“The law to intervene,” Princeton finally substituted.
“I agwee entirely, Peshurs. I’ll stan’ behin’ you, straight through.”
Prissy’s offer even in the noontide sun would have come in a high treble and over the telephone and under the circumstances it didn’t sound very convincing.
However, after they had both bathed, both felt her death had purified them, both inserted their teeth, both had called MacArthur and requested a meeting minus the Sterlings.
It had left them a little shaky ... but now that Dr. MacArthur was beginning to speak, Prissy nodded to Princeton who tiptoed to the door and closed it. They felt they had been justified in the action they had taken.
Neither Sterling was present.
“Gentlemen,” Dr. MacArthur’s voice was measured and low, “Rose Standish is dead. She was murdered last night while a patient in Bed 11, Ward B, of Medicine Clinic. An injection of coniine. She went on that ward to save your reputation and mine. To lift the hospital out of terror ... and she is dead, and we are....”
“I was against it from the first,” Princeton began clearing himself with the rapidity of a condemned schoolboy.
Nobody paid him the slightest attention. Prissy blushed, and Hoffbein squirmed.
“We are faced,” Dr. MacArthur’s blue eyes had taken on their fighting steeliness, “with the blackest day the Elijah Wilson has ever seen. With the fact that no patient anywhere is safe in any bed of the institution ... with the responsibility of catching a murderer within our walls. A person who has committed two untraceable, two traceable murders. D’y’see? Gentlemen, I ask your advice.”
Princeton Peters and Prissy Paton stared at Dr. Hoffbein and he nodded ... with his eyelids, and Princeton rose.
“To put it plainly, straightly and to the point, MacArthur, it is one thing to protect your professional colleagues, but after all our Hippocratic oath binds us first to the protection of our patients.
“I’m glad you called this meeting as we advised, and have given us an opportunity of speaking frankly. Murder, automatically, cancels loyalty! Call in the police immediately is the advice of myself, Dr. Paton and Dr. Hoffbein.”
His peach-blossom face was brick red and it was the fury with which Dr. Harrison rose that, at a distance of ten feet, scared Dr. Peters into his chair.
“You might just as well know, Dr. Peters,” his brown eyes were live coals, “that this meeting was not called without the Sterlings purposely. Barton and I were dead against it, as was MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur was intensely kind in his opening speech about the number of murders which have been committed in this hospital within the last week. They are five.”
“Stop, Harrison. Please stop!” Dr. MacArthur had risen from his chair, but he might have been a fly upon the distant mantelpiece for the effect he produced.
“Sorry. I can’t stop. They might just as well know it! Call in your police! Call them in now! And as sure as Christ was crucified I’ll swear out a warrant for each of you, Hoffbein, Peters and Paton, for the murder of Bear Sterling, now dying of pneumonia complicated by the heart attack which you, famous colleagues and a world-renowned psychiatrist caused by your foul insinuations yesterday.
“If you value your international reputations as much as your self-exhibitions in the last fifteen years indicate, the police are out of the question.
“Now let’s get down to business.”
For fully four minutes after he had finished no man in the room spoke. No man could. For fifteen, twenty, perhaps thirty years none of them had ever heard Dr. Harrison raise his voice above a conversational tone, never had seen him for one-quarter of a split second lose complete control of himself or of a situation, never had heard him judge a man without charity.
And the three he condemned were too seared to be angry, too frightened to be resentful, too dazed to be amazed.
He had spoken the truth ... and they knew it.
Dr. Barton, as a nurse might work upon children upset by an explosion, took his pipe from his mouth, and began speaking. He said:
“Dr. MacArthur, I think it is your advice that we need, suh.”
The thing that cowed Dr. Peters, Paton and Hoffbein, was that Dr. Harrison had suffered no relapse. He sat firmly stroking his beard and looking alternately at each of them.
Dr. MacArthur, his blue eyes firmly defiant, began:
“The hospital has never been in so delicate a situation. I repeat that the matter must be handled with secrecy, tact, and sanity.
“You see, gentlemen, this hospital was endowed, it has been perpetuated for, and is famous as, a great teaching institution. When through any clumsiness of ours we have more beds than patients the hospital is doomed. Its great advantage has always been more patients than beds. D’y’see?”
Prissy’s green, Princeton’s lavender and Hoffbein’s liquid eyes were glued upon his face. Dr. Barton’s shoulders were hunched attentively.
“Now if we were to turn this situation over to the police, regardless of Dr. Harrison’s statements, we would automatically spread into every ward of every department, every newspaper in the country, the superstition of every negro within a thousand miles, the means of ruining, absolutely, your work, mine and that of all the medical men now resident and student here.
“Murder is a very horrible situation, but dooming the future of at least a thousand capable men is, in my opinion, worse, all oaths, notwithstanding. D’y’see?
“Whatever hysteria is manifested must not come from the staff, nor the blunders which so horrible an occurrence makes us likely to fall into.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mac!” Dr. Harrison’s voice was placid, and Prissy and Princeton automatically exhaled the breath they had been inhaling preparatory to argument.
