Green eyes melted into mild cheeks. He had the utter inactivity and
extreme alertness of a clown and the fading quality of a chameleon.
His grip was like that of a contortionist. One had to find it.
His voice was colorless.
“Delighted to know you, Doctor.”
Mr. Higgins turned to the woman and said:
“I beg your pardon, Miss Parkins. I should have introduced you first,
but air-travel leaves me woozy. Miss Parkins, Dr. MacArthur.”
MacArthur was her kind and she sensed it. She stretched her capable hand
and smiled. Their summary was like sun on metal.
One could never lose memory of her physically. She was tall,
square-shouldered, with the long, slender legs of a gracefully tall
woman. Her face was ugly and expressive. The nose was too short, the
mouth too wide, but the flashes were sudden and revealing. They were as
vivid, highly original and occasionally blank as heat lightning. And
massed in with her extreme directness was a wistful, childlike appeal.
Her limpid eyes flashed into life as Dr. MacArthur carefully seated her,
took her coat and motioned the men to chairs.
“A pleasant trip, I hope?”
His voice was old and courteous.
“Very,” the gray man was the spokesman. “This letter,” he drew a thick
envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to MacArthur, “we
were instructed, Doctor, to request that you read it immediately upon
our arrival.”
Dr. MacArthur took the letter and carefully tore the flap.
“Thank you,” he said looking up. Then he rose and offered the men and
the woman cigarettes, struck a match and extended it to the woman. He
always offered newspaper reporters cigarettes, and Harrison had said
detectives were....
Miss Parkins smiled, took the match, lighted, and passed it.
Dr. MacArthur returned to his chair and began reading and she said,
“Three on a match. Unlucky!”
Then they were silent. The air was full of estimation. The letter was
long, and evidently from the head of the detective agency. It was
addressed to Dr. MacArthur and said:
“Mr. Higgins has been in our employ about fifteen years and handled
many executive jobs. Your request was for a man capable of
impersonating a well-to-do patient, or a member of the administrative
staff of a distant hospital; a man who may be given full run of the
hospital and thereby an opportunity, we gather, to question, without
creating suspicion, in every department. We have recently had Mr.
Higgins upon a job necessitating the trapping of an embezzler within
one of our largest New York hospitals. He has our complete confidence,
a worldwide experience with people, and an excellent judgment of men.
We have found him especially successful in catching mental criminals,
and from Dr. Bridgman of the Rockefeller, we judge that is your
problem.
“Mr. Smooty has long experience in impersonations. He has done
confidence work in Sing-Sing, department stores, and as a hotel
detective; also we have used him in the Pennsylvania Station. His
nondescript appearance is an excellent foil for his capabilities. You
asked for a man who might be placed as a menial.
“He and Mr. Higgins have worked together for many years and are among
the first ranking detectives in America. Mr. Smooty is originally an
Englishman and has also done work for Scotland Yard and in the British
Intelligence.”
Dr. MacArthur took his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.
This was the first time, to his knowledge, he had ever sat in the
presence of a Scotland Yard man. And as a little boy, next to being a
dogcatcher, to belong to Scotland Yard.... It left him rather awed.
Maybe the woman was a Russian Grand Duchess!
He returned his attention, his eyes had never left it, to the letter and
read:
“Miss Parkins has done international and character work for us for
about five years. She, in our opinion, is capable of any situation
where courage, brains, and mixing abilities are required. Within the
last year we have had her upon one of the big liners between New York
and Cherbourg, on the road with the circus, and living as an immigrant
on the East Side. During the war, she worked for the Government in
Mexico. She, we understand, you desire as a patient on a ward of
medical women. She has an unfortunate, and slight, heart ailment,
which will serve to divert the suspicion of even your staff.
“The terrible delicacy with which the situation must be handled has
occasioned our sending what we consider the three most able people in
New York. Miss Parkins was taken off political work today at the
insistence of Dr. Bridgman, through whom we were contacted, and who
seems to feel that the patient in the ward of medical women is the key
person. All three people were interviewed by and met with the approval
of Dr. Bridgman.
“Our terms, which at his suggestion we state, are $2000.00 per week
and maintenance.
“Awaiting your orders,
“We are....”
Dr. MacArthur carefully folded the letter and decided to take Harrison’s
advice. Two thousand dollars a week ... it took brains and plenty of
them to be able to demand that!
