Chapter V: Part 5

“And then I finished the medicines and fever charts and called in the rounds ... I forgot to mention about Dr. Sterling because the supervisor rung off so quickly ... and I had to hurry from the ’phone to give out three bed-pans. When I had finished the bed-pans I went to look at Miss Standish again and she was dead ... and so I called Aunt Roenna....”

“Why?” Dr. Harrison’s word hit her like a brick.

“Because she had told me to.”

“When?”

“Last night before she went off duty.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘All right, I’ll come over.’”

“Then you both _expected_ Rose Standish to die, Miss Kerr?”

All of this dialogue had gone on so swiftly that the girl had failed to make her brain control her speech. It had come out ... spontaneously....

“We didn’t either, only....”

Dr. Harrison decided that this was not the time for the truth. He passed off her reply with, “What happened next?”

“I called the night supervisor and Dr. Mattus, and waited until they came. And then....”

“From that point forward we have several eye-witnesses.” Dr. MacArthur interrupted. “Thank you, Miss Kerr.”

He picked up his telephone and asked:

“Nursing office, please. Miss Merrill, will you please come for Miss Kerr, student nurse, and put her to bed, and follow the orders given you this morning. Thank you.”

The girl turned to speak and Dr. Harrison motioned to Dr. Peters to open the door. He did so, as Miss Merrill appeared.

“Before we discuss this, let’s have the other witnesses,” Dr. Harrison’s voice was relentless. But it failed to puncture the self-righteous-I-told-you-so posture of Doctors Peters, Paton and Hoffbein.

Dr. MacArthur said, “I think we might dispense with the orderly, William, and with the day white nurse. According to the testimony of everybody William slept through the murder. He is useless either to condemn or confirm the girl’s statement. And the day white nurse seems to me completely out of it. Here are Dr. Heddis and Rathbone.”

They entered and sat down quietly. The mental heat of the room stifled them. They drew their handkerchiefs quickly and Dr. Heddis mopped his leonine head and Rathbone his bald head furiously. Dr. Heddis felt himself sinking into the tension. He spoke immediately:

“The findings upon the organs of Rose Standish, gentlemen, are that she was murdered by coniine in such a quantity that it took effect in about thirty to forty minutes. The left arm bore a hypodermic puncture; the injection was larger than that administered in the other traceable case. Her liver, spleen, lungs and stomach were suffused with the odor and the substance. Because of the enormity of the dose, indications are that the death was painless. She died of the customary respiratory paralysis.”

At least the testimony of these two men was definite and sane. The staff sat forward attentively. Dr. Harrison asked:

“Ethridge mentions a sleeping potion in his report...?”

Dr. Heddis turned toward Peter Rathbone. Baldy’s wide straight shoulders squared. His delivery was impressive:

“The potion was ... bread pills. Dr. Sterling, Senior, came by the pharmacy, around six, and left the order himself. It was his idea that if the student nurse was doing the murdering and administered the potion, without knowing its content (the copy upon Miss Standish’s chart was for an intricate formula), she would create a trap for herself.”

MacArthur groaned, involuntarily. Hoffbein stated:

“He overlooked the psychic effect upon the patient.”

“It seems so, Doctor.” Rathbone’s words were slow and measured: “Dr. Heddis is unable to trace a potion in the system, and I understand the student nurse insists she administered the potion, so the obvious assumption is that she is telling the truth and the effect was psychic....”

“Bear’s endeavor to prove his son....” Barton ventured and Hoffbein realized suddenly that he had been in temporary acquiescence with the theory of Cub Sterling’s innocence, and hastened to add:

“Who, Baldy ... er, Rathbone, except yourself and Dr. Sterling, Senior, knew of the contents of the potion?”

“I can’t say, Doctor.” Rathbone’s mouth closed tightly, and Heddis lifted his heavy body, as Barton inquired:

“With our methods of cadaver handling is putrefaction possible?”

Rathbone repeated the question to Dr. Heddis, who answered:

“Perfectly. Clip off a small portion of an arm or leg, before embalming, and keep it....” He threw out his hand, “To a toxicologist the synthetic possibility seems increasingly unfeasible. Formulas are too intricate, and the discovery of the murderer that way would be worse than looking for a penny in quicksand. Mean checking every organ of every cadaver....

“Look for the administrator, not the manufacturer. Someone with access to the patients in that bed. Time enough after that person is found to find out....”

He turned to Dr. MacArthur and said, “Any hour night or day, Mac....”

Rathbone, too, rose; his clear baritone filled the room:

“The medicine closets of all floors of Medicine Clinic were searched again today. They reveal no coniine. The syringes check as to number but are useless; the routine boiling eliminates any hope of tracing that way. Is there anything else we can do, sir?”

“No, Rathbone,” MacArthur’s voice was hopeless and affectionate. “I wish there were. Thank both of you, gentlemen.”

They were followed by Dr. Mattus, who came, as Cub had done the day before with a doll tucked under his arm. This time the dolly wore a blue dress and frilled bonnet and said, “Pa-pa. Pa-pa.”

Every man in the room shivered.

“For heaven’s sake turn that damn thing over!” Dr. MacArthur ordered. “Where did you get it?”

“Found it in the desk of Miss Roenna Kerr.”

“Whew!” It was Dr. Barton who expressed the combined sentiments.

“When?” Dr. Harrison’s face was eerie with hope.

“When she was at Head Nurse Conference, and I went into her office looking for some case reports.”

“Did you face her with it?”

“No, Dr. MacArthur, I did not. I brought it to you. Only first, I happened, casually, to learn that her niece won a similar doll at a street fair last week. She went with a party of nurses during her P. M.”

Dr. Harrison’s fringe of white hair haloed his face. He looked like a man coming out of torture.

