In the porcelain-walled hospital canteen, Crane brooded over coffee liberally laced with whisky. He felt very bad. He blamed himself for the woman s escape; he still didn t know how to pin the crimes on the murderer; he felt he had failed Ann. He wished he wasn t a detective.
At his table, having coffee and hamburger sandwiches, was practically everyone in any way connected with the case. Dr Rutledge had returned after four hours sleep, and the others were staying all night in the hospital, despite the fact that Simeon March had passed his crisis a few minutes after the shooting and had briefly regained consciousness.
Alice March was telling the others in her sweet, malicious voice how she felt when she was confronted with Crane s revolver.
"I really thought he d run amuck," she said. "Especially when I saw the nurse lying in a pond of blood."
Peter March, his skin dead white under a blue growth of beard, listened to her with a bewildered air.
"I still don t understand all this," he said.
Between bites of hamburger, Dr Rutledge told the entire story from the time he had agreed to put Crane in Simeon March s room to the escape of the intruder. He talked mostly to Carmel, whose lovely face again reminded Crane of a tinted mask, aloof and serene, yet somehow watchful.
Further down the porcelain table was Dr Woodrin. His round face looked tired and some of the pink had faded. He listened to Dr Rutledge and drank black coffee.
"Crane thought the murderer might come back… " Dr Rutledge said.
Well, the plan had worked, Crane thought, drinking some of the coffee. Only he had muffed it. He supposed a braver man would have been closer behind the intruder, close enough to see her take the metal emergency stairs leading to the roof.
He d just about got straight in his mind what had happened. The woman, after driving him into the room with the screaming lady, had run for the elevator, only to find someone (Alice March) had called it down. So she had ducked through a door marked Exit and had run up on the roof.
He d been so dumfounded when Alice had walked out of the returning elevator, Crane admitted, that he hadn t thought of the possibility of another exit. He d felt as if the woman had blown away like a puff of smoke. He d just stared at Alice s astonished face.
A second later the guards from March amp; Company had arrived by way of the regular stairs, and he learned from them that Alice was already going up in the elevator when they reached it.
And it was Alice March who had finally said:
"Couldn t she have gone through that little door?"
On the metal stairs they had found traces of blood. A few drops had made… on the steps, and there were two maroon smudges on the steel handrail.
"Must have winged her," one of the guards said.
"Not bad, though," the other said.
There had been a guard at the foot of the outside fire escape, and for a time Crane had hoped he might have caught the woman. But the trail of blood drops led two stories down the escape, then perilously crossed to an open window in the Nurses Home adjoining City Hospital. Once in this building, the woman had walked down the back fire escape into the alley.
Crane took another drink of the spiked coffee. He had only himself to blame. Still he couldn t be expected to surround all the buildings in the neighborhood; he didn t have enough men, anyway. He…
Dr Rutledge had finished his story. Peter asked Crane, "Where s Ann?"
Crane said, "She s home, I think." He suddenly felt sick inside.
"What would she think if she knew you were mixed up in this shooting?" Carmel asked.
Her attitude toward the attack upon Simeon March, and the revelation that his being gassed in his garage was not an accident, Crane saw, was like the other Marchs, and Dr Woodrin too. They appeared to have known all the time something was wrong and were relieved it had finally been pointed out. But they still weren t discussing the matter.
He supposed he understood that, especially when the person you were discussing it with might be the murderer.
He answered Carmel s question. "She d be surprised."
Alice asked, "Doesn t she know you ve been acting as an amateur detective?"
Crane shook his head. He wished they wouldn t talk about Ann. He said, "Excuse me," and went to the telephone and called his house. His heart fluttered as the bell rang and rang. There was no answer. He wondered where Williams was.
They were talking about the floor nurse when he returned to the table.
"All that blood," Dr Rutledge was saying, "was a simple nosebleed. She s all right now."
Dr Woodrin said, "Too bad she didn t get a good look at the woman who hit her."
"She apparently creeps up behind her victims," Dr Rutledge said. "Simeon March didn t see her, either."
Mr March s brief account of the events in his garage, Crane admitted, had substantiated Williams theory. The old man told them he was getting into his sedan when someone threw a blanket over his head. He struggled, but he was easily overpowered. He was thrown to the floor, tied, and someone started the engine in his sedan. Presently he began to breathe gas… and then he woke up in bed.
Crane s mind went back to Ann. Why had she disappeared? Was she a prisoner? Could she still be alive? Or was she dead of gas?
Carmel asked Dr Rutledge when Simeon March would be able to go home. The doctor said not for several days.
"We ll have to keep the guards here, then," Peter said.
Alice March said, "That woman will never come back now."
"I m not taking any chances," Peter said.
Crane spoke to Dr Woodrin. "If the woman had smothered him with her pillow and escaped without anyone seeing her, would you have been able to tell what had happened?"
"It would ve been a perfect crime," Dr Woodrin said. "We d have thought it was the gas."
