Part 10

“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.”

Smooty was slight. His body and face were completely relaxed and pastel. 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.”