by Helen Wells
“Miss Ames!” Dr. Wylie whispered. He beckoned her to come. As Cherry stepped out into the hall, the two men in business suits and the man in uniform withdrew deeper into the shadows, so that she could not see their faces. But she felt their eyes studying her. The patient’s face was half-hidden with a towel. What—who—was this?
“Anyone on your ward awake?” Dr. Wylie demanded under his breath.
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Good. Where’s Miss Hall?”
“I don’t know any Miss Hall, sir. I never heard of her.”
“No, you wouldn’t at that. Go in there and remake the bed and bring heated blankets. Where the devil can she be? And Miss Ames!”
“Yes, Dr. Wylie?”
She could hear his taut breathing in the dark. “Not a word of this to anyone. You understand? Now hurry as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir,” Cherry faltered. She ran into the room and flung open the window. The air was dry and stale, the room had been closed for a long time. Beyond the bathroom, she found, was another room and two closed doors. She remade the bed quickly and dashed about the room wiping up the worst of the dust, then flew out to heat blankets.
As she came out the door, the men’s voices suddenly halted and they preserved silence until she had passed. What was this, anyway? Something terribly important, judging by their secrecy. Cherry thought of gangsters and heads of governments in a wild whirl as she hastily prepared blankets. The two men in business suits did not look like ordinary men, she thought, as she sped back. They had a professional air—no, not exactly—a commanding air.
The hall was empty now. She rapped softly on the door. It opened a crack. Dr. Wylie looked through, and beyond him Cherry saw a pile of airplane luggage. She handed in the blankets.
“Will you want anything else, sir?” she whispered.
“No, thanks,” he said gruffly. “Just one or two things. If the number three rings on the call board, ignore it. I’ll have it disconnected. Don’t let anyone in here. I’ll stay with the patient myself. If Miss Hall comes, tell her to wait in my office, and let me know. She probably won’t come now before you go off duty, so don’t worry about that.” He paused, thinking and frowning. Cherry waited. She heard someone calling in the ward, but still Dr. Wylie kept her.
“Is that all, sir?” she asked finally.
He looked at her and seemed to return from a long way off. “Ames. Nurse. Oh, yes. Now see here, Miss Ames. I cannot impress this on you too strongly.” His face was very serious. “You are not to tell anyone—anyone—of what you have seen tonight, on pain of expulsion. And you are never to go into that room again.”
He closed the door and the lock clicked. Cherry had just turned away, when the door opened again and Dr. Wylie’s hawk face darted out at her.
“And, Miss Ames!”
“Yes, sir,” Cherry quavered, wondering how much more her shaking knees could survive.
“Wipe that rouge off your face!”
Cherry did not know whether to laugh or cry.
CHAPTER XI
The Forbidden Room
“THE POOR SUFFERING LITTLE THINGS,” ANN GASPED. “Oh, what agony those babies are in!”
“Don’t tell me we looked as forlorn and scared and helpless as that only a few months ago!” Gwen said.
Cherry looked up from her thoughts. They were in the nurses’ pretty green-and-peach dining room. The new probationers were giving the usual performance of new probationers. Cherry had to grin in spite of herself.
“Somebody ought to adopt them,” she said casually. “One apiece.”
The other girls pounced on her suggestion. “If someone had only adopted me in those first misguided weeks!” Marie Swift exclaimed. And Josie said, “You mean those first nerve-racking days, don’t you?” Mai Lee declared that she had already singled out the little shy one for her adoptee.
“Now, now!” Cherry said hastily. “I don’t mean we should turn ourselves into a day nursery this minute! Heavens, we’re still awfully green ourselves. I mean when we’re seniors, maybe.” Self-doubt as to her own nursing ability assailed her: would she ever be a senior?
“All right! When we’re seniors!” the girls chorused and at once fell to making plans. Almost two and a half years in advance.
Cherry smiled and went back to her brooding. If her fellow nurses guessed what a tremendous secret she was stuffed with, they would not be talking about probationers. All she could think of was the strange patient who had entered the erstwhile “Broom Closet” just a week ago tonight. Bits of the mystery were unraveling. Curiously, she had never seen the mysterious Miss Hall.
