At a little table sat a stout, elderly gentleman, whom I had no trouble identifying as the pompous coroner. He wore a pair of nose-glasses attached to a button on his broad vest with an important black ribbon. The board of directors were ranged near at hand, some of them constituting the jury, which would have surprised me had I not known the weight in politics and otherwise that some of those names carried.
Corole Letheny was there in a soft brown frock daringly tailored and very short so that her silk-clad—er—ankles and so forth were much in evidence; she wore a small green hat pulled low over her eyes and carried a large and gorgeously beaded bag which made a spot of vivid colour in that neutral gray room. Huldah, very stiff in her Sunday black silk, sat beside her.
A little way off among a group of nurses sat Maida, her beauty and the distinctive air of breeding in the very lift of her chin making her stand out from the others as if they were only the frame for a picture. Jim Gainsay stood at the back of the room with a group of reporters. He wore an air of ease that was a shade too deliberate; his impenetrable eyes looked at nothing in particular but, I had no doubt, missed not the smallest movement in the room. He was attractive, clean, young, vigorous, but I could have wished him less restrained—less poised—less wary.
There were the staff doctors, of course, talking to Dr. Balman and Dr. Hajek. I was interested to note that a bit of Dr. Hajek’s ruddy colour had deserted him; he said little and his black eyes darted here and there about the room, occasionally lingering upon Corole. Save for those restless eyes he was as unmoved and stolid as was usual with him.
There were several policemen, too, Higgins, the cook and a few curious student nurses sitting with Miss Dotty, who being something of a simpleton took that occasion to shed a few tears, presumably for Dr. Letheny. And there was O’Leary, of course, gray and quiet, sitting near the coroner’s table.
It being the one and only inquest I had ever attended (for which I am truly thankful), I was not able to compare it with others and did not know whether the undercurrent of excitement, the low whispers, the white faces, the nervous little movements and darting glances here and there, are typical of all inquests or peculiar to that one.
All at once the coroner put down the papers he had been studying, took off his nose glasses, and began to talk. I did not notice what he said, for at the same moment O’Leary rose quietly and moved toward the back of the room. As he passed me he dropped a small bit of folded paper in my lap. Under the cover of my wide cuff I read the brief message it contained. I read it again; it didn’t seem to make sense, but of course, I was willing to obey the terse request. Just as I slipped the paper into my pocket I heard my name being called and I rose and walked to a chair indicated by the coroner.
After convincing the coroner and the jury that I was actually Sarah Keate, superintendent of the south wing and on duty the night of Thursday, June seventh, I was allowed to proceed.
It was not so difficult as I had feared it would be; I was allowed to tell my story in a brief and straightforward manner. The only time I became confused was when I got to the incident of the arrow-like projectile that had whizzed over my shoulder while I stood for a moment there on the little south porch. It was then, for the first time since the night it occurred, that I recalled the trifling incident, and I was already launched upon it and could not head off the coroner’s questions. I caught a reproachful look from O’Leary but had to continue; however, the coroner’s questions could prove nothing for there was little I could tell of the matter.
The coroner questioned me rather particularly, too, as to the man with whom I collided, but I had expected this and gave guarded replies. He also tried to make me identify the owner of the cigarette case which lay there on the table before him, but I refused to commit myself beyond telling how and when I found the thing.
As I say, it was not difficult—that is, until I reached the actual events leading to the crime. It was then that my voice faltered.
“It was while I was sitting there at the chart desk, at exactly one thirty—I had just entered the time on a chart—that I heard a sort of—bang. It sounded like a door closing.” I went on speaking with more and more difficulty. “So I got up and walked along the corridor but the south door was still open. Then I went back to the chart desk and was there when the storm broke and I had to run to close the door and the windows. When I went into Room 18 to close the window I found—” I stuck and had to clear my throat.—“I found that the patient, Mr. Jackson, was dead. The lights had gone out but a flash of lightning lit the room and I felt for his pulse and knew that he was dead. I ran to the diet kitchen, found a candle, and ran back to Eighteen. Miss Day had been closing the windows in the wing and had just got to Room 18 when I returned with the candle. It was after we knew we could do nothing for him that we found the radium had been stolen.”
My testimony continued for some time after that, but I simply answered the coroner’s questions as briefly as possible and volunteered nothing, and presently resumed my seat, feeling that, with the one exception, I had
