But it was not until I had finished drinking some very black coffee and playing with my toast that the reason for our strained silence made itself clear to me.
Only someone connected with the hospital could have known that the radium was out of the safe and in use in Room 18. Only a doctor or a nurse would have known how to administer morphine with a hypodermic syringe.
It might be—anyone! It might be one of us!
The thought threatened that remnant of courage I still maintained. I rose, pushing back my chair. It scraped along the floor and at the sound heads jerked in my direction too quickly and someone cried out nervously.
I hurried from the room, up the stairs and to my room in the nurses’ dormitory. I am not ashamed to say that I locked the door. But though I needed rest I could not sleep.
3. Dr. Letheny Does Not Return
From sheer fatigue, however, I must have dozed for I awoke at the sound of a repeated knocking at the door. It was a frightened little student nurse wanting to know if all training classes and lectures were to be suspended.
“Suspended?” I said, the horror of the past night sweeping over me. “Suspended? I—why, Dr. Letheny will tell you.”
She blinked.
“But Dr. Letheny—we—they—nobody knows where Dr. Letheny has gone.”