Vivian Warren flew over to their table, out of breath and glowing, and flung herself into a chair. Cherry dismissed the mystery for a moment.
“I’ve got it!” Vivian exclaimed. “Oh, I’m so happy! I’ve got my government scholarship! Now I can go on with my nursing training!” She turned involuntarily to Cherry.
“I’m so glad,” Cherry said, and she meant it. The other girls pressed Vivian with their congratulations.
“And that’s not all!” Vivian told them importantly. “Do you know that half of the probies coming in now are on government scholarships? Miss Reamer told me they’re aided by the U. S. Cadet Nurse Corps.”
Gwen gave a low whistle. “They sure must need nurses, to give training and maintenance free!”
“That’s not exactly news,” Marie Swift said. “Always need more nurses in wartime. Not only on the battle fronts either. Look at the shortage right here in Spencer, with nurses leaving for war fronts.”
“No, no, not only because of the war!” Vivian said. “We’ll be needed just as much after the war. Nursing isn’t just a temporary war job. There is an awful shortage of nurses. It’s a war job with a future.”
They looked around at the new probationers. Most of them were the girls’ own age, about eighteen, like Cherry and Ann and Gwen, but they saw a number of women in their twenties and thirties, too. Two new faces were frankly thirty-five. Some were only seventeen.
“And the older ones need adopting just as much as the infants,” Ann said. “A probie is a desperate stricken creature, no matter what her age.” And they gave themselves up to candidly enjoying seeing someone else struggle through the discomfiture they themselves had only barely graduated from.
“We’re not adopting-seniors yet,” Cherry reminded them as they all rose from the table. “Where are you bound for now?”
“The lake. Not just for the moonlight, either,” Gwen said. “We want to look longingly at where we’re going to throw our black stockings when we graduate.”
“You have senioritis tonight,” Cherry teased. “Take a look for me. I’m going to squeeze in a nap before I go on night duty.”
They said good night and Cherry went back alone to the Nurses’ Residence.
In her own cozy little room, she shut the door, dimmed the lamp and lay down on the bed. It was quiet and balmy, but she did not sleep. She had too much thinking to do.
Step by step she went over the broken bits of information she possessed. By now she was sure that the patient brought in, in the dead of night, had not come from another wing of the hospital, but from the outside. The haste and secrecy pointed to that, as did the pile of airplane luggage. Certainly it had been a strange roundabout way of bringing in a new admission.
He was a new admission, of that Cherry was certain. She got that far and then she was stumped. Why did she never see Miss Hall? Why did she never see Dr. Wylie enter, or food go in there?
There must be another entrance, probably on the fire stairs, Cherry figured. That explained Dr. Wylie and the matter of food. Of course the food might come up by dumb-waiter. As for Miss Hall, Cherry remembered having seen another room beyond the bathroom. Miss Hall was not doubt living there.
But there was something else. Every night since the mysterious patient had been shut up in there—and everyone still believed it was only a broom closet, as labeled
—Cherry had heard voices. Masculine voices in that room, around midnight every night. Sometimes as many as a dozen. And once she had seen a man wandering around the corridor as if he were lost. She had known better than to approach him, and he had quickly disappeared. That meant that the patient, whoever he was, had secret night visitors.
And what did all this add up to? Cherry sighed. She could not guess, except that the ill man was important and was handling some affairs of the utmost secrecy. Since the other men came to him, he must be at the head of something. And that was as far as Cherry could get. She had plenty of ideas but no facts to check them with. She wished she could talk this over with Jim Clayton, or with sympathetic Marjory Baker. But Dr. Wylie had told her not to talk and never to go in there—on pain of expulsion. And that would be something Jim Clayton could not save her from.
