“What I think does not concern your story, Miss Kerr. Please continue.”
There was a slight tightening of her jaw, and had she had sense enough to cry then, every man in the room would have felt beaten. She continued woodenly:
“After I gave Miss Standish her medicine, the next patient had to have her linen changed, and when I had finished with that, Miss Standish was asleep. I could tell by her breathing.
“It was then almost midnight and I went to boil my syringes for the midnight hypodermics, and while I was boiling them Mrs. Witherspoon, the patient whose bed I had just changed, rang again, and I ran to see about her.
“And as I reached her bed, I found Dr. Cub Sterling leaning over Miss Standish. He looked up and nodded, and....”
“Repeat your last three sentences, Miss Kerr. Repeat them twice! And look at me while you do it.” Dr. Hoffbein’s voice was mesmeric.
Miss Kerr repeated them ... twice....
They filled the room and permeated the senses of every man present like poison gas.
Dr. Harrison shot his gimlet-like brown eyes into the narrow, close ones of the student nurse.
“You are wrong, Miss Kerr. Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, was in his rooms.”