Chapter VIII: Part 8

“At sixteen, when the boys in the orphanage discovered my inabilities,
I determined to ruin my father ... and began studying pharmacy with an
idea of becoming connected, eventually, with his hospital.

“The orphanage farmed me out to a pharmacist. Otto Weber had become a
political influence. I went to him and worked upon his sentiment. It
was he, and the excellency of my work ... and why not? I am the son of
Dr. Sterling ... that persuaded the Attorney-General to recommend me
to Dr. Barton and Dr. MacArthur as assistant pharmacist.

“I passed my state boards brilliantly. I entered the pharmacy of the
Elijah Wilson, the same year that Cub Sterling entered medical school.

“He spent ten years studying the science of medicine. I spent those
ten years perfecting myself in the science of murder. At first I
intended murdering the patients of my father, slowly, occasionally,
over a period of years. Then I perceived if I waited until Wilkins
died, became promoted as Chief Pharmacist and murdered my brother’s
patients, I would doubly ruin my father....

“Then the gods smiled...! Through the losing of my top hair, I,
unconsciously, grew a nickname. For five years now, I have catered to
that nickname. I shaved my center part to accentuate my bald spot. I
pomaded my long front hair, which naturally is curly as my brother’s,
to slick behind my ears ... to change my forehead line.

“There is not a famous doctor around this hospital who would not
testify as to my baldness....

“Around a hospital where so many people are constantly passing at
stated intervals to stated places, the eyes of even a good observer
become dulled into ‘seeing,’ when a person resembling a familiar
doctor passes at an unexpected time, that doctor!

“It is upon that knowledge, a sudden assumption of my brother’s queer
angularity, and the combing of my recently washed hair to cover my
bald spot, that I have built my resemblance ... not upon the
features....

“Some day I shall be caught. When I am caught my father will be caught
also.”

“Is that all?” Higgins was still relentless....

Cub Sterling’s head jerked up from his folded arms and he said:

“God! It’s enough!”

Sally Ferguson’s voice out into him:

“There is a diary of the murders, too.”

Both men rose and came to her side. Their movement disturbed the fly and he began circling around the dead man’s head.

Sally’s voice drowned out his buzzing.

“Cupola, Friday, May 13th ... 1:00 A.M. I have just committed my first
murder upon the patient in Bed 11, Ward B. I know I have just
completed it, because I filled, myself, the prescription to which I
added Datura stramonium. The medicine was to be administered at
midnight. The dose should, with the heavy bromide I included, have
acted in an hour. It is unexpected and therefore not likely to cause
an autopsy.

“The patient is one of my father’s and also under the care of my
brother.

“And she is now dead.”

“Cupola, Sunday, May 15th ... 1:00 A.M. The murder of the second
patient in Bed 11, Ward B, is now completed. I tripled the
prescription dose of Digitalis. It was to be administered at 12 M.

“She is a patient of my brother and observed by my father. Though
autopsy is performed the condition of the organs will be such as not
to suggest chemical analysis. Therefore I am protected.

“So far suspicion is not aroused, but patience is not a virtue in
which I have been lacking. It takes time to make a reputation and time
... to ... my candle is almost gone....”

“Cupola, Tuesday, May 17th ... 1:15 A. M. I have just returned from
Ward B where by the use of coniine administered with a hypodermic
syringe, I have murdered the patient in Bed 11. My first traceable
murder. Peters and Paton nearly caught me. If murdering ugly women is
so much pleasure; a pretty woman.... Tonight I began an intriguing
custom. I left upon the crib of Bessie Ellis a Ma-ma doll.

“Miss Kerr was on the ward at the time. She is stealing morphia again.
So ... even should she have recognized me, she will deny all
knowledge. Most fortunate!

“The staff meeting yesterday, at which my brother escaped all censure,
forces me into action. This autopsy will reveal murder and begin, I
hope, the suspicion. My plan is working splendidly! But why not?
Fifteen years’ patient study are behind it. I am tired and it is
late.... Seeing Peters and Paton was luck....”

