blunders which so horrible an occurrence makes us likely to fall into.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mac!” Dr. Harrison’s voice was placid, and
Prissy and Princeton automatically exhaled the breath they had been
inhaling preparatory to argument.
Dr. Harrison said:
“Do you know how many rabbit feet I’ve seen on dispensary patients in
the last six months? Sixty-three! The cancer cases love ’em. How many
patients we’ve lost because they moved when another negro sprinkled salt
upon their doorsteps? Eighty-one! Within three blocks of here I’ve
counted fifteen chiropractors, ten optometrists, five osteopaths, and
seventeen midwives.
“Superstition, witchcraft, voodoo, dynamite! We’ve _got_ to keep our
face no matter if all of us are murdered. Matter with you three is just
a touch of hysteria.”
Hoffbein squirmed and replied:
“Fear psychosis is a most contagious disease, but like all contagious
diseases most debilitating. It has only one cure: to remove the cause of
the fear.”
His voice was precise and his words, he felt, showed how he stood and
yet were dignified.
“From which I understand you are suggesting we scrap Cub Sterling,”
MacArthur’s angry eyes bore into him like a hot poker, and his mouth
drew to a tight line as he slapped his hand upon his desk and stated, “I
won’t do it without _ample_, _complete_ and _convincing evidence_. Have
you any to offer?”
Hoffbein squirmed acutely and he replied evasively:
“Nothing ... tangible.... Only those small and very personal signs which
to a man in my branch are so revealing. His hands, the hysterical set of
his left shoulder, the peculiar light which comes into his eyes....”
“That’ll do!” Dr. Harrison barked. “If I knew any of you had cancer, I’d
tell you so to your face. If Bear Sterling had found any man here
suffering from an incurable brain tumor, he would have told that man. We
are not asking you for symptoms, Hoffbein. Have you any evidence, yes or
no?”
Hoffbein’s eyes lost their whites. “No.”
“Then let’s get on to people who have. Read Ethridge’s testimony,
please, MacArthur.”
Dr. MacArthur picked up the long white sheet of paper and began in an
even voice:
“Complying with the decision of the General Staff of the Elijah Wilson
Hospital, I admitted Rose Standish, graduate nurse of this
institution, as a patient in Medicine Clinic, Ward B, Bed 11,
yesterday afternoon. The diagnosis, for the benefit of the nursing
staff, being a possible tubercular effusion.
“She received a routine examination from the house staff and from
seven-ten until seven-thirty last evening my father, Dr. Sterling, and
I went over her. We found her lungs in excellent shape, her heart
slightly enlarged, but not seriously so, her general physical
condition splendid, with the exception of the fact that she was
somewhat thin and underweight. There were no signs of any malady of
any kind whatever. Her temperature was normal, her pulse good, though
a little rapid, which, considering the circumstances was not
surprising, and her spirits commendably calm.
“We both felt most reassured by her mental and physical condition,
though my father, Dr. Sterling, in case she might discover herself too
fatigued to sleep advised a sedative. We told Miss Standish of the
order and suggested she call for the potion if she felt the necessity.
“There was some vague hysteria in the ward, which both Miss Standish
and ourselves sensed, and I understand from the seven-to-nine-student
nurses that she calmed it by conversation.
“The prescription for the potion was, later, removed from Miss
Standish’s chart and is in the possession of Dr. MacArthur, as is,
also, the testimony of a patient who claimed to have seen Miss Kerr,
student nurse, standing over Miss Standish’s bed for several seconds
during the thunderstorm which extinguished the lights at nine-forty.
“From the time we walked off the ward at seven-thirty, until Mattus
notified me of Rose Standish’s death at one-ten, I did not see Miss
Standish. Mattus saw her around ten and reported her in practically
the same condition in which Father and I had left her.
“After seeing my father, Dr. Sterling, to his car at seven-thirty, I
went to dinner in the doctors’ dining room, took a short walk, and was
in bed by eleven-thirty.
“When Mattus notified me of Miss Standish’s death at one-ten, I
immediately called Dr. MacArthur who ordered an autopsy, tried to get
my father and learned that the cold he had complained of was settling
in his chest and his temperature was 101. At his orders I got his
assistant, Dr. Withers, who in the presence of Dr. MacArthur, Mattus
and myself, performed the autopsy, the findings of which will be given
by Dr. Heddis, who came in when it was half finished and later took
the organs for examination.
“Because of the excellent forethought of Mattus, we borrowed an
operative patient from Surgical Clinic and rolled her bed into the
place where Rose Standish’s had stood and left orders to say to the
patients that Miss Standish had hemorrhaged and been put in a private
room. From the time the ward awoke until the operation was called, the
new patient was in the process of preparation and did not realize the
change.
