A Mind to Murder (10 page)

“I have no idea at all. The whole tragedy is incomprehensible. I’m not going to claim that Miss Bolam was an altogether easy person to get on with. She sometimes aroused resentment.” He smiled deprecatingly. “We’re not always very easy to get on with ourselves and the most successful administrator of a psychiatric unit is probably someone far more tolerant than Miss Bolam, less obsessional perhaps. But this is murder! I can’t think of anyone, patient or staff, who would want to kill her. It’s very horrible to me as medical director to think that there might be someone as disturbed as that working at the Steen and I never knew.”

“As disturbed or as wicked,” said Dalgliesh, unable to resist the temptation. Dr. Etherege smiled again, patiently explaining a difficult point to an obtuse member of the television panel. “Wicked? I’m not competent to discuss this in theological terms.”

“Nor am I, Doctor,” replied Dalgliesh. “But this crime doesn’t look like the work of a madman. There’s an intelligence behind it.”

“Some psychopaths are highly intelligent, Superintendent. Not that I am knowledgeable about psychopathy. It’s a most interesting field but not mine. We have never claimed at the Steen to be able to treat the condition.”

Then the Steen was in good company, thought Dalgliesh. The Mental Health Act, 1959, may have defined psychopathy as a disorder requiring or susceptible to medical treatment, but there appeared little enthusiasm on the part of doctors to treat it. The word seemed little more than a psychiatrist’s term of abuse and he said as much. Dr. Etherege smiled, indulgent, unprovoked.

“I have never accepted a clinical entity because it is defined in an Act of Parliament. However, psychopathy exists. I’m not convinced at present that it is susceptible to medical treatment. What I am sure is that it is not susceptible to a prison sentence. But we have no certainty that we’re looking for a psychopath.”

Dalgliesh asked Dr. Etherege whether he knew where Nagle kept his tools and which key opened the door of the record-room.

“I knew about the key. If I’m working late and alone I sometimes need one of the old files and I fetch it myself. I do a certain amount of research and, of course, lecturing and writing, and it’s important to have access to the medical records. I last fetched a file about ten days ago. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the box of tools in the porters’ room, but I knew that Nagle had his own set and was particular about them. I suppose if I’d wanted a chisel I should have looked in the porters’ room. The tools would hardly be kept anywhere else. Obviously, too, I should expect Tippett’s fetish to be in the art therapy department. It was a most curious choice of weapons! What I find interesting is the apparent care taken by the murderer to fix suspicion on the clinic staff.”

“Suspicion can hardly rest elsewhere in the face of those locked doors.”

“That’s what I meant, Superintendent. If a member of the staff present this evening did kill Miss Bolam surely he would want to divert suspicion from the relatively few people known to be in the building at the time. The easiest way to do that would be to unlock one of the doors. He’d need to wear gloves, of course, but then, I gather that he did wear them.”

“There are no prints on either of the weapons, certainly. They were wiped, but it is probable that he did wear gloves.”

“And yet, those doors were kept locked, the strongest evidence that the murderer was still in the building. Why? It would be risky to unlock the back door on the ground floor. That, as you know, is between the E.C.T. room and the medical staff room and it leads into a well-lit road. It would be difficult to unlock it without the risk of being seen and a murderer would hardly make his exit that way. But there are the two fire-escape doors on the second and third floors and the door in the basement. Why not unlock one of those? It can only be, surely, because the murderer hadn’t the opportunity between the time of the crime and the finding of the body, or that he deliberately wished to throw suspicion on the clinic staff even at the inevitable cost of increasing his own danger.”

“You talk about ‘he’, Doctor. Do you think, as a psychiatrist, that we should be looking for a man?”

“Oh, yes! I would expect this to be the work of a man.”

“Although it didn’t require great strength?” asked Dalgliesh.

“I wasn’t thinking primarily of the strength required but of the method and the choice of weapon. I can only give my opinion, of course, and I’m not a criminologist. I would expect it to be a man’s crime. But, of course, a woman could have done it. Psychologically, it’s unlikely. Physically, it’s perfectly possible.”

