“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 ECT 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 treatment, actually. The drug had been given at three-thirty and the patient was beginning to react. I ought to say that LSD is given in an effort to make the patient more 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 ECT 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!”
“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 unit with registrars and lay professional staff running around like mice and a bit of research on the side. One of those places where time and money are spent lavishly on anything but actually treating patients—especially 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’ restroom. Furthermore, when I arrived this afternoon, Miss Bolam told me about Tippett. But 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!”
“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. She wasn’t afraid of work but she was very conscious of her position as AO. 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?”