“From the time of the discovery of Rose Standish’s corpse, until
Mattus and I had rolled the bed toward the elevator, the deportment of
William, the orderly, was most praiseworthy and the demeanor of Miss
Evelina Kerr astonishingly calm.
“While the autopsy was still in progress, my mother called to say that
Dr. Sterling’s temperature had risen to 103, his breathing was labored
and he was requesting I come to him. Dr. MacArthur insisted that I go.
I found him with a definite case of pneumonia, both lungs seriously
involved, pulse irregular, and breathing labored, semi-delirious. I
immediately called an ambulance and brought him into the hospital for
oxygen.
“The response is disheartening. His heart is weakening. I have
remained by his bedside, again through the advice of Dr. MacArthur.
“Dictated to Dr. MacArthur’s secretary, outside room 511, Medicine
Clinic, at 8:30 A. M. Wednesday, May 18th.
“(Signed): Ethridge Sterling, Jr., M.D.
Physician-in-Chief (Pro-tem),
The Elijah Wilson Hospital.”
Dr. MacArthur laid the paper down and looked from the window.
“Questions?” his voice was old and heavy, and he brought his eyes back
to the men with an effort.
Dr. Harrison shot a glance around the room and insisted:
“Let’s continue with the evidence.”
Dr. MacArthur pushed a button upon his desk, the door into the corridor
opened and Miss Evelina Kerr, night student nurse on Ward B, entered.
It was Princeton Peters who escorted her to the chair beside Dr.
MacArthur’s and Dr. Hoffbein who would have liked to question her, had
he not felt Dr. Harrison’s eyes judging his every thought; so Dr.
MacArthur turned to her and said:
“You have been through another dreadful night. I’m sorry. Please tell
about it carefully.”
She sat as she had sat yesterday, her hands primly in her lap and her
flat feet carefully together, her stubborn defiance breaking through her
voice.
She looked carefully around the large room before she began to speak,
and to Dr. MacArthur, Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Barton, there flashed a
realization that her eyes were still too close together, and that
somehow she was enjoying her importance.
But her survey did not escape Dr. Harrison.
He barked, “Dr. Sterling is not here because his father is desperately
ill. Will you be so kind as to tell your story, now?”
“Yes, Dr. Harrison, I will.” The stupid definiteness in her voice was
maddening. She turned her eyes upon Dr. Hoffbein and told her story to
him. She said:
“When I went on duty at nine I found Miss Standish a patient in Bed 11,
Ward B. She said Dr. Sterling thought she might have a tubercular
effusion and she was in for observation. I gave her her thermometer and
ran to close the windows as the rain had started.”
“And when the lights went out, you were standing by her bed, Miss Kerr,”
Dr. Barton announced pointedly.
Her eyes did not leave Dr. Hoffbein, and she replied:
“I had come back for the thermometer.”
The answer crashed like a broken plate, and Dr. Harrison insisted:
“And then?”
“Then I counted her pulse,” her voice was wooden, “gave my medicines.
Put out the flowers and called Dr. Mattus about a woman with a heart
attack.”
“Why didn’t you give Miss Standish her sleeping potion, when you were
distributing medicines?”
“Because, Dr. Barton, Dr. Mattus came up to the heart case and said not
to give it to Miss Standish unless she called for it.
“After he went, I dimmed the lights, went to work on my fever charts,
made up the midnight medicines, and began studying my nursing manual.
William, the orderly, came up the hall twice to ask me about some dishes
and the breakfast trays, and then about eleven-thirty, Miss Standish
rang and asked for her sleeping potion, and I gave it to her.”
“Are you sure you gave her the right prescription?” Dr. Harrison’s eyes
had bored past Dr. Hoffbein and into her.
She pouted her thick lips and lifted her ugly chin.
“Yes, sir, I’m positive. She went to sleep right away. You don’t think,
Dr. Harrison...?”
“What I think does not concern your story, Miss Kerr. Please continue.”
There was a slight tightening of her jaw, and had she had sense enough
to cry then, every man in the room would have felt beaten. She continued
woodenly:
“After I gave Miss Standish her medicine, the next patient had to have
her linen changed, and when I had finished with that, Miss Standish was
asleep. I could tell by her breathing.
“It was then almost midnight and I went to boil my syringes for the
midnight hypodermics, and while I was boiling them Mrs. Witherspoon, the
patient whose bed I had just changed, rang again, and I ran to see about
her.
“And as I reached her bed, I found Dr. Cub Sterling leaning over Miss
Standish. He looked up and nodded, and....”
