The Nursing Home Murder Trivia Quiz

Answer: Home Secretary

Sir Derek is an MP who serves as the Home Secretary at a time when the Red Scare ran rampant. The Home Secretary had been feeling ill lately but repeatedly refused to see a doctor because of his stubbornness and because he took the lead on a bill dealing with Communists and anarchists he wished to see passed.

Answer: Sir John Phillips

Sir John Phillips is an old friend of Sir Derek's and also serves as his personal physician. However, Sir John fell in love with a woman named Jane Harden whom Sir Derek had an affair with. Sir John wants to marry Jane but she refuses because she loved Sir Derek who disposed of her when he was finished.

Sir John confronts his friend about this and says he wishes to see him dead. Sir Derek plays coy over the situation but his increasingly poor health means he lacks the will to put up much of an argument.

Answer: Peritonitis

Sir Derek comes down with peritonitis caused by a burst appendix he let fester rather than seek treatment for. After he collapses in Parliament, he is rushed to the hospital for surgery. Lady O'Callaghan asks Sir John to perform the operation, unaware of her husband's previous fight. Sir John declines but takes on the job when no other surgeon is available.

Answer: Sir John Phillips

Sir Derek dies soon after his operation from hyoscine poisoning. Alleyn focuses his investigation primarily on how the hyoscine entered Sir Derek's body. Sir John prepared the hyoscine solution by dissolving the tablet in water and then injecting his patient with the solution. Mr. Thoms, another doctor assisting in the operation, noticed Sir Derek used too much water during the preparation, something Sir John is insulted by.

However, Alleyn notes that even if Sir John dissolving multiple tablets accidentally or purposely, it was still not enough to reach the amount of hyoscine in Sir Derek's body.

Answer: Cicely O'Callaghan

Sir Derek's widow, Lady Cicely, calls Scotland Yard to investigate. Detective Fox speaks with her first but she insists she speak with his superior, Chief Inspector Alleyn. Lady O'Callaghan insists her husband was murdered on account of the many threatening letters he received. Alleyn trusts her intuition but leaves the decision in the hands of the coroner who agrees to do an autopsy. Meanwhile, the hospital staff is keen to convince Alleyn Sir Derek died as a result of his illness to avoid a scandal.

Answer: She hesitated when grabbing a syringe

Mr. Thoms asked Jane to fetch a syringe containing anti-gas that was on a table. Jane, a professional nurse who should have been familiar with hospital procedure, hesitated to select the correct syringe until Nurse Banks told her which one it was. Everyone who was in the operating room blames Jane for the delay as she should have known which was which and moved faster.

Jane fainted soon after the operation finished, leading everyone to believe she fell ill which explained her delay. However, her actions are still deemed suspicious as she too had wished Sir Derek dead.

Answer: Ruth O'Callaghan

Alleyn suspects a possible connection between the communists and the murder of Sir Derek. However, he is unsure because his investigations into the communists reveal the communists are mostly all talk. Moreover, he believed they would choose a more sensational way to assassinate the Home Secretary.

Alleyn brings Fox and his old friends Nigel Bathgate and Angela North to a meeting of communists. All of them disguise themselves and use fake names. Nurse Banks, who was part of the operating team, is an avowed communist who makes no secret she is glad Sir Derek died and attends the meeting. As does, to Alleyn's surprise, Dr. Roberts, the anesthetist. Dr. Roberts holds a number of weird conspiracy theories such as doing away with the mentally ill by extermination or forced sterilization but has never openly held communistic views.

Answer: Yes

Fulvitavolts are patent medicine Sir Derek's sister, Ruth, secured from him. Ruth was a strong believer in a young chemist named Harold Sage who leaned toward communism. She insisted Sir Derek take whatever medicine Harold gave her, most recently, Fulvitavolts.

Sage claimed there was a hyoscine in the Fulvitavolts, however there was only a very miniscule amount, so an overdose was not possible. Sir Derek only took one packet of Fulvitavolts when his sister slipped him some in his water just before the surgery.

Answer: Sister Marigold tripped and fell

Alleyn asks everyone to reenact the events before and during Sir Derek's surgery because he is looking for something very specific but declines to tell any of them what that is.

The reenactment goes smoothly with nothing out of the ordinary occurring until the very end when Sister Marigold, the matron of the hospital, trips and falls over Dr. Roberts' anesthesia cart. Dr. Roberts yells at her to be more careful because the gas tanks could explode, although Mr. Thoms disputes that.

Answer: Dr. Roberts

Alleyn narrowed down the possible culprits immediately down to two people: Sir John and Dr. Roberts. Sir John was the obvious choice as he had a strong motive, quarreled with the victim and administered an injection. Dr. Roberts was not known to have administered an injection and seemingly had no motive.

However, Alleyn had a hunch about Dr. Roberts. Roberts believed in a number of conspiracy theories regarding hereditary and mental illness. The doctor also insisted on multiple occasions that Sir Derek committed suicide which was impossible. Mental illness ran in Sir Derek's family and this served as the motive as Dr. Roberts wished to remove the world of whom he claimed were defective people.

How he administered the injection of hyoscine is what baffled Alleyn. When Sister Marigold fell over the anesthesia cart, Roberts panicked. Alleyn searched the cart and found of the nuts was actually the top of a syringe. Alleyn speculates (and Roberts confirms) that the doctor administered the shot during the surgery. As the anesthetist, Dr. Roberts only worked with the top half of Sir Derek's body as the rest of the team was working on the abdomen. The top half of Sir Derek was blocked by a privacy curtain with only Dr. Roberts on that side of it. Thus, he could administer a shot without being seen.