Part 11
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.
“Toughest job we’ve ever had. He’s square all right, but how the hell can you catch a murderer in a hospital? You are right, Snod. Somebody around here is crazy as a tick. And lots of people are lying. One thing you got to remember is you are up against professional liars. All nurses and doctors are professional liars. Didn’t one tell me my mother was ‘doing nicely’ when she had been dead an hour? So watch everybody in the same way you watch a spy.
“He’s also covering somebody that everybody else believes guilty. I think I know whom he is covering. But that’ll wait. He suspects that head nurse and her niece. That’s plain as day. And he didn’t tell the truth about why he thinks she is doing it. There’s somebody behind them, in his mind.”
He stopped for a moment to draw breath and Miss Parkins flipped her cigarette and said:
“Matt, I’d like a gun, if you don’t mind?”
“You scared, Lil?”
“No. I’m never scared. Especially when I have a gun.”
“Don’t be a fool, Lil.” He put his big square hand over her capable one.
“They’ll strip you to the bone when you go through that accident racket. A gun is out of the question. You’ll have Snod.” He motioned to Mr. Smooty.
She smiled but she wasn’t reassured.
“He is slow as hell about wiping dishes when you are having a Sunday night supper. I couldn’t get him out of that kitchen till I’d been dead hours.”
Smooty’s green eyes took on life for the first time since he had entered the room. He said.
“A hospital’s duty is to protect everybody. I’ll be a member of a hospital staff in twenty minutes, Lil.”
She shrugged her square shoulders and her limpid eyes begged.
“The murderer is a member of the hospital staff, Snod. He’ll beat you to it.”
Higgins intervened.
“For God’s sake, Lil! Hold on to yourself!”
“It’s those damn dolls,” she laughed.
Higgins smiled strongly into her eyes and threw his overcoat over the dolls. “There’s enough hysteria around here as it is. Don’t add to it. Unless Snod has something to say I guess you might just as well sneak out and do your fainting fit. Want me to send you flowers when you get sick, little girl?”
“Hush, Matt. Flowers are not funny in this case.”
She opened her handbag and took out three hundred dollars in fifty dollar bills and counted them carefully. Beside them she laid the cards of a speakeasy on West 11th Street and of one on 44th. She opened the zipper center of the black alligator bag and took from it her identification card with the agency and the picture of a man in an officer’s uniform of the British Intelligence. Near these she spread a large white silk handkerchief into which she scooped the outlay, and then removed from her wrist a large sapphire and diamond wrist watch. She closed the bag, first counting the money remaining. One dollar bill and three dimes and a nickel. Then she tied the contents of the bag in the large silk handkerchief and handed it to Higgins.
He took it carefully and put it in his coat pocket.
“Going, Lil?” His gray eyes looked up into her limpid ones confidently.
“Now. See you later.”
She opened the door and disappeared.
Miss Evelina Kerr, student night nurse on Ward B, Medicine Clinic, shook down the thermometer and inserted it into the mouth of the new patient in Bed 11, with an air of relief, and just a touch of condescension.
“Good evening. Have you remembered your name?”
Miss Lillian Parkins weakly shook her head and her eyes were sad.
Miss Kerr, who had been over the clothes in the locker, knew that the coat was expensive and the fur good, but that she had no money, so gave her her “free patient” smile and passed on.
Lillian Parkins lay inert and tried to clear her mind. A long plane trip, then the terrible strain of appearing ill before the prying eyes of two internes and that little Jewish resident doctor had left her weak as dishwater. A touch of straight scotch was what she needed.... It was damn hard to relax and veil your eyes and yet see everything. Still that was the game, that was what made the job so ... fascinating!
That girl’s eyes were too close, and there was an ugly sense of triumph when she had found her in the bed, and a nasty condescension, and a dead voice, creepy kind of! Somewhere she had seen a woman who moved like that with a voice like that, a stubborn little mind like that who ... who ... hands like snakes, or bananas, who ... was it?
She closed her eyes to keep the life out of them, and began to check cases. On the Leviathan last year, in that Welfare Island group in May, doing that route collecting for pimps on the Southern circuit? No! None of those, but somewhere within the last eighteen months....