“Repeat your last three sentences, Miss Kerr. Repeat them twice! And
look at me while you do it.” Dr. Hoffbein’s voice was mesmeric.
Miss Kerr repeated them ... twice....
They filled the room and permeated the senses of every man present like
poison gas.
Dr. Harrison shot his gimlet-like brown eyes into the narrow, close ones
of the student nurse.
“You are wrong, Miss Kerr. Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, was in his
rooms.”
“I’m not! He was bending over Miss Standish. I know it. His bushy hair,
his funny shoulder....”
“Did he speak?”
“No, Dr. Harrison. He just nodded. Like he always does.”
“Why didn’t you _make_ him speak?”
“I couldn’t stop to. We had no more clean linen and I had to run for a
bed-pan for Mrs. Witherspoon.”
MacArthur’s hand beat upon his desk ... hopelessly....
“Go on, Miss Kerr.” His voice was like a death-knell.
“And when I came back he was gone. He had hurried off the ward while I
was getting the bed-pan. And I went to Miss Standish as soon as I could.
She was still asleep. And I ran to William. He was asleep. And then I
started to ’phone the night supervisor, but it was time to give my
medicines ... and Aunt Roenna always told us even if the building were
burning down, the medical patients must have their medicines on time. So
I began giving them their hypodermics. And when I could, I went to look
at Miss Standish. She was still sleeping.
“And then I finished the medicines and fever charts and called in the
rounds ... I forgot to mention about Dr. Sterling because the supervisor
rung off so quickly ... and I had to hurry from the ’phone to give out
three bed-pans. When I had finished the bed-pans I went to look at Miss
Standish again and she was dead ... and so I called Aunt Roenna....”
“Why?” Dr. Harrison’s word hit her like a brick.
“Because she had told me to.”
“When?”
“Last night before she went off duty.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘All right, I’ll come over.’”
“Then you both _expected_ Rose Standish to die, Miss Kerr?”
All of this dialogue had gone on so swiftly that the girl had failed to
make her brain control her speech. It had come out ... spontaneously....
“We didn’t either, only....”
Dr. Harrison decided that this was not the time for the truth. He passed
off her reply with, “What happened next?”
“I called the night supervisor and Dr. Mattus, and waited until they
came. And then....”
“From that point forward we have several eye-witnesses.” Dr. MacArthur
interrupted. “Thank you, Miss Kerr.”
He picked up his telephone and asked:
“Nursing office, please. Miss Merrill, will you please come for Miss
Kerr, student nurse, and put her to bed, and follow the orders given you
this morning. Thank you.”
The girl turned to speak and Dr. Harrison motioned to Dr. Peters to open
the door. He did so, as Miss Merrill appeared.
“Before we discuss this, let’s have the other witnesses,” Dr. Harrison’s
voice was relentless. But it failed to puncture the
self-righteous-I-told-you-so posture of Doctors Peters, Paton and
Hoffbein.
Dr. MacArthur said, “I think we might dispense with the orderly,
William, and with the day white nurse. According to the testimony of
everybody William slept through the murder. He is useless either to
condemn or confirm the girl’s statement. And the day white nurse seems
to me completely out of it. Here are Dr. Heddis and Rathbone.”
They entered and sat down quietly. The mental heat of the room stifled
them. They drew their handkerchiefs quickly and Dr. Heddis mopped his
leonine head and Rathbone his bald head furiously. Dr. Heddis felt
himself sinking into the tension. He spoke immediately:
“The findings upon the organs of Rose Standish, gentlemen, are that she
was murdered by coniine in such a quantity that it took effect in about
thirty to forty minutes. The left arm bore a hypodermic puncture; the
injection was larger than that administered in the other traceable case.
Her liver, spleen, lungs and stomach were suffused with the odor and the
substance. Because of the enormity of the dose, indications are that the
death was painless. She died of the customary respiratory paralysis.”
At least the testimony of these two men was definite and sane. The staff
sat forward attentively. Dr. Harrison asked:
“Ethridge mentions a sleeping potion in his report...?”
Dr. Heddis turned toward Peter Rathbone. Baldy’s wide straight shoulders
squared. His delivery was impressive:
“The potion was ... bread pills. Dr. Sterling, Senior, came by the
pharmacy, around six, and left the order himself. It was his idea that
if the student nurse was doing the murdering and administered the
potion, without knowing its content (the copy upon Miss Standish’s chart
was for an intricate formula), she would create a trap for herself.”
MacArthur groaned, involuntarily. Hoffbein stated:
“He overlooked the psychic effect upon the patient.”