The late afternoon sun had left the room. He looked up and discovered
the room was semi-dark, and the three people were sitting motionless.
The door into the corridor was still open; he had been too rattled to
close it when they entered. The measured and constant footfalls of the
thousands of feet had padded into his consciousness so long that he
didn’t sense it, but they must.
He rose, closed the door, turned up the lights and said, as he walked
toward the windows to lower the shades, “Sorry to subject you to all of
that racket. Time for duty changes. Hospitals are noisy places.”
Mr. Higgins had risen and was pulling down the shades, too.
“So is New York, Doctor.”
Dr. MacArthur nodded and returned to his desk. He looked at his wrist
watch and said:
“Miss Parkins, Mr. Higgins and Mr. Smooty, if we are to get Miss Parkins
on Ward B as a patient tonight, my résumé must necessarily be shorter
than I should desire.
“You were sent for because there have been committed in the Elijah
Wilson Hospital within the last week two traceable murders, proved by
autopsy findings, and two deaths ... in the same bed. The deaths (we
presume them murders also) preceded the murders. The last person
murdered was a nurse who volunteered to go into the bed in an effort to
solve the mystery.”
Mr. Higgins moved restlessly.
“I know we have been slow in calling you in, Mr. Higgins. But this
decision was only reached after a series of long and irascible
conferences, and frankly I was against it, until the nurse was murdered.
“A hospital, you see ... a great hospital ... lives, breathes, exists,
as a fountain of hope. It is trusted by _everybody_. For more than forty
years the Elijah Wilson has lived up to that trust. We have received
endowments, and large ones, to add units to our plant for the teaching
of medical students. We were started, have been perpetuated, and are
famous as a great teaching hospital.
“Now a teaching hospital, Miss Parkins, exists upon the fact that it has
more patients than beds. When you have that situation reversed, the
hospital is doomed. D’y’see?”
The three people nodded, and Dr. MacArthur continued:
“If any of you three walked out of this room and gave to the press of
this country the information I have just given you in the last five
minutes, you would automatically ruin the future of every medical man,
resident, student and interne here, the hope of renewed health in a very
large portion of suffering humanity, the years and painstaking labor of
many famous men, now dead, whose lives were given, as bricks are given,
to the building of this hospital’s justified fame.
“It has been upon the complete realization of that grave responsibility
that our hesitation was based. I admit that we were mistaken, but our
situation was so unexpected, so unparalleled, and so terrifying, that we
dared not alter one straw for fear of losing our needle in this great
haystack. There are at least fifteen people who may have been guilty of
this crime. If they suspect...?”
“Have you any suspects, sir?”
“Yes, Mr. Higgins. That was why I finally succumbed to sending for the
best detectives that this country has to offer. My nursing and medical
staffs are beginning to suspect themselves ... and each other....”
“I see! I see, Doctor.”
“All four patients were nursed and attended by the same staff members?”
“Yes, Miss Parkins.”
“Then I suggest, in fact, request, sir,” Mr. Higgins intervened, “that
you do not tell us who your suspects are. It will cloud our work. An
open mind and a lack of tradition.... Oh, no. Doctor, ... we are
completely aware of that and will guard it, sir, with our lives.... I am
referring to personal tradition with reference to staff members....
“A lack of belief in the honesty of any man we contact because he is
famous, or brilliant, or noted, will be one of the most invaluable
things we can have.
“Now to return to the murders. What do the autopsy findings show,
exactly?”
“That they were committed with the same drug. Coniine, the active
principal of hemlock. Administered hypodermically and in the first case
which took effect in a little over an hour and in the second case within
less than forty minutes. The second dose, that given the nurse was much
larger. Our chief pharmacist has checked the supply sources. We have
never had any coniine in the hospital, and it can be secured from only
three houses in the country. None of them reports recent sales. We have
wired all three.
“Who, qualified to administer a hypodermic, had access to the patients?”
Mr. Higgins’ voice was low and sudden.
Dr. MacArthur’s was clear and calm.
“The entire nursing and medical staff practicing upon that floor.”
Mr. Smooty sat blankly by. Miss Parkins took her second cigarette from
her mouth and asked:
“Are the hypodermics compounded in the pharmacy?”
