back to them as soon as possible. She had
been crying spasmodically while waiting, to the embarrassment
of her colleagues who had difficulty in comforting a grief which
seemed to them unreasonable and ill-timed. Nurse Bolam was
bearing up well, after all, and she was a relative. Dr. Ingram's


70


tears added to the tension and provoked an irrational guilt
in those whose emotions were less uncomplicated. There was
a general feeling that she should be allowed to go home to her
children without delay. There was little she could tell Dalgliesh.
She attended the clinic only twice weekly to help with the
E.C.T. sessions and had hardly known Miss Bolam. She had
been in the E.C.T. room with Sister Ambrose for the whole of
the crucial time from six-twenty until seven. In reply to Dal-gliesh's
question she admitted that Dr. Baguley may have left
them for a short time after six-fifteen, but she couldn't remem-ber
when exactly or for how long. At the end of the interview
she looked at Dalgliesh from reddened eyes and said:

"You will find out who did it, won't you? That poor, poor
girl."

"We shall find out," replied Dalgliesh.

Dr. Etherege was interviewed next. He gave the necessary
personal details without waiting to be asked and went on:

"As regards my own movements this evening, I'm afraid I
can't be very helpful. I arrived at the clinic just before five and
went into Miss Bolam's office to speak to her before going up-stairs.
We had a little general conversation. She seemed per-fectly
all right to me and didn't tell me that she had asked to
see the group secretary. I rang the general office for Mrs.
Bostock at about five-fifteen and she was with me taking
dictation until about ten to six when she went downstairs with
the post. She came back after ten minutes or so and we con-tinued
with the dictation, until some time before half past six,
when she went next door to type material directly from a
tape machine. Some of my treatment sessions are recorded and
the material subsequently played back and a typescript made
either for research purposes or for the medical record. I worked
alone in my consulting-room except for one brief visit to the
medical library--I can't remember when, but it was very
shortly after Mrs. Bostock left me--until she returned to con-sult
me on a point. That must have been just before seven
because we were together when Sister rang to tell me about
Miss Bolam. Miss Saxon came down from her room on the
third floor to go home and caught us up on the stairs, so she

71


and I went to the basement. You know what we found and the
subsequent steps I took to ensure that no one left the clinic."

"You seem to have acted with great presence of mind,
Doctor," said Dalgliesh. "As a result the field of inquiry can
be considerably narrowed. It looks, doesn't it, as if the mur-derer
is still in this building ?"

"Certainly Cully has assured me that no one got past him
after 5 p.m. without being entered in his register. That is our
system here. The implication of that locked back door is dis-turbing,
but I'm sure you are too experienced an officer to
jump to conclusions. No building is impregnable. The... the
person responsible could have got in at any time, even early
this morning, and lain hidden in the basement."

"Can you suggest where such a person lay concealed or how
he got out of the clinic?"

The medical director did not reply.

"Have you any idea who that person might be ?"

Dr. Etherege slowly traced the line of his right eyebrow with
his middle finger. Dalgliesh had seen him do this on television
and reflected, now as then, that it served to draw attention
to a fine hand and a well-shaped eyebrow even if as an indica-tion
of serious thought the gesture seemed slightly spurious.

"I have no idea at all. The whole tragedy is incomprehen-sible.
I'm not going to claim that Miss Bolam was an alto-gether
easy person to get on with. She sometimes aroused
resentment." He smiled deprecatingly. "We're not always very
easy to get on with ourselves and the most successful adminis-trator
of a psychiatric unit is probably someone far more
tolerant than Miss Bolam, less obsessional perhaps. But this is
murder! I can't think of anyone, patient or staff, who would
want to kill her. It's very horrible to me as medical director to
think that there might be someone as disturbed as that working
at the Steen and I never knew."

"As disturbed or as wicked," said Dalgliesh, unable to resist
the temptation. Dr. Etherege smiled again, patiently explaining
a difficult point to an obtuse member of the television panel.
"Wicked? I'm not competent to discuss this in theological
terms."

72


"Nor am I, Doctor," replied Dalgliesh. "But this crime
doesn't look like the work of a madman. There's an intelligence
behind it."

"Some psychopaths are highly intelligent, Superintendent.
Not that I am knowledgeable about psychopathy. It's a most
interesting field but not mine. We have never claimed at the
Steen to be able to treat the condition."

Then the Steen was in good company, thought Dalgliesh.
The Mental Health Act, 1959, may have defined psychopathy
as a disorder requiring or susceptible to medical treatment, but
there appeared little enthusiasm on the part of doctors to
treat it. The word seemed little more than a psychiatrist's term
of abuse and he said as much. Dr. Etherege smiled, indulgent,
unprovoked.

"I have never accepted a clinical entity because it is defined
in an Act of Parliament. However, psychopathy exists. I'm
not convinced at present that it is susceptible to medical treat-ment.
What I am sure is that it is not susceptible to a prison
sentence. But we have no certainty that we're looking for a
psychopath."

Dalgliesh asked Dr. Etherege whether he knew where Nagle
kept his tools and which key opened the door of the record-room.

"I knew about the key. If I'm working late and alone I
sometimes need one of the old files and I fetch it myself. I
do a certain amount of research and, of course, lecturing and
writing, and it's important to have access to the medical
records. I last fetched a file about ten days ago. I don't think
I've ever seen the box of tools in the porters' room, but I knew
that Nagle had his own set and was particular about them.
I suppose if I'd wanted a chisel I should have looked in the
porters' room. The tools would hardly be kept anywhere else.
Obviously, too, I should expect Tippett's fetish to be in the
art therapy department. It was a most curious choice of
weapons! What I find interesting is the apparent care taken by
the murderer to fix suspicion on the clinic staff."

"Suspicion can hardly rest elsewhere in the face of those
locked doors."


"That's what I meant, Superintendent. If a member of the
staff present this evening did kill Miss Bolam surely he would
want to divert suspicion from the relatively few people known
to be in the building at the time. The easiest way to do that
would be to unlock one of the doors. He'd need to wear gloves,
of course, but then, I gather that he did wear them."

"There are no prints on either of the weapons, certainly.
They were wiped, but it is probable that he did wear gloves."

"And yet, those doors were kept locked, the strongest evi-dence
that the murderer was still in the building. Why? It
would be risky to unlock the back door on the ground floor.
That, as you know, is between the E.C.T. room and the medical
staffroom and it leads into a well-lit road. It would be difficult
to unlock it without the risk of being seen and a murderer
would hardly make his exit that way. But there are the two
fire-escape doors on the second and third floors and the door
in the basement. Why not unlock one of those ? It can only be,
surely, because the murderer hadn't the opportunity between
the time of the crime and the finding of the body, or that he
deliberately wished to throw suspicion on the clinic staff even
at the inevitable cost of increasing his own danger."

"You talk about 'he', Doctor. Do you think, as a psychia-trist,
that we should be looking for a man ?"

"Oh, yes! I would expect this to be the work of a man."
"Although it didn't require great strength ?" asked Dalgliesh.
"I wasn't thinking primarily of the strength required but of
the method and the choice of weapon. I can only give my
opinion, of course, and I'm not a criminologist. I would expect
it to be a man's crime. But, of course, a woman could have
done it. Psychologically, it's unlikely. Physically, it's perfectly
possible."

It was indeed, thought Dalgliesh. It required merely know-ledge
and nerve. He pictured for a moment an intent, pretty
face bent over Miss Bolam's body; a thin, girlish hand slipping
open the sweater buttons and rolling up the fine cashmere
jumper. And then, that clinical selection of exactly the right
place to pierce, and the grunt of effort as the blade went home.
And, last of all, the sweater drawn lightly back to conceal the

74


chisel handle, the .ugly fetish placed in position on the still
twitching body in an ultimate gesture of derision and defiance.
He told the medical director about Mrs. Shorthouse's evider/ce
of the phone call.

"No one has admitted to making that call. It looks very

much as if she were tricked down to the basement."

"That is mere supposition, Superintendent."

Dalgliesh pointed out mildly that it was also common sense,
the basis of all sound police work. The medical director said:

"There is a card hung beside the telephone outside the
record-room. Anyone, even a stranger to the clinic, could dis-cover
Miss Bolam's number."

"But what would be her reaction to an internal call from a
stranger? She went downstairs without question. She must
have recognized the voice."

"Then it was someone she had no reason to fear, Superin-tendent.
That doesn't tie up with the suggestion that she was in
possession of some dangerous knowledge and was killed to
prevent her passing it on to Lauder. She went down to her
death without fear or suspicion. I can only hope that she died
quickly and without pain."

Dalgliesh said that he would know more when he got the
autopsy report but that death was almost certainly instantane-ous.
He added:

"There must have been one dreadful moment when she
looked up and saw her murderer with the fetish raised, but it
happened very quickly. She would feel nothing after she was
stunned. I doubt whether she even had time to cry out. If
she did the sound would be muffled by the tiers of paper and
I'm told that Mrs. King was being rather noisy during her
treatment." He paused for a moment, then said quietly: "What
made you describe to the staff just how Miss Bolam died? You
did tell them ?"

"Of course. I called them together in the front consulting-room--the
patients were in the waiting-room--and made a
brief statement. Are you suggesting that the news could have
been kept from them ?"

"I am suggesting that they need not have been told the

75


details. It would have been useful to me if you hadn't mentioned
the stabbing. The murderer might have given himself
away by showing more knowledge than an innocent person
could have possessed."
The medical director smiled.
"I'm a psychiatrist not a detective. Strange as it may seem
to you, my reaction to this crime was to assume that the rest
of the staff would share my horror and distress, not to lay
traps for them. I wanted to break the news to them myself,
gently and honestly. They have always had my confidence and
I saw no reason for withholding that confidence now."
That was all very well, thought Dalgliesh, but an intelligent
man must surely have seen the importance of saying as little
as possible. And the medical director was a very intelligent
man. As he thanked his witness and drew the interview to its
close, his mind busied itself with the problem. How carefully
had Dr. Etherege considered the position before he spoke to
the staff? Had his disclosure of the stabbing been as thoughtless
as it appeared ? It would, after all, have been impossible
to deceive most of the staff. Dr. Steiner, Dr. Baguley, Nagle,
Dr. Ingram and Sister Ambrose had all seen the body. Miss
Priddy had seen it but had apparently fled without a second
look. That left Nurse Bolam, Mrs. Bostock, Mrs. Shorthouse,
Miss Saxon, Miss Kettle and Cully. Possibly Dr. Etherege was
satisfied that none of these was the murderer. Cully and Short-house
both had an alibi. Had the medical director been reluctant
to lay a trap for Nurse Bolam, Mrs. Bostock or Miss
Saxon ? Or was he so certain in his own mind that the murderer
must be a man that any subterfuge to mislead the women
seemed a waste of time, likely to result only in embarrassment
and resentment? The medical director had certainly been
almost blatant in his hints that anyone working on the second
or third floor could be eliminated since they would have had
the opportunity of opening one of the fire-escape doors. But
then, he himself had been in his consulting-room on the second
floor. In any case, the obvious door for the killer to unlock was
the one in the basement and it was hard to believe that he had
lacked the opportunity. It would be a second's work only to

76


draw back that lock and provide evidence that the murderer
could have left the clinic that way. Yet the basement door had
been fast bolted. Why ?

Dr. Steiner came in next, short, dapper, outwardly self-composed.
In the light from Miss Bolam's desk lamp his pale
smooth skin looked slightly luminous. Despite his calmness he
had been sweating heavily. The heavy smell hung about his
clothes, about the well cut, converttional black coat of a con-sultant.
Dalgliesh was surprised when he gave his age as forty-two.
He looked older. The smooth skin, the sharp black eyes,
the bouncy walk gave a superficial impression of youth but
he was already thickening and his dark hair, cunningly sleeked
back, could not quite conceal the tonsure-like patch on the
crown of the head.

Dr. Steiner had apparently decided to treat his encounter
with a policeman as a social occasion. Extending a plump,
well-kept hand, he smiled a benign "how d'you do" and in-quired
whether he was speaking to the writer, Adam Dalgliesh.

"I have read your verse," he announced complacently. "I
congratulate you. Such a deceptive simplicity. I started at the
first poem and read straight through. That is my way of
experiencing verse. At the tenth page I began to think that we
might have a new poet."

Dalgliesh admitted to himself that Dr. Steiner had not only
read the book but showed some critical insight. It was at the
tenth page that he, too, sometimes felt they might have a new
poet. Dr. Steiner inquired whether he had met Ernie Bales the
new young playwright from Nottingham. He looked so hopeful
that Dalgliesh felt positively unkind as he disclaimed acquaint-ance
with Mr. Bales and steered the conversation from literary
criticism back to the purpose of the interview. Dr. Steiner at
once assumed an air of shocked gravity.

"The whole affair is dreadful, quite dreadful. I was one of
the first people to see the body as you may know and it has
distressed me greatly. I have always had a horror of violence.
It is an appalling business. Dr. Etherege, our medical director,
is due to retire at the end of the year. This is a most unfortunate
thing to happen his last months here."


77


He shook his head sadly, but Dalgliesh fancied that the little
black eyes held something very like satisfaction.

Tippett's fetish had yielded its secrets to the fingerprint
expert and Dalgliesh had stood it on the desk before him. Dr.
Steiner put out his hand to touch it then drew back and said:

"I had better not handle it, I suppose, because of finger-prints."
He darted a quick look at Dalgliesh and getting no
response went on: "It's an interesting carving, isn't it? Quite
remarkable. Have you ever noticed, Superintendent, what
excellent art the mentally ill can produce, even patients without
previous training or experience ? It raises interesting questions
on the nature of artistic achievement. As they recover their
work deteriorates. The power and originality go. By the time
they are well again the stuff they produce is valueless. We've
got several interesting examples of patients' work in the art
therapy department, but this fetish is outstanding. Tippett was
very ill when he carved it and went to hospital shortly after-wards.
He's a schizophrenic. The fetish has the typical facies
of the chronic disease, the frog-like eyes and spreading nostrils.
Tippett looked very like that himself at one time."

"Everyone knew where this thing was kept, I suppose?"
said Dalgliesh.

"Oh, yes! It was kept on the shelf in the art therapy depart-ment.
Tippett was very proud of it and Dr. Baguley often
showed it to House Committee members when they made
visits of inspection. Mrs. Baumgarden, the art therapist, likes
to keep some of the best work on show. That's why she had the
shelves put up. She's on sick leave at the present but you've

been shown the department, I expect ?"

Dalgliesh said that he had.

"Some of my colleagues feel that the art therapy is a waste
of money," confided Dr. Steiner. "Certainly I never use Mrs.
Baumgarden. But one must be tolerant. Dr. Baguley refers
patients now and again, and it probably does them less harm
to dabble about down there than to be subjected to E.C.T. But
to pretend that the patients' artistic efforts can help towards a
diagnosis seems very far fetched to me. Of course that claim is
all part of the effort to get Mrs. Baumgarden graded as a lay


78


psychotherapist, quite unwarrantably, I'm afraid. She has no
analytical training."

"And the chisel? Did you know where that was kept,
Doctor ?"

"Well, not really, Superintendent. I mean, I knew that
Nagle had some tools and presumably kept them in the
porters' duty-room, but I didn't know exactly where."

"The toolbox is large and clearly labelled and is kept on the
small table in the duty-room. It would be difficult to miss."

"Oh, I'm sure it would! But then, I have no reason to go
into the porters' duty-room. That is true of all the doctors. We
must get a key for that box now and see that it's kept some-where
safe. Miss Bolam was very wrong to allow Nagle to
keep it unlocked. After all, we do occasionally have disturbed

patients and some tools can be lethal."

"So it appears."

"This clinic wasn't intended to treat grossly psychotic
patients, of course. It was founded to provide a centre for
analytically orientated psychotherapy, particularly for middle
class and highly intelligent patients. We treat people who
would never dream of entering a mental hospital--and who
would be just as out of place in the ordinary psychiatric out-patient
department. In addition, of course, there is a large
research element in our work."

