“But why ether?” said Jim.
“He had evidently intended to anesthetize Mr. Jackson, steal the radium while the patient was unconscious and get away. But when after waiting about the grounds for some time until he thought the coast was clear he finally got into Room 18, he found another man in the room, the radium gone and his patient dead. The next thing for me to do was to break what appeared to be an alibi. I did so when I found that there was a freight elevator at the back of the apartment house in which Balman lived. He knew how to operate it and must have taken precautions to leave by way of the freight elevator and the basement so that the night man in the front of the house never dreamed that Balman had gone out again. He returned the same way and must have got there just in time to answer the telephone. It was his car that left along the lower road just as the storm broke, Miss Keate.”
“He must have driven like mad,” I speculated.
“Think what he left behind him,” said O’Leary grimly. “He knew, too, that at any moment the alarm might come and his presence would be needed at the hospital. He must be in his rooms when the call came.”
“All put together those things are almost—positive proof,” said Jim.
“Almost,” agreed O’Leary. “But I wanted to trap him into a final admission. To catch him in the act of making off with the radium. And there I failed. When you turned on the light here tonight, Miss Keate, and I saw only Hajek and Gainsay, I was sure that I had failed. But when Dr. Balman came on the scene I began to see my way clear. I caused Hajek considerable anguish of soul but he deserved it. What on earth did you come blundering around for, Gainsay?”
Jim looked uncomfortable.
“Why, you see, O’Leary, I saw Corole come into the south door of St. Ann’s last night and watched through the pane of glass. I had nearly caught her and I was convinced that she had the radium in her jewel case. I could barely see in the hospital corridor through that door, but I saw that she left the jewel case in Room 18. So I figured that she likely thought Room 18 a safe place in which to leave the stuff. Thinking it over during the day, I came to the conclusion that it would be a fine thing to recover the radium myself.” He laughed rather shamefacedly. “I—didn’t think much of you, O’Leary. And I was worried about Miss Day, too. And well—I just made an ass of myself generally.”
“You did,” said O’Leary. “You did. You had better stick to bridges after this, Mr. Gainsay.”
“You are right,” said Jim heartily. “But I can’t say that I regret having been here. And I still hope that I have not failed—at one thing I have undertaken.” His eyes were on Maida and she turned entirely crimson and O’Leary laughed boyishly.
I sighed; time enough for romance when this thing was all clear to me.
“Mr. O’Leary,” I said, “can you prove all this?”
He sobered instantly.
“The only thing that is supposition—or rather based solely upon reason, is Dr. Letheny’s part in the business, and even there, we know that only certain events could have taken place. As for the rest of it, change Hajek’s name to Balman’s and—there it is.”
And I may as well say here and now that Dr. Balman confessed to the whole thing, and the only point on which O’Leary was mistaken was this: it was Dr. Hajek who took the key from its place above the chart desk on that Sunday night when Maida and I were so frightened. He had slipped out his window with the key, but when he heard us coming he fled from Room 18, around St. Ann’s to his room, through the window again, through the corridor from the main part of the hospital to the south wing, tossed the key on the desk and hurried back to his own room.
“Then that arraignment of Hajek was entirely fictitious?” asked Jim.
“Not entirely. He was actually out of the hospital and in the orchard the night Higgins was shot and at the sound of the commotion he hurried back to his room. But he had gone to meet Corole; they were, of course, determined to get the radium and were conspiring together at every opportunity. And on the night of the seventh he and Corole were in the orchard. Their story of seeing a man crawl through the window of Eighteen and waiting to catch him when he emerged is not true, for only Higgins knew of Balman’s entrance and he did not know who the man was. But Corole and Hajek knew enough of Dr. Letheny’s entrance into St. Ann’s to make them sure that, when he was found dead, the radium must still be in the room. For they had listened at the window of Room 18—don’t forget the gold sequin. Oh, yes. Hajek and Corole were determined to get that radium and it was Hajek who knocked me senseless there in the hall. That much of my story was true. I saw that the only way to get Balman was to put him off his guard. I was not sure that I could—pull it off; I was afraid my very voice would betray me, that I’d be too eager, too insistent, clumsy, blundering. The least thing would have warned Dr. Balman. I had to get him to talking of it, and he, not yet having descended so low as to want to send someone else to prison for his deed, was willing to temporize, ask questions, attempt to think of something that would clear Dr. Hajek, without at the same time incriminating himself. He was trying to think fast of such possibilities.” O’Leary
