"If her pocketbook contained only one dollar and she had no addresses upon her person, Doctor?"
"They would not take a chance on someone paying for a private room, Mr. Higgins. You are right. The only chance is whether she can pass the accident staff, as I see it."
"That is a chance we have to take," Mr. Higgins decided.
"One more question, Doctor, and then, with your permission I should like to have some private place where I may talk to Mr. Smooty and Miss Parkins before we turn Miss Parkins out upon the street and you take Mr. Smooty to the head orderly.
"Two more questions, now I think of it. The first: How is the hysteria throughout the hospital? The second: You expect, of course, that Mr. Smooty will be suspected as a detective?"
"Since the last question has the shortest answer, I will go to that first. That seems to me unavoidable, Mr. Higgins, and perhaps will work to our advantage. It will focus attention, from the nursing, medical and menial staffs, upon one person.
"As to the hysteria in the hospital. It is at a dangerous level and rising hourly. Not among the patients, yet.... Thank God! ... with the exception of the patients on Ward B and they have been told that Miss Standish, the nurse, hemorrhaged (we put her in as a tubercular suspect) and although they probably believe her dead, they have no proof. And their attention has been diverted by the terrible condition of Dr. Sterling, Senior. He has always been a great favorite throughout the wards. Patients love him. The other patients, on the other wards are too segregated and many of them too dangerously ill to be excited or aware of the situation.
"According to Miss Carruthers, our superintendent of nurses, to whom I was just talking, the hysteria among the nursing staff is serious. Before the death of the nurse they took the excitement mildly, with the exception of the people in Medicine Clinic who were questioned.
"With the exception of the General Staff, the toxicologist, the chief pharmacist, and the staff of Medical Clinic, no persons in the hospital have any definite knowledge as to whether these patients are murders or fadeouts.
"Perhaps it is that lack of knowledge which has so increased the fever heat among the medical staffs. They suspect, but they _do not know_. And half knowledge, and especially around a hospital...."