Bear Sterling was tilted back in the desk chair. The half-egg-shell ceiling light blazed in his face. He wore the surgeons’ apron in which he had performed the autopsy. His lower jaw lay relaxed against the cushions of his chins. His eyes were peacefully closed. He was asleep. When the Elijah Wilson had been founded he had been the youngest surgeon, and had learned to sleep between crises. He did it automatically, naturally and silently.

Cub Sterling had twined himself around an uncomfortable office chair and was smoking cigarettes. His left shoulder was hysterically high.

He watched his father’s innocent repose with a visible irritation. He had struck no matches for over an hour. The smoking was incessant and the old butt served to light the new cigarettes.

Dr. Sidney Mattus sat stiffly in a straight chair. His head rested upon one corner of the back and his feet tucked into one of the chair rungs. He watched all of the men and held his eyes past them, 68 apparently upon the coming dawn which could just be discerned through the high window.

Dr. Henry MacArthur sat across the double desk from Bear Sterling. He had shielded his brow from the glaring light and was soothing it like a man in constant pain. Occasionally he lifted his free hand and twisted his left ear thoughtfully.

No man had spoken for many minutes.

The air of the room was heavy with smoke, tension, the odor of formaldehyde and the chilliness of dawn.

It housed all the suppressed horror of a death chamber, and its occupants had the appearance of men awaiting execution.

Dr. MacArthur’s shoulders were hunched as though prepared for a blow; even in Bear Sterling’s slumber there was a sense of watchful waiting.

Cub was thinking. Shall I keep my mouth shut and watch that night student nurse...? She is a niece of Miss Kerr ... remember that ... old fellow!

Dr. MacArthur raised his head as though to answer and said:

“What did your father say about the heart?”

Cub’s eyes met his and he responded:

“In normal condition, considering the history, sir.”
69

“Strange. Was that your understanding, Mattus?”

“Yes, Dr. MacArthur.”

Silence lay over the air again. MacArthur put his head back into his hands and began checking it all over: Cub, Mattus, Bear, the student nurse, the orderly, the Head Nurse in Medicine Clinic ... the ... was there anybody else? Was it possible....

He stopped his mind and decided not to think until he had some facts. There would be no sense in clouding his faculties with hysterical superstitions. A clear head was what must be maintained.

The morning light was beginning to fill the room; it began to suffuse the faces of the four men.

MacArthur straightened and turned to Cub Sterling and Mattus, and smiled.

“I’m sorry boys if I’ve been taciturn ... but the Elijah Wilson is my only child ... and as a parent I guess I’m hopeless.”

“Good God, sir, we understand.”

Cub Sterling was upon his feet and towering over MacArthur. Mattus’ manner dropped from him and he became almost a schoolboy in his shyness.

“Of course we do,” he affirmed.

Bear Sterling stirred in his sleep and awoke. His steel-gray eyes were softened by the coming 70 dawn. All three men turned to him. His eyes became pin points.

“Any news?”

“Not yet.”

“Wish Heddis hadn’t gone to that damn convention.”

“I’ve telegraphed for him. Could that sleeping potion have been administered hypodermically?” MacArthur’s voice was thin and old.

“Improbable. The order was for capsule,” Cub Sterling snapped.

“Then that puncture was from....” Mattus’ voice slid into the opening each man’s brain had already made.

“Durn these pharmacologists!” Bear announced and closed his eyes.

MacArthur took his watch from his pocket and said:

“Boys, since all tests are being done upon those organs, it may be hours yet. Go get some sleep and prepare for today. You’ll have a twenty-four hour job ahead of you to sit on the suppressed hysteria in Medicine Clinic ... and you have got to sit on it!”

Mattus and Cub Sterling rose. Patients, another day, ... Tuesday! ... rounds, diagnoses ... they had forgotten it all! And within three hours it must be faced again.
71

They turned toward the door and it was opened in their faces by the second assistant chemist.

He was a small damp man whose limp black hair sweated into his muddy forehead. He said:

“Dr. MacArthur, Dr. Heddis and Dr. Maids are at the convention in Cincinnati, so I did the tests upon the organs you sent over....”

His voice was matter-of-fact. Its uninterested monotony awakened Bear Sterling.

He rivetted his eyes into the fellow and growled:

“Who in the hell are you?”

“A gentleman,” Dr. MacArthur said, “who is reporting upon some organs I sent over to the chemical laboratory, Dr. Sterling. Dr. Heddis’ second assistant.”

The chemist wiped his perspiring lip and continued in the voice of a bell-hop.

“None of the organs show traces of any foreign substance except the ingredients of a sleeping potion, which I believe was administered in powdered form, capsule probably. I have not proceeded with any obscure tests. Dr. Heddis will be back this afternoon. I regret I can make no further report until after a consultation with Dr. Heddis.”

Bear Sterling’s regular breathing was the only noise.

“Dr. Heddis is flying back. He should be here within two hours. Sorry to have called you at such an hour. Please keep on searching and consult Dr. 72 Heddis immediately he returns. In the meantime, will you be so kind as to have a typed report of your findings in my hands by nine this morning? So kind of you!” Dr. MacArthur stated.

He ushered the chemist through the door and shut it after him. He turned to face the three men. He stood so erect that his wife would have known he had lost a battle and a tremendous one.

“Bear Sterling, did that body show a hypodermic puncture?”

“It did.”

“Then that syringe contained something ... I can’t seem to make my brain ... understand.”

At nine-fifteen, Dr. Henry MacArthur sat in his own office chair and peered intently at the innocuous findings of the second assistant chemist and the addenda which Dr. Heddis had written an hour before.

