11:28 p. m.—Mrs. Endicott Screams
The tangents and the bypaths were beginning to increase. Lieutenant
Valcour tabulated them as he went thoughtfully down the stairs and
along the corridor toward Endicott’s room: Mrs. Endicott herself, and
the Spartan Mrs. Siddons—both had been partially explored; Roberts,
with her astonishing glance that had hinted so definitely at
revelations. Then what of Marge Myles? And what of the unknown man
with whom Mrs. Endicott, that afternoon, had taken tea? He opened the
door to Endicott’s room and went in.
Preparations for the operation were practically complete. Dr. Worth
and the medical examiner were beside the bed, and hovering near them
were two trained nurses in uniform—middle-aged, competent women,
starched and abstract looking, moving a bit aloofly in their private
world which was so concisely separated from the sphere of laymen.
Cassidy, who seemed bleaker than ever, still stiffly occupied the
chair near the doorway. He continued to inspect with an almost
feverish interest an unsullied expanse of white ceiling above his
head.
Lieutenant Valcour seated himself on the corner of a long mahogany
chest that was placed before the window farthest from the bed and
gravely watched Dr. Worth. He began to feel a little sickish and hoped
that he wasn’t going to make an ass of himself and faint. He had
witnessed any number of accidents and stabbings, but had never been
present at an operation, and it worked on his nerves. Even if Endicott
weren’t dead, he certainly looked it. Suspended animation and
catalepsy were all right as figures of speech, but the human
illustration was rather ghastly. Lieutenant Valcour felt justified in
believing that he knew his corpses. He wondered why Dr. Worth was
delaying—hesitating—no, bending over now, and in his hand, ready to
give the injection of adrenaline into the cardiac muscles, was . . .
The response was immediate.
With the aid of the stethoscope Dr. Worth heard Endicott’s heart
throbbing again, growing steadily stronger. Quite noticeably beneath
the bright white lights a faint flush started to run through
Endicott’s skin. Lieutenant Valcour saw it, and he moistened with his
tongue the dry pressed surface of his lips.
Dr. Worth straightened up and handed the stethoscope to the medical
examiner. “Endicott lives,” he said.
No one had noticed Mrs. Endicott standing in the doorway. No one had
even noticed that the door was open. It was her terrific scream, her
dropping to the floor, that shocked everyone into instant awareness of
her presence. Dr. Worth nodded to one of the nurses. With her aid he
lifted Mrs. Endicott and carried her from the room. Everyone else
remained quite literally spellbound, still chained within the
influence of that extraordinary scream. It didn’t seem more than a
second or two before Dr. Worth returned. He went directly to
Lieutenant Valcour.
“I have given Mrs. Endicott a narcotic that will keep her quiet for
the night,” he said. “It was outrageous—her being here. That guard at
the door should have seen to it that it was kept closed.”
“Most outrageous, Dr. Worth. I believe all of us were hypnotized by
watching you.”
“And I don’t care what the law is, she can’t be questioned or
disturbed in any way at all until I say so.”
“But that _is_ the law, Doctor. You are quite within your rights to
dictate concerning your patient.”
“I don’t want to dictate. I’m just as willing as anybody to have the
criminal side of this mess cleared up, if there is a criminal side.”
“Endicott would hardly have crawled into a cupboard to have a stroke,
would he, Doctor?”
“No.” Dr. Worth’s intelligent eyes stared speculatively at Lieutenant
Valcour for a minute. “Not unless he’d hidden in there to overhear
something, and did overhear something that gave him a stroke,” he
said.
The cesspool, Lieutenant Valcour decided, was beginning to show
strange depths within its depth. The medical examiner came over and
joined them. He complimented Dr. Worth briefly on the success of his
operation, assured Lieutenant Valcour that the homicide chief would be
given a full report of Endicott’s recovery, and presumed that from now
on the case would be left in Lieutenant Valcour’s hands. Lieutenant
Valcour would deal with whatever charges of robbery or assault might
develop from it. He said good-bye and left the room, with the fullest
intention of going right straight home to bed; and so he promptly did,
as soon as he had made the promised report to Andrews.