“My eyes ... I can’t....” Sally wailed.

Matthew Higgins took the book from her hands; the fading light was eerie. Cub Sterling put his arms around the girl and drew her into his lap. She began to shiver and Higgins read:

“Cupola, Wednesday, May 18th ... 1:30 A.M. The Gods are on my side. I
have just murdered Rose Standish. She was a pretty woman, and my
father had ordered a sleeping potion ... then he came by and asked me
privately to make it bread pills. I did ... plus an African sleeping
drug. Ah! the murder drugs are so fascinating and Heddis searched for
the obvious potions, only.

“Ah, luck! Ah, irony! Bear Sterling helping his illegitimate son to
ruin his legitimate one.

“Rose Standish was asleep by midnight. The student nurse nearly caught
me. It was exciting! She will testify against my brother.

“Yesterday I was called before the staff to check drugs after Heddis
settled upon coniine. It is all so damnably easy. Of course no house
sold the supply. I made it from the hemlock I gathered in the
mountains of Pennsylvania when I was east on vacation. I had thought
so long about what to use. Something which we did not keep in the
pharmacy. I used to think something untraceable ... and then when I
met Heddis I saw he would discover....

“Then coniine came to me. Out of a volume of Plato I found in a
pullman seat in the Broad Street Station coniine came to me. Coniine,
such a word! Coniine!

“The suspicion is growing. My brother and my father are panicky.

“I put another doll upon Bessie’s crib. I passed no one in the
corridor. Rose Standish was a pretty woman....”

“Crazy. Dead crazy!”

Higgins’ nerves were jumpy too.

“Anything else?” Cub’s voice had become relentless, now.

“Yes?”

“Cupola, Wednesday, May 18th, Noon. My father has pneumonia and will
die without the knowledge of my brother’s ruination unless I act
quickly.

“There must be a daylight murder within the next twenty-four hours. If
there is no patient in Bed 11, then upon the patient in a
corresponding bed upon another floor.

“Before he dies, my brother must be under arrest....

“It will take careful planning to execute a daylight murder ... but
years of careful planning prepare one....”

“God! It makes me sick to read it! Lil Parkins, the best woman....”

“A detective you put in the bed...?”

Higgins nodded flatly, and turned the pages. At the back of the book was written, upon the stiff cover:

_Murder Chart_:

May 13th, 1:00 A. M.—goitre—E.S. & E.S. Jr.—Datura stramonium
May 15th, 1:00 A. M.—heart—E.S. & E.S. Jr.—overdose Digitalis
May 17th, 1:15 A. M.—operative E.S. obs. S. Jr.—Coniine
May 18th, 1:30 A. M.—nurse—E.S. Jr. obs. E.S.—Coniine
May 19th, 3:40 P. M.—heart—House & E.S. Jr.—failed to murder but
ruined E.S. Jr.

The sunset breeze wound in the window and loosened the bands of Higgins’ heated brain, and the hysterical tears of Sally Ferguson. She buried her head in Cub’s shoulder and sobbed horribly.

Her sobs were long and rending and they forced Matthew Higgins into instant action. He struck a match, tore the pages from the front of the blank book and put them over the match.

The yellow-red flames ran up the crinkling paper as Cub Sterling’s legs began untangling themselves and he threw Sally aside.

“Aw, what’s the use?” Higgins’ gray eyes shot into Cub. “He’s dead and your father’s dying. The body and the murder chart’s all we need.”

The contact with Cub had revived Sally’s fight.

“How can we stop _The Call_?”

Higgins snapped around.

“Who owns it?”

Cub was half across the room toward Sally. He swerved.

“Barton told me half an hour ago that the Attorney-General had just bought it.... Now I see....” His voice shattered.

Sally ran toward him. Higgins pushed a chair under his bending legs.

The fly rose from the dead man’s face and slipped with the curling smoke out of the open window toward the distant river.

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice is from the printed edition—this text is public
domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.

--Only in the text versions, delimited italicized text in _underscores_
(the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)