Jim … She really ought to stop thinking about Jim Clayton. Mooning around when she ought to be studying. And Jim would not have any use for her if she were not a good nurse. Cherry still had plenty of doubts about herself. There was over two years to go—would she make it? Would her dream of nursing hold up under the strain of such things as Dr. Wylie and cranky patients and that tough surgical clinic? Jim had bucked her up over and over again. “If it hadn’t been for him,” Cherry thought gratefully, “I might have lost faith in myself. Wobbly as that faith is.”
And maybe, Cherry thought, it was those buckingsup she felt so emotionally about, and not Jim himself. Maybe she was not in love with Jim at all. Maybe it was just gratitude and this delicious spring weather. “Marjory Baker could tell me,” Cherry thought with a smile. Her first head nurse was by this time a real friend. “I’m lucky. Clayton and Baker—two of the nicest people in the hospital—for my friends.”
Then she noticed with surprise that her battered alarm clock pointed to five minutes of eleven. She got up and sprinted across the lawn for the ward. Late, always late. Now she had missed her ten-thirty supper; how would she ever hold out until seven o’clock breakfast? Time always had been her worst enemy, she mourned as she raced into the shadowy ward, almost on time. The relief nurse, who was not too cooperative at any time, glowered at Cherry and left her alone with the patients on the silent darkened ward.
Cherry made the rounds with the flashlight, her rubber soles squishing on the linoleum floor. All quiet, everyone asleep for once. She returned to the desk, and in the lamp’s circle of light, began filling out the night report, when an extraordinary flash came from the call board in the private pavilion across the hall. The call board really belonged to the private pavilion, but it was near enough for Cherry to see and hear it. This flash stuttered and broke.
Cherry knew what it was. She had seen it occasionally, briefly, two of the past seven nights. It was Room 3—the secret room. Dr. Wylie had omitted to have it disconnected. She tried not to pay any attention to the flash. She saw nurses passing in the private pavilion and they paid no attention to it.
But it flashed persistently tonight, so persistently that it worried her. Other nights it had flashed only briefly, as if someone in the room had brushed against it by accident. But Room 3 had been calling for five minutes now.
The supervisor came in. She was a tall, thin, dark woman, always reserved and cold and full of the importance of her position.
“Everything all right, Miss Ames? Are you watching Mr. Bond’s temperature?” The supervisor lifted a cover, seemed satisfied. Cherry still saw the broken flash in the hall and wanted to say something to the supervisor. But she dared not give the secret away. She chose her words carefully.
“Is that call board broken by any chance?”
“Why?” The supervisor looked down the hall. “Oh, I see what you mean. That 3 is just an error. The electrician probably did not know that it only connects with the Broom Closet. Probably a crossed wire, that’s all. Just ignore it, Miss Ames.” She left.
But Cherry could not ignore it. Room 3 had been calling on and off for ten minutes now. That was no accidental brush, nor a crossed nor loose wire, either. That man was calling in there.
Something was wrong. Why should he be calling when his nurse was always with him? Or was Miss Hall with him? Cherry paced the ward uneasily, always returning to find that broken nervous flash before her eyes. She was getting jumpy herself. She went over to the door of the Broom Closet and, after looking around to see that no one was passing, rapped softly. There was no answer. She waited, rapped again. If Miss Hall were there, surely she would make a sign of some kind. There was no response. Miss Hall was not in there, Cherry guessed. That man was alone and signaling because he was in trouble.
Cherry’s heart turned over. She was the only person around who knew the secret, and she was forbidden to go in there. She must locate Miss Hall at once. She ran to the elevator.
“I dunno her name, Miss, she’s a strange nurse I never seen before,” the elevator man told her. “She said, ‘Take me down to the lab,’ and I said, ‘That’s against the rules,’ and she said, ‘But I have Dr. Wylie’s key,’ and I said——”
Cherry thought rapidly, “If she had Dr. Wylie’s key, that’s Miss Hall, all right. But what was she going to the lab for? Drug? Serum? If it was only for medicine, she could have gone to the apothecary. She needs a drug or a serum.” She returned her attention to the elevator man.
