“Where it was found——” I repeated, huskily, my voice losing itself somewhere in my throat.
“It was found—in Dr. Letheny’s pocket.” He spoke very deliberately, his clear, gray eyes searching mine. Then he turned. “Good-night, Miss Keate,” he said courteously and was gone.
As for me, I stood there quite still, staring at the gathering darkness outside the window, and at the slow rivulets of moisture trickling down the glass. Finally I aroused myself, straightened my cap, and moved toward the door. I was late for dinner, of course, and remember that someone was complaining about the steak being burned. It might have been ashes so far as I was concerned. Once I stole a look at Maida, across from me and down the table a few places. She was very white and tired-looking and it seemed to me that she avoided my eyes. I felt rather sick as I noted that, though it was a chilly day, she was wearing a uniform with short sleeves that had no need of cuff links.
6. I Make a Discovery—and Regret It
I must admit that I went about my duties somewhat automatically that night and could not help keeping an eye on Maida, not from suspicion, you understand, but simply because the matters of recent development troubled me considerably. Indeed, I had plenty to think of that night.
Corole’s dinner party, followed by its terrifying sequel, had taken place on Thursday night. Early Friday afternoon the body of Dr. Letheny had been found. Friday night we had taken second watch with the policeman tipped against the sinister door of Room 18, and Saturday was the day just past. It was while I was sitting at the chart desk during second watch of Saturday night—really early Sunday morning—that the amazing idea occurred to me. I had been staring at the charts, absorbed in the baffling problems those days had brought, when all at once I began thinking of the morphine.
Might it not prove something if we were to discover where that morphine had come from? Morphine is not something that one carries about in a pocket or vanity bag; it is very difficult to secure and in St. Ann’s a most rigid check is kept on the quantities of the drug used. Would the morphine record for that week in the south wing balance?
With the thought I was up on my feet and starting toward the drug room. As I passed the door of the diet kitchen I saw Maida standing at the open window. Why do women bother with silks and laces and jewels when there is nothing that so sets off beauty as the severe, white simplicity of the nurse’s uniform? Maida’s face was like a proud young flower above the white collar of her tailored uniform. The stiff white cap perched piquantly on top of her head and contrasted nicely with her soft black hair. Her eyes were a deeper blue, her clear, gardenia skin and soft crimson lips were still lovelier above that plain white dress. I sighed, glanced down the corridor to see that there were no signal lights, and slipped into the drug room, closing the door.
A dose of morphine is a simple matter to prepare; it is the administering that requires skill. The preparation is a mere mixture of sterile water with the white morphine tablet, in the amount prescribed. At St. Ann’s there is a careful check of the amounts used, and the drug room record must check with the doctors’ orders. It was a simple matter for me to compare the two records with the remaining supply of morphine. And it was with a heart that dropped to my shoes that I found they emphatically did not check. And that the amount of discrepancy was more than enough to drug a person far more heavily than was safe.
When had this disappeared and how? A young, strong man might survive such a dose, or one accustomed to taking the drug. But an old man, whose heart reaction would be slow—well, it seemed all too apparent that the morphine that had killed Jackson might have come from our own south wing drug room. It was not a pleasant possibility.