“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 smoothed back his hair and straightened his impeccable tie. “Those few moments were a strain.”
“Suppose he had just kept silent, had said nothing at all?” I suggested curiously.
“Oh, I knew he would talk. He had a guilty conscience, you know. It wouldn’t have been human to refuse to talk. He knew his own guilt and hence would try to appear innocent. He was bewildered, too, and was never a practical, quick-thinking man. It was a chance but not a risk.”
There was a long silence. Away down the hall I heard the faint, muffled sound of the breakfast bell. With that I roused myself and thought for the first time of the wing. I rose, picked up my ruined hat, and at the door stopped to look back on that room.
Room 18! What it had held! What it had witnessed!
O’Leary followed me from the room, Maida and Jim, too. Once in the corridor I found that the small, red signal light was still gleaming dully. I returned to Room 18, pulled the light cord, mechanically straightened the bed, and closed the window.
Maida and Jim had disappeared when I returned to the corridor. O’Leary was standing at the south door, looking through the glass with an amused twinkle in his clear gray eyes. Following his glance I saw Maida’s white uniform and Jim’s tweed coat vanishing along the once more sunny orchard path.
“Young idiots,” I murmured. “And before breakfast, too.”
The path recalled to me the Letheny cottage at its other end.