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There was a slight vibratory, rattling noise. The door into the anæsthetic-room opened and a trolley appeared, propelled by Banks. Dr. Roberts and Nurse Graham walked behind it. His hands were stretched out over the head of the trolley. On it was a sort of elongated bundle made of pillows and blankets. He and Banks lifted this on the table and Banks put a screen, about two feet high, across the place that represented the patient’s chest. The others drew nearer. Banks pushed the trolley away.
Now that they had all closed round the table the illusion was complete. The conical glare poured itself down between the white figures, bathing their masked faces and the fronts of their gowns in a violence of light, and leaving their backs in sharp shadow, so that between shadow and light there was a kind of shimmering border that ran round their outlines. Boys and Fox had come in from their posts and stood impassive in the doorways. Alleyn walked round the theatre to a position about two yards behind the head of the table.
Roberts wheeled forward the anæsthetising apparatus. Suddenly, entirely without warning, one of the white figures gave a sharp exclamation, something between a cry and a protest.
“It’s too horrible — really — I can’t—!”
It was the matron, the impeccable Sister Marigold. She had raised her hands in front of her face as if shutting off some shocking spectacle. Now she backed away from the table and collided with the anæsthetising apparatus. She stumbled, kicked it so that it moved, and half fell, clutching at it as she did so.
There was a moment’s silence and then a portly little figure in white suddenly screamed out an oath.
“What the bloody hell are you doing? Do you want to kill— ”
“What’s the matter?” said Alleyn sharply. His voice had an incisive edge that made all the white heads turn. “What is it, Mr. Thoms?”
Thoms was down on his knees, an absurd figure, frantically reaching out to the apparatus. Roberts, who had stooped down to the lower framework of the cruet-like stand and had rapidly inspected it, thrust the little fat man aside. He tested the nuts that held the frame together. His hands shook a little and his face, the only one unmasked, was very pale.
“It’s perfectly secure, Thoms,” he said. “None of the nuts are loose. Matron, please stand away.”
“I didn’t mean — I’m sorry,” began Sister Marigold.
“Do you realise—” said Thoms in a voice that was scarcely recognisable—“ do you realise that if one of those cylinders had fallen out and burst, we’d none of us be alive. Do you know that?”
“Nonsense, Thoms,” said Roberts in an unsteady, voice. “It’s most unlikely that anything of the sort could occur. It would take more than that to burst a cylinder, I assure you.”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry, Mr. Thoms,” said matron sulkily. “Accidents will happen.”
“Accidents mustn’t happen,” barked Thoms. He squatted down and tested the nuts.
“Please leave it alone, Mr. Thoms,” said Roberts crisply. “I assure you it’s perfectly safe.”
Thoms did not answer. He got to his feet and turned back to the table.
“And now, what happens?” asked Alleyn. His deep voice sounded like a tonic note. Phillips spoke quietly.
“I made the incision and carried on with the operation. I found peritonitis and a ruptured abscess of the appendix. I proceeded in the usual way. At this stage, I think, Dr. Roberts began to be uneasy about the pulse and the general condition. Am I right, Roberts?”
“Quite right, sir. I asked for an injection of camphor.”
Without waiting to be told, Nurse Banks went to the side table, took up the ampoule of camphor, went through the pantomime of filling a syringe and returned to the patient.
“I injected it,” she said concisely. Through Alleyn’s head ran the old jingle: “A made an apple pie, B bit it, C cut it — I injected it,” he added mentally.
“And then?” he asked.
“After completing the operation I asked for the anti-gas serum.”
“I got it,” said Jane bravely.
She walked to the table.
“I stood, hesitating. I felt faint. I–I couldn’t focus things properly.”
“Did anybody notice this?”
“I looked round and saw something was wrong,” said Phillips. “She simply stood there swaying a little.”
“You notice this, Mr. Thoms?”
“Well, I’m afraid, inspector, I rather disgraced myself by kicking up a rumpus. What, nurse? Bit hard on you, what? Didn’t know how the land lay. Too bad, wasn’t it?”
“When you had finished, Nurse Harden brought the large syringe?”
“Yes.”
Jane came back with the syringe on a tray. “Thoms took it,” went the jingle in Alleyn’s head.
“I injected it,” said Thoms.
“Mr. Thoms then asked about the condition,” added Roberts. “I said it was disquieting. I remember Sir John remarked that although he knew the patient personally he had had no idea he was ill. Nurse Banks and I lifted the patient on to the trolley and he was taken away.”
They did this with the dummy.
“Then I fainted,” said Jane.
“A dramatic finish — what?” shouted Thoms, who seemed to have quite recovered his equilibrium.
“The end,” said Alleyn, “came later. The patient was then taken back to his room, where you attended him, Dr. Roberts. Was anyone with you?”
“Nurse Graham was there throughout. I left her in the room when I returned here to report on the general condition, which I considered markedly worse.”
“And in the meantime Sir John and Mr. Thoms washed up in the anteroom?”
“Yes,” said Phillips.
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Oh yes, sir, you do, surely,” said Thoms. “We talked about Nurse Harden doing a faint, and I said I could see the operation had upset you, and you—” he gri
“And you cleaned up the theatre, and Miss Banks gave one of her well-known talks on the Dawn of the Proletariat Day?”
“I did,” said Banks with a snap.
“Meanwhile Dr. Roberts came down and reported, and you and Mr. Thoms, Sir John, went up to the patient?”
“Yes. The matron, Sister Marigold, joined us. We found the patient’s condition markedly worse. As you know, he died about half an hour later, without regaining consciousness.”
“Thank you. That covers the ground. I am extremely grateful to all of you for helping us with this rather unpleasant business. I won’t keep you any longer.” He turned to Phillips. “You would like to get out of your uniforms, I’m sure.”
“If you’re finished,” agreed Phillips. Fox opened the swing-door and he went through, followed by Thoms, Sister Marigold, Jane Harden, and Banks. Dr. Roberts crossed to the anæsthetising apparatus.
“I’ll get this out of the way,” he said.
“Oh — do you mind leaving it while you change?” said Alleyn. “I just want to make a plan of the floor.”
“Certainly,” said Roberts.
“Would you be very kind and see if you can beat me up a sheet of paper and a pencil, Dr. Roberts? Sorry to bother you, but I hardly like to send one of my own people hunting for it.”
“Shall I ask?” suggested Roberts.
He put his head round the door into the anteroom and spoke to someone on the other side.
“Inspector Alleyn would like— ”
Fox walked heavily across from the other end of the theatre.
“I can hear a telephone ringing its head off out there, sir,” he said, looking fixedly at Alleyn.
“Really? I wonder if it’s that call from the Yard? Go and see, will you, Fox? Sister Marigold won’t mind, I’m sure.”
Fox went out.
“Inspector Alleyn,” ventured Roberts, “I do hope that the reconstruction has been satisfactory— ” He broke off. Phillips’s resonant voice could be heard in the anteroom. With a glance towards it Roberts ended wistfully: “—from every point of view.”