aunt, Paton is scheduled for a hysterectomy on the president of the
Woman’s College, Peters is demonstrating his new retina operation before
some visiting medical students; but Hoffbein, Harrison, and Barton will
be here, and we have the others’ approval to go ahead. I’m sorry they
can’t come, but I do not feel I can assume the responsibility of
delaying the meeting. Is Mattus coming?”
“No, sir. He’s doing my teaching rounds with the students.”
“Heddis believes....”
Dr. MacArthur slid the typewritten findings toward Cub. The young man
lit a cigarette, looked away from them and frowned.
“Dr. MacArthur,” his voice had assumed its steely quality under which he
always hid his emotions. He held out an envelope.
MacArthur took it automatically and asked, “What is it, son?”
“My resignation, sir.”
MacArthur straightened as though he had been struck by an electric eel.
His blue eyes shot into Cub Sterling’s and he muttered:
“Are you afraid to face the music, Ethridge?”
“No, sir!”
“Then do it without hysterics,” MacArthur ordered, tearing the envelope
into shreds as Prissy Paton’s purring voice interrupted:
“What, am I the first one here, MacArthur? Good morning, Ethridge.
Pleasant morning. Cancerous through and through. No use removing
anything. Fine woman, and great influence in her generation. Sewed her
up again. No use. Will probably live several months. Are the rumors I
hear true? Has there been another? I thought it was that yesterday. I
said to myself, ‘it certainly has all the symptoms....’”
“Blow your bubbles out of the window, Boy Blue,” Dr. Harrison chuckled
easing Dr. Paton into a chair. Then he walked over and shook hands with
Ethridge Sterling, Junior, and with Dr. MacArthur.
He seated himself, took out his pipe and began talking of the tremendous
discoveries of the ruins of Roman towns which had recently been
ascertained in England by means of the airplane.
He filled the room with sanity. Dr. Paton went to his usual morning
manicure, and Dr. Barton came in quietly, nodded, sat down and joined
the listening group. Nobody noticed Flannel-feet Hoffbein’s entrance.
Dr. Harrison stopped and turned politely to Dr. MacArthur; like obedient
schoolboys the other four men turned to MacArthur also.
“Gentlemen, I know it is most unusual and inconvenient to be called to a
staff meeting without notice and at this hour. Still I believe the
occasion justifies the summons. The thing of which Ethridge told you
yesterday afternoon, is this morning.... At three A.M. the patient in
Bed 11, Ward B, Medicine Clinic was found ... dead. There was an
unexplained puncture from a hypodermic syringe in the left arm.”
“MacArthur,” Dr. Harrison’s voice had become an august bass, “are you
s-u-r-e?”
MacArthur stood up and walked toward Dr. Harrison. In his extended hand
was the typewritten sheet. He was even straighter than he had been in
the autopsy room. For thirty-odd years his and Dr. Harrison’s great
passion had been the Elijah Wilson Hospital. Harrison rose. They met in
a patch of morning sunshine, which threw the sheen from Dr. Harrison’s
head into a mirror over the mantel and back into Prissy Paton’s eyes.
Prissy gave a hysterical gasp and prepared to scream. Dr. Barton, in the
voice he used with children, remarked, “Easy, sister. Easy!”
Nobody laughed.
Nobody registered it.
Hoffbein breathed like a returning pearl diver and enunciated carefully,
“Read it, Harrison.”
As Dr. MacArthur returned to his chair and Dr. Harrison cleared his
throat, the door into the corridor opened slightly and Princeton Peters’
peach-blossom face vied with the morning sun. Cub Sterling saw it and
winced. Before any other man had taken it in, Princeton tiptoed into the
room and his lavender eyes had assumed their death-mask purple.
With a precision which carried the force of bass waves against a rock
ledge, Harrison began engraving into his brain and into theirs, the
report of the second assistant chemist. As he turned the page to Dr.