“Tell what you know about last night, Mattus.”

“Dr. James, interne, and I examined Miss Standish yesterday afternoon. Found her normal in every respect and in good spirits. By Jove ... when I came on the ward, Miss Roenna Kerr was trying to put her in another bed ... and I ordered her into Bed 11. Did not see Miss Standish again until around ten when I was called to the ward for a heart case. She was still awake and cheerful; told her Dr. Bear had ordered a sleeping potion and to call for it if she needed it.”

“What was the potion?” Dr. MacArthur interrupted.

“Veronal, sir. He handed me the prescription as he left Medicine Clinic, sir.”

The men stirred and Mattus continued:

“When I saw Miss Standish again, she was dead.”

“Did you see Miss Roenna Kerr on the ward after the murder?”

“Yes, sir. She arrived soon after I did and I presumed Dr. Sterling, Junior, had sent for her. That’s all I know, sir. Except that Cub, Dr. Sterling, Junior, left his father and made rounds on that ward to calm the hysteria this morning about nine and had the heaven-sent sense to say his father was ill. The women are wallowing in sympathy and have almost forgotten the death of Miss Standish.

“Dr. Bear is sinking, gentlemen.”

When he was gone, Dr. Peters suggested calling Miss Roenna Kerr, but Dr. Harrison opposed it.

“Not on your life. You are out to convict Cub Sterling. I’m out to save him. Let’s have it out in plain words. Bear is on his deathbed.”

Princeton interrupted abruptly, “Harrison, isn’t there some hope? Dear Bear’s physique....”

Dr. Harrison turned on him coldly.

“No. No, dear Peters. His eyes will not be better, tomorrow. They will be closed!”

“Then don’t you think we had better wait until after the funeral?” Prissy intervened.

“Hell, no!” Harrison snorted. “Bear Sterling is the best friend I ever had. He dragged me out of the gutter and made a doctor of me. Either his son is cleared, or I’ll not be caught at his funeral with you skunks!”

His anger was so intense that nobody dared object. Princeton wiped his brow clean with a lavender silk handkerchief and Harrison continued:

“He cannot defend his son who by his own murderers is accused of murdering patients. Well, I know his son is innocent!”

“How do you know it?” Hoffbein hypodermicked.

“By a method that none of you three could ever comprehend. Because I trust the man. Now let’s get down to tacks. If Ethridge is innocent he ought to be cleared before sunset. If he is guilty he ought to be hanged before then. Clearing him or convicting him with the police is out of the question. But cleared he has got to be, and therefore I propose that we instruct MacArthur to hire the best private detectives in the United States to become patients on B Ward and orderlies throughout the building, with the right to question any or all of us....”

“But why ... why ... Harrison...?”

“Shut up, Princeton.... I beg your pardon, Peters.... How do MacArthur and I know that Miss Roenna Kerr and her niece are not working as accomplices for you or Hoffbein in murdering patients in Ethridge Sterling’s clinic?”

“Oh, oh, oh! Harrison you _don’t_ mean that!”

“I do, Peters.”

“You can’t realize what you are saying, man,” Hoffbein was soothingly calm.

“I do, Hoffbein! I realize quite thoroughly that Bear Sterling’s son’s reputation is as dear to Dr. Barton and Dr. MacArthur and to myself as that of any world-famous man who ever had a patient in the Elijah Wilson Hospital. I would sooner, much sooner, see the reputations of you three scraped in the mire and flung away across the world by the tabloids than to see the name of a man who cannot be present to protect himself slurred by your nasty insinuations.

“His good name is just as valuable to us as yours are ... more so ... and so far as we are concerned your honor needs cleansing a great deal more than his does. The only way to cleanse any of our reputations now is to quit treating every person ... _whatever his rank_ ... involved in this matter ... as innocent, and consider all of us guilty until the criminal is caught.

“Do any of you suspect MacArthur? Well, that’s something in your favor. MacArthur, you hire the detectives, and instruct them to consider all of us guilty ... until we are proved innocent....

“And in case any of you have any scruples whatever about talking I wish you to remember that Barton’s brother is the Attorney-General of this state and at one word from MacArthur he will have all of you _made_ to talk ... to save your own reputations, let alone that of the blessed hospital.

“Miss Roenna Kerr, working through her niece as accomplice, outside of Ethridge Sterling, Junior, is the other suspect. She has been a patient of every man sitting in this room with the exception of Dr. Barton, Dr. MacArthur and myself. Consider your position, gentlemen....”

»VII«
The New Patient in Bed Eleven

Dr. MacArthur flapped the yellow telegram helplessly and wondered how to face them. Through some pull or other they had made the mail plane from New York and would be in his office in fifteen minutes.

Two men and a woman. Three detectives; and he had never faced a detective in his life. How did a man treat detectives? Must one defer, or order?

Probably Harrison would know. A urologist had every profession in his grip sooner or later. He reached for the telephone. Dr. Harrison laughed at the question. It was the first time he had laughed since entering the hospital that morning, learning of Rose Standish’s death and realizing that Bear Sterling’s was only a matter of sixty or seventy hours.

“You are tired, aren’t you, Mac? Give ’em some infant feeding and a dose of paregoric once around! Buck up, old man! I suggest you tell the truth, the whole truth, and let them create their own suspicions.

“Remember they were hand-picked by the Rockefeller Foundation. They are intelligent. Newspaper reporters grown up ... and you’re a whiz with newspaper reporters. Call me if you need me. ’By!”

Dr. MacArthur was reassured. Like an oak, Harrison! Tried, staunch and straight!

His secretary entered and said, “Two men and a woman to see you, sir.”

“Show them in, please.”