Ah, she had it. That medium who worked for the hypnotist in the side-show and peddled dope in the circus. That vicious little adder who had tried to throw acid in her eyes when she caught her with the goods. Whew! Lord!
The goose-flesh began to stand out on her arms and legs. That’s who she was, the same automaton voice, the same kind of little snake, out working for a python and she had to face her without so much as an automatic and go to sleep while she was doing it. Not go to sleep. Not on your life. Feign sleep! Feign sleep for ten hours, and then somehow manage not to have a real heart attack and pass out honest!
Swell job this was! Lots of fun! If she could get her hands on Matt Higgins now! Somehow she had to have a word with Snod. And quick!
Around her the monotonous conversation of the ward was droning, but since she was supposed to be too weak to talk, she closed her mind to it. Except for the realization that these women were afraid of the night. Had stood the day, but were afraid of the night and wanted to tell her about the bed. Wanted desperately to warn her ... somehow. The lapping conversation and her own preoccupation made her unaware of Miss Kerr’s return, until she felt the thermometer eased from her lips, and shivered.
Reptile who moved like that would have a hypodermic in you before you knew it.
She kept her eyes closed and pretended complete fatigue. Miss Kerr’s pleasure at her presence seemed to increase. She said briskly and jubilantly:
“You’ll be around before you know it. Your pulse and temperature are pretty good, considering. Your medicine will be along in a minute and then you can have a good night’s sleep.”
Miss Parkins opened her eyes feebly and gave her the fading lily smile. Miss Kerr returned it with the “miserable object” expression.
But had Miss Lillian Parkins been less of the consummate actress, the glimpse of Snod Smooty, late of Scotland Yard and the British Intelligence, now arrayed in the nondescript white coat of a hospital orderly, and carrying, as a hotel porter might bags, an assortment of bed-pans, would have shattered her facial control.
He was on the ward before Miss Kerr had seen him. His face was as vacant as a concrete highway and his voice was as deferential as a butler’s.
“Here you are, Miss.”
The laughter of the women made Miss Kerr ease around, and when her slow eyes had taken in the situation, her routine mind exploded into wrath, remarkably spontaneous.
“Who told you to do that? You are not supposed to bring the bed-pans on the ward. I ... I....”
Smooty swallowed like a hurt child and one pan started slipping toward the floor. Miss Kerr slunk forward and caught it.
Mrs. Witherspoon spoke up:
“Don’t be upset, Miss Kerr. We understands. And now thet he’s here....”
Miss Kerr looked appraisingly toward Mrs. Witherspoon and tried to deny her.
A very insistent telephone commanded her attention and threw her routine existence out of whack. She was told to prepare for a new patient and spent five minutes explaining to the night superintendent that the bed was already given to an accident room case and the patient would have to....
The orderly took advantage of the opportunity and began handing out pans along the side of the ward where Miss Parkins lay. It was Mrs. Witherspoon’s, “Pull the curtains. Pull the curtains. Quick!” which gave him an opportunity to speak to Miss Parkins unobserved.
He said, “How are you?”
“Scared.”
“I’ll watch her, close.”
“Stick to her, Snod. For God’s sake!”
His eyes came to life and strengthened her.
“She won’t do anything tonight. She won’t get around an old pan-handler like me. If you are scared as you say you are, you must have the.... Here’s a pan!”
He thrust one at her and moved on.
Miss Kerr re-entered the ward and said crisply, “William.”
“Horace, mam,” he corrected as he handed the circus performer her pan.
The girl was disconcerted by the correction.
“Well, it doesn’t matter, really. The thing that matters is that you are to stay off this ward unless I call you. There is plenty of work for you in the kitchen. Go down to Ward A and get me a syringe. I’ve already called Miss Wilson about your coming.”
Snod Smooty looked blankly up at the nurse.
“A hypo syringe?”
“Yes. Of course. Why?”
He thought he detected a slight dilation of her pupils, and replied carelessly:
“You see, Miss, at St. Giles, in London, we always called enemas syringes. I jus’ needs to know, you see.”
“Were you there, Horace?”
“I ain’t braggin’ Miss, but I was an orderly there four years. That’s how come I brought the bed-pans; we done it that way!”
He threw his helpless hands out in an explanatory gesture and shambled down the corridor.