“It seems so, Doctor.” Rathbone’s words were slow and measured: “Dr.
Heddis is unable to trace a potion in the system, and I understand the
student nurse insists she administered the potion, so the obvious
assumption is that she is telling the truth and the effect was
psychic....”
“Bear’s endeavor to prove his son....” Barton ventured and Hoffbein
realized suddenly that he had been in temporary acquiescence with the
theory of Cub Sterling’s innocence, and hastened to add:
“Who, Baldy ... er, Rathbone, except yourself and Dr. Sterling, Senior,
knew of the contents of the potion?”
“I can’t say, Doctor.” Rathbone’s mouth closed tightly, and Heddis
lifted his heavy body, as Barton inquired:
“With our methods of cadaver handling is putrefaction possible?”
Rathbone repeated the question to Dr. Heddis, who answered:
“Perfectly. Clip off a small portion of an arm or leg, before embalming,
and keep it....” He threw out his hand, “To a toxicologist the synthetic
possibility seems increasingly unfeasible. Formulas are too intricate,
and the discovery of the murderer that way would be worse than looking
for a penny in quicksand. Mean checking every organ of every cadaver....
“Look for the administrator, not the manufacturer. Someone with access
to the patients in that bed. Time enough after that person is found to
find out....”
He turned to Dr. MacArthur and said, “Any hour night or day, Mac....”
Rathbone, too, rose; his clear baritone filled the room:
“The medicine closets of all floors of Medicine Clinic were searched
again today. They reveal no coniine. The syringes check as to number but
are useless; the routine boiling eliminates any hope of tracing that
way. Is there anything else we can do, sir?”
“No, Rathbone,” MacArthur’s voice was hopeless and affectionate. “I wish
there were. Thank both of you, gentlemen.”
They were followed by Dr. Mattus, who came, as Cub had done the day
before with a doll tucked under his arm. This time the dolly wore a blue
dress and frilled bonnet and said, “Pa-pa. Pa-pa.”
Every man in the room shivered.
“For heaven’s sake turn that damn thing over!” Dr. MacArthur ordered.
“Where did you get it?”
“Found it in the desk of Miss Roenna Kerr.”
“Whew!” It was Dr. Barton who expressed the combined sentiments.
“When?” Dr. Harrison’s face was eerie with hope.
“When she was at Head Nurse Conference, and I went into her office
looking for some case reports.”
“Did you face her with it?”
“No, Dr. MacArthur, I did not. I brought it to you. Only first, I
happened, casually, to learn that her niece won a similar doll at a
street fair last week. She went with a party of nurses during her P. M.”
Dr. Harrison’s fringe of white hair haloed his face. He looked like a
man coming out of torture.
“Tell what you know about last night, Mattus.”
“Dr. James, interne, and I examined Miss Standish yesterday afternoon.
Found her normal in every respect and in good spirits. By Jove ... when
I came on the ward, Miss Roenna Kerr was trying to put her in another
bed ... and I ordered her into Bed 11. Did not see Miss Standish again
until around ten when I was called to the ward for a heart case. She was
still awake and cheerful; told her Dr. Bear had ordered a sleeping
potion and to call for it if she needed it.”
“What was the potion?” Dr. MacArthur interrupted.
“Veronal, sir. He handed me the prescription as he left Medicine Clinic,
sir.”
The men stirred and Mattus continued:
“When I saw Miss Standish again, she was dead.”
“Did you see Miss Roenna Kerr on the ward after the murder?”
“Yes, sir. She arrived soon after I did and I presumed Dr. Sterling,
Junior, had sent for her. That’s all I know, sir. Except that Cub, Dr.
Sterling, Junior, left his father and made rounds on that ward to calm
the hysteria this morning about nine and had the heaven-sent sense to
say his father was ill. The women are wallowing in sympathy and have
almost forgotten the death of Miss Standish.
“Dr. Bear is sinking, gentlemen.”
When he was gone, Dr. Peters suggested calling Miss Roenna Kerr, but Dr.
Harrison opposed it.
“Not on your life. You are out to convict Cub Sterling. I’m out to save
him. Let’s have it out in plain words. Bear is on his deathbed.”
Princeton interrupted abruptly, “Harrison, isn’t there some hope? Dear
Bear’s physique....”
Dr. Harrison turned on him coldly.
“No. No, dear Peters. His eyes will not be better, tomorrow. They will
be closed!”
“Then don’t you think we had better wait until after the funeral?”
Prissy intervened.
“Hell, no!” Harrison snorted. “Bear Sterling is the best friend I ever
had. He dragged me out of the gutter and made a doctor of me. Either his
son is cleared, or I’ll not be caught at his funeral with you skunks!”
