A Mind to Murder by P. D. James

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 myhorror 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 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