The Patient in Room 18 · Chapter 14 (1/2)

XIV

A Matter of Evidence

I must say that I was considerably relieved to see O’Leary’s eyelids flutter, the colour return to his face, and to note that his breath began to come more naturally. In a few moments he was sitting upright on the edge of the table, supported by Dr. Balman’s arm.

“What on earth happened to you?” inquired Dr. Balman, looking relieved also.

“I don’t know,” replied O’Leary rather dazedly. “All I remember is something coming down on my head. When did you find me?”

“About fifteen minutes ago. Dr. Hajek and I were just going downstairs. It was not very light in the hallway and you were in the shadow there by the stairs. It⁠—gave us a nasty shock. Do you know why you were attacked?”

O’Leary flicked a warning glance at me and shook his head.

“Haven’t the least idea,” he said flatly.

Dr. Hajek, who had been standing silently by, stirred at this.

“Then you were not on the point of making a⁠—er⁠—disclosure?” he asked with an air of disappointment. His ruddy face was as unmoved and stolid as ever, but it seemed to me that those dark, knowing eyes were restrained and secretive and did not meet O’Leary’s gaze squarely.

“No such luck! By the way, were you men coming up from downstairs when you found me?”

“No,” replied Dr. Balman. “No. I had been OK-ing some orders in the inner office; Dr. Hajek came out of his room into the general office just as I, too, entered it and we walked together out into the hall and toward the basement stairs.”

“You saw nothing unusual?”

“Nothing. We were talking of advertising for a new janitor. It was⁠—” Dr. Balman’s kind, distressed eyes roved over O’Leary anxiously as if to be quite sure he was not hurt⁠—“it was, as I said, a shock. For a moment we feared the worst.” He drew out a handkerchief and wiped his pale lips nervously, his fingers lingering to pull at his thin beard. “Mr. O’Leary, I know that you are working hard and I don’t mean to criticize but really⁠—I⁠—” he hesitated as if put to it to find words. “You see for yourself to what terrible straits this thing has brought us. We don’t know what to expect next. Can nothing be done to stop it?”

It was just at this interesting point, of course, that Miss Dotty had to interrupt and summon me away, and it was something after midnight before I saw O’Leary again.

I was on duty at the time, Maida assisting me as usual, and our force augmented again, according to another whim of Miss Dotty’s, by two training nurses, both obviously unnerved at their contact with the south wing of such ill repute. Their blue-and-white striped skirts rattled nervously as they trotted here and there about the wing. While I did not feel unduly alarmed myself, still it seemed all too clear that the guilty one was still about, an unknown menace and hence more terrible, and I don’t mind admitting that my ears were alert to any alien sounds.

I was sitting at the chart desk when I heard O’Leary’s quick, light steps coming along the corridor from the general office. I turned to watch him approach, his gray suit and grave, keen face gradually emerging into the green circle of light that surrounded me.

“Have you found the radium?” I asked at once.

He shook his head.

“Nor who took it from you?”

“Nor who took it⁠—naturally.” He dropped into a chair beside me. “Now, Miss Keate, tell me exactly how you came upon it.”

Feeling that it was no time to mince matters I complied, much as I disliked the implications the story involved. He listened thoughtfully, drawing a red pencil from his pocket and actually using it to scribble some notes in a small, shabby notebook he brought forth. He did not comment when I had finished, save to ask if Miss Day was on duty. And at the moment Maida herself entered the corridor from some sick room, O’Leary rose and intercepted her at once and the two disappeared into the drug room.

I was left to wait, always a difficult task for one of my temperament and particularly unpleasant that night. It seemed hours but was actually not more than twenty minutes by my watch, before they emerged. Maida’s chin was in the air, her cheeks quite scarlet, and her eyes flashing blue fire, but O’Leary was imperturbable. He stopped for a word with me and I suppose noted the anxiety which I was at no pains to hide. He smiled into my gaze a bit ruefully.

“She has a reason for everything,” he said quietly. “If I could only be sure that she is telling the truth!”

“She always tells the truth!” I cried indignantly.

“I hope so⁠—” he hesitated. “It is difficult to explain, but all through her story I had the strangest impression that she had⁠—rehearsed the whole thing.”

“What did she say of the radium?”

“Says she found it in a pot of lobelia that was in the hall outside Room 18. She noted that the flowers were withered and needed water, took it to the kitchen to water, noted that it had been disturbed and⁠—found the radium hidden below the plant! She took the radium to her own room until she could get in touch with me. She says she did not know that I was in the hospital after the inquest until she saw me leaving.”

“That is true,” I said quickly. “And I remember the pot of lobelia, too. Only⁠—” I wrinkled my forehead thoughtfully. “Why, the last I saw it, the thing was still in Room 18! Not in the corridor, at all!”

