“Are the hypodermics compounded in the pharmacy?”
“No. On the floor. By the nurse on duty, acting only upon prescription from the attending physician. The medicine closets on the ward ... and every floor of that building ... have been searched after each murder. They reveal nothing.”
“When were the murders discovered?”
“At night, Miss Parkins. After midnight rounds made by the student nurse. Perhaps I had better give you a full picture. The ward contains thirty beds, in four rows, each seven being separated by a glass partition. The two extra beds are in rooms for dying patients. Each ward has a day white (graduate) nurse, and four student nurses on duty. Their duty changes as to hours are not important to this case.
“The white nurse goes off duty for the night at seven, and leaves her instructions with two student nurses who prepare the ward for the night, and go off duty at nine, when a single student nurse (bringing the total of student nurses to five) usually a pupil within the last six months of training, comes on and ‘beds the ward down’ for the night and remains on duty until seven the following morning. It is her business to give all night hypodermics and medicines, and make regular rounds upon the patients to see how they are. On the ward with her is an orderly, who runs any sudden errands and helps with any manual labor. He usually remains in the ward-kitchen washing dishes and preparing the breakfast trays and cleaning the ward corridors, etc. The orderly on this ward has been there twenty years, and is not capable of any remarkable murder. A trusted menial. He has been ordered into bed, as a suspected typhoid carrier, tonight, and it is his position which you are to fill, Mr. Smooty.”
An imperceptible nod was Mr. Smooty’s only acknowledgment.
Dr. MacArthur continued:
“Over the entire building at night there is a night supervisor who makes floor rounds upon the student nurses in charge and is available in case they get into difficulties.”
“Where was she during the murders, Doctor?”
“During the first one, in the lavatory, Miss Parkins, and during the second her telephone did not answer and she was making rounds in the building.”