AN APPALLING SIGHT.
They heard a commotion in Grantley’s house, and the scuffling of many
feet as they ran across the yard.
Evidently the occupants were scurrying to the front to see what had
happened. The ruse seemed to have worked so far. It remained to be seen
how successfully the rest would turn out.
Nick and his companions were already under cover back of the doctor’s
house before any one emerged at the front.
They found the rear door locked, and left it alone after giving the knob
one quick wrench. The nearest windows were all fastened, but Nick’s
jimmy was put to use at once, and in half a minute a sharp click told
that the catch had given way.
The window was pried up swiftly but silently and the detective slipped
in, his example being imitated at once by the others.
They found themselves in a large kitchen, which was brightly lighted,
and which gave evidence that Hoff had been there very recently, probably
at the time of the explosion, for there was a dishpan in the sink and
dishes in the draining rack alongside.
In their previous study of the windows they had learned that there was a
rear stairway, for they had often seen Hoff passing a small window as he
went up and down.
They had reason to believe that the operating room was on the second
floor, somewhere in the center of the house, and they meant to reach it,
if possible, by way of the rear stairs.
In fact, that was their only hope of doing so unobserved, since they
could not count on the bomb having emptied the house completely.
The door from the kitchen into the lower hall had been left open, and
Nick and his friends dodged through it. Fortunately, the hall contained
a turn, which shut them off from observation on the part of those on the
front stairs and at the door.
They heard hurried footsteps descending the other stairs, however, and
concluded that several persons were clustered about the front door.
The rear stairway was easily located, and they started upward with as
much care as their desire for haste permitted. It was no part of their
plan to leave the house again without being seen. They knew that was
practically out of the question. However, they wished to see as much as
they could before they were discovered, and were, naturally, anxious to
find something that would justify their intrusion before Doctor Grantley
became aware of their presence.
But luck was against them.
When they reached the head of the servants’ stairs, they saw the open
door of an unusually brightly lighted room about fifteen feet ahead of
them.
The detective instantly came to the conclusion that they had found the
room they sought, for the brilliancy of the light told him that a big
arc lamp, or other illuminating device of similar power, must be in use.
As he started toward the door, however, he became aware, for the first
time, that there was a figure standing in the dimmer light of the hall,
beyond the operating room, probably at the head of the first flight at
the front.
More than that, the figure’s posture was a tense, listening one, and a
white face was turned over its shoulder.
The form was that of a woman in a nurse’s garb. Undoubtedly their
presence had been detected by Miss Rawlinson, who had evidently not seen
fit to descend the stairs with the rest, but was waiting for their
report as to the cause of the explosion.
When Nick first caught sight of her, she had seemed to be held
spellbound by this unlooked-for invasion from the rear, but in a moment
she recovered her self-possession.
“Help, Doctor Grantley--quick!” she called down the front stairs, in a
high, shrill voice. “There are men in the house! It’s a trick!”
And as soon as she had shrieked her warning, instead of running to meet
her friends, she turned and came flying along the hall toward the
detectives.
Nick had thrown all caution to the winds as soon as he saw her looking
at him. With a low-toned command to the others to follow him, he had
leaped forward, and when the nurse started back to meet him--or, more
likely, with the idea of keeping him out of the operating room if she
could--he had almost reached the brightly lighted doorway.
“Stop! What are you doing here?” the woman demanded harshly. “You must
not do----”
But, although the detective heard a clamor of alarm downstairs and the
sounds of running feet, he ignored the nurse and sprang into the room.
Patsy entered a moment or two later, but Doctor Cooke, who brought up
the rear, was intercepted by the nurse, who fearlessly grabbed him and
sought to hold him back, calling wildly to her employer and the others
to hurry.
It went against the grain, but the young surgeon, knowing that every
second was precious, kept on his way after a momentary pause.
He did not lay a finger upon the nurse. He simply dragged her with him,
despite all of her struggles to hold him back, as a football player
drags the opponents who are trying to down him.
Thus the three gained access to the room before any of the men reached
the head of the stairs.
The sight that met their gaze was an appalling one, and their hearts
contracted with horror and pity.
A girl, plainly the same one whom Patsy had seen arriving that
afternoon, lay on an operating table, in the full glare of a large arc
lamp, which was shaded in such a way as to throw all of its rays
downward with pitiless intensity.
At first glance she appeared to be lifeless, but she was doubtless
merely under the influence of some anæsthetic.
In fact, there was the best reason in the world for thinking that she
was alive--her heart was in full view, its rhythmic contractions being
revealed in the most ghastly way.
The lower part of her body was covered with a sheet, but the upper part
was bare, and a great hole had been cut in the wall of her chest,
through which her beating heart had been lifted out.
Something had been inserted beneath the heart, after it had been raised
through the incision, with the result that the naked organ, red and
pulsating, stood out in startling relief against the whiteness of her
body.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed the detective reverently, as he got his first
view of it. “The fiends!”
Patsy, used as he was to scenes of crime and bloodshed, actually shrank
back a little as his eyes fell upon the horrible spectacle, and even
Doctor Cooke was visibly affected when he staggered in, with the nurse
clinging desperately to him.
Nick and Patsy made way for him without attempting to draw nearer to the
table. They had seen all they could endure for the moment, and were
already waiting for the advent of the surgeons.
Willis Cooke kept on to the unconscious girl’s side, however, without
paying any more attention to the nurse than if she had been a puppy
tugging at his trousers leg.
He bent over the still, mutilated form, scrutinized the exposed heart
for a moment, and then took in the thinness of the arms, the prominence
of the ribs in the slightly emaciated body, and the rather sunken
cheeks, in which faint spots of unnatural color still lingered, despite
the pallor, due to the drug and the operation.
Suddenly he raised his head and turned to Nick. His jaw was suggestively
prominent, and there was a steely glitter in his eyes, which boded no
good to Doctor Hiram Grantley and the latter’s associates.
“There is absolutely no excuse for this,” he said quickly, as if
conscious that those responsible for the girl’s condition were already
at the door. “Her heart is perfectly healthy. She has
tuberculosis--that’s the way Grantley got his hands on her. I suppose he
promised to cure----”
But he had no time to finish the sentence.
At that moment Doctor Grantley himself, clothed in white from head to
foot, burst into the room, a malignant snarl on his strongly marked,
sinister face.
And after him came Doctor Siebold and the six visiting surgeons.
“What is the meaning of this?” howled Grantley. “Who are you and what in
thunder are you doing in my house, curse you!”
And with that he jerked out one of the drawers of a desk which stood
beside the door and took out a couple of revolvers, one of which he
started to pass to his assistant.