His long brow was pleated with straight thin wrinkles.

He was reading Dr. Heddis’ supplement with fascinated horror. It indicated, what he had feared, that the patient in Bed 11, Ward B, Medicine Clinic had not died of a sleeping potion. That somewhere in the Elijah Wilson....

His door into the corridor of the Administration Building was open. Except during meetings it was always open.
73

His secretary appeared in it and said, “Here is your mail, Dr. MacArthur.”

The tone of her voice braced him.

He smiled as she advanced and laid the letters upon the desk.

“I won’t dictate this morning, Miss Sadler. There is an important staff meeting. Please call off my appointment with the Woman’s Board, and that luncheon engagement with the man from the Duke Foundation ... and ... take all telephone messages unless they come from the staff, or Dr. Heddis.”

He was interrupted by the tall shadow of Cub Sterling.

The secretary turned and passed out.

Cub took the proffered chair and said, “Can they all come, sir?”

“I’m afraid not. Your father is doing a brain tumor on the Bishop’s aunt, Paton is scheduled for a hysterectomy on the president of the Woman’s College, Peters is demonstrating his new retina operation before some visiting medical students; but Hoffbein, Harrison, and Barton will be here, and we have the others’ approval to go ahead. I’m sorry they can’t come, but I do not feel I can assume the responsibility of delaying the meeting. Is Mattus coming?”

“No, sir. He’s doing my teaching rounds with the students.”
74

“Heddis believes....”

Dr. MacArthur slid the typewritten findings toward Cub. The young man lit a cigarette, looked away from them and frowned.

“Dr. MacArthur,” his voice had assumed its steely quality under which he always hid his emotions. He held out an envelope.

MacArthur took it automatically and asked, “What is it, son?”

“My resignation, sir.”

MacArthur straightened as though he had been struck by an electric eel. His blue eyes shot into Cub Sterling’s and he muttered:

“Are you afraid to face the music, Ethridge?”

“No, sir!”

“Then do it without hysterics,” MacArthur ordered, tearing the envelope into shreds as Prissy Paton’s purring voice interrupted:

“What, am I the first one here, MacArthur? Good morning, Ethridge. Pleasant morning. Cancerous through and through. No use removing anything. Fine woman, and great influence in her generation. Sewed her up again. No use. Will probably live several months. Are the rumors I hear true? Has there been another? I thought it was that yesterday. I said to myself, ‘it certainly has all the symptoms....’”

“Blow your bubbles out of the window, Boy Blue,” Dr. Harrison chuckled easing Dr. Paton 75 into a chair. Then he walked over and shook hands with Ethridge Sterling, Junior, and with Dr. MacArthur.

He seated himself, took out his pipe and began talking of the tremendous discoveries of the ruins of Roman towns which had recently been ascertained in England by means of the airplane.

He filled the room with sanity. Dr. Paton went to his usual morning manicure, and Dr. Barton came in quietly, nodded, sat down and joined the listening group. Nobody noticed Flannel-feet Hoffbein’s entrance.

Dr. Harrison stopped and turned politely to Dr. MacArthur; like obedient schoolboys the other four men turned to MacArthur also.

“Gentlemen, I know it is most unusual and inconvenient to be called to a staff meeting without notice and at this hour. Still I believe the occasion justifies the summons. The thing of which Ethridge told you yesterday afternoon, is this morning.... At three A.M. the patient in Bed 11, Ward B, Medicine Clinic was found ... dead. There was an unexplained puncture from a hypodermic syringe in the left arm.”

“MacArthur,” Dr. Harrison’s voice had become an august bass, “are you s-u-r-e?”

MacArthur stood up and walked toward Dr. Harrison. In his extended hand was the typewritten sheet. He was even straighter than he had been 76 in the autopsy room. For thirty-odd years his and Dr. Harrison’s great passion had been the Elijah Wilson Hospital. Harrison rose. They met in a patch of morning sunshine, which threw the sheen from Dr. Harrison’s head into a mirror over the mantel and back into Prissy Paton’s eyes.

Prissy gave a hysterical gasp and prepared to scream. Dr. Barton, in the voice he used with children, remarked, “Easy, sister. Easy!”

Nobody laughed.

Nobody registered it.

Hoffbein breathed like a returning pearl diver and enunciated carefully, “Read it, Harrison.”

As Dr. MacArthur returned to his chair and Dr. Harrison cleared his throat, the door into the corridor opened slightly and Princeton Peters’ peach-blossom face vied with the morning sun. Cub Sterling saw it and winced. Before any other man had taken it in, Princeton tiptoed into the room and his lavender eyes had assumed their death-mask purple.

With a precision which carried the force of bass waves against a rock ledge, Harrison began engraving into his brain and into theirs, the report of the second assistant chemist. As he turned the page to Dr. Heddis’ supplement, the men stirred nervously and Hoffbein’s eyes took on a mountain-out-of-molehill scorn.

Dr. Heddis’ addition stated: “The routine tests, 77 afore referred to, are being checked by my first assistant, Dr. Maids, who returned with me; so far they reveal nothing other than the ingredients of a sleeping potion. These ingredients tally with those prescribed in the order filed upon the patient’s chart. Toxicology, like other branches of the Profession, is partly guess work. Since the cadaver bears evidence of a hypodermic puncture, and indications are that the potion was not administered that way, my belief is that this patient died of a syringe of some obscure drug.

