“Then do it without hysterics,” MacArthur ordered, tearing the envelope into shreds as Prissy Paton’s purring voice interrupted:
“What, am I the first one here, MacArthur? Good morning, Ethridge. Pleasant morning. Cancerous through and through. No use removing anything. Fine woman, and great influence in her generation. Sewed her up again. No use. Will probably live several months. Are the rumors I hear true? Has there been another? I thought it was that yesterday. I said to myself, ‘it certainly has all the symptoms....’”
“Blow your bubbles out of the window, Boy Blue,” Dr. Harrison chuckled easing Dr. Paton into a chair. Then he walked over and shook hands with Ethridge Sterling, Junior, and with Dr. MacArthur.
He seated himself, took out his pipe and began talking of the tremendous discoveries of the ruins of Roman towns which had recently been ascertained in England by means of the airplane.
He filled the room with sanity. Dr. Paton went to his usual morning manicure, and Dr. Barton came in quietly, nodded, sat down and joined the listening group. Nobody noticed Flannel-feet Hoffbein’s entrance.
Dr. Harrison stopped and turned politely to Dr. MacArthur; like obedient schoolboys the other four men turned to MacArthur also.
“Gentlemen, I know it is most unusual and inconvenient to be called to a staff meeting without notice and at this hour. Still I believe the occasion justifies the summons. The thing of which Ethridge told you yesterday afternoon, is this morning.... At three A.M. the patient in Bed 11, Ward B, Medicine Clinic was found ... dead. There was an unexplained puncture from a hypodermic syringe in the left arm.”
“MacArthur,” Dr. Harrison’s voice had become an august bass, “are you s-u-r-e?”
MacArthur stood up and walked toward Dr. Harrison. In his extended hand was the typewritten sheet. He was even straighter than he had been in the autopsy room. For thirty-odd years his and Dr. Harrison’s great passion had been the Elijah Wilson Hospital. Harrison rose. They met in a patch of morning sunshine, which threw the sheen from Dr. Harrison’s head into a mirror over the mantel and back into Prissy Paton’s eyes.
Prissy gave a hysterical gasp and prepared to scream. Dr. Barton, in the voice he used with children, remarked, “Easy, sister. Easy!”