O’Leary Revises His Story
It was fitting that the thing should end as it had begun, in Room 18.
I have only a dazed and chaotic memory of them taking Dr. Balman away.
Of Corole and Fred Hajek going under guard. Of myself sitting numbly
in Room 18, with Maida beside me gripping my hand, until O’Leary
returned. Jim accompanied him.
I think it was seeing Jim sit down on the white bed with his coat
still wet with rain, and noting the marks of muddy shoes and wet coats
on the once white counterpane, that aroused me to a sense of reality.
It was dawn by that time. The electric light was paling and growing
sickly under the gray streaks of daybreak at the windows, and I recall
a vague little feeling of amazement when the thin rays of washed-out
sunlight began to find their way into the room. Sunlight after a week
of rain!
O’Leary, entering the room, had closed the door and crossed to the
radiator and sunk wearily down upon it. He appeared worn and
enormously tired, with no shred of the jubilance I should have
expected.
“Well,” my voice quavered a little as I spoke. “Well—you have
succeeded.”
“Yes. I’ve got my man.”
“You don’t seem to be rejoicing about it.”
“I am not,” said Lance O’Leary flatly. “That is, don’t misunderstand
me—I am glad that I have done my duty. But I am sorry to see a man, a
brilliant scientist, a scholar, a useful surgeon—go wrong. Dr. Balman
has actually given his life—mistakenly of course, for his science. He
wanted the radium, he needed the money it would bring. For the rest he
was, as much as anything, a victim of circumstance. It is a sad
thing—yet just.”
“Dr. Balman was a wicked man,” I said. Odd how we were speaking of him
in the past tense.
“Yes,” agreed O’Leary. “But Dr. Letheny was equally culpable. Strange
how a man can devote his life to a woman or—a career. Well,” he broke
off, shrugging, “there’s no use philosophizing. Don’t mind my low
spirits. I should feel much lower if I had failed.”
“I didn’t know what you were doing until Dr. Balman said: ‘When she
opened the door.’ Then I began to have a premonition, for I recalled
the request you made at the first inquest.”
“What was that?” asked Jim.
“I asked Miss Keate not to mention the fact that when she came down
the corridor after hearing the sound that she thought was a door
closing and was actually——”
“Don’t!” I interrupted with a shudder.
“—was actually something else, she came to the door of Eighteen and
opened it and stood there for a few seconds listening.”
“Why? Did she hear something? Or see anything?”
“No. But I reasoned that the guilty man must have still been in Room
18. It had not been a moment since the sound of the blow that—the blow
that killed Dr. Letheny, and I knew that the man who did it could not
have dragged Dr. Letheny’s body to the closet, locked the door, and
made his escape before Miss Keate got to the door of Eighteen. Hence I
knew that only the guilty man _knew what she had done_.”
“Did you plan that far ahead? Did you know you could work him to admit
that knowledge?” cried Jim in honest amazement.
O’Leary shook his head, smiling ruefully.
“No. I am but human. But I plan to take every chance. Hoard every
possible bit of evidence. That was small but conclusive.”
“Is that the only proof you have against Dr. Balman?” asked Jim.
“No. I have others. But I wasn’t quite satisfied. You see, I let
Balman know that the radium was in this room and would be guarded
all day but not at night because I intended to remove it then. Miss
Keate helped me there. Dr. Balman was on the other side of the door
in the garage this morning—or rather yesterday morning,” explained
O’Leary to me. “Of course, I had actually removed the radium at
once and substituted a dummy box. I expected Balman would try to
secure it in the dark of night and hoped to catch him red-handed. But
instead—you, Gainsay, nearly spoiled the works for me. You have been
a good deal of trouble, one way and another,” he interpolated, with
a glance that held nothing humorous. “However, I know the reason
for your—er—meddling.” O’Leary smiled openly at Maida; it was that
extraordinary winning smile that he reserved for certain occasions and
Maida smiled, too. “I can’t say that I blame you for that. Though if
you had advised her to tell of the cuff link business in the first
place——”
“That cuff link!” murmured Maida with contrition. “I am sorry. I
should have explained it immediately. But it—would have meant such
publicity. It was so disagreeable.” She flushed pinkly and Jim’s heart
was in his steady eyes fastened upon her.
“But what else do you have against Dr. Balman?” I inquired hastily,
for once uninterested in matters of the tender sentiment.
“The story that I told here to-night is, in the main part, true if you
simply change the name of Hajek to Balman. For the points against
Balman——” he checked off the items on his fingers. “First, finger
prints on that revolver of Corole’s. Dr. Letheny’s and those of Dr.
