"Yes. After the first, the student nurse claimed that she felt someone on the floor, but was boiling a syringe and could not leave and that a patient said it was...."
"That is just what I do not want to know."
"For six months, Mr. Higgins, we have had on that ward a little girl, a chronic nephritis ..." he looked over his glasses and explained to Miss Parkins, "a kidney ailment of a very stubborn sort.... She is really pretty and quite a favorite throughout the hospital. Upon her crib, the morning after the first traceable murder she found a doll."
He opened his desk drawer and took out the Ma-ma doll. Miss Parkins reached for it to straighten the bonnet, and it howled. She turned it over quickly and Mr. Smooty said, "Jesus Christ!"
It was the first response he had made to any of the information. Mr. Higgins ignored it and said, "Finger-prints?"
"It had been handled by many people when we got it, sir."
"Yes. Of course. After the second murder, Doctor?"
"There was no doll upon her bed, but this doll was found...." and he reached for the Pa-pa doll and handed it to Mr. Smooty, whose green eyes were like pin points.
"Where, Doctor?" his voice was again colorless.
But his interest was so concentrated that he forgot and turned the doll over and it whined, "Pa-pa."
Everybody jumped and Mr. Higgins reached for both of them and laid them on the mahogany table upon their backs. They closed their eyes and Miss Parkins looked at the crisp bonnets, dresses and panties and shivered.
"I think we should know where it was found, Doctor," Mr. Higgins' voice was firm.
"In the desk of the Head Nurse of Medicine Clinic, sir. A doctor looking for case charts discovered it, accidentally."
"Is she friendly with the night student nurse?" It was Smooty who spoke.
"She is her aunt, gentlemen," and then Dr. MacArthur cleared his throat and continued, "She was one of the first head nurses when the hospital was young. Her work has always been well executed. A very trusted woman."
"The head of the clinic, Dr. Ethridge Sterling, Junior, affectionately known as 'Cub' Sterling. He is on probation, very confidentially, as head. The physician-in-chief died of a heart attack last spring, and Dr. Sterling, who has done very brilliant work, has temporarily his chief's place. His father is Dr. Ethridge Sterling, possibly you have heard...?"