“I shouldn’t think so. He amused himself with Philips all right, but he wasn’t taken in by her. He was dead against Baxter’s marriage, I know, and did his best to stop it. He wasn’t a bad sort, old Gregg. He was surly and bad-tempered, but we liked working with him.”
“What happened to Mrs. Baxter after she left her husband, do you know?”
“I’ve no idea. He divorced her in the end, I’ve been told. She was the sort to fall on her feet.”
“What was her name before she married? It’s funny I never heard it, but most of this happened after I had left England,” explained Fayre, carefully avoiding Henderson’s malicious eye.
“Tina Allen,” answered Mrs. Benson. “She came of quite good stock, I believe. I heard once that her people were pretty sick at her taking up nursing at all.”
For a moment Fayre was bereft of speech and, when he did speak, he controlled his voice with difficulty. That Mrs. Draycott should have started her career as a nurse at St. Swithin’s was the last thing he had suspected.
“She knew this man Gregg well, you say,” he asked at last.
“Must have. The four of them were always about together. I don’t think he liked her much, though. As I said, he did his best to stop her marriage.”
“You didn’t keep up with any of them after you left, I suppose?”
She shook her head.