Patrolman Donovan drew a little nearer to the cot, that nothing said or
done should escape him. The orderly had departed, and the announcement
by the physician seemed to surprise and further mystify the reviving
girl.
“A hospital--in a hospital?” she repeated perplexedly.
“Yes, you were brought here by this policeman, who found you on a seat
in the hospital grounds,” Doctor Devoll informed her. “You appeared to
have fainted or to have been drugged.”
“I cannot believe that I fainted,” said the girl. “I don’t understand
it. It seems to me as if I had just awakened from a deep sleep.” She
gazed around, still dazed and deeply puzzled; then asked abruptly:
“What time is it?”
“It is after midnight, nearly one o’clock.”
“One o’clock! Oh, I must go home! I must go home!”
She started up from the cot, and stood beside it. She appeared to have
regained her strength. Her color had returned, her eyes were normal,
though expressive of mingled uncertainty and dread.
“Do you feel quite well again?” Doctor Devoll asked, with sharper
scrutiny. “Are you able to go home?”
“Yes, yes, perfectly able. I must go home; I must go at once.”
“Before leaving you must give me a few particulars about yourself,”
interposed the physician. “Where were you when you were overcome? Tell
me what you last remember.”
“I am not sure,” she replied, with a manifest effort to comply. “I
went to the Alhambra, a moving-picture theater. I had come out and was
walking along Main Street when I----”
She stopped short, glancing apprehensively at the policeman. A deep
flush suddenly mantled her cheeks. She hesitated, obviously embarrassed
and somewhat frightened, and Doctor Devoll asked somewhat sharply:
“Why did you stop? What were you about to say?”
“I don’t know--nothing more, sir, I think,” she faltered. “I have told
you all I know--all I can remember.”
Donovan suspected that she was lying, but he did not venture to
interfere, and Doctor Devoll said quite sternly:
“Don’t try to conceal anything, my girl. What happened to you in Main
Street? Can’t you remember?”
“Only that I was there, sir; nothing more,” she insisted. “I was alone
and on my way home when suddenly everything became a blank. I don’t
know what followed, what I did, or where I went. I remember nothing
more until I awoke in this place and saw you bending over me. I am
telling the truth, sir, and----”
“Oh, I don’t question your honesty, my girl,” Doctor Devoll interposed
less austerely. “What is your name?”
“Mabel Smith, sir,” she admitted, after a moment.
“Where do you live?”
“I board at No. 81 Flint Street with Mrs. Morton, a widow. I must go
home. She will be very anxious about me and may--did I have anything
when I was brought in here? I mean my purse.” She digressed abruptly;
then stopped again, with a somewhat guilty expression in her troubled
eyes.
There was a small table near the foot of the cot, on which the nurse
had placed the girl’s hat and a small, knit purse. The physician
glanced at them, replying:
“Here is your purse, Miss Smith. Was there anything else?”
“I--I think I had a small leather bag,” she replied.
“That appears to be missing.”
“I’m not sure,” she quickly added. “I don’t know positively that I had
it with me. If I did, sir, I suppose I must have dropped it.”
Of the three men who had brought her in from the seat on which Donovan
had found her, Sergeant Brady was the only one who had seen the small
leather bag, which he had picked up from the ground and placed on the
litter. But Sergeant Brady then was absent with the attendant, and
no further search was made for the missing bag, for the girl said
indifferently:
“It don’t matter, sir. I may not have had it. May I go home? I really
must. You have no right to detain me here.”
Donovan did not hear what then passed between Doctor Devoll and
his mysteriously afflicted patient. The ward door had been opened,
and Sergeant Brady beckoned to the policeman and drew him into the
corridor, closing the door.
“Well, what has she said for herself, Jim?” he inquired, gazing grimly
at the policeman.
“Faith, it’s the same old story, sergeant,” Donovan replied
significantly. “She can’t tell what happened to her. She don’t know
enough to last her overnight.”
“Humph!” Brady grunted. “I suspected as much.”
“She seems to be on the level, though.”
“Level be hanged!” Brady spoke with a derisive snarl. “None of them was
on the level, Jim, or we would have been able to trace them and find
some solution of the mystery. Not one of them could be found after she
left the hospital.”
“That’s true, sergeant. Sure, it does seem a bit strange.”
“I got Chief Gleason on the phone by calling up his house. He had gone
home from headquarters. I reported the case to him, as he directed,
and--say nothing about this, mind you.”
“Not a word, sergeant.”
“It’s not known by many that the big dick is in town, and he don’t want
it known at present,” Brady impressively explained. “Nicholas Carter is
at the Wilton House under the name of Blaisdell.”
“Faith, is that so?” Donovan’s face lighted. “Sure, he can dig out the
truth, sergeant, if any man can.”
“Gleason said he would telephone to him at once and send him here to
size up the case,” Brady added. “He ought to show up within twenty
minutes. You return to your beat. I’ll stay here and detain the girl
until Carter comes.”
“All right, sergeant.”
“You can leave by that door through which we came in. Go ahead. We’ll
not want more of you to-night.”
Donovan touched his helmet and hurried away.
Sergeant Brady gazed after him for a moment; then turned and entered
the wardroom, when an ominous frown instantly settled on his face.
Miss Mabel Smith had departed.
There remained only the nurse, Agnes, then engaged in putting the
narrow cot in order. Brady strode toward her, asking roughly:
“Where’s that girl? Not gone, has she?”
“Yes, sir. She went with Doctor Devoll, sir, through the corridor
leading to the front office,” said the nurse, pointing to a door at the
opposite end of the wardroom.
“When? How long ago?” Brady demanded.
“Not more than two or three minutes. You might overtake them, sir, if
you hurry. I’ll show you the way.”
“Do so. I want the girl detained here.”
The nurse hurriedly led the way, Brady striding after her. They passed
through a long corridor leading to the main part of the building and
entered a brightly lighted office fronting on Hamilton Square.
Doctor Devoll was alone there, closing a roll-top desk.
“Has that girl gone, doctor?” Brady demanded the moment he entered.
The physician’s brows fell slightly, and his cold blue eyes took on a
sharper glint. He appeared to resent the officer’s brusqueness. He no
further betrayed it, however, and said, with characteristic blandness:
“She has, sergeant. Why do you ask?”
“Because I wanted to detain her.”
“Detain her? For what?” The physician gazed more intently.
“For what!” Brady echoed him derisively. “It strikes me, Doctor Devoll,
that this business has gone far enough. This is the fourth girl brought
here in the same condition, under the same mysterious circumstances,
and allowed to depart before a thorough investigation was made. Not
hide nor hair of them could afterward be found. She should have been
kept here until we could----”
“Pardon me, sergeant,” Doctor Devoll checked him with a gesture, “you
overlook one fact.”
“One fact?”
“This is a hospital, not a police station. I am a physician, not a
detective. My duty is to care for a patient, if necessary, but not to
hold one in custody after one has recovered. I have no right to do
that. The young lady insisted upon going home, and I had no proper
course but to let her go.”
“All right, doctor, if you look at it in that way,” said Brady, still
frowning darkly.
“There is no other way for me to look at it,” Doctor Devoll said
suavely. “As a matter of fact, however, you can easily find and
question the girl. I learned her name and address, which I neglected
doing in the previous cases.”
“Ah, that’s better!” Brady declared. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Mabel Smith. She boards at No. 81 Flint Street.”
“Good enough! The matter now can rest until to-morrow,” said Brady.
“May I use your telephone? I wish to say a word to Mr. Blaisdell, at
the Wilton House.”