You had to take a chance....
He snapped the spring lock and stepped out into the service corridor. The door slammed behind him and he looked both ways.
The corridor was whitewashed and brilliantly lighted with electric lights, like a subway station. In the distance were two orderlies pushing two large laundry bins. They had their backs to him. In the other direction were three maids standing around a woman who was talking hurriedly and gesticulating wildly. They were standing in a knot and did not see him. He started to walk and as he lifted his foot it caught upon something. He looked down.
He had kicked a huge bunch of American Beauty roses from in front of the door. Somehow he side-stepped them and began making his feet rise, fall, and move.
Should he go back? Should he go on? Should he pick them up? The great thing was to keep moving ... the great thing, and by the time he had begun moving he had decided to ignore the flowers ... temporarily ... and try to remember MacArthur’s directions. Past the print shop, past the laundry entrance, and then the first door to the left....
He had accomplished the print shop when he discovered that walking beside him was a small faded woman, and she was carrying the roses. And then he decided to find out.
“Is this the main corridor of the hospital?” He had removed his hat and was giving her the “somebody’s mother” treatment. “Pretty flowers!”
She began to gasp out respectfully:
“No, sir. Take the elevator there, Doctor,” she pointed. “Pretty, ain’t they? Miss Kerr told that maid,” she pointed again toward a retreating figure, “to bring them over to the Nurses’ Home for Miss Standish’s funeral (she was of that simple class which believes everybody knows her acquaintances) and an orderly in the corridor told the maid....”
The elevator door opened and Matt Higgins had learned all he needed to know, immediately.