Means Davis

“ A hospital, you see ... a great hospital ... lives, breathes, exists, as a fountain of hope. It is trusted by everybody. For more than forty years the Elijah Wilson has lived up to that trust. We have received endowments, and large ones, to add units to our plant for the teaching of medical students. We were started, have been perpetuated, and are famous as a great teaching hospital.
“Now a teaching hospital, Miss Parkins, exists upon the fact that it has more patients than beds. When you have that situation reversed, the hospital is doomed. ”

“ Barton’s squared frame filled the door it brought with it a sense of relief. Queer how sane associating with children made a man. Almost immediately he was followed by Hoffbein, Peters and Paton ... together. They had just settled themselves when Dr. Harrison strode in. There was an armor of righteousness about him that dazzled. Dr. MacArthur had never seen Harrison this way before. Like some great patriarch of Biblical fame girded for battle. ”

“ I do, Hoffbein! I realize quite thoroughly that Bear Sterling’s son’s reputation is as dear to Dr. Barton and Dr. MacArthur and to myself as that of any world-famous man who ever had a patient in the Elijah Wilson Hospital. I would sooner, 196 much sooner, see the reputations of you three scraped in the mire and flung away across the world by the tabloids than to see the name of a man who cannot be present to protect himself slurred by your nasty insinuations. ”

“ If we close the ward to visitors ... we have never in all the years the hospital has been in existence done ... that! Public confidence is our greatest asset. Has been. What shall we do? The newspapers, the police, the reputation of the hospital, d’y’see?”
“Too well, sir.”
But the tension was wearing itself out in speech and Dr. MacArthur went on:
“The hysteria among the nursing and medical staffs was bad enough, God knows, but before today is over, we must face the hysteria manifesting itself among the menial staff. How can a hospital run without orderlies, electricians, cooks? ”

“ Cub’s hands deprecated the statement. She sneered:
“What does a medical man know about life? Ever been poor and discriminating?” Then she threw the gesture back at him and ordered, “What’s the story?”
He swallowed twice and said:
“You are in this hospital because your father is supposed to be a medical man in a distant city, Newark, New Jersey, to be exact, and a friend of mine. You are recorded as the victim of a bus accident. The bus went ahead with your luggage and pocketbook. Your name is Sophie Merriweather. As for your injuries, I’m not certain myself ... yet.” ”

“ Otto Hoffbein ducked like a beaten boxer. “A symptom of your disease” is a psychiatric term.
Cub Sterling got his father a glass of water. His hand trembled as he held it. Barton eased a pillow under his head. Peters and Paton sat like frightened schoolboys in the corner. Hoffbein was still cowed.
“Better, Bear?” Dr. MacArthur asked leaning over him. Dr. Harrison turned and said:
“Here is the situation. It has to be met. You are going to accomplish nothing by fighting. Every man in this room knows that between last night and this morning a woman was murdered in this hospital. ”

“ A rat catcher!”
“They call him Prissy. How did you know?”
“And he believes Sterling is the murderer,” Snod announced.
“Say, you been sleeping all morning?”
“Yeah. But I’m a real detective. An obstetrician is the busiest animal on God’s earth. He don’t have time to change his undershirt. Any woman can call him at any hour, and what do you expect from a man in that fix but gossip, mister? ’Spose you spent your life....”
“Aw, naw!” Matt’s response was definite. “He and Peters are buddies.”
“Sissies. It takes guts to fight death, and skill to be a doctor. Guts is masculine, skill is feminine. ”

“ Are you out to kill the hospital or the murderer, Peters? I repeat, some linen is too foul to wash in public! It has taken forty years and more to build up the reputation of this place and you are planning to destroy it....”
“Why, Dr. Harrison, I’m not ‘planning’ anything. Dr. MacArthur asked me for an opinion and I gave it. That’s all!”
122
“Beg your pardon, Peters. No offense.”
The antagonism stiffened.
Dr. MacArthur intervened, “Your opinion, Dr. Paton?”
“I agree entirely with Dr. Peters. Men trained in the detection of criminals are the men to catch murderers.” ”

“ The New Patient in Bed Eleven
Dr. MacArthur flapped the yellow telegram helplessly and wondered how to face them. Through some pull or other they had made the mail plane from New York and would be in his office in fifteen minutes.
Two men and a woman. Three detectives; and he had never faced a detective in his life. How did a man treat detectives? Must one defer, or order?
Probably Harrison would know. A urologist had every profession in his grip sooner or later. He reached for the telephone. Dr. Harrison laughed at the question. ”