Heddis’ supplement, the men stirred nervously and Hoffbein’s eyes took
on a mountain-out-of-molehill scorn.
Dr. Heddis’ addition stated: “The routine tests, afore referred to, are
being checked by my first assistant, Dr. Maids, who returned with me; so
far they reveal nothing other than the ingredients of a sleeping potion.
These ingredients tally with those prescribed in the order filed upon
the patient’s chart. Toxicology, like other branches of the Profession,
is partly guess work. Since the cadaver bears evidence of a hypodermic
puncture, and indications are that the potion was not administered that
way, my belief is that this patient died of a syringe of some obscure
drug.
“Therefore I am immediately beginning upon the obscure tests. It may
take days to prove or disprove my conclusions. In the meantime, I
repeat, a sleeping potion prescribed in capsule form, which the pharmacy
compounded and the student nurse states she administered, explains
neither the syringe puncture nor the death.
“Indications, it seems to me, point to an obscure and deadly drug.
Possibly a drug which may be administered _per os_, and may have been so
administered in the two previous cases. Any findings will be immediately
reported to the General Staff or Dr. MacArthur.”
As the last words scraped into the consciousness of the men, a solemnity
comparable to that which shadows the faces of pallbearers as they watch
the coffin of a beloved comrade lowered, blanketed the staff. Whatever
their petty hates and puerile quarrels, so far as the reputation of the
Elijah Wilson was concerned, they agreed. It must not be damaged.
“He might be wrong,” Prissy quavered.
Nobody heard him.
“An obscure and deadly drug. Poison. And it may take days to discover
it. Something we never heard of, probably.” Dr. Harrison’s voice seemed
to be directed toward his own mind.
Dr. MacArthur replied:
“Let’s wait for Heddis on the chemistry, gentlemen. Ethridge and Mattus
have spent the last two hours searching texts. They could find nothing.
We would only waste time surmising.” Then, as though Prissy’s statement
had just reached his brain he turned to him and said, “Yes, he might be
wrong. But we can’t have this thing continue, and until he is proved
wrong....” He shook his head slowly, “The effect was obvious. The woman
is dead.”
For a full minute after Dr. MacArthur ceased speaking, no man spoke, and
it was Prissy’s high treble which cut into their consciences.
“Ethridge ... er ... how was she last night?”
“I saw her around seven,” his voice took on its protective clip. “Her
pulse was around a hundred. Considering her condition that was not odd.
Her spirits were excellent. Eager for Father to go ahead with the
operation. He saw her between eight and nine. Found condition quite in
line with the way she was when I saw her. Is that your understanding,
Dr. MacArthur?”
“And ... er ... by the way, where is your father?”
“He is doing a brain tumor, Dr. Paton,” Dr. MacArthur cut in.
“And how did your resident ... Doctor ... er?”
“Mattus.”
“Yes ... thank you ... Dr. Mattus, consider her?” Hoffbein slid his
question into Cub.
“He saw her before she went to sleep around nine. He reports her pulse
had dropped to around ninety; otherwise her condition remained
unchanged. Anything else, sir?”
Hoffbein never answered verbally questions which did not flatter him. He
shook his head thoughtfully.
By that time the staff had regained some measure of its equilibrium and
Dr. MacArthur continued.
“Between the time Mattus saw her and three A.M. she was ... was....”
“I’m in favor of turning the whole thing over to the police,” Princeton
Peters said most righteously.
“I’m not!” Dr. Harrison was vehement. “Outside of this room ... with the
exception of Bear Sterling and Heddis ... no living person is aware of
the situation,” he pointed the paper at Peters’ face. “Some linen is too
foul to wash in public. Want to ruin the hospital, d’ye? We think we are
pretty good at death and birth ... and we shall not be downed by....”
He waved the paper at them.
“Precisely....”
Then Dr. MacArthur realized he had expressed an opinion himself....
“What is your conclusion, gentlemen?” he hurried to say.
“Mistake to form one without an examination of the witnesses, I think
... if you can call them that ... suh,” Dr. Barton interposed.
