Alleyn, watching this performance, thought how unpredictable the behaviour of drunken persons could be. Sister Jackson had been in the condition so inaccurately known as “nicely, thank you.” Basil Schramm had been in an advanced stage of intoxication but able to assess his own condition and after a fashion deal with it. And there they were, both of them, behaving like automata and, he felt sure, frightened out of what wits they still, however precariously, commanded.

She continued to operate the ice packs. A pool of water enlarged itself on the table and began to drip to the carpet.

“That’s enough,” Schramm said presently. Sister Jackson squeezed his handkerchief into the jug. Alleyn offered his own and Schramm mopped himself up with it. He fastened his shirt and reknotted his tie. As if by common consent he and Sister Jackon sat down simultaneously, facing each other across the table with Alleyn between them on the banquette: like a referee, he thought. This effect was enhanced when he took out his notebook. They paid not the smallest attention to him. They glared at each other, he with distaste and she with hatred. He produced a comb and used it.

“Now, then,” he said. “What’s the story? You went to her room at nine. You say she was asleep. And you,” he jabbed a finger at Alleyn, “say she was dead. Right?”

“I don’t say so, positively. I suggested it.”

“Why?”

“For several reasons. If Mrs. Foster was sleeping, peacefully and naturally, it’s difficult to see why Sister Jackson did not report her visit.”

“If there’d been anything wrong, I would have,” she said.

Schramm said: “Did you think it was suicide?”

“She was asleep.”

“Did you see the tablets — spilled on the table?”

“No. No.”

“Did you think she’d been drugged?”

“She was asleep. Peacefully and naturally. Asleep.”

“You’re lying, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Come on!”

She began to gabble at Alleyn: “It was the shock, you know. When he rang through and told me, I came and we did everything — such a shock — I couldn’t remember anything about how the room had looked before. Naturally not.”

“It was no shock to you,” Dr. Schramm said profoundly. “You’re an old hand. An experienced nurse. And you didn’t regret her death, my dear. You gloated. You could hardly keep a straight face.”

“Don’t listen to this,” Sister Jackson gabbled at Alleyn, “it’s all lies. Monstrous lies. Don’t listen.”

“You’d better,” said Schramm. “This is the hell-knows-no-fury bit, Superintendent, and you may as well recognize it. Oh, yes. She actually said when she heard about Sybil and me that she bloody well wished Syb was dead and she meant it. Fact, I assure you. And I don’t mind telling you she felt the same about me. Still does. Look at her.”

Sister Jackson was hardly a classical figure of panic but she certainly presented a strange picture. The velvet beret had flopped forward over her left eye so that she was obliged to tilt her head back at an extravagant angle in order to see from under it. Oddly enough and deeply unpleasant as the situation undoubtedly was, she reminded Alleyn momentarily of a grotesque lady on a comic postcard.

They began to exchange charge and countercharge, often speaking simultaneously. It was the kind of row that is welcome as manna from Heaven to an investigating officer. Alleyn noted it all down, almost under their noses, and was conscious, as often before, of a strong feeling of distaste for the job.

They repeated themselves ad nauseam. She used the stock phrases of the discarded mistress. He, as he became articulate, also grew reckless and made more specific his accusations as to her having threatened to do harm to Sybil Foster and even hinted that on her visit to Room 20 she might well have abetted Sybil in taking an overdose.

At that point they stopped dead, stared aghast at each other and then, for the first time since the slanging match had set in, at Alleyn.

He finished his notes and shut the book.

“I could,” he said, “and perhaps I should, ask you both to come to the police station and make statements. You would then refuse to utter or to write another word until you had seen your respective solicitors. A great deal of time would be wasted. Later on you would both state that you had been dead drunk and that I had brought about this pitiable condition and made false reports about your statements and taken them down in writing. All this would be very boring and unproductive. Instead, I propose that you go back to Greengages, think things over and then concoct your statements. You’ve been too preoccupied to notice, I fancy, but I’ve made pretty extensive notes and I shall make a report of the conversation and in due course, invite you to sign it. And now, I expect you will like to go. If, that is, you are in a fit state to drive. If not you’d better go to the lavatories and put your fingers down your throats. I’ll be in touch. Good evening.”

He left them gaping and went out to his car where he waited about five minutes before they appeared severally, walking with unnatural precision. They entered their cars and drove, very slowly, away.

ii

Fox had not gone to bed at their pub. He and Alleyn took a nightcap together in Alleyn’s room.

“Well, now,” said Fox rubbing his hands on his knees. “That was a turn-up for the books, wasn’t it? I’d’v;ve liked to be there. How do you read it, then, Mr. Alleyn? As regards the lady, now? Dropped in on the deceased round about nine p.m. and was watched by crepe-soles from the alcove and is being blackmailed by him. Which gives us one more reason, if we’d needed it, for saying crepe-soles is Claude?”

“Go on.”

“But,” said Fox opening his eyes wide, “but when the Doctor (which is what he isn’t, properly speaking, but never mind) when the Doctor rings through an hour or thereabouts later and tells her to come to Room Twenty and she does come and the lady’s passed away, does she say—” and here Mr. Fox gave a sketchy impersonation of a female voice: “ ‘Oh, Doctor, I looked in at nine and she was as right as Christmas’? No. She does not. She keeps her tongue behind her teeth and gets cracking with the stomach pump. Now why? Why not mention it?”

“Schramm seemed to suggest that at some earlier stage, in a fit of jealous rage, the Jackson had threatened she’d do some mischief to Mrs. Foster. And was now afraid he’d think that on this unmentioned visit she’d taken a hand in overdosing her with barbiturates.”

“Ah,” said Fox. “But the catch in that is: Mrs. Foster, according to our reading of the evidence, was first drugged and then smothered. So it looks as if he didn’t realize she was smothered, which if true puts him in the clear. Any good?”

“I think so, Br’er Fox. I think it’s quite a lot of good.”

“Would you say, now, that Sister J. would be capable of doing the job herself — pillow and all?”

“Ah, there you have me. I think she’s a jealous, slighted woman with a ferocious temper. Jealous, slighted women have murdered their supplanters before now but generally speaking they’re more inclined to take to the man. And by George, judging by the way she shaped up to Schramm tonight I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“By and large, then, these two are a bit of a nuisance. We’d got things more or less settled — well, I had,” said Mr. Fox with a hard look at Alleyn, “and it was just a matter of running Claude to earth. And now this silly lot crops up.”

“Very inconsiderate.”

“Yerse. And there’s no joy from the Claude front, by the way. The Yard rang through. The search is what the press likes to call nation-wide but not a squeak.”

“Southampton?”

“They’d sent a copper they don’t reckon looks like it, into The Good Read, in Port Lane. It’s an accommodation-address shop all right but there was nothing for ‘Morris.’ Very cagey the chap was: sussy for drugs but they’ve never collected enough to knock him off. The D.I. I talked to thinks it’s possible Claude Carter off-loaded the stuff he brought ashore there. If he’s thinking of slipping out by Southhampton he could have fixed it to collect Sister J.’s blackmail delivery on the way.”