“The stores?”
“She will go straight to buy a hat,” he explained with remarkable lack of tact. “Corole Letheny is not going far in a hat that—” He noted my unsympathetic countenance. “A hat that—er—does not suit her. I mean that she did not choose herself,” he amended hastily.
Without saying a word I turned toward the gravelled path that leads back to St. Ann’s.
“Wait a minute, Miss Keate,” begged O’Leary contritely, seeing perhaps that he had offended me in a matter that no woman can freely forgive. “Please, wait. If you’ll forgive me I’ll tell you something of interest.”
Being exceedingly curious I went back. He drew me into the shadow of a big gray ambulance.
“I want you to keep an eye on Miss Day,” he said in a low voice and with an odd glance into the shadows of the place.
“Miss Day!”
“Especially if you see this fellow, Gainsay, hanging around.”
“Why, what do you mean? Is Jim Gainsay—”
“Jim Gainsay is the man who was following Corole last night. O’Brien was stationed up at the cottage last night and saw him. It seems that Corole slipped out a side door. She came out so unexpectedly that she was into the orchard before O’Brien was after her. He was going full tilt when he found that someone else was ahead of him, both of them after Corole, who was having the devil’s own luck, according to O’Brien, in avoiding tree trunks and shrubbery. O’Brien says she can see in the dark. At the bridge O’Brien caught up with the man and can swear it was Gainsay, but just then a low-hanging branch knocked O’Brien down and senseless for a moment and when he got to his feet Corole and Gainsay were both gone. O’Brien wandered about the orchard hunting them for half the night and I ran into him about five o’clock, soaked to the skin and his face a welt of scratches and his disposition permanently warped.”
“So it was Jim Gainsay who gave Corole such a fright,” I murmured. “I wonder what he wanted.”
“It looks bad for Gainsay,” said O’Leary thoughtfully. “Whether he killed Dr. Letheny in a mistaken effort to defend Miss Day, or whether he killed Jackson for the sake of the radium, or whether, thinking that the radium is still at large he is determined to secure it for his own use, in any case it looks bad. I hope your little friend, Miss Day, is not going to be too much hurt.”
“You mean if she cares for Gainsay? Maida is not one to wear her heart on her sleeve. If we could only find that radium,” I concluded hopelessly.
“Oh, I have the radium,” said O’Leary simply.
XVI
The Red Light Above the Door
“You have the radium!”
He nodded. My mouth open I waited for him to tell me more. In the little silence I heard a sort of rustle and I looked about me in some alarm. O’Leary heard the rustle, too, but his face wore the most peculiar expression of mingled satisfaction and anxiety. He made the barest perceptible gesture against comment, and just at the moment Morgue dropped casually down from an opening above what was formerly a hay loft. I jumped a little at his—I mean, her unexpected advent and O’Leary spoke unconcernedly.
“Yes, I have the radium. Or rather it is in Room 18 which is, I believe, the safest place in the world for it, inasmuch as there is not a soul in St. Ann’s who would willingly enter that room—save perhaps your intrepid self.”
“How did you find it?”
“Corole brought it to Room 18 last night.” O’Leary’s voice had lifted to a normal pitch and I recall thinking that he should speak lower. “Corole brought it in her jewel case. The jewel case is there, too; she must have doubted your—er—hospitality.”
“Do you mean to say that she had that box of radium in her jewel case!” I cried. “And that she left the whole thing there, in Eighteen?”
“Possibly she agreed with me that it was the safest place in which to leave it. No one would suspect its being back in Room 18. No one would voluntarily enter that room. Oh, she took the precaution to cross to that closet and place the jewel case away back on the shelf. She did that while you were clearing the way for her passage through the halls to your room. She came very near sitting down on the bed to wait,” went on O’Leary drily. “And I was endeavouring to give an imitation of a mattress when you opportunely returned.”
“Oh,” I said brilliantly. “Oh.”
“It was the same closet that hid Dr. Letheny’s body,” added O’Leary meditatively. “I will leave the radium in Room 18 until tonight; it will be under close guard all day, Miss Keate, but I think it safer to wait till tonight, during second watch, when the guards are gone and the wing is quiet, to remove it. I’m not going to run the risk of Gainsay’s knocking me senseless again. Of course, we shall have to locate Corole and keep her out when she returns, as she will, for the radium. Then I’ll get the stuff away while the hospital is asleep.”
“Do you think that is wise?” I asked hesitantly. “Do you think that will be—”
“Ready to go back to the hospital?” interrupted O’Leary, and as we walked along the clean white gravel path he conversed so fluently and determinedly about the effect of the continued moisture upon the crops that I could not get a word in edgewise. At the grade door we paused and O’Leary said a peculiar thing.
“See you later in the day, Miss Keate. Twelve of the twenty-four hours I gave myself are gone, you know. And by the way, you couldn’t have done better if you had rehearsed.” And with that he was gone, leaving me
