2:13 a. m.—The Thin Steel Blade
Miss Murrow began to feel fidgety.
Even after the many, many years she had spent in nursing she had never
accustomed herself to spending a night quite comfortably in a chair.
She had always had her attacks of the fidgets, and would probably
continue to have them until she arrived at the port of destination for
all good nurses and married one of her patients or a doctor. Of the
two she really preferred a patient.
She trained a speculative eye on her present one over there on the
bed. Not really speculative, as—she told herself firmly—he was already
married. Although heaven knew that that never mattered. Take the case
of that red-headed Gilford girl who had snapped old man Tomlinson
right up from under his wife’s nose—probably, at that, because of his
wife’s nose, which had been an unusually large one. Miss Murrow
giggled. That was almost witty enough to tell to Mr. Hollander.
He must have _felt_ that she was thinking about him. What a curious
expression that was in his eyes. He had just turned them toward her,
and they seemed to glitter. Yes, that was the word exactly—“glitter.”
It was a fancy of Miss Murrow’s to be meticulous in the matter of
words. “Really,” she thought, “I don’t see why I couldn’t be an
author.” She felt sure she had ever so much more knowledge of life
than one encountered in the average run of books. Tripe. Yes, “tripe”
was indeed the word. Of course, her books wouldn’t be average. Now
that little story of Delia Hackenpoole and the interne with those
shifty eyes . . .
Eyes . . .
Yes, Mr. Hollander’s eyes _were_ glittering—even in that second flash
she had just caught of them. But possibly he, too, had the fidgets.
He’d been sitting terribly quiet for the past ten minutes or so. Not a
budge out of him. A body would forget he was there, almost.
Of course he was handsome. Especially in that soft, vague light from
the distant lamp which picked his pale features out obscurely. And
they _were_ pale, at that. Genuinely pale. She did hope he wasn’t
going to be ill or have a nervous breakdown and ruin this perfectly
marvellous case of the dear doctor’s. . . .
Mrs. Sanford Worth. What a pleasant name it would be. _Distingué_. How
apt the French were! (She knew ten phrases.)
Was that right hand of Mr. Hollander’s actually moving, or was it an
illusion of light and shade? It seemed to be slipping slowly from the
arm of the chair and would eventually end up in his lap. It was
moving—it wasn’t—quite creepy, really. Damn the fidgets! She shifted
her centre of balance and felt temporarily relieved. Overstuffed
chairs were really wretched for prolonged periods of sitting, when you
came right down to it, whereas a good old-fashioned horsehair sofa,
such as Aunt Helen had had at Sciota. . . .
Why, the hand was gone!
Positively gone—like a conjuring trick.
It wasn’t on the arm of the chair, so it must be in Mr. Hollander’s
lap. Then it _had_ been moving after all, and she hadn’t been just
imagining it. Why, it was almost _sneaky_. . . .
His profile was toward her. Not a snub nose, exactly, nor _retroussé_.
You couldn’t apply that term to anything about a man, and whatever
else he might be, Mr. Hollander certainly was a man.
How interesting his life at sea must have been. (She had definitely
ticketed him as a sailor.) Lives at sea were always interesting. All
the best books were in accord with that. You never read of a Main
Street on the ocean. What with the girls in every port and the fights
and the smell of crisp salt air . . . What a wretched little twirp
that boy had been down at the beach last summer, with his absurd
remarks about the salt smell being a lot of decayed lobster pots and
dead fish. Of course the air at sea was salt. Sea and salt were
synonymous.
Mr. Hollander _did_ have the fidgets.
She couldn’t see exactly, because of the masking arm of the chair, but
he certainly was fiddling with something. She’d think he was twirling
his thumbs, if he looked like the sort of man who twirled thumbs, but
he didn’t, so it wasn’t that.
She looked at her wrist watch and saw that the hands were approaching
the half hour. She’d have to examine her patient and note his pulse on
the chart. What a pity that the only time you really felt comfortable
in an overstuffed chair was at the moment when you had to get up.
She stood up, smoothed starched surfaces, and sailed, a smart white
pinnace, toward the bed. She smiled engagingly at Mr. Hollander and
then started to take Endicott’s pulse. She gave a slight start and
concentrated her full attention upon Endicott.
“I think there’s a change.”
Hollander looked up at her alertly. “Change?”
“I think he shows signs of coming to.”
Miss Murrow wondered a moment at the tight little lines which suddenly
appeared on Hollander’s face, hardening and aging it rather
shockingly, and altering the features into a cast whose hidden
significance she could not define exactly. Strain, perhaps, better
than anything else, served as an explanation: an emotional strain.
“How can you tell?” he said.
Miss Murrow smiled a bit superiorly. “It becomes instinct, mostly.”
“Will it be soon?”
“Very soon now. Be careful, please, not to disturb him or make any
sudden noise or movement until I come back. I want Dr. Worth to be on
hand before the patient actually does regain consciousness.”
“You going up to get him now?”
“Yes.” She went over to the bathroom door and spoke to Cassidy. “You
gentlemen will be careful, won’t you, about being seen? I’d stay well
back within the doorway, as sometimes a patient is a little, well,
wild when he comes to like this, and if he started jerking around at
all he might see you.” She smiled engagingly. “What with the uniforms
and everything——”
Miss Murrow left implications of the possible fatal consequences
hanging in air and returned to Endicott. She examined him critically
for another moment, checked his pulse again, and then started for the
door. She stopped just before she reached it, and said to Hollander:
“I suppose you had better lock the door after me. Lieutenant Valcour
placed great stress on the fact that it should be kept locked
constantly.”
“I’ll lock it,” said Hollander.
“It does seem kind of foolish, doesn’t it?”
Hollander smiled grimly. “Most foolish.”
He stood up and joined her at the door. She went outside. He closed
the door and locked it. He stared almost blankly for an instant at the
two policemen. They had drawn their chairs back a little within the
bathroom doorway. Hansen was impassively studying the ceiling above
his head. Cassidy, leaning forward a little, was looking with solemn
eyes at the outline of Endicott’s still figure beneath the bedclothes.
Hollander stretched cramped muscles and then went back to his armchair
beside the bed. He sat down and was all but completely obscured from
the two guards by its high back. With imperceptible movements he drew
a thin steel blade from beneath the cuff of his left coat sleeve and
held it in such a fashion that it was masked in the palm of his right
hand, the hilt extending up a little beneath the shirt cuff. He leaned
forward and stared down upon Endicott’s quiet face. Not quiet,
exactly, for the lids were twitching—opening—and Endicott’s eyes,
bright and unseeing from fever, stared up. . . .