The two men were carrying handbags and overcoats. The first was tall and dignified. He had a long square body. Everything about him was muscular, under perfect control and heavy-set. His eyes, suit, overcoat, and hair were gray. His teeth were strong and even. His eyes showed the same steely calm that Bear Sterling’s had. Judgmatical. The enemy was death; the man you were after, or yours. So far he had been lucky, and he had a lucky man’s nonchalance.

“Dr. MacArthur? Matthew Higgins is my name.”

His voice was deep and buoyant.

His handclasp was like a vice. It steadied Dr. MacArthur like a cup of strong coffee.

The voice continued:

“Mr. Smooty, Dr. MacArthur.”

Smooty was slight. His body and face were completely relaxed and pastel. Green eyes melted into mild cheeks. He had the utter inactivity and extreme alertness of a clown and the fading quality of a chameleon.

His grip was like that of a contortionist. One had to find it.

His voice was colorless.

“Delighted to know you, Doctor.”

Mr. Higgins turned to the woman and said:

“I beg your pardon, Miss Parkins. I should have introduced you first, but air-travel leaves me woozy. Miss Parkins, Dr. MacArthur.”

MacArthur was her kind and she sensed it. She stretched her capable hand and smiled. Their summary was like sun on metal.

One could never lose memory of her physically. She was tall, square-shouldered, with the long, slender legs of a gracefully tall woman. Her face was ugly and expressive. The nose was too short, the mouth too wide, but the flashes were sudden and revealing. They were as vivid, highly original and occasionally blank as heat lightning. And massed in with her extreme directness was a wistful, childlike appeal.

Her limpid eyes flashed into life as Dr. MacArthur carefully seated her, took her coat and motioned the men to chairs.

“A pleasant trip, I hope?”

His voice was old and courteous.

“Very,” the gray man was the spokesman. “This letter,” he drew a thick envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to MacArthur, “we were instructed, Doctor, to request that you read it immediately upon our arrival.”

Dr. MacArthur took the letter and carefully tore the flap.

“Thank you,” he said looking up. Then he rose and offered the men and the woman cigarettes, struck a match and extended it to the woman. He always offered newspaper reporters cigarettes, and Harrison had said detectives were....

Miss Parkins smiled, took the match, lighted, and passed it.

Dr. MacArthur returned to his chair and began reading and she said, “Three on a match. Unlucky!”

Then they were silent. The air was full of estimation. The letter was long, and evidently from the head of the detective agency. It was addressed to Dr. MacArthur and said:

“Mr. Higgins has been in our employ about fifteen years and handled
many executive jobs. Your request was for a man capable of
impersonating a well-to-do patient, or a member of the administrative
staff of a distant hospital; a man who may be given full run of the
hospital and thereby an opportunity, we gather, to question, without
creating suspicion, in every department. We have recently had Mr.
Higgins upon a job necessitating the trapping of an embezzler within
one of our largest New York hospitals. He has our complete confidence,
a worldwide experience with people, and an excellent judgment of men.
We have found him especially successful in catching mental criminals,
and from Dr. Bridgman of the Rockefeller, we judge that is your
problem.

“Mr. Smooty has long experience in impersonations. He has done
confidence work in Sing-Sing, department stores, and as a hotel
detective; also we have used him in the Pennsylvania Station. His
nondescript appearance is an excellent foil for his capabilities. You
asked for a man who might be placed as a menial.

“He and Mr. Higgins have worked together for many years and are among
the first ranking detectives in America. Mr. Smooty is originally an
Englishman and has also done work for Scotland Yard and in the British
Intelligence.”

Dr. MacArthur took his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. This was the first time, to his knowledge, he had ever sat in the presence of a Scotland Yard man. And as a little boy, next to being a dogcatcher, to belong to Scotland Yard.... It left him rather awed. Maybe the woman was a Russian Grand Duchess!

He returned his attention, his eyes had never left it, to the letter and read:

“Miss Parkins has done international and character work for us for
about five years. She, in our opinion, is capable of any situation
where courage, brains, and mixing abilities are required. Within the
last year we have had her upon one of the big liners between New York
and Cherbourg, on the road with the circus, and living as an immigrant
on the East Side. During the war, she worked for the Government in
Mexico. She, we understand, you desire as a patient on a ward of
medical women. She has an unfortunate, and slight, heart ailment,
which will serve to divert the suspicion of even your staff.

“The terrible delicacy with which the situation must be handled has
occasioned our sending what we consider the three most able people in
New York. Miss Parkins was taken off political work today at the
insistence of Dr. Bridgman, through whom we were contacted, and who
seems to feel that the patient in the ward of medical women is the key
person. All three people were interviewed by and met with the approval
of Dr. Bridgman.

“Our terms, which at his suggestion we state, are $2000.00 per week
and maintenance.

“Awaiting your orders,

“We are....”

Dr. MacArthur carefully folded the letter and decided to take Harrison’s advice. Two thousand dollars a week ... it took brains and plenty of them to be able to demand that!

The late afternoon sun had left the room. He looked up and discovered the room was semi-dark, and the three people were sitting motionless. The door into the corridor was still open; he had been too rattled to close it when they entered. The measured and constant footfalls of the thousands of feet had padded into his consciousness so long that he didn’t sense it, but they must.

He rose, closed the door, turned up the lights and said, as he walked toward the windows to lower the shades, “Sorry to subject you to all of that racket. Time for duty changes. Hospitals are noisy places.”

Mr. Higgins had risen and was pulling down the shades, too.

“So is New York, Doctor.”

Dr. MacArthur nodded and returned to his desk. He looked at his wrist watch and said:

“Miss Parkins, Mr. Higgins and Mr. Smooty, if we are to get Miss Parkins on Ward B as a patient tonight, my résumé must necessarily be shorter than I should desire.