"What were you doing between six o'clock and seven this
evening, Doctor?" inquired Dalgliesh.

Dr. Steiner looked pained at this sudden intrusion of sordid
curiosity into an interesting discussion but answered, meekly
enough, that he had been conducting his Friday night psycho-therapy
session.

"I arrived at the clinic at five-thirty when my first patient
was booked. Unfortunately he defaulted. His treatment has
arrived at a stage when poor attendance is to be expected. Mr.
Burge was booked for six-fifteen and he is usually very prompt.
I waited for him in the second consulting-room on the ground
floor and joined him in my own room at about ten-past six.
Mr. Burge dislikes waiting with Dr. Baguley's patients in the
general waiting-room and I really don't blame him. You've

79


heard of Burge, I expect. He wrote that interesting novel The
Souls of the Righteous, a quite brilliant exposure of the sexual
conflicts concealed beneath the conventionality of a respectable
English suburb. But I'm forgetting. Naturally you have inter-viewed
Mr. Burge."

Dalgliesh had indeed. The experience had been tedious and
not unenlightening. He had also heard of Mr. Burge's book,
an opus of some two hundred thousand words in which the
scabrous episodcs are inserted with such meticulous delibera-tion
that it only requires an exercise in simple arithmetic to
calculate on what page the next will occur. Dalgliesh did not
suspect Burge of any part in the murder. A writer who could
produce such a hotchpotch of sex and sadism was probably
impotent and certainly timid. But he was not necessarily a
liar. Dalgliesh said:

"Are you quite sure of your times, Doctor? Mr. Burge says
that he arrived at six-fifteen and Cully has booked him in at
that time. Burge says he went straight into your own consult-ing-room,
having checked with Cully that you weren't seeing
a patient, and that it was a full ten minutes before you joined
him. He was getting impatient and was thinking of going to
inquire where you were."

Dr. Steiner did not appear either frightened or angry at his
patient's perfidy. He did, however, look embarrassed.

"It's interesting Mr. Burge should say that. I'm afraid he
may be right. I thought he seemed a little put out when we
began the session. If he says that I joined him at six-twenty-five
I have no doubt he's telling the truth. The poor man has
had a very short and interrupted session this evening. It's very
unfortunate at this particular stage in his treatment."

"So, if you weren't in the front consulting-room when your
patient arrived, where were you ?" persisted Dalgliesh gently.

An astonishing change came over Dr. Steiner's face. Sud-denly
he looked as shamefaced as a small boy who has been
caught in the middle of mischief. He didn't look frightened but
he did look extremely guilty. The metamorphosis from con-sultant
psychiatrist to embarrassed delinquent was almost
comical.


"But I told you, Superintendent! I was in number two con-suiting-room,
the one between the front one and the patients'
waiting-room."
"Doing what, Doctor?"
Really, it was almost laughable! What could Steiner have
been up to to produce this degree of embarrassment? Dal-gliesh's
mind toyed with bizarre possibilities. Reading pornography?
Smoking hemp ? Seducing Mrs. Shorthouse ? It surely
couldn't be anything so conventional as planning murder. But
the doctor had obviously decided that the truth must be told.
He said with a burst of shamefaced candour:
"It sounds silly, I know, but.., well.., it was rather warm
and I'd had a busy day and the couch was there." He gave a
little giggle. "In fact, Superintendent, at the time Miss Bolam
is thought to have died, I was, in the vulgar parlance, having a
kip I"
Once this embarrassing confession was off his chest Dr.
Steiner became happily voluble and it was difficult to get rid
of him. But at last he was persuaded that he could help no
more for the present and his place was taken by Dr. Baguley.

Dr. Baguley, like his colleagues, made no complaint of his
long wait, but it had taken its toll. He was still wearing his
white coat and he hugged it around himself as he drew the
chair under him. He seemed to have difficulty in settling comfortably,
twitching his lean shoulders and crossing and re-crossing
his legs. The clefts from nose to mouth looked deeper,
his hair was dank, his eyes black pools in the light of the desk
lamp. He lit a cigarette and, fumbling in his coat pocket,
produced a slip of paper and passed it to Martin.
"I've written down my personal details. It'll save time."
"Thank you, sir," said Martin stolidly.
"I may as well say now that I haven't an alibi for the twenty
minutes or so after six-fifteen. I expect you've heard that I left
the E.C.T. clinic a few minutes before Sister saw Miss Bolam for the last time. I went into the medical staff cloakroom at the
end of the hall and had a cigarette. The place was empty and
no one came in. I didn't hurry back to the clinic so I suppose
81


it was about twenty to seven before I rejoined Dr. Ingram and

Sister. They were together for the whole of that time, of course."
"So Sister tells me."

"It's ridiculous even to consider that either of them would
be involved but I'm glad they happened to stick together. The
more people you can eliminate the better from your point of
view, I suppose. I'm sorry not to be able to produce an alibi.
I can't help in any other way either, I'm afraid. I heard and saw
nothing."

Dalgliesh asked the doctor how he had spent the evening.
"It was the usual pattern, until seven o'clock that is. I
arrived just before four and went into Miss Bolam's office to
sign the medical attendance book. It used to be kept in the
medical staff cloakroom until recently when she moved it into
her office. We talked for a short time--she had some queries
about the servicing arrangements for my new E.C.T. machine
--and then I went to start my clinic. We were pretty busy until
just after six and I also had my lysergic acid patient to visit
periodically. She was being specialled by Nurse Bolam in the
basement treatment-room. But I'm forgetting. You've seen
Mrs. King."

Mrs. King and her husband had been sitting in the patients'
waiting-room on Dalgliesh's arrival and he had taken very
little time to satisfy himself that they could have had nothing
to do with the murder. The woman was still weak and a little
disorientated and sat holding tightly to her husband's hand.
He had not arrived at the clinic to escort her home until a
few minutes after Sergeant Martin and his party. Dalgliesh had
questioned the woman briefly and gently and had let her go.
He had not needed the assurances of the medical director to be
satisfied that this patient could not have left her bed to murder
anyone. But he was equally sure that she was in no state to
give an alibi to anyone else. He asked Dr. Baguley when he had
last visited his patient.

"I looked in on her shortly after I arrived, before I started
the shock treatments actually. The drug had been given
at 3.30 and the patient was beginning to react. I ought to
say that LSD is given in an effort to make the patient more


82


accessible to psychotherapy, by releasing some of the more
deep-seated inhibitions. It's only given under close supervision
and the patient is never left. I was called down again by
Nurse Bolam at five and stayed for about forty minutes. I went
back upstairs and gave my last shock treatment at about
twenty to six. The last E.C.T. patient actually left the clinic
a few minutes after Miss Bolam was last seen. From about
six-thirty I was clearing up and writing my notes."
"Was the door of the medical record-room open when you
passed it at five o'clock?"
Dr. Baguley thought for a moment or two and then said:
"I think it was shut. It's difficult to be absolutely certain, but
I'm pretty sure I should have noticed if it had been open or
ajar."
"And at twenty to six when you left your patient ?"
"The same."
Dalgliesh asked again the usual, the inevitable, the obvious
questions. Had Miss Bolam any enemies ? Did the doctor know
of any reason why someone might wish her dead ? Had she
seemed worried lately ? Had he any idea why she might have
sent for the group secretary ? Could he decipher the notes on
her jotting pad ? But Dr. Baguley could not help. He said:
"She was a curious woman in some ways, shy, a little
aggressive, not really happy with us. But she was perfectly
harmless, the last person I'd have said to invite violence. One
can't go on saying how shocking it is. Words seem to lose their
meaning with repetition. But I suppose we all feel the same.
The whole thing is fantastic! Unbelievable I"
"You said she wasn't happy here. Is this a difficult clinic to
administer? From what I've heard, Miss Bolam wasn't particularly
skilled at dealing with difficult personalities."
Dr. Baguley said easily:
"Oh, you don't want to believe all you hear. We're individualists,
but we get along with each other pretty well on the
whole. Steiner and I scrap a bit but it's all quite amiable. He
wants the place to become a psychotherapy training urit with
registrars and lay professional staff running around like mice
and a bit of research on the side. One of those places where
83


time and money are spent lavishly on anything but actually
treating patientsmespeciaIly psychotics. There's no danger he'll
get his way. The Regional Board wouldn't wear it for one
thing."
"And what were Miss Bolam's views, Doctor ?"
"Strictly speaking she was hardly competent to hold any, but
that didn't inhibit her. She was anti-Freudian and pro-eclectic.
Anti-Steiner and pro-me if you like. But that didn't mean anything.
Neither Dr. Steiner nor I were likely to knock her on
the head because of our doctrinal differences. As you see we
haven't even taken a knife to each other yet. All this is utterly
irrelevant."
"I'm inclined to agree with you," said Dalgliesh. "Miss
Bolam was killed with great deliberation and considerable expertise.
I think the motive was a great deal more positive and
important than a mere difference of opinion or clash of personality.
Did you know, by the way, which key opens the
record-room ?"
"Of course. If I want one of the old records I usually fetch
it myself. I also know, if it's any help to you, that Nagle keeps
his box of tools in the porters' rest room. Furthermore, when
I arrived this afternoon, Miss Bolam told me about Tippett.
Bt/t that's hardly relevant, is it? You can't seriously believe
that the murderer hoped to implicate Tippett."
"Perhaps not. Tell me, Doctor. From your knowledge of
Miss Bolam what would be her reaction to finding those medical
records strewn about the floor?"
Dr. Baguley looked surprised for a second then gave a curt
laugh.
"Bolam? That's an easy one! She was obsessionally neat.
Obviously she'd start to pick them up I"
"She wouldn't be more likely to ring for a porter to do the
work or to leave the records where they were as evidence until
the culprit was discovered ?"
Dr. Baguley thought for a moment and seemed to repent of
his first categorical opinion.
"One can't possibly know for certain what she'd do. It's all
conjecture. Probably you're right and she'd ring for Nagle.
84


She wasn't afraid of work but she was very conscious of her
position as A.O. I'm sure of one thing, though. She wouldn't
have left the place in a mess like that. She couldn't pass a rug
or a picture without straightening it."
"And her cousin ? Are they alike ? I understand that Nurse
Bolam works for you more than for any other consultant."
Dalgliesh noticed the quick frown of distaste that this question
provoked. Dr. Baguley, however co-operative and frank
about his own motives, was not disposed to comment on those
of anyone else. Or was it that Nurse Bolam's gentle defencelessness
had aroused his protective instincts ? Dalgliesh waited for
a reply. After a minute the doctor said curtly:
"I shouldn't have said the cousins were alike. You will have
formed your own impression of Nurse Bolam. I can only say
that I have complete trust in her, both as a nurse and a person."
"She is her cousin's heir. Or perhaps you knew that?"
The inference was too plain to be missed and Dr. Baguley
too tired to resist the provocation.
"No, I didn't. But I hope for her sake that it's a bloody great
sum and that she and her mother will be allowed to enjoy it in
peace. And I hope, too, that you won't waste time suspecting
innocent people. The sooner this murder is cleared up the
better. It's a pretty intolerable position for all of us."
So Dr. Baguley knew about Nurse Bolam's mother. But,
then, it was likely that most of the clinic staff knew. He asked
his last question:
"You said, Doctor, that you were alone in the medical staff
cloakroom from about six-fifteen until twenty to seven. What
were you doing?"
"Going to the lavatory. Washing my hands. Smoking a
cigarette. Thinking."
"And that was absolutely all you did during the twenty-five
minutes ?"
"Yesmthat was all, Superintendent."
Dr. Baguley was a poor liar. The hesitation was only
momentary; his face did not change colour; the fingers holding
his cigarette were quite steady. But his voice was a little too
nonchalant, the disinterest a little too carefully controlled. And
85


it was with a palpable effort that he made himself meet Dal-gliesh's
eyes. He was too intelligent to add to his statement but
his eyes held those of the detective as if willing Dalgliesh to
repeat his question, and bracing himself to meet it.

"Thank you, Doctor," said Dalgliesh calmly. "That will be
all for the present."


86


Chapter Three


t

d so it went on; the patient questioning; the meticulous
aking of notes, the close watch of suspects' eyes and
hands for the revealing flicker of fear, the tensed reaction
to an unwelcome change of emphasis. Fredrica Saxon fol-lowed
Dr. Baguley. As they passed each other in the doorway
Dalgliesh saw that they were careful not to meet each other's
eyes. She was a dark, vital, casually-dressed woman of twenty-nine
who would do no more than give brief but straightforward
answers to his questions and who seemed to take a perverse
pleasure in pointing out that she had been alone scoring a
psychological test in her own room from six until seven and
could neither claim an alibi for herself nor give one to anyone
else. He got little help or information from Fredrica Saxon
but did not, on that account, assume that she had none to

give.

She was followed by a very different witness. Miss Ruth
Kettle had apparently decided that the murder was none of her
affair and, although she was willing to answer Dalgliesh's ques-tions,
it was with a vague lack of interest which suggested that
her thoughts were on higher things. There is only a limited
number of words to express horror and surprise and the clinic
staff had used most of them during the evening. Miss Kettle's
reaction was less orthodox. She gave her opinion that the
murder was peculiar.., really very odd indeed, and sat blink-ing
at Dalgliesh through her thick spectacles in gentle bewilder-ment
as if she did indeed find it odd, but hardly sufficiently
odd to be worth discussing at length. But at least two pieces
87


of information which she was able to give were interesting.
Dalgliesh could only hope that th. ey were reliable.

She had been vague about her own movements during the
evening, but Dalgliesh's persistence elicited that she had been
interviewing the wife of one of the E.C.T. patients until about
twenty to six when Sister had telephoned to say that the patient
was ready to be taken home. Miss Kettle had walked down-stairs
with her client, said "good night" in the hall, and had
then gone straight down to the record-room to fetch a file. She
had found the room in perfect order and had locked it after her.
Despite her gentle incertitude about most of the evening's
activities she was positive about the time. In any case, thought
Dalgliesh, it could probably be verified by Sister Ambrose. The
second clue was more nebulous and Miss Kettle mentioned it
with apparent indifference to its importance. Some half-hour
after returning to her room on the second floor she had heard
the unmistakable sound of the service lift thumping to a stop.

Dalgliesh was tired now. Despite the central heating he felt
spasms of cold and recognized the familiar malaise that pre-ceded
an attack of neuralgia. The right side of his face already
felt stiff and heavy, and the needling pain was beginning to stab
spasmodically behind his eyeball. But his last witness was here.

