“No. They were all too shocked. The murderer wasn’t there.” Smooty, who had a habit of talking “in character” was too interested to “think” as an orderly. “The person in authority was the Jew and he’s white. Jew doctors are! Those Kerr women, head nurse and student, took it too calmly.”
“Want any breakfast?” Higgins asked from the door.
“No. Just a bed-pan, please!”
Snod’s voice fluted after him.
With the overcoat, Snod Smooty made himself a pillow, and was asleep before Mr. Higgins had retraced his steps halfway up the corridor.
When Higgins reached the place where the basement steps came up into the corridor of the vacant building, he struck another match, again under the protection of his hat and looked for the tracks he and Dr. MacArthur had made last night. Then he descended the steps and stood in the dark basement corridor. He stood erect, with his shoulders thrown back, listening. When the silence assured his mind and hurt his eardrums he began walking up the basement corridor, toward the entrance into the main service corridor, which ran directly under the main hospital corridor. He and Dr. MacArthur had decided the best way to get out of the lab building would be through the service corridor, the door of which had a spring lock, and then up the service elevator to the main floor of the Administration Building.
The basement corridor was black as night, but totally dead. The worn-out odor of old chemicals mingled with that of damp plaster. The smell began to permeate his nostrils and made each creak of the sagging floor hit his brain like a pistol shot. The soft blackness closed in like a sweating fog.
He began to feel as a swimmer feels against strong tides. The door at the end of the corridor was diminishing as the door in Alice in Wonderland, or had it been Alice who diminished? He had just convinced himself that the last sound and the newest smell were caused by a leaking water tap and an escaping gas jet, when something struck his foot, ran up his pants’ leg to his waist, and down the other side.
Rats!
He jumped with the agility of a fencing expert into an open door and threw up his arm automatically. He stood with his muscles flexed, listening and beginning to feel the beads of perspiration starting under his arms and trickling down his thighs.