“What’s he like?” asked Miss Sharpe, visions of Maigret and Inspector Barlow 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 well, 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 ECT room all the time.”
“Oh, we’re all right. So are Shorthouse 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 ECT 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. Ingram 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 me. Were she and her cousin friendly? 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 animals. 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 fitted 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 telephone 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 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 AO’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 Bolam’s mother—she’s a DS, you know, and more or less confined to bed now—because 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.”