It was indeed, thought Dalgliesh. It required merely knowledge and nerve. He pictured for a moment an intent, pretty face bent over Miss Bolam’s body; a thin, girlish hand slipping open the sweater buttons and rolling up the fine cashmere jumper. And then, that clinical selection of exactly the right place to pierce, and the grunt of effort as the blade went home. And, last of all the sweater drawn lightly back to conceal the chisel handle, the ugly fetish placed in position on the still twitching body in an ultimate gesture of derision and defiance. He told the medical director about Mrs. Shorthouse’s evidence of the phone call.

“No one has admitted to making that call. It looks very much as if she were tricked down to the basement.”

“That is mere supposition, Superintendent.”

Dalgliesh pointed out mildly that it was also common sense, the basis of all sound police work. The medical director said:

“There is a card hung beside the telephone outside the record-room. Anyone, even a stranger to the clinic, could discover Miss Bolam’s number.”

“But what would be her reaction to an internal call from a stranger? She went downstairs without question. She must have recognized the voice.”

“Then it was someone she had no reason to fear, Superintendent. That doesn’t tie up with the suggestion that she was in possession of some dangerous knowledge and was killed to prevent her passing it on to Lauder. She went down to her death without fear or suspicion. I can only hope that she died quickly and without pain.”

Dalgliesh said that he would know more when he got the autopsy report but that death was almost certainly instantaneous. He added:

“There must have been one dreadful moment when she looked up and saw her murderer with the fetish raised, but it happened very quickly. She would feel nothing after she was stunned. I doubt whether she even had time to cry out. If she did the sound would be muffled by the tiers of paper and I’m told that Mrs. King was being rather noisy during her treatment.” He paused for a moment, then said quietly: “What made you describe to the staff just how Miss Bolam died? You did tell them?”

“Of course. I called them together in the front consulting-room—the patients were in the waiting-room—and made a brief statement. Are you suggesting that the news could have been kept from them?”

“I am suggesting that they need not have been told the details. It would have been useful to me if you hadn’t mentioned the stabbing. The murderer might have given himself away by showing more knowledge than an innocent person could have possessed.”

The medical director smiled.

“I’m a psychiatrist not a detective. Strange as it may seem to you, my reaction to this crime was to assume that the rest of the staff would share my horror and distress, not to lay traps for them. I wanted to break the news to them myself, gently and honestly. They have always had my confidence and I saw no reason for withholding that confidence now.”

That was all very well, thought Dalgliesh, but an intelligent man must surely have seen the importance of saying as little as possible. And the medical director was a very intelligent man. As he thanked his witness and drew the interview to its close, his mind busied itself with the problem. How carefully had Dr. Etherege considered the position before he spoke to the staff? Had his disclosure of the stabbing been as thoughtless as it appeared? It would, after all, have been impossible to deceive most of the staff. Dr. Steiner, Dr. Baguley, Nagle, Dr. Ingram and Sister Ambrose had all seen the body. Miss Priddy had seen it but had apparently fled without a second look. That left Nurse Bolam, Mrs. Bostock, Mrs. Shorthouse, Miss Saxon, Miss Kettle and Cully. Possibly Dr. Etherege was satisfied that none of these was the murderer. Cully and Shorthouse both had an alibi. Had the medical director been reluctant to lay a trap for Nurse Bolam, Mrs. Bostock or Miss Saxon? Or was he so certain in his own mind that the murderer must be a man that any subterfuge to mislead the women seemed a waste of time, likely to result only in embarrassment and resentment? The medical director had certainly been almost blatant in his hints that anyone working on the second or third floor could be eliminated since they would have had the opportunity of opening one of the fire-escape doors. But then, he himself had been in his consulting-room on the second floor. In any case, the obvious door for the killer to unlock was the one in the basement and it was hard to believe that he had lacked the opportunity. It would be a second’s work only to draw back that lock and provide evidence that the murderer could have left the clinic that way. Yet the basement door had been fast bolted. Why?