Balman were very clear. It was some time before I could get a good
print of Balman’s, though I had those of everyone else connected with
the case. Then there was the fact that he _asked_ to have this low
window bolted and the request came simultaneously with the
disappearance of the key to the south door; having provided himself
with a mode of entrance he was anxious to keep others out of the room
that held the radium. Then there was the matter of the ether that you
smelled, Miss Keate, the ether that Higgins said was somewhere about
the coat that was left there just outside the window of Eighteen, and
that you found on a handkerchief in the pocket of that yellow slicker.
I found on investigation that the only person seen to leave St. Ann’s
that Friday evening just at dinner time was Dr. Balman and that he
wore a yellow slicker. That was not conclusive, for he might have
borrowed it as Miss Keate did. But yesterday morning I found in the
side pocket of his car a small empty bottle and a sponge that still
had a lingering trace of that very clinging odour.”
“But why ether?” said Jim.
“He had evidently intended to anesthetize Mr. Jackson, steal the
radium while the patient was unconscious and get away. But when after
waiting about the grounds for some time until he thought the coast was
clear he finally got into Room 18, he found another man in the room,
the radium gone and his patient dead. The next thing for me to do was
to break what appeared to be an alibi. I did so when I found that
there was a freight elevator at the back of the apartment house in
which Balman lived. He knew how to operate it and must have taken
precautions to leave by way of the freight elevator and the basement
so that the night man in the front of the house never dreamed that
Balman had gone out again. He returned the same way and must have got
there just in time to answer the telephone. It was his car that left
along the lower road just as the storm broke, Miss Keate.”
“He must have driven like mad,” I speculated.
“Think what he left behind him,” said O’Leary grimly. “He knew, too,
that at any moment the alarm might come and his presence would be
needed at the hospital. He must be in his rooms when the call came.”
“All put together those things are almost—positive proof,” said Jim.
“Almost,” agreed O’Leary. “But I wanted to trap him into a final
admission. To catch him in the act of making off with the radium. And
there I failed. When you turned on the light here to-night, Miss
Keate, and I saw only Hajek and Gainsay, I was sure that I had failed.
But when Dr. Balman came on the scene I began to see my way clear. I
caused Hajek considerable anguish of soul but he deserved it. What on
earth did you come blundering around for, Gainsay?”
Jim looked uncomfortable.
“Why, you see, O’Leary, I saw Corole come into the south door of St.
Ann’s last night and watched through the pane of glass. I had nearly
caught her and I was convinced that she had the radium in her jewel
case. I could barely see in the hospital corridor through that door,
but I saw that she left the jewel case in Room 18. So I figured that
she likely thought Room 18 a safe place in which to leave the stuff.
Thinking it over during the day, I came to the conclusion that it
would be a fine thing to recover the radium myself.” He laughed rather
shamefacedly. “I—didn’t think much of you, O’Leary. And I was worried
about Miss Day, too. And well—I just made an ass of myself generally.”
“You did,” said O’Leary. “You did. You had better stick to bridges
after this, Mr. Gainsay.”
“You are right,” said Jim heartily. “But I can’t say that I regret
having been here. And I still hope that I have not failed—at one thing
I have undertaken.” His eyes were on Maida and she turned entirely
crimson and O’Leary laughed boyishly.
I sighed; time enough for romance when this thing was all clear to me.
“Mr. O’Leary,” I said, “can you prove all this?”
He sobered instantly.
“The only thing that is supposition—or rather based solely upon
reason, is Dr. Letheny’s part in the business, and even there, we know
that only certain events could have taken place. As for the rest of
it, change Hajek’s name to Balman’s and—there it is.”
And I may as well say here and now that Dr. Balman confessed to the
whole thing, and the only point on which O’Leary was mistaken was
this: it was Dr. Hajek who took the key from its place above the chart
desk on that Sunday night when Maida and I were so frightened. He had
slipped out his window with the key, but when he heard us coming he
fled from Room 18, around St. Ann’s to his room, through the window
again, through the corridor from the main part of the hospital to the
south wing, tossed the key on the desk and hurried back to his own
room.
“Then that arraignment of Hajek was entirely fictitious?” asked Jim.
