It was a mercy I was so near the ground for my knees simply caved in under me. In his hand was a small hypodermic syringe. The nickel on it was rusted a little from the weather.
This syringe whizzing over my shoulder was exactly what I had seen. It was heavy enough to acquire considerable velocity and, as I peered through the shrubbery and trees to the porch, I knew that it would have fallen about here. The trouble was that it looked very much like the south wing’s missing syringe. Of course, all hypodermics are much alike, but I knew a certain way that it could be identified, for Maida had taken a cue from me and marked all her tools with a small scratched “D.”
“Let me see it,” I said.
Without a word he handed the thing to me. On the top of the little flat button was a rudely scratched “D,” rusty but still distinct.
“I see you recognize it,” said O’Leary, taking his thumb out of his mouth, and regarding it as thoughtfully as if he had not another object in the world. “It is Miss Day’s, is it not?”
I nodded.
“Everyone in the wing had access to it. The fact that it may have originally belonged to Maida doesn’t mean that she threw it out here.”
“No—no, of course not,” he said contemplatively. “Well—we found it, Miss Keate. Though I could wish that I had not run into it so forcibly.”
He regarded the scratch on his thumb. “You don’t suppose that rust harbored any tetanus germs?”
“It has bled enough by this time to clean itself,” I said without much sympathy, feeling indeed that if he would find things it served him right to get stuck!
“You nurses!” he said, looked at me and laughed. “I wish you could see yourself, Miss Keate.”
Conscious not only of my undignified posture but also of an increasing dampness penetrating my skirts, I rose. He followed me through the shrubbery toward the path.
“This is as secluded a place in which to talk as we can find, Miss Keate,” he said. “Have you come upon any new developments that I’d like to hear about?”
“How did you know I had?” I asked, not any too pleasantly.
He smiled. “By the look in your eyes and your general aspect of—er—having swallowed the canary, so to speak.”
“Well, as a matter of fact there is a thing or two.” As briefly as I could, I told him of the gold sequin and of the fact that Corole had last worn that gown the night of June seventh. I also told him that she was an adept at the use of a hypodermic needle. And then, somewhat reluctantly, and glancing rather nervously into the foggy shadows that were increasing under the dripping trees about us, I told him of the visitor to Room 18 of the previous night. He asked several questions, seeming to be extremely interested.
“It goes without saying that the person, whoever it was, who entered Room 18 last night had some purpose. That there was—or is—something yet in Eighteen that he wanted.” He frowned. “I don’t see what I could have missed.”
“There was the sequin,” I suggested.
“Yes, there was the sequin. You said it was under the screen? Yes, I missed that. But somehow I don’t see Corole Letheny coming back for it.”
“She has likely not missed it—there are hundreds of the things on that dress.”
“Huldah was positive she hadn’t worn the dress since Thursday night? She might have left it there last night, you know.”
I shook my head.
“No. Huldah was sure. And it must have been then, for the side of the sequin that lay uppermost is all tarnished from the rain.”
“That is true. Then the question is, Who was in Room 18 last night? And what did he want?” His gray eyes were like two clear lakes.
“Miss Keate,” he said suddenly. “This radium: I’ve been hunting through encyclopedias about the stuff, but there is something I want to know. Could it be carried about in a pocket? Without burning, you know.”
“Yes, if it were in the box made for it. Radium is used in a variety of tools, for many purposes. But in this case it was in a sort of boxlike container, quite small.”
“And could be carried in a pocket or in one’s hand?” he insisted. “Or even hidden in one place or another?”
“Goodness, yes!” I replied. “I’ve seen tools containing it carried about in doctors’ bags often enough.”
He did not speak for a moment or two, studying me in the meantime with thoughtful eyes that did not in the least see me.
“I should think that it would be hard to dispose of—though as to that—” He broke off abruptly. “Look here, Miss Keate, how is it that such a valuable thing is used with so little precaution against theft?”
“In some hospitals radium is guarded,” I explained. “There is one very large hospital, to which patients come from all over the world, where guards are placed in the sickroom whenever radium is used. But it was not deemed necessary here at St. Ann’s. Nothing of the kind has ever happened before and our class of patients is, as a rule, of the most respectable. St. Ann’s, you know, has really the best standing—” I stopped in the middle of my rather snooty remark as I saw the half smile on his face.
“Still it did happen,” he said softly.
“Yes,” I retorted. “And it is your business to recover it.”
His face sobered instantly.
“Not an easy task, Miss Keate,” he said at once and most amiably. “And I’m grateful for the help you give me. In return I shall tell you, since you ask it, that there are a few possible premises that interest me. You might give me your opinion of them. For one thing—we have found that there were three possible means of death, in or about Room 18. There
