The voice reached the sun-parlor. It came from the firm lips of Miss Roenna Kerr.
She rose, respectfully slipped out of another door and into the main corridor of the hospital.
Doctors Peters and Paton closed the door to Dr. MacArthur's office softly behind him, and Dr. MacArthur was too weak to get up and open it.
He felt like a man ordered to fit a jigsaw puzzle during an earthquake.
Somewhere among the group of people he had seen this morning there had been a liar. Out of them some person ... in whom the hospital had placed a trust ... had lied to him, face to face. Coniine....
Malice and all uncharitableness, deceit and hate, murder and meanness. Coniine....
He cradled his head in his arms and moaned. Cub Sterling, his godchild, almost his own son, and with the exception of the old orderly William, every witness.... And now two members of the staff.
How in heaven's name could Cub ever clear himself ... now....
He was so deep in his misery that he did not hear the door open and quietly close. It was the voice which roused him.
A small nurse with an elfin face and large gray eyes was standing beside him. She said:
"Please, Dr. MacArthur, may I speak to you, suh?"
He lifted his head and motioned her to a chair. She remained standing, her upright little body with its slim legs and small, finely arched feet, motionless.
Dr. MacArthur recognized that she had something tremendously important to tell him. He smiled.
When the staff re-convened, Hoffbein was irritated. He had gone about his routine and lunched in the doctors' dining room. While he was there no other member of the staff entered and it had made him out a fool to all the internes. Looked like he wasn't "in" on the decisions. Prissy and Princeton had had ample time to repent their rash disclosure and were afraid; MacArthur might face them with it before Harrison and Bear Sterling. Dr. Harrison and Bear Sterling looked tired and uncertain. Dr. Barton's open face had assumed its judgmatical mask. Dr. MacArthur eyed each man carefully.
It was plain that all of them were ready to talk. He sat erect in his chair and prepared for battle. The small chatter died out, and the seven men silently awaited Cub Sterling.
At four minutes past two he entered. His bushy, curly hair was rumpled, his left shoulder was hysterically high. In his right hand he carried a small doll in a pink organdie dress and bonnet that continued crying, "Ma-Ma, Ma-Ma." He seemed unaware of the noise; but it pierced the other men like a jigsaw. They all jumped and Dr. MacArthur's face for the first time appeared blank. Bear Sterling was the first to regain his equilibrium; after all he had dealt with the man as a child.