Then to Dr. MacArthur he said:
“Outside of the autopsy findings are there any pieces of evidence which re-occur after the murders, Doctor?”
“Yes. After the first, the student nurse claimed that she felt someone on the floor, but was boiling a syringe and could not leave and that a patient said it was....”
Mr. Higgins stopped him.
“That is just what I do not want to know.”
“Anything else?” Miss Parkins insisted.
“For six months, Mr. Higgins, we have had on that ward a little girl, a chronic nephritis ...” he looked over his glasses and explained to Miss Parkins, “a kidney ailment of a very stubborn sort.... She is really pretty and quite a favorite throughout the hospital. Upon her crib, the morning after the first traceable murder she found a doll.”
He opened his desk drawer and took out the Ma-ma doll. Miss Parkins reached for it to straighten the bonnet, and it howled. She turned it over quickly and Mr. Smooty said, “Jesus Christ!”
It was the first response he had made to any of the information. Mr. Higgins ignored it and said, “Finger-prints?”
“It had been handled by many people when we got it, sir.”