Shroud for a Nightingale Read Online Free PDF

simultaneously. Maureen said:
    “Of course there was! Milk.”
    “I mean something besides the milk.” She hesitated. “Poison.”
    “But there couldn’t be! Shirley and I took a fresh bottle of milk out of the kitchen fridge first thing this morning. Miss Collins was there and saw us. We left it in the demo room and didn’t pour it into the measuring jug until just before the demonstration, did we, Shirley?”
    “That’s right. It was a fresh bottle. We took it at about seven o’clock.”
    “And you didn’t add anything by mistake?”
    “Like what? Of course we didn’t.”
    The twins spoke in unison, sounding sturdily confident, almost unworried. They knew exactly what they had done and when, and no one, Miss Beale saw, was likely to shake them. They weren’t the type to be tormented by unnecessary guilt or fretted by those irrational doubts which afflict less stolid, more imaginative personalities. Miss Beale thought that she understood them very well.
    Julia Pardoe said: “Perhaps someone else mucked about with the feed.”
    She looked round at her fellow students from under lowered lids, provocative, a little amused.
    Madeleine Goodale said calmly: “Why should they?”
    Nurse Pardoe shrugged and pursed her lips into a little secret smile. She said: “By accident. Or it might have been a practical joke. Or perhaps it was done on purpose.”
    “But that would be attempted murder!” It was Diane Harper who spoke. She sounded incredulous. Maureen Burt laughed.
    “Don’t be daft, Julia. Who would want to murder Pearce?”
    No one replied. The logic was apparently unassailable. It was impossible to imagine anyone wanting to murder Pearce.Pearce, Miss Beale realized, was either of the company of the naturally inoffensive or was too negative a personality to inspire the tormenting hatred which can lead to murder. Then Nurse Goodale said drily: “Pearce wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.”
    Miss Beale glanced at the girl, surprised. It was an odd remark to come from Nurse Goodale, a little insensitive in the circumstances, disconcertingly out of character. She noted, too, the use of the past tense. Here was one student who didn’t expect to see Nurse Pearce alive again.
    Nurse Harper reiterated stoutly: “It’s daft to talk about murder. No one would want to kill Pearce.”
    Nurse Pardoe shrugged: “Perhaps it wasn’t meant for Pearce. Jo Fallon was supposed to act as patient today, wasn’t she? It was Fallon’s name next on the list. If she hadn’t been taken ill last night, it would have been Fallon in that bed this morning.”
    They were silent. Nurse Goodale turned to Miss Beale.
    “She’s right. We take it in strict turn to act as patient; it wasn’t really Pearce’s turn this morning. But Josephine Fallon was taken into the sick bay last night—you’ve probably heard that we have an influenza epidemic—and Pearce was next on the list. Pearce was taking Fallon’s place.”
    Miss Beale was momentarily at a loss. She felt that she ought to put a stop to the conversation, that it was her responsibility to keep their minds off the accident, and surely it could only have been an accident. But she didn’t know how. Besides, there was a dreadful fascination in getting at the facts. For her, there always had been. Perhaps, too, it was better that the girls should indulge this detached, investigatory interest, rather than sit there making unnatural and ineffective conversation. Already she saw that shock was giving way to that half-ashamed excitement which can follow tragedy, so long, of course, as it is someone else’s tragedy.
    Julia Pardoe’s composed, rather childish voice went on: “So if the victim was really meant to be Fallon, it couldn’t have been one of us, could it? We all knew that Fallon wouldn’t be acting the patient this morning.”
    Madeleine Goodale said: “I should think that everyone knew. Everyone at Nightingale House anyway. There was enough talk about it at