Mrs. Bostock, the senior medical stenographer, had none of
the doctors' tolerant acceptance of a long wait. She was angry
and her anger came into the room with her like a chill wind.
She seated herself without speaking, crossed a pair of long and
remarkably shapely legs, and looked at Dalgliesh with frank
dislike in her pale eyes. She had a striking and unusual head.
Her long hair, golden as a guinea, was coiled in intricate folds
above a pale, arrogant, sharp-nosed face. With her long neck,
poised, colourful head and slightly protuberant eyes, she looked
like some exotic bird. Dalgliesh had difficulty in conceal-ing
his shock when he saw her hands. They were as huge, red
and raw-boned as the hands of a butcher and looked as if they
had been incongruously grafted on to the slim wrists by some
malignant fate. It was almost a deformity. She made no at-tempt
to conceal them, but her nails were short and she wore
no polish. She had a beautiful figure and was well and expen88


I

sively dressed, an object lesson in the art of minimizing one's
defects and emphasizing one's advantages. She probably lived
her life, thought Dalgliesh, on much the same principle.
She gave details of her movements since six o'clock that
evening briefly and with no apparent reluctance. She had last
seen Miss Bolam at six o'clock when, as was usual, she had
taken in the post for the administrative officer to sign. There
were only five letters. Most of the post consisted of medical
reports and letters to general practitioners from the psychiatrists
and Miss Bolam was not, of course, concerned with these.
All the outgoing mail was registered in the post book either by
Mrs. Bostock or Miss Priddy, and was then taken across the
road by Nagle to catch the six-thirty from the pillar-box. Miss
Bolam had seemed her usual self at six o'clock. She had signed
her own letters and Mrs. Bostock had returned to the general
office, handed them with the doctors' post to Miss Priddy, and
had then gone upstairs to take dictation from Dr. Etherege for
the last hour of the day. It was an understood thing that she
helped Dr. Etherege on Friday evenings for one hour with his
research project. She and the medical director had been together
except for a few short periods. Sister rang at about seven
o'clock with the news of Miss Bolam's death. As she and Dr.
Etherege left the consulting-room they met Miss Saxon who
was just leaving. She went down to the basement with the medical
director. Mrs. Bostock, at Dr. Etherege's request, had gone
to join Cully at the front door to ensure that the instructions
were followed about no one leaving the building. She had
stayed with Cully until the party from the basement appeared
and they had then all collected in the waiting-room to await
the arrival of the police, except for the two porters who remained
on duty in the hall.
"You said that you were with Dr. Etherege from just after
six onwards except for short periods. What were you both
doing?"
"We were both working, naturally." Mrs. Bostock managed
to suggest that the question had been both stupid and a little
vulgar. "Dr. Etherege is writing a paper on the treatment of
twin schizophrenic women by psycho-analysis. As I said, it has

89


been agreed that I shall assist him for one hour on Friday
evenings. That is quite inadequate for his needs, but Miss
Bolam took the view that the work wasn't strictly a clinic con-cern
and that Dr. Etherege should do it in his own consulting-room
with the help of his private secretary. Naturally that's
impossible. All the material, including some on tape, is here.
My part of the job is varied. For some of the time I take dicta-tion.
Sometimes I work in the little office typing directly from

the tape. Sometimes I look up references in the staff library."
"And what did you do this evening?

"I took dictation for about thirty minutes. Then I went into
the adjoining office and worked from the tape. Dr. Etherege
rang for me to come in at about ten to seven. We were working
together when the phone rang."

"That would mean that you were with Dr. Etherege taking

dictation until about six-thirty-five."

"Presumably."

"And for the whole of that time you were together ?"

"I think Dr. Etherege went out for a minute or so to verify
a reference."

"Why should you be uncertain, Mrs. Bostock ? Either he did
or he didn't."

"Naturally, Inspector. As you say, either he did or he didn't.
But there is no reason why I should particularly remember.
This evening was in no way remarkable. My impression is that
he did go out for a short time but I really couldn't recall exactly
when. I expect he may be able to help you."

Suddenly Dalgliesh changed the course of questioning. He

paused for a full half-minute and then asked quietly:

"Did you like Miss Bolam, Mrs. Bostock ?"

It was not a welcome question. Under the patina of make-up
he saw a flush of anger or embarrassment die along her neck.

"She wasn't an easy person to like. I tried to be loyal to
her."

"By loyal you mean, no doubt, that you tried to smooth
down rather than exacerbate her difficulties with the medical
staff and refrained from any overt criticism of her as an
administrator ?"


The tinge of sarcasm in his voice awoke, as was intended, all
her latent hostility. Behind the mask of hauteur and detachment
he glimpsed the insecure schoolgirl. He knew that she would
have to justify herself even against an implied critir&,She
did not like him but she could not bear to be underrated or
ignored.

"Miss Bolam wasn't really a suitable administrator for a
psychiatric unit. She hadn't any sympathy with what we're
trying to do here."

"In what way was she unsympathetic?"

"Well, for one thing, she didn't like neurotics."

"Neither do I, God help me," thought Dalgliesh. "Neither
do I." But he said nothing and Mrs. Bostock went on:

"She was difficult, for example, about paying out some of
the patients' travelling expenses. They only get them if they're
on National Assistance, but we help other cases from the
Samaritan Fund. We have one girl, a most intelligent person,
who comes here twice a week from Surrey to work in the art
therapy department. Miss Bolam thought she ought to get
treatment nearer home--or go without. Actually she made it
pretty plain that, in her view, the patient ought to be dis-charged
to do a job of work, as she put it."

"She didn't say this sort of thing to the patient."

"Oh, no! She was careful enough what she actually said. But
I could see that the sensitive ones weren't at ease with her. Then
she was very critical of intensive psychotherapy. It's a time-consuming
procedure. It has to be. Miss Bolam tended to judge
a psychiatrist's worth by the number of patients he saw in a
session. But that was less important than her attitude to the
patients. There was a reason for it, of course. Her mother was
mentally ill and in analysis for years before she died. I under-stand
that she killed herself. Miss Bolam can't have had an
easy time. Naturally she couldn't allow herself to hate her
mother, so she projected her resentment on to the patients here.
She was subconsciously afraid of her own neurosis too. That
was pretty obvious."

Dalgliesh did not feel qualified to comment on these theories.
He was prepared to believe that there was truth in them but

91


not that Mrs. Bostock had thought them out for herself. Miss
Bolam may have irritated the psychiatrists by her lack of
sympathy, but here at least, they had a believer.

"Do you know who treated Mrs. Bolam?" he asked.

Mrs. Bostock uncrossed her elegant legs and settled herself
more comfortably in the chair before deigning to reply.

"I do, as a matter of fact. But I hardly see its relevance to
this inquiry."

"Shall we leave that to me to decide? I can find out quite
easily. If you don't know or aren't sure it would save time if
you said so."

"It was Dr. Etherege."

"And who do you think will be appointed to succeed Miss
Bolam ?"

"As administrative officer? P/,eally," said Mrs. Bostock
coolly, "I've no idea."


At last the main work of the evening was over for Dalgliesh
and Martin. The body had been taken away and the record-room
sealed. All the clinic staff had been questioned and most
of them had left for their homes. Dr. Etherege had been the
last doctor to leave and had hung around uneasily for some
time after Dalgliesh had said he might go. Mr. Lauder and
Peter Nagle were still in the clinic and were waiting together
in the hall where two uniformed policemen were on duty. The
group secretary had said with quiet determination that he pre-ferred
to be on the premises while the police were still there,
and Nagle could not leave until the front door had been locked
and the key handed over since it was his job to open the clinic
at eight o'clock on Monday morning.

Dalgliesh and Martin made their last round of the premises
together. Watching them at work a casual observer might have
been misled into the facile assumption that Martin was merely
a foil for the younger, more successful man. Those at the Yard
who knew them both judged differently. In appearance they
were certainly unalike. Martin was a big man, nearly six feet
and broad-shouldered and looking, with his open ruddy face,
more like a successful farmer than a detective. Dalgliesh was


92


even taller, dark, lean and easy moving. Beside him Martin
seemed ponderous. No one watching Dalgliesh at work could
fail to recognize his intelligence. With Martin one was less sure.
He was ten years older than his chief and it was unlikely now
that he would gain further promotion. But he had qualities
that made him an admirable detective. He was never tormented
by doubt of his own motives. Right and wrong stood for him
as immutable as the two poles. He had never wandered in that
twilight country where the nuances of evil and good cast their
perplexing shadows. He had great determination and infinite
patience. He was kind without being sentimental and meticu-lous
for detail without losing sight of the whole. Looking at his
career, no one could have called him brilliant. But if he was
incapable of high intelligence he was equally incapable of
stupidity. Most police work consists of the boring, repetitive
and meticulous checking of detail. Most murders are sordid
little crimes bred out of ignorance and despair. It was Martin's
job to help solve them and, patiently and uncensoriously, that
is what he did. Faced with the murder at the Steen Clinic with
its frightening undertones of a trained intelligence at work, he
remained unimpressed. Methodical attention to detail had
solved other murders and would solve this one. And murderers,
intelligent or subnormal, devious or impulsive had to be caught.
He walked, as was usual, a pace or two behind Dalgliesh and
said little. But when he spoke it was usually to the point.

They went through the building for the last time that
evening, starting on the third floor. Here the eighteenth-century
rooms had been divided to provide accommodation for psy-chiatric
social workers, psychologists and lay therapists, to-gether
with two larger treatment-rooms for the use of psy-chiatrists.
There was one pleasant and unconverted room at the
front of the building furnished comfortably with easy chairs
and a number of small tables. This, apparently, was the rendez-vous
of the marital problem group who could enjoy an agree-able
view over the square in the intervals of analysing their
domestic and sexual incompatibilities. Dalgliesh could under-stand
the chagrin of the absent Mrs. Baumgarten. The room
was admirably suited for the art therapy department.

93


The more important rooms were on the floor below and
here there had been little alteration or adaptation so that
ceilings, doors and windows could contribute their own
graciousness to the atmosphere of elegance and calm. The
Modigliani was out of place in the boardroom but not aggressively
so. The smaller medical library next door with its antique
bookcases, each bearing the name of tho donor, could have
been an eighteenth-century gentleman's library until one looked
at the titles on the books. There were low bowls of flowers set
on the bookcases and a number of armchairs which looked
right together although they had obviously come originally
from half a dozen different houses.
On this floor, too, the medical director had his consulting-room
and it was one of the most elegant in the clinic. The
treatment couch which stood against the far wall, was the
same pattern as that in each of the other psychiatrists' rooms,
a low single divan, covered in chintz and with a red blanket
folded at its foot and one pillow. But no H.M.C. had provided
the rest of the furniture. The eighteenth-century desk was uncluttered
by cardboard calendars or stationery office diaries
aad held merely a leather-bound blotter, a silver inkstand and
a tray for papers. There were two leather armchairs and a
mahogany corner cupboard. It appeared that the medical
director collected old prints and was particularly interested in
mezzotints and eighteenth-century engravings. Dalgliesh inspected
a collection of works by James McArdell and Valentine
Green, arranged on each side of the chimney-piece, and noted
that Dr. Etherege's patients unburdened their subconscious
beneath a couple of fine lithographs by Hullmandel. He reflected
that the unknown clinic thief might have been a gentleman
if Cully's opinion was to be trusted, but he was certainly no
connoisseur. It was more typical of the small-time professional
to neglect two Hullmandels for fifteen pounds in cash. It was
certainly a pleasant room, proclaiming its owner as a man with
taste and the money to indulge it, the room of a man who sees
no reason why his working life should be spent in less agreeable
surroundings than his leisure. And yet it was not wholly successful.
Somewhere there was a lack. The elegance was a little too

94


contrived, the good taste a little too orthodox. Dalgliesh felt
that a patient might well be happier in the warm, untidy, oddly-shaped
cell upstairs where Fredrica Sax6n world in a litter
of papers, pot-plants and the paraphernalia of tea-brewing.
Despite the engravings the room lacked the nuances of per-sonality.
In that it was somehow typica! of its owner. Dalgliesh
was reminded of a recent conference which he had attended on
mental illness and the law at which Dr. Etherege had been one
of the speakers. At the time his paper had seemed a model of
felicitous wisdom; afterwards Dalgliesh was unable accurately
to recall a single word.

They went down to the ground floor where the group
secretary and Nagle, chatting quietly to the police constables,
turned to watch but made no move to join them. The four
waiting figures were standing together in a sad group like
mourners after a funeral, uncertain and disorganized in the
hiatus that follows grief. When they talked together their
voices sounded muted in the silence of the hall.

The ground-floor plan was simple. Immediately inside the
front door and to the left as one entered was the glass-panelled
reception kiosk. Dalgliesh noted again that it commanded a
good view of the whole hall, including the great curved stair-case
at the end. Yet Cully's observations during the evening
had been curiously selective. He was positive that everyone
entering or leaving the clinic after 5 p.m. had been seen by him
and entered in .his book, but many of the comings and goings
in the hall had passed unnoticed. He had seen Mrs. Shorthouse
come out of Miss Bolam's office and into the front general
office but had not seen the administrative officer passing down
the hall to the basement stairs. He had seen Dr. Baguley
coming out of the medical staff cloakroom but not entering it.
Most of the movements of patients and their relations had not
escaped him and he was able to confirm the comings and goings
of Mrs. Bostock. He was certain that Dr. Etherege, Miss Saxon
and Miss Kettle had not passed through the hall after 6 p.m.
If they had he hadn't noticed. Dalgliesh would have felt more
confidence in Cully's evidence if it were not apparent that the
pathetic little man was terrified. When they arrived at the
95


clinic he had been merely depressed and a little surly. By the
time he was allowed to go home he was in a state of terror. At
some stage of the investigation, thought Dalgliesh, he would
have to find out why.

Behind the reception kiosk and with windows facing the
square was the general office, part of which had been partitioned
to form a small filing-room for the current medical records.
Next to the general office was Miss Bolam's room and, beyond
that, the E.C.T. suite with its treatment-room, nurses' duty-room
and male and female recovery bays. This suite was
separated by a hallway from the medical staff cloakroom,
clerical staff lavatories and the domestic assistant's pantry. At
the end of the hallway was the locked side door, seldom used
except by members of the staff who had been working late and
who did not want to give Nagle the trouble of undoing the
more complicated locks, bolts and chains on the front
door.

At the opposite side of the main hall were two consulting-rooms
and the patients' waiting-room, and lavatories. The
front room had been divided to form two fairly large psycho-therapy-rooms
which were separated from the waiting-room
by a passage. Dr. Steiner could, therefore, move from one to
the other without coming within Cully's view. But he could
hardly move down the hall to the basement stairs without risk
of being seen. Had he been seen ? What was Cully keeping back
and why ?

Together, Dalgliesh and Martin examined the basement
rooms for the last time that night. At the rear was the door
which led to the area steps. Dr. Etherege had said that this
door was bolted when he and Dr. Steiner had examined it after
finding the body. It was still bolted. It had been tested for
fingerprints, but the only decipherable ones had been Peter
Nagle's. Nagle had said that he was probably the last person
to touch the lock since it was his habit to check that the door
was securely bolted before he locked up at night. It was rare
for him or for any member of the staff to use the basement exit
and the door was usually only opened when the coal or other
heavy supplies were delivered. Dalgliesh shot back the bolt.


96


There was a short flight of iron steps leading to the rear rail-ings.
Here, again, the wrought-iron door was bolted and fitted
with a lock and chain. But an intruder would have no difficulty
in getting into the basement area, particularly as the mews at
the back were ill lit and unoccupied. The clinic itself would
be less easy of access. All the basement windows, except the
small lavatory window, were barred. It was through that
window the clinic thief had cut his way.

Dalgliesh bolted the door again and they went into the
porters' rest room which occupied most of the back of the
building. Nothing was changed since they had first examined
it. Two clothes lockers stood against one wall. The centre of
the floor was occupied by a heavy square table. There was a
small old-fashioned gas cooker in one corner and, beside it, a
cupboard containing cups and saucers and tins of tea, sugar
and biscuits. Two shabby leather chairs were drawn up one
on each side of the gas fire. To the left of the door was a key-board
with the hooks numbered but not named. On this board
had hung, among others, the key to the basement record-room.
That key was now in possession of the police.

A large striped cat was curled in a basket before the unlit
gas fire. When the light was switched on it stirred and, lifting
its heavy barred head, gave the intruders a stare, blank and
expressionless, from immense yellow eyes. Dalgliesh knelt be-side
the basket and stroked the top of its head. The cat shivered
then sat immobile under his touch. Suddenly it rolled on its
back, and stretched out its legs, rigid as poles, to display a
ridge of soft belly hair for Dalgliesh's ministrations. The
superintendent stroked and talked while Martin whose prefer-ence
was for dogs, looked on in tolerant patience. He said:
"I've heard about him from Mrs. Shorthouse. It's Tigger, Miss
Bolam's cat."

"We deduce that Miss Bolam read A. A. Milne as a child.
Cats are nocturnal. Why isn't he let out at night ?"

"I heard about that, too. Miss Bolam thought he'd keep the
mice down if he were shut in. Nagle goes out at lunch time for
a beer and a sandwich, but Cully eats his grub here and Miss
B was always on to him about crumbs. The cat is shut in here


97


every night and let out during the day. He's got his fool and
his scratch tin."

"So I see. Furnished with cinders from the boiler."

