“But that is the law, Doctor. You are quite within your rights to dictate concerning your patient.”
“I don’t want to dictate. I’m just as willing as anybody to have the criminal side of this mess cleared up, if there is a criminal side.”
“Endicott would hardly have crawled into a cupboard to have a stroke, would he, Doctor?”
“No.” Dr. Worth’s intelligent eyes stared speculatively at Lieutenant Valcour for a minute. “Not unless he’d hidden in there to overhear something, and did overhear something that gave him a stroke,” he said.
The cesspool, Lieutenant Valcour decided, was beginning to show strange depths within its depth. The medical examiner came over and joined them. He complimented Dr. Worth briefly on the success of his operation, assured Lieutenant Valcour that the homicide chief would be given a full report of Endicott’s recovery, and presumed that from now on the case would be left in Lieutenant Valcour’s hands. Lieutenant Valcour would deal with whatever charges of robbery or assault might develop from it. He said goodbye and left the room, with the fullest intention of going right straight home to bed; and so he promptly did, as soon as he had made the promised report to Andrews.
Dr. Worth pointedly raised his eyebrows. “Then there will be charges, Lieutenant?”
“That will depend largely upon Endicott, Doctor. As he is now revived he will tell us himself who attacked him, or the nature of the circumstance that gave him the shock.”
“I trust so.”
“There isn’t any doubt, is there?”
Dr. Worth grew expansive. “Certainly there is a doubt,” he said. “While it is true that Endicott has been revived, it is impossible to state definitely that he will recover consciousness. And even granting that he should recover consciousness, there is also a chance that he might prefer not to make any statement at all. What would you do then, Lieutenant?”
“Fold my tents, Doctor, and fade away.”
Dr. Worth looked down a long straight nose for a minute at tips of low patent-leather shoes. “And if Endicott does not recover consciousness,” he said softly, “what will you do then?”
“You’ll be surprised at the number of things I will do then.”
Dr. Worth’s eyes, surfeited with patent leather, snapped up sharply. “I must impress on you that Mrs. Endicott is not to be disturbed,” he said.
“She won’t be, Doctor.”
“Nurse Vickers, who helped me into her room with her, is going to stay with Mrs. Endicott all night. Two day nurses will come in the morning: one for her, if necessary, and surely one for Endicott. I need scarcely impress upon you the seriousness of his condition.” Dr. Worth made a gesture of irritated bewilderment. “I wish I knew him more intimately—who his friends are, I mean.”
“He never talked with you about them?”
“Never. He seems an unusually reticent man, with an almost abnormally developed feeling for privacy concerning his intimate affairs.” Dr. Worth’s manner grew definitely severe. Mentally, he wagged a finger under Lieutenant Valcour’s nose. “He mustn’t have any further shock. There must be nothing, absolutely nothing that will shock him when, and if, he regains consciousness.” He directed his attention momentarily to the nurse. “Get those shades back on the lamps, please, Miss Murrow, and turn out the ceiling lights. And now, Lieutenant, to continue about Endicott. As she is under the influence of the narcotic I gave her, it is out of the question that his wife be here. I wish she could be. I want the first person he sees to be someone he knows—loves. His mind, you see, will pick up functioning at the precise second where it left off—at least, such is my conclusion.”
“And that was one of shock.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, evidently one of shock or of great fear. We cannot overestimate the importance of getting him past it safely. Personally, I shall sleep here in the house tonight, and Nurse Murrow will call me if Endicott shows any signs of coming to. That may not be before morning. I hope so, in a way, as the effect of the narcotic will have worn off by then, and Mrs. Endicott can be in here with him.”
“One of the servants might know of some friend,” Lieutenant Valcour suggested. “I take it you would like a friend to sit here with him during the night?”
Dr. Worth was emphatic. “It is almost a necessity that there should be. The mental and nervous viewpoints, you see, predominate in the case.”
“There is just one thing that I would like to arrange, too, Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“I want to keep a couple of men posted all night in the bathroom. They can sit on chairs just inside the doorway there, where they can watch the bed, but where Endicott can’t see them. He need never know they are there.”
“What on earth would be the need for that?”
“Why, it’s quite simple, Doctor. When Endicott comes to he will be in a position to tell us who gave him the shock—a shock sufficient almost to kill him—one which would have killed him if we hadn’t found him tonight—and if,” he added thoughtfully, “Mrs. Endicott hadn’t had her suspicions.”
“But why the men in the bathroom?”
“Because I don’t want to take any chances of there being a repetition before Endicott makes his statement.”
Dr. Worth pursed his lips and looked very wise indeed. “I see,” he said. “I see. You are afraid that the same person might get at him again and, well, silence him before he could talk.”
“Something like that, Doctor.” Lieutenant Valcour became courteously formal. “As the physician in charge of this case, sir, have you any objection to my stationing the two men in the bathroom?”
“Providing Endicott isn’t able to see them and won’t be disturbed by them in any way at all.”
“Then that’s settled. You’ll have a nurse in here all the time, I suppose?”
“Naturally.”
“Then I’m going to ask her to keep this hall door locked on the inside. She can open it if anyone knocks, and my men will keep their eyes on whoever comes in.”
“The precautions seem extraordinary, Lieutenant.”
“And