“You were sent for because there have been committed in the Elijah Wilson Hospital within the last week two traceable murders, proved by autopsy findings, and two deaths ... in the same bed. The deaths (we presume them murders also) preceded the murders. The last person murdered was a nurse who volunteered to go into the bed in an effort to solve the mystery.”

Mr. Higgins moved restlessly.

“I know we have been slow in calling you in, Mr. Higgins. But this decision was only reached after a series of long and irascible conferences, and frankly I was against it, until the nurse was murdered.

“A hospital, you see ... a great hospital ... lives, breathes, exists, as a fountain of hope. It is trusted by _everybody_. For more than forty years the Elijah Wilson has lived up to that trust. We have received endowments, and large ones, to add units to our plant for the teaching of medical students. We were started, have been perpetuated, and are famous as a great teaching hospital.

“Now a teaching hospital, Miss Parkins, exists upon the fact that it has more patients than beds. When you have that situation reversed, the hospital is doomed. D’y’see?”

The three people nodded, and Dr. MacArthur continued:

“If any of you three walked out of this room and gave to the press of this country the information I have just given you in the last five minutes, you would automatically ruin the future of every medical man, resident, student and interne here, the hope of renewed health in a very large portion of suffering humanity, the years and painstaking labor of many famous men, now dead, whose lives were given, as bricks are given, to the building of this hospital’s justified fame.

“It has been upon the complete realization of that grave responsibility that our hesitation was based. I admit that we were mistaken, but our situation was so unexpected, so unparalleled, and so terrifying, that we dared not alter one straw for fear of losing our needle in this great haystack. There are at least fifteen people who may have been guilty of this crime. If they suspect...?”

“Have you any suspects, sir?”

“Yes, Mr. Higgins. That was why I finally succumbed to sending for the best detectives that this country has to offer. My nursing and medical staffs are beginning to suspect themselves ... and each other....”

“I see! I see, Doctor.”

“All four patients were nursed and attended by the same staff members?”

“Yes, Miss Parkins.”

“Then I suggest, in fact, request, sir,” Mr. Higgins intervened, “that you do not tell us who your suspects are. It will cloud our work. An open mind and a lack of tradition.... Oh, no. Doctor, ... we are completely aware of that and will guard it, sir, with our lives.... I am referring to personal tradition with reference to staff members....

“A lack of belief in the honesty of any man we contact because he is famous, or brilliant, or noted, will be one of the most invaluable things we can have.

“Now to return to the murders. What do the autopsy findings show, exactly?”

“That they were committed with the same drug. Coniine, the active principal of hemlock. Administered hypodermically and in the first case which took effect in a little over an hour and in the second case within less than forty minutes. The second dose, that given the nurse was much larger. Our chief pharmacist has checked the supply sources. We have never had any coniine in the hospital, and it can be secured from only three houses in the country. None of them reports recent sales. We have wired all three.

“Who, qualified to administer a hypodermic, had access to the patients?” Mr. Higgins’ voice was low and sudden.

Dr. MacArthur’s was clear and calm.

“The entire nursing and medical staff practicing upon that floor.”

Mr. Smooty sat blankly by. Miss Parkins took her second cigarette from her mouth and asked:

“Are the hypodermics compounded in the pharmacy?”

“No. On the floor. By the nurse on duty, acting only upon prescription from the attending physician. The medicine closets on the ward ... and every floor of that building ... have been searched after each murder. They reveal nothing.”

“When were the murders discovered?”

“At night, Miss Parkins. After midnight rounds made by the student nurse. Perhaps I had better give you a full picture. The ward contains thirty beds, in four rows, each seven being separated by a glass partition. The two extra beds are in rooms for dying patients. Each ward has a day white (graduate) nurse, and four student nurses on duty. Their duty changes as to hours are not important to this case.

“The white nurse goes off duty for the night at seven, and leaves her instructions with two student nurses who prepare the ward for the night, and go off duty at nine, when a single student nurse (bringing the total of student nurses to five) usually a pupil within the last six months of training, comes on and ‘beds the ward down’ for the night and remains on duty until seven the following morning. It is her business to give all night hypodermics and medicines, and make regular rounds upon the patients to see how they are. On the ward with her is an orderly, who runs any sudden errands and helps with any manual labor. He usually remains in the ward-kitchen washing dishes and preparing the breakfast trays and cleaning the ward corridors, etc. The orderly on this ward has been there twenty years, and is not capable of any remarkable murder. A trusted menial. He has been ordered into bed, as a suspected typhoid carrier, tonight, and it is his position which you are to fill, Mr. Smooty.”

An imperceptible nod was Mr. Smooty’s only acknowledgment.

Dr. MacArthur continued:

“Over the entire building at night there is a night supervisor who makes floor rounds upon the student nurses in charge and is available in case they get into difficulties.”

“Where was she during the murders, Doctor?”

“During the first one, in the lavatory, Miss Parkins, and during the second her telephone did not answer and she was making rounds in the building.”

“I see. The student nurse...?”

“Don’t go into her,” Mr. Higgins ordered. “Take her with an open mind. You and Smooty tell us about her tomorrow.”

Higgins leaned forward and asked:

“Any way to enter the ward, except by the corridor?”

Dr. MacArthur hesitated a moment; his eyes narrowed suddenly.

“I hadn’t thought of it, sir, but there is. In the rebuilding, the porch of each floor, upon which the convalescent patients are rolled, is connected with the porch of the floor below by a narrow concrete stairway. Wide enough to permit a stretcher, as a matter of fact. Satisfies fire regulations and does away with fire-escapes.”

Higgins nodded.

