"Nayaa." The inflection bore no interest, it was simply a sign that contact had been established.
"Dr. Mattus?" Miss Withers' voice was like a splash of cold water.
"What is it?" he was bluntly and resentfully awakening.
"Miss Withers, speaking. The woman in Medicine, Ward B, Bed 11, is dead."
Mattus now wide awake thundered, "Who says so?"
"The floor night student nurse has just reported to me. That's the bed...."
Mattus, too, had realized that it was. He was busily pulling on his pants. The receiver lay upon the pillow and he was calling into the mouthpiece.
"Get Cub Sterling. Notify Dr. MacArthur. Keep the day staff off the floor until notified. Call the morgue. Call.... My God, Miss Withers, call everybody but the police! No you don't. Don't call anybody but Sterling until I verify the nurse's statement."
He ran from the room, the telephone receiver still upon the bed and the lights burning. He started around the octagonal hall toward the stairway. Three flights below ... in the center of the lobby ... he could see the statue of Elijah Wilson.
As he reached the second floor he finished buttoning his pants and started toward the door of Dr. Sarah James, then remembered:
"Spending the night with her mother in Cincinnati. She would be!"
With an indignant grunt he had passed the statue and was letting out his stride down the long corridor.
As neither Dr. Cub Sterling nor Dr. Henry MacArthur answered immediately, the operator rang Miss Roenna Kerr.
Miss Kerr and Miss Withers were classmates at Mass. General and it seemed only fair to tip her....
The bedroom of Miss Roenna Kerr was bare as an operating room. It was also a front line trench, but the enemy in this case was age. Upon one chair reposed a specially built corset to hide the collapsing stomach. Under the bed stood, like a pair of dachshunds, two large white shoes with built-in bunion-rests. Under her chin nestled a wrinkle strap and her hair was in "papers." Kid papers, too. She snored with heavy precision.
For the first time since the fire in Ward M she was awakened by the insistent clamor of her telephone. She arose, put on her wool wrapper, loosened the chin strap, and walked over to the 'phone.
"Eeenie, the patient in Bed 11, Ward B, Medicine Clinic, is dead!"