She gripped my arm and her hand was trembling.
“I tell you I am afraid. Sarah, you must let me stay here. I’ll sleep anywhere. I’ll sleep right here in this room.”
“No. No. You can’t do that!”
“I must stay in St. Ann’s. You can’t put me out bodily. I’ve got to stay.” I felt her shiver violently. “I cannot go through that terrible orchard again. I cannot sleep in Louis Letheny’s house tonight. There are ghosts, Sarah, ghosts—oh, you don’t know!”
“Ghosts! There are nothing of the kind.” I felt my scalp prickle as I spoke.
“Maybe not. Anyway, I must stay here.”
“No,” I repeated but she must have felt me weakening for she renewed her pleas, even promising to make herself eligible to a room in the hospital by having tonsillitis, if I insisted. She said she felt it coming on owing to her getting so wet and being bareheaded. Which was not only silly, as I assured her, but was not even to be believed, Corole being as sleek and healthy as a young jaguar, and about as even-tempered.
“But you can stay,” I relented, “if you will do as I say and keep quiet about it.”
“Heavens, yes!” agreed Corole fervently. “All I want to do is keep quiet about it. Shall I just stay right here in Eighteen? I am not afraid.” She moved toward the bed.
I grasped her cloak and jerked her back.
“No,” I said hastily. “No. You cannot stay in this room.” There may have been a note of consternation in my voice and I am quite sure I heard a sort of subdued snicker from the direction of the bed.
Corole heard it, too.
“What was that?” she whispered sharply, starting back against me. I shuddered aside from contact with that dripping monkey fur.
“Probably a cat,” I said at random.
“A cat!” I could feel her pull her short skirt tighter around her. “I hate cats. They remind me of—I hate cats.”
“Corole, stay right here for a moment or two. Don’t move from the door! I shall come back and open the door, and you go as fast as you can through the corridor and as far as the general office door. Don’t let anyone see you if you can help it and wait there for me.”
She murmured something in assent and in less time than it takes to tell, I had manufactured errands to get the nurses into the diet kitchen and drug room, had watched Corole move with the lithe swiftness of an animal through the long shadowy corridor and myself had followed her. My own room was, of course, the only place where I could let her sleep. I even loaned her a night garment; she looked at its long sleeves and high neck dubiously but accepted it.
I gave myself the satisfaction of locking the door and carrying the key away; I did not know whether Corole heard the click of the key or not but I did not intend that Corole Letheny should be allowed to prowl at large through the dark corridors of St. Ann’s.
It was a little after twelve when I found myself in the south wing again. Maida was already there and Olma Flynn and the same little, blue-striped student nurse.
I don’t mind admitting that I slipped into the diet kitchen at my first opportunity and brewed myself a cup of very strong, black coffee. Corole’s advent had shaken my nerves a bit and I did not like the way the wind was murmuring around the corners of the great old building, stirring up forgotten drafts and rattling windows and slapping rain against them.
Second watch, however, passed quite as usual, save for the little air of uncertainty and uneasiness that made itself manifest in our fondness for each other’s company, our frequent glances into the shadows, and one or two broken thermometers owing to the sudden crashes of the wind. The light flickered once as if about to go out but mercifully did not do so. I might add that the prevalence of broken thermometers was one of the minor troubles of that week; a thermometer is an easy thing to slip from one’s fingers, especially when shaking it, and it is not surprising that Dr. Balman had had to order new thermometers for every wing in St. Ann’s.
The hours seemed very long, particularly when it occurred to me that if Corole and Dr. Hajek expected to carry out their scheme that “day” there were only a few hours left in which to do so. Of course, I had Corole safely locked up and if her coming to St. Ann’s in well-simulated terror to beg a refuge was actually, as I half suspected, only a part of their plan, why then I had stopped any further activity on her part. But I could not wholly believe that Corole’s coming had been prearranged; her panic had been too genuine.
We were not very busy, so I had plenty of time to think. More than once I caught myself eyeing Maida as she went quietly about her business.
Once, when we were both at the desk, engaged in a desultory and halfhearted conversation, footsteps padding softly along the corridor back of us caught our attention and I turned simultaneously with Maida. I noted that her eyes flared black as she whirled and her lips were a quick, set line, and wondered if my own face showed such immediate alarm. However, it was only Olma Flynn, advancing to tell me through chattering teeth that she was sure there was Something in Room 18. I was startled for a flash, though at once I realized that it was O’Leary, and Maida went white though she held her shoulders straighter than ever.
I managed to calm Olma, though she clung to her point with a firmness that in my heart I labelled plain mule stubbornness.
“If we are all murdered before morning, Miss Keate, it will be your fault,” she said at last.
“Nonsense! If it is a ghost,