MacArthur continued:

“But the door to that porch is always locked at night. The key is on the inside. All of our combined evidence points to an entry via the ward corridor.”

Higgins nodded again.

Then to Dr. MacArthur he said:

“Outside of the autopsy findings are there any pieces of evidence which re-occur after the murders, Doctor?”

“Yes. After the first, the student nurse claimed that she felt someone on the floor, but was boiling a syringe and could not leave and that a patient said it was....”

Mr. Higgins stopped him.

“That is just what I do not want to know.”

“Anything else?” Miss Parkins insisted.

“For six months, Mr. Higgins, we have had on that ward a little girl, a chronic nephritis ...” he looked over his glasses and explained to Miss Parkins, “a kidney ailment of a very stubborn sort.... She is really pretty and quite a favorite throughout the hospital. Upon her crib, the morning after the first traceable murder she found a doll.”

He opened his desk drawer and took out the Ma-ma doll. Miss Parkins reached for it to straighten the bonnet, and it howled. She turned it over quickly and Mr. Smooty said, “Jesus Christ!”

It was the first response he had made to any of the information. Mr. Higgins ignored it and said, “Finger-prints?”

“It had been handled by many people when we got it, sir.”

“Yes. Of course. After the second murder, Doctor?”

“There was no doll upon her bed, but this doll was found....” and he reached for the Pa-pa doll and handed it to Mr. Smooty, whose green eyes were like pin points.

“Where, Doctor?” his voice was again colorless.

But his interest was so concentrated that he forgot and turned the doll over and it whined, “Pa-pa.”

Everybody jumped and Mr. Higgins reached for both of them and laid them on the mahogany table upon their backs. They closed their eyes and Miss Parkins looked at the crisp bonnets, dresses and panties and shivered.

Two dolls. Two murders.

“I think we should know where it was found, Doctor,” Mr. Higgins’ voice was firm.

“In the desk of the Head Nurse of Medicine Clinic, sir. A doctor looking for case charts discovered it, accidentally.”

“Is she friendly with the night student nurse?” It was Smooty who spoke.

“She is her aunt, gentlemen,” and then Dr. MacArthur cleared his throat and continued, “She was one of the first head nurses when the hospital was young. Her work has always been well executed. A very trusted woman.”

“Especially antagonistic to any doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Whom?”

“The head of the clinic, Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, affectionately known as ‘Cub’ Sterling. He is on probation, very confidentially, as head. The physician-in-chief died of a heart attack last spring, and Dr. Sterling, who has done very brilliant work, has temporarily his chief’s place. His father is Dr. Ethridge Sterling, possibly you have heard...?”

“The surgeon. Bear Sterling! I should say so!” Higgins responded. “Why is the head nurse antagonistic?”

“I do not know. Perhaps because she is getting old and is afraid of retirement if Sterling remains in charge.”

“I see. Pretty ugly situation you have been in, sir.”

“It isn’t I, it’s the hospital. Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Senior, is dying of a heart attack complicated by pneumonia brought on by this situation. One of our graduate nurses has been murdered.... Frankly, your coming shifts a great weight from my shoulders. And I should like to say if I have failed to make anything clear, question me. We are all a bit shell-shocked, I dare say.”

“Yes, there is, Doctor. Did Dr. Sterling, Senior, see all of the murdered patients, too?”

“He did. He performed the autopsies on all except the last one. The nurse.”

“Has any person been murdered since he has been out of the picture?”

Mr. Higgins’ weight was behind his words.

“I don’t believe I understand you, Mr. Higgins,” Dr. MacArthur gripped his chair arms, and his sensitive mouth looked like blistered flesh.

Mr. Higgins ignored that and attacked his eyes.

“Sorry, Doctor, but that is exactly the reason you sent for us. To understand things. Please answer my question.”

“He was taken with double pneumonia last night, and Rose Standish was murdered last night. The bed is empty now.”

“But he saw her and left a sleeping potion of which you told Dr. Bridgman over the ’phone and after that was administered she was murdered?”

“Please, Mr. Higgins,” Dr. MacArthur’s knuckles were white against the desk, “I have learned that potion was ... bread-pills.... He had hoped to calm her nerves and yet leave her capable of catching.... I would swear before God that Dr. Sterling....”

“Of course you would, sir,” there was admiration in Mr. Higgins’ response, “but painful operations are often necessary, and since he is the only person who has retired from the case, since the beginning, I am obliged to know what developments have taken place since his retirement. It’s like chess, Doctor, your moves depend upon your position.”

Dr. MacArthur had regained complete control of himself and Miss Parkins had risen and poured out a glass of water from a thermos bottle upon the mantelpiece which she was holding out to him. She smiled and said:

“It’s been a long strain and you have stood it magnificently. Is there anything else you wish to tell us before Smooty and I go?”

Her strength passed through him and he straightened himself, and Mr. Higgins said:

“If brought in as an accident, what are the chances of Miss Parkins being put in this bed ... number...?”

“Eleven.”

The eyes of the other three people were upon Higgins, inquiringly.

“Why?”

“Because, Doctor, in view of the information I now have in hand relative to the head nurse and her niece ... by the way, what are their names?”

“Kerr. K-e-r-r.”

Only Mr. Smooty’s lips fought to remain a straight line. The concentration of the other three was too intense to notice the expression.

Mr. Higgins placed his gray eyes upon Dr. MacArthur’s blue ones and continued:

“If Miss Parkins goes on the ward in a routine way as a patient, she will automatically be suspected by them and therefore become less valuable to us. But if she falls upon the street with a heart attack within four blocks of the hospital, arrives at the accident room entrance in an ambulance, and is admitted to Ward B, Bed 11.... You see?”

“Perfectly.”