“No. On the floor. By the nurse on duty, acting only upon prescription
from the attending physician. The medicine closets on the ward ... and
every floor of that building ... have been searched after each murder.
They reveal nothing.”
“When were the murders discovered?”
“At night, Miss Parkins. After midnight rounds made by the student
nurse. Perhaps I had better give you a full picture. The ward contains
thirty beds, in four rows, each seven being separated by a glass
partition. The two extra beds are in rooms for dying patients. Each ward
has a day white (graduate) nurse, and four student nurses on duty. Their
duty changes as to hours are not important to this case.
“The white nurse goes off duty for the night at seven, and leaves her
instructions with two student nurses who prepare the ward for the night,
and go off duty at nine, when a single student nurse (bringing the total
of student nurses to five) usually a pupil within the last six months of
training, comes on and ‘beds the ward down’ for the night and remains on
duty until seven the following morning. It is her business to give all
night hypodermics and medicines, and make regular rounds upon the
patients to see how they are. On the ward with her is an orderly, who
runs any sudden errands and helps with any manual labor. He usually
remains in the ward-kitchen washing dishes and preparing the breakfast
trays and cleaning the ward corridors, etc. The orderly on this ward has
been there twenty years, and is not capable of any remarkable murder. A
trusted menial. He has been ordered into bed, as a suspected typhoid
carrier, tonight, and it is his position which you are to fill, Mr.
Smooty.”
An imperceptible nod was Mr. Smooty’s only acknowledgment.
Dr. MacArthur continued:
“Over the entire building at night there is a night supervisor who makes
floor rounds upon the student nurses in charge and is available in case
they get into difficulties.”
“Where was she during the murders, Doctor?”
“During the first one, in the lavatory, Miss Parkins, and during the
second her telephone did not answer and she was making rounds in the
building.”
“I see. The student nurse...?”
“Don’t go into her,” Mr. Higgins ordered. “Take her with an open mind.
You and Smooty tell us about her tomorrow.”
Higgins leaned forward and asked:
“Any way to enter the ward, except by the corridor?”
Dr. MacArthur hesitated a moment; his eyes narrowed suddenly.
“I hadn’t thought of it, sir, but there is. In the rebuilding, the porch
of each floor, upon which the convalescent patients are rolled, is
connected with the porch of the floor below by a narrow concrete
stairway. Wide enough to permit a stretcher, as a matter of fact.
Satisfies fire regulations and does away with fire-escapes.”
Higgins nodded.
MacArthur continued:
“But the door to that porch is always locked at night. The key is on the
inside. All of our combined evidence points to an entry via the ward
corridor.”
Higgins nodded again.
Then to Dr. MacArthur he said:
“Outside of the autopsy findings are there any pieces of evidence which
re-occur after the murders, Doctor?”
“Yes. After the first, the student nurse claimed that she felt someone
on the floor, but was boiling a syringe and could not leave and that a
patient said it was....”
Mr. Higgins stopped him.
“That is just what I do not want to know.”
“Anything else?” Miss Parkins insisted.
“For six months, Mr. Higgins, we have had on that ward a little girl, a
chronic nephritis ...” he looked over his glasses and explained to Miss
Parkins, “a kidney ailment of a very stubborn sort.... She is really
pretty and quite a favorite throughout the hospital. Upon her crib, the
morning after the first traceable murder she found a doll.”
He opened his desk drawer and took out the Ma-ma doll. Miss Parkins
reached for it to straighten the bonnet, and it howled. She turned it
over quickly and Mr. Smooty said, “Jesus Christ!”
It was the first response he had made to any of the information. Mr.
Higgins ignored it and said, “Finger-prints?”
“It had been handled by many people when we got it, sir.”
“Yes. Of course. After the second murder, Doctor?”
“There was no doll upon her bed, but this doll was found....” and he
reached for the Pa-pa doll and handed it to Mr. Smooty, whose green eyes
were like pin points.
“Where, Doctor?” his voice was again colorless.
But his interest was so concentrated that he forgot and turned the doll
over and it whined, “Pa-pa.”
Everybody jumped and Mr. Higgins reached for both of them and laid them
on the mahogany table upon their backs. They closed their eyes and Miss
Parkins looked at the crisp bonnets, dresses and panties and shivered.
Two dolls. Two murders.
