‘Yes, there was some rubbish of that sort,’ said Matron. ‘But the poisons are all accounted for and I’m getting a bit used to the young lady’s tricks—not to say fed up with them. Why did she come to you?’
‘Well, you know she’s supposed to have a crush on my poor husband?’ (Better to be casually frank….)
‘They all do this kind of thing,’ said Matron, comfortably. ‘It hasn’t prevented her going around with one of the housemen.’
‘You know she’s going to have a baby?’
‘Oh,’ said Matron rather flatly. She added: ‘Are you sure?’
‘When she really shows you—’
‘I suppose I ought to have spotted it,’ said Matron. ‘Well, tomorrow I shall send the young lady packing. Him too, if I had anything to do with it but I don’t.’
‘Him?’
‘Well, young Bates is obviously the father. They’ve been very thick, and there’s been nobody else.’
Obviously the father….! All for nothing—a murderess and all for nothing: the whole ugly threat dissipated into gossamer. In this new light, Stella saw that any suggestion against Ricky would have been brushed aside: Matron, sturdy and outspoken, would have stamped a scornful foot upon the first whisper of scandal, despatched the girl before she’d had time to make further trouble, probably extorted from the young man an admission of responsibility. All safe: all harmless and clear and unsensational. And now…
Too late. If she made any move now to save the girl, Ann Kelly would be abroad with the dangerous knowledge that in this house an attempt had been made upon her life. Very well; by her own folly and malice she had signed her death warrant and execution must be carried out. She had declared, and in writing, her intention of destroying herself by this means, and nurses must have opportunities of obtaining drugs and covering over the traces of their depredations. If she were not alive to deny it, the police would accept her as a suicide. With the threat of scandal gone, there was nothing to connect her death with anyone in the Harrison household.
Matron thought it a good idea if the girl could be kept for the night; in the morning she might be less hysterical and could be dealt with. They rang off in mutual trust and friendliness.
Once released, Stella flew to the poisons book in the surgery. A ball point pen was kept in the book, always handy. Not daring to put on a light, she picked it up and, turning back the pages at random, here and there altered a figure.
Ann Kelly was making a small play for handsome Dr. Graham, gazing up at him with increasingly bright eyes; her hands, thought Stella, looked like plump claws, waving as she chattered. Frederick was looking at her a little curiously. ‘She seems very over-excited,’ he said, aside, to Stella. ‘Better get her upstairs, I think.’ He took the six tablets from the mantelpiece. ‘Don’t forget these.’
‘I don’t want them,’ said the girl, looking at Stella like an obstinate child, the coy glance reserved for Frederick.
‘Mrs. Harrison will bring you a nice hot drink—’
‘I don’t want any more of Mrs. Harrison’s nice hot drinks. She’ll probably put arsenic in it, if she hasn’t already.’ But she saw the gathering frown, the coming together of the slanted black eyebrows. ‘Well, all right—for you, Dr. Graham,’ she said.
He dropped them into her hand and she swallowed them dry, one at a time, tossing back her head with each swallow. She looks like a hen, drinking, thought Stella, revolted.
Frederick took her up the stairs, a hand under her elbow, but she would have no further assistance. ‘I don’t want her fussing around me,’ she said, tossing her head towards Stella who was hurriedly making-up the bed. ‘If you’ll leave me alone, I’ll go to bed quietly, honestly I will. I’m—a bit exhausted.’ She clutched at a last moment of drama. ‘It’s been rather a strain.’
‘Well, the bathroom’s over there,’ said Stella. She fished a clean towel out of the linen cupboard and ushered the girl in. When she returned to the bedroom, Frederick was going hastily through the scruffy little handbag, dipping a hand into coat pockets. ‘We can’t take any chances.’ But there was nothing there; and when she returned from her very brief ablutions, they left her. The point of no return, thought Stella. But the point of return had been passed half an hour ago.
He took her down and she flopped wearily on to the disordered sofa and let him bring her a drink and sit there quietly with her, while the whisky did its reviving work. Once he went upstairs and poked his head into the darkened bedroom. ‘A bit restless, but sound asleep and rather unbeautifully snoring,’ he said, grinning, coming down again; and when Ricky returned he said the same thing to him. Asleep… Rather restless… Like a doomed ship, thought Stella, rolling, wallowing, settling down at last into the waters of death. ‘You don’t think we’d better….?’ But better—what? There was nothing now to be done.