“Can we be sure that she will be placed in Bed 11, sir? That the staff in the accident room will admit her for medical treatment and that she will be sent to that floor and put in that bed?”

“A moment and I’ll see.” Dr. MacArthur reached for his telephone and said:

“Superintendent of nurses, please. Miss Carruthers? Dr. MacArthur. Will you please ascertain for your _own_ information the vacant beds in Medicine Clinic and their location, and call me back immediately? Thank you.”

He turned to Miss Parkins and said:

“What kind of ailment is it? How bad?”

“It’s a false angina, and during the attacks causes extreme palpitation. By intense excitement I can create a definite change in my heart action, and the other symptoms are permanent.”

“I see. Given you much trouble?” MacArthur was solicitous.

The telephone interrupted.

He answered and took his pencil, wrote upon a memorandum pad and repeated:

“Medicine, Ward A—7 & 8, Ward B—11, and 5th floor, rooms 502 & 514. Thank you.”

“An unknown accident case, with a heart ailment, Mr. Higgins, picked up on the street and admitted through the accident room, would undoubtedly be placed in Bed 11, Ward B. Ward A, which has two vacant beds, is medical men, and floor five is private rooms. You are too well-dressed, though, Miss Parkins.”

“If her pocketbook contained only one dollar and she had no addresses upon her person, Doctor?”

“They would not take a chance on someone paying for a private room, Mr. Higgins. You are right. The only chance is whether she can pass the accident staff, as I see it.”

“That is a chance we have to take,” Mr. Higgins decided.

He looked at his wrist watch and said:

“One more question, Doctor, and then, with your permission I should like to have some private place where I may talk to Mr. Smooty and Miss Parkins before we turn Miss Parkins out upon the street and you take Mr. Smooty to the head orderly.

“Two more questions, now I think of it. The first: How is the hysteria throughout the hospital? The second: You expect, of course, that Mr. Smooty will be suspected as a detective?”

“Since the last question has the shortest answer, I will go to that first. That seems to me unavoidable, Mr. Higgins, and perhaps will work to our advantage. It will focus attention, from the nursing, medical and menial staffs, upon one person.

“As to the hysteria in the hospital. It is at a dangerous level and rising hourly. Not among the patients, yet.... Thank God! ... with the exception of the patients on Ward B and they have been told that Miss Standish, the nurse, hemorrhaged (we put her in as a tubercular suspect) and although they probably believe her dead, they have no proof. And their attention has been diverted by the terrible condition of Dr. Sterling, Senior. He has always been a great favorite throughout the wards. Patients love him. The other patients, on the other wards are too segregated and many of them too dangerously ill to be excited or aware of the situation.

“According to Miss Carruthers, our superintendent of nurses, to whom I was just talking, the hysteria among the nursing staff is serious. Before the death of the nurse they took the excitement mildly, with the exception of the people in Medicine Clinic who were questioned.

“With the exception of the General Staff, the toxicologist, the chief pharmacist, and the staff of Medical Clinic, no persons in the hospital have any definite knowledge as to whether these patients are murders or fadeouts.

“Perhaps it is that lack of knowledge which has so increased the fever heat among the medical staffs. They suspect, but they _do not know_. And half knowledge, and especially around a hospital....”

He threw his hands out hopelessly.

“Since the death of the nurse, the entire medical and nursing services have been at a breaking point. Their internal pressure can be felt in every dining room. Something must be done and done immediately. That is one of the reasons I approve of the word getting around that a detective has been put on Ward B at night....”

“A wise attitude, Doctor. Now if you will be so kind as to give us a private room and a few minutes?”

“I suggest you use my office and allow me to retire. After Miss Parkins has gone, I will show you a room in which you and Mr. Smooty may meet, when you desire. A laboratory in an unfrequented part of the hospital.”

He rose wearily and passed out of the door and closed it carefully behind him.

Mr. Higgins lit a cigarette and turned to the other two.

“What do you make of it?”

He questioned both of them in one sentence.

Miss Parkins answered, “He’s square. But he is shielding someone.”

Mr. Smooty inserted his sentence at the end of hers. “Honest as the King. But worried sick. There is somebody he considers innocent, that the others have dots on. All I got to say is somebody around here is crazy as hell.”

Mr. Higgins, who had never been sick a day in his life and never slept in a hospital even so much as one night, had a healthy man’s antagonism for the medical profession.

“Toughest job we’ve ever had. He’s square all right, but how the hell can you catch a murderer in a hospital? You are right, Snod. Somebody around here is crazy as a tick. And lots of people are lying. One thing you got to remember is you are up against professional liars. All nurses and doctors are professional liars. Didn’t one tell me my mother was ‘doing nicely’ when she had been dead an hour? So watch everybody in the same way you watch a spy.

“He’s also covering somebody that everybody else believes guilty. I think I know whom he is covering. But that’ll wait. He suspects that head nurse and her niece. That’s plain as day. And he didn’t tell the truth about why he thinks she is doing it. There’s somebody behind them, in his mind.”

He stopped for a moment to draw breath and Miss Parkins flipped her cigarette and said:

“Matt, I’d like a gun, if you don’t mind?”

“You scared, Lil?”

“No. I’m never scared. Especially when I have a gun.”

“Don’t be a fool, Lil.” He put his big square hand over her capable one.

“They’ll strip you to the bone when you go through that accident racket. A gun is out of the question. You’ll have Snod.” He motioned to Mr. Smooty.

She smiled but she wasn’t reassured.

“He is slow as hell about wiping dishes when you are having a Sunday night supper. I couldn’t get him out of that kitchen till I’d been dead hours.”

Smooty’s green eyes took on life for the first time since he had entered the room. He said.

“A hospital’s duty is to protect everybody. I’ll be a member of a hospital staff in twenty minutes, Lil.”