“Therefore I am immediately beginning upon the obscure tests. It may take days to prove or disprove my conclusions. In the meantime, I repeat, a sleeping potion prescribed in capsule form, which the pharmacy compounded and the student nurse states she administered, explains neither the syringe puncture nor the death.

“Indications, it seems to me, point to an obscure and deadly drug. Possibly a drug which may be administered per os, and may have been so administered in the two previous cases. Any findings will be immediately reported to the General Staff or Dr. MacArthur.”

As the last words scraped into the consciousness 78 of the men, a solemnity comparable to that which shadows the faces of pallbearers as they watch the coffin of a beloved comrade lowered, blanketed the staff. Whatever their petty hates and puerile quarrels, so far as the reputation of the Elijah Wilson was concerned, they agreed. It must not be damaged.

“He might be wrong,” Prissy quavered.

Nobody heard him.

“An obscure and deadly drug. Poison. And it may take days to discover it. Something we never heard of, probably.” Dr. Harrison’s voice seemed to be directed toward his own mind.

Dr. MacArthur replied:

“Let’s wait for Heddis on the chemistry, gentlemen. Ethridge and Mattus have spent the last two hours searching texts. They could find nothing. We would only waste time surmising.” Then, as though Prissy’s statement had just reached his brain he turned to him and said, “Yes, he might be wrong. But we can’t have this thing continue, and until he is proved wrong....” He shook his head slowly, “The effect was obvious. The woman is dead.”

For a full minute after Dr. MacArthur ceased speaking, no man spoke, and it was Prissy’s high treble which cut into their consciences.

“Ethridge ... er ... how was she last night?”

“I saw her around seven,” his voice took on its protective clip. “Her pulse was around a hundred. Considering her condition that was not odd. Her spirits were excellent. Eager for Father to go ahead 79 with the operation. He saw her between eight and nine. Found condition quite in line with the way she was when I saw her. Is that your understanding, Dr. MacArthur?”

“And ... er ... by the way, where is your father?”

“He is doing a brain tumor, Dr. Paton,” Dr. MacArthur cut in.

“And how did your resident ... Doctor ... er?”

“Mattus.”

“Yes ... thank you ... Dr. Mattus, consider her?” Hoffbein slid his question into Cub.

“He saw her before she went to sleep around nine. He reports her pulse had dropped to around ninety; otherwise her condition remained unchanged. Anything else, sir?”

Hoffbein never answered verbally questions which did not flatter him. He shook his head thoughtfully.

By that time the staff had regained some measure of its equilibrium and Dr. MacArthur continued.

“Between the time Mattus saw her and three A.M. she was ... was....”

“I’m in favor of turning the whole thing over to the police,” Princeton Peters said most righteously.

“I’m not!” Dr. Harrison was vehement. “Outside of this room ... with the exception of Bear Sterling and Heddis ... no living person is 80 aware of the situation,” he pointed the paper at Peters’ face. “Some linen is too foul to wash in public. Want to ruin the hospital, d’ye? We think we are pretty good at death and birth ... and we shall not be downed by....”

He waved the paper at them.

“Precisely....”

Then Dr. MacArthur realized he had expressed an opinion himself....

“What is your conclusion, gentlemen?” he hurried to say.

“Mistake to form one without an examination of the witnesses, I think ... if you can call them that ... suh,” Dr. Barton interposed.

“Quite. Ethridge and I decided upon that during the autopsy. And I have arranged with my secretary to call them quietly ... and separately ... in order to avoid.... We would have questioned them minutely this morning; but the seriousness of our decision ... whatever it is ... must be a responsibility we all bear. D’y’see?”

“The night student nurse on Ward B is waiting. Shall I have her brought in, gentlemen?”

Hoffbein sensed a suppressed motion of Cub Sterling’s, a slight movement in the chair, an intangible gathering of forces.

“Isn’t this rather cruel?” Dr. Harrison suggested.

“Terribly. But how else will we ever...?”
81

Princeton Peters interrupted Dr. MacArthur.

“Murder is cruel, too.”

It was the first time the word had been mentioned. It rushed into the faces of the seven men like an angry wind.

During the ensuing vacuum, Dr. MacArthur lifted his telephone:

“Miss Sadler, will you please bring that pupil nurse to my office.”

The girl entered tensely.

Dr. Barton noticed her eyes were blue and too closely set; Prissy thought the face was sweet; Princeton Peters felt she had been nicely brought up; Dr. Harrison’s brain flashed “kitten lined with ox-hide”; Cub noticed her feet were flat, and Dr. MacArthur was too benevolent for a personal estimate.

“Won’t you sit down, Miss ... er....”

“My name is Evelina Kerr.”

Her voice held a note of defiance as she took the proffered chair beside Dr. MacArthur’s.

“My child,” he said soothingly, “this is probably the most trying duty you have had in your whole training ... and we regret that it is unavoidable. Will you please tell us plainly ... and as minutely as you can remember, exactly what happened after you went on duty in B Ward last night?”

She sat with her feet together, her hands folded in her lap, and a sullen calm in her voice.
82

“At nine o’clock, Dr. MacArthur, I went on night duty on B Ward of Medicine Clinic. Aunt Roenna ... I mean Miss Kerr ... was on the floor and Miss Kexter, the white nurse, who had waited to give me my instructions.”

“White nurse?” Princeton Peters’ voice was polite, but demanding.

“Slang for graduate floor nurse in charge,” Cub Sterling supplied.

The student nurse was silent in her resentment. Finally she continued:

“They left together. Then I took my temperatures, counted pulses, prepared the patients for the night.”

