I
“You promised,” I reminded Mr. Patton, “to play with cards on the
table.”
“My dear young lady,” he replied, “I have no cards! I suspect a game,
that’s all.”
“Then—do you need me?”
The detective bent forward, his arms on his desk, and looked me over
carefully.
“What sort of shape are you in? Tired?”
“No.”
“Nervous?”
“Not enough to hurt.”
“I want you to take another case, following a nurse who has gone to
pieces,” he said, selecting his words carefully. “I don’t want to tell
you a lot—I want you to go in with a fresh mind. It promises to be an
extraordinary case.”
“How long was the other nurse there?”
“Four days.”
“She went to pieces in four days!”
“Well, she’s pretty much unstrung. The worst is, she hasn’t any real
reason. A family chooses to live in an unusual manner, because they like
it, or perhaps they’re afraid of something. The girl was, that’s sure. I
had never seen her until this morning, a big, healthy-looking young
woman; but she came in looking back over her shoulder as if she expected
a knife in her back. She said she was a nurse from St. Luke’s and that
she’d been on a case for four days. She’d left that morning after about
three hours’ sleep in that time, being locked in a room most of the
time, and having little but crackers and milk for food. She thought it
was a case for the police.”
“Who is ill in the house? Who was her patient?”
“There is no illness, I believe. The French governess had gone, and they
wished the children competently cared for until they replaced her. That
was the reason given her when she went. Afterward she—well, she was
puzzled.”
“How are you going to get me there?”
He gathered acquiescence from my question and smiled approval.
“Good girl!” he said. “Never mind how I’ll get you there. You are the
most dependable woman I know.”
“The most curious, perhaps?” I retorted. “Four days on the case, three
hours’ sleep, locked in and yelling ‘Police’! Is it out of town?”
“No, in the heart of the city, on Beauregard Square. Can you get some
St. Luke’s uniforms? They want another St. Luke’s nurse.”