She shrugged her square shoulders and her limpid eyes begged.

“The murderer is a member of the hospital staff, Snod. He’ll beat you to it.”

Higgins intervened.

“For God’s sake, Lil! Hold on to yourself!”

“It’s those damn dolls,” she laughed.

Higgins smiled strongly into her eyes and threw his overcoat over the dolls. “There’s enough hysteria around here as it is. Don’t add to it. Unless Snod has something to say I guess you might just as well sneak out and do your fainting fit. Want me to send you flowers when you get sick, little girl?”

“Hush, Matt. Flowers are not funny in this case.”

She opened her handbag and took out three hundred dollars in fifty dollar bills and counted them carefully. Beside them she laid the cards of a speakeasy on West 11th Street and of one on 44th. She opened the zipper center of the black alligator bag and took from it her identification card with the agency and the picture of a man in an officer’s uniform of the British Intelligence. Near these she spread a large white silk handkerchief into which she scooped the outlay, and then removed from her wrist a large sapphire and diamond wrist watch. She closed the bag, first counting the money remaining. One dollar bill and three dimes and a nickel. Then she tied the contents of the bag in the large silk handkerchief and handed it to Higgins.

He took it carefully and put it in his coat pocket.

“Going, Lil?” His gray eyes looked up into her limpid ones confidently.

“Now. See you later.”

She opened the door and disappeared.

Miss Evelina Kerr, student night nurse on Ward B, Medicine Clinic, shook down the thermometer and inserted it into the mouth of the new patient in Bed 11, with an air of relief, and just a touch of condescension.

“Good evening. Have you remembered your name?”

Miss Lillian Parkins weakly shook her head and her eyes were sad.

Miss Kerr, who had been over the clothes in the locker, knew that the coat was expensive and the fur good, but that she had no money, so gave her her “free patient” smile and passed on.

Lillian Parkins lay inert and tried to clear her mind. A long plane trip, then the terrible strain of appearing ill before the prying eyes of two internes and that little Jewish resident doctor had left her weak as dishwater. A touch of straight scotch was what she needed.... It was damn hard to relax and veil your eyes and yet see everything. Still that was the game, that was what made the job so ... fascinating!

That girl’s eyes were too close, and there was an ugly sense of triumph when she had found her in the bed, and a nasty condescension, and a dead voice, creepy kind of! Somewhere she had seen a woman who moved like that with a voice like that, a stubborn little mind like that who ... who ... hands like snakes, or bananas, who ... was it?

She closed her eyes to keep the life out of them, and began to check cases. On the Leviathan last year, in that Welfare Island group in May, doing that route collecting for pimps on the Southern circuit? No! None of those, but somewhere within the last eighteen months....

Ah, she had it. That medium who worked for the hypnotist in the side-show and peddled dope in the circus. That vicious little adder who had tried to throw acid in her eyes when she caught her with the goods. Whew! Lord!

The goose-flesh began to stand out on her arms and legs. That’s who she was, the same automaton voice, the same kind of little snake, out working for a python and she had to face her without so much as an automatic and go to sleep while she was doing it. Not go to sleep. Not on your life. Feign sleep! Feign sleep for ten hours, and then somehow manage not to have a real heart attack and pass out honest!

Swell job this was! Lots of fun! If she could get her hands on Matt Higgins now! Somehow she had to have a word with Snod. And quick!

Around her the monotonous conversation of the ward was droning, but since she was supposed to be too weak to talk, she closed her mind to it. Except for the realization that these women were afraid of the night. Had stood the day, but were afraid of the night and wanted to tell her about the bed. Wanted desperately to warn her ... somehow. The lapping conversation and her own preoccupation made her unaware of Miss Kerr’s return, until she felt the thermometer eased from her lips, and shivered.

Reptile who moved like that would have a hypodermic in you before you knew it.

She kept her eyes closed and pretended complete fatigue. Miss Kerr’s pleasure at her presence seemed to increase. She said briskly and jubilantly:

“You’ll be around before you know it. Your pulse and temperature are pretty good, considering. Your medicine will be along in a minute and then you can have a good night’s sleep.”

Miss Parkins opened her eyes feebly and gave her the fading lily smile. Miss Kerr returned it with the “miserable object” expression.

But had Miss Lillian Parkins been less of the consummate actress, the glimpse of Snod Smooty, late of Scotland Yard and the British Intelligence, now arrayed in the nondescript white coat of a hospital orderly, and carrying, as a hotel porter might bags, an assortment of bed-pans, would have shattered her facial control.

He was on the ward before Miss Kerr had seen him. His face was as vacant as a concrete highway and his voice was as deferential as a butler’s.

“Here you are, Miss.”

The laughter of the women made Miss Kerr ease around, and when her slow eyes had taken in the situation, her routine mind exploded into wrath, remarkably spontaneous.

“Who told you to do that? You are not supposed to bring the bed-pans on the ward. I ... I....”

Smooty swallowed like a hurt child and one pan started slipping toward the floor. Miss Kerr slunk forward and caught it.

Mrs. Witherspoon spoke up:

“Don’t be upset, Miss Kerr. We understands. And now thet he’s here....”

Miss Kerr looked appraisingly toward Mrs. Witherspoon and tried to deny her.

A very insistent telephone commanded her attention and threw her routine existence out of whack. She was told to prepare for a new patient and spent five minutes explaining to the night superintendent that the bed was already given to an accident room case and the patient would have to....

The orderly took advantage of the opportunity and began handing out pans along the side of the ward where Miss Parkins lay. It was Mrs. Witherspoon’s, “Pull the curtains. Pull the curtains. Quick!” which gave him an opportunity to speak to Miss Parkins unobserved.

He said, “How are you?”