“Quite. Ethridge and I decided upon that during the autopsy. And I have
arranged with my secretary to call them quietly ... and separately ...
in order to avoid.... We would have questioned them minutely this
morning; but the seriousness of our decision ... whatever it is ... must
be a responsibility we _all_ bear. D’y’see?”
“The night student nurse on Ward B is waiting. Shall I have her brought
in, gentlemen?”
Hoffbein sensed a suppressed motion of Cub Sterling’s, a slight movement
in the chair, an intangible gathering of forces.
“Isn’t this rather cruel?” Dr. Harrison suggested.
“Terribly. But how else will we ever...?”
Princeton Peters interrupted Dr. MacArthur.
“Murder is cruel, too.”
It was the first time the word had been mentioned. It rushed into the
faces of the seven men like an angry wind.
During the ensuing vacuum, Dr. MacArthur lifted his telephone:
“Miss Sadler, will you please bring that pupil nurse to my office.”
The girl entered tensely.
Dr. Barton noticed her eyes were blue and too closely set; Prissy
thought the face was sweet; Princeton Peters felt she had been nicely
brought up; Dr. Harrison’s brain flashed “kitten lined with ox-hide”;
Cub noticed her feet were flat, and Dr. MacArthur was too benevolent for
a personal estimate.
“Won’t you sit down, Miss ... er....”
“My name is Evelina Kerr.”
Her voice held a note of defiance as she took the proffered chair beside
Dr. MacArthur’s.
“My child,” he said soothingly, “this is probably the most trying duty
you have had in your whole training ... and we regret that it is
unavoidable. Will you please tell us plainly ... and as minutely as you
can remember, exactly what happened after you went on duty in B Ward
last night?”
She sat with her feet together, her hands folded in her lap, and a
sullen calm in her voice.
“At nine o’clock, Dr. MacArthur, I went on night duty on B Ward of
Medicine Clinic. Aunt Roenna ... I mean Miss Kerr ... was on the floor
and Miss Kexter, the white nurse, who had waited to give me my
instructions.”
“White nurse?” Princeton Peters’ voice was polite, but demanding.
“Slang for graduate floor nurse in charge,” Cub Sterling supplied.
The student nurse was silent in her resentment. Finally she continued:
“They left together. Then I took my temperatures, counted pulses,
prepared the patients for the night.”
“The patient in Bed 11, Miss Kerr,” Hoffbein began in his mesmerizing
voice. “How was she?”
The girl started and turned toward him with the underlying resentment of
a schoolboy stopped midway through the multiplication tables.
“She was all right, Dr. Hoffbein. She had no temperature and....”
“Her pulse?” he interrupted again.
Cub Sterling stirred restlessly and lit a cigarette.
“It was between ninety and a hundred. By nine-thirty I had given all of
my medicines....”
“Did she have any medicine?”
“Yes, Dr. Hoffbein, she did. She had a prescription of Dr. Sterling,
Senior’s. A ... a sleeping potion.”
“Do you know what it was?”
“No, sir. It came up from the pharmacy filled.”
“Wasn’t the duplicate on her chart?”
“It was pheno-barbital,” Cub Sterling cut in raspingly.
The girl hesitated. She seemed to have lost the thread of her thoughts.
“Go ahead with the story, child,” Dr. MacArthur soothed.
She sat silent a moment and then continued:
“By ten o’clock I had finished my medicines, temperatures and pulses.
The ward was quiet and I started to work upon the fever charts.
“The orderly was in the kitchen straightening up and fixing the
breakfast trays. Two patients called for bed-pans. The orderly came to
tell me that we were short two milk bottles. I telephoned the kitchens
about them.
“Otherwise the ward was perfectly quiet, except for an occasional cough.
“At ten-fifteen, Miss Willis, the night supervisor in Medicine, made her
rounds, and told me to watch the patient in Bed 11 very carefully.
