“But I don’t know how to do it, Miss Gleason… You say the patient was shot…”
And then the other nurse:
“…then you simply tie the hands and feet together and…” McKenna got back into bed cautiously.
“Last rites for Mr. Griffin,” he thought. “That’s fine. It’ll take her mind off being sore.”
He had decided to leave next afternoon, when the winter dusk was closing down outside. The interne was uncertain and called the resident, just back from vacation. The latter came in after lunch when the orderly was helping McKenna pack.
“Don’t you want to see your doctor tomorrow?” he asked.
He was big and informal, more competent-looking than the interne.
“He’s just a doctor I got at the hotel. He doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Well, we’ve got one more test to hear from.”
“I haven’t got any fever,” said McKenna. “It must have been just a false alarm.”
The resident yawned.
“Excuse me,” he said—“they called me at two o’clock last night.”
“Somebody die?”
The resident nodded.
“Very suddenly. Somebody shot and killed a patient on the floor below.”
“Go on! You’re not safe anywhere now, are you?”
“Seems not.”
McKenna rang the bell at the head of the bed.
“I can’t find my hat, and none of those nurses have been in here all day—only the maid.” He turned to the orderly. “Go find a nurse and see if they know where my hat is.”
“And oh—” the resident added, “tell them if they have that test ready to send it in.”
“What test?” McKenna asked.
“Just a routine business. Just a part of your body.”
“What part?”
“It ought to be here now. It’s hard to get these laboratory tests on a holiday.”
Miss Hunter’s face appeared in the doorway but she did not look toward McKenna.
“The message came,” she said. “It was just to tell you that the test was positive. And to give you this paper.”
The resident read it with interest.
“What is it?” demanded McKenna. “Say, I haven’t got—”
“You haven’t got anything,” said the resident, “—not even a leg to stand on. In fact, I’d be sorry for you—if you hadn’t torn up that nurse’s letter.”
“What nurse’s letter?”
“The one the postman put together and brought in this morning.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“We do. You left your finger prints on it—and they seem to belong to a man named Joe Kinney who got three slugs in his bottom in New York last June.”
“You got nothing on me—what do you think you are, a tec?”
“That’s just what I am. And I know now that you work out of Jersey City and so did Griffin.”
“I was with Miss Collins when that happened.”
“What time?”
Catching his mistake McKenna hesitated.
“I was with her all evening—till one o’clock.”
“Miss Collins says she left you after five minutes because you got tough with her. Say, why did you have to pick a hospital? These girls have work to do—they can’t play with animals.”
“You got nothing at all on me—not even a gun.”
“Maybe you’ll wish you had one when I get done with you down at the station. Miss Hunter and I are engaged to be married and that letter was to me.”
By nightfall the hospital showed signs of increasing life—the doctors and nurses back early to go to work in the morning, and casualties of riot and diet, victims of colds, aches and infections saved since Christmas. Even the recently vacated beds of Messrs. Griffin and McKenna would be occupied by tomorrow. Both of them had better have celebrated the holidays outside.
Published in Esquire magazine (December 1937).