His anger was so intense that nobody dared object. Princeton wiped his
brow clean with a lavender silk handkerchief and Harrison continued:
“He cannot defend his son who by his own murderers is accused of
murdering patients. Well, I know his son is innocent!”
“How do you know it?” Hoffbein hypodermicked.
“By a method that none of you three could ever comprehend. Because I
trust the man. Now let’s get down to tacks. If Ethridge is innocent he
ought to be cleared before sunset. If he is guilty he ought to be hanged
before then. Clearing him or convicting him with the police is out of
the question. But cleared he has got to be, and therefore I propose that
we instruct MacArthur to hire the best private detectives in the United
States to become patients on B Ward and orderlies throughout the
building, with the right to question any or all of us....”
“But why ... why ... Harrison...?”
“Shut up, Princeton.... I beg your pardon, Peters.... How do MacArthur
and I know that Miss Roenna Kerr and her niece are not working as
accomplices for you or Hoffbein in murdering patients in Ethridge
Sterling’s clinic?”
“Oh, oh, oh! Harrison you _don’t_ mean that!”
“I do, Peters.”
“You can’t realize what you are saying, man,” Hoffbein was soothingly
calm.
“I do, Hoffbein! I realize quite thoroughly that Bear Sterling’s son’s
reputation is as dear to Dr. Barton and Dr. MacArthur and to myself as
that of any world-famous man who ever had a patient in the Elijah Wilson
Hospital. I would sooner, much sooner, see the reputations of you three
scraped in the mire and flung away across the world by the tabloids than
to see the name of a man who cannot be present to protect himself
slurred by your nasty insinuations.
“His good name is just as valuable to us as yours are ... more so ...
and so far as we are concerned your honor needs cleansing a great deal
more than his does. The only way to cleanse any of our reputations now
is to quit treating every person ... _whatever his rank_ ... involved in
this matter ... as innocent, and consider all of us guilty until the
criminal is caught.
“Do any of you suspect MacArthur? Well, that’s something in your favor.
MacArthur, you hire the detectives, and instruct them to consider all of
us guilty ... until we are proved innocent....
“And in case any of you have any scruples whatever about talking I wish
you to remember that Barton’s brother is the Attorney-General of this
state and at one word from MacArthur he will have all of you _made_ to
talk ... to save your own reputations, let alone that of the blessed
hospital.
“Miss Roenna Kerr, working through her niece as accomplice, outside of
Ethridge Sterling, Junior, is the other suspect. She has been a patient
of every man sitting in this room with the exception of Dr. Barton, Dr.
MacArthur and myself. Consider your position, gentlemen....”
»VII«
The New Patient in Bed Eleven
Dr. MacArthur flapped the yellow telegram helplessly and wondered how to
face them. Through some pull or other they had made the mail plane from
New York and would be in his office in fifteen minutes.
Two men and a woman. Three detectives; and he had never faced a
detective in his life. How did a man treat detectives? Must one defer,
or order?
Probably Harrison would know. A urologist had every profession in his
grip sooner or later. He reached for the telephone. Dr. Harrison laughed
at the question. It was the first time he had laughed since entering the
hospital that morning, learning of Rose Standish’s death and realizing
that Bear Sterling’s was only a matter of sixty or seventy hours.
“You are tired, aren’t you, Mac? Give ’em some infant feeding and a dose
of paregoric once around! Buck up, old man! I suggest you tell the
truth, the whole truth, and let them create their own suspicions.
“Remember they were hand-picked by the Rockefeller Foundation. They are
intelligent. Newspaper reporters grown up ... and you’re a whiz with
newspaper reporters. Call me if you need me. ’By!”
Dr. MacArthur was reassured. Like an oak, Harrison! Tried, staunch and
straight!
His secretary entered and said, “Two men and a woman to see you, sir.”
“Show them in, please.”
The two men were carrying handbags and overcoats. The first was tall and
dignified. He had a long square body. Everything about him was muscular,
under perfect control and heavy-set. His eyes, suit, overcoat, and hair
were gray. His teeth were strong and even. His eyes showed the same
steely calm that Bear Sterling’s had. Judgmatical. The enemy was death;
the man you were after, or yours. So far he had been lucky, and he had a
lucky man’s nonchalance.
“Dr. MacArthur? Matthew Higgins is my name.”
His voice was deep and buoyant.
His handclasp was like a vice. It steadied Dr. MacArthur like a cup of
strong coffee.
The voice continued:
“Mr. Smooty, Dr. MacArthur.”