“I’m glad you called this meeting as we advised, and have given us an opportunity of speaking frankly. Murder, automatically, cancels loyalty! Call in the police immediately is the advice of myself, Dr. Paton and Dr. Hoffbein.”
His peach-blossom face was brick red and it was the fury with which Dr. Harrison rose that, at a distance of ten feet, scared Dr. Peters into his chair.
“You might just as well know, Dr. Peters,” his brown eyes were live coals, “that this meeting was not called without the Sterlings purposely. Barton and I were dead against it, as was MacArthur. Dr. MacArthur was intensely kind in his opening speech about the number of murders which have been committed in this hospital within the last week. They are five.”
“Stop, Harrison. Please stop!” Dr. MacArthur had risen from his chair, but he might have been a fly upon the distant mantelpiece for the effect he produced.
“Sorry. I can’t stop. They might just as well know it! Call in your police! Call them in now! And as sure as Christ was crucified I’ll swear out a warrant for each of you, Hoffbein, Peters and Paton, for the murder of Bear Sterling, now dying of pneumonia complicated by the heart attack which you, famous colleagues and a world-renowned psychiatrist caused by your foul insinuations yesterday.
“If you value your international reputations as much as your self-exhibitions in the last fifteen years indicate, the police are out of the question.
“Now let’s get down to business.”
For fully four minutes after he had finished no man in the room spoke. No man could. For fifteen, twenty, perhaps thirty years none of them had ever heard Dr. Harrison raise his voice above a conversational tone, never had seen him for one-quarter of a split second lose complete control of himself or of a situation, never had heard him judge a man without charity.
And the three he condemned were too seared to be angry, too frightened to be resentful, too dazed to be amazed.
He had spoken the truth ... and they knew it.