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Title:
The Nursing Home Murder
Series: Roderick
Alleyn #3
Author: Ngaio Marsh
Rating:
3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages:
167
Words: 61K
Another
satisfactory read. Lots of suspects and red herrings and people lying
to the police to try to “protect” others, all the usual folderol
in a mystery novel. I enjoyed it but must admit that I am not a big
fan of how Inspector Alleyn has a “recreation” at the end each
time and proves his solution during that time. I don’t know if it
is because it strikes me as macabre, or ghoulish or just bad taste,
but I don’t like reading it that way. At least Nero Wolfe has the
decency to sit behind his desk and just verbalize what happened.
Which
is being unfair, perhaps, to Roderick Alleyn. He’s no Wolfe and
Ngaio Marsh is no Rex Stout. Which is why these aren’t venturing
into even the 3.5star range. Something about these stories is just
crude and while it doesn’t set my teeth on edge, it’s like having
something pass over my arm and just ever so slightly brush it,
annoying it.
★★★☆☆
From
Wikipedia
The
British Home Secretary, Sir Derek O'Callaghan MP, has received
several death threats from anarchists affiliated
with Stalinist Communism – and a pleading letter
threatening suicide from Jane Harden, a nurse with whom he had a
short affair some months earlier. O'Callaghan's old friend and family
physician, Sir John Phillips, visits to ask about O'Callaghan's
relationship with Jane. She is Phillips's scrub nurse and Phillips
has loved her from afar for years. O'Callaghan brutally informs
Phillips that Jane is "easy" and not worth his regard; he
and Phillips almost come to blows before Phillips threatens his life
in front of a servant.
One
week later, O'Callaghan is introducing a bill in the House of Commons
to deal with anarchism when he doubles over, incapacitated by
acute appendicitis. His wife, unaware of the fight or of
Phillips's threats, has her husband moved to Phillips's private
hospital ("nursing home" in contemporary usage) and begs
Phillips to operate immediately. He does so against his own wishes,
as assisted by Dr. Roberts, the anaesthetist; Dr. Thoms, the
assistant surgeon; Sister Marigold, the matron; Nurse Banks,
the circulating nurse; and Jane Harden, the scrub nurse. The
operation goes well, but O'Callaghan weakens near the end of the
operation and dies one hour later, apparently of peritonitis.
The
next day, Lady O'Callaghan is going through her late husband's papers
and finds both the death threats from anarchists and Jane Harden's
letter. Convinced that her husband has been murdered, she calls in
Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. It turns out that O'Callaghan has
died of an overdose of hyoscine, a drug used in anaesthesia.
Suspicion falls not just on Phillips and Harden but also on Nurse
Banks, an outspoken Communist whose constant vicious insults toward
O'Callaghan during and after the operation have led to her dismissal.
Alleyn's
digging reveals that it would have been possible for any member of
the surgical team to have committed the crime. He learns that Harden
loved O'Callaghan to the point that even after his death she was
unable to return Phillips's feelings; that Banks is a member of an
anarchist society almost completely controlled by the authorities
(and which has more bark than bite, as Alleyn finds out when he
attends a meeting in disguise with his amanuensis, Nigel Bathgate);
that O'Callaghan's sister, an unbalanced, shrill, unintelligent
hysteric, has been bullying her brother into taking quack medicine
produced by an avowed Communist; and that Dr. Roberts the
anaesthetist is a firm believer in eugenics to the point
that he is unable to prevent himself from expounding on the topic for
hours.
Frustrated,
Alleyn finally arranges for a re-enactment of the operation; he is
suspecting Roberts to be the killer but has no real evidence for
this. During the re-enactment Sister Marigold brushes by Roberts's
bulky anaesthetics cart during a weak moment and Dr. Thoms erupts in
anger and nervousness, screaming that she could have blown up the
entire room had the cart (which carries ether) fallen over. The
incident makes Alleyn notice how keen Roberts is not to let anyone
get too close to the cart. After the re-enactment has ended, the
police see to it that Roberts (who tries to stay on the spot) is
lured away from the room on a pretext, Alleyn quickly checks the cart
and finds that one of the "bolts" holding the cart together
is actually the top of a syringe. Hours later, he and Fox visit
Roberts at his home and charge him with murder. Roberts admits to
having injected O'Callaghan with hyoscine, but claims that he was
justified: O'Callaghan's family had a "hereditary taint"
(as shown by his sister), and it was his duty to remove such
"tainted" persons from society. At the end, Alleyn points
out that Roberts himself is insane and may have committed several
similar murders, as suggested by the notches on his stethoscope.
In
the epilogue Alleyn expresses doubt that Phillips and Harden will
ever get together, and remarks that such things only happen in the
"movie-mind".
