The Patient in Room 18 · Chapter 13 (2/2)

“The moment when I’m feeling most useless and most like a failure is not the moment to ask me to tell of my successes. Or my methods. I don’t have methods. I take what the Lord sends and am thankful. Sometimes it is a matter of luck. Mostly it is a matter of drudgery and hard work. Always it is a matter of thinking, thinking, thinking. Of eating, living, sleeping with problems for days and nights. Usually, just about the time you have decided that none of the pieces of the puzzle can possibly fit, all at once something happens and⁠—Click! Things clarify. There is a reason for everything. Nothing just happens. Nothing is an isolated fact. If you have a fact, you know that certain circumstances had to combine to bring it about. It is just logic, reason, the physical, material quality of cause and effect. There isn’t anything mysterious about it. It is just the⁠—the arithmetic of analysis. I don’t mean that I am infallible. I have to reconsider and revise and correct mistakes, just like anybody else. I’m human⁠—and young. But when you know that there is a solution, to the most puzzling problem, all there is to do is worry it out. I suppose the subconscious mind helps.”

“That is rather abstract,” I said slowly.

“I suppose it sounds that way. Well⁠—here is one definite and concrete trick. As a rule, given enough rope a man can hang himself. Often I find that there will be one little circumstance that only the guilty man knows. Sooner or later he lets it out. Sometimes I have to trap the man I suspect into such an admission.”

I’m sure my eyes were popping out.

“Then that is why you made that extraordinary request of me at the first inquest!” I exclaimed. “I could not understand it. The thing you mentioned seemed so insignificant.”

It was remarkable that his eyes could be so clear and so unfathomable at the same time.

“I trust you are discreet,” he said evenly.

“Oh, I shan’t tell, if that is what you mean,” I promised hastily. “I am as interested in solving this mystery as you are. Indeed, I think I may say that I am far more deeply interested.”

“Well, keep your eyes and ears open,” he said, smiling and rising to open the door for me, and I found myself out in the main hall before I knew it.

It was only a few moments later that I saw him leave; I remember standing at the window beside the main entrance, and watching his long gray roadster swoop silently and swiftly around the curve of the main driveway and into the road. He was seated at the wheel, a slight gray figure, intent only on the muddy highway ahead of him. There was a suggestion of power, of invincibility, in the very repose and economy of motion with which he controlled the long-nosed roadster.

As I turned away I met Maida.

“Such a day!” she murmured with a sigh. “Have you been able to sleep?”

“I haven’t tried,” I said. “I knew it would be no use.”

“Miss Dotty is still upset,” went on Maida. “And the training nurses are following their own devices, and everybody is afraid of her own shadow. I wish this business was all settled and forgotten about.”

“You don’t wish it any more than I do,” I agreed fervently. “But I do think that O’Leary is doing everything within his power.”

“I suppose so,” said Maida, without much conviction. She was looking pale and rather ill. “Wasn’t that Mr. O’Leary driving away a moment ago?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know that he was here at St. Ann’s. He hasn’t seen fit to question me yet”⁠—she smiled rather ruefully⁠—“as to poor Higgins. Except, of course, as he did at the inquest and that was so little. I felt he was reserving his inquiry, didn’t you? But I thought Mr. O’Leary had gone back to town long ago.”

“No. He just left.” I paused to yawn. “I’m going to try to get some sleep. Better do likewise.” But she shook her head, murmuring something about work, and I went to my room.

Luckily I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. It was when I had awakened that I found I possessed but one remaining clean uniform and it was of a style that demanded the buttons I had sent to the laundry. Recalling the fact that Maida had an extra set, I went to her room to borrow. She was not there but I went boldly into the room.

And I found the radium!

It was in the pincushion, a pretty trifle of mauve taffeta ruffles that I picked up idly to examine more closely. When I felt the shape under the taffeta, when my fingers outlined it, I could not have resisted tearing it apart. The cotton stuffing had been removed and the small box that held the radium was there instead.

I don’t know how long I stood as if frozen to the spot. I remember noting that the neat sewing had been torn out as if hastily, and that wide hurried stitches held the seam together. And I remember hearing the voices of several girls passing in the hall outside and thinking that Maida would be coming to her room.

O’Leary had said: “The person who has the radium is the one that killed Higgins.”

I could not face Maida with this thing in my hand.

And I could not leave the radium where it was.

In another moment I found myself back in my room, the radium, pincushion and all, locked away, the key securely hidden and my mind made up. Painful though it was I should have to tell O’Leary immediately of this thing. I do not hold friendship lightly and the shock of finding the stolen radium in Maida’s possession almost unnerved me.

I had forgotten about the buttons and it was something of an anticlimax to catch myself starting down to dinner in a black silk kimono. I had to go to the bottom of my trunk for an old uniform that I had cast aside as being too tight. It was still too tight and very uncomfortable, being made with a Bishop collar which is high and stiff and scratched the lobes of my ears.

There was no need to telephone to O’Leary, for as I neared the general office I caught a glimpse of his smooth brown head bent over some papers on the long table. I entered.

“I have found the radium,” I said quietly.

He looked up, jumped to his feet. I did not need to repeat my words.

“Where is it?”

“In my room. Shall I bring it to you?”

He hesitated, his eyes travelling around the office with its several doors and windows.

“This is too public. Someone would be sure to see it. Where did you find it?”

I swallowed.

“In⁠—Miss Day’s room.”

His gaze narrowed thoughtfully.

“You must tell me about it later. First I must have the radium.”

Our voices had dropped to whispers and my heart was pounding.

“Shall we put it in the safe?” I motioned toward the inner office which holds a great steel safe, in a prepared compartment of which the radium is usually kept.

“No.” O’Leary shook his head decisively. “No. I must put it in the hands of the chief of police at once. Look here, Miss Keate; in three minutes I shall walk slowly across the main hall with this bundle of newspapers under my arm. At the foot of the stairway I shall pass you just descending. It is rather dark there by the stairs. Hand me the box and keep right on going. Don’t stop. Later I shall see you and hear how you found it.”

I followed his bidding. As I came slowly down the last flight of stairs he walked carelessly across the hall. There was no one about and I was sure that the transfer was effected without anyone’s knowledge.

With a casual nod I went on around the turn and followed the basement stairs down to the dining room. I ate what was set before me and kept my eyes from Maida.

It must have been about twenty minutes later that I ascended the stairs again and paused in the main hall. There was a light in the general office, excited voices, and Dr. Hajek and Dr. Balman were bending over something that lay on the long table.

I entered.

Lance O’Leary was stretched on the table, his face lead-gray, his eyes closed. Dr. Balman had out his stethoscope and was listening intently and Dr. Hajek was forcing aromatic ammonia through O’Leary’s pale lips.

There was a rapidly swelling lump back of O’Leary’s right ear and the small box that was so precious was not to be seen.

At a glance I understood.

“Is he⁠—alive, Dr. Balman?”

Dr. Balman nodded, detaching the stethoscope with long hands that shook.

“Dr. Hajek and I were starting down to dinner,” he explained. His voice sounded hoarse and his anxious eyes were fixed upon O’Leary. “We found him like this. All huddled on the floor there near the stairway.”