“ Today is Tuesday! There is absolutely no sense keeping me here, forever....”
Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, closed the door sharply and strode over to the bed. His features were flattening. His dark curly hair was dishevelled. His voice had its “’Night!” quality.
“You are my patient and you are not to get out of that bed until I say so. I know today is Tuesday just as well as you do. Possibly better! What you seem never to realize is that I am a tremendously busy man. A Physician-in-Chief works! You are not the only patient in this hospital ... but God knows you are the most petulant! ”

“ He said:
“What is being done with the bed now, Ethridge?”
“It is in use, sir. A patient of Father’s.”
“Excellent.”
Then with the steady stroke of a masseur, he went on:
“I see nothing the staff collectively can contribute which Ethridge and Dr. MacArthur have not already covered. Mysteries in medicine are more frequent than recoveries and Ethridge has my profound respect for acknowledging himself up 46 against one. When one has toyed with homo sapiens as long as Bear and I have, one realizes that they are so damn full of mystery ... after all, people will die!” ”

“ Toxicology, like other branches of the Profession, is partly guess work. Since the cadaver bears evidence of a hypodermic puncture, and indications are that the potion was not administered that way, my belief is that this patient died of a syringe of some obscure drug.
“Therefore I am immediately beginning upon the obscure tests. It may take days to prove or disprove my conclusions. In the meantime, I repeat, a sleeping potion prescribed in capsule form, which the pharmacy compounded and the student nurse states she administered, explains neither the syringe puncture nor the death. ”

“ Higgins, who had never been sick a day in his life and never slept in a hospital even so much as one night, had a healthy man’s antagonism for the medical profession.
“Toughest job we’ve ever had. He’s square all right, but how the hell can you catch a murderer in a hospital? You are right, Snod. Somebody around here is crazy as a tick. And lots of people are lying. One thing you got to remember is you are up against professional liars. All nurses and doctors are professional liars. ”

“ Miss Kerr went for the sheets and Miss Standish 159 lay down and turned her face toward the window and tried to forget it all. She placed one of her thin hands at the base of her brain and began massaging her neck. This was no way to do. Get frightened at a little thing like a book hitting you. A person who lost her nerve over such things wasn’t fit to look for mice in a dark pantry let alone clear the reputation of Dr. Cub Sterling and solve the terror of the Elijah Wilson. Forget it all for a few minutes and remember the routine a student nurse should be following, now. ”

“ Hoffbein’s voice was at last hysterical.
“No. I hope not,” Dr. MacArthur’s voice was deadly calm. “But today I have had the privilege of seeing such cool, calm courage exhibited by a person who really loves this hospital as to make me proud to be here ... even ... now.
“A nurse came to me after the meeting this morning ... one of our graduates ... and volunteered to go into that bed as a patient. Think it over, gentlemen. That’s a solution, d’y’see?”
Dr. MacArthur’s words lay over them like spring rain. Some men they heartened. Some they chilled. All they impressed.
Only Dr. Harrison spoke. ”

“ Now if we were to turn this situation over to the police, regardless of Dr. Harrison’s statements, we would automatically spread into every ward of every department, every newspaper in the country, the superstition of every negro within a thousand miles, the means of ruining, absolutely, your work, mine and that of all the medical men now resident and student here.
“Murder is a very horrible situation, but dooming the future of at least a thousand capable men is, in my opinion, worse, all oaths, notwithstanding. ”

“ The best thing to do was sit tight and look over the pharmacy staff.
When Snod Smooty came back on Ward B, he found two student nurses on duty and the women remarkably quiet. They were still subdued by the grandness of Dr. Cub Sterling’s leaving his dying father to come to see about them. They were excited over his furrowed face and his sudden ageing. They didn’t call it that, but they felt it, profoundly. To the funeral-wake-type, death is always as exciting as birth, and the death of a famous doctor.... ”

“ Rose Standish started to call the student nurse and tell her to get Mattus right away, and then she decided that it was about time she began to remember that she was a patient on the ward and not a nurse.
Miss Kerr returned with the medicine tray. She gave Mrs. Witherspoon her hypodermic, and almost as a sponge does water, the withered body soaked it up, and she fell into a deep slumber. The woman with the thyroid insufficiency had her sleeping potion and began the long slow breathing of a laboring body. ”

