Dr. Steiner said testily: “Really, Albertine, need you have brought Hector? I don’t want to be unkind but that animal is beginning to smell. You should have him put down.”
“Thank you, Paul,” replied Dr. Maddox in her deep, beautifully modulated voice. “Hector will be put down, as you so euphemistically describe it, when he ceases to find life pleasant. I judge that he has not yet reached that state. It is not my habit to kill off living creatures simply because I find certain of their physical characteristics displeasing; nor, I may say, because they have become somewhat of a nuisance.”
Dr. Etherege said quickly: “It was good of you to find time to come tonight, Albertine. I’m sorry that the notice was so short.”
He spoke without irony, although he was as well aware as were his colleagues that Dr. Maddox only attended one committee meeting in four on the grounds, which she made no effort to conceal, that her contract with the Regional Board contained no clause compelling her to a monthly session of boredom laced with claptrap, and that the company of more than one psychiatrist at a time made Hector sick. The truth of this last assertion had been demonstrated too often to be safely challenged.
“I am a member of this committee, Henry,” replied Dr. Maddox graciously. “Is there any reason why I should not make the effort to attend?”
Her glance at Dr. Ingram implied that not everyone present had an equal right. Mary Ingram was the wife of a suburban general practitioner and attended the Steen twice a week to give the anaesthetic at ECT sessions. Not being either a psychiatrist or a consultant she was not normally present at meetings of the Medical Committee.
Dr. Etherege interpreted the glance correctly and said firmly: “Dr. Ingram has been good enough to come along tonight at my request. The main business of the meeting is naturally concerned with Miss Bolam’s murder and Dr. Ingram was in the clinic on Friday evening.”
“But is not a suspect, so I understand,” replied Dr. Maddox. “I congratulate her. It is gratifying that there is one member of the medical staff who has been able to produce a satisfactory alibi.”
She looked at Dr. Ingram severely, her tone implying that an alibi was, in itself, suspicious and hardly becoming to the most junior member of the staff since three senior consultants had been unable to produce one. No one asked how Dr. Maddox knew about the alibi. Presumably she had been speaking to Sister Ambrose.
Dr. Steiner said pettishly: “It’s ridiculous to talk about alibis as if the police could seriously suspect one of us! It’s perfectly obvious to me what happened. The murderer was lying in wait for her in the basement. We know that. He may have been hidden down there for hours, perhaps even since the previous day. He could have slipped past Cully with one of the patients or have pretended to be a relative or a hospital-car attendant. He could even have broken in during the night. That has been known, after all. Once in the basement there would be plenty of time to discover which key opened the record-room door and plenty of time to select a weapon. Neither the fetish nor the chisel were hidden.”
“And how do you suggest this unknown murderer left the building?” asked Dr. Baguley. “We searched the place pretty thoroughly before the police arrived and they went over it again. The basement and first-floor doors were both bolted on the inside, remember.”
“Climbed up the lift shaft by the pulley ropes and out through one of the doors leading to the fire escape,” replied Dr. Steiner, playing his trump card with a certain panache. “I’ve examined the lift and it’s just possible. A small man—or a woman, of course—could squeeze over the top of the box and get into the shaft. The ropes are quite thick enough to support a considerable weight and the climb wouldn’t be too difficult for anyone reasonably agile. They’d need to be slim, of course.” He glanced at his own rounding paunch with complacency.
“It’s a pleasant theory,” said Baguley. “Unfortunately all the doors opening on the fire escape were also bolted on the inside.”
“There is no building in existence which a desperate and experienced man cannot break into or get out of,” proclaimed Dr. Steiner, as if from a plenitude of experience. “He could have got out of a first-floor window and edged along the sill until he could get a foothold on the fire escape. All I’m saying is that the murderer isn’t necessarily one of the staff who happened to be on duty yesterday evening.”
“It could be I, for example,” said Dr. Maddox. Dr. Steiner was undaunted.
“That, of course, is nonsense, Albertine. I make no accusations. I merely point out that the circle of suspects is less restricted than the police seem to think. They should direct their inquiries to Miss Bolam’s private life. Obviously she had an enemy.”
But Dr. Maddox was not to be diverted. “Fortunately for me,” she proclaimed, “I was at the Bach recital at the Royal Festival Hall last night with my husband and dined there before the concert. And while Alasdair’s testimony on my behalf might be suspect, I was also with my brother-in-law who happens to be a bishop. A High Church bishop,” she added complacently, as if incense and chasuble set a seal on episcopal virtue and veracity.
Dr. Etherege smiled gently and said: “I should be relieved if I could produce even an evangelical curate to vouch for me between six-fifteen and seven o’clock yesterday evening. But isn’t all this theorizing a waste of time? The crime is in the hands of the police and there we must leave it. Our main concern is to discuss its implications for the work of the clinic and, in particular, the suggestion of the chairman and the group secretary that Mrs. Bostock should carry on for the present as acting administrative officer. But we’d better proceed in order. Is it your pleasure that I sign the minutes of the last meeting?”
There was the unenthusiastic but acquiescent mumble which this question usually provokes and the medical director drew the minute book towards him and signed. Dr. Maddox said suddenly: “What is he like? This superintendent, I mean.”
Dr. Ingram, who hadn’t so far spoken, surprisingly replied: “He’s about forty, I should think. Tall and dark. I liked his voice and he has nice hands.” Then she blushed furiously, remembering that, to a psychiatrist, the most innocent remark could be embarrassingly revealing. That comment about nice hands was, perhaps, a mistake.
Dr. Steiner, ignoring Dalgliesh’s physical characteristics, launched into a psychological assessment of the superintendent to which his fellow psychiatrists gave the polite attention of experts interested in a colleague’s theories. Dalgliesh, had he been present, would have been surprised and intrigued by the accuracy and percipience of Dr. Steiner’s diagnosis.
The medical director said: “I agree that he’s obsessional and also that he’s intelligent. That means that his mistakes will be the mistakes of an intelligent man—always the most dangerous. We must hope for all our sakes that he makes none. The murder, and the inevitable publicity, are bound to have an effect on the patients and on the work of the clinic. And that brings us to this suggestion about Mrs. Bostock.”
“I have always preferred Bolam to Bostock,” said Dr. Maddox. “It would be a pity if we lost one unsuitable AO—however regrettably and fortuitously—only to be saddled with another.”