Dr. Worth pointedly raised his eyebrows. “Then there will be charges,
Lieutenant?”
“That will depend largely upon Endicott, Doctor. As he is now revived
he will tell us himself who attacked him, or the nature of the
circumstance that gave him the shock.”
“I trust so.”
“There isn’t any doubt, is there?”
Dr. Worth grew expansive. “Certainly there is a doubt,” he said.
“While it is true that Endicott has been revived, it is impossible to
state definitely that he will recover consciousness. And even granting
that he should recover consciousness, there is also a chance that he
might prefer not to make any statement at all. What would you do then,
Lieutenant?”
“Fold my tents, Doctor, and fade away.”
Dr. Worth looked down a long straight nose for a minute at tips
of low patent-leather shoes. “And if Endicott does not recover
consciousness,” he said softly, “what will you do then?”
“You’ll be surprised at the number of things I will do then.”
Dr. Worth’s eyes, surfeited with patent leather, snapped up sharply.
“I must impress on you that Mrs. Endicott is not to be disturbed,” he
said.
“She won’t be, Doctor.”
“Nurse Vickers, who helped me into her room with her, is going to stay
with Mrs. Endicott all night. Two day nurses will come in the morning:
one for her, if necessary, and surely one for Endicott. I need
scarcely impress upon you the seriousness of _his_ condition.” Dr.
Worth made a gesture of irritated bewilderment. “I wish I knew him
more intimately—who his friends are, I mean.”
“He never talked with you about them?”
“Never. He seems an unusually reticent man, with an almost abnormally
developed feeling for privacy concerning his intimate affairs.” Dr.
Worth’s manner grew definitely severe. Mentally, he wagged a finger
under Lieutenant Valcour’s nose. “He mustn’t have any further shock.
There must be nothing, absolutely nothing that will shock him when,
and if, he regains consciousness.” He directed his attention
momentarily to the nurse. “Get those shades back on the lamps, please,
Miss Murrow, and turn out the ceiling lights. And now, Lieutenant, to
continue about Endicott. As she is under the influence of the narcotic
I gave her, it is out of the question that his wife be here. I wish
she could be. I want the first person he sees to be someone he
knows—loves. His mind, you see, will pick up functioning at the
precise second where it left off—at least, such is my conclusion.”
“And that was one of shock.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, evidently one of shock or of great fear. We cannot
overestimate the importance of getting him past it safely. Personally,
I shall sleep here in the house to-night, and Nurse Murrow will call
me if Endicott shows any signs of coming to. That may not be before
morning. I hope so, in a way, as the effect of the narcotic will have
worn off by then, and Mrs. Endicott can be in here with him.”
“One of the servants might know of some friend,” Lieutenant Valcour
suggested. “I take it you would like a friend to sit here with him
during the night?”
Dr. Worth was emphatic. “It is almost a necessity that there should
be. The mental and nervous viewpoints, you see, predominate in the
case.”
“There is just one thing that I would like to arrange, too, Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“I want to keep a couple of men posted all night in the bathroom. They
can sit on chairs just inside the doorway there, where they can watch
the bed, but where Endicott can’t see them. He need never know they
are there.”
“What on earth would be the need for that?”
“Why, it’s quite simple, Doctor. When Endicott comes to he will be in
a position to tell us who gave him the shock—a shock sufficient almost
to kill him—one which would have killed him if we hadn’t found him
to-night—and if,” he added thoughtfully, “Mrs. Endicott hadn’t had her
suspicions.”
“But why the men in the bathroom?”
“Because I don’t want to take any chances of there being a repetition
before Endicott makes his statement.”
Dr. Worth pursed his lips and looked very wise indeed. “I see,” he
said. “I see. You are afraid that the same person might get at him
again and, well, silence him before he could talk.”
“Something like that, Doctor.” Lieutenant Valcour became courteously
formal. “As the physician in charge of this case, sir, have you any
objection to my stationing the two men in the bathroom?”
“Providing Endicott isn’t able to see them and won’t be disturbed by
them in any way at all.”