"Pity he can't talk, sir. He was in here for most of the
evening waiting to be fed. He was probably here when the
murderer came in for the record-room key."

"And for the chisel. Oh, yes, Tigger saw it all right. But
what makes you think he'd tell you the truth ?"

Sergeant Martin didn't reply. People who went for cats in a
big way were like that, of course. Childish you might call it.
Unusually talkative, he said:

"Miss B had him doctored at her own expense. Mrs. Short-house
told P.C. Holliday that Dr. Steiner was very upset about
it. He likes cats seemingly. They had words over it. Dr. Steiner
told Mrs. Bostock that Miss Bolam would like everything
male at the clinic doctored if she had her way. He put it rather
crudely, I gather. Of course, it wasn't meant to get back to

Miss Bolam but Mrs. Bostock saw that it did."
"Yes," said Dalgliesh shortly. "She would."
They continued their inspection.

It was not an uncomfortable room. It smelled of food and
leather and, just perceptibly, of gas. There were a number of
pictures which looked as if they had found a home with the
porters when their previous owners had seen enough of them.
One was of the founder of the Steen surrounded, appropriately
enough, by his five sons. It was a faded sepia photograph in a
gilt frame more indicative, Dalgliesh thought, of old Hyman's
character than the more orthodox commemorative oil which
hung upstairs in the hall.

On a smaller table against the rear wall lay Nagle's box of
tools. Dalgliesh lifted the lid. The tools, meticulously cared for,
lay each in its correct place. There was only one missing and
that one was unlikely ever again to find its place in Nagle's
toolbox.

"He could have come in through that rear door if he left it
unlocked," said Martin, voicing Dalgliesh's thought.

"Of course. I admit to a perverse disposition to suspect the
one person who was apparently not even in the building when

98


the murder was committed. There's tittle doubt, though, that
Nagle was with Miss Priddy in the general office when Mrs.
Shorthouse left Miss Bolam. Cully confirms that. And Miss
Priddy states that she never left the general office except
momentarily to fetch a file from the next room. What did you
think of Shorthouse by the way ?"
"I thought she was telling the truth, sir. I wouldn't put her
above a bit of lying when it suited her. She's the sort who likes
things to happen and isn't averse to giving them a bit of a
shove in the right direction. But she had plenty to tell us without
adding any frills."
"She had, indeed," agreed Dalgliesh. "There isn't any
reasonable doubt that Miss Bolam came down to the basement
as a result of that call which fixes the approximate time of death
for us very satisfactorily. It ties up with the police surgeon's
view, too, but we shall know more about that when we get the
result of the P.M. The call could have been genuine, of course.
It's possible that someone phoned from the basement, spoke
to Miss Botam somewhere down here, then left her to go back
to his or her own room and is now too afraid to admit making
the call; As I say, it's possible, but I don't think it's likely."
"If the call was genuine it could have been someone calling
her down to look at the mess in the record-room. Those files
were certainly chucked about before the murder. Some of
them were under the body. It looked to me as if she was struck
as she crouched to pick them up."
"That's how it looked to me," said Dalgliesh. "Well, let's
press on."
They passed the service lift door without comment and went
next into the basement treatment-room at the front of the
building. Here Nurse Bolam had sat with her patient through
the early hours of the evening. Dalgliesh switched on the lights.
The heavy curtains had been drawn back but the windows were
hung with thin net, presumably to give privacy during the day.
The room was simply furnished. There was a low stretcher bed
in one corner with a hospital screen at its foot and a small
armchair at its head. Against the front wall was a small table
and chair, apparently for the use of the nurse in attendance. 99


The table held a rack of nursing report forms and blank medical record sheets. The left-hand wall was lined with cupboards
	where the clinic's clean linen ..............
	,atorea. ,ome attempt had
	been made to soundproof the fourth wall. It had been lined

	with acoustic panels and the door, strong and well built, was

	hung with a heavy curtain.

	Dalgliesh said:

	"If her patient were noisy I doubt whether Nurse Bolam

	would hear much that went on outside. Walk down the passage

	will you, Martin, and make a call on the telephone, the one just

	outside the medical record-room."

	Martin closed the door behind him and Dalgliesh was alone

	with the heavy silence. His hearing was acute and Martin's

	heavy tread was just audible. He doubted whether he would

	have heard it against the noise of a distressed patient. He could

	not hear the faint ring as Martin took off the receiver nor the

	swing of the dial. In a few seconds he heard the footsteps

	again and Martin was back. He said:

	"There's a card giving the internal numbers so I rang 004.

	That's Miss Bolam's room. Funny how eerie a telephone bell

	sounds when there's no one to answer. Then someone did. It

	gave me quite a shock when the ringing stopped. It was Mr.

	Lauder, of course. He sounded a bit surprised, too. I told him

	we wouldn't be long now."

	"Nor shall we. I couldn't hear you, by the way. And yet

	Nurse Bolam did hear the Priddy child scream. Or so she says."

	"She took her time doing anything about it, didn't she, sir?

	What's more she apparently heard the doctors and Sister

	when they came down."

	"That's reasonable enough. There were four of them clatter
	ing about. She's the obvious suspect, of course. She could have

	telephoned her cousin from this room, saying perhaps that

	someone had been creating chaos in the record-room. Her

	patient would be far too disorientated to hear or understand.

	I saw her with Dr. Baguley and it was obvious that she wasn't

	capable of giving anyone an alibi. Nurse Bolam could have left

	that treatment-room and waited for her cousin in the record
	room
with a fair degree of safety. She had the best opportunity

	100


i

to kill, she has the necessary medical knowledge, she has an
obvious motive. If she is the murderer the crime probably had
nothin to do with the phone call to Lauder. We shall have to
find out what Bolam did think was going on here, but it needn't
necessarily have anything to do with her death. If Nurse Bolam
knew ttat the group secretary was coming she might have
decidedtO kill now with the idea of obscuring the real motive."
"She doesn't strike me as clever enough for that kind of
planning, sir."
"She doesn't strike me as a murderer, Martin, but we've
known leSS likely ones. If she is innocent then her being down
here aloOe was very convenient for the murderer. Then there are
those rObber gloves. Of course, she had an explanation for
them. There are plenty of pairs about and it's perfectly reasonable
for member of the nursing staff to have a used pair in her
a ron pocket But the fact remains that we haven't found any
dabs on ether of the weapons nor on the door key, not even
old prints. Someone wiped them first and handled them with
gloves. 3nd what more suitable than thin surgical gloves.
Driving hat chisel in was practically a surgical operation."
"If she had the sense to use the gloves, then she'd have the
sense to destroy them afterwards. The boiler was alight. What
about the missing rubber apron from the art department? If the
killer used that as possible protection and disposed of it in
the boiler, it would be daft to hang on to the gloves."
"So dft that we're probably meant to think that no sane
person Would do it. I'm not sure about that apron, anyway.
Apparently there's one missing and it's possible that the killer
wore it. 1ut this was a clean death and it was planned that way.
Anyway, we'll know tomorrow when the boiler's cold and can
be raked out. Those aprons have metal studs on the shoulder
straps and, with luck, we might find them."
They closed the treatment door behind them and went upstairs.
Dalgliesh began to be conscious of his tiredness and the
stabbing pain behind his eye was now almost continuous. It
had not been an easy week and the sherry party, which promised
an agreeably relaxing finish to a busy day, had proved an unsettling
preliminary to an even busier night. He wondered I01


briefly where Deborah Riscoe had dined, and with whom.
Their meeting now seemed part of a different world. Perhaps
because he was tired he felt none of the confidence with which
he usually began a case. He did not seriously believe that the
crime would defeat him. Professionally he had never yet
known the taste of failure. It was all the more irritating, there-fore,
to be visited by this vague sensation of inadequacy and
unrest. For the first time he felt unsure of his own mastery, as
if he were opposed by an intelligence actively working against
him and equal to his own. And he did not think that Nurse
Bolam had that intelligence.

The group secretary and Nagle were still waiting in the hall.
Dalgliesh handed over the clinic keys and was promised that
an additional set, now held at group headquarters, would be
delivered to the police next day. Martin and he, with the two
constables, waited while Nagle checked that all lights were out.
Soon the whole clinic was in darkness and the six men stepped
into the foggy chill of the October night and went their separate
ways.


102


Chapter Four


D

r. Baguley knew that he couldn't in decency neglect
I to offer Miss Kettle a lift home. She lived in Richmond
and her house was directly on the route to his Surrey
village. Usually he managed to avoid her and her attendance
at the clinic was so erratic that they seldom left at the same
time and he could usually drive alone without compunction.
He enjoyed driving. Even the frustrations of getting through
the city in the rush hour were a small price to pay for those few
miles of straight road before he reached home when he could
feel the power of the car like a physical thrust in his back and
the tensions of the day were ripped from him in the singing air.
Just before he reached Stalling it was his custom to stop at a
quiet pub for a pint of beer. He never drank more nor less. This
nightly ritual, the formal division of day from night, had be-come
necessary to him since he had lost Fredrica. The night
brought no relief from the strain of coping with neurosis. He
was accustoming himself to a life in which the greatest demands
on his patience and professional skill were made in his own
home. But it was good to sit alone and in peace, savouring the
brief interlude between two different but essentially similar
worlds.

He drove slowly at first since Miss Kettle was known to
dislike speed. She sat beside him, dose-wrapped in a heavy
tweed coat, her grey cropped head incongruously crowned with
a knitted red cap. Like many professional'social workers she
had little instinctive understanding of people, a lack which had

103


gained her an undeserved reputation for insensitivity. It was,
of course, different if they were her clients--and how Baguley
hated that word! Once they were securely caged behind the
bars of a professional relationship she gave them a dedicated
and meticulous attention which left few of their privacies intact.
They were understood whether they liked it or not, their weak-nesses
exposed and condoned, their efforts applauded and en-couraged,
their sins forgiven. Apart from her clients the rest of
the Steen Clinic hardly existed for Miss Kettle. Baguley did not
dislike her. He had long come to the melancholy conclusion
that psychiatric social work held a strong attraction for those
least suited to it, and Miss Kettle was better than most. The
reports she provided for him were over-long and spattered with
the peculiar jargon of the job, but at least she provided them.
The Steen Clinic had its share of those P.S.W.s who, driven by
their irresistible urge to treat patients, were restless until they
had trained as lay psychotherapists and left behind such lesser
excitements as the writing of social reports and the arranging
of recuperative holidays. No, he did not dislike Ruth Kettle,
but tonight, of all nights, he would have been happier to drive
alone.

She did not speak until they had reached Knightsbridge, then
her high breathy voice fluted in his ear.

"Such a very complicated murder, wasn't it ? And so oddly
timed. What did you think of the superintendent ?"

"He's efficient, I suppose," replied Dr. Baguley. "My atti-tude
to him is a little ambivalent, probably because I haven't
an alibi. I was alone in the medical staff cloakroom when Miss
Bolam is thought to have died."

He knew that he was hoping for reassurance, expecting to
hear her eager protestations that, naturally, no one could think
of suspecting him. Despising himself he added quickly:

"It's a nuisance, of course, but not important. I expect he'll
clear the matter up pretty quickly."

"Oh, do you think so ? I wonder. I thought he seemed rather
puzzled by the whole thing. I was alone in my room most of
the evening so I probably haven't an alibi either. But then I
don't know when she's supposed to have died."

104


"Probably at about six-twenty," said Baguley briefly.
"Is that so ? Then I most certainly haven't an alibi." Miss
Kettle spoke with the liveliest satisfaction. After a moment she
said: "I shall be able to arrange a country holiday from Free
Money for the Worrikers now. Miss Bolam was always so
difficult about spending Free Money on patients. Dr. Steiner
and I feel that if the Worrikers can have a quiet fortnight together
in some pleasant country hotel they may be able to sort
things out. It may save the marriage."
Dr. Baguley was tempted to say that the Worriker marriage
had been in jeopardy for so many years that its salvation or
otherwise was hardly likely to be settled in a fortnight, however
pleasant the hotel. Being precariously married was the Worrikers'
main emotional preoccupation and one they were unlikely
to relinquish without a struggle. He asked:
"Isn't Mr. Worriker in work then ?"
"Oh, yes I He's in work," replied Miss Kettle, as if that fact
could have no relevance to his ability to pay for a holiday.
"But his wife is a poor manager, I'm afraid, although she does
her best. They can't really afford to go away unless the clinic
pays. Miss Bolam wasn't very sympathetic, I'm sorry to say.
There was another matter, too. She would make appointments
for me to see patients without telling me. It happened today.
When I looked at my diary just before I left there was a new
patient booked for ten on Monday. Mrs. Bostock had written
it in, of course, but she added 'on Miss Bolam's instructions'.
Mrs. Bostock would never do a thing like that herself. She's a
very pleasant and efficient secretary."
Dr. Baguley thought that Mrs. Bostock was an ambitious
trouble-maker, but saw no point in saying so. Instead, he asked
how Miss Kettle had got on during her interview with Dal-gliesh.
"I wasn't able to help him very much, I'm afraid, but he
was interested to hear about the lift."
"What about the lift, Miss Kettle ?"
"Someone was using it this evening. You know how it
creaks when someone's using it and then bangs when it reaches
the second floor ? Well, I heard it bang. I don't know exactly

105


when, of course, as it didn't seem important at the time. It
wasn't very early in the evening. I suppose it could have been
at about six-thirty."
"Surely Dalgliesh isn't seriously thinking that someone used
the lift to get down to the basement. It's large enough, of
course, but it would need two people."
"Yes, it would, wouldn't it ? No one could hoist himself up
in it. It would need an accomplice." She spoke the word conspiratorially
as if it were part of some criminal patois, a naughty
expression which she was daring to use. She went on: "I can't
imagine dear Dr. Etherege squatting in the lift like a plump
little Buddha while Mrs. Bostock heaved on the ropes with her
strong red hands, can you?"
"No," said Dr. Baguley curtly. The description had been
unexpectedly vivid. To change the image'he said:
"It would be interesting to know who was last in the medical
record-room. Before the murder, I mean. I can't remember
when I last used the place."
"Oh, can't you! How strange! It's such a dusty claustrophobic
room that I can always remember when I have to
go down there. I was there at a quarter to six this evening.''
Dr. Baguley nearly stopped the car in his surprise.
"At five-forty-five this evening ? But that. was only thirty-five
minutes before the time of death I"
"Yes, it must have been, mustn't it, if she died at about six-twenty?
The superintendent didn't tell me that. But he was
interested to hear that I'd been in the basement. I fetched one
of the old Worriker records. It must have been about five-forty-five
when I went down and I didn't stay; I knew just where the
record was."
"And the room was as usual ? The records weren't chucked
on the floor ?"
"Oh, no, everything was perfectly tidy. The room was locked,
of course, so I got the keyfrom the porters' rest-room and
locked the room again when I'd finished. I put the key back
on the board."
"And you didn't see anyone?"
106


"No, I don't think so. I could hear your LSD patient,
though. She seemed very noisy, I thought. Almost as if she
were alone."

"She wasn't alone. She never is. As a matter of fact I was
with her myself up to about five-forty. If you'd been a few
minutes earlier we should have seen each other."

"Only if we'd happened to pass on the basement stairs or
if you'd come into the record-room. But I don't think I saw
anyone. The superintendent kept asking me. I wonder if he's
a capable man. He seemed very puzzled by the whole thing, I
thought."

