The Nursing-Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh and Dr. H. Jellett

Sir Derek O'Callaghan had been having pains in his stomach for quite some time. He was the Home Secretary and was sponsoring a very important bill which would deal with the growing threat of anarchists, and he really did not have time to see a doctor. His sponsorship of the bill might expose him to threats by the anarchists to assassinate him, but he bravely refused to turn aside from what he considered his duty. After an important cabinet meeting, he felt ill and returned home to his wife Cicely, and her sister Ruth who was a great believer in the advertisements of less reputable pharmacists who promised miracle cures. Ruth had been plying Sir Derek with some of these cures and he tried very hard to avoid her.

Sir Derek did have a very well known and skilled doctor,  Sir John Phillips, but Sir Derek and Sir John were now enemies. Sir Derek had had a little fling with a nurse, Jane Harden, and then called everything off. Jane had taken their relationship seriously, and had written Sir Derek a letter in which she threatened to kill him. Sir John Phillips wanted to marry Jane Harden himself, and came to Sir Derek's house to express his anger at the treatment of Jane, and also threatened to kill Sir Derek.

Shortly afterward, Sir Derek passed out in the middle of a speech to parliament. His wife was called, and she, not knowing about the quarrel with Sir John, said that Sir Derek should be taken to Sir John Phillips' nursing home.  After his arrival and initial examination Sir Derek was prepped for surgery. The people in the operating room had very strong feelings about a number of things.  Sir John Phillips and nurse Jane Harden wished Sir Derek dead. Nurse Banks had definite communist leanings, and thought the loss of Sir Derek would be good for the country. There was also the anesthetist. Dr. Roberts, who had strong views on the necessity of removing what he deemed to be genetically unfit people. Prior to the actual surgery, Sir John had administered a dose of hyoscine which was his customary practice. The operation was performed, but Sir Derek was not doing well on the table. Customary injections were given, but Sir Derek died.

 An autopsy showed that a huge amount of hyoscine were in Sir Derek's system, and inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard was called in to investigate. Alleyn, his assistant, Inspector Fox, and Alleyn's friend, Nigel Bathgate, looked at all the motivations of the people present in the operating room, and the murderer was exposed in a reenactment of the operation. I found this to be a very interesting book because of all the suspects with reasons to want the death of Sir Derek, and the difficulty of determining when and how the murderer managed to deliver the fatal dose to him.

Hyoscine is a drug which is derived from the nightshade family of plants such as henbane and jimson weed. It was used in surgery to prevent post-operative nausea. Agatha Christie, the queen of poisons, used it in her books, as did John Dickson Carr.

This is the third novel by Ngaio Marsh who is one of the great names of Golden Age mystery fiction. Her coauthor Henry Jellett (1872 - 1948) was a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in New Zealand. This book was published in 1935, and is available in paper and e-book formats.