“The patient in Bed 11, Miss Kerr,” Hoffbein began in his mesmerizing voice. “How was she?”

The girl started and turned toward him with the underlying resentment of a schoolboy stopped midway through the multiplication tables.

“She was all right, Dr. Hoffbein. She had no temperature and....”

“Her pulse?” he interrupted again.

Cub Sterling stirred restlessly and lit a cigarette.

“It was between ninety and a hundred. By nine-thirty I had given all of my medicines....”

“Did she have any medicine?”

“Yes, Dr. Hoffbein, she did. She had a prescription 83 of Dr. Sterling, Senior’s. A ... a sleeping potion.”

“Do you know what it was?”

“No, sir. It came up from the pharmacy filled.”

“Wasn’t the duplicate on her chart?”

“It was pheno-barbital,” Cub Sterling cut in raspingly.

The girl hesitated. She seemed to have lost the thread of her thoughts.

“Go ahead with the story, child,” Dr. MacArthur soothed.

She sat silent a moment and then continued:

“By ten o’clock I had finished my medicines, temperatures and pulses. The ward was quiet and I started to work upon the fever charts.

“The orderly was in the kitchen straightening up and fixing the breakfast trays. Two patients called for bed-pans. The orderly came to tell me that we were short two milk bottles. I telephoned the kitchens about them.

“Otherwise the ward was perfectly quiet, except for an occasional cough.

“At ten-fifteen, Miss Willis, the night supervisor in Medicine, made her rounds, and told me to watch the patient in Bed 11 very carefully.

“At eleven-forty I went to the medicine closet to prepare the hypodermic Dr. Mattus had ordered for another patient.”
84

“What kind of hypodermic?” Dr. MacArthur inserted.

“A strophanthin mixture. She’s a cardiac case.”

“A dispensary case of cardiac insufficiency,” Cub Sterling cut in.

Miss Kerr’s resentment was again expressed by silence. She seemed to be debating with herself.

“What happened?” Hoffbein demanded curtly.

For the first time since she had come into the room her speech came spontaneously.

“I ... I ... was boiling the syringe and had my back to the corridor door, and suddenly I felt someone passing in the corridor and turned around, and ran to the medicine closet door. There was no one in sight. And then I remembered the boiling syringe and went back to turn it off. I couldn’t leave until I had. It would have been ruined, and if the patient didn’t get her dose in time she might die.

“So I made myself finish filling the syringe and then went into the ward. There was nobody there, and all of the patients were sleeping, except Mrs. Witherspoon, who is queer in the head.

“I asked her if she had seen anybody and she said, ‘Yes.’”

The girl’s speech died in her throat and the seven men held their breath.

MacArthur regained his first.

“Whom did she say she saw, Miss Kerr?”
85

“She said she saw Dr. ... Dr. ... Sterling ... Junior....”

The girl turned her close-set eyes, acid with hate, upon Cub Sterling. Princeton’s lavender eyes, death-purple, Prissy’s green ones glinting, Hoffbein’s black ones deep as wells and the brown eyes of Doctors Barton and Harrison, gravely inquiring, turned upon Cub Sterling.

Only Dr. MacArthur’s eyes remained the same.

Cub Sterling answered the inquiry sharply.

“The patient is deranged, gentlemen. I was in my rooms.”

The door opened and Bear Sterling, his brows beetling, entered. Cub rose and gave him his seat. Dr. Harrison pulled up a vacant chair and motioned Cub into it. The chair was between his and Dr. Barton’s.

Prissy Paton looked at Princeton Peters and both of them decided they had better not speak ... now.

“And what happened next, Miss Kerr?” Hoffbein insisted.

“I went and asked the orderly if he had seen anybody and he said ‘No.’ So I went and looked at the patient in Bed 11 again. She was sleeping peacefully.”

Dr. Harrison leaned suddenly forward. His voice was acid:

“Did that deranged patient see anybody else?”
86

“No, sir.”

Then his voice stabbed:

“Did you?”

The close eyes shifted quickly. Her response came instantly:

“No, Doctor Harrison.”

A silence began stretching. The girl continued abruptly:

“Then I went back to my desk and finished my fever charts.”

“You did not call your supervisor?”

“No, Dr. MacArthur. I finished the fever charts and then made the midnight rounds. The patient in Bed 11 was still sleeping peacefully. I called in the rounds to my night supervisor and began studying my nursing manual. Three patients rang their bells between then and two. One wanted a glass of water and two, bed-pans. At two I gave the special medicines and then went back to my studying.”

“You did not look at the patient in Bed 11?”

“No, Dr. Harrison, she had no special medicine. At three I again made rounds and found the patient in Bed 11 was dead. I called my supervisor and failed to get her. I then called the general superintendent. She told me to draw the curtains around Bed 11 and wait further orders until Dr. Mattus came.

“He and Dr. Sterling, Junior, came within the 87 next fifteen minutes. Dr. Sterling and Dr. Mattus rolled the bed off of the ward and into the elevator.

“I did not see the patient again. I finished my ward duties by seven, woke the remaining patients and told them that the patient in Bed 11 had been operated on in the night and removed to the Surgical Clinic, like Aunt Roenna told me to....”

“When did she tell you that?” Cub Sterling inquired.

The girl hesitated and flushed. For the moment she seemed to have lost her control.

“She didn’t. I had forgotten. Miss Willis, the night supervisor told me.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Kerr. Are there any questions any of you gentlemen wish to ask Miss Kerr, before she is relieved?”

“How long have you been in training?”

“Two years and five months, Dr. Harrison. I finish in December.”

