“Yes. When Lady O’Callaghan returned I suggested that Somerset Black should operate.”

“Quite so. Lady O’Callaghan urged you to do it yourself. Everyone agree to that?”

“Yes,” said Nurse Graham quietly. Ruth merely sat and gaped. Lady O’Callaghan turned with an unusual abruptness and walked to the window.

“Then you, Sir John, went away to prepare for the operation?”

“Yes.”

“That finishes this part of the business, then.”

“No!”

Cicely O’Callaghan’s voice rang out so fiercely that they all jumped. She had faced round and stood with her eyes fixed on Phillips. She looked magnificent. It was as if a colourless façade had been flood-lit.

“No! Why do you deliberately ignore what we all heard, what I myself have told you? Ask Sir John what my husband said when he saw who it was we had brought here to help him.” She turned deliberately to Phillips. “What did Derek say to you—what did he say?”

Phillips looked at her as though he saw her for the first time. His face expressed nothing but a profound astonishment. When he answered it was with a kind of reasonableness and with no suggestion of heroics.

“He was frightened,” he said.

“He cried out to us: ‘Don’t let—’ You remember”—she appealed with assurance to Nurse Graham—“you remember what he looked like—you understood what he meant?”

“I said then,” said Nurse Graham with spirit, “and I say now, that Sir Derek did not know what he was saying.”

“Well,” remarked Alleyn mildly, “as we all know about it, I think you and I, Sir John, will go downstairs.” He turned to the O’Callaghans.

“Actually, I believe, you both stayed on in the hospital during the operation, but, of course, there is no need for you to do so now. Lady O’Callaghan, shall I ask for your car to take you back to Catherine Street? If you will forgive me, I must go to the theatre.”

Suddenly he realised that she was in such a fury that she could not answer. He took Phillips by the elbow and propelled him through the door.

“We will leave Nurse Graham,” he said, “alone with her patient.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Reconstruction Concluded

Thursday, the eighteenth. Late afternoon.

THE “THEATRE PARTY” appeared to have entered heartily into the spirit of the thing. A most convincing activity was displayed in the anteroom, where Sister Marigold, Jane Harden and a very glum-faced Banks washed and clattered while Inspector Fox, his massive form wedged into a corner, looked on with an expressionless countenance and a general air of benignity. A faint bass drone from beyond the swing-door informed Alleyn of the presence in the theatre of Inspector Boys.

“All ready, matron?” asked Alleyn.

“Quite ready, inspector.”

“Well, here we all are.” He stood aside and Phillips, Thoms and Roberts walked in.

“Are you at about the same stage as you were when the doctors came in?”

“At exactly the same stage.”