“At eleven-forty I went to the medicine closet to prepare the hypodermic
Dr. Mattus had ordered for another patient.”
“What kind of hypodermic?” Dr. MacArthur inserted.
“A strophanthin mixture. She’s a cardiac case.”
“A dispensary case of cardiac insufficiency,” Cub Sterling cut in.
Miss Kerr’s resentment was again expressed by silence. She seemed to be
debating with herself.
“What happened?” Hoffbein demanded curtly.
For the first time since she had come into the room her speech came
spontaneously.
“I ... I ... was boiling the syringe and had my back to the corridor
door, and suddenly I felt someone passing in the corridor and turned
around, and ran to the medicine closet door. There was no one in sight.
And then I remembered the boiling syringe and went back to turn it off.
I couldn’t leave until I had. It would have been ruined, and if the
patient didn’t get her dose in time she might die.
“So I made myself finish filling the syringe and then went into the
ward. There was nobody there, and all of the patients were sleeping,
except Mrs. Witherspoon, who is queer in the head.
“I asked her if she had seen anybody and she said, ‘Yes.’”
The girl’s speech died in her throat and the seven men held their
breath.
MacArthur regained his first.
“Whom did she say she saw, Miss Kerr?”
“She said she saw Dr. ... Dr. ... Sterling ... Junior....”
The girl turned her close-set eyes, acid with hate, upon Cub Sterling.
Princeton’s lavender eyes, death-purple, Prissy’s green ones glinting,
Hoffbein’s black ones deep as wells and the brown eyes of Doctors Barton
and Harrison, gravely inquiring, turned upon Cub Sterling.
Only Dr. MacArthur’s eyes remained the same.
Cub Sterling answered the inquiry sharply.
“The patient is deranged, gentlemen. I was in my rooms.”
The door opened and Bear Sterling, his brows beetling, entered. Cub rose
and gave him his seat. Dr. Harrison pulled up a vacant chair and
motioned Cub into it. The chair was between his and Dr. Barton’s.
Prissy Paton looked at Princeton Peters and both of them decided they
had better not speak ... now.
“And what happened next, Miss Kerr?” Hoffbein insisted.
“I went and asked the orderly if he had seen anybody and he said ‘No.’
So I went and looked at the patient in Bed 11 again. She was sleeping
peacefully.”
Dr. Harrison leaned suddenly forward. His voice was acid:
“Did that deranged patient see anybody else?”
“No, sir.”
Then his voice stabbed:
“Did you?”
The close eyes shifted quickly. Her response came instantly:
“No, Doctor Harrison.”
A silence began stretching. The girl continued abruptly:
“Then I went back to my desk and finished my fever charts.”
“You did not call your supervisor?”
“No, Dr. MacArthur. I finished the fever charts and then made the
midnight rounds. The patient in Bed 11 was still sleeping peacefully. I
called in the rounds to my night supervisor and began studying my
nursing manual. Three patients rang their bells between then and two.
One wanted a glass of water and two, bed-pans. At two I gave the special
medicines and then went back to my studying.”
“You did not look at the patient in Bed 11?”
“No, Dr. Harrison, she had no special medicine. At three I again made
rounds and found the patient in Bed 11 was dead. I called my supervisor
and failed to get her. I then called the general superintendent. She
told me to draw the curtains around Bed 11 and wait further orders until
Dr. Mattus came.
“He and Dr. Sterling, Junior, came within the next fifteen minutes. Dr.
Sterling and Dr. Mattus rolled the bed off of the ward and into the
elevator.
“I did not see the patient again. I finished my ward duties by seven,
woke the remaining patients and told them that the patient in Bed 11 had
been operated on in the night and removed to the Surgical Clinic, like
Aunt Roenna told me to....”
“When did she tell you that?” Cub Sterling inquired.
The girl hesitated and flushed. For the moment she seemed to have lost
her control.
“She didn’t. I had forgotten. Miss Willis, the night supervisor told
me.”