“When did you see it last?” he asked quickly.

“Last night⁠—about dusk.”

He looked at me soberly.

“Then the man in Room 18 last night⁠—if it was a man⁠—must have hidden the radium for fear he would be caught with the incriminating box. He must have thrust it hurriedly into the flower pot and left plant and all in the corridor in the hope of being able to get hold of the radium more easily than if it were left again in Room 18. That is, if we are to believe Miss Day’s statement. Positively that lobelia was not in Room 18 when I examined the room almost immediately after Higgins’s death. I did not miss a square inch!”

I was still thinking of Maida.

“Did you ask her about the hypodermic syringe?”

He nodded.

“She says that she found her own needle had disappeared, naturally disliked calling anyone’s attention to the fact, in view of the existing circumstances, and simply substituted your tool for the lost one. She says she acted hastily and only from a dislike of being even remotely connected with the tragedies. My own opinion is that someone advised her to do so. Especially since there was a cut-and-dried air about everything she said.”

“How did the hypodermic syringe get out there in the shrubbery?”

“Miss Day insists that she knows nothing of that. And I’m more than half inclined to believe her, there.”

“The cuff link?” I persisted anxiously.

His clear eyes narrowed.

“The cuff link is the reason that I doubt her whole story. She still declared that she lost the cuff link and that Dr. Letheny must have picked it up. If she would only tell me the truth about that!” He pulled a yellow slip of paper from his notebook. I recognized it immediately. It was the note Jim Gainsay had written and asked me to take to Maida.

“Read it,” said O’Leary.

Thinking it more discreet to say nothing of my own connection with the note, I did as he requested. It was headed: “Friday afternoon” and read thus:

Must see you at once. Important. C. knows about last night. Say nothing and let me advise you. Will wait at the bridge. Very anxious since news of this afternoon. Be warned. Cannot urge too emphatically. Please meet me at bridge.

It was signed with a vigorously scrawled “J. G.”

I read the thing, read it again and raised my eyes to O’Leary’s.

“It was found in Miss Day’s room,” he explained. “In a pocket of a uniform, in fact; when I asked her to explain it she said at first that it was a message of a personal nature and that she would not explain it. I was forced to urge and she finally admitted exactly three things. First, that the note was written by Jim Gainsay. Second, that C referred to Corole Letheny. And third⁠—” He paused as if to give the coming words more emphasis.

“And third⁠—simply this: That Jim Gainsay was strolling in the orchard about one o’clock on the night Dr. Letheny was killed. He passed the open window of the diet kitchen, saw her within, and stopped for a word or two through the window. Corole Letheny was also in the orchard, heard their conversation, and threatened to start a scandal, knowing that it would not sound well for a nurse to be seen visiting thus when she was on duty and at such an hour. For some reason Corole Letheny has developed a violent dislike for Jim Gainsay. According to Miss Day, then, he wrote to warn her against Corole.” O’Leary’s clear gray eyes searched my face. “Somehow the reasons Miss Day gave do not seem to warrant the extreme urgency expressed in this note. Do you think so, Miss Keate?”

“I hardly know,” I said thoughtfully. “Of course, it takes less than that to start a scandal, particularly if the starter is determined and malicious. And Corole is both. She is naturally rather⁠—feline, you know.”

He took the note from my hand.

“ ‘Since news of this afternoon’ can only refer to Dr. Letheny’s death. No, Miss Keate. What would a little breath of evil comment such as Miss Letheny could start have to do with Dr. Letheny’s death? No⁠—there is a deeper reason. I wish I could persuade Miss Day to be frank with me. Well, now to see if Gainsay tells the same story. Probably he will, but we will see.” He paused to regard me soberly. “Is there any room here in the wing where Gainsay and I could be undisturbed for a time? This is a case where the very leaves of the shrubbery seem to have ears and I don’t want Miss Corole to overhear us⁠—or anyone else.”

“Why, yes,” I said slowly. “There is the drug room.”

The red light above Six gleamed. No other nurse was about, so I interrupted myself to answer and bring Sonny a fresh drink.

“I’ve been wishing you would come in to see me,” said Sonny cheerfully. “I’ve been alone ever since a man named Gainsay stopped to see me just at supper time. He wanted to know where everyone was and I told him it was just the time when you were all eating. Say, do you know him? I like him. He is a friend of Dr. Letheny’s. Say, why doesn’t Dr. Letheny come in to see me?”

“Sonny, did you say that Mr. Gainsay was here in St. Ann’s? Here in your room at dinner time?”

“Why, sure, he was here! Just about six o’clock.”

“Where did he go when he left your room?”

“I think he went on up the corridor toward the general office. I can’t be sure, though, for I was working a new crossword puzzle and didn’t listen for his steps. Say, Miss Keate, want to see my new puzzle?”