“Scared.”

“I’ll watch her, close.”

“Stick to her, Snod. For God’s sake!”

His eyes came to life and strengthened her.

“She won’t do anything tonight. She won’t get around an old pan-handler like me. If you are scared as you say you are, you must have the.... Here’s a pan!”

He thrust one at her and moved on.

Miss Kerr re-entered the ward and said crisply, “William.”

“Horace, mam,” he corrected as he handed the circus performer her pan.

The girl was disconcerted by the correction.

“Well, it doesn’t matter, really. The thing that matters is that you are to stay off this ward unless I call you. There is plenty of work for you in the kitchen. Go down to Ward A and get me a syringe. I’ve already called Miss Wilson about your coming.”

Snod Smooty looked blankly up at the nurse.

“A hypo syringe?”

“Yes. Of course. Why?”

He thought he detected a slight dilation of her pupils, and replied carelessly:

“You see, Miss, at St. Giles, in London, we always called enemas syringes. I jus’ needs to know, you see.”

“Were you there, Horace?”

“I ain’t braggin’ Miss, but I was an orderly there four years. That’s how come I brought the bed-pans; we done it that way!”

He threw his helpless hands out in an explanatory gesture and shambled down the corridor.

Miss Evelina Kerr sat down at her desk to regain her control. She should have gone on with the routine. But she sat down. Things weren’t going so well. That man was a detective as sure as life and he was lying, and Aunt Roenna ought to know....

She picked up the telephone and started to take the receiver from the hook, and then she jumped up and somehow smothered a scream.

Standing over her, peering down into her little, piggish eyes with his steel-gray slits was a tall, fat man, in a blue uniform with brass buttons. In his right hand he held a bunch of red American Beauty roses, and the other was in a side pocket.

Miss Kerr thought he was a policeman and the left hand was upon his pistol holster. He carefully placed the roses in the elbow of the left arm, and with his right hand drew her out into the ward. His grip was strong and heavy.

By that time Miss Kerr had regained her breath. She tried to snatch her arm away and cringed when she failed.

“What do you want?”

“To shee the night nurse on Ward B.”

“I’m the night nurse.” Her voice still quaked.

Gripping her like a vice, he stuck his thick face into hers and the stench of his breath reached the whole ward.

“Y’re not Rhosh Standziz! Where is Rosh?”

Then swaying as a top-heavy steamer might when tied to a brittle mooring, he turned to the ward and announced:

“I’se bin in luz wiz Rosh, scincz ... sincz ... sincz ...” he shook his head helplessly and the motion seemed to straighten his tongue, temporarily.... “I just came back from China Station. They said over the ’phone last night Rose was on Ward B.” His voice clouded again. “Sho I brought her shum r ... r ... rhozes.”

He laid the flowers upon a bed and took Miss Kerr’s face in both of his hands. By that time every woman on the ward was sitting bolt upright regardless of her condition. A fly would have sounded like an airplane.

Crushing her face with his hands, he demanded:

“Swhere iz Rosh? Zhu! Phoo! Zhu ain’t Rosh!” and then his voice took on a hide-and-seek tenor.

And he crushed with more force, and they both swayed.

“Swherah ... iz ... Rosh?”

Lillian Parkins sat like a race horse at the starter. Every time he crushed the nurse, she thanked him ... silently....

He swayed horribly and they staggered.

He increased his grip and his voice was brutal.

“Stell me! St-ell me! Swhere iz Rosh?”

“Rose is dead!” Miss Kerr’s voice had taken on life at last. Every woman in the ward heard her remark.

And it was Mrs. Witherspoon’s horrible, scrunching scream that came like the brakes of a truck after an accident, which shocked the other women into silence and brought Horace, the new orderly, up the corridor on the run.

And with that scream the brain of Lieutenant Brady, U.S.N. disintegrated. He loosened his grip upon the student nurse and flung her to the floor.

“Rosh iz dead! Dead in a hoshbittle!”

He began skipping around as a child might and singing monotonously, “Ring aroun’ de Roshy! Rosh’s dead. Rosh’s dead. Ring aroun’ de Roshy.”

Then he caught the approaching Horace out of the corner of his eye and laughed hollowly.

“Cash me!”

He began rolling under the patients’ beds, playing a literal hide-and-seek with both the student nurse, who had staggered to her feet, and the nimble orderly who was saying in a loud voice.

“You are dead drunk! You ... fool!”

The final scramble took place under the bed of Lillian Parkins and Miss Kerr ran to the telephone to call the night superintendent.

As Snod Smooty caught one foot of the big man and began pulling, Lillian Parkins leaned over the side of her bed and hissed:

“Don’t let that bitch get within fifteen feet of me! Tell Matt that examination was worse than being looked over for a harem. If he doesn’t get me out of here by tomorrow night, I’ll walk out. Get the sailor out quietly, Snod. He loved that dead nurse.”

Apparently paying no attention, Snod Smooty managed to keep the scramble loud enough to cover Miss Parkins’ remarks.

He gave the sailor a little jujutsu and had him swaying down the corridor before Miss Kerr had found the night superintendent. They disappeared to the sailor’s monotone which had sunk to the note of a child trying to lull himself to sleep.

“Ring aroun’ de Roshy! Rosh’s dead. Rosh’s dead. Ring aroun’ de Roshy!”

Snod Smooty carried him over his shoulder down the stairs and out of the side entrance. Upon the curb stone he stood him against a parked automobile and then socked him under the jaw. As he fell, Snod opened the automobile door and laid him out upon the back seat to sleep it off.

Snod’s colorless face was tender and old. He wanted a cigarette. Worst scene he had ever witnessed and he’d seen some hellbenders in his day. But Lil was as hysterical as any of them.