Corole Is Moved to Candour
A silence fell in the room. O’Leary walked to the window, pulled the
heavy, mulberry-coloured drapes aside, and stood there for a moment.
The world outside was sodden and cold; the dense green shrubbery
strange and unfamiliar with its fallen leaves rotting and its heavy
branches dripping. The piano in the alcove opposite me was shrouded
with a great black velvet cover, but it seemed to me that ghostly
fingers took up the first haunting strains of the C Sharp Minor
Prelude. I stirred impatiently and O’Leary turned to face Corole, who
sat sullenly still in the davenport, her fingernails digging into an
orange pillow.
“Come, Miss Letheny. Give up the radium and tell me the whole truth.”
“I have not got the radium. If you don’t believe me you can search the
house.”
“The house has already been searched. Your maid was ordered not to
tell you. It was done yesterday while you were—out.”
“While I was out yesterday—— Tell me, Mr. O’Leary, is anyone else
honoured with a—guard? The man from the police department followed me
all day yesterday and I suppose is out there now, sitting on the porch
railing or somewhere.”
“O’Brien, his name is,” said O’Leary amiably. “No, you are not the
only person thus watched.”
“I thought not.” Her eyes glinted with malicious satisfaction. “I
thought not. What about Jim Gainsay? And Maida Day?”
“Well, what about them?”
“What about them!” To do Corole justice she did hesitate for the
barest fraction of a second before she went on: “Is it possible that
you do not know that Maida Day was the last person to talk to Louis?”
There was a pause, during which Corole looked in vain for any change
of expression in O’Leary’s face.
“Are you not surprised!” she cried impatiently. “Goody-goody Maida
with her fastidious, touch-me-not ways was in the orchard with Louis
after midnight last Thursday night.”
“No,” said O’Leary. “No. I am not surprised.”
“I heard the whole conversation,” continued Corole, as if bent on
getting some sort of more spirited reaction out of the detective. “I
was there in the shadows and heard the whole thing. Louis was wild
about Maida—I’m sure I don’t know why. Anyway, she did not hesitate to
tell him that she didn’t return his love.” Corole smiled a very cruel
little smile. “Poor Louis! They talked for some time. Louis was one of
these cold-natured men, as a rule. I was surprised to hear him. It was
better than a play.”
“Could you see them?” inquired O’Leary drily.
“It was black as tar. But I knew their voices. And anyway I can see in
the dark like a cat, so I could tell about where they were—could see
the outline of Maida’s uniform and Louis’s shirt front.”
“They could see each other, of course?” asked O’Leary nonchalantly.
“No, I shouldn’t think so. I thought I told you that I can see in the
dark better than most people. I’m sure they couldn’t see each other
for I remember that when they met and began to talk, Maida sort of
gasped and said ‘Who is it?’ and Louis answered her.”
“How long did they talk?”
“Not long. Perhaps ten or fifteen minutes.”
“That was about what time?”
Corole paused before replying, I suppose to be sure that she was
admitting nothing as to her own activities on that dark night.
“It must have been just before one o’clock. I think it was just after
Louis had gone to Room 18 with Sarah to visit his patient there.”
“Did Miss Day return at once to the hospital?”
“Yes, I think so. She was in a rage. I think poor Louis managed to
kiss her and Maida is deplorably high-spirited. She struck him at the
last; I was sure of that. They parted on very unfriendly terms.” Her
eyes slanted maliciously at O’Leary, but he was engrossed in studying
the soft figures on the rug at his feet.
“Why do you tell me all this, Miss Letheny?” he asked quietly.
She raised her thin, plucked eyebrows at this, delicately.
“Didn’t you ask me to tell you anything that could help you? I should
think that it would be of value to know that the last person known to
have been with Louis was quarrelling violently with him.”
“As a matter of fact, you have done Miss Day a favour,” remarked Lance
O’Leary. “You have very kindly explained the presence of Miss Day’s
lapis cuff link in the pocket of Dr. Letheny’s dinner jacket.”
Corole’s eyes flickered.
“I thought you said you were not surprised to hear this—as if you
already knew it.”
“I suspected some such affair. Miss Day made a point of saying that
the last time she _saw_ Dr. Letheny was when she left your house
Thursday night, and it was perfectly true. She did not _see_ him when
she talked to him later. But, of course, I knew that she must have had
some sort of meeting with him. Indeed,” he went on quietly, “I can
quite understand Miss Day’s reluctance to tell of the matter. Any
young woman would shrink from the headlines—can’t you see them:
‘Beautiful young nurse—Love quarrel with Doctor’—all that sort of
thing? Doubtless the cuff link got detached from the cuff and into Dr.
