Part 9
It had left them a little shaky ... but now that Dr. MacArthur was beginning to speak, Prissy nodded to Princeton who tiptoed to the door and closed it. They felt they had been justified in the action they had taken.
Neither Sterling was present.
“Gentlemen,” Dr. MacArthur’s voice was measured and low, “Rose Standish is dead. She was murdered last night while a patient in Bed 11, Ward B, of Medicine Clinic. An injection of coniine. She went on that ward to save your reputation and mine. To lift the hospital out of terror ... and she is dead, and we are....”
“I was against it from the first,” Princeton began clearing himself with the rapidity of a condemned schoolboy.
Nobody paid him the slightest attention. Prissy blushed, and Hoffbein squirmed.
“We are faced,” Dr. MacArthur’s blue eyes had taken on their fighting steeliness, “with the blackest day the Elijah Wilson has ever seen. With the fact that no patient anywhere is safe in any bed of the institution ... with the responsibility of catching a murderer within our walls. A person who has committed two untraceable, two traceable murders. D’y’see? Gentlemen, I ask your advice.”
Princeton Peters and Prissy Paton stared at Dr. Hoffbein and he nodded ... with his eyelids, and Princeton rose.
“To put it plainly, straightly and to the point, MacArthur, it is one thing to protect your professional colleagues, but after all our Hippocratic oath binds us _first_ to the protection of our patients.
“I’m glad you called this meeting as we advised, and have given us an opportunity of speaking frankly. Murder, automatically, cancels loyalty! Call in the police immediately is the advice of myself, Dr. Paton and Dr. Hoffbein.”
His peach-blossom face was brick red and it was the fury with which Dr. Harrison rose that, at a distance of ten feet, scared Dr. Peters into his chair.
“You might just as well know, Dr. Peters,” his brown eyes were live coals, “that this meeting was not called without the Sterlings purposely. Barton and I were dead against it, as was MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur was intensely kind in his opening speech about the number of murders which have been committed in this hospital within the last week. They are five.”
“Stop, Harrison. Please stop!” Dr. MacArthur had risen from his chair, but he might have been a fly upon the distant mantelpiece for the effect he produced.
“Sorry. I can’t stop. They might just as well know it! Call in your police! Call them in now! And as sure as Christ was crucified I’ll swear out a warrant for each of you, Hoffbein, Peters and Paton, for the murder of Bear Sterling, now dying of pneumonia complicated by the heart attack which you, famous colleagues and a world-renowned psychiatrist caused by your foul insinuations yesterday.
“If you value your international reputations as much as your self-exhibitions in the last fifteen years indicate, the police are out of the question.
“Now let’s get down to business.”
For fully four minutes after he had finished no man in the room spoke. No man could. For fifteen, twenty, perhaps thirty years none of them had ever heard Dr. Harrison raise his voice above a conversational tone, never had seen him for one-quarter of a split second lose complete control of himself or of a situation, never had heard him judge a man without charity.
And the three he condemned were too seared to be angry, too frightened to be resentful, too dazed to be amazed.
He had spoken the truth ... and they knew it.
Dr. Barton, as a nurse might work upon children upset by an explosion, took his pipe from his mouth, and began speaking. He said:
“Dr. MacArthur, I think it is your advice that we need, suh.”
The thing that cowed Dr. Peters, Paton and Hoffbein, was that Dr. Harrison had suffered no relapse. He sat firmly stroking his beard and looking alternately at each of them.
Dr. MacArthur, his blue eyes firmly defiant, began:
“The hospital has never been in so delicate a situation. I repeat that the matter must be handled with secrecy, tact, and sanity.
“You see, gentlemen, this hospital was endowed, it has been perpetuated for, and is famous as, a great teaching institution. When through any clumsiness of ours we have more beds than patients the hospital is doomed. Its great advantage has always been more patients than beds. D’y’see?”
Prissy’s green, Princeton’s lavender and Hoffbein’s liquid eyes were glued upon his face. Dr. Barton’s shoulders were hunched attentively.
“Now if we were to turn this situation over to the police, regardless of Dr. Harrison’s statements, we would automatically spread into every ward of every department, every newspaper in the country, the superstition of every negro within a thousand miles, the means of ruining, absolutely, your work, mine and that of all the medical men now resident and student here.