“—so I waited like she said and she come back from the lab looking worried and not carrying nothing. About five minutes later, she rings again, and there she is in her hat and coat looking terribly worried and in an awful hurry. I take her down to the main lobby and she tells me again to keep mum and then goes out on the street. Almost running, she was.” That meant, Cherry knew, Miss Hall had found no drug or serum in the laboratory which would be right or safe for the mysterious patient, and was going to another hospital or a commercial laboratory for it. At midnight!
Cherry frowned. “Did she say anything about Dr. Wylie?”
“She asked me where he was and if he came in to send him up to Miss Ames. Who’s Miss Ames?” asked the elevator man.
“I’m—” Cherry started and then checked herself. So they were using her name as a signal! “Miss Ames is not important. And it really is a secret.”
The man gaped. “Shouldn’t I’ve told you?”
“I’m the one person it’s all right to tell. But for goodness’ sake, don’t mention it to another soul.”
“I won’t, Miss. But I don’t understand all this foolishness.” The elevator man closed the car door, shaking his head, and Cherry heard the elevator slide down the shaft.
From then on Cherry moved fast. She phoned Dr. Wylie’s office. He was not there. She phoned Dr. Wylie’s home. He was not there, either. He had left with three men. No, they did not know where he was if not at the hospital. Cherry left a message that he call Miss Ames and hung up, thinking.
Room 3 had been flashing for fifteen minutes now. It was midnight and the relief nurse came in, so Cherry could take a brief rest period. She was afraid to leave. Cherry waved her aside. “But I may need you to take over the ward a little later,” she said.
“Really, Ames, I don’t understand you,” the relief nurse said pettishly. “I’m not here just for your personal convenience.” She marched off again.
“Oh, Lord, I’ve offended her!” Cherry thought. With all her other worry, she’d have to deal later with an uncooperative relief nurse. But there was no time to worry. What was the best way to deal with her responsibility and still not bare the secret? She should, Cherry knew, in ordinary circumstances, go to the supervisor and let the supervisor take over the responsibility. Very well, she’d try again with the supervisor. She’d drop a broader hint this time and see what she could learn. Almost running, she found the supervisor at her desk.
“Why aren’t you on your ward? Have you left your ward alone?” the supervisor demanded. “Certainly I’m sure. Of course there’s no one in Room 3. There used to be a suite of rooms there, but the private pavilion never used it because it wa
s expensive and inconvenient. About a year ago we closed it up. Nonsense, Miss Ames, you must be dreaming. I told you it was only a crossed wire, didn’t I?”
Cherry made a guarded reply and sped back to her ward. She made a quick check-up, flashlight in hand, and found everything all right. The flash from Room 3 was coming weakly and irregularly now. But it was still coming. She must do something, and quickly! But what? Cherry racked her brain.
She had been forbidden to enter the room. Send a doctor in. That had to be done by supervisor’s order and the supervisor simply did not believe Cherry. “All right,” Cherry thought. “I’ll get a doctor in there on my own. Someone I know and trust. Who’s on night duty?” She thought hopefully of Dr. Freeman, then remembered that he had been transferred. Cherry did not know the present interne, Dr. Low. Dr. “Ding” Jackson would understand. She phoned Emergency Ward. This was his night off. Dr. Wylie probably had no assisting doctor on this case. She wondered if, by any miracle, Jim Clayton might be on night duty. She phoned the central operator and inquired. Jim was on tonight! That was a piece of luck.
“How can I come up there when you won’t even give me a reason?” his deep voice boomed over the wire.
“Oh, please, please!” Cherry begged into the phone. “I can’t tell you—won’t you take my word for it?”
She heard him laughing. “But it’s against all the rules. Get your supervisor, Cherry. You mustn’t take things into your own hands.”
No, but she must not let that man in there die, either. Why would no one believe her? She hung up discouragedly. No patient must be left alone to die, and this man was an important man whose death might mean a great deal to many, many people. That much she could sense. She stood there trembling, trying to decide between the rules of medical ethics and the age-old dictum, “The patient must be saved at all costs!”
“A fine nurse I am!” she thought disgustedly. “Well, here’s where I get myself expelled!”