Letheny’s hand and he thrust it into his pocket thinking to return
it—not knowing what was to happen. Thank you for telling me this, Miss
Letheny.” He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the knob.
His face was very stern as he glanced back at Corole. “You are only
making things worse for yourself when you refuse to tell the whole
truth. Good-morning, Miss Letheny.”
Once again on that damp path we said little.
“It was Miss Day’s meeting with Dr. Letheny that Corole overheard,
then, and threatened to tell of; that is what Gainsay’s note to Miss
Day meant,” said O’Leary musingly as we approached the south door.
“Well, that meeting does throw a new light on things—doesn’t it? By
the way, Miss Keate, I expect to stay in St. Ann’s for a night or two.
I want no one but you to know of it.”
“But where—in what room will you be?”
“Room 18.”
I could feel the colour draining from my face.
“That—room is not safe!”
“Nonsense.”
“But, Mr. O’Leary—I have not told you what I heard this morning!”
“What’s that!”
“Corole—Corole and Dr. Hajek——” He waited in silence while I told him
of the singular dialogue that I had interrupted.
“Thank you, Miss Keate,” he said quietly when I had finished.
“But—aren’t you going to arrest them at once? Before they do—whatever
it is they are planning? We don’t want another murder in St. Ann’s!”
He shook his head.
“I don’t think it will come to that. And anyway, you know—give a man
rope enough——” He did not complete his sentence.
I tightened my lips disapprovingly; it seemed to me that handcuffs
would be far more efficacious.
“Can you keep a secret, Miss Keate?” said Lance O’Leary suddenly.
I nodded.
“Then, if all goes well, another twenty-four hours will see the end of
this affair.” And with that he was gone, leaving me to stand as if
frozen on the step and watch that slight gray figure till it vanished
around the corner of the hospital.
Another twenty-four hours!
I was still on the step, staring absently into the surrounding greens,
when a movement through a lane of trees caught my eyes. There,
strolling through the wet orchard, was Jim Gainsay. At his side was
Maida, her white cap distinct against that green curtain, her soft
black hair waving gently about her lovely face. The navy-blue cape she
wore was thrown back so that its scarlet lining gleamed against a fold
of her white dress and the scarlet seemed to match her cheeks and
lips. As I watched, the two suddenly faced each other. Jim caught at
Maida’s hands and held them against his face and slowly drew her
toward him. She yielded for a moment, then glanced toward St. Ann’s
windows and pulled away. He relinquished her hands and laughed and
after a second she laughed, too. Then they resumed their slow pace,
and the white cap and scarlet fold of cape and brown Stetson hat
disappeared among the dense green thickets.
He had succeeded in seeing her, then, and I did not need to fulfil my
promise.
The rest of the day passed quietly but none too pleasantly, for the
hospital was gloomy and dark and very hushed, the nurses uneasy and
nervous, and there was a sort of subdued terror that lurked in the
very walls of the great, old place.
I could not sleep, as was my custom, during first watch, and it was
fortunate, as it happened, that I could not for I went down to the
south wing a little early and thus, I believe, prevented another
panic. I am sure that any other nurse seeing Corole as I saw her would
have gone completely to pieces.
This is the way it happened.
I found myself in the south wing a good half hour before midnight and
strolled casually along the corridor. The south door was locked as it
should be, the new key having duly arrived and hanging, very bright
and new, on the nail above the chart desk. I remember that I had just
decided to find a new and less well-known place for it, and having
selected a spot at the right of the door in question was endeavouring
to push in a nail with a glass paper weight, and not having much
success, when a sort of scratching outside the door caught my ears. I
paused to peer through the small squares of glass.
The wind had risen again and the low branches of the trees outside
were tossing and moaning. The corridor was not sufficiently light to
enable me to see beyond the black panes of glass and they glittered
emptily, so that I felt as if eyes were looking in at me. Then, all at
once, a face pressed up against the glass. It was a face so haggard,
so wild, so fraught with terror that I did not recognize it at once to
be Corole’s.
As I stared she made an imperative gesture and moved her pale lips in
words that I could not hear. The key was in my hand and I unlocked the
door. Corole slipped stealthily inside and I closed the door hastily
on the wind and rain, locking it before I turned to her.