“Murder is a very horrible situation, but dooming the future of at least a thousand capable men is, in my opinion, worse, all oaths, notwithstanding. D’y’see?
“Whatever hysteria is manifested must not come from the staff, nor the blunders which so horrible an occurrence makes us likely to fall into.”
“You’re absolutely right, Mac!” Dr. Harrison’s voice was placid, and Prissy and Princeton automatically exhaled the breath they had been inhaling preparatory to argument.
Dr. Harrison said:
“Do you know how many rabbit feet I’ve seen on dispensary patients in the last six months? Sixty-three! The cancer cases love ’em. How many patients we’ve lost because they moved when another negro sprinkled salt upon their doorsteps? Eighty-one! Within three blocks of here I’ve counted fifteen chiropractors, ten optometrists, five osteopaths, and seventeen midwives.
“Superstition, witchcraft, voodoo, dynamite! We’ve _got_ to keep our face no matter if all of us are murdered. Matter with you three is just a touch of hysteria.”
Hoffbein squirmed and replied:
“Fear psychosis is a most contagious disease, but like all contagious diseases most debilitating. It has only one cure: to remove the cause of the fear.”
His voice was precise and his words, he felt, showed how he stood and yet were dignified.
“From which I understand you are suggesting we scrap Cub Sterling,” MacArthur’s angry eyes bore into him like a hot poker, and his mouth drew to a tight line as he slapped his hand upon his desk and stated, “I won’t do it without _ample_, _complete_ and _convincing evidence_. Have you any to offer?”
Hoffbein squirmed acutely and he replied evasively:
“Nothing ... tangible.... Only those small and very personal signs which to a man in my branch are so revealing. His hands, the hysterical set of his left shoulder, the peculiar light which comes into his eyes....”
“That’ll do!” Dr. Harrison barked. “If I knew any of you had cancer, I’d tell you so to your face. If Bear Sterling had found any man here suffering from an incurable brain tumor, he would have told that man. We are not asking you for symptoms, Hoffbein. Have you any evidence, yes or no?”
Hoffbein’s eyes lost their whites. “No.”
“Then let’s get on to people who have. Read Ethridge’s testimony, please, MacArthur.”
Dr. MacArthur picked up the long white sheet of paper and began in an even voice:
“Complying with the decision of the General Staff of the Elijah Wilson Hospital, I admitted Rose Standish, graduate nurse of this institution, as a patient in Medicine Clinic, Ward B, Bed 11, yesterday afternoon. The diagnosis, for the benefit of the nursing staff, being a possible tubercular effusion.
“She received a routine examination from the house staff and from seven-ten until seven-thirty last evening my father, Dr. Sterling, and I went over her. We found her lungs in excellent shape, her heart slightly enlarged, but not seriously so, her general physical condition splendid, with the exception of the fact that she was somewhat thin and underweight. There were no signs of any malady of any kind whatever. Her temperature was normal, her pulse good, though a little rapid, which, considering the circumstances was not surprising, and her spirits commendably calm.
“We both felt most reassured by her mental and physical condition, though my father, Dr. Sterling, in case she might discover herself too fatigued to sleep advised a sedative. We told Miss Standish of the order and suggested she call for the potion if she felt the necessity.
“There was some vague hysteria in the ward, which both Miss Standish and ourselves sensed, and I understand from the seven-to-nine-student nurses that she calmed it by conversation.
“The prescription for the potion was, later, removed from Miss Standish’s chart and is in the possession of Dr. MacArthur, as is, also, the testimony of a patient who claimed to have seen Miss Kerr, student nurse, standing over Miss Standish’s bed for several seconds during the thunderstorm which extinguished the lights at nine-forty.
“From the time we walked off the ward at seven-thirty, until Mattus notified me of Rose Standish’s death at one-ten, I did not see Miss Standish. Mattus saw her around ten and reported her in practically the same condition in which Father and I had left her.
“After seeing my father, Dr. Sterling, to his car at seven-thirty, I went to dinner in the doctors’ dining room, took a short walk, and was in bed by eleven-thirty.
“When Mattus notified me of Miss Standish’s death at one-ten, I immediately called Dr. MacArthur who ordered an autopsy, tried to get my father and learned that the cold he had complained of was settling in his chest and his temperature was 101. At his orders I got his assistant, Dr. Withers, who in the presence of Dr. MacArthur, Mattus and myself, performed the autopsy, the findings of which will be given by Dr. Heddis, who came in when it was half finished and later took the organs for examination.