“Thank you very much, Miss Kerr. Are there any questions any of you
gentlemen wish to ask Miss Kerr, before she is relieved?”
“How long have you been in training?”
“Two years and five months, Dr. Harrison. I finish in December.”
“Thank you again,” Dr. MacArthur said as she rose, and then finished:
“Of all the people concerned in this, Miss Kerr, you are the youngest.
Please do not forget that two years ago you took an oath concerning
silence.”
Princeton Peters, who was sitting by the door, rose and opened it for
her.
“Thank you, my dear!” he beamed.
No man felt she had told the entire truth.
After her departure, they sat silently awaiting the next witness. The
horror of the thing seemed to have enveloped them.
The night orderly on B Ward entered. A thin, tubercular looking man with
frightened eyes. Everything about him seemed collapsed, and yet still
able to move.
Dr. MacArthur looked up:
“Good morning, William. How are you?”
The man’s appreciation spread over him.
“Well as can be expected, thank you, Doctor. How’s yourself?”
He turned to Prissy, Bear, Cub, and Harrison with a respectful “Good
morning, Doctor.”
“William,” Dr. MacArthur began addressing him before he could enter into
a personal conversation with each man, “were you on duty last night?”
“Yes, sir, I was. As usual. And a frightful night, too, sir.”
“How?”
“Well, Dr. MacArthur, to begin my rheumatism was bothering. And then
everything seemed to have hid itself. And then that girl just in here
was like a kitten on a brick, sir. Got my hair prickled, so to speak, by
running back and asking me if I’d seen anybody on the ward about
eleven-fifty and then saying she had _felt_ somebody.”
“Was there any basis for it?”
“None, sir, as I knows. It’s true I was in the kitchen during her
feeling spell, so to speak. But, if you will pardon my remarking, sir, I
been on that ward ten years coming August and it’s as hard to get past
me as a watchdog, sir.”
“Yes, William. I know it is.”
“Thank you, Dr. MacArthur. Thank you.”
“How many times did the nurse come back?” Hoffbein smiled encouragingly.
“Only wunst. And then when she found the woman dead, sir! I was resting
with my eyes shet, sir, and she well nigh scared me out of my wits!”
“Was she frightened?” Hoffbein insisted.
“It ain’t fur me to say, Doctor. I was too mad at having my rest ruined
and too scared myself to see, sir. It wasn’t till Dr. Mattus came that I
could stand away from the wall, sir. When Dr. Cub ... begging your
pardon, son ... Sterling got there I was all right again.
“I been in the hospital long as most of you and I seen death every day,
but....”
“And we know how proud you are of the hospital, William,” Dr. MacArthur
cut in, “and what a help you have always been to it. So you must promise
me, upon your oath, before these gentlemen, that you will not repeat to
any living soul a single word of what you know or suspect about the
trouble.”
Dr. MacArthur drew the old man’s eyes to his and William replied:
“I promise, sir.”
“Thank you, William.”
Dr. Peters held the door open.
The old man started toward it and turned midway.
“Dr. MacArthur, do I ... do I...?”
“You do. Tonight and every night.”
It was apparent that every man felt from the minute William began
speaking that he was innocent. During his interrogation they had
relaxed.
In the interim between his exit and the entrance of Peter Rathbone,
Chief Pharmacist, the tension had fallen considerably.
“Baldy” Rathbone shook them out of a reverie.
He had a body like a triangle upside down. His wide shoulders showed
strength and assurance. He was a youngish middle-aged man. A spreading
part ran up the center of his scalp and connected his wide forehead with
the bald spot on top.
He had been raised an orphan and worked his way through college at
night, and then worked his way up at the Elijah Wilson. There was a
sense of definite knowledge about the face and figure. His eyes bore the
marks of childhood suffering, but his smile heartened the men.
“Good morning, gentlemen.”
His voice was a deep resonant baritone.