“Then that’s settled. You’ll have a nurse in here all the time, I
suppose?”
“Naturally.”
“Then I’m going to ask her to keep this hall door locked on the
inside. She can open it if anyone knocks, and my men will keep their
eyes on whoever comes in.”
“The precautions seem extraordinary, Lieutenant.”
“And so does the case. I’ll go downstairs now and try to find out
something from the servants about his friends. I’ll tell them, if you
like, about your staying here, in case there is anything that has to
be got ready.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Not at all, Doctor.”
Lieutenant Valcour went outside. He found the maid Jane in the
hallway, seated on a chair near the stairs, trembling. A tray with an
empty glass was on the floor beside her. She saw him, picked up the
tray, and stood up.
“I’m that upset, sir,” she said, “_that_ upset.”
“Something has startled you?”
“Startled! Glory be, sir—what with this bringing back of the dead and
the missus gone into a comma—if it wasn’t for them three cops at the
downstairs doors I’d be out of this house this minute, and so would
the rest of us, too.”
“How many of the ‘rest of you’ are there?”
“Sure and including the housekeeper there’s eight of us, sir.”
The Endicotts, Lieutenant Valcour was now quite certain, must be
multimillionaires.
“All women?”
“Except for the houseman and chauffeur.”
“And do they sleep in the house?”
“The chauffeur does not, sir. He has an apartment for himself and his
wife and his three-year-old child, named Katie, over the garage in
East Sixty-sixth Street, sir.”
“Have all of you been in service here a long time?”
“Indeed and we haven’t, sir—except for Roberts and the housekeeper.
I’ve been here a month myself, and the rest of us not more than two or
three.”
“And Roberts has been Mrs. Endicott’s maid for the past several years,
say?”
“And sure and ever since she landed here from England, sir.”
“Roberts is an Englishwoman?”
“Hold your whisht, sir, and I’ll tell you that she’s of the
aristocracy, no less.”
Lieutenant Valcour considered this gravely. It was not improbable.
Many English families were utterly wrecked financially by the war, and
the children had scattered whither they could, like sparrows, in
search of bread. “You’re sure of this?” he said.
“And indeed it is common knowledge, sir. The housekeeper herself, it
was, who told me.”
Lieutenant Valcour switched suddenly. “I wonder whether you could tell
me who Mr. Endicott’s intimate friends were,” he said.
“Well, sir, there’s quite a few people have called on the madam off
and on, and a few on Mr. Endicott, too. I couldn’t say, though, as to
just how intimate.”
“But didn’t he ever discuss his friends?”
“Not before me, sir. I’m one of the downstairs girls. Perhaps Roberts
would know. She’s often in the room with the madam and Mr. Endicott
even when the pair of them is quarrelling that hard that—— Glory be
to——”
“Tut, tut,” said Lieutenant Valcour gently. “Married couples are
always quarrelling together. There’s nothing unusual in that.”
“Indeed and there ain’t.”
“I wonder whether you’d ask Roberts to come out here and see me.”
“I will, sir.”
“Oh—and will you also tell whoever has to know about it that Dr. Worth
plans to stay here all night? And then let him know, please, where he
is to sleep.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jane went to the door of Mrs. Endicott’s room and knocked. Nurse
Vickers opened it and stepped halfway out, blocking the entrance.
Their voices were too low for Lieutenant Valcour to hear, but he saw
the nurse retreat into the room, caught an affirmative nod from Jane,
and presently Roberts came out and toward him.
“You wished to see me, Lieutenant?”
There was still that curious shielding in her eyes—a hinting at
definite information kept closely guarded behind twin gates.
“I want you to tell me,” he said quietly, “why you compelled me a
while ago in Mrs. Endicott’s room to say ‘Later.’”
“I don’t believe I quite understand.”
“And I believe that you do.”
Roberts became coolly detached. “One is justified in having one’s
beliefs.”
“Just why do you hate Mrs. Endicott so?”
She flinched as if he had struck her physically.
“Is that why you sent for me?” she said.
Lieutenant Valcour himself indulged in a veiling of eyes. “I wish,” he
said, “that you would sit down.”