They did not speak again about the murder although, to Dr.
Baguley, the air of the car was heavy with unspoken questions.
Twenty minutes later he drew up outside Miss Kettle's flat off
Richmond Green and leaned over to open the car door for her
with a sense of relief. As soon as she had disappeared from view
he got out of the car and, in defiance of the chilly dampness,
opened the roofi The next few miles fled in a gold thread of
winking cats'-eyes marking the crown of the road, a rush of
cold autumnal air. Outside Stalling he turned from the main
road to where the dark, uninviting little pub was set well back
among its surrounding elms. The bright boys of Stalling
Coombe had never discovered it or had rejected it in favour of
the smart pubs edging the green belt; their Jaguars were never
seen parked against its black brick walls. The saloon bar was
empty as usual, but there was a murmur of voices across the
wooden partition which separated it from the public bar. He
took his seat by the fire which burned summer and winter,
evidently stoked with malodorous chunks of the publican's old
furniture. It was not a welcoming room. The chimney smoked
in an east wind, the stone floor was bare and the wooden
benches lining the walls were too hard and narrow for comfort.
But the beer was cold and good, the glasses clean, and there
was a kind of peace about the place bred out of its bareness
and the solitude.

George brought over his pint.

"You're late this evening, Doctor."

George had called him that since his second visit. Dr. Baguley

107


neither knew nor cared how George had discovered what his
job was.

"Yes," he replied. "I was kept late at the clinic."

He said no more and the man went back to his bar. Then he
wondered whether he had been wise. It would be in all the
papers tomorrow. They would probably be talking about it in
the public bar. It would be natural for George to say:

"The doctor was in as usual on Friday. He didn't say any-thing
about the murder .... Looked upset, though."

Was it suspicious to say nothing? Wasn't it more natural
for an innocent man to want to talk about a murder case in
which he was involved ? Suddenly the little room became un-bearably
stuffy, the peace dissolved in an uprush of anxiety and
pain. He had got to tell Helen somehow, and the sooner she
knew the better.

But although he drove fast it was well after ten before he
reached home and saw through the tall beech hedge, the light
in Helen's bedroom. So she had gone up without waiting for
him; that was always a bad sign. Garaging the car he braced
himself for whatever lay ahead. Stalling Coombe was very quiet.
It was a small private estate of architect-designed houses, built
in the traditional manner, and set each in a spacious garden. It
had little contact with the neighbouring village of Stalling and
was, indeed, an oasis of prosperous suburbia whose inhabi-tants,
bound by ties of common prejudices and snobberies,
lived like exiles determinedly preserving the decencies of civili-zation
in the midst of an alien culture. Baguley had bought his
house fifteen years ago, soon after his marriage. He had dis-liked
the place then and the past years had taught him the folly
of disregarding first impressions. But Helen had liked it; and
Helen had been pregnant then so that there was an additional
reason for trying to make her happy. To Helen the house,
spacious mock Tudor, had promised much. There was the
huge oak in the front lawn ("just the place for the pram on hot
days"), the wide entrance hall ("the children will love it for
parties later on"), the quiet of the estate ("so peaceful for you,
darling, after London and all those dreadful patients").

But the pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage and there had

108


never again been the hope of children. Would it have made
any difference if there had ? Would the house have been any
less an expensive repository of lost hopes ? Sitting quietly in the
car and watching that ominous square of lighted window, Dr.
Baguley reflected that all unhappy marriages were funda-mentally
alike. He and Helen were no different from the
Worrikers. They stayed together because they expected to be
less miserable together than apart. If the strain and miseries of
marriage became greater than the expense, the inconvenience
and the trauma of a legal separation, then they would part. No
sane person continued to endure the intolerable. For him there
had been only one valid and overriding need for a divorce, his
hope of marrying Fredrica Saxon. Now that the hope was over
for ever he might as well continue to endure a marriage which,
for all its strain, at least gave him the comfortable illusion of
being needed. He despised his private image, the stock predica-ment
of the psychiatrist unable to manage his own personal
relationships. But at least something remained from the marri-age;
a fugitive surge of tenderness and pity which for most of
the time enabled him to be kind.

He locked the garage gates and crossed the wide lawn to the
front door. The garden was looking unkempt. It was expensive
to maintain and Helen took little interest in it. It would be
better in every way if they sold and bought a smaller place.
But Helen wouldn't talk of selling. She was as happy at
Stalling Coombe as she could hope to be anywhere. Its narrow
and undemanding social life gave her at least a semblance of
security. This cocktail-and-canapd existence, the bright chatter
of its smart, lean, acquisitive women, the gossip over the
iniquities of foreign maids and au pair girls, the lamentations
over school fees and school reports and the boorish ingratitude
of the young, were preoccupations which she could sympathize
with or share. Baguley had long known with pain that it was
in her relationship with him that she was least at home.

He wondered how he could best break the news of Miss
Bolam's murder. Helen had only met her once, that Wednesday
at the clinic, and he had never learned what they had said to
each other. But that brief, catalytic encounter had established


109


some kind of intimacy between them. Or was it perhaps an
offensive alliance directed against himself? But not on Bolam's
part, surely ? Her attitude to him had never altered. He could
even believe that she approved of him more than of most
psychiatrists. He had always found her co-operative, helpful
and correct. It was without malice, without vindictiveness,
without even disliking him particularly, that she had called
Helen into her office that Wednesday afternoon and, in half an
hour's conversation, destroyed the greatest happiness he had
ever known. It was then that Helen appeared at the top of the
stairs.

"Is that you, James ?" she called.

For fifteen years he had been greeted every night with that
unnecessary question.

"Yes. I'm sorry I'm late. I'm sorry, too, that I couldn't
tell you more on the phone. But something pretty dreadful has
happened at the Steen and Etherege thought it better to say as
little as possible. Enid Bolam has been killed."

But her mind had seized on the medical director's name.
"Henry Etherege! He would, of course. He lives in Harley
Street with an adequate staff and about twice our income. He
might consider me a little before keeping you at the clinic
until this hour. His wife isn't stuck in the country alone until
he chooses to come home."

"It wasn't Henry's fault that I was kept. I t°ld you. Enid
Bolam's been killed. We've had the police at the clinic most of
the evening."

This time she heard. He sensed her sharp intake of breath,
saw her eyes narrow as she came down the stairs to him,

clutching her dressing-gown around her.
"Miss Bolam killed ?"
"Yes, murdered."

She stood motionless, seeming to consider, then asked
calmly:

"How ?"

As he told her she still didn't speak. Afterwards they stood
facing each other. He wondered uneasily whether he ought to
go to her, to make some gesture of comfort or sympathy. But

110


why sympathy? What, after all, had Helen lost? When she
spoke her voice was as cold as metal.
"You none of you liked her, did you ? Not one of you I"
"That's ridiculous, Helen! Most of us hardly came into
touch with her except briefly and in her capacity as A.O."
"It looks like an inside job, doesn't it?"
He winced at the crude, police-court jargon, but said curtly:
"On the face of it, yes. I don't know what the police think."
She laughed bitterly.
"Oh, I can guess what the police think I"
Again she stood silent, then suddenly asked:
"Where were you ?"
"I told you. In the medical staff cloakroom."
"And Fredrica Saxon ?"
It was hopeless now to wait for that spring of pity or tenderness.
It was useless, even, to try to keep control. He said with
a deadly calm:
"She was in her room, scoring a Rorschach. If it's any satisfaction
to you, neither of us had an alibi. But if you're hoping
to pin this murder on Fredrica or me you'll need more intelligence
than I give you credit for. The superintendent's hardly
likely to listen to a neurotic woman, acting out of spite. He's
seen too many of that type. But make an effort! You might be
lucky! Why not come and examine my clothes for blood ?"
He threw out his hands towards her, his whole body shaking
with anger. Terrified, she gave him one glance, then turned
and stumbled up the stairs, tripping over her dressing-gown
and crying like a child. He gazed after her, his body cold from
tiredness, hunger and self-disgust. He must go to her. Somehow
it must be put right. But not now, not at once. First, he must
find a drink. He leaned for a moment against the banister and
said with infinite tiredness:
"Oh, Fredrica. Darling Fredrica. Why did you do it? Why?
Why ?"

Sister Ambrose lived with an elderly nurse friend who had
trained with her thirty-five years ago and-who had recently
retired. Together they had bought a house in Gidea Park where

111


they had lived together for the last twenty years on their joint
income, in comfort and happy accord. Neither of them had
married and neither of them regretted it. In the past they had
sometimes wished for children, but observation of the family
life of their relations had convinced them that marriage,
despite a common belief to the contrary, was designed to benefit
men at the expense of women, and that even motherhood was
not an unmixed blessing. Admittedly this conviction had never
been put to the test since neither of them had ever received a
proposal. Like any professional worker in a psychiatric clinic,
Sister Ambrose was aware of the dangers of sexual repression,
but it had never once occurred to her that these might apply to
herself and, indeed, it would be difficult to imagine anyone less
repressed. It is possible that she would have dismissed most of
the psychiatrists' theories as dangerous nonsense if she had
ever considered them critically. But Sister Ambrose had been
trained to think of consultants as only one degree lower than
God. Like God they moved in mysterious ways their wonders to
perform but, like God, they were not subject to open criticism.
Some, admittedly, were more mysterious in their ways than
others, but it was still the privilege of a nurse to minister to
these lesser deities, to encourage the patients to have confidence
in their treatment, especially when its success appeared most
doubtful, and to practise the cardinal professional virtue of
complete loyalty.

"I've always been loyal to the doctors," was a remark
frequently heard at Acacia Road, Gidea Park. Sister Ambrose
often noted that the young nurses who occasionally worked at
the Steen as holiday reliefs were trained in a less accommo-dating
tradition, but she had a poor opinion of most young
nurses, and an even poorer opinion of modern training.

As usual she took the Central Line to Liverpool Street,
changed to an electric train on the eastern suburban line, and
twenty minutes later was letting herself into the neat semi-detached
house which she shared with Miss Beatrice Sharpe.
Tonight, however, she fitted her key in the lock without her
customary inspection of the front garden, without running a
critical eye over the paintwork on the door, and even without
112


reflecting as was her custom on the generally satisfactory
appearance of the property and on the gratifying capital invest-ment
that its purchase had proved to be.

"Is that you, Dot?" called Miss Sharpe from the kitchen.
"You're late."

"It's a wonder I'm not later. We've had murder at the clinic
and the police have been with us for most of the evening. As
far as I know they're still there. I've had my fingerprints taken
and so have the rest of the staff."

Sister Ambrose deliberately kept her voice level but the
effect of the news was gratifying. She had expected no less. It
is not every day one has such excitement to relate and she
had spent some time in the train rehearsing how most effectively
to break the news. The selected sentence expressed concisely
the salient details. Supper was temporarily forgotten. Murmur-ing
that a casserole could always wait, Miss Sharpe poured
her friend and herself a glass of sherry, specific against shock,
and settled down with it in the sitting-room to hear the full
story. Sister Ambrose, who had a reputation at the clinic for
discretion and taciturnity, was a great deal more forthcoming
at home, and it wasn't long before Miss Sharpe knew as much
about the murder as her friend was able to tell.

"But who do you think did it, Dot.9" Miss Sharpe refilled
their glasses--an unprecedented extravagance--and applied her
mind to analysis.

"As I see it the murder must have been done between six-twenty
when you saw Miss Bolam going towards the basement
stairs and seven o'clock when the body was discovered."

"Well, that's obvious! That's why the superintendent kept
asking me whether I was sure about the time. I was the last
person to see her alive, there's no doubt about that. Mrs.
Belling had finished treatment and was ready to go home at
about six-fifteen and I went across to the waiting-room to let
her husband know. He's always fussed about time because he's
on night duty and has to be fed and at work by eight. So I
looked at my watch and saw that it was just six-twenty. As I
came out of the E.C.T. room door Miss Bolam passed me and
went towards the basement stairs. The superintendent asked

113


me what she looked like and whether we spoke. Well, we didn't
and, as far as I could see, she looked the same as usual."
"What's he like ?" asked Miss Sharpe, visions of Maigret and
Inspector Barlo.w crowding her mind.
"The superintendent? Perfectly polite, I must say. One of
those lean, bony faces. Very dark. I didn't say a great deal.
You could see he's used to smarming things out of people.
Mrs. Shorthouse was with him for hours and I bet he got
plenty out of her. Well, I wasn't playing that game. I've always
been loyal to the clinic."
"All the same, Dot, it is murder."
"That's all very fine, Bea, but you know what the Steen is.
There's enough gossip without adding to it. None of the doctors
liked her and nor did anyone else as far as I know. But
that's no reason for killing her. Anyway, I kept my mouth shut
and if the others have any sense they'll do the same."
"Well, you're all right, anyway. You've got an alibi if you
and Dr. Ingram were together in the E.T.C. room all the
time."
"Oh, we're all right. So are $horthouse and Cully and Nagle
and Miss Priddy. Nagle was out with the post after six-fifteen
and the others were together. I'm not sure about the doctors,
though, and it's a pity that Dr. Baguley left the E.C.T. room
after the Belling treatment. Mind you, no one in their senses
could suspect him, but it's unfortunate all the same. While we
were waiting for the police, Dr. Ingrain came over to suggest
that we ought not to say anything about it. A nice mess we'd
get Dr. Baguley into with that kind of hanky-panky! I pretended
not to understand. I just gave her one of my looks and
said: 'I'm sure that if we all tell the truth, Doctor, the innocent
will have nothing to fear.' That shut her up all right. And that's
what I did. I told the truth. But I wasn't going any further. If
the police want gossip they can go to Mrs. Shorthouse."
"What about Nurse Bolam?" inquired Miss Sharpe.
"It's Bolam I'm worried about. She was on the spot all right
and you can't say an LSD patient is an alibi for anyone. The
superintendent was on to her quick enough. He tried to pump
meo Were she and her cousin friendly 7 No doubt they worked


at the Steen to be together ? You can tell that to the Marines,
I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. He didn't get much
change out of me. But you could see which way his mind was
working. You can't wonder, really. We all know Miss Bolam
had money and if she hasn't willed it to a cats' home it will go
to her cousin. There's no one else to leave it to after all."

"I can't see her leaving it to a cats' home," said Miss Sharpe,
who had a literal mind.

"I didn't mean that exactly. As a matter of fact she never
took much notice of Tigger although he's supposed to be her
cat. I always thought that was typical of Miss Bolam. She
found Tigger practically starving in the square and took him
into the clinic. Ever since then she's bought three tins of cat
meat for him every week. But she never petted him or fed him
or let him into any of the upstairs rooms. On the other hand,
that fool Priddy is always down in the porters' room with
Nagle making a fuss of Tigger, but I've never seen either of
them bringing in food for him. I think Miss Bolam just bought
the food out of a sense of duty. She didn't really care for ani-mals.
But she might leave her money to that church she's so
keen on, or to the Guides, for that matter."

"You'd think she'd leave it to her own flesh and blood," said
Miss Sharpe. She herself had a poor opinion of her own flesh
and blood, and found much to criticize in the conduct of her
nephews and nieces, but her small and slowly accumulated
capital had been carefully willed between them. It was beyond
her understanding that money should be left out of the family.

They sipped their sherry in silence. The two bars of the
electric fire glowed and the synthetic coals shone and flickered
as the little light behind them revolved. Sister Ambrose looked
around at the sitting-room and found it good. The standard
lamp threw a soft light on the t.tted carpet and the comfortable
sofa and chairs. In the corner a television set stood, its small
twin aerials disguised as two flowers on their stems. The tele-phone
nestled beneath the crinolined skirt of a plastic doll. On
the opposite wall, above the piano, hung a cane basket from
which an indoor plant, cascading streamers of green, almost
concealed the wedding group of Miss Sharpe's eldest niece

115


which had pride of place on the piano. Sister Ambrose took
comfort from the unchanged homeliness of these familiar
things. They at least were the same. Now that the excitement
of telling her news was over she felt very tired. Planting her
stout legs apart she bent to loosen the laces of her regulation
black shoes, grunting a little with the effort. Usually she changed
out of uniform as soon as she got home. Tonight she couldn't
be bothered. Suddenly she said:
"It isn't easy to know what to do for the best. The superintendent
said that anything, however small, might be important.
That's all very well. But suppose it's important in the wrong way ? Suppose it gives the police the wrong ideas ?"
Miss Sharpe was not imaginative nor sensitive, but she had
not lived in the same house as her friend for twenty years without
recognizing a plea for help.
"You'd better tell me what you have in mind, Dot."
"Well, it happened on Wednesday. You know what the
ladies' cloakroom is like at the Steen ? There's the large outside
room with the wash-basin and the lockers and two lavatories.
The clinic was rather later than usual. I suppose it was well
after seven when I went to wash. Well, I was in the lavatory
when Miss Bolam came into the outer room. Nurse Bolam was
with her. I thought they'd both gone home, but I suppose Miss
Bolam must have wanted something from her locker and Nurse
just followed her in. They must have been in the A.O.'s office
together because they'd obviously been talking and were just
carrying on with the argument. I couldn't help hearing. You
know how it is. I could have coughed or flushed the pan, I
suppose, to show I was there but, by the time I thought of it,
it was too late."
"What were they arguing about?" inquired her friend.
"Money ?"
In her experience this was the most frequent cause of family
dissension.
"Well, that's what it sounded like. They weren't talking
loudly and I certainly didn't try to hear. I think they must have
been having words about Nurse Bolams mother--he's a
D.S., you know, and more or less confined to bed now--be-

116


cause Miss Bolam said she was sorry, but she was doing as
much as she could and that it would be wiser if Marion
accepted the situation and placed her mother's name on a
waiting list for a hospital bed."