I forestalled the thin hand groping on the bedside table.

“Another time, Sonny. You must go to sleep now.”

O’Leary’s fingers sought the red pencil stub as I told him.

“So,” he pondered, “Jim Gainsay was here in St. Ann’s.”

“Where he had no business to be,” I interpolated grimly.

“And he was here at about the time I was knocked out and the radium stolen. This increases my interest in Mr. Gainsay.” He thrust his stub of a pencil into his pocket, ran a hand over his already smooth hair, and glanced at his watch. “I think we’ll have to disturb Jim Gainsay’s rest tonight⁠—if he is asleep. You are sure the drug room will not be in use, Miss Keate?”

“If we need anything I’ll get it myself,” I promised hastily. There was a sort of repressed smile on his face as he turned away, though I’m sure I don’t know why.

Jim Gainsay must not have been asleep, for within five minutes the two men were coming along the corridor from the main entrance. One of the student nurses saw me lead them into the drug room and her eyes would likely have popped out had I not spoken sharply to her. On the theory that every cloud has a silver lining I considered it fortunate that Eleven chose that very time for a rather cataclysmic upheaval which kept Maida thoroughly engrossed for an hour or so, and I don’t think she ever knew of the interview that took place there in our wing.

She came very near it once, when she hurried for some soothing drops, but I forestalled her by offering to get the medicine myself. If she thought my hasty offer curious, she said nothing and went back to her patient.

Opening the drug-room door I walked into an electric atmosphere. Jim Gainsay, lounging tall and bronzed against the window sill, was clearly furious; his eyes were narrow and wary, his lean jaw was set, his lips tight and guarded.

I caught the words⁠ ⁠… “entirely a personal matter” in no very pleasant voice from Jim Gainsay.

“I must insist upon an answer, however,” said O’Leary. His voice had the keenness of a slender, shining steel blade.

Then both men became aware of my presence, and though I was rather deliberate in measuring the drops, they said nothing further until I left, when the murmur of their voices began again.

The interview prolonged itself and it was a good half hour before I had a chance⁠—that is, needed to go into the drug room again, and it was only for an ice bag.

“And yet you remain a welcome guest in Corole Letheny’s house?” said O’Leary.

“Not so darned welcome,” replied Jim Gainsay, and I caught the flicker of a smile on O’Leary’s face as I closed the door.

In a few moments, however, O’Leary opened the door, peered down the corridor, saw me and beckoned.

His eyes were shining with that peculiarly lucent look as he motioned for me to precede him into the drug room.

“I want you to hear this, Miss Keate,” said O’Leary, his voice very quiet but with a tense, alert overtone that caught my ears. “Now, Gainsay, will you repeat that about Higgins?”

Jim Gainsay glanced at me rather sheepishly.

“I was telling O’Leary how it happened that I overheard most of your talk with Higgins the afternoon before his death. It struck me as foolish to let such a mine of information get away, and later in the evening I got hold of Higgins and wormed some more of the story out of him. For the most part he just repeated what he had already told you, Miss Keate. But he did tell me the scrap of conversation that he promised to tell you⁠—remember?”

I nodded.

“It seems that he heard it when he stopped there near the south entrance on his way to see Dr. Letheny. I suppose it was this conversation as much as anything that made him suspicious of what was going on in Room 18. It seems that he knew at once who was on the other side of the bush; it was Corole and Dr. Hajek. Corole said⁠—according to Higgins⁠—‘To follow would be easy, now,’ and Hajek said ‘Wait till he comes out.’ Then Corole said something about it not being difficult and Hajek said ‘Leave it to me.’ Then Higgins thought he must have made some noise among the leaves, for Corole whispered ‘Hush’ and he heard them slipping away. Higgins followed but soon lost them in the dark and himself returned to the interesting vicinity of Room 18.” He paused.

“Go on,” said O’Leary grimly.

“Higgins told you how he came back to the porch and stumbled over a coat. I got him to tell me something about the coat. He said it must have been ‘one of them slickers,’ for it felt cold and oily. And at the same time he told me a peculiar thing.” Again he paused as if what he was about to say was distasteful to him. I glanced at O’Leary; his eyes still wore that strangely luminous expression. Even the glass doors of the cupboards all around us and the shining white tiles seemed to wait expectantly.

“Go on,” said O’Leary sharply, his words breaking into the crystal silence.

Jim Gainsay cleared his throat, felt in his pocket for a cigarette, remembered that he was in a hospital and replaced it.

“He said the coat smelled of⁠—ether!”

There was a moment of silence. Then I turned to O’Leary.

“Ether! It was the same slicker! The one that I wore Friday afternoon!”

O’Leary nodded thoughtfully.