“I am Miss Keate,” I replied.
“I am Lance O’Leary,” he said (superfluously, but he did not know that). “I should like to talk to you if you have time. Will you come to the office with me, please—I think we shall be undisturbed there.”
Being a woman of some strength of mind, I had intended to take a firm line with this detective whom everyone seemed to think so remarkable, but I found myself walking as meekly as any lamb at his side, and once inside the general office with the door closed, I sat as resignedly in a chair opposite him as if there were not a thousand and one things that I should be doing.
“You are the superintendent of the south wing?” He spoke very quietly and with what I found later to be a wholly deceptive air of detachment.
“Yes.”
“You were on duty last night between twelve and six o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Maida Day was your assistant?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Balman tells me that Miss Day telephoned to him about two o’clock—possibly ten minutes before the hour. I judge that was only a few moments after you found that your patient was dead?”
“Yes. It must have been about that time. It was something after one thirty when the storm broke and I hurried along the corridor and closed the south door. Then I closed the window in Room 17 and went directly into Eighteen.” My voice was not quite steady at the recollection of those moments and he waited briefly, his clear eyes studying a pencil in his hands, before he went on.
“The windows in Room 18 were also open?”
“Yes. All the windows in the wing were open. It had been very hot and close before the storm began.”
He nodded.
“Those windows are not far from the ground. Do you think someone from outside could get into the hospital without attracting your attention?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “It might be done but does not seem very probable. With the doors to the sickrooms open and the night so still I believe I should have heard any unusual sound. But the door to Eighteen was closed. I can’t be sure.”
“You heard no unusual sound, then?”
“Why, no—except that a few moments before the storm began I heard a sort of bang—as if a window had dropped to the sill. It was not very clear.”
He was looking directly into my face, his eyes as clear as water.
“You are sure it was a window? It might have been a door closing.”
“It was not the door for it was still open. I am not sure—I investigated but found nothing. The south door was still open—and as far as I could tell the windows were as they had been.”
“Did you look in Room 18?”
“Yes.”
There was a slight pause. Then:
“The patient was—quiet at the time?”
“The room was dark and still so I did not enter it. I just stood there for a moment holding the door half open; I was afraid if I entered the room I would wake him. He was asleep—that is—” I stopped abruptly as it occurred to me that he had not been asleep; that the incident had occurred not more than fifteen minutes before I found him dead.
O’Leary seemed to read my thoughts.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “He must have been dead—then. Can you be certain of the time?”
“Yes. It was shortly after one thirty. I remember because I had just noted the time on a patient’s chart, when I heard that dull sound and went to see what it was.”
He returned to his pencil, a shabby little red thing it was, which he rolled absently between his well-kept fingers.
“Was this sound sharp and loud?”
“No—” I hesitated, trying to recall just how it had seemed. “No—it was rather dull—muffled—and yet heavy. It was not very distinct.”
“There were no other unusual circumstances? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Why, yes. There was someone—a man—” I broke off abruptly. That man must have been Jim Gainsay. I had no wish to involve him in the matter, at least until I became convinced that his movements should be investigated.
But Lance O’Leary’s gray eyes looked straight through to my back hair.
“Yes?” he inquired.
“Yes.” I spoke with an accent of finality, and gazed nonchalantly out the window as if the subject were closed.
“Where was he?”
“Running around the hospital,” I replied curtly, wishing I had held my tongue.
“Around and around?” inquired O’Leary blandly.
“No,” I snapped. “Running along the east side of the wing. I—he—we collided.”
O’Leary sat up straighter.
“What!”
“I had gone out on the porch for a breath of fresh air,” I explained rather sullenly. “Just as I stepped off the porch I ran into him.”
I stopped as if the incident were concluded.
“Go on,” suggested the O’Leary man after waiting a moment; he was being very polite and very pleasant and altogether disagreeable.
“That’s all,” I said waspishly. I fastened my gaze on his extremely well-made shoes—an attention that I have found invariably disconcerts men—vain creatures! But this one was impervious.
“And what did you say?” he persisted with the most insulting good-humour.
“I said ‘Well—’ ” I stared steadfastly at the shoes.
“And what did he say?”
I resisted an evil impulse to tell him literally and with feeling.
“I hope you don’t think I’d repeat such language,” I replied, and I’m sure he smiled.
“Then what happened?”
“He—er—set me on my feet again and kept on running.”
“Very chivalrous,” remarked O’Leary. “So he kept on running—around the hospital?”
“No,” I answered peevishly. “He ran along the path toward the bridge.”
“What did you do?”
“I walked in the direction he had come from as far as the wing extends but saw nothing unusual.”
“Did you not call anyone? Were you not alarmed?”
“I thought of calling Higgins, the janitor, but when I found that things seemed to be all right I decided it was not necessary.”
“Then you came back to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“And all that time you saw or heard nothing uncommon?”
“Well—I smelled something.”
He made a perceptible motion of surprise.
“You smelled something? Did you say smelled?”
I nodded, taking a small degree of satisfaction in his discomposure.
“As