"That's reasonable enough. You can't nurse these cases at
home indefinitely. Not without giving up outside work and
staying at home all the time."

"I don't suppose Marion Bolam could afford that. Anyway,
she started arguing and saying that her mother would only end
up in a geriatric ward with a lot of senile old women and Enid
had a duty to help them because that's what her mother would
have wanted. Then she said something about the money
coming to her if Enid died and how much better to have some

now when it would make such a difference to them."

"What did Miss Bolam reply to that ?"

"That's what's worrying me," said Sister Ambrose. "I can't
remember the actual words, but what it amounted to was that
Marion shouldn't rely on getting any of the money because she
was going to change her will. She said that she meant to tell
her cousin quite openly as soon as she had really made up her
mind. She talked about what a great responsibility the money
was and how she had been praying for guidance to do the right
thing."

Miss Sharpe sniffed. She found it impossible to believe that
the Almighty would ever counsel leaving cash away from the
family. Miss Bolam was either an ineffectual petitioner or
had wilfully misinterpreted the divine instructions. Miss
Sharpe was not even sure that she approved of the praying.
There are some things, surely, which one ought to be able to
decide on one's own. But she saw her friend's difficulty.

"It would look bad if it came out," she admitted. "No doubt
about that."

"I think I know Bolam pretty well, Bea, and that child
wouldn't lay hands on a fly. The idea of her murdering anyone
is ridiculous. You know what I think about young nurses
generally. Well, I wouldn't mind Bolam taking over when I
retire next year and that's saying something. I'd trust her
completely."

117


"Maybe, but the police wouldo't. Why should they? She's
probably their first suspect alreadY. She was on the'spot; she
hasn't an alibi; she has medical lcnowledge and would know
where the skull is most vulnerable; and where to put that chisel
in. She was told that Tippett wouldn't be in the clinic. And now
this I"
"And it's not as if it's a small sum." Sister Ambrose leaned
forward and dropped her voice. "I thought I heard Miss Bolam
mention thirty thousand pounds. Thirty thousand, Bea! It
would be like winning the pools I"
Miss Sharpe was impressed d,spite herself, but remarked
merely that people who went on working when they had thirty
thousand wanted their brains exafnined.
"What would you do, Bea? Do you think I ought to say
anything ?"
Sister Ambrose, sturdily independent and used to settling
her own affairs, recognized that tlais decision was beyond her
and threw half the burden on her friend. Both of them knew
that the moment was unique. Never had two friends made fewer
demands on each other. Miss ShartOe sat in silence for a moment
or two, then said:
"No. Not yet, anyway. After a;ll she is your colleague and
you trust her. It wasn't your fault that you overheard the
conversation, but it was only over'hearing. It was only chance
that you happened to be in the Too. I should try to forget it.
The police will find out how Bolana has left her money anyway
and whether the will has been changed. Either way Nurse
Bolam will be suspected. And if )t should come to a trial--I'm
only saying 'if', remember--vell, you don't want to get
involved unnecessarily. RemembeY those nurses in the East-bourne
case, the hours they spent[ in the box. You wouldn't
want that kind of publicity."
Indeed she wouldn't, thought Sioter Ambrose. Her imagination
set the scene only too vividly. Sir Somebody or Other
would be prosecuting, tall, beak-n osed, bending his terrifying
gaze on her, thumbs hooked in the bands of his gown.
"And now, Sister Ambrose, perhaps you will tell his
Lordship and the jury what you x, were doing when you over118



heard this conversation between the accused and her cousin."

Titters in court. The judge, terrifying in scarlet and white
wig, leans down from his seat.

"If there is any more of this laughter I shall clear the court."
Silence. Sir Somebody on the ball again.
"Well, Sister Ambrose...?"

No, she certainly wouldn't want that kind of publicity.

"I think you're right, Bea," she said. "After all, it's not as if
the superintendent actually asked me whether I'd ever over-heard
them quarrelling." Certainly he hadn't and, with luck, he
never would.

Miss Sharpe felt that it was time to change the subject.

"How did Dr. Steiner take it ?" she asked. "You always said
that he was working to get Bolam moved to another unit."

"That's another extraordinary thing! He was terribly upset.
You know I told you that he was with us when we first saw
the body? D'you know he could hardly control himself? He
had to turn his back on us and I could see his shoulders
shaking. He was actually crying, I think. I've never seen him
so upset. Aren't people extraordinary, Bea?"

It was a vehement cry of resentment and protest. People
were extraordinary! You thought you knew them. You worked
with them, sometimes for years. You spent more time with
them than you would with family or close friends. You knew
every line of their faces. And all the time they were private. As
private as Dr. Steiner who cried over the dead body of a
woman he had never liked. As private as Dr. Baguley who had
been having a love affair with Fredrica Saxon for years with no
one knowing until Miss Bolam found out and told his wife. As
private as Miss Bolam who had taken God knows what secrets
to the grave. Miss Bolam, dull, ordinary, unremarkable Enid
Bolam, who had inspired so much hate in someone that she had
ended with a chisel in her heart. As private as that unknown
member of the staff who would be at the clinic on Monday
morning, dressed as usual, looking the same as usual, speaking
and smiling as usual and who was a murderer.

"Damned smiling villain!" said Sister Ambrose suddenly.
She thought that the phrase was a quotation from some play

119


or other. Shakespeare probably. Most quotations were. But its
terse malevolence suited her mood.

"What you need is food," said Miss Sharpe positively.
"Something light and nourishing. Suppose we leave the cas-serole
until tomorrow night and just have boiled eggs on a
tray ?"


She was waiting for him at the entrance to St. James's Park
just as he had expected her to be. As he crossed the Mall and
saw the slight figure drooping a little disconsolately by the
war memorial Nagle could almost feel sorry for her. It was
the hell of a raw night to be standing about. But her first words
killed any impulse to pity.

"We should have met somewhere else. This is all right for
you, of course. You're on the way home."

She sounded as peevish as a neglected wife.

"Come back to the flat, then," he taunted her softly. "We
can get a bus down."

"No. Not the flat. Not tonight."

He smiled into the darkness and they moved together into
the black shadow of the trees. They walked a little way apart
and she made no move towards him. He glanced down at the
calm, uplifted profile cleansed now of all traces of crying. She
looked desperately tired. Suddenly she said:

"That superintendent is very good-looking, isn't he ? Do you
think he suspects us ?"

So here it was, the grasping at reassurance, the childish need
to be protected. And yet she had sounded almost uncaring.
He said roughly:

"For God's sake why should he? I was out of the clinic

when she died. You know that as well as I do."

"But I wasn't. I was there."

"No one's going to suspect you for long. The doctors will see
to that. We've had all this out before. Nothing can go wrong
if you keep your head and listen to me. Now this is what I
want you to do."

She listened as meekly as a child but watching that tired,
expressionless face he felt that he was in the company of a

120


stranger. He wondered idly whether they would ever get free
of each other again. And suddenly he felt that it was not she
who was the victim.

As they came to the lake she stopped and gazed out over the
water. Out of the darkness came the subdued cry and shuffle
of ducks. He could smell the evening breeze, salt as a sea wind,
and shivered. Turning to study her face, ravaged now with
fatigue, he saw, in his mind's eye, another picture; a broad
brow under a white nurse's cap, a swathe of yellow hair, im-mense
grey eyes which gave nothing away. Tentatively he
pondered a' new idea. It might come to nothing, of course. It
might easily come to nothing. But the picture would soon be
finished and he could get rid of Jenny. In a month he would be
in Paris, but Paris was only an hour's flight away and he would
be coming back often. And with Jenny out of the way and a
new life in his grasp it would be worth trying. There were
worse fates than marrying the heiress to thirty thousand
pounds.


Nurse Bolam let herself into the narrow terraced house at
17 Rettinger Street, N.W. 1, and was met by the familiar
ground-floor smell compounded of frying fat, furniture polish
and stale urine. The twins' pram stood behind the door with
its stained under-blanket thrown across the handle. The smell
of cooking was less strong than usual. She was very late tonight
and the ground-floor tenants must long have finished their
evening meal. The wail of one of the babies sounded faintly
from the back of the house, almost drowned by the noise of
the television. She could hear the National Anthem. The B.B.C.
service was closing for the day.

She mounted to the first floor. Here the smell of food was
fainter and was masked by the tang of a household disinfectant.
The first-floor tenant was addicted to cleanliness as the base-ment
tenant was to drink. There was the usual note on the
landing window ledge. Tonight it read: "Do not stand your
dirty milk bottles here. This ledge is private. This means you."
From behind the brown polished door, even at this late hour,
came the roar of a vacuum cleaner in full throttle.

121


Up now to the. third floor, to their own flat. She paused
on the bottom step of the last flight and saw, as if with a
stranger's eyes, the pathetic attempt she had made to improve
the look of the place. The walls here were painted with white
emulsion paint. The stairs were covered with a grey drugget.
The door was painted a bright citrus yellow and sported a
brass knocker in the shape of a frog's head. On the wall, carefully
disposed one above the other, were the three flower
prints she had picked up in Berwick Street market. Until tonight
she had been pleased with the result of her work. It really
had given the entrance quite an air. There had been times when
she had felt that a visitor, Mrs. Bostock from the clinic,
perhaps, or even Sister Ambrose, might safely be invited home
for coffee without the need to apologize or explain. But tonight,
freed, gloriously freed for ever, from the self-deceit of poverty,
she could see the flat for what it was, sordid, dark, airless,
smelly and pathetic. Tonight, for the first time, she could
safely recognize how much she hated every brick of 17 Rettinger
Street.
She tgod very softly, still not ready to go in. There was so
little time in which to think, in which to plan. She knew exactly
what she would see when she opened the door of her mother's
room. The bed stood against the window. In summer evenings
Mrs. Bolam could lie and watch the sun setting behind a
castellation of sloping roofs and twisting chimneys with, in the
distance, the turrets of St. Pancras Station darkening against a
flaming sky. Tonight the curtains would be drawn. The district
nurse would have put her mother to bed, would have left the
telephone and portable wireless on the bedside table, together
with the handbell which could, if necessary, summon aid from
the tenant of the flat below. Her mother's bedside lamp would
be lit, a small pool of light in the surrounding gloom. At the
other end of the room one bar of the electric fire would be
burning, one bar only, the nicely calculated allocation of comfort
for an October evening. As soon as she opened the door her
mother's eyes would meet her, brightened by pleasure and
anticipation. There would be the same intolerably bright greeting,
the same minute inquiries about the doings of the day.
122


"Did you have a good day at the clinic, darling? Why were

you late ? Did anything happen ?"

And how did one answer that?

"Nothing of any importance, Mummy, except that someone
has stabbed Cousin Enid through the heart and we're going to
be rich after all."

And what did that mean ? Dear God, what didn't it mean ?
No more smell of polish and napkins. No more need to propi-tiate
the second-floor harpy in case she were needed to answer
that bell. 2qo more watching the electricity meter and wonder-ing
whether it were really cold enough for that extra bar of the
fire. No more thanking Cousin Enid for her generous cheque
twice a year, the one in December that made such a difference
to Christmas, the one late in July that paid for the hired car,
the expensive hotel which catered for invalids who could afford
to pay for being a nuisance. No longer any need to count the
days, to watch the calendar, to wonder whether Enid were
going to oblige this year. No need to take the cheque with be-coming
gratitude to conceal behind lowered eyes the hate and
resentment that longed to tear it up and throw it in that smug,
plain, condescending face. No need to climb these stairs any
more. They could have the house in a suburb which her mother
talked about. One of the better-class suburbs, of course, near
enough to London for easy travelling to the clinic--it wouldn't
be wise to give up the job before she really had to--far enough
out for a small garden, perhaps, even for a country view. They
might even afford a little car. She could learn to drive. And
then, when it was no longer possible for her mother to be left,
they could be together. It meant the end of this nagging
anxiety about the future. There was no reason now to picture
her mother in a chronic sick ward, cared for by overworked
strangers, surrounded by the senile and incontinent, waiting
hopelessly for the end. And money could buy less vital but not
unimportant pleasures. She would get some clothes. It would
no longer be necessary to wait for the biennial sales if she
wanted a suit with some evidence of quality. It would be
possible to dress well, really well, on half the amount Enid
had spent on those unattractive skirts and suits. There must

123


be wardrobes full of them in the Kensington flat Someone
would have the job of sorting them out. And who would want
them ? Who would want anything that had belonged to Cousin
Enid? Except her money. Except her money. Except her
money. And suppose she had already written to her solicitor
about changing the will. Surely that wasn't possible! Nurse
Bolam fought down panic and forced herself once again to
consider the possibility rationally. She had thought it out so
many times before. Suppose Enid had written on Wednesday
night. All right, suppose she had. It would be too late to catch
the post that evening so the letter would have been received
only this morning. Everyone knew how long solicitors took to
do anything. Even if Enid had stressed the urgency, had caught
the Wednesday post, the new will couldn't possibly be ready
for signature yet. And if it were ready, if it were waiting to be
posted in its solid official-looking envelope, what did it matter ?
Cousin Enid wouldn't sign it now with that round, upright,
unadult hand which had always seemed so typical of her.
Cousin Enid would never sign anything again.
She thought again about the money. Not about her own
share. That was hardly likely to bring her happiness now. But,
even if they arrested her for murder they couldn't stop Mummy
inheriting her share. No one could stop that. But somehow she
must get hold of some cash urgently. Everyone knew that a
will took months to prove. Would it look very suspicious or
heartless if she went to Enid's solicitor to explain how poor
they were and to ask what could be arranged ? Or would it be
wiser to approach the bank? Perhaps the solicitor would
send for her. Yes, of course he would. She and her mother were
the next of kin. And as soon as the will was read she could
tactfully raise the question of an advance. Surely that would be
natural enough ? An advance of one hundred pounds wouldn't
be much to ask by someone who was going to inherit a share
of thirty thousand.
Suddenly she could bear it no longer. The long tension
broke. She wasn't conscious of covering those last few stairs,
of putting her key in the lock. At once she was in the flat and
through to her mother's room. Howling with fear and misery,

124


crying as she had not cried since childhood, she hurled herself
on her mother's breast and felt around her the comfort and the
unexpected strength of those brittle, shaking arms. The arms
rocked her like a baby. The beloved voice cooed its reassurance.
Under the cheap nightdress she smelt the soft familiar flesh.

"Hush, my darling. My baby. Hush. What is it? What's
happened. Tell me, darling."

And Nurse Bolam told her.