The idea was pretty horrible. The murderer was smart! And ruthless! Crane felt a conviction that Ann had stumbled upon the truth and had been removed. Well, he d spend the rest of his life…
Carmel asked him, "Would you like some more coffee and whisky?"
"I d like some whisky."
She asked Dr Rutledge for his whisky and filled Crane s cup halfway up. "You look sick," she said. "I am sick."
"It wasn t your fault the woman got away."
"I d have caught her if I d been braver."
"I think you were very brave."
"I was lousy."
"No."
A white-coated attendant tapped him on the shoulder. "You re wanted on the phone, Mr Crane."
It was Williams. He was very excited about something.
"I can t hear you," Crane said.
Williams voice sounded as though he was trying to shout through a long section of pipe. "Damn it! I m telling you I ve got the dame spotted."
"What dame?"
"The dame who raised all the hell in the hospital."
Crane was silent and Williams said:
"Can t you hear me? The dame who raised…"
"I hear you, but I don t believe you," Crane said.
"But, Bill, I spotted her when she came down the fire escape back of the Nurses Home. I saw the gun she had, so I followed her. She went…"
"Where are you?" Crane broke in excitedly.
"I don t know as I ll tell you, doubting me like that."
"Don t be coy," Crane said. "You re wonderful. You re a great detective. You re smarter than I am. I love you. Will you marry me? Will you tell me where the hell you are?"
"State highway 20-the first farmhouse to the right after the intersection of the Charlesville Pike."
"Anybody with her?"
"She went in alone, but the place may be loaded down."
"We ll be along in ten minutes."
"Like hell you will! It s twenty miles."
"Fifteen minutes then."
Williams was sitting on the running board of a rented coupe. His black eyes blinked at the array of automobiles.
"You call out the militia?"
Crane got out of Dr Woodrin s car. "Everybody insisted on coming."
Carmel March, with Peter in her convertible, called out excitedly, "Where to now?"
"Women, too?" Williams asked disgustedly.
"We couldn t keep em at home."
"There ll be shooting."
"They ll stay back."
"Well, let s go."
Williams had them drive without lights a half mile down the cement road, then signaled for all the cars to stop. About one hundred yards ahead was a side road, a gray streak against the black countryside.
"We ll walk from here," he said.
Peter March told the women to wait with the cars. He left a guard to watch the side road. "Stop anybody who drives out," he said.
In the party were three more guards, Dr Woodrin, Dr Rutledge, Peter March, Williams and Crane.
While the others discussed plans for the attack, Crane took a flashlight, covered it with his coat so there would be no glow, examined the drive. He felt great excitement when he found a series of small craters on the soft earth. The treads were exactly like those made by the marksman s car at the Duck Club.
Dr Rutledge, coming over to him from the group, asked, "What are you doing?"
"I ve found some fresh tire tracks."
They stood together while the whispered discussion continued. Crane asked the doctor, "Have you any methylene blue with you?"
"I think so. Why?"
"We might run into someone who has been gassed." He was thinking of Ann. "How long after would it work?"
"Depends upon how much gas they ve had."
"How often do you give the injections?"
"That depends upon the patient."
"How often do you spray them?"
"You don t spray. Where d you get that idea?"
"I don t know. I thought somebody told me you did."
The plan had evidently been decided upon, because Williams touched Crane, said, "Let s go."
They started and Peter March, just ahead, whispered to Williams, "You re sure she s there?"
"I know she went in."
The road seemed to be descending. At the same time it began to wind. Clumps of trees, bushes, tall grass lined both sides. They had to halt now and then while the leaders felt out the way. It was very cold and still.
"How d you follow her?" Peter March asked.
"She drove slow as hell, to keep from being stopped by cops, I guess," Williams said. "I was able to keep up with my lights off."
"I mean through this," Peter said.
"Oh. I didn t come in here. When she turned off I stopped and watched her headlights. I could see her drive down to a house and switch off the lights."
"And then you went to a farmhouse and telephoned?"
"Yeah."
They had got off the road again. One of the guards lit a match. The orange flame showed trees, white faces; then someone knocked the match out of the guard s hand. "You fool!" Dr Woodrin said. "Want to give us away?"
Williams found the road. It wasn t completely dark, and Crane could see Peter s back, just ahead of him. The sky, above a tangle of half-bare branches, was mauve. It was only an hour to sunrise. Suddenly Williams halted.
"There s the house."
Directly ahead of them was a very faint rectangle of yellow light. For a moment it looked as though the light was floating high in the air, then they saw the gray outline of a two-story farmhouse. The rectangle was a window on the second floor.
"Somebody s up," Williams said.
Whispering, they decided to send four men around the house. The other four would try to get inside without attracting attention. At the sound of shooting, the four outside would rush the house.
Williams took it for granted he would be one of the four to go inside. Everybody took it for granted Crane would be another. Peter made it three. That left one more. Dr Rutledge said he d go, but Crane objected.
"It s not your show," he said.
Dr Woodrin had been examining the house at a little distance from the group. He returned and said, "I m going. John and Richard… Talmadge… They were my best friends. It s certainly my show."