“Thank you again,” Dr. MacArthur said as she rose, and then finished:

“Of all the people concerned in this, Miss Kerr, you are the youngest. Please do not forget that two years ago you took an oath concerning silence.”

Princeton Peters, who was sitting by the door, rose and opened it for her.

“Thank you, my dear!” he beamed.

No man felt she had told the entire truth.
88

After her departure, they sat silently awaiting the next witness. The horror of the thing seemed to have enveloped them.

The night orderly on B Ward entered. A thin, tubercular looking man with frightened eyes. Everything about him seemed collapsed, and yet still able to move.

Dr. MacArthur looked up:

“Good morning, William. How are you?”

The man’s appreciation spread over him.

“Well as can be expected, thank you, Doctor. How’s yourself?”

He turned to Prissy, Bear, Cub, and Harrison with a respectful “Good morning, Doctor.”

“William,” Dr. MacArthur began addressing him before he could enter into a personal conversation with each man, “were you on duty last night?”

“Yes, sir, I was. As usual. And a frightful night, too, sir.”

“How?”

“Well, Dr. MacArthur, to begin my rheumatism was bothering. And then everything seemed to have hid itself. And then that girl just in here was like a kitten on a brick, sir. Got my hair prickled, so to speak, by running back and asking me if I’d seen anybody on the ward about eleven-fifty and then saying she had felt somebody.”

“Was there any basis for it?”

“None, sir, as I knows. It’s true I was in the 89 kitchen during her feeling spell, so to speak. But, if you will pardon my remarking, sir, I been on that ward ten years coming August and it’s as hard to get past me as a watchdog, sir.”

“Yes, William. I know it is.”

“Thank you, Dr. MacArthur. Thank you.”

“How many times did the nurse come back?” Hoffbein smiled encouragingly.

“Only wunst. And then when she found the woman dead, sir! I was resting with my eyes shet, sir, and she well nigh scared me out of my wits!”

“Was she frightened?” Hoffbein insisted.

“It ain’t fur me to say, Doctor. I was too mad at having my rest ruined and too scared myself to see, sir. It wasn’t till Dr. Mattus came that I could stand away from the wall, sir. When Dr. Cub ... begging your pardon, son ... Sterling got there I was all right again.

“I been in the hospital long as most of you and I seen death every day, but....”

“And we know how proud you are of the hospital, William,” Dr. MacArthur cut in, “and what a help you have always been to it. So you must promise me, upon your oath, before these gentlemen, that you will not repeat to any living soul a single word of what you know or suspect about the trouble.”

Dr. MacArthur drew the old man’s eyes to his and William replied:
90

“I promise, sir.”

“Thank you, William.”

Dr. Peters held the door open.

The old man started toward it and turned midway.

“Dr. MacArthur, do I ... do I...?”

“You do. Tonight and every night.”

It was apparent that every man felt from the minute William began speaking that he was innocent. During his interrogation they had relaxed.

In the interim between his exit and the entrance of Peter Rathbone, Chief Pharmacist, the tension had fallen considerably.

“Baldy” Rathbone shook them out of a reverie.

He had a body like a triangle upside down. His wide shoulders showed strength and assurance. He was a youngish middle-aged man. A spreading part ran up the center of his scalp and connected his wide forehead with the bald spot on top.

He had been raised an orphan and worked his way through college at night, and then worked his way up at the Elijah Wilson. There was a sense of definite knowledge about the face and figure. His eyes bore the marks of childhood suffering, but his smile heartened the men.

“Good morning, gentlemen.”

His voice was a deep resonant baritone.

“Sit down, Baldy,” Dr. MacArthur motioned to the “witness chair”; then a deep blush steeped his 91 face, and he smiled. Rathbone returned the smile, took the chair, and ran his eyes over the staff. He had never seen any of them so perturbed.

Dr. MacArthur said carefully:

“Er ... er ... Rathbone, did you check the prescriptions?”

“As far as possible, sir. A compounded prescription, as you know, cannot be checked as to relative quantities and so ... but the ingredients from the remainder (I understood from the order that I was to have two capsules compounded, in case the first failed to take effect) were checked. They tallied as to substance, perfectly.”

“Who compounded the prescription?” Dr. Hoffbein queried.

“McInnis, my first assistant, sir. He can be trusted.”

He was interrupted by the telephone bell. It jarred the men like a steam siren. MacArthur’s, “Yes, Heddis. Are you sure? Soon as possible. Thank you,” held the eight men to a dead silence. A silence which screamed for knowledge.

Dr. MacArthur placed the hook too carefully upon the receiver, Hoffbein thought, and then he spoke:

“Coniine, gentlemen. One of the deadliest poisons. Heddis will be over in fifteen minutes.”

“Whew!” Dr. Harrison ejaculated.
92

“Hypodermic syringe, then,” Bear Sterling growled.

Cub Sterling jumped as though he had been shot.

They all turned toward him.

“What’s the matter, Ethridge?” Dr. Harrison put his hand on his knee....

“Nothing. Except she was giving hypodermics all night. She....”

Dr. MacArthur’s pointer nose had a dreadful struggle with his judicial brain.

“We must make no decisions ... nor allow ourselves any prejudices, until we are in possession of all evidence.”

His voice was stern.

“You were saying, Baldy...?”

“That Dr. Heddis believes it was done ... hypodermically. He suspected coniine and called me twenty minutes ago, and as a result all of the medicine closets in Medicine Clinic have just been checked. Nothing was found.”

“Ever have any obscure poisons in the pharmacy?” Cub Sterling was leaning arrogantly forward.