Since his divorce two years earlier Dr. Steiner had shared a
house in Hampstead with his widowed sister. He had his own
sitting-room and kitchen, an arrangement which enabled Rosa
and him to see little of each other, thus fostering the illusion
that they got on well together. Rosa was a culture snob. Her
house was the centre for a collection of resting actors, one-volume
poets, aesthetes posing on the fringe of the ballet world,
and writers more anxious to talk about their craft in an atmo-sphere
of sympathetic understanding than to practise it. Dr.
Steiner did not resent them. He merely ensured that they ate
and drank at Rosa's expense, not his. He was aware that his
profession had a certain cachet for his sister and that to intro-duce
"my brother Paul--the famous psycho-analyst" was in
some measure a compensation for the low rent which he
spasmodically paid and the minor irritations of propinquity.
He would hardly have been housed so economically and
comfortably had he been a bank manager.

Tonight Rosa was out. It was exasperating and inconsiderate
of her to be missing on the one evening when he needed her
company, but that was typical of Rosa. The German maid
was out, too, presumably illicitly, since Friday was not her half-day.
There was soup and salad put ready for him in his kitchen,
but even the effort of heating the soup seemed beyond him.
The sandwiches he had eaten without relish at the clinic had
taken away his appetite but left him hungry for protein, prefer-ably
hot and properly cooked. But he did not want to eat
alone. Pouring himself a glass of sherry he recognized his need
to talk to someonewanyone, about the murder. The need was
imperative. He thought of Valda.

125


His marriage to Valda had been doomed from the start, as
any marriage must be when husband and wife have a basic
ignorance of each other's needs coupled with the illusion that
they understand each other perfectly. Dr. Steiner had not been
desolated by his divorce, but he had been inconvenienced and
distressed, and had been harried afterwards by an irrational
sense of failure and guilt. Vald'a, on the other hand, apparently
throve on freedom. When they met he was always struck with
her glow of physical well-being. They did not avoid each other,
since meeting her ex-husband and discarded lovers with the
greatest appearance of friendliness and good humour was what
Valda meant when she talked about civilized behaviour. Dr.
Steiner did not like or admire her. He liked the company of
women who were well-informed, well-educated, intelligent and
fundamentally serious. But these were not the kind of women
he liked to go to bed with. He knew all about this inconvenient
dichotomy. Its causes had occupied many expensive hours
with his analyst. Unfortunately, knowing is one thing and
changing is another, as some of his patients could have told
him. And there had been times with Valda (christened Milli-cent)
when he hadn't really wanted to be different.
The telephone rang for about a minute before she answered
and he told her about Miss Bolam against a background noise
of music and clinking glasses. The flat was apparently full of
people. He wasn't even sure she had heard him.
"What is it?" he asked irritably. "Are you having a party?"
"Just a few chums. Wait while I turn down the gramophone.
Now, what did you say?"
Dr. Steiner said it again. This time Valda's reaction was
entirely satisfactory.
"Murdered! No! Darling, how too frightful for you! Miss
Bolam. Isn't she that dreary old A.O. you hated so much ? The
one who kept trying to do you down over your travelling
claims ?"
"I didn't hate her, Valda. In some ways I respected her.
She had considerable integrity. Of course, she was rather
obsessional, frightened of her own subconscious aggressions,
possibly sexually frigid .... "
126


"That's what I said, darling. I knew you couldn't bear her.
Oh, Paulie, they won't think you did it, will they?"
"Of course not," said Dr. Steiner, beginning to regret his
impulse to confide.
"But you always did say that someone should get rid of her."
The conversation was beginning to have a nightmare quality.
The gramophone thudded its insistent bass to the treble cacophony of Valda's party and the pulse in Dr. Stdner's
temple beat in unison. He was going to start one of his headaches.
"I meant that she should be transferred to another clinic, not bashed on the head with a blunt instrument."
The hackneyed phrase sharpened her curiosity. Violence had
always fascinated her. He knew that she saw in imagination a
spatter of blood and brains.
"Darling, I must hear all about it. Why not come over?"
"Well, I was thinking of it," said Dr. Steiner. He added cunningly:
"There are one or two details I can't give you over the
phone. But if you've got a party it's rather difficult. Frankly,
Valda, I'm not capable of being sociable just now. I've got
one of my heads starting. This has all been a terrible shock.
After all, I did more or less discover the body."
"You poor sweet. Look, give me half an hour and I'll get
rid of the chums."
The chums sounded to Dr. Steiner as if they were well entrenched
and he said so.
"Not really. We were all going on to Toni's. They can
manage without me. I'll give them a shove and you set off in
about half an hour. All right ?"
It was certainly all right. Replacing the receiver, Dr. Steincr
decided that he would just have time to bath and change in
comfort. He pondered on a choice of tie. The headache unaccountably
seemed to have gone. Just before he left the house
the telephone rang. He felt a spasm of apprehension. Perhaps
Valda had changed her mind about seeing off the chums and
having some time alone together. That, after all, had been a
recurring pattern in his marriage. He was irritated to find that
the hand reaching for the receiver was not quite steady. But
127


the caller was only Dr. Etherege to say that he was calling
an emergency meeting of the clinic Medical Committee for
8 p.m. the following evening. In his relief Dr. Steiner, momentarily
forgetting Miss Bolam, just saved himself in time from
the folly of asking why.

If Ralfe and Sonia Bostock had lived in Clapham their flat
would have been called a basement. Since, however, it was in
Hampstead, half a mile in fact from Dr. Steiner's house, a
small wooden notice, lettered with impeccable taste, directed
one to the garden flat. Here they paid nearly twelve pounds a
week for a socially acceptable address and the privilege of
seeing a green sloping lawn from the sitting-room window.
They had planted this lawn with crocuses and daffodils and in
spri-ng those plants which managed to bloom in the almost
complete lack of sun, at least fostered the illusion that the flat had access to a garden. In autumn, however, the view was
less agreeable and dampness from the sloping soil seeped into
the room. The flat was noisy. There was a nursery school two
houses away and a young family in the ground-floor flat. Ralfe
Bostock, dispensing drinks to their carefully selected friends
and raising his voice against the wail of bath-time tantrums,
would say:
"Sorry for the row. I'm afraid the intelligensia have taken
to breeding but not--alas--to controlling their brats." He was
given to malicious remarks, some of which were clever, but he
overworked them. His wife lived in constant apprehension that
he would make the same witticism twice to the same people.
There were few things more fatal to a man's chances than the
reputation for repeating his jokes.
Tonight he was out at a political meeting. She approved of
the meeting which might be an important one for him and she
did not mind being alone. She wanted time to think. She went
into the bedroom and took off her suit, shaking it carefully
and hanging it in the wardrobe, then put on a housecoat of
brown velvet. Next she sat at her dressing-table. Binding a crpe bandage about her brow she began to cream the makeup
from her face. She was more tired than she had realized and 128


needed a drink, but nothing would deter her from her evening
ritual. There was much to think about, much to plan. The
grey-green eyes, ringed with cream, gazed calmly back at her
from the glass. Leaning forward she inspected the delicate
folds of skin beneath each eye, watching for the first lines of
age. She was only twenty-eight after all. There was no need to
worry yet. But Ralfe was thirty this year. Time was passing. If
they were to achieve anything there was no time to lose.

She considered tactics. The situation would need careful
handling and there was no room for mistakes. She had made
one already. The temptation to slap Nagle's face had proved
irresistible, but it was still a mistake and possibly a bad one,
too like vulgar exhibitionism to be safe. Aspiring administra-tive
officers did not slap a porter's face, even when under
strain, particularly if they wanted to create an impression of
calm, authoritative competence. She remembered the look on
Miss Saxon's face. Well, Fredrica Saxon was in no position to
be censorious. It was a pity that Dr. Steiner was there, but it
had all happened so quickly that she couldn't be sure that he
had really seen. The Priddy child was of no importance.

Nagle would have to go, of course, once she was appointed.
Here, too, she would have to be careful. He was an insolent
devil, but the clinic could do much worse and the consultants
knew it. An efficient porter' made quite a difference to their
comfort, especially when he was willing and able to carry out
the many small repair jobs that were needed. It wouldn't be a
popular move if they had to wait for someone to come from
the group engineer's department every time a sash cord broke
or a fuse needed replacing. Nagle would have to go, but she
would put out feelers for a good replacement before taking any
action.

The main concern at present must be to get the consultants'
support for her appointment. She could be sure of Dr. Etherege
and his was the most powerful voice. But it wasn't the only
one. He would be retiring in six months' time and his influence
would be on the wane. If she were offered an acting appoint-ment,
and all went well, the Hospital Management Committee
might not be in too much of a hurry to advertise the post.
129


Almost certainly they would wait until the murder was either
solved or the police shelved the case. It was up to her to con-solidate
her position in the intervening months. It wouldn't do
to take anything for granted. When there had been trouble at
a unit, Committees' tended to make an outside appointment.
There was safety in bringing in a stranger uncontaminated by
the previous upset. The group secretary would be an influence
there. It had been a wise move to see him last month and ask
his advice about working for the diploma of the Institute of
Hospital Administrators. He liked his staff to qualify and,
being a man, he was flattered to be asked for advice. But he
wasn't a fool. He didn't have to be. She was as suitable a
candidate as the H.M.C. were likely to find, and he knew it.

She lay back, relaxed, on her single bed, her feet raised on a
pillow, her mind busy with the images of success. "My wife is
administrative officer of the Steen Clinic." So much more
satisfactory than, "Actually, my wife is working as a secretary
at present. The Steen Clinic, as a matter of fact."

And less than two miles away, in a mortuary in north
London, Miss Bolam's body, tight-packed as a herring in an
ice box, stiffened slowly through the autumn night.


130


Chapter Five

I
if there had to be a murder at the Steen, Friday was the most
convenient day for it. The clinic did not open on Saturday
so that the police were able to work in the building without
the complications presented by the presence of patients and
staff. The staff, presumably, were glad of two days' grace in
which to recover from the shock, determine at leisure what their
official reaction should be and seek the comfort and reassurance
of their friends.
Dalgliesh's day began early. He had asked for a report from
the local C.I.D. about the Steen burglary and this, together
with typescripts of the previous day's interviews, was waiting
on his desk. The burglary had puzzled the local men. There
could be no doubt that someone had broken into the clinic and
that the £15 was missing. It was not so certain that these two
facts were related. The local sergeant thought it odd that a
casual thief had picked the one drawer which held cash while
neglecting the safe and leaving untouched the silver inkstand
in the medical director's office. On the other hand, Cully had
undoubtedly seen a man leaving the clinic and both he and
Nagle had alibis for the time of entry. The local C.I.D. were
inclined to suspect Nagle of having helped himself to the cash
while he was alone in the building, but it had not been found
on him and there was no real evidence. Besides, the porter had
plenty of opportunities for dishonesty at the Steen if he were
so inclined, and nothing was known against him. The whole
affair was puzzling. They were still working on it but weren't
very hopeful. Dalgliesh asked that any progress should be

131


reported to him at once and set off with Sergeant Martin to
examine Miss Bolam's flat.
Miss Bolam had lived on the fifth floor of a solid, redbrick
block near Kensington High Street. There was no difficulty
over the key. The resident caretaker handed it over with formal
and perfunctory expressions of regret at Miss Bolam's death.
She seemed to feel that some reference to the murder was
necessary, but managed to give the impression that the company's
tenants usually had the good taste to quit this life in
more orthodox fashion.
"There will be no undesirable publicity, I hope," she murmured,
as she escorted Dalgliesh and Sergeant Martin to the
lift. "These flats are very select and the company are most
particular about their tenants. We have never had trouble of
this kind before."
Dalgliesh resisted the temptation to say that Miss Bolam's
murderer had obviously not recognized one of the company's
tenants
"The publicity is hardly likely to affect the flats," he pointed
out. "It's not as if the murder took place here." The caretaker
was heard to murmur that she hoped not indeed!
They ascended to the fifth floor together in the slow, old-fashioned
panelled lift. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval.
"Did you know Miss Bolam at all ?" Dalgliesh inquired. "I
believe she had lived here for some years."
"I knew her to say good morning to, nothing more. She was
a very quiet tenant. But then all our tenants are. She has been
in residence for fifteen years, I believe. Her mother was the
tenant previously and they lived here together. When Mrs.
Bolam died her daughter took over the tenancy. That was
before my time."
"Did her mother die here?"
The caretaker closed her lips repressively.
"Mrs. Bolam died in a nursing home in the country. There
was some unpleasantness, I believe."
"You mean that she killed herself?"
"I was told so. As I said, it happened before I took this job.
1.32


Naturally I never alluded to the fact either to Miss Bolam or to any of the other tenants. It is not the kind of thing one
would wish to talk about. They really do seem a most unfortunate
family."
"What rent did Miss Bolam pay?"
The caretaker paused before replying. This was obviously
high on her list of questions that should not properly be asked.
Then, as if reluctantly admitting the authority of the police,
she replied:
"Our fourth and fifth floor two-bedroom flats are from £490
excluding rates."
That was about half Miss Bolam's salary, thought Dalgliesh.
It was too high a proportion for anyone without private means.
He had yet to see the dead woman's solicitor, but it looked as
if Nurse Bolam's assessment of her cousin's income was not far
wrong.
He dismissed the caretaker at the door of the flat and he and
Martin went in together.
This prying among the personal residue of a finished life was
a part of his job which Dalgliesh had always found a little
distasteful. It was too much like putting the dead at a disadvantage.
During his career he had examined with interest and
with pity so many petty leavings. The soiled underclothes
pushed hurriedly into drawers, personal letters which prudence
would have destroyed, half-eaten meals, unpaid bills, old
photographs, pictures and books which the dead would not
have chosen to represent their taste to a curious or vulgar
world, family secrets, stale make-up in. greasy jars, the muddle
of ill-disciplined or unhappy lives. It was no longer the fashion
to dread an unshriven end but most people, if they thought at
all, hoped for time to clear away their debris. He remembered
from childhood the voice of an old aunt exhorting him to
change his vest. "Suppose you got run over, Adam. What
would people think?" The question was less absurd than it
had seemed to a ten-year-old. Time had taught him that it
expressed one of the major preoccupations of mankind, the
dread of losing face.
But Enid Bolam might have lived each day as if expecting
133


	sudden death. He had never examined a flat so neat, so obses
	sively tidy. Even her few cosmetics, the brush and comb on her

	dressing-table were arranged with patterned precision. The

	heavy double bed was made. Friday was obviously her day for

	changing the linen. The used sheets and pillow-cases were

	folded into a laundry box which lay open on a chair. The bed
	side table held nothing but a small travelling clock, a carafe of

	water and a Bible with a booklet beside it appointing the

	passage to be read each day and expounding the moral. There

	was nothing in the table drawer but a bottle of aspirin and a

	folded handkerchief. A hotel room would have held as much

	individuality.

	All the furniture was old and heavy. The ornate mahogany

	door of the wardrobe swung open soundlessly to reveal a row

	of tightly packed clothes. They were expensive but unexciting.

	Miss Bolam had bought from that store which still caters

	mainly for country-house dowagers. There were well-cut skirts

	of indeterminate colour, heavy coats tailored to last through a

	dozen English winters, woollen dresses which could offend no

	one. Once the wardrobe was closed it was impossible accurately

	to recall a single garment. At the back of them all, closeted

	from the light, were bowls of fibre, planted no doubt with

	bulbs whose Christmas flowering Miss Bolam would never see.

	Dalgliesh and Martin had worked together for too many

I
	years to find much talking necessary and they moved about the

	flat almost in silence. Everywhere was the same heavy, old
	fashioned
furniture, the same ordered neatness. It was hard to

	believe that these rooms had been recently lived in, that anyone

	had cooked a meal in this impersonal kitchen. It was very

	quiet. At this height and muffled by the solid Victorian walls

	the clamour of traffic in Kensington High Street was a faint,

	distant throbbing. Only the insistent ticking of a grandfather

	clock in the hall stabbed the still silence. The air was cold and

	almost odourless except for the smell of the flowers. They

	were everywhere. There was a bowl of chrysanthemums on the

	hall table and another in the sitting-room. The bedroom

	mantelpiece held a small jug of anemones. On the kitchen

	dresser was a taller brass jug of autumn foliage, the gatherings

		134


perhaps of some recent country walk. Dalgliesh did not like
autumn flowers, the chrysanthemums which obstinately refuse
to die, flaunting their shaggy heads even on a rotting stem,
scentless dahlias fit only to be planted in neat rows in municipal
parks. His wife had died in October and he had long recog-nized
the minor bereavements which follow the death of the
heart. Autumn was no longer a good time of the year. For him
the flowers in Miss Bolam's flat emphasized the general air of
gloom, like wreaths at a funeral.

