The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh

Author:Ngaio Marsh [Marsh, Ngaio]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: C429, Extratorrents, Kat
Published: 2010-01-22T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

The Anaesthetist

Tuesday, the sixteenth. Afternoon and evening.

Dr. roberts lived in a nice little house in Wigmore Street. It was a narrow house with two windows on the first floor, and on the street level was a large vermilion front door that occupied a fair proportion of the wall.

A man-servant, small and cheerful to suit the house, showed Alleyn into a pleasant drawing-room-study with apple-green walls and bookshelves, glazed chintz curtains, and comfortable chairs. Above the fireplace hung an excellent painting of lots of little people skating on a lake surrounded by Christmas trees. A wood fire crackled on the hearth. On a table near the bookcase was a sheaf of manuscript weighted down by the old wooden stethoscope that Mr. Thoms had found so funny.

After an appreciative glance at the picture, Alleyn walked over to the bookcase, where he found a beguiling collection of modern novels, a Variorum Shakespeare that aroused his envy, and a number of works on heredity, eugenics and psycho-analysis. Among these was a respectable-looking volume entitled Debased Currency, by Theodore Roberts. Alleyn took it out and looked at the contents. They proved to be a series of papers on hereditary taints. Roberts evidently had read them at meetings of the International Congress on Eugenics and Sex Reform.

Alleyn was still absorbed in this evidence of Roberts's industry when the author himself came in.

"Inspector Alleyn, I believe," said Roberts.

With a slight effort Alleyn refrained from answering "Dr. Roberts, I presume." He closed the book over his thumb and came forward to meet the anæsthetist. Roberts blinked apprehensively and then glanced at the volume in the inspector's hand.

"Yes, Dr. Roberts," said Alleyn, "you've caught me red-handed. I never can resist plucking from bookshelves and I was so interested to see that you yourself wrote."

"Oh," answered Roberts vaguely, "the subject interests me. Will you sit down, inspector?"

"Thank you. Yes, the problems of heredity have an extraordinary fascination, even for a layman like myself. However, I haven't come here to air my ignorance of your country, but to try and fill out some of the blanks in my own. About this O'Callaghan business-- "

"I am extremely sorry to hear of the result of the autopsy," said Roberts formally. "It is terribly distressing, shocking, an irreplaceable loss." He moved his hands nervously, gulped, and then added hurriedly: "I am also exceedingly distressed for more personal reasons. As anæsthetist for the operation I feel that I may be held responsible, that perhaps I should have noticed earlier that all was not well. I was worried, almost from the start, about his condition. I said so to Sir John and to Thoms."

"What did they answer?"

"Sir John was very properly concerned with his own work. He simply left me to deal with mine, after, I think, commenting in some way on my report. I do not remember that Thoms replied at all. Inspector Alleyn, I sincerely hope you are able to free Sir John from any possibility of the slightest breath of suspicion. Any doubt in that direction is quite unthinkable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.