“I think we should know where it was found, Doctor,” Mr. Higgins’ voice
was firm.
“In the desk of the Head Nurse of Medicine Clinic, sir. A doctor looking
for case charts discovered it, accidentally.”
“Is she friendly with the night student nurse?” It was Smooty who spoke.
“She is her aunt, gentlemen,” and then Dr. MacArthur cleared his throat
and continued, “She was one of the first head nurses when the hospital
was young. Her work has always been well executed. A very trusted
woman.”
“Especially antagonistic to any doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Whom?”
“The head of the clinic, Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, affectionately
known as ‘Cub’ Sterling. He is on probation, very confidentially, as
head. The physician-in-chief died of a heart attack last spring, and Dr.
Sterling, who has done very brilliant work, has temporarily his chief’s
place. His father is Dr. Ethridge Sterling, possibly you have heard...?”
“The surgeon. Bear Sterling! I should say so!” Higgins responded. “Why
is the head nurse antagonistic?”
“I do not know. Perhaps because she is getting old and is afraid of
retirement if Sterling remains in charge.”
“I see. Pretty ugly situation you have been in, sir.”
“It isn’t I, it’s the hospital. Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Senior, is dying
of a heart attack complicated by pneumonia brought on by this situation.
One of our graduate nurses has been murdered.... Frankly, your coming
shifts a great weight from my shoulders. And I should like to say if I
have failed to make anything clear, question me. We are all a bit
shell-shocked, I dare say.”
“Yes, there is, Doctor. Did Dr. Sterling, Senior, see all of the
murdered patients, too?”
“He did. He performed the autopsies on all except the last one. The
nurse.”
“Has any person been murdered since he has been out of the picture?”
Mr. Higgins’ weight was behind his words.
“I don’t believe I understand you, Mr. Higgins,” Dr. MacArthur gripped
his chair arms, and his sensitive mouth looked like blistered flesh.
Mr. Higgins ignored that and attacked his eyes.
“Sorry, Doctor, but that is exactly the reason you sent for us. To
understand things. Please answer my question.”
“He was taken with double pneumonia last night, and Rose Standish was
murdered last night. The bed is empty now.”
“But he saw her and left a sleeping potion of which you told Dr.
Bridgman over the ’phone and after that was administered she was
murdered?”
“Please, Mr. Higgins,” Dr. MacArthur’s knuckles were white against the
desk, “I have learned that potion was ... bread-pills.... He had hoped
to calm her nerves and yet leave her capable of catching.... I would
swear before God that Dr. Sterling....”
“Of course you would, sir,” there was admiration in Mr. Higgins’
response, “but painful operations are often necessary, and since he is
the only person who has retired from the case, since the beginning, I am
obliged to know what developments have taken place since his retirement.
It’s like chess, Doctor, your moves depend upon your position.”
Dr. MacArthur had regained complete control of himself and Miss Parkins
had risen and poured out a glass of water from a thermos bottle upon the
mantelpiece which she was holding out to him. She smiled and said:
“It’s been a long strain and you have stood it magnificently. Is there
anything else you wish to tell us before Smooty and I go?”
Her strength passed through him and he straightened himself, and Mr.
Higgins said:
“If brought in as an accident, what are the chances of Miss Parkins
being put in this bed ... number...?”
“Eleven.”
The eyes of the other three people were upon Higgins, inquiringly.
“Why?”
“Because, Doctor, in view of the information I now have in hand relative
to the head nurse and her niece ... by the way, what are their names?”
“Kerr. K-e-r-r.”
Only Mr. Smooty’s lips fought to remain a straight line. The
concentration of the other three was too intense to notice the
expression.
Mr. Higgins placed his gray eyes upon Dr. MacArthur’s blue ones and
continued:
“If Miss Parkins goes on the ward in a routine way as a patient, she
will automatically be suspected by them and therefore become less
valuable to us. But if she falls upon the street with a heart attack
within four blocks of the hospital, arrives at the accident room
entrance in an ambulance, and is admitted to Ward B, Bed 11.... You
see?”
“Perfectly.”
“Can we be sure that she will be placed in Bed 11, sir? That the staff
in the accident room will admit her for medical treatment and that she
will be sent to that floor and put in that bed?”