Miss Evelina Kerr sat down at her desk to regain her control. She should have gone on with the routine. But she sat down. Things weren’t going so well. That man was a detective as sure as life and he was lying, and Aunt Roenna ought to know....
She picked up the telephone and started to take the receiver from the hook, and then she jumped up and somehow smothered a scream.
Standing over her, peering down into her little, piggish eyes with his steel-gray slits was a tall, fat man, in a blue uniform with brass buttons. In his right hand he held a bunch of red American Beauty roses, and the other was in a side pocket.
Miss Kerr thought he was a policeman and the left hand was upon his pistol holster. He carefully placed the roses in the elbow of the left arm, and with his right hand drew her out into the ward. His grip was strong and heavy.
By that time Miss Kerr had regained her breath. She tried to snatch her arm away and cringed when she failed.
“What do you want?”
“To shee the night nurse on Ward B.”
“I’m the night nurse.” Her voice still quaked.
Gripping her like a vice, he stuck his thick face into hers and the stench of his breath reached the whole ward.
“Y’re not Rhosh Standziz! Where is Rosh?”
Then swaying as a top-heavy steamer might when tied to a brittle mooring, he turned to the ward and announced:
“I’se bin in luz wiz Rosh, scincz ... sincz ... sincz ...” he shook his head helplessly and the motion seemed to straighten his tongue, temporarily.... “I just came back from China Station. They said over the ’phone last night Rose was on Ward B.” His voice clouded again. “Sho I brought her shum r ... r ... rhozes.”
He laid the flowers upon a bed and took Miss Kerr’s face in both of his hands. By that time every woman on the ward was sitting bolt upright regardless of her condition. A fly would have sounded like an airplane.
Crushing her face with his hands, he demanded:
“Swhere iz Rosh? Zhu! Phoo! Zhu ain’t Rosh!” and then his voice took on a hide-and-seek tenor.
And he crushed with more force, and they both swayed.
“Swherah ... iz ... Rosh?”
Lillian Parkins sat like a race horse at the starter. Every time he crushed the nurse, she thanked him ... silently....
He swayed horribly and they staggered.
He increased his grip and his voice was brutal.
“Stell me! St-ell me! Swhere iz Rosh?”
“Rose is dead!” Miss Kerr’s voice had taken on life at last. Every woman in the ward heard her remark.
And it was Mrs. Witherspoon’s horrible, scrunching scream that came like the brakes of a truck after an accident, which shocked the other women into silence and brought Horace, the new orderly, up the corridor on the run.
And with that scream the brain of Lieutenant Brady, U.S.N. disintegrated. He loosened his grip upon the student nurse and flung her to the floor.
“Rosh iz dead! Dead in a hoshbittle!”
He began skipping around as a child might and singing monotonously, “Ring aroun’ de Roshy! Rosh’s dead. Rosh’s dead. Ring aroun’ de Roshy.”
Then he caught the approaching Horace out of the corner of his eye and laughed hollowly.
“Cash me!”
He began rolling under the patients’ beds, playing a literal hide-and-seek with both the student nurse, who had staggered to her feet, and the nimble orderly who was saying in a loud voice.
“You are dead drunk! You ... fool!”
The final scramble took place under the bed of Lillian Parkins and Miss Kerr ran to the telephone to call the night superintendent.
As Snod Smooty caught one foot of the big man and began pulling, Lillian Parkins leaned over the side of her bed and hissed:
“Don’t let that bitch get within fifteen feet of me! Tell Matt that examination was worse than being looked over for a harem. If he doesn’t get me out of here by tomorrow night, I’ll walk out. Get the sailor out quietly, Snod. He loved that dead nurse.”
Apparently paying no attention, Snod Smooty managed to keep the scramble loud enough to cover Miss Parkins’ remarks.
He gave the sailor a little jujutsu and had him swaying down the corridor before Miss Kerr had found the night superintendent. They disappeared to the sailor’s monotone which had sunk to the note of a child trying to lull himself to sleep.
“Ring aroun’ de Roshy! Rosh’s dead. Rosh’s dead. Ring aroun’ de Roshy!”