“Rarely. None, at present.”

“How can you account for the entry of this ... coniine?” Cub Sterling lowered his brows and scowled.

“I can’t, Dr. Sterling,” Rathbone turned his 93 body around and looked through Cub searchingly. His doming forehead added weight to his eyes.

Cub shifted his position, and Bear Sterling who had missed the by-play growled:

“Is it hard to obtain?”

“Sir?”

“I said is coniine difficult to get?”

“Since we never have any use for it, I don’t know, Dr. Sterling,” he hesitated as if endeavoring to hide his irritation and then continued, “Shall I find out, sir?”

Dr. MacArthur interposed:

“Good idea. See where and in what quantities the big pharmaceutical houses have sold coniine within the last year.”

“Perhaps we can trace the person quickly that way,” Dr. Barton affirmed.

Rathbone rose and turned, “Is there anything else, gentlemen? I’ll let you know directly I find out. Do you wish all syringes in the hospital checked, Dr. MacArthur?”

“Do you, gentlemen?” Dr. MacArthur turned toward Harrison and Bear Sterling.

“Plenty of time for that,” Hoffbein inserted. “Check the supply sources first.”

When Rathbone was gone they felt as though a strong support had been removed. His incisive uprightness rested them; but he had shot them so full 94 of information they were still dazed when Miss Roenna Kerr entered.

She came, her hair waved, her face firmly set, the bust and rear defiantly inflated, her enraged vitals midway between. She had been there as long as any of them. Her work had always been perfect. She wore her new pair of bunion-rest shoes.

Princeton Peters took her arm in his, patted her hand and murmured:

“Dear Miss Kerr, brace up!”

He eased her into the “witness chair” and tiptoed back to his own.

He was worth a million dollars to the Elijah Wilson ... in his way. To every other man in the room she had appeared too braced!

In response to their “good morning,” she smiled, generally, cocked her head on one side and said to MacArthur:

“You sent for me, Doctor?”

“Yes, Miss Kerr,” his slow methodical fairness was beating against his natural inclinations. “We want you to tell us exactly what you know about the death of the patient in Bed 11, Ward B, Medicine Clinic, please.”

“The last one?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Well, before I begin I should like to say that the Elijah Wilson is as dear to my heart as to any of yours, and my humiliation is....”
95

Again Princeton came to the rescue.

“We know it!”

She flopped her bosom, took a snort of air and continued.

“The patient in Bed 11, Ward B, was admitted Sunday as a patient of Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Senior, under the observation of Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior....”

“Yes, Miss Kerr. But the thing I wish you to report upon is the nursing-staff angle....”

She flopped her bosom again and said:

“Miss Kexter, my white nurse on Ward B is one of the finest women I have ever met in the nursing profession. And she had been most surpassingly brave through this entire ... investigation.... I think it has come to that, now....”

“Trained with us?” Dr. Harrison asked.

“Yes. Stood second in her class. She has under her five student nurses into whose records I have gone most thoroughly ... and who have been cruelly grilled....”

“Miss Kerr,” Dr. MacArthur interrupted, “we have all been cruelly grilled as you call it. Please try to realize that it is not because we suspect your department ... any more than any other ... that we are questioning you.”

“Dr. MacArthur,” she bit her lips, “my department has been my life; when it is criticized....”

“We know you do! And so does everybody else 96 concerned,” Dr. Harrison interposed. “Really Miss Kerr, please stick to what has happened. Your niece has night duty on Ward B, I believe?”

“She has.”

“She says you gave her orders about what to say to the patients about the death. Did you?” Cub Sterling had forgotten his manners and become bitterly stern.

“I wasn’t on duty, Dr. Ethridge.”

“Did you talk to her over the telephone?”

“Of course not. How should I know of the death?”

“Did you talk to her on the ward?”

She inflated entirely and said with a defiant calm:

“Doctor Ethridge, I just answered that question.”

“Then how do you explain her statement, Miss Kerr?”

A sudden terror flicked her china blue eyes. She dropped the lids instantly and replied with studied slowness:

“The child has been through such an ordeal, she was rattled.”

“Thank you.”

Bear Sterling shifted, Dr. Harrison stroked his beard, Dr. MacArthur frowned and took up the questioning before Cub Sterling had regained his composure.
97

“Who has charge of the hypodermic syringes on your floors, Miss Kerr?”

“The white nurse in charge.”

“Who has access to them?”

“She and the student nurses on duty.”

“At all hours?” Bear Sterling rumbled.

“At all hours, Dr. Sterling. Night as well as day,” she defied.

“I see.”

His two words nicked her composure. She questioned shortly:

“Why aren’t you questioning my night supervisor?”

“She was not available when your niece discovered the murder, and therefore her testimony would have no value.”

“Where was she?” Dr. Harrison drawled.

Miss Kerr began to turn purple.

“In the lavatory, Doctor.”

“What time did you get into the Clinic this morning, Miss Kerr?”

She turned her defiant eyes upon Cub Sterling and struck:

“At four sharp. The night superintendent had called me at three-thirty and told me. I came over immediately. You were still with Dr. MacArthur, I believe.”

Again his “Thank you” cut her down.
98

Dr. MacArthur realized she was useless, so he said:

“Thank you, Miss Kerr. You have been a great help. Of course I do not have to ask a person of your integrity to realize the necessity of silence.”

Princeton took his cue and opened the door.

Miss Kerr rose majestically and smiled inclusively.

She left every man in the room irritated.