“A moment and I’ll see.” Dr. MacArthur reached for his telephone and
said:
“Superintendent of nurses, please. Miss Carruthers? Dr. MacArthur. Will
you please ascertain for your _own_ information the vacant beds in
Medicine Clinic and their location, and call me back immediately? Thank
you.”
He turned to Miss Parkins and said:
“What kind of ailment is it? How bad?”
“It’s a false angina, and during the attacks causes extreme palpitation.
By intense excitement I can create a definite change in my heart action,
and the other symptoms are permanent.”
“I see. Given you much trouble?” MacArthur was solicitous.
The telephone interrupted.
He answered and took his pencil, wrote upon a memorandum pad and
repeated:
“Medicine, Ward A—7 & 8, Ward B—11, and 5th floor, rooms 502 & 514.
Thank you.”
“An unknown accident case, with a heart ailment, Mr. Higgins, picked up
on the street and admitted through the accident room, would undoubtedly
be placed in Bed 11, Ward B. Ward A, which has two vacant beds, is
medical men, and floor five is private rooms. You are too well-dressed,
though, Miss Parkins.”
“If her pocketbook contained only one dollar and she had no addresses
upon her person, Doctor?”
“They would not take a chance on someone paying for a private room, Mr.
Higgins. You are right. The only chance is whether she can pass the
accident staff, as I see it.”
“That is a chance we have to take,” Mr. Higgins decided.
He looked at his wrist watch and said:
“One more question, Doctor, and then, with your permission I should like
to have some private place where I may talk to Mr. Smooty and Miss
Parkins before we turn Miss Parkins out upon the street and you take Mr.
Smooty to the head orderly.
“Two more questions, now I think of it. The first: How is the hysteria
throughout the hospital? The second: You expect, of course, that Mr.
Smooty will be suspected as a detective?”
“Since the last question has the shortest answer, I will go to that
first. That seems to me unavoidable, Mr. Higgins, and perhaps will work
to our advantage. It will focus attention, from the nursing, medical and
menial staffs, upon one person.
“As to the hysteria in the hospital. It is at a dangerous level and
rising hourly. Not among the patients, yet.... Thank God! ... with the
exception of the patients on Ward B and they have been told that Miss
Standish, the nurse, hemorrhaged (we put her in as a tubercular suspect)
and although they probably believe her dead, they have no proof. And
their attention has been diverted by the terrible condition of Dr.
Sterling, Senior. He has always been a great favorite throughout the
wards. Patients love him. The other patients, on the other wards are too
segregated and many of them too dangerously ill to be excited or aware
of the situation.
“According to Miss Carruthers, our superintendent of nurses, to whom I
was just talking, the hysteria among the nursing staff is serious.
Before the death of the nurse they took the excitement mildly, with the
exception of the people in Medicine Clinic who were questioned.
“With the exception of the General Staff, the toxicologist, the chief
pharmacist, and the staff of Medical Clinic, no persons in the hospital
have any definite knowledge as to whether these patients are murders or
fadeouts.
“Perhaps it is that lack of knowledge which has so increased the fever
heat among the medical staffs. They suspect, but they _do not know_. And
half knowledge, and especially around a hospital....”
He threw his hands out hopelessly.
“Since the death of the nurse, the entire medical and nursing services
have been at a breaking point. Their internal pressure can be felt in
every dining room. Something must be done and done immediately. That is
one of the reasons I approve of the word getting around that a detective
has been put on Ward B at night....”
“A wise attitude, Doctor. Now if you will be so kind as to give us a
private room and a few minutes?”
“I suggest you use my office and allow me to retire. After Miss Parkins
has gone, I will show you a room in which you and Mr. Smooty may meet,
when you desire. A laboratory in an unfrequented part of the hospital.”
He rose wearily and passed out of the door and closed it carefully
behind him.
Mr. Higgins lit a cigarette and turned to the other two.
“What do you make of it?”
He questioned both of them in one sentence.
Miss Parkins answered, “He’s square. But he is shielding someone.”
Mr. Smooty inserted his sentence at the end of hers. “Honest as the
King. But worried sick. There is somebody he considers innocent, that
the others have dots on. All I got to say is somebody around here is
crazy as hell.”
Mr. Higgins, who had never been sick a day in his life and never slept
in a hospital even so much as one night, had a healthy man’s antagonism
for the medical profession.