CHAPTER XXII
Recognition
Nona Davis delivered Colonel Dalton’s message to the superintendent of the Sacred Heart Hospital. However, after second thought Colonel Dalton also sent a letter explaining the circumstances more fully and asking for a private meeting in order that a thorough investigation be made.
A woman of about forty with a large experience of life, Miss Grey, though deeply disturbed by the British officer’s suspicion, did not allow herself to go to pieces over it. She knew that they were living in the heat and turmoil of the most terrible war in history, where every day thousands of men and women were willing to give their lives to afford the slightest aid to their country. Everywhere there had been stories of spies and oftentimes many of them were the last persons to be suspected. It was dreadful to learn that a spy had crept within the shelter of the Sacred Heart Hospital, and yet there was no reason why one place should be spared more than another.
So very quietly Miss Grey set to work to study possibilities for herself, in order that she might be able later to assist Colonel Dalton in his effort to unearth the guilty person. She knew the name and something of the past history of every individual on her hospital staff, including both the outside and inside servants. This, owing to the conditions of war, she had considered a part of her duty. Indeed, she kept a small book in which their names, previous addresses and occupations were carefully registered and the Red Cross nurses had also presented their nursing certificates with a brief outline of their circumstances.
So without discussing the situation with any one else seriously, Miss Grey studied the contents of this little volume, intending to hand it to Colonel Dalton as soon as they met.
Without the least sense of prejudice she found herself most interested in the latest arrivals at the hospital. Of course, there was as yet no reason, so far as she knew, why one person should be suspected beyond another. The spy may have been in their midst many months waiting the opportunity for betrayal. Nevertheless, as the discovery of treachery was so recent, it was natural for her to guess that the evildoer was a comparatively new member of their staff.
The newcomers chanced to be the eight new nurses, four of them American and four British, who had begun work about two months before, and Lady Dorian, who was the last arrival.
Just as Nona had felt a sudden chill at the thought of Lady Dorian’s painful experience and her evident wish not to talk of herself, so Miss Grey frowned and flushed when she came upon her name in the hospital biography.
Had the authorities been wise in accepting Lady Dorian’s presence among them and the very generous gifts she had made so soon after her trial in London? It was true that nothing had then been proven against her and so very probably she had naught to do with the attempted destruction of the ship upon which she had chanced to be a passenger. However, it might have been the better part of valor to have regarded Lady Dorian with possible scepticism, more especially as so little was known of her previous history.