“Then—I heard something, a sort of sound like a footstep—I don’t know exactly what it was. But it seemed to come from there near the door of the wing. It flashed through my mind that someone was prowling about St. Ann’s and, all at once, I remembered about the radium being used, though I didn’t actually think that anyone was stealing it. Anyway, I felt my way through the dark, past the porch of the wing. I went very cautiously and stopped when I heard, just on the other side of that big elderberry bush, two parties talking.” He stopped and used the bandanna again, and inwardly I cursed that ambiguous word of his class: “party.”
“Go on,” I said impatiently. “Who were they?”
“I heard a little of what they said,” he continued, impervious to my eagerness. “I’ll tell you about that later. I must have made some sort of sound, for all at once they stopped talking and went away. I followed them but lost them in the darkness, and thinking from their talk that they would be coming back to the hospital, I felt my way back again, too. I was just in time to see a little light through the window of Eighteen. It was the light of a match and by it I saw the face of the party that”—he was whispering—“that killed Jackson. I saw the radium being hid. Yes, miss, and I know where the radium is right now.”
I think I seized him by the arm and shook it, for I remember he drew back.
“Tell me, quick, Higgins. Hurry. Who was it?”
“Not so fast, now, Miss Keate. I’ve got to tell my story in my own way. Miss Keate, there was three in Room 18 that night. Yes, ma’am, three.”
“Three? Who were they, Higgins? Didn’t the same man kill both Jackson and the doctor?”
He shook his head slowly and with the most exasperating stupidity.
“No, Miss Keate. No, that couldn’t hardly be.”
“Could hardly be! What on earth do you mean? Who was about that night? Whom did you see? Who was in Room 18? Speak up, man!”