“You can’t realize what you are saying, man,” Hoffbein was soothingly calm.
“I do, Hoffbein! I realize quite thoroughly that Bear Sterling’s son’s reputation is as dear to Dr. Barton and Dr. MacArthur and to myself as that of any world-famous man who ever had a patient in the Elijah Wilson Hospital. I would sooner, much sooner, see the reputations of you three scraped in the mire and flung away across the world by the tabloids than to see the name of a man who cannot be present to protect himself slurred by your nasty insinuations.
“His good name is just as valuable to us as yours are ... more so ... and so far as we are concerned your honor needs cleansing a great deal more than his does. The only way to cleanse any of our reputations now is to quit treating every person ... whatever his rank ... involved in this matter ... as innocent, and consider all of us guilty until the criminal is caught.
“Do any of you suspect MacArthur? Well, that’s something in your favor. MacArthur, you hire the detectives, and instruct them to consider all of us guilty ... until we are proved innocent....
“And in case any of you have any scruples whatever about talking I wish you to remember that Barton’s brother is the Attorney-General of this state and at one word from MacArthur he will have all of you made to talk ... to save your own reputations, let alone that of the blessed hospital.
“Miss Roenna Kerr, working through her niece as accomplice, outside of Ethridge Sterling, Junior, is the other suspect. She has been a patient of every man sitting in this room with the exception of Dr. Barton, Dr. MacArthur and myself. Consider your position, gentlemen....”
»VII«
The New Patient in Bed Eleven
Dr. MacArthur flapped the yellow telegram helplessly and wondered how to face them. Through some pull or other they had made the mail plane from New York and would be in his office in fifteen minutes.
Two men and a woman. Three detectives; and he had never faced a detective in his life. How did a man treat detectives? Must one defer, or order?
Probably Harrison would know. A urologist had every profession in his grip sooner or later. He reached for the telephone. Dr. Harrison laughed at the question. It was the first time he had laughed since entering the hospital that morning, learning of Rose Standish’s death and realizing that Bear Sterling’s was only a matter of sixty or seventy hours.