Dr. Harrison said:
“Do you know how many rabbit feet I’ve seen on dispensary patients in the last six months? Sixty-three! The cancer cases love ’em. How many patients we’ve lost because they moved when another negro sprinkled salt upon their doorsteps? Eighty-one! Within three blocks of here I’ve counted fifteen chiropractors, ten optometrists, five osteopaths, and seventeen midwives.
“Superstition, witchcraft, voodoo, dynamite! We’ve got to keep our face no matter if all of us are murdered. Matter with you three is just a touch of hysteria.”
Hoffbein squirmed and replied:
“Fear psychosis is a most contagious disease, but like all contagious diseases most debilitating. It has only one cure: to remove the cause of the fear.”
His voice was precise and his words, he felt, showed how he stood and yet were dignified.
“From which I understand you are suggesting we scrap Cub Sterling,” MacArthur’s angry eyes bore into him like a hot poker, and his mouth drew to a tight line as he slapped his hand upon his desk and stated, “I won’t do it without ample, complete and convincing evidence. Have you any to offer?”
Hoffbein squirmed acutely and he replied evasively:
“Nothing ... tangible.... Only those small and very personal signs which to a man in my branch are so revealing. His hands, the hysterical set of his left shoulder, the peculiar light which comes into his eyes....”
“That’ll do!” Dr. Harrison barked. “If I knew any of you had cancer, I’d tell you so to your face. If Bear Sterling had found any man here suffering from an incurable brain tumor, he would have told that man. We are not asking you for symptoms, Hoffbein. Have you any evidence, yes or no?”
Hoffbein’s eyes lost their whites. “No.”
“Then let’s get on to people who have. Read Ethridge’s testimony, please, MacArthur.”
Dr. MacArthur picked up the long white sheet of paper and began in an even voice:
“Complying with the decision of the General Staff of the Elijah Wilson Hospital, I admitted Rose Standish, graduate nurse of this institution, as a patient in Medicine Clinic, Ward B, Bed 11, yesterday afternoon. The diagnosis, for the benefit of the nursing staff, being a possible tubercular effusion.
“She received a routine examination from the house staff and from seven-ten until seven-thirty last evening my father, Dr. Sterling, and I went over her. We found her lungs in excellent shape, her heart slightly enlarged, but not seriously so, her general physical condition splendid, with the exception of the fact that she was somewhat thin and underweight. There were no signs of any malady of any kind whatever. Her temperature was normal, her pulse good, though a little rapid, which, considering the circumstances was not surprising, and her spirits commendably calm.
“We both felt most reassured by her mental and physical condition, though my father, Dr. Sterling, in case she might discover herself too fatigued to sleep advised a sedative. We told Miss Standish of the order and suggested she call for the potion if she felt the necessity.
“There was some vague hysteria in the ward, which both Miss Standish and ourselves sensed, and I understand from the seven-to-nine-student nurses that she calmed it by conversation.
“The prescription for the potion was, later, removed from Miss Standish’s chart and is in the possession of Dr. MacArthur, as is, also, the testimony of a patient who claimed to have seen Miss Kerr, student nurse, standing over Miss Standish’s bed for several seconds during the thunderstorm which extinguished the lights at nine-forty.
“From the time we walked off the ward at seven-thirty, until Mattus notified me of Rose Standish’s death at one-ten, I did not see Miss Standish. Mattus saw her around ten and reported her in practically the same condition in which Father and I had left her.
“After seeing my father, Dr. Sterling, to his car at seven-thirty, I went to dinner in the doctors’ dining room, took a short walk, and was in bed by eleven-thirty.
“When Mattus notified me of Miss Standish’s death at one-ten, I immediately called Dr. MacArthur who ordered an autopsy, tried to get my father and learned that the cold he had complained of was settling in his chest and his temperature was 101. At his orders I got his assistant, Dr. Withers, who in the presence of Dr. MacArthur, Mattus and myself, performed the autopsy, the findings of which will be given by Dr. Heddis, who came in when it was half finished and later took the organs for examination.
“Because of the excellent forethought of Mattus, we borrowed an operative patient from Surgical Clinic and rolled her bed into the place where Rose Standish’s had stood and left orders to say to the patients that Miss Standish had hemorrhaged and been put in a private room. From the time the ward awoke until the operation was called, the new patient was in the process of preparation and did not realize the change.
“From the time of the discovery of Rose Standish’s corpse, until Mattus and I had rolled the bed toward the elevator, the deportment of William, the orderly, was most praiseworthy and the demeanor of Miss Evelina Kerr astonishingly calm.
“While the autopsy was still in progress, my mother called to say that Dr. Sterling’s temperature had risen to 103, his breathing was labored and he was requesting I come to him. Dr. MacArthur insisted that I go. I found him with a definite case of pneumonia, both lungs seriously involved, pulse irregular, and breathing labored, semi-delirious. I immediately called an ambulance and brought him into the hospital for oxygen.
“The response is disheartening. His heart is weakening. I have remained by his bedside, again through the advice of Dr. MacArthur.