She was panting, her hair was flying in wet strings about her face and
her eyes had great, fiery, black pupils that caught and reflected the
light. She was wrapped in a dark silk cloak trimmed with monkey fur
that was wet and hung about her neck in long, dank wisps that added to
her wild aspect. One hand clutched the cloak across her breast and the
other carried a square, leather-covered jewel-case.
I found my voice.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
She cast a furtive glance toward the south door.
“Did you lock the door? Come, is there some place where we can talk?
Here——” With a swift motion she pushed open the door of Room 18, and
pulled me inside.
“Don’t turn on the light,” she warned me in a tense whisper. And
indeed, I had no intention of so doing, for as she spoke I recalled
O’Leary’s presence in the room. I looked sharply toward the bed and
chair but could not tell if either were occupied.
Corole took several deep, shaking breaths before she spoke.
“I’ve been running,” she whispered presently. “I had to get rid of
O’Leary’s watchdogs.” Actually there was an undercurrent of mirth in
her whispered accents, though I was sure that she had recently had a
bad fright of some kind.
“Did someone follow you?” I asked.
She held her breath for a second; then she released it.
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know who it was. Sarah, I had to come here.
I—I am afraid to stay in the cottage alone all night. Huldah is gone,
you know. I—am afraid. Can’t I stay here?”
“Certainly not. Don’t be foolish, Corole. St. Ann’s is not a hotel.”
She gripped my arm and her hand was trembling.
“I tell you I am afraid. Sarah, you must let me stay here. I’ll sleep
anywhere. I’ll sleep right here in this room.”
“No. No. You can’t do that!”
“I must stay in St. Ann’s. You can’t put me out bodily. I’ve got to
stay.” I felt her shiver violently. “I cannot go through that terrible
orchard again. I cannot sleep in Louis Letheny’s house to-night. There
are ghosts, Sarah, ghosts—oh, you don’t know!”
“Ghosts! There are nothing of the kind.” I felt my scalp prickle as I
spoke.
“Maybe not. Anyway, I must stay here.”
“No,” I repeated but she must have felt me weakening for she renewed
her pleas, even promising to make herself eligible to a room in the
hospital by having tonsillitis, if I insisted. She said she felt it
coming on owing to her getting so wet and being bareheaded. Which was
not only silly, as I assured her, but was not even to be believed,
Corole being as sleek and healthy as a young jaguar, and about as
even-tempered.
“But you can stay,” I relented, “if you will do as I say and keep
quiet about it.”
“Heavens, yes!” agreed Corole fervently. “All I want to do is keep
quiet about it. Shall I just stay right here in Eighteen? I am not
afraid.” She moved toward the bed.
I grasped her cloak and jerked her back.
“No,” I said hastily. “No. You cannot stay in this room.” There may
have been a note of consternation in my voice and I am quite sure I
heard a sort of subdued snicker from the direction of the bed.
Corole heard it, too.
“What was that?” she whispered sharply, starting back against me. I
shuddered aside from contact with that dripping monkey fur.
“Probably a cat,” I said at random.
“A cat!” I could feel her pull her short skirt tighter around her. “I
hate cats. They remind me of—— I hate cats.”
“Corole, stay right here for a moment or two. _Don’t move from the
door!_ I shall come back and open the door, and you go as fast as you
can through the corridor and as far as the general office door. Don’t
let anyone see you if you can help it and wait there for me.”
She murmured something in assent and in less time than it takes to
tell, I had manufactured errands to get the nurses into the diet
kitchen and drug room, had watched Corole move with the lithe
swiftness of an animal through the long shadowy corridor and myself
had followed her. My own room was, of course, the only place where I
could let her sleep. I even loaned her a night garment; she looked at
its long sleeves and high neck dubiously but accepted it.
I gave myself the satisfaction of locking the door and carrying the
key away; I did not know whether Corole heard the click of the key or
not but I did not intend that Corole Letheny should be allowed to
prowl at large through the dark corridors of St. Ann’s.
It was a little after twelve when I found myself in the south wing
again. Maida was already there and Olma Flynn and the same little,
blue-striped student nurse.
I don’t mind admitting that I slipped into the diet kitchen at my
first opportunity and brewed myself a cup of very strong, black
coffee. Corole’s advent had shaken my nerves a bit and I did not like
the way the wind was murmuring around the corners of the great old
building, stirring up forgotten drafts and rattling windows and
slapping rain against them.