“Not entirely. He was actually out of the hospital and in the orchard
the night Higgins was shot and at the sound of the commotion he
hurried back to his room. But he had gone to meet Corole; they were,
of course, determined to get the radium and were conspiring together
at every opportunity. And on the night of the seventh he and Corole
were in the orchard. Their story of seeing a man crawl through the
window of Eighteen and waiting to catch him when he emerged is not
true, for only Higgins knew of Balman’s entrance and he did not know
who the man was. But Corole and Hajek knew enough of Dr. Letheny’s
entrance into St. Ann’s to make them sure that, when he was found
dead, the radium must still be in the room. For they had listened at
the window of Room 18—don’t forget the gold sequin. Oh, yes. Hajek and
Corole were determined to get that radium and it _was_ Hajek who
knocked me senseless there in the hall. That much of my story was
true. I saw that the only way to get Balman was to put him off his
guard. I was not sure that I could—pull it off; I was afraid my very
voice would betray me, that I’d be too eager, too insistent, clumsy,
blundering. The least thing would have warned Dr. Balman. I had to get
him to talking of it, and he, not yet having descended so low as to
want to send someone else to prison for his deed, was willing to
temporize, ask questions, attempt to think of something that would
clear Dr. Hajek, without at the same time incriminating himself. He
was trying to think fast of such possibilities.” O’Leary smoothed back
his hair and straightened his impeccable tie. “Those few moments were
a strain.”
“Suppose he had just kept silent, had said nothing at all?” I
suggested curiously.
“Oh, I knew he would talk. He had a guilty conscience, you know. It
wouldn’t have been human to refuse to talk. He knew his own guilt and
hence would try to appear innocent. He was bewildered, too, and was
never a practical, quick-thinking man. It was a chance but not a
risk.”
There was a long silence. Away down the hall I heard the faint,
muffled sound of the breakfast bell. With that I roused myself and
thought for the first time of the wing. I rose, picked up my ruined
hat, and at the door stopped to look back on that room.
Room 18! What it had held! What it had witnessed!
O’Leary followed me from the room, Maida and Jim, too. Once in the
corridor I found that the small, red signal light was still gleaming
dully. I returned to Room 18, pulled the light cord, mechanically
straightened the bed, and closed the window.
Maida and Jim had disappeared when I returned to the corridor. O’Leary
was standing at the south door, looking through the glass with an
amused twinkle in his clear gray eyes. Following his glance I saw
Maida’s white uniform and Jim’s tweed coat vanishing along the once
more sunny orchard path.
“Young idiots,” I murmured. “And before breakfast, too.”
The path recalled to me the Letheny cottage at its other end.
“What about Corole and Hajek?” I asked.
“They were after the radium,” said O’Leary hesitantly. “But after all,
I think the best thing to do is to get rid of Hajek and let them
leave.”
“This means reorganization, new doctors, new methods—everything.”
O’Leary nodded.
“How true it is,” he said thoughtfully, “that even in one of the
noblest professions there are scoundrels.”
“But the proportion is much smaller,” I said loyally. “You’ll find a
hundred defaulting bankers for one doctor who is untrue to his trust.”
He smiled at the warmth of my defence.
“You are recovering yourself, Miss Keate. That last remark was quite
in your normal manner.”
And at that Olma Flynn tugged my sleeve.
“Will you O. K. the charts, Miss Keate?” Her eyes were round with
curiosity and she cast a speculative glance toward Room 18.
Well, that is about all.
The staff doctors met that morning, and the board of directors, and
were most generous in their assistance. It was not long before we were
fully equipped with resident doctors and reorganized.
Our new head doctor has a wife of Anglo-Saxon ancestry who has filled
the cottage with chintz-covered furniture and muslin curtains and
likes to head committees. She has a nosy disposition and we don’t get
along well. We have two new internes, too; fresh-cheeked boys whom
Miss Dotty pets something scandalous.
Dr. Balman developed an infection in the bruise on his cheek and lived
only a short while. Corole and Hajek disappeared and have not been
heard of since, though lately a report came to me that a woman much
resembling Corole and dressed very beautifully had been seen at a
European pleasure resort where she made large sums of money gambling.
I judged that Corole was falling into soft spots as usual, unhampered
by a conscience.
Maida and Jim left for Russia very soon after the events that I have
herein recorded took place. I hear from them every so often, long
letters full of news and snapshots.
I see Lance O’Leary once in a while, too, and indeed, have given him
some slight help on a case or two.
But for the most part I am still at St. Ann’s, going about my business
as usual, save that I miss a pair of steel-blue eyes.
And I avoid the closed, mysterious door of Room 18.
The End
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
This transcription follows the text of the US Doubleday edition
published in 1929. However, the following alterations have been made
to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors in the text:
* “breathlessnes” has been corrected to “breathlessness” (Chapter 1);
* “unpholstered” has been corrected to “upholstered” (Chapter 6);
* “yould” has been corrected to “would” (Chapter 11);
* “ummoved” has been corrected to “unmoved” (Chapter 14);
* “into diet kitchen” has been corrected to “into the diet kitchen”
(Chapter 15);
* A sentence missing a closing parenthesis has been repaired.