"They'll strip you to the bone when you go through that accident racket. A gun is out of the question. You'll have Snod." He motioned to Mr. Smooty.
"He is slow as hell about wiping dishes when you are having a Sunday night supper. I couldn't get him out of that kitchen till I'd been dead hours."
Smooty's green eyes took on life for the first time since he had entered the room. He said.
"A hospital's duty is to protect everybody. I'll be a member of a hospital staff in twenty minutes, Lil."
She shrugged her square shoulders and her limpid eyes begged.
"The murderer is a member of the hospital staff, Snod. He'll beat you to it."
"For God's sake, Lil! Hold on to yourself!"
Higgins smiled strongly into her eyes and threw his overcoat over the dolls. "There's enough hysteria around here as it is. Don't add to it. Unless Snod has something to say I guess you might just as well sneak out and do your fainting fit. Want me to send you flowers when you get sick, little girl?"
"Hush, Matt. Flowers are not funny in this case."
She opened her handbag and took out three hundred dollars in fifty dollar bills and counted them carefully. Beside them she laid the cards of a speakeasy on West 11th Street and of one on 44th. She opened the zipper center of the black alligator bag and took from it her identification card with the agency and the picture of a man in an officer's uniform of the British Intelligence. Near these she spread a large white silk handkerchief into which she scooped the outlay, and then removed from her wrist a large sapphire and diamond wrist watch. She closed the bag, first counting the money remaining. One dollar bill and three dimes and a nickel. Then she tied the contents of the bag in the large silk handkerchief and handed it to Higgins.
He took it carefully and put it in his coat pocket.
"Going, Lil?" His gray eyes looked up into her limpid ones confidently.
Miss Evelina Kerr, student night nurse on Ward B, Medicine Clinic, shook down the thermometer and inserted it into the mouth of the new patient in Bed 11, with an air of relief, and just a touch of condescension.
"Good evening. Have you remembered your name?"
Miss Lillian Parkins weakly shook her head and her eyes were sad.