“On Thursday the thirteenth of December she went straight to her suite after being received on arrival by Mr. Chandler-Powell, Sister Holland and Mrs. Frensham. All say she was perfectly calm, apparently unworried and not very communicative. One of the temporary nonresident staff, Nurse Frazer, took her down to the operating theatre next morning, where she was examined by the anaesthetist and then underwent the operation. Mr. Chandler-Powell says it was complicated but successful. She was in the recovery room until four-thirty, when she was returned to her suite on the patients’ wing. She ate a light supper and was seen by Sister Holland on several occasions, and by Chandler-Powell and Sister Holland at ten o’clock, when Miss Gradwyn said she was ready to sleep. She refused a sedative. Sister Holland said that the last time she looked in on her was at eleven, when she found Miss Gradwyn asleep. She was murdered by manual strangulation, Dr. Glenister estimates between eleven and twelve-thirty.”

Dalgliesh and Kate listened in silence. Benton was seized by the fear that he was taking too much time on the obvious. He glanced at Kate but, getting no response, went on. “We’ve been told of several significant things that happened that night. The only other patient present, Mrs. Skeffington, was wakeful and went to the bathroom. She could have been woken by the sound of the lift which she says she heard at eleven-forty. From the bedroom window she claims she saw a light flickering among the Cheverell Stones. This was just before midnight. It frightened her, and she rang the assistant cook, Kimberley Bostock, and asked for a pot of tea. Probably she wanted company, however briefly, but didn’t like to wake up Sister Holland, who was in the suite next door.”

Kate said, “Didn’t she admit as much when Kimberley and Dean brought up the tea?”

Benton said, “She certainly seemed to prefer Kimberley Bostock to Sister Holland. Seems reasonable to me, sir. Mrs. Bostock wondered whether she should have the tea, as she was having an operation the next morning. She knew she ought to check with Sister Holland. Leaving Dean standing outside Mrs. Skeffington’s suite, she knocked on Sister’s door and peered in.”

Kate said, “She said she heard quarrelling. Chandler-Powell said talking. Whichever it was, Chandler-Powell obviously feels his admission provides an alibi for both him and Sister Holland. Of course, that depends on the actual time of death. He claims to be unsure exactly when he went to Sister Holland’s suite, and she, too, is surprisingly vague. By leaving the time so uncertain, they avoided the mistake of claiming an alibi for the actual time of death, which is always suspicious, or leaving themselves with no alibi. It’s possible that by the time they were together, one or both of them had killed Rhoda Gradwyn.”