“Then Maida and I are the only nurses who cannot prove just where we were between twelve thirty and two o’clock that night?” I asked uneasily.
“We know where you were,” said Lance O’Leary very soberly. “You were both in the south wing.” He paused to look at his watch, a thin, platinum affair that reposed in a pocket of his impeccable vest, and I felt a quite warranted chill creep up my back.
“So you see our paths of search are limited,” he said easily, replacing the watch, and returning to that abominable red pencil.
“Yes,” I agreed weakly. “Limited.” Altogether too limited!
“Of course, there is always what I spoke of as the unknown element. There might have been an outside intruder, but so far nothing has come to light that would indicate that possibility. The use of the radium seems to have been absolutely unknown to all but the hospital staff and the guests at Miss Letheny’s dinner party. Now then, Miss Keate, there are three things that particularly interest me today. One of them is the identity of the man with whom you collided at the corner of the porch. Did you receive any sort of impression that would serve to identify him?”
Nervously I tried to think of something besides the cigarette case.
“He—I think he wore a raincoat. I seem to remember the slippery feeling of rubber. And I think he must have been wearing a dinner-jacket, for I seem to recall feeling his starched shirt front.”
“Then it might have been one of the four men at Corole Letheny’s dinner?”
“It might have been, of course,” I spoke rather irritably, as I foresaw the next questions.
“Was it Dr. Letheny?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t be sure.”
He was surveying me so closely that I found my eyes going toward the floor in spite of myself.
“Was it Dr. Balman?”
“It might have been. Though it seemed he was a little taller than Dr. Balman.” I was studying the roses on the old-fashioned Brussels.
“Was it Dr. Hajek?” he went on mercilessly.
“I—I tell you, I can’t be sure who it was. It might have been anybody.”
He leaned back in his chair and I could feel his smile.
“I’m beginning to understand your—er—temperament,” he said easily. “I suppose it was this Jim Gainsay. Now you may as well tell me what you were doing with his cigarette case in your laundry bag.”
I blinked.
“How did you know it was there?”
“A policeman found it while searching your room.”
“Searching my room!”
“Yes. We have had all the personal belongings of those in whom we are—interested—searched. We were at first surprised to find you were addicted to smoking—and more surprised when we traced its ownership. Now, please, tell me just how you came upon it.”
In as few words as possible I complied.
“Will you hold Jim Gainsay?” I asked finally, as he turned and twisted the stubby red pencil thoughtfully in his hands.
“We shall watch him,” he amended. “So far he has stayed of his own free will, a thing that is in itself strange. Of course, if he should attempt to leave I should be forced to restrain him.”
The dinner bell rang just then and he looked at his watch, again frowning as he noted the time.
“Another thing, Miss Keate. That smell of ether interests me. Especially since to our knowledge ether was not used at all. Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I spoke decidedly. “I am sure now, because of the slicker I wore yesterday afternoon.”
“The slicker?” he inquired. “Yesterday afternoon?” And listened intently while I explained the whole thing.
“And you had no means of identifying it?” he asked, presently.
“No. Everybody wears a yellow slicker. You know how popular they have been the last year or two.”
He nodded.
“I wear one myself,” he said. “Well, thanks a lot, Miss Keate. You are a present help in time of trouble.” He smiled at me with that engagingly warm and youthful look.
I started toward the hall, paused and turned around.
“Didn’t you say there were three things you were particularly interested in right now?” I said. “What is the third one?”
“Oh, yes.” He studied me for a moment as if to see how far the discretion with which he had complimented me might be trusted. Then he drew something from his pocket—something so small that it was hidden in his hand until he held it toward me.
And when I looked, I cried out and shrank back, my heart leaping to my throat. There on his outstretched palm lay a small cuff link; it was a neat square of lapis lazuli, set in engraved white gold.
“I see that you recognize it?”
Speechlessly, I made a motion of assent.
“You need not tell me that it is Miss Day’s. I already know that. One or two of the nurses recognized it as I left it casually on the table in the general office. Oh, I watched it carefully—I suppose they thought she had lost it. They did not know where it was found.”
“Where it was found—” I repeated, huskily, my voice losing itself somewhere in my throat.
“It was found—in Dr. Letheny’s pocket.” He spoke very deliberately, his clear, gray eyes searching mine. Then he turned. “Good night, Miss Keate,” he said courteously and was gone.
As for me, I stood there quite still, staring at the gathering darkness outside the window, and at the slow rivulets of moisture trickling down
