SERGEANT VELIE’S BULKY ARM rested against the door-jamb as he conversed earnestly with an invisible henchman in the corridor.
Ellery Queen was sitting in a sort of concentrative stupor, communing, from the dark expression on his face, with bitter and unfruitful thoughts.
Huddled together, arms about each other, Inspector Queen, the District Attorney and Timothy Cronin were engaged in a summary discussion of the complex features of the case.
Only Pete Harper, head drooped on his breast, feet entwined about the rungs of his chair, seemed entirely at peace with himself and the world.
This was the vacuous and still-life scene upon which a corps of police photographers and fingerprint experts noisily intruded a few moments later.
The room suddenly filled with officials.
Sampson and Cronin took their overcoats and hats from the chair on which they had been loosely thrown, and stood aside.
The chief photographer muttered some excuse about “another job” and without further conversation the men from headquarters went to work.
They invaded the Amphitheater as well as the Anteroom and Anæsthesia Room; they thronged about the operating-table; two men used the Anteroom lift to descend into the basement for a series of photographs of the dead woman and her wound. Blue-white flashes and muffled explosions punctuated the bedlam all through the main floor of the Hospital. The acrid odor of flashlight powder mingled with the sharp medicinal odor of the halls and rooms in an overpowering stench.
Ellery, chained by his thoughts, Prometheus-like, to the Caucasus of his chair, sat in the vortex of the confusion, barely conscious of sights, sounds and smells. …
The Inspector sent a bluecoat off with a word, and almost immediately the officer returned with a youngish, sandy-haired man of serious mien.
“Here he is, Chief.”
“You’re James Paradise, Superintendent of the Hospital?” demanded the Inspector.
The white-garbed man nodded, gulping. His eyes were liquid, giving him a dreamy, tearful look. The tip of his nose was unnaturally bulbous, the nostrils angular and almost without normal convolutions. He had huge red ears.
The elfin face was not unprepossessing. The man seemed too simple to be insincere, too frightened to be untruthful.
“M-m-my wife …” he began to stutter. He was deathly pale, except for the flaming shells of his ears.
“Hey? What’s that?” growled the Inspector.
The Superintendent managed a sickly grin. “My wife Charlotte,” he whispered. “She’s always having visions. She told me this morning that she’d had a warning during the night—an inner voice—that said, plain as fate, ‘There’s going to be trouble to-day!’ Isn’t that funny? We—”
“Very funny, certainly.” The Inspector looked annoyed. “See here, Paradise, you helped us a lot this morning and you don’t seem as dumb as you look. We’re busy and I want quick answers to quick questions.
“Your private office is directly opposite the East Corridor, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you in your office all morning?”
“Yes, sir. I’m busiest mornings. I didn’t leave my desk until Dr. Minchen came running—”
“I know. I understand that your chair and desk face your office door obliquely. Was the door open at any time during the morning?”
“Well—half-open.”
“Can you see—did you see—the telephone-booth through the half-open door?”
“No, sir.”
“Too bad, too bad,” muttered the Inspector. He bit his mustache vexatiously. “Well, then—did a doctor pass your line of vision between 10:30 and 10:45?”
Paradise scratched the bulb of his nose reflectively. “I—don’t—know. I was so busy. …” His eyes filled with tears. The Inspector retreated in embarrassment, “And doctors keep passing up and down the corridors all day. …”
“Oh, very well. Don’t cry, man, for heaven’s sake!” The old man turned away. “Thomas! All the doors manned? Everything all right so far—no attempts to break out?”
“Nothing stirring, Inspector. And the boys are on their toes,” rumbled the giant. He glowered at the shrinking figure of the Superintendent.
Inspector Queen beckoned imperiously to Paradise. “I want you to keep your eyes open,” he snapped. “Work right along with my men: The Hospital will be under guard continuously until we discover the murderer of Mrs. Doorn. Give us your complete cooperation and I’ll see you won’t suffer for it. Understand?”
“Y-y-yes, but—” Paradise’s ears flamed dangerously. “I-I I’ve never had a murder in my Hospital yet, Inspector. … I hope you—your men will not disrupt my organization—”
“Nothing of the kind. Beat it now!” The Inspector slapped Paradise’s quaking back, not without friendliness, and shoved him toward the door. “Off with you!”
The Superintendent disappeared.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, Henry,” said the Inspector. Sampson nodded patiently. “Now, Thomas,” went on the old man to Sergeant Velie, “you’re to put the finishing-touches on things down here. I want the theater and this room and the Anæsthesia Room next door guarded. No one is to be allowed inside; no one at all.
“And while you’re at it, you might try to trace the back-trail of the murderer from the Anæsthesia Room down the corridor, and see if you can’t find some one who saw him. He probably kept up that limp business all the way down, wherever he went.
“And then I want you to take the names and addresses of every one—nurses, doctors, internes, outsiders, and all the rest. And one thing more …”
Sampson put in quickly, “The histories, Q.?”
“Yes. Listen, Thomas. Put a squad of men to work going over the private history of every person, without exception, that we’ve encountered so far. Just a check-up, that’s all. Kneisel, Janney, Sarah Fuller, doctors, nurses—everybody you have any record of. Don’t bother to give me a long report unless you run across something unusual. What I’m interested in is facts which don’t corroborate or are missing from the testimony already given.”
“Sure thing. Guards, murderer’s getaway, names and addresses, morgue stuff. I got you,” replied Velie, scribbling in his notebook. “By the way, Inspector, Big Mike is still under the influence of ether. Won’t be able to talk for hours yet. Some of the boys are watching upstairs.”
“Fine, fine! On the job, Thomas.” The Inspector ran through the Amphitheater door, barked rapid instructions to detectives and policemen, and returned at once.
“All set, Henry.” He reached for his coat.
“Dismissing them?” The District Attorney sighed and jammed his hat over his ears. Harper and Cronin moved toward the door.
“Might as well. We’ve done all we can down here for the present. Let’s … Ellery—wake up!”
His father’s voice penetrated dimly into the fog of Ellery’s thoughts. Not once had he looked up or lost his frown during the swirling activity of the preceding few minutes. Now he raised his head and saw the Inspector, Sampson, Cronin and Harper ready to leave.
“Oh. … All the garbage incinerated?” He stretched mightily. The wrinkles vanished from his forehead.
“Yes, come on, Ellery. We’re going to the Doorn place to clean up,” said the old man testily. “Don’t dawdle, son—there’s too much to be done.”
“Where’s my coat? Here, somebody—my things are in Dr. Minchen’s office.” He rose to his full height. A policeman was dispatched on the errand.
Ellery did not speak again until the heavy black ulster was on his back. He tucked his stick under one arm and twisted the brim of his hat thoughtfully between his long fingers.
“Do you know,” he murmured, as they left the Anteroom and watched a bluecoat set his back against the door, “Abigail Doorn should have emulated the Emperor Adrian. Remember what he had inscribed on his tomb?” As they passed out of the Anæsthesia Room another man took his stand at the door. “‘A multitude of physicians have destroyed me. …’”
The Inspector froze in his tracks. “Ellery! You don’t mean—”
Ellery’s stick described a short arc and struck the marble floor resoundingly. “Oh, it’s not an accusation,” he said gently. “It’s an epitaph.”