“ But I also see that if Cub Sterling does not leave his father’s side today and is not questioned until after his death, supposing ... the other ... to be correct ... you will have not lost anything. They must all be checked, automatically, since you believe the murderer is a crazy doctor. Check them today, Mr. Higgins. And if....”
He rose and began to pace the floor, and his figure was more than erect. It was almost illuminated.
“You belong, sir, to that type of man which can appreciate trust between strong men. Between Cub Sterling and his father such a trust has always existed. ”

“ Coniine....
He turned over Cub Sterling’s testimony concerning the death of Miss Standish, and stared vacantly at the words. Somewhere, at this very minute, there was walking, still free, about the Elijah Wilson Hospital, probably laughing and talking with other patients, a nurse, a doctor ... a man ... a woman ... a murderer....
Dr. MacArthur rose and walked to the far window through which the warm spring sun was shining. He must pull himself together. His duty was not to his emotional beliefs concerning men and their motives. Above all things he must be fair. ”

“ An interior champagne began to flow, and then his eye caught, in front of him, the august figure of his head nurse, Miss Kerr, sailing toward the hospital. Walking carefully and firmly in the glare of the street lamps; her tightly rolled umbrella protecting her virginity.
His left shoulder began to rise. He stooped quickly, picked a brick-bat out of a trash can and slung it at the light just behind. The action was involuntary and unpremeditated. It was an active 28 example of his inner abandon, and followed by all the reflexes natural to a little boy. ”

“ Smooty’s green eyes took on life for the first time since he had entered the room. He said.
“A hospital’s duty is to protect everybody. I’ll 220 be a member of a hospital staff in twenty minutes, Lil.”
She shrugged her square shoulders and her limpid eyes begged.
“The murderer is a member of the hospital staff, Snod. He’ll beat you to it.”
Higgins intervened.
“For God’s sake, Lil! Hold on to yourself!”
“It’s those damn dolls,” she laughed.
Higgins smiled strongly into her eyes and threw his overcoat over the dolls. “There’s enough hysteria around here as it is. ”

“ Dr. MacArthur’s voice was measured and low, “Rose Standish is dead. She was murdered last night while a patient in Bed 11, Ward B, of Medicine Clinic. An injection of coniine. She went on that ward to save your reputation and mine. To lift the hospital out of terror ... and she is dead, and we are....” ”

“ MacArthur’s eyes and Higgins took advantage of it.
“You are right about time, Doctor. It’s everything. To save time I must have every atom of knowledge which you have. Last night I hoped to work independently, but now....”
He leaned forward and shot his gimlet gray eyes into the horror stricken ones of MacArthur.
“Is the man everybody but you suspects, young Sterling?” ”

“ Then, of course it was a little thing, but awfully important nervously: the girl who took the doctors’ dictation onto the typewriter ought to have a noiseless machine. And it would be terribly hard to convince the Superintendent of Nurses, but she was going to tell Dr. MacArthur that she needed another student nurse on duty there. After a football game or a big race meet when the automobile accidents began to pour in, it was frightful. There was nobody, except the girl at the typewriter who couldn’t stop, whose hands were not all gory and spotted every paper they touched. ”

“ The staff sat forward attentively. Dr. Harrison asked:
“Ethridge mentions a sleeping potion in his report...?”
Dr. Heddis turned toward Peter Rathbone. Baldy’s wide straight shoulders squared. His delivery was impressive:
“The potion was ... bread pills. Dr. Sterling, Senior, came by the pharmacy, around six, and left the order himself. It was his idea that if the student nurse was doing the murdering and administered the potion, without knowing its content (the copy upon Miss Standish’s chart was for an intricate formula) , she would create a trap for herself.” ”

“ She momentarily forgot Cub Sterling.
“Emma! What are you doing?”
Emma wheeled around, and the binoculars fell from her hands. Sally moved with extended palms to catch them.
“Oh, it’s you!” Emma’s voice was pleased and birdlike. “They don’t drop, Miss Ferguson. Mr. Bucks told me you was on vacation. Did you have a nice time, dearie?” She reached toward the long leather thong which held the binoculars around her scrawny neck and then embarrassment replaced pleasure. ”