“Dictated to Dr. MacArthur’s secretary, outside room 511, Medicine Clinic, at 8:30 A. M. Wednesday, May 18th.
“(Signed): Ethridge Sterling, Jr., M.D. Physician-in-Chief (Pro-tem), The Elijah Wilson Hospital.”
Dr. MacArthur laid the paper down and looked from the window.
“Questions?” his voice was old and heavy, and he brought his eyes back to the men with an effort.
Dr. Harrison shot a glance around the room and insisted:
“Let’s continue with the evidence.”
Dr. MacArthur pushed a button upon his desk, the door into the corridor opened and Miss Evelina Kerr, night student nurse on Ward B, entered.
It was Princeton Peters who escorted her to the chair beside Dr. MacArthur’s and Dr. Hoffbein who would have liked to question her, had he not felt Dr. Harrison’s eyes judging his every thought; so Dr. MacArthur turned to her and said:
“You have been through another dreadful night. I’m sorry. Please tell about it carefully.”
She sat as she had sat yesterday, her hands primly in her lap and her flat feet carefully together, her stubborn defiance breaking through her voice.
She looked carefully around the large room before she began to speak, and to Dr. MacArthur, Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Barton, there flashed a realization that her eyes were still too close together, and that somehow she was enjoying her importance.
But her survey did not escape Dr. Harrison.
He barked, “Dr. Sterling is not here because his father is desperately ill. Will you be so kind as to tell your story, now?”
“Yes, Dr. Harrison, I will.” The stupid definiteness in her voice was maddening. She turned her eyes upon Dr. Hoffbein and told her story to him. She said:
“When I went on duty at nine I found Miss Standish a patient in Bed 11, Ward B. She said Dr. Sterling thought she might have a tubercular effusion and she was in for observation. I gave her her thermometer and ran to close the windows as the rain had started.”
“And when the lights went out, you were standing by her bed, Miss Kerr,” Dr. Barton announced pointedly.
Her eyes did not leave Dr. Hoffbein, and she replied:
“I had come back for the thermometer.”
The answer crashed like a broken plate, and Dr. Harrison insisted:
“And then?”
“Then I counted her pulse,” her voice was wooden, “gave my medicines. Put out the flowers and called Dr. Mattus about a woman with a heart attack.”
“Why didn’t you give Miss Standish her sleeping potion, when you were distributing medicines?”
“Because, Dr. Barton, Dr. Mattus came up to the heart case and said not to give it to Miss Standish unless she called for it.
“After he went, I dimmed the lights, went to work on my fever charts, made up the midnight medicines, and began studying my nursing manual. William, the orderly, came up the hall twice to ask me about some dishes and the breakfast trays, and then about eleven-thirty, Miss Standish rang and asked for her sleeping potion, and I gave it to her.”
“Are you sure you gave her the right prescription?” Dr. Harrison’s eyes had bored past Dr. Hoffbein and into her.
She pouted her thick lips and lifted her ugly chin.
“Yes, sir, I’m positive. She went to sleep right away. You don’t think, Dr. Harrison...?”
“What I think does not concern your story, Miss Kerr. Please continue.”
There was a slight tightening of her jaw, and had she had sense enough to cry then, every man in the room would have felt beaten. She continued woodenly:
“After I gave Miss Standish her medicine, the next patient had to have her linen changed, and when I had finished with that, Miss Standish was asleep. I could tell by her breathing.
“It was then almost midnight and I went to boil my syringes for the midnight hypodermics, and while I was boiling them Mrs. Witherspoon, the patient whose bed I had just changed, rang again, and I ran to see about her.
“And as I reached her bed, I found Dr. Cub Sterling leaning over Miss Standish. He looked up and nodded, and....”
“Repeat your last three sentences, Miss Kerr. Repeat them twice! And look at me while you do it.” Dr. Hoffbein’s voice was mesmeric.
Miss Kerr repeated them ... twice....
They filled the room and permeated the senses of every man present like poison gas.
Dr. Harrison shot his gimlet-like brown eyes into the narrow, close ones of the student nurse.
“You are wrong, Miss Kerr. Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, was in his rooms.”
“I’m not! He was bending over Miss Standish. I know it. His bushy hair, his funny shoulder....”
“Did he speak?”
“No, Dr. Harrison. He just nodded. Like he always does.”
“Why didn’t you make him speak?”
“I couldn’t stop to. We had no more clean linen and I had to run for a bed-pan for Mrs. Witherspoon.”
MacArthur’s hand beat upon his desk ... hopelessly....
“Go on, Miss Kerr.” His voice was like a death-knell.
“And when I came back he was gone. He had hurried off the ward while I was getting the bed-pan. And I went to Miss Standish as soon as I could. She was still asleep. And I ran to William. He was asleep. And then I started to ’phone the night supervisor, but it was time to give my medicines ... and Aunt Roenna always told us even if the building were burning down, the medical patients must have their medicines on time. So I began giving them their hypodermics. And when I could, I went to look at Miss Standish. She was still sleeping.
“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....”
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?”