She left every man in the room irritated.
“Gentlemen,” Dr. MacArthur soothed, “that is all of the testimony, except Mattus’ story, and Dr. Sterling, Ethridge and I went over it with him while we were awaiting the autopsy findings. Any questions or decisions before Heddis comes?”
“What was Mattus’ statement?” Dr. Harrison asked.
“That he found the patient in the condition Father and I did when he made his rounds, and the next time he saw her, at three-five, she was dead,” Cub Sterling responded.
“Could the murderer have any animus against the patients?” Barton asked leaning forward.
“Not likely,” Cub said. “One from out of town and genteel poor, second dispensary admission, and the last old patient. Been in the hospital before.”
He was interrupted by a knock upon the door and Dr. Heddis’ stout, round body, with its piano-post legs and lion head protruded through the opening. His wide-set yellow-brown eyes, even in repose, dominated his highly intelligent face. Dr. MacArthur motioned him into the “witness chair” and he began speaking in a high, tired voice which, because of his increasing deafness, had a sing-song quality.
In ordinary conversation his impediment required a “raising” of his questioner’s voice, so upon a subject of which men spoke in whispers any information he had to give automatically became a soliloquy:
“’Morning, gentlemen. Luck, pure luck! Organs appeared perfectly normal. Began the obscure tests alphabetically. It would have taken two days to reach coniine, if my nose hadn’t been haunted by an almost imperceptible odor; after about a half hour my brain finally diagnosed it.
“The tests are conclusive. She died of an infusion of coniine, C8H17N, per os or hypodermically. Puncture makes syringe theory conclusive as coniine administered per os would be remarked by the patient. Smells like mouse urine. Also acts locally as a caustic. Burning the mouth. Itching of the throat. Dizziness. Nausea. Tormenting thirst. Paralysis of the sural muscles.... The patient had none of these symptoms?”