Dr. Steiner came in next, short, dapper, outwardly self-composed. In the light from Miss Bolam’s desk lamp his pale smooth skin looked slightly luminous. Despite his calmness he had been sweating heavily. The heavy smell hung about his clothes, about the well cut, conventional black coat of a consultant. Dalgliesh was surprised when he gave his age as forty-two. He looked older. The smooth skin, the sharp black eyes, the bouncy walk gave a superficial impression of youth but he was already thickening and his dark hair, cunningly sleeked back, could not quite conceal the tonsure-like patch on the crown of the head.

Dr. Steiner had apparently decided to treat his encounter with a policeman as a social occasion. Extending a plump, well-kept hand, he smiled a benign “how d’you do” and inquired whether he was speaking to the writer, Adam Dalgliesh.

“I have read your verse,” he announced complacently. “I congratulate you. Such a deceptive simplicity. I started at the first poem and read straight through. That is my way of experiencing verse. At the tenth page I began to think that we might have a new poet.”

Dalgliesh admitted to himself that Dr. Steiner had not only read the book but showed some critical insight. It was at the tenth page that he, too, sometimes felt they might have a new poet. Dr. Steiner inquired whether he had met Ernie Bales the new young playwright from Nottingham. He looked so hopeful that Dalgliesh felt positively unkind as he disclaimed acquaintance with Mr. Bales and steered the conversation from literary criticism back to the purpose of the interview. Dr. Steiner at once assumed an air of shocked gravity.

“The whole affair is dreadful, quite dreadful. I was one of the first people to see the body as you may know and it has distressed me greatly. I have always had a horror of violence. It is an appalling business. Dr. Etherege, our medical director, is due to retire at the end of the year. This is a most unfortunate thing to happen in his last months here.”

He shook his head sadly, but Dalgliesh fancied that the little black eyes held something very like satisfaction.

Tippett’s fetish had yielded its secrets to the fingerprint expert and Dalgliesh had stood it on the desk before him. Dr. Steiner put out his hand to touch it then drew back and said:

“I had better not handle it, I suppose, because of fingerprints.” He darted a quick look at Dalgliesh and getting no response went on: “It’s an interesting carving, isn’t it? Quite remarkable. Have you ever noticed, Superintendent, what excellent art the mentally ill can produce, even patients without previous training or experience? It raises interesting questions on the nature of artistic achievement. As they recover their work deteriorates. The power and originality go. By the time they are well again the stuff they produce is valueless. We’ve got several interesting examples of patients’ work in the art therapy department, but this fetish is outstanding. Tippett was very ill when he carved it and went to hospital shortly afterwards. He’s a schizophrenic. The fetish has the typical facies of the chronic disease, the frog-like eyes and spreading nostrils. Tippett looked very like that himself at one time.”

“Everyone knew where this thing was kept, I suppose?” said Dalgliesh.

“Oh, yes! It was kept on the shelf in the art therapy department. Tippett was very proud of it and Dr. Baguley often showed it to House Committee members when they made visits of inspection. Mrs. Baumgarden, the art therapist, likes to keep some of the best work on show. That’s why she had the shelves put up. She’s on sick leave at the present but you’ve been shown the department, I expect?”

Dalgliesh said that he had.

“Some of my colleagues feel that the art therapy is a waste of money,” confided Dr. Steiner. “Certainly I never use Mrs. Baumgarden. But one must be tolerant. Dr. Baguley refers patients now and again, and it probably does them less harm to dabble about down there than to be subjected to E.C.T. But to pretend that the patients’ artistic efforts can help towards a diagnosis seems very far fetched to me. Of course that claim is all part of the effort to get Mrs. Baumgarden graded as a lay psychotherapist, quite unwarrantably, I’m afraid. She has no analytical training.”

“And the chisel? Did you know where that was kept, Doctor?”

“Well, not really, Superintendent. I mean, I knew that Nagle had some tools and presumably kept them in the porters’ duty-room, but I didn’t know exactly where.”

“The toolbox is large and clearly labelled and is kept on the small table in the duty-room. It would be difficult to miss.”

“Oh, I’m sure it would! But then, I have no reason to go into the porters’ duty-room. That is true of all the doctors. We must get a key for that box now and see that it’s kept somewhere safe. Miss Bolam was very wrong to allow Nagle to keep it unlocked. After all, we do occasionally have disturbed patients and some tools can be lethal.”

“So it appears.”