Second watch, however, passed quite as usual, save for the little air
of uncertainty and uneasiness that made itself manifest in our
fondness for each other’s company, our frequent glances into the
shadows, and one or two broken thermometers owing to the sudden
crashes of the wind. The light flickered once as if about to go out
but mercifully did not do so. I might add that the prevalence of
broken thermometers was one of the minor troubles of that week; a
thermometer is an easy thing to slip from one’s fingers, especially
when shaking it, and it is not surprising that Dr. Balman had had to
order new thermometers for every wing in St. Ann’s.
The hours seemed very long, particularly when it occurred to me that
if Corole and Dr. Hajek expected to carry out their scheme that “day”
there were only a few hours left in which to do so. Of course, I had
Corole safely locked up and if her coming to St. Ann’s in
well-simulated terror to beg a refuge was actually, as I half
suspected, only a part of their plan, why then I had stopped any
further activity on her part. But I could not wholly believe that
Corole’s coming had been prearranged; her panic had been too genuine.
We were not very busy, so I had plenty of time to think. More than
once I caught myself eyeing Maida as she went quietly about her
business.
Once, when we were both at the desk, engaged in a desultory and
half-hearted conversation, footsteps padding softly along the corridor
back of us caught our attention and I turned simultaneously with
Maida. I noted that her eyes flared black as she whirled and her lips
were a quick, set line, and wondered if my own face showed such
immediate alarm. However, it was only Olma Flynn, advancing to tell me
through chattering teeth that she was sure there was _Something_ in
Room 18. I was startled for a flash, though at once I realized that it
was O’Leary, and Maida went white though she held her shoulders
straighter than ever.
I managed to calm Olma, though she clung to her point with a firmness
that in my heart I labelled plain mule stubbornness.
“If we are all murdered before morning, Miss Keate, it will be your
fault,” she said at last.
“Nonsense! If it is a ghost, as you seem to believe, you need not be
alarmed. Ghosts can’t do anything but moan around the corners.” It was
unfortunate that just then the wind swept through the draughty old
corridor with a most realistic moan, upon which Olma turned green and
vanished into the diet kitchen. It was this, I think, that gave rise
to a swiftly travelling tale that Room 18 was haunted, a tale that the
south wing has never yet been able to live down.
Thinking to warn O’Leary that he must be more circumspect in his
behaviour if he wished his presence in that ill-omened room to remain
a secret, I watched my chance to slip unobserved into Eighteen. Dawn
was creeping into the room by that time and the furniture loomed up
dark and black in the cold half-light. The room was quite empty of
human presence, though to my tired nerves it seemed that there might
be other presences. I shrugged aside the unwelcome thought. A glance
at the window showed me that the bolts had been slipped and the screen
opened. I had no doubt that O’Leary was making use of that low window
as others had done. I resisted a childish impulse to fasten the bolts
against his return and returned to the corridor.
With the tinny sound of the breakfast bell away down in the basement,
the straggling through the corridors of the day nurses, freshly
uniformed if a trifle gray about the eyes, the fragrant smell of
coffee floating through the halls, my vigilance relaxed a bit. The
night was past and so far as I knew nothing out of the way had
occurred. Knowing Corole to be a late sleeper I did not go immediately
to my room to release her. Instead I followed Maida and Olma and the
student nurse downstairs to the dining room. It was a sorry meal with
buckwheat cakes which I despise and which, besides, give me hives, and
Miss Dotty relating a very lurid dream and dissolving into tears under
Melvina’s interpretation. The tears dripped dismally down Miss Dotty’s
inefficient nose, Melvina enlarged upon the meaning of dreams, and I
found that I had sugared my coffee twice. I was glad when the meal was
over.
In the intervals of Melvina’s sinister monologue I had come to the
conclusion that Corole Letheny under lock and key was not a situation
to be lightly relinquished. I sought O’Leary at once, surreptitiously
avoiding the day nurses. He was not in Room 18, so I straightened the
wrinkled counterpane on the bed and left. As I passed through the
corridor of the second charity ward I took a breakfast tray off the
dumbwaiter standing there unguarded; the disappearance of the tray
caused considerable excitement in the ward, I found later, which was
augmented by its reappearance later in the morning in the second-floor
linen closet where I had thoughtfully left it, with only the coffee
splashed a little, for Corole did not even see that breakfast tray.