“Because of the excellent forethought of Mattus, we borrowed an operative patient from Surgical Clinic and rolled her bed into the place where Rose Standish’s had stood and left orders to say to the patients that Miss Standish had hemorrhaged and been put in a private room. From the time the ward awoke until the operation was called, the new patient was in the process of preparation and did not realize the change.
“From the time of the discovery of Rose Standish’s corpse, until Mattus and I had rolled the bed toward the elevator, the deportment of William, the orderly, was most praiseworthy and the demeanor of Miss Evelina Kerr astonishingly calm.
“While the autopsy was still in progress, my mother called to say that Dr. Sterling’s temperature had risen to 103, his breathing was labored and he was requesting I come to him. Dr. MacArthur insisted that I go. I found him with a definite case of pneumonia, both lungs seriously involved, pulse irregular, and breathing labored, semi-delirious. I immediately called an ambulance and brought him into the hospital for oxygen.
“The response is disheartening. His heart is weakening. I have remained by his bedside, again through the advice of Dr. MacArthur.
“Dictated to Dr. MacArthur’s secretary, outside room 511, Medicine Clinic, at 8:30 A. M. Wednesday, May 18th.
“(Signed): Ethridge Sterling, Jr., M.D. Physician-in-Chief (Pro-tem), The Elijah Wilson Hospital.”
Dr. MacArthur laid the paper down and looked from the window.
“Questions?” his voice was old and heavy, and he brought his eyes back to the men with an effort.
Dr. Harrison shot a glance around the room and insisted:
“Let’s continue with the evidence.”
Dr. MacArthur pushed a button upon his desk, the door into the corridor opened and Miss Evelina Kerr, night student nurse on Ward B, entered.
It was Princeton Peters who escorted her to the chair beside Dr. MacArthur’s and Dr. Hoffbein who would have liked to question her, had he not felt Dr. Harrison’s eyes judging his every thought; so Dr. MacArthur turned to her and said:
“You have been through another dreadful night. I’m sorry. Please tell about it carefully.”
She sat as she had sat yesterday, her hands primly in her lap and her flat feet carefully together, her stubborn defiance breaking through her voice.
She looked carefully around the large room before she began to speak, and to Dr. MacArthur, Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Barton, there flashed a realization that her eyes were still too close together, and that somehow she was enjoying her importance.
But her survey did not escape Dr. Harrison.
He barked, “Dr. Sterling is not here because his father is desperately ill. Will you be so kind as to tell your story, now?”
“Yes, Dr. Harrison, I will.” The stupid definiteness in her voice was maddening. She turned her eyes upon Dr. Hoffbein and told her story to him. She said:
“When I went on duty at nine I found Miss Standish a patient in Bed 11, Ward B. She said Dr. Sterling thought she might have a tubercular effusion and she was in for observation. I gave her her thermometer and ran to close the windows as the rain had started.”
“And when the lights went out, you were standing by her bed, Miss Kerr,” Dr. Barton announced pointedly.
Her eyes did not leave Dr. Hoffbein, and she replied:
“I had come back for the thermometer.”
The answer crashed like a broken plate, and Dr. Harrison insisted:
“And then?”
“Then I counted her pulse,” her voice was wooden, “gave my medicines. Put out the flowers and called Dr. Mattus about a woman with a heart attack.”
“Why didn’t you give Miss Standish her sleeping potion, when you were distributing medicines?”
“Because, Dr. Barton, Dr. Mattus came up to the heart case and said not to give it to Miss Standish unless she called for it.
“After he went, I dimmed the lights, went to work on my fever charts, made up the midnight medicines, and began studying my nursing manual. William, the orderly, came up the hall twice to ask me about some dishes and the breakfast trays, and then about eleven-thirty, Miss Standish rang and asked for her sleeping potion, and I gave it to her.”
“Are you sure you gave her the right prescription?” Dr. Harrison’s eyes had bored past Dr. Hoffbein and into her.
She pouted her thick lips and lifted her ugly chin.
“Yes, sir, I’m positive. She went to sleep right away. You don’t think, Dr. Harrison...?”
“What I think does not concern your story, Miss Kerr. Please continue.”
