I shook myself free from such morbid reflections, said a brusque goodbye to Corole, and left. Maida went with me, and somewhere along the path Jim Gainsay turned up.
As the path narrowed under the trees and I preceded the other two, I am sure I heard Jim Gainsay say rather huskily to Maida:
“I had to see you alone. You must do as I say. It is import—”
“Sh! I know!”
“Try to see it my way.” (This in a still more urgent voice.) “It is dangerous to—”
“Hush!” she interrupted sharply again.
And just then I think that Maida stumbled over a branch that had blown across the path. At any rate I heard a quick motion and a sort of gasp and then Maida said rather breathlessly: “That branch—I nearly fell.” And I turned in time to see Jim Gainsay pick up the stick, bow to it gravely and say: “Thank you, old fellow,” before he tossed it off into the orchard. At which Maida turned quite pink and Jim Gainsay gave her a long look and laughed rather shakily.
Then we were at the south entrance and Gainsay swung on his heel with a brief “Good night.”
And it was not fifteen minutes later that I glanced through the society section of the paper that someone had left on the chart desk, and my eyes fell on a small news item:
Mrs. J. C. Allen left Tuesday of this week for New York City. She sailed on the Tuscania, Saturday night, June ninth.
On the Tuscania, Saturday, June ninth. That was yesterday. And I was positive that Gainsay had said the Tuscania.
VII
The Disappearing Key and Part of an Inquest
“Yes, I saw that this morning,” said a quiet voice beside me. It was Lance O’Leary; I did not know he was near until he spoke. “Our friend Mr. Gainsay seems to be a little confused as to his dates.”
I daresay my eyes reflected a question for he added, leisurely:
“He told me that he intended to sail on the Tuscania next week. I see that he told you the same thing. He is not a very discreet young man, else he’d have known that I should look up the Tuscania’s sailing date without delay.”
I sighed; all those unpleasant little doubts of Jim Gainsay were returning in full force.
“If he has the radium, it is not in his room in the Letheny cottage,” said O’Leary meditatively.
“How do you know?” I inquired stupidly.
“We have searched the rooms and personal belongings of each of those present at that dinner party last Thursday night.”
“What!”
“In fact, I daresay that there is not a room in the whole of St. Ann’s, as well as in the Letheny cottage, that has not been thoroughly ransacked.”
I ran my tongue over dry lips. This was getting down to work with a vengeance.
“Why?” I stammered.
There was a glimmer of impatience in his eyes.
“For the radium, of course. Surely you did not think we were going to let it get away from us without a struggle.”
There was a moment or two of silence during which I studied the polished glass surface of the desk before me without seeing it.
“Did you ask Huldah about Miss Letheny’s errand through the rain last Friday afternoon?” inquired O’Leary after a contemplative pause.
“Yes.” I told him in a few words the little that Huldah had told me. “And there is something else I have discovered,” I went on miserably. “I’ve got to tell you, though I must say I do not want to do so. It is—that morphine. The morphine that killed Mr. Jackson, you know. I—I know where it came from!”
“You—what!” O’Leary was for once startled out of his usual composure.
“I know where it came from,” I repeated reluctantly. “At least, I think that I do. You see—there is morphine missing from our south wing drug supply.”
I had to tell him the whole thing, of course, under his searching questions and no less searching gaze, and even explain our system of keeping account of the drugs. He had to see the drug room and the charts and the records for himself. It was while I was showing him the drawer in which the morphine was kept, that I made my regrettable slip about the hypodermic syringe.
I had started to show him how the needles were fitted into the small mechanism, and I reached for a hypodermic syringe. It turned out to be my own.
“This one is mine,” I said thoughtlessly, fitting the slim, hollow needle into the tiny instrument. “The other one that we were using disapp—” I stopped so suddenly that my breath came out in an explosive little pop and O’Leary’s face hardened slightly. It was an expression that I was growing to recognize.
“You may as well finish. So the other one ‘disapp’-eared, did it? When and how? Whose was it? There is still one in the drawer. What about the one that disappeared?”
“I don’t know,” I said flatly. “Then, you see, we take the sterile water and measure the liquid into—”
O’Leary looked at his watch.
“I haven’t much time,” he said pleasantly. “But I have enough time to wait right here until you tell me about the hypodermic syringe that disappeared. Or if necessary I can dog your footsteps the rest of the night, reiterating my question at frequent and embarrassing intervals. Of course, I can have the whole hospital searched extensively and every hypodermic needle accounted for, especially if missing. I can follow you to your meal—isn’t that the bell?—and keep on asking you.” He added meditatively: “I suppose it might cause considerable interest among the other nurses.”
I regarded him furiously. The thing was that he would be quite capable of doing just that. I began to understand the force of the
