“Splendid. What about Sir Derek’s personal nurse and the other one from the theatre—Nurse Harden, wasn’t it?”

“I will find out,” said Phillips. “Do you mind waiting?”

“Not at all,” murmured Alleyn with an involuntary glance at the marble woman. “May I see them one by one—it will be less violently embarrassing for all of us?”

“You do not impress me,” rejoined Phillips, “as a person who suffers from shyness, but no doubt you would rather sleuth in secret. You shall see them one by one.”

“Thank you.”

Alleyn waited only a few minutes after Sir John left him and then the door reopened to admit Sister Marigold, in whose countenance gentility, curiosity and resentment were exquisitely reflected.

“How do you do, matron?” said Alleyn.

“Good afternoon,” said Sister Marigold.

“Won’t you sit down? Here? Or under the statue?”

“Thank you very much, I’m sure.” She sat with a rustle, and eyed the inspector guardedly.

“Perhaps Sir John has told you the report on the postmortem?” Alleyn suggested.

“It’s terrible. Such a loss, as I say, to the country.”

“Unthinkable. One of the really strong men in the right party,” said Alleyn with low cunning.

“Just what I said when it happened.”

“Now look here, matron, will you take mercy on a wretched ignorant policeman and help me out of the awful fog I’m wallowing in? Here’s this man, perhaps the foremost statesman of his time, lying dead with a quarter of a grain of hyoscine inside him, and here am I, an abysmally incompetent layman, with the terrific task before me of finding out how it got there. What the devil am I to do about it, matron?”

He smiled very charmingly into her competent spectacles. Her very veil seemed to lose starch.

“Well, really,” said Sister Marigold, “I’m sure it’s all very trying for everybody.”

“Exactly. You yourself must have had a great shock.”

“Well, I did. Of course, in the ordinary way we nurses become accustomed to the sad side of things. People think us dreadfully hard-hearted sometimes.”

“You won’t get me to believe that. Of course, this discovery—”

“That’s what makes it so dreadful, Mr.—er—I never could have believed it, never. Such a thing has never happened in the whole of my experience. And for it to be after an operation in my own theatre! Nobody could have taken more care. Nothing went wrong.”