There was a slight tightening of her jaw, and had she had sense enough to cry then, every man in the room would have felt beaten. She continued woodenly:
“After I gave Miss Standish her medicine, the next patient had to have her linen changed, and when I had finished with that, Miss Standish was asleep. I could tell by her breathing.
“It was then almost midnight and I went to boil my syringes for the midnight hypodermics, and while I was boiling them Mrs. Witherspoon, the patient whose bed I had just changed, rang again, and I ran to see about her.
“And as I reached her bed, I found Dr. Cub Sterling leaning over Miss Standish. He looked up and nodded, and....”
“Repeat your last three sentences, Miss Kerr. Repeat them twice! And look at me while you do it.” Dr. Hoffbein’s voice was mesmeric.
Miss Kerr repeated them ... twice....
They filled the room and permeated the senses of every man present like poison gas.
Dr. Harrison shot his gimlet-like brown eyes into the narrow, close ones of the student nurse.
“You are wrong, Miss Kerr. Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, was in his rooms.”
“I’m not! He was bending over Miss Standish. I know it. His bushy hair, his funny shoulder....”
“Did he speak?”
“No, Dr. Harrison. He just nodded. Like he always does.”
“Why didn’t you _make_ him speak?”
“I couldn’t stop to. We had no more clean linen and I had to run for a bed-pan for Mrs. Witherspoon.”
MacArthur’s hand beat upon his desk ... hopelessly....
“Go on, Miss Kerr.” His voice was like a death-knell.
“And when I came back he was gone. He had hurried off the ward while I was getting the bed-pan. And I went to Miss Standish as soon as I could. She was still asleep. And I ran to William. He was asleep. And then I started to ’phone the night supervisor, but it was time to give my medicines ... and Aunt Roenna always told us even if the building were burning down, the medical patients must have their medicines on time. So I began giving them their hypodermics. And when I could, I went to look at Miss Standish. She was still sleeping.
“And then I finished the medicines and fever charts and called in the rounds ... I forgot to mention about Dr. Sterling because the supervisor rung off so quickly ... and I had to hurry from the ’phone to give out three bed-pans. When I had finished the bed-pans I went to look at Miss Standish again and she was dead ... and so I called Aunt Roenna....”
“Why?” Dr. Harrison’s word hit her like a brick.
“Because she had told me to.”
“When?”
“Last night before she went off duty.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘All right, I’ll come over.’”
“Then you both _expected_ Rose Standish to die, Miss Kerr?”
All of this dialogue had gone on so swiftly that the girl had failed to make her brain control her speech. It had come out ... spontaneously....
“We didn’t either, only....”
Dr. Harrison decided that this was not the time for the truth. He passed off her reply with, “What happened next?”
“I called the night supervisor and Dr. Mattus, and waited until they came. And then....”
“From that point forward we have several eye-witnesses.” Dr. MacArthur interrupted. “Thank you, Miss Kerr.”
He picked up his telephone and asked:
“Nursing office, please. Miss Merrill, will you please come for Miss Kerr, student nurse, and put her to bed, and follow the orders given you this morning. Thank you.”
The girl turned to speak and Dr. Harrison motioned to Dr. Peters to open the door. He did so, as Miss Merrill appeared.
“Before we discuss this, let’s have the other witnesses,” Dr. Harrison’s voice was relentless. But it failed to puncture the self-righteous-I-told-you-so posture of Doctors Peters, Paton and Hoffbein.
Dr. MacArthur said, “I think we might dispense with the orderly, William, and with the day white nurse. According to the testimony of everybody William slept through the murder. He is useless either to condemn or confirm the girl’s statement. And the day white nurse seems to me completely out of it. Here are Dr. Heddis and Rathbone.”
They entered and sat down quietly. The mental heat of the room stifled them. They drew their handkerchiefs quickly and Dr. Heddis mopped his leonine head and Rathbone his bald head furiously. Dr. Heddis felt himself sinking into the tension. He spoke immediately:
“The findings upon the organs of Rose Standish, gentlemen, are that she was murdered by coniine in such a quantity that it took effect in about thirty to forty minutes. The left arm bore a hypodermic puncture; the injection was larger than that administered in the other traceable case. Her liver, spleen, lungs and stomach were suffused with the odor and the substance. Because of the enormity of the dose, indications are that the death was painless. She died of the customary respiratory paralysis.”
At least the testimony of these two men was definite and sane. The staff sat forward attentively. Dr. Harrison asked:
“Ethridge mentions a sleeping potion in his report...?”
