The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh Page B

bowler?”
    “Paying a call on the Snow Queen,” replied Fox with unexpected imaginativeness. “And when I say ‘Snow Queen’ I don’t mean cocaine, either.”
    “No? Then what do you mean? Sit down and have a smoke. You look perturbed.”
    “Well, I am,” said Fox heavily. He produced a pipe and blew down it, staring solemnly at his superior. “I’ve been to see the wife of the late Home Secretary,” he said.
    “What! You
are
coming on.”
    “Look here, chief. She says it’s murder.”
    “She says what’s murder?”
    “Him. Sir Derek O’Callaghan.”
    Alleyn put his pipe down and swung round slowly in his chair.
    “Oh!” he said. He raised one eyebrow to an excruciating height and twisted his mouth sideways. This trick invested his handsome face with a kind of impish fastidiousness.
    “What sort of woman is she?” he asked.
    “A very cold fishy sort of lady,” answered Fox. “A Snow Queen, in fact. Not the hysterical sort, if that’s what you mean.”
    “She was a Rattisbon. All the Rattisbons are a bit frosty. I was at school with her brother — who was, of course, called ‘Ratsbane.’ I speak like Mr. Gossip, don’t I? A very churlish fellow, he was. Well, let’s have the whole story.”
    Fox told him the whole story, dwelling a little on the letters.
    “I see,” said Alleyn. “And she’s hell-bent on an inquest?”
    “That she is. If we won’t do anything, she’s going to the Prime Minister. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he, sir?”
    “I know the old creature, yes. As a matter of fact, he summoned me to the presence on another matter about a fortnight ago and we had an Oppenheimian conversation about anarchists. He was very perturbed and asked me if I didn’t consider O’Callaghan would be in personal danger if he pushed the Bill. Well, one never knows, and I said so. Some bright young Communist might bowl a bomb. As a matter of cold fact, I greatly doubt it. They do a certain amount of mischief, they’re an almighty nuisance, but as murderers I’ve no real faith in the British anarchist. Anarchist! The word is
vieux jeu
.”
    “I suppose that’s French?”
    “Quite right, Fox. I always said you had a flair for languages.”
    “I’m teaching myself with the gramophone. All the same, sir, these anarchists are no joke.”
    “Of course they’re not. The P.M., as I believe the member for Little Squidgemere calls him, thought O’Callaghan ought to have police protection. I quite agreed. I couldn’t very well do anything else. O’Callaghan pooh-poohed the idea. As you know, we were looking after him in our unassuming way. On the afternoon of the Cabinet Meeting, when they decided to introduce the Bill, I went along to Downing Street myself. I’d got wind of that insufferable nuisance Nicholas Kakaroff, and found him standing about in the street, dressed up as something rather ridiculous — a photographer, I think. He made off, with all his infra-red rays and whatnot, as soon as he saw me. I took a taxi and followed O’Callaghan home. We were alongside each other at one moment. He turned up the lights in his car and I returned the compliment.”
    “His servants are all right, aren’t they?” asked Fox. “Oh, yes; we went as far as that. But, of course, we couldn’t do much without O’Callaghan’s permission or knowledge.”
    “No. I think her ladyship suspects the surgeon or the girl.”
    “ ‘The Surgeon or the Girl’ — it sounds like a talkie. Sir John Phillips is a very able man and handy, so I understand, with the knife. She thinks he dug it into an unlawful spot, because O’Callaghan had been interfering with his girl — is that it?”
    “She thinks Sir Derek was poisoned, otherwise that seems to be the general idea, but of course his letter isn’t very explicit.”
    “Have you got the letters?”
    “Yes. Here they are.” Alleyn read them carefully.
    “You know, Fox, hundreds of people write letters like these without planning