“Gentlemen,” Dr. MacArthur soothed, “that is all of the testimony, except Mattus’ story, and Dr. Sterling, Ethridge and I went over it with him while we were awaiting the autopsy findings. Any questions or decisions before Heddis comes?”

“What was Mattus’ statement?” Dr. Harrison asked.

“That he found the patient in the condition Father and I did when he made his rounds, and the next time he saw her, at three-five, she was dead,” Cub Sterling responded.

“Could the murderer have any animus against the patients?” Barton asked leaning forward.

“Not likely,” Cub said. “One from out of town and genteel poor, second dispensary admission, and the last old patient. Been in the hospital before.”

He was interrupted by a knock upon the door and Dr. Heddis’ stout, round body, with its piano-post legs and lion head protruded through the opening. His wide-set yellow-brown eyes, even in 99 repose, dominated his highly intelligent face. Dr. MacArthur motioned him into the “witness chair” and he began speaking in a high, tired voice which, because of his increasing deafness, had a sing-song quality.

In ordinary conversation his impediment required a “raising” of his questioner’s voice, so upon a subject of which men spoke in whispers any information he had to give automatically became a soliloquy:

“’Morning, gentlemen. Luck, pure luck! Organs appeared perfectly normal. Began the obscure tests alphabetically. It would have taken two days to reach coniine, if my nose hadn’t been haunted by an almost imperceptible odor; after about a half hour my brain finally diagnosed it.

“The tests are conclusive. She died of an infusion of coniine, C?H??NH, per os or hypodermically. Puncture makes syringe theory conclusive as coniine administered per os would be remarked by the patient. Smells like mouse urine. Also acts locally as a caustic. Burning the mouth. Itching of the throat. Dizziness. Nausea. Tormenting thirst. Paralysis of the sural muscles.... The patient had none of these symptoms?”

He turned toward Cub Sterling questioningly. So did every other man in the room. Cub’s “No” was verbal as well as muscular.

“You see,” the leonine head rolled heavily, “one 100 and one-half to two grains administered hypodermically would be fatal ... in a very short time ... before a patient would have the agony symptoms penetrate to the drug deadened nerve centers. Before she could rouse herself the paralysis of the peripheral endings of the motor nerves had set in; also the deadening of the sensory nerves had begun. The dominant action, however, is upon the motor system. Death ensued from paralysis of respiration.”

He stopped to draw breath and no man interrupted. Toxicology was only a branch of the science upon which this man was an authority.

Dr. Heddis continued: “All organs appeared normal. The stomach content, the organs rich in blood ... liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs ... appeared healthy. But they ... all ... responded positively to the solubility, crystallization and Melzer’s tests.”

Prissy could stand the tension no longer. He screamed, “Of what plant is coniine the active principal?”

“Hemlock!”

“The fatal hemlock!” Dr. Harrison’s voice was heavy as he quoted:

    “‘Then Socrates lay down upon his back and the person who had administered the poison went up to him and examined for a little time 101 his feet and legs and then squeezing his foot strongly, asked whether he felt him.’”

Dr. Heddis, who never had any trouble understanding Harrison, also knew his Plato. He nodded and continued:

    “‘Socrates replied that he did not. He then did the same to his legs, and proceeding upwards in this way, showed us that he was cold and stiff, and he afterwards approached him and said to us that when the effect of the poison reached the heart Socrates would depart....’”

Heddis threw out his hands helplessly.

Princeton, who was weak upon the classics, spoke.

“Sinister!” he breathed heavily.

“Used to be used for whooping cough,” Cub Sterling clipped gruffly.

The information, for the shadow of a second before Dr. Heddis began speaking again, made the pupils of Hoffbein’s eyes dilate slightly. Bear Sterling’s eyes were pin points needling themselves past the grave figure of MacArthur and into the long face of Heddis, who continued:

“Can be prepared synthetically by means of the same cadaveric alkaloid, or ptomaine, that is 102 formed in putrefaction of cadavers, that is, cadaverine or penta-methylene-diamine.”

Hoffbein began to squirm slightly.

“The injection, C?H??NH (Conium maculatum), presumably combined with lactic acid is colorless and gradually turns yellow and brown in the air.”

Dr. Barton rose and leaned close to Dr. Heddis’ ear.

“In your opinion would the person who gave this ... drug ... require a knowledge of chemistry?”

Dr. Heddis pressed his plump thumb into his cheek.

“I can’t say, definitely. But ... all that a man needs to know of dynamite to destroy a city is that it will explode. Rathbone is checking supply sources, I understand. I’m not hopeful....”

He shrugged his thick shoulders.

“A medical student with a flare for toxicology could have made it synthetically. Anybody with a medical background could....”

“Then I suggest,” Dr. Harrison’s voice was patiently fighting the rising tension, “that we separate and think it over privately until after lunch. Men under a strain as long as this has been upon Ethridge and Dr. MacArthur are not at their mental best ... you both need rest; you have borne 103 up magnificently.... Let’s re-convene here at two, gentlemen?”

Dr. Heddis turned from the door:

“If you need me, MacArthur....”

Dr. Hoffbein blocked his exit. “One question before we go. Is there much hysteria on the ward?”

“Nothing visible,” Cub Sterling snapped. “There is tension of course.”

A terrible desire to get away from it all for just fifteen minutes ... to forget! ... to run away and rest ... made Cub Sterling walk through the ground floor of his clinic and start down the accident room steps toward Otto’s.

Halfway down he hesitated.

Three minutes later he walked through Ward B, ascertained from a student nurse that Dr. James was at lunch and Dr. Mattus still with the students. Then he opened the door of Room Two.