Dr. Heddis turned toward Peter Rathbone. Baldy’s wide straight shoulders squared. His delivery was impressive:
“The potion was ... bread pills. Dr. Sterling, Senior, came by the pharmacy, around six, and left the order himself. It was his idea that if the student nurse was doing the murdering and administered the potion, without knowing its content (the copy upon Miss Standish’s chart was for an intricate formula), she would create a trap for herself.”
MacArthur groaned, involuntarily. Hoffbein stated:
“He overlooked the psychic effect upon the patient.”
“It seems so, Doctor.” Rathbone’s words were slow and measured: “Dr. Heddis is unable to trace a potion in the system, and I understand the student nurse insists she administered the potion, so the obvious assumption is that she is telling the truth and the effect was psychic....”
“Bear’s endeavor to prove his son....” Barton ventured and Hoffbein realized suddenly that he had been in temporary acquiescence with the theory of Cub Sterling’s innocence, and hastened to add:
“Who, Baldy ... er, Rathbone, except yourself and Dr. Sterling, Senior, knew of the contents of the potion?”
“I can’t say, Doctor.” Rathbone’s mouth closed tightly, and Heddis lifted his heavy body, as Barton inquired:
“With our methods of cadaver handling is putrefaction possible?”
Rathbone repeated the question to Dr. Heddis, who answered:
“Perfectly. Clip off a small portion of an arm or leg, before embalming, and keep it....” He threw out his hand, “To a toxicologist the synthetic possibility seems increasingly unfeasible. Formulas are too intricate, and the discovery of the murderer that way would be worse than looking for a penny in quicksand. Mean checking every organ of every cadaver....
“Look for the administrator, not the manufacturer. Someone with access to the patients in that bed. Time enough after that person is found to find out....”
He turned to Dr. MacArthur and said, “Any hour night or day, Mac....”
Rathbone, too, rose; his clear baritone filled the room:
“The medicine closets of all floors of Medicine Clinic were searched again today. They reveal no coniine. The syringes check as to number but are useless; the routine boiling eliminates any hope of tracing that way. Is there anything else we can do, sir?”
“No, Rathbone,” MacArthur’s voice was hopeless and affectionate. “I wish there were. Thank both of you, gentlemen.”
They were followed by Dr. Mattus, who came, as Cub had done the day before with a doll tucked under his arm. This time the dolly wore a blue dress and frilled bonnet and said, “Pa-pa. Pa-pa.”
Every man in the room shivered.
“For heaven’s sake turn that damn thing over!” Dr. MacArthur ordered. “Where did you get it?”
“Found it in the desk of Miss Roenna Kerr.”
“Whew!” It was Dr. Barton who expressed the combined sentiments.
“When?” Dr. Harrison’s face was eerie with hope.
“When she was at Head Nurse Conference, and I went into her office looking for some case reports.”
“Did you face her with it?”
“No, Dr. MacArthur, I did not. I brought it to you. Only first, I happened, casually, to learn that her niece won a similar doll at a street fair last week. She went with a party of nurses during her P. M.”
Dr. Harrison’s fringe of white hair haloed his face. He looked like a man coming out of torture.
“Tell what you know about last night, Mattus.”
“Dr. James, interne, and I examined Miss Standish yesterday afternoon. Found her normal in every respect and in good spirits. By Jove ... when I came on the ward, Miss Roenna Kerr was trying to put her in another bed ... and I ordered her into Bed 11. Did not see Miss Standish again until around ten when I was called to the ward for a heart case. She was still awake and cheerful; told her Dr. Bear had ordered a sleeping potion and to call for it if she needed it.”
“What was the potion?” Dr. MacArthur interrupted.
“Veronal, sir. He handed me the prescription as he left Medicine Clinic, sir.”
The men stirred and Mattus continued:
“When I saw Miss Standish again, she was dead.”
“Did you see Miss Roenna Kerr on the ward after the murder?”
“Yes, sir. She arrived soon after I did and I presumed Dr. Sterling, Junior, had sent for her. That’s all I know, sir. Except that Cub, Dr. Sterling, Junior, left his father and made rounds on that ward to calm the hysteria this morning about nine and had the heaven-sent sense to say his father was ill. The women are wallowing in sympathy and have almost forgotten the death of Miss Standish.