Prissy, whose telephone was as much a part of his bedtime equipment as his nightshirt, had lain perfectly flat upon his bed and with their decisions his "seven months gone" bay-window rose and fell. Cushioned upon what had once been his chest was a French telephone.
Their first decision had been to tell MacArthur "right out" that they had to have a private meeting without either of the Sterlings present, and decide something.
As Prissy's upper teeth and Princeton's lower ones were removed for the night, their vehemence had seemed awfully mushy to the telephone operator when she cut in for Paton's resident.
But when the discourse was resumed Princeton had said:
"I shell inten' to shay, at the meetin' we are demandin', Paton."
"That we cannot have our poshishun jepodized any longer. Action" ... the bay-window rose ... "must be taken immediately. The powice--"
Five minutes had been lost over that word. Neither of them could persuade the telephone to accept it.
"The law to intervene," Princeton finally substituted.
"I agwee entirely, Peshurs. I'll stan' behin' you, straight through."
Prissy's offer even in the noontide sun would have come in a high treble and over the telephone and under the circumstances it didn't sound very convincing.
However, after they had both bathed, both felt her death had purified them, both inserted their teeth, both had called MacArthur and requested a meeting minus the Sterlings.
It had left them a little shaky ... but now that Dr. MacArthur was beginning to speak, Prissy nodded to Princeton who tiptoed to the door and closed it. They felt they had been justified in the action they had taken.
"Gentlemen," Dr. MacArthur's voice was measured and low, "Rose Standish is dead. She was murdered last night while a patient in Bed 11, Ward B, of Medicine Clinic. An injection of coniine. She went on that ward to save your reputation and mine. To lift the hospital out of terror ... and she is dead, and we are...."
"I was against it from the first," Princeton began clearing himself with the rapidity of a condemned schoolboy.
Nobody paid him the slightest attention. Prissy blushed, and Hoffbein squirmed.
"We are faced," Dr. MacArthur's blue eyes had taken on their fighting steeliness, "with the blackest day the Elijah Wilson has ever seen. With the fact that no patient anywhere is safe in any bed of the institution ... with the responsibility of catching a murderer within our walls. A person who has committed two untraceable, two traceable murders. D'y'see? Gentlemen, I ask your advice."