Green for Danger by Christianna Brand

somebody went into the main operating theatre where Higgins died next day … well, Miss Sanson left the ward a little before half-past ten; she went over to her quarters, but we don’t know what she may have done in the meantime.… Sister Bates was free after she left the emergency theatre, Miss Woods says she was sitting in her quarters, but there was nobody there to tell us that this is true; Major Moon was in and out of the reception-room, Major Eden was wandering about the hospital, and Captain Barnes, though he was busy giving anæsthetics, was not doing that all the time, as you yourself know; besides, Captain Barnes is the anaesthetist, anyway.… I don’t say that any of these people killed Higgins, of course I don’t; I only say that if anybody killed him, it must have been one of these seven; and that includes you.”
    â€œWell, I never left the ward that night,” said Frederica stubbornly.
    â€œExcept before Miss Sanson left, to get yourself some food.” He said suddenly: “Where were you that morning—the morning Higgins was having his operation, I mean?”
    â€œI was in bed in my quarters, of course,” said Freddi impatiently.
    He looked at her intently. “Oh, were you? In bed in your quarters? That’s interesting,” and added, not thinking: “Alone, of course?”
    â€œQuite alone,” said Frederica, and marched out indignantly, her golden head in the air.
    5
    Barney was also going to the party, and he was not best pleased at being approached by Inspector Cockrill with a request to demonstrate his anæsthetising apparatus. “Wouldn’t you rather wait till tomorrow?” he asked politely.
    â€œNo, I want to get back to Torrington to-morrow; I wouldn’t have stayed at all if it hadn’t been for the air-raid … and this business of Sergeant McCoy, of course,” added Cockie hurriedly. The airraid was still going on, rather mildly, over their heads, but it was one thing to be in a good solid building, and another to be bucketing along the country roads in a little car, with the guns going off all round you and Jerries overhead. He led the way imperiously to the theatre. “I won’t keep you long; I just want to see what you do.”
    Barney’s grave eyes questioned him uncertainly. “If there was anything cockeyed about the man’s death, it does seem like that it may have been connected with the anæsthetic, doesn’t it?” suggested Cockrill apologetically. “It’s really particularly for your sake that we want to get it straight.” His own opinion was that it was all a lot of military flammery and red tape.
    Barnes led the way over to his trolley, switching on the great overhead lights of the theatre; he sat down on the little round revolving stool and pulled the trolley between his knees. It was green enamelled, about twenty-four inches square, with a bracket across the top from which hung three glass jars; on one side of the trolley were five circular metal bands into which were set the big, cast-iron cylinders of gas and oxygen; two were painted black, two black with a white collar, and one, in the centre, green. Barnes flicked them with a finger nail: “Black nitrous oxide; black and white, oxygen; and green carbon dioxide.”
    Cockrill stood with his short legs apart, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, still in his droopy mackintosh with his hat on the back of his head. He hated to know less than the man he was talking to; and he had watched young Barnes grow up. He said at last gruffly: “Talk plain English.”
    Barney smiled up at him suddenly, that rare and charming smile of his, that lit up his face into good humour again. He said apologetically: “Sorry, Cockie; I was being difficult. I want to go to a party”; and elaborated more clearly: “Nitrous oxide is just ordinary gas, like you get at the dentist’s. For longer