“Sit down, Baldy,” Dr. MacArthur motioned to the “witness chair”; then a
deep blush steeped his face, and he smiled. Rathbone returned the smile,
took the chair, and ran his eyes over the staff. He had never seen any
of them so perturbed.
Dr. MacArthur said carefully:
“Er ... er ... Rathbone, did you check the prescriptions?”
“As far as possible, sir. A compounded prescription, as you know, cannot
be checked as to relative quantities and so ... but the ingredients from
the remainder (I understood from the order that I was to have two
capsules compounded, in case the first failed to take effect) were
checked. They tallied as to substance, perfectly.”
“Who compounded the prescription?” Dr. Hoffbein queried.
“McInnis, my first assistant, sir. He can be trusted.”
He was interrupted by the telephone bell. It jarred the men like a steam
siren. MacArthur’s, “Yes, Heddis. Are you sure? Soon as possible. Thank
you,” held the eight men to a dead silence. A silence which screamed for
knowledge.
Dr. MacArthur placed the hook too carefully upon the receiver, Hoffbein
thought, and then he spoke:
“Coniine, gentlemen. One of the deadliest poisons. Heddis will be over
in fifteen minutes.”
“Whew!” Dr. Harrison ejaculated.
“Hypodermic syringe, then,” Bear Sterling growled.
Cub Sterling jumped as though he had been shot.
They all turned toward him.
“What’s the matter, Ethridge?” Dr. Harrison put his hand on his knee....
“Nothing. Except she was giving hypodermics all night. She....”
Dr. MacArthur’s pointer nose had a dreadful struggle with his judicial
brain.
“We must make no decisions ... nor allow ourselves any prejudices, until
we are in possession of all evidence.”
His voice was stern.
“You were saying, Baldy...?”
“That Dr. Heddis believes it was done ... hypodermically. He suspected
coniine and called me twenty minutes ago, and as a result all of the
medicine closets in Medicine Clinic have just been checked. Nothing was
found.”
“Ever have any obscure poisons in the pharmacy?” Cub Sterling was
leaning arrogantly forward.
“Rarely. None, at present.”
“How can you account for the entry of this ... coniine?” Cub Sterling
lowered his brows and scowled.
“_I_ can’t, Dr. Sterling,” Rathbone turned his body around and looked
through Cub searchingly. His doming forehead added weight to his eyes.
Cub shifted his position, and Bear Sterling who had missed the by-play
growled:
“Is it hard to obtain?”
“Sir?”
“I said is coniine difficult to get?”
“Since we never have any use for it, I don’t know, Dr. Sterling,” he
hesitated as if endeavoring to hide his irritation and then continued,
“Shall I find out, sir?”
Dr. MacArthur interposed:
“Good idea. See where and in what quantities the big pharmaceutical
houses have sold coniine within the last year.”
“Perhaps we can trace the person quickly that way,” Dr. Barton affirmed.
Rathbone rose and turned, “Is there anything else, gentlemen? I’ll let
you know directly I find out. Do you wish all syringes in the hospital
checked, Dr. MacArthur?”
“Do you, gentlemen?” Dr. MacArthur turned toward Harrison and Bear
Sterling.
“Plenty of time for that,” Hoffbein inserted. “Check the supply sources
first.”
When Rathbone was gone they felt as though a strong support had been
removed. His incisive uprightness rested them; but he had shot them so
full of information they were still dazed when Miss Roenna Kerr entered.
She came, her hair waved, her face firmly set, the bust and rear
defiantly inflated, her enraged vitals midway between. She had been
there as long as any of them. Her work had always been perfect. She wore
her new pair of bunion-rest shoes.
Princeton Peters took her arm in his, patted her hand and murmured:
“Dear Miss Kerr, brace up!”
He eased her into the “witness chair” and tiptoed back to his own.
He was worth a million dollars to the Elijah Wilson ... in his way. To
every other man in the room she had appeared _too_ braced!
In response to their “good morning,” she smiled, generally, cocked her
head on one side and said to MacArthur: