“I distinctly heard footsteps the full length of the third floor.”
“What time?”
“Around four o’clock.”
But nobody admitted to having been up. “Then one of you must have been walking in your sleep,” I insisted.
The nurse who had preceded me on night duty timidly contributed, “I always heard somebody. I didn’t want to say anything about it for fear you’d think I was queer.”
Towards morning of the very next night when I was in the second floor ward, I heard the patter again above my head. I ran upstairs to the nurses’ quarters as fast as I could and looked down the corridor. Every door was tight shut. I tore down two flights to the first floor. The noise came once more above me. Back to the second floor. All patients were in their beds. I asked the only wakeful one, “Did you get up just now?”
“No.”
“Did anybody else get up?”
“No.”
Some nights went by quietly. But I heard the noises often enough to become truly concerned for fear I might be imagining things. I said to one of the older nurses, “I’m going to wake you up and see whether you hear them too.”