“I’ll call for the reports,” Lomas said, and did so. “Good Gad! Reams! Barton’s put in some heavy work.”
“I thought he would,” said Reggie, and went to read over Lomas’s shoulder.
At the end Lomas lay back and looked up at him. “Well? Barton’s put his money on this young nurse, Edith Baker.”
“Yes. That’s the matron’s tip. I saw the matron. One of the world’s organizers, Lomas. A place for everything and everything in its place. And if you don’t fit, God help you. Edith Baker didn’t fit. Edith Baker has emotions. Therefore she does murders. Q.E.D.”
“Well, the matron ought to know the girl.”
“She ought,” Reggie agreed. “And our case is, gentlemen, that the matron who ought to know girls says Edith Baker isn’t a nice young person. Lomas dear, why do policemen always believe what they’re told? What the matron don’t like isn’t evidence.”
“There is some evidence. The girl had one of these hysterical affections for the dead woman, passionately devoted and passionately jealous and so forth. The girl had access to the hospital instruments. All her time in the afternoon can’t be accounted for, and she was the first to know of the murder.”
“It’s not good enough, Lomas. Why did she give the alarm?”
Lomas shrugged. “A murderer does now and then. Cunning or fright.”
“And why did she wait for the children’s party to do the murder?”
“Something may have happened there to rouse her jealousy.”
“Something with one of the visitors?” Reggie suggested. “I wonder.” And then he laughed. “A party of the visitors went round the hospital, Lomas. They had access to the surgical instruments.”
“And were suddenly seized with a desire for homicide? They also went to the gymnasium and the kitchen. Did any of them start boiling potatoes? My dear Fortune, you are not as plausible as usual.”
“It isn’t plausible,” Reggie said. “I know that. It’s too dam’ wicked.”
“Abnormal,” Lomas nodded. “Of course the essence of the thing is that it’s abnormal. Every once in a while we have these murders in an orphanage or school or some place where women and children are herded together. Nine times out of ten they are cases of hysteria. Your young friend Miss Baker seems to be a highly hysterical subject.”
“Why, that’s in the evidence. And you saw her yourself half crazy with emotion after the murder.”