Rested, relaxed eyes, whose black shadows had disappeared, whose violet shades sung against the white pillows, turned peacefully toward his measuring brown ones.

The girl took a cigarette from between her lips and began:

“I slept like a lamb. My leg doesn’t hurt. I told the interne a nurse brought me the cigarettes and they quieted my nerves, so your shirt-tail is clear. She let me keep them.... I’ve been thinking a lot. 104 Look here! Today is Tuesday! There is absolutely no sense keeping me here, forever....”

Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, closed the door sharply and strode over to the bed. His features were flattening. His dark curly hair was dishevelled. His voice had its “’Night!” quality.

“You are my patient and you are not to get out of that bed until I say so. I know today is Tuesday just as well as you do. Possibly better! What you seem never to realize is that I am a tremendously busy man. A Physician-in-Chief works! You are not the only patient in this hospital ... but God knows you are the most petulant! Spending all your days lying there thinking up problems to hound me with! Tying yourself in knots of complications, instead of realizing you are a damned lot luckier than you deserve!”

Her mouth had been contracting slowly. When Cub stopped for breath she opened it quickly and began:

“You may be right about the luck, Doctor Sterling. But one thing medicine has failed completely to teach you is that people without money still have pride! Do you think I’ve enjoyed lying here for ninety-six hours having you throw up to me that the Attorney-General will pay my bills? Do you? There is a rumor that the Attorney-General is going to be in the next Cabinet. I was riding with him to try and find out. If I had found out, I’d have 105 had a scoop big enough to pay all the damned-old bills you care to sling at me....

“Well ... I didn’t find out! But that doesn’t keep me from ‘growing the bills.’ I’ve got to hold my job to meet them and I’ve got to get out to do it! And all the medical hysterics you could ever throw doesn’t change the facts. I....”

Her voice broke unexpectedly and she covered her head with a pillow.

Under the sheet Cub could see her body beginning to stiffen.

He reached over gently and took the cigarette from her fingers. Then he looked around for an ash-tray, saw none, and vacantly placed the cigarette between his own lips. The harassment of the morning had drained from his face. A deep concern replaced it.

His voice was bantering and slow:

“Looks like the phlebitis is traveling to your mind, little Salscie. Let’s take it step by step. The job; it’s intact. The doctor who asked me to take you in has been talking to the City Editor about you every day. Mistake was I ordered no visitors and no flowers and so you thought they had abandoned you. You may stay a month so far as they are concerned. The job will be there when you get back. If you stay a month, probably by then our friction may have worn itself out and you’ll begin to see how nice I really am. Want to try?”
106

The pillow remained inert, but the feet and legs began to relax. Cub cut his eye over the body and began talking again. He decided silently that when the breasts stopped rising, he’d quit talking....

He took the cigarette from his lips and moistened them:

“About the bills, I’ve been a rotter. I should have told you that the paper was paying them, or the hospital, or ... but I was pushed into the situation uninformed. I didn’t know whether you were the king’s mistress or the governor’s. I didn’t care a damn! And then some terribly, horribly important situations arose in the hospital and instead of thinking the thing out, I bungled it.”

The heaving in the breasts became slower, and Cub said:

“About the bills, I’ll do whatever you want me to. The hospital will take your note, or I’ll lend you the money myself. There is only one thing I will not do. I will not let you walk out of this hospital until I am absolutely sure that you are perfectly well. So make up your mind to that! I’m sorry if I’ve been cruel.... I didn’t mean to! Probably I’m just too stupid to be kind, Salscie!”

The heaves died completely. He sat absolutely silent.

With her left hand she caught the edge of the pillow case and pulled the pillow beside her upon 107 the bed. Her eyes looked straight and completely into his. Her voice was contrite and admiring:

“You are the first man who ever offered to lend me money and didn’t paw me at the same time!”

Cub laughed heartily, and then snapped:

“Maybe that’s because I’m stupid!”

Her dimples danced and then she sobered.

“When I’m well, will you come to see me...?”

Cub held her eyes to his and nodded emphatically.

“Whenever you say I may! As often as you’ll let me!”

She began lowering her lids and filled the silence with words:

“Really?”

Cub sat very still and curiosity made her raise her eyes to his again. When they were safely locked, he said, slowly:

“R-e-a-l-l-y!”

The little flecks of sunlight in the room began cascading around her hair, an inside blush centered in her neck.

Cub sat perfectly still and watched her. She knew he was watching her and she also knew that something which made her sick with joy was squirming inside of her. She began speaking desperately and with frightful haste:

“We might have to hang your legs out of a window when you come to dinner. When I get a card 108 table up, there’s not much extra space, you know ... but ... oh, by the way ... could you steal a knife and fork from the doctors’ dining room, do you think? Not steal, but....”

Cub laughed joyously.

Her face was sober.

He said, “Cigarettes, a knife and fork, ... anything else, Salscie?”

“Yes, Cub. What’s the trouble you spoke about in the hospital?”

The banter slipped from his features and his left shoulder began to rise.

“Nothing for you to worry about. Just ... some ... friction.”

She took her right hand from under the covers and reached over and caught his.

“Is it me?”

His eyes met hers and he increased his pressure on the hand.

“No! You can’t cause everything, Salscie!”

Then he rose abruptly.

“I’d better get back, though. Also I’ll make a survey of the knife and fork situation. That pack of cigarettes will be gone by tonight, won’t it?”

She lay back among the pillows and nodded slowly.

Cub beat his way through the singing air and closed the door securely behind him.