Snod Smooty carried him over his shoulder down the stairs and out of the side entrance. Upon the curb stone he stood him against a parked automobile and then socked him under the jaw. As he fell, Snod opened the automobile door and laid him out upon the back seat to sleep it off.
Snod’s colorless face was tender and old. He wanted a cigarette. Worst scene he had ever witnessed and he’d seen some hellbenders in his day. But Lil was as hysterical as any of them.
He shrugged his shoulders and re-entered the building. That was the trouble with women. They made good detectives, where men were to be caught, but with women...!
It was Mrs. Witherspoon’s second and blood freezing scream that made Dr. Mattus close his mind to his own bad heart and forget to button his fly.
The piercing horror of her high agonized wail hung over the corridor like poison gas. He tore through it and the effort made his knees tremble.
What was it? What terror had entered her soul?
When he reached her, she was sitting bolt upright, her weak eyes ablaze, and gazing with fixed horror at a large bunch of American Beauty roses which lay upon the foot of her bed.
»VIII« The Control
Matthew Higgins laid down _The Morning Call_ and smiled vaguely. It had been a long time since he was in the Middle West, and you got out of the way of remembering it. He finished his coffee, motioned for his check, paid it, leaned over the bar and said:
“That’s the best coffee roll I ever had outside of Paul’s.”
Otto beamed and cocked his head slowly.
“Fank you! Fen I fus cum to dis country, I vork in Paul’s. Two vyears.”
Matt put his weight in his shoulders and his voice was admiring.
“Why did you come West?”
Otto began wringing his towel helplessly.
“Vell, my vivfe vus humsic, so I tried to make into a Jerman settl’ment ... an’....”
He stood silent a moment. All of his verve wilted.
Higgins interposed, “Any news around town?”
Otto peered over his glasses pleasantly.
“Ve reever made four inchers, las’ night. Eif she continuers....” He threw out his hands. His face flashed sober and he drew his hands over his abdomen and said carefully:
“Docturr Bearr Sterlink is ... dyin ... k.”
Matt squared his shoulders and sat straight on the stool. He stretched his torso upward.
“Great man I guess ... that Bear Sterling! Saved the lives of lots of people...!”
Otto reached over the counter and began carefully balancing the dishes and his words.
“Yess. Lots. Lots of people. But even great men half der veak spots....”
Matt Higgins poised a spoon upon the saucer of the cup Otto was lifting.
“What do you mean ... ‘weak spots’...?”
“Vell...,” Otto’s conscience and his philosophy collided. He peered over his glasses again.
“Du ... did you kno’, Docturr Bearr Sterlink?”
Matt Higgins shook his head definitely.
“By reputation, only. What’s his weak spot?”
Otto closed his lips completely and turned his back. When the dishes were safely deposited, he said:
“Sum men are veak vid de knife, sum aroun’ de heart, sum like me, aroun’ de stumack...! Sum ven ve are young.... Sum ven ve are studients.... Sum ven ve are in bed....” He whirled quickly and threw out his hands. His head nodded the periods to his sentences.
“Ve all haf dem!”
An interne burst through the door and begged:
“Otto, gimme some coffee quick! Quick, Otto! Black!”
Matt Higgins noted the boy’s blanched face and shaking hands.
Otto soothed:
“Fut vus hit, Docturr?”
The interne gulped the coffee and shook his head pleadingly.
Otto leaned across the counter and ordered:
“Fut ... frightened you, Docturr?”
The boy put down the cup.
“Hell!” he strode toward the door, “I ain’t frightened. It was a nigger baby with a severed head. It just got my guts ... that’s all...!”
When he was gone Otto turned to Matt Higgins, shrugged and smiled.
“Hiss iss ... fear!” he said.
Then leaning upon the counter he asked:
“Vy did _you_ cum Vest?”
Matt looked him straight in the eyes and replied:
“I’m a New York gangster, on vacation, come to see my kid brother interning at the hospital.”
Otto perked his head.
“Maybe ... I know him.”
Matt Higgins shook his head.
“No. You couldn’t know him. He’s high-hat as hell. Only lets me see him half a day every six months.... He’s my ... weak spot!”
He slid from the stool and stepped aside. Four medical students jostled through the door.
Otto mopped his counter, slowly, thoughtfully, painstakingly.