“Hello, Miss Keate—O’Leary. Here you are, Miss Day.” And without any ado about it, he simply took Maida’s arm and hustled her away from us and along the narrow path toward the bridge before we had time to blink.
It was rather astonishing, and O’Leary and I stood there in silence for a moment until the fog hid the gleam of scarlet from Maida’s cape.
“Well,” remarked O’Leary then, turning to me; I saw that his eyes were twinkling with a sort of unwilling admiration that was half amusement. “Well—somewhat piratical is Mr. Gainsay. I suppose he brazenly listened to what we said. It is evident that he did not want Miss Day to answer my last question—also, that he is more or less in her confidence and that he was meeting her by appointment. Or”—he paused for a moment—“or it might be that he has reasons of his own for not wishing it to be known just why Miss Day substituted your needle for her own. At least,” he concluded briskly, “he knows more than an innocent man should know.”
And with that I had to be content, for he would not say another word and we walked silently along the dusky path until we came to the colonial porch of the south wing.
“I’ll go on around to the main entrance,” said O’Leary, then. “I want to use the telephone in the general office. I’ll be around to your wing later; there is something about Room 18 that I must know.” He took off his cap as he walked away from me—a nice gesture that was somewhat marred in effect by his very dirty hands.
X
A Midnight Visitor
I slipped unobserved into the diet kitchen, where I left my cape and to some degree repaired damages. I found, on emerging from the kitchen, that the new patient in Eighteen had arrived. It is a rule with me personally to superintend the installation of a new patient, so I went at once to Room 18. I still found it unpleasant to enter that room, especially since the figure on the narrow bed reminded me forcibly of that other figure that had lain there.
Mr. Gastin was an elderly man, somewhat peevish at being thrust into bed, and quite to my liking. He must have been a person of some importance, for flowers galore had already arrived, among them a potted lobelia, a sinister-looking flower that I have never liked.
He replied rather bitterly that he was as comfortable as might be expected and asked for the evening papers.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but we don’t have them.”
“Don’t have them!” he exclaimed, eyeing me shrewdly. “Oh. Oh, yes, I see why. Where did all this trouble occur, anyway? And see here, what’s the matter with this radio? The thing don’t work. Is it turned on at this hour? I want the stock reports. I want to tune in myself.”
“The radio is in the general office,” I explained hastily, fearing he would return to the question I did not wish to answer. “The speakers in the different rooms connect with it. It is usually turned on at this hour, but I don’t know whether they have got the stock reports or not.”
“Well, bring me a speaker that works, anyhow,” he said, hitching himself on one elbow among the pillows and then flopping back again. “Anything for amusement. I suppose it will be bedtime stories. Well, bring ’em on. And you might slip me a cigar.”
I felt rather sad as I took the loud speaker, pulled the plug from its connection above the bed, and started away. It doesn’t take five minutes to place a new patient in his correct category and I knew all too well where this one belonged. Someone had labelled them “crippled captains of finance,” and the title stuck.
Being in a hurry I took the faulty speaker into Sonny’s room. He was engrossed with a new block puzzle and paying no attention to the radio so I exchanged the speakers, taking the one in Sonny’s room to Mr. Gastin for the time being. Once connected, soft and dulcet tones rang through Number 18: “… and then Bunny Brown Eyes—scampered along …”
“Oh, hell,” remarked Mr. Gastin.
“The dinner concert comes on at seven,” I suggested.
“Think I can stand this till then?” he asked, but left the plug in. “Can you bring me a—er—blanket or two, nurse? Somehow this room seems sort of—I don’t know—cold, I guess. You might turn on that light up there—yes, and the one over the dresser, too.”
The light over the bed was already glowing, but I did as he asked. Which only goes to prove that Room 18 was already getting in its work. I left the door open and remember that I spoke very earnestly when I told him to turn on the signal light if he wanted anything.
He did not have to listen to the bunny story after all, however, for I met Miss Jones coming along with a truck and she told me that she was taking Mr. Gastin to Dr. Letheny’s—that is, Dr. Balman’s office for an examination.
“He hasn’t had his supper tray yet, has he?” she asked anxiously.
Meeting O’Leary in the hall I told him that Room 18 was vacant for a few minutes; I went on downstairs to eat, however, and did not accompany him. But when I sat down to glance at the charts of the south wing an hour later, O’Leary stopped beside me.
“No luck?” I said.
“Not a thing,” he replied.
There was a distinctly puzzled look in his face.
“Keep your eyes open tonight, Miss Keate. If anything occurs like last night, phone to me immediately. Here’s my number. I’ll sleep right by the telephone. Thanks. Good night.”
But before taking five steps he whirled back to me.
“By the way, Miss Keate,” he said in a low voice so that the little cluster of white-clad nurses around the dumbwaiter could not hear him. “By the way, it seems peculiar that after the inquest