The sitting-room was the largest room in the flat and here
was Miss Bolam's desk. Martin fingered it appreciatively.

"It's all good solid stuff, sir, isn't it? We've got a piece
rather like this. The wife's mother left it to us. Mind you, they
don't make furniture like it today. You get nothing for it, of
course. Too big for modern rooms, I suppose. But it's got
quality."

"You can certainly lean against it without collapsing," said
Dalgliesh.

"That's what I mean, sir. Good solid stuff. No wonder she
hung on to it. A sensible young woman on the whole, I'd say,
and one who knew how to make herself comfortable." He
drew a second chair up to the desk where Dalgliesh was
already seated, planted his heavy thighs in it, and did indeed
look comfortable and at home.

The desk was unlocked. The top rolled back without diffi-culty.
Inside was a portable typewriter and a metal box con-taining
files of paper, each file neatly labelled. The drawers and
compartments of the desk held writing paper, envelopes, and
correspondence. As they expected, everything was in perfect
order. They went through the files together. Miss Bolam paid
her bills as soon as they were due and kept a running account
of all her household expenditure.

There was much to be gone through. Details of her invest-ments
were filed under the appropriate heading. At her
mother's death the trustee securities had been redeemed and
the capital reinvested in equities. The portfolio was skilfully
balanced and there could be little doubt that Miss Bolam had
been well advised and had increased her assets considerably

135


during the past five years. Dalgliesh noted the name of her
stockbroker and solicitor. Both would have to be seen before
the investigation was complete.

The dead woman kept fe.w of her personal letters; perhaps
there had been few worth keeping. But there was one, filed
under P, which was interesting. It was written in a careful hand
on cheap lined paper from a Balham address, and read:


Dear Miss Bolam,

These are just a few lines to thank you for all you done for
Jenny. It hasn't turned out as we wished and prayed for but
we shall know in His good time what His purpose is. I still
feel we did right to let them marry. It wasn't only to stop talk
as I think you know. He has gone for good, he writes. Her Dad
and me didn't know that things had got that bad-between
them. She doesn't talk much to us but we shall wait patiently
and maybe, one day, she will be our girl again. She seems very
quiet and won't talk about it so we don't know whether she
grieves. I try not to feel bitterness against him. Dad and I think
it would be a good idea if you could get Jenny a post in the
health service. It is really good of you to offer and be interested
after all that's happened. You know what we think about
divorce so she must look to her job now for happiness. Dad
and I pray every night that she'll find it.

Thanking you again for all your interest and help. If you do
manage to get Jenny the post I'm sure she won't let you down.
She's learnt her lesson and it's been a bitter one for us all. But
His will be done.

Yours respectfully,

EMm¥ PRIDDY (Mrs.)


It was extraordinary, thought Dalgliesh, that people still
lived who could write a letter like that, with its archaic mixture
of subservience and self-respect, its unashamed yet curiously
poignant emotionalism. The story it told was ordinary enough,
but he felt detached from its reality. The letter could have been
written fifty years ago; almost he expected to see the paper
curling with age and smell the tentative scent of potpourri. It
136


had no relevance, surely, to that pretty, ineffectual child at the
Steen.
"It's unlikely to have any importance," he said to Martin.
"But I'd like you to go over to Clapham and have a word with
these people. We'd better know who the husband is. But, somehow,
I don't think he'll prove to be Dr. Etherege's mysterious
marauder. The man--or woman--who killed Miss Bolmn was
still in the building when we arrived. And we've talked to
him."
It was then that the telephone rang, sounding ominously
strident in the silence of the flat as if it were calling for the dead.
Dalgliesh said:
I'll take it. It will be Dr. Keating with the P.M. report. I
asked him to ring me here if he got through with it."
He was back with Martin within two minutes. The report
had been brief. Dalgliesh said:
"Nothing surprising. She was a healthy woman. Killed by
a stab through the heart after being stunned, which we could
see for ourselves, and virgo intacta which we had no reason to
doubt. What have you got there ?"
"It's her photograph album, sir. Pictures of Guide camps
mostly. It looks as if she went away with the girls every year."
Probably making that her annual holiday, thought Dalgliesh.
He had a respect bordering on simple wonder for those who
voluntarily gave up their leisure to other people's children.
He was not a man who liked children and he found the company
of most of them insupportable after a very brief time. He
took the album from Sergeant Martin. The photographs were
small and technically unremarkable, taken apparently with a
small box camera. But they were carefully disposed on the
page, each labelled in neat white printing. There were Guides
hiking, Guides cooking on primus stoves, erecting tents,
blanket-swathed around the camp-fire, lining up for kit inspection.
And in many of the photographs there was the figure
of their captain, plump, motherly, smiling. It was difficult to
connect this buxom, happy extrovert with that pathetic corpse
on the record-room floor--or with the obsessional, authoritative
administrator described by the staff of the Steen. The 137


comments under some of the photographs were pathetic in
their evocation of happiness remembered:

"The Swallows dish up. Shirley keeps an eye on the spotted
dick."

"Valerie 'flies up' from the Brownies."

"The Kingfishers tackle the washing-up. Snap taken by
Susan."

"Captain helps the tide in! Taken by Jean."

This last showed Miss Bolam's plump shoulders rising from
the surf, surrounded by some half-dozen of her girls. Her hair
was down and hanging in flat swaths, wet and dank as sea-weed,
on either side of her laughing face. Together the two
detectives looked at the photograph in silence. Then Dalgliesh
said:

"There haven't been many tears shed for her yet, have there ?
Only her cousin's and they were more shock than grief. I
wonder whether the Swallows and the Kingfishers will weep for
her."

They closed the album and went back to their search. It dis-closed
only one further item of interest, but that was very
interesting indeed. It was the carbon copy of a letter from Miss
]olam to her solicitor, dated the day before her death, and
aaking an appointment to see him "in connection with the
proposed changes to my will which we discussed briefly on
the telephone yesterday night."


After the visit to Ballantyne Mansions there followed a
hiatus in the investigation, one of those inevitable delays
which Dalgliesh had never found it easy to accept. He had
always worked at speed. His reputation rested on the pace as
well as the success of his cases. He did not ponder too deeply
the implications of this compulsive need to get on with the
job. It was enough to know that delay irritated him more than
it did most men.

This hold up was, perhaps, to be expected. It was hardly
likely that a London solicitor would be in his office after mid-day
on Saturday. It was more dispiriting to learn by telephone
that Mr. Babcock of Babcock and Honeywell had flown with


138


his wife to Geneva on Friday afternoon to attend the funeral
of a friend and would not be back in his City office until the
following Tuesday. There was now no Mr. Honeywell in the
firm, but Mr. Babcock's chief clerk would be in the office on
Monday morning if he could help the superintendent. It was
the caretaker speaking. Dalgliesh was not sure how far the
chief clerk could help him. He much preferred to see Mr. Bab-cock.
The solicitor was likely to be able to give a great deal of
useful information about Miss Bolam's family as well as her
financial affairs, but much of it would probably be given with
at least a token show of resistance and obtained only by the
exercise of tact. It would be folly to jeopardize success by a
prior approach to the clerk.

Until the details of the will were available there was little
point in seeing Nurse Bolam again. Frustrated in his immediate
plans Dalgliesh drove without his sergeant to call on Peter
Nagle. He had no clear aim in view but that didn't worry him.
The time would be well spent. Some of his most useful work
was done in these unplanned, almost casual encounters when
he talked, listened, watched, studied a suspect in his own home,
or gleaned the thin stalks of unwittingly dropped information
about the one personality which is central to any murder
investigation--that of the victim.

Nagle lived in Pimlico on the fourth floor of a large, white,
stuccoed Victorian house near Eccleston Square. Dalgliesh had
last visited this street three years previously when it had
seemed irretrievably sunk into shabby decay. But the tide had
changed. The wave of fashion and popularity which flows so
inexplicably in London, sometimes missing one district while
sweeping through its near neighbour, had washed the broad
street bringing order and prosperity in its wake. Judging by
the number of house agents' boards, the property speculators,
first as always to sniff the returning tide, were reaping the usual
profits. The house on the corner looked newly painted. The
heavy front door stood open. Inside, a board gave the names
of the tenants, but there were no bells. Dalgliesh deduced that
the flats were self-contained and that, somewhere, there was
a resident caretaker who would answer the front-door bell


139


when the house was locked for the night. He could see no lift
so set himself to climb the four fli. ghts to Nagle's flat.

It was a light, airy house and very quiet. There was no sign
of life until the third floor where someone was playing the
piano and playing well; perhaps a professional musician,
practising. The treble cascade of sound fell over Dalgliesh and
receded as he reached the fourth floor. Here there was a plain
wooden door with a heavy brass knocker and a card pinned
above it on which was lettered the one word--Nagle. He
rapped and heard Nagle shout an immediate "come in".

The flat was surprising. He hardly knew what he had ex-pected,
but it was certainly not this immense, airy, impressive
studio. It ran the whole length of the back of the house, the
great north window, uncurtained, giving a panoramic view of
twisted chimney-pots and irregular sloping roofs. Nagle was
not alone. He was sitting, knees apart, on a narrow bed which
stood on a raised platform at the east side of the room. Curled
against him, clad only in a dressing-gown, was Jennifer Priddy.
They were drinking tea from two blue mugs; a tray holding
the teapot and a bottle of milk was on a small table beside
them. The painting on which Nagle had recently been working
stood on an easel in the middle of the room.

The girl showed no embarrassment at seeing Dalgliesh but
swung her legs from the bed and gave him a smile which was

frankly happy, almost welcoming, certainly without coquetry.
"Would you like some tea ?" she asked.
Nagle said:

"The police never drink on duty and that includes tea.
Better get your clothes on, kid. We don't want to shock the
superintendent."

The girl smiled again, gathered up her clothes with one arm
and the tea tray with the other and disappeared through a
door at the far end of the studio. It was difficult to recognize
in this confident sensual figure the tear-stained, diffident child
Dalgliesh had first seen at the Steen. He watched her as she
passed. She was obviously naked except for the dressing-gown
of Nagle's; her hard nipples pointed the thin wool. It came to
Dalgliesh that they had been making love. As she passed from

140


view he turned to Nagle and saw in his eyes the transitory
gleam of amused speculation. But neither of them spoke.
Dalgliesh moved about the studio, watched by Nagle from
the bed. The room was without clutter. In its almost obsessional
neatness it reminded him of Enid Bolam's flat with
which it had otherwise nothing in common. The dais with its
plain wooden bed, chair and small table obviously served as a
bedroom. The rest of the studio was taken up with the paraphernalia
of a painter, but there was none of that undisciplined
muddle which the uninitiated associate with an artist's life.
About a dozen large oils were stacked against the south wall
and Dalgliesh was surprised by their power. Here was no
amateur indulging his little talent. Miss Priddy was apparently
Nagle's only model. Her heavy-busted, adolescent body
gleamed at him from a diversity of poses, here foreshortened,
there curiously elongated as if the painter gloried in his technical
competence. The most recent picture was on the easel. It
showed the girl sitting astride a stool with the childish hands
hanging relaxed between her thighs, the breasts bunched forward.
There was something in this flaunting of technical
expertise, in the audacious use of greens and mauve and in the
careful tonal relationships which caught at Dalgliesh's memory.
"Who teaches you?" he asked. "Sugg?"
"That's right." Nagle did not seem surprised. "Know his
work ?"
"I have one of his early oils. A nude."
"You made a good investment. Hang on to it."
"I've every intention of doing so," said Dalgliesh mildly.
"I happen to like it. Have you been with him long ?"
"Two years. Part time, of course. In another three years I'll be teaching him. If he's capable of learning, that is. He's
getting an old dog now and too fond of his own tricks."
"You appear to have imitated some of them," said Dalgliesh.
"You think so? That's interesting." Nagle did not seem
affronted. "That's why it will be good to get away. I'm off to
Paris by the end of the month at the latest. I applied for the
Bollinger scholarship. The old man put in a word for me and
last week I had a letter to say that it's mine."
141


Try as he would he could not entirely keep the note of
triumph from his voice. Underneath the assumption of non-chalance
there was a spring of joy. And he had reason to be
pleased with himself. The Bollinger was no ordinary prize.
It meant, as Dalgliesh knew, two years in any European city
with a generous allowance and freedom for the student to live
and work as he chose. The Bollinger trust had been set up by
a manufacturer of patent medicines who had died wealthy and
successful, but unsatisfied. His money had come from stomach
powders but his heart was in painting. His own talent was
small and, to judge by the collection of paintings which he
bequeathed to the embarrassed trustees of his local gallery, his
taste had been on a par with his performance. But the Bollinger
scholarship had ensured that artists should remember him
with gratitude. Bollinger did not believe that art flourished in
poverty or that artists were stimulated to their best efforts
by cold garrets and empty bellies. He had been poor in his
youth and had not enjoyed it. He had travelled widely in his
old age and been happy abroad. The Bollinger scholarship
enabled young artists of promise to enjoy the second without
enduring the first and it was well worth winning. If Nagle had
been awarded the Bollinger he was hardly likely to be much

concerned now with the troubles of the Steen Clinic.

"When are you due to go ?" Dalgliesh asked.

"When I like. By the end of the month, anyway. But I may
go earlier and without notice. No sense in upsetting anyone."
He jerked his head towards the far door as he spoke and added:
"That's why this murder is such a nuisance. I was afraid it
might hold 'things up. After all, it was my chisel. And that
wasn't the only attempt made to implicate me. While I was
in the general office waiting for the post someone phoned to
ask me to go down for the laundry. It sounded like a woman.
I'd got my coat on and was more or less on my way out, so I
said I'd collect it when I got back."

"So that's why you went to see Nurse Bolam on your return

from the post and asked her whether the laundry was ready ?"
"That's right."

"Why didn't you tell her about the phone call at the time ?"

142


"I don't know. There didn't seem any point. I wasn't anxious
to hang about the LSD. room. Those patients give me the
creeps with their moaning and muttering. When Bolam said
the stuff wasn't ready I thought it was Miss Bolam who had
phoned and it wouldn't have done to have said so. She was a
bit too apt to interfere with the nursing responsibilities, or so
they thought. Anyway, I didn't say anything about the call.
I might have done but I didn't."
"And you didn't tell me either when you were first interviewed."
"Right again. The truth is that the whole thing struck me
as a bit odd and I wanted time to think about it. Well, I've
thought, and you're welcome to the story. You can believe it
or not, as you like. It's all the same to me."
"You seem to be taking it pretty calmly if you really believe
that someone was trying to involve you in the murder."
"I'm not worrying. They didn't succeed for one thing, and
for another, I happen to believe that the chance of an innocent
man getting convicted of murder in this country is practically
nil. You ought to find that flattering. On the other hand--given
the jury system--the chances of the guilty getting off
are high. That's why I don't think you're going to solve this
murder. Too many suspects. Too many possibilities."
"We shall see. Tell me more about this call. When exactly
did you receive it ?"
"I can't remember. About five minutes before Shorthouse
came into the general office, I think. It could have been earlier.
Jenny may remember."
"I'll ask her when she gets back. What exactly did the voice
say ?"
"Just, 'The laundry's ready if you'd fetch it now, please.' I took it that Nurse Bolam was phoning. I replied that I was
just going out with the post and would see to it when I got
back. Then I put down the receiver before she had a chance to
argue."
"You were sure it was Nurse Bolam speaking?"
"I'm not sure at all. I naturally thought it was at the time
because Nurse Bolam usually does phone about the laundry.
143