When I unlocked the door to my room it required only a glance to see
that my bird had flown, so to speak. I set the tray on the dresser and
advanced into the room. The bed was tossed and had been slept in,
though the night garment I had loaned her was still decorously folded
on a chair. The window was open, letting in gusts of rain on my
flowered voile curtains which were running in pink and green streaks
and later had to be replaced. I crossed to close it and in doing so
found the mode of her exit. St. Ann’s, as I have said, was an old
building with numerous turrets and towers and roof irregularities
which included various ledges and wide window casings. From the window
beyond mine dropped an old-fashioned, iron fire escape fastened to the
old red bricks with rusted bolts. And from my window to the next ran a
sort of ledge, narrow, to be sure, and slippery, but there was the ivy
to cling to and shrubbery below to break a fall. For a woman of
Corole’s build and propensities it was not a difficult climb and once
on the fire escape the rest was easy. I leaned out the window. Had I
still been unconvinced, there was proof of her passage, for caught on
an ivy strand there hung a dejected, wet, black wisp of monkey fur.
So Corole was gone! I felt guilty for letting her slip through my
fingers but reflected that O’Leary had known of her presence in St.
Ann’s, and moreover, a woman cannot go far in a drenched coat and no
hat.
This comfortable reflection lasted until I went to the wardrobe and
found that my best hat was gone. The hat was a very beautiful thing
with quantities of artificial violets on it and three yards of looped
purple ribbon, and had cost me twenty-five dollars owing to my having
it made to order to fit my bobless head. And Corole had brazenly worn
it out in the rain, which did not increase my affection for Corole.
I set forth again to find O’Leary, feeling that he should know at once
of Corole’s flight, pausing only to leave the tray in the second-floor
linen closet.
O’Leary turned up at last in the vast old stable, now converted into a
garage, that is out back of St. Ann’s. He was apparently engaged in
sniffing at something that I did not see and that he thrust hurriedly
into his pocket at the sound of my approach.
In as few words as possible I told him of Corole’s departure.
His face became very sober.
“That’s bad,” he said. “That’s bad. I figured she was safe in your
hands. So she got away across that ledge.” The place was visible from
where we stood, and he surveyed it thoughtfully through the gray
streaks of rain.
“Well, it can’t be helped now. You say she wore your hat?”
“Yes.”
“She would not be apt to return to the Letheny cottage,” he mused.
“Let me see; it is barely seven o’clock—the stores will not be open
for another hour. There is plenty of time.”
“The stores?”
“She will go straight to buy a hat,” he explained with remarkable lack
of tact. “Corole Letheny is not going far in a hat that——” He noted my
unsympathetic countenance. “A hat that—er—does not suit her. I mean
that she did not choose herself,” he amended hastily.
Without saying a word I turned toward the gravelled path that leads
back to St. Ann’s.
“Wait a minute, Miss Keate,” begged O’Leary contritely, seeing perhaps
that he had offended me in a matter that no woman can freely forgive.
“Please, wait. If you’ll forgive me I’ll tell you something of
interest.”
Being exceedingly curious I went back. He drew me into the shadow of a
big gray ambulance.
“I want you to keep an eye on Miss Day,” he said in a low voice and
with an odd glance into the shadows of the place.
“Miss Day!”
“Especially if you see this fellow, Gainsay, hanging around.”
“Why, what do you mean? Is Jim Gainsay——”
“Jim Gainsay is the man who was following Corole last night. O’Brien
was stationed up at the cottage last night and saw him. It seems that
Corole slipped out a side door. She came out so unexpectedly that she
was into the orchard before O’Brien was after her. He was going full
tilt when he found that someone else was ahead of him, both of them
after Corole, who was having the devil’s own luck, according to
O’Brien, in avoiding tree trunks and shrubbery. O’Brien says she can
see in the dark. At the bridge O’Brien caught up with the man and can
swear it was Gainsay, but just then a low-hanging branch knocked
O’Brien down and senseless for a moment and when he got to his feet
Corole and Gainsay were both gone. O’Brien wandered about the orchard
hunting them for half the night and I ran into him about five o’clock,
soaked to the skin and his face a welt of scratches and his
disposition permanently warped.”
“So it was Jim Gainsay who gave Corole such a fright,” I murmured. “I
wonder what he wanted.”
“It looks bad for Gainsay,” said O’Leary thoughtfully. “Whether he
killed Dr. Letheny in a mistaken effort to defend Miss Day, or whether
he killed Jackson for the sake of the radium, or whether, thinking
that the radium is still at large he is determined to secure it for
his own use, in any case it looks bad. I hope your little friend, Miss
Day, is not going to be too much hurt.”
“You mean if she cares for Gainsay? Maida is not one to wear her heart
on her sleeve. If we could only find that radium,” I concluded
hopelessly.
“Oh, I have the radium,” said O’Leary simply.