“No such luck! By the way, were you men coming up from downstairs when you found me?”
“No,” replied Dr. Balman. “No. I had been O.K.-ing some orders in the inner office; Dr. Hajek came out of his room into the general office just as I, too, entered it and we walked together out into the hall and toward the basement stairs.”
“You saw nothing unusual?”
“Nothing. We were talking of advertising for a new janitor. It was—” Dr. Balman’s kind, distressed eyes roved over O’Leary anxiously as if to be quite sure he was not hurt—“it was, as I said, a shock. For a moment we feared the worst.” He drew out a handkerchief and wiped his pale lips nervously, his fingers lingering to pull at his thin beard. “Mr. O’Leary, I know that you are working hard and I don’t mean to criticize but really—I——” he hesitated as if put to it to find words. “You see for yourself to what terrible straits this thing has brought us. We don’t know what to expect next. Can nothing be done to stop it?”
It was just at this interesting point, of course, that Miss Dotty had to interrupt and summon me away, and it was something after midnight before I saw O’Leary again.
I was on duty at the time, Maida assisting me as usual, and our force augmented again, according to another whim of Miss Dotty’s, by two training nurses, both obviously unnerved at their contact with the south wing of such ill repute. Their blue-and-white striped skirts rattled nervously as they trotted here and there about the wing. While I did not feel unduly alarmed myself, still it seemed all too clear that the guilty one was still about, an unknown menace and hence more terrible, and I don’t mind admitting that my ears were alert to any alien sounds.
I was sitting at the chart desk when I heard O’Leary’s quick, light steps coming along the corridor from the general office. I turned to watch him approach, his gray suit and grave, keen face gradually emerging into the green circle of light that surrounded me.
“Have you found the radium?” I asked at once.
He shook his head.
“Nor who took it from you?”