His hands thawed a bit, Bob Murphey delved into his coat pocket and brought out the billfold he had taken from his handcuffed captive. Leaning toward the dim light out of the street beyond the alley mouth, he opened the butter-soft calfskin and riffled the sharp new bills contained therein. Sinking back onto his haunches, he whistled between his teeth. At least six hundred, maybe a thousand dollars, between one and two years’ pay for the likes of him, if you didn’t include the piddling amounts of cash and merchandise that he accepted now and then from certain cautiously selected persons on his beat for the casting of a blind eye on victimless activities.
“Well, Mr. Milo Moray,” he muttered to himself, reading the name stamped in gold leaf inside the billfold, “sure and you’re bound to have a sight more where this came from. And you do owe me something for saving your life tonight, after all.”
He stood up then and emptied the billfold, folded the bills into two wads, then stuffed one down each sock to come to rest under the arches of his feet. He then stalked over to stand looming over the prisoner.
“What did you and your partner do with this man’s money?” he demanded of the battered, manacled criminal.
Snuffling, the slumped, bleeding man half-whined, “Didn” have time to do nuthin’ with it. It’s still in his billfold, hones’ to God, it is.”
Bob Murphey sighed. “Wrong answer, feller.” Leaning down, he unlocked and removed the handcuffs, returned them to their place, then took a two-handed grip on the billy club and brought it down with all of his strength upon the prisoner’s head. Bob was a beefy man, a very strong man, and the one blow of the lead-weighted baton was all that was necessary to cave in the gaunt prisoner’s skull. Then he tucked the empty billfold back in the pocket from which he had taken it when first he had searched the man.
Of course, the initial victim of attack was apprised of none of these events until much later.
He awakened in a bed. The bed was hard, and the small pillow under his head had the consistency of a brick. He had no idea where he might be, why he was where he was, or exactly who he was.
A woman of medium height was making one of two beds on the other side of the room, moving swiftly and surely, tucking up the sheets in smooth motions that left tight corners. It was when she turned to do the same for the other bed that she noticed that he was awake. Smiling warmly, she left the rumpled bed and bustled over to crank up the head of his bed.
“Oh, Mr. Moray, doctor will be so glad to hear that we’re finally conscious. How do we feel? Any headache, hmm? Would we like a drink of nice, cool water? An aspirin?”
“Yes,” he finally got out, wondering if that croak was his normal speaking voice. “Water. Please, water.”
The white-clad woman eased him a little more erect with an arm that proved surprisingly strong, then bore a glass with a bent-glass tube to his lips and allowed him to drain it before lowering his body back down. He was again asleep before his head touched the stone-hard pillow.
When he once more awakened, the wan light that had come earlier through the window on his right was gone, replaced by the bright glare of the electric lamp in the ceiling above him. The two beds across the room sat crisply empty, and the white-clad woman who had given him water was nowhere to be seen. However, another woman, also wearing white—shoes, stockings, dress and odd-shaped cap atop her dark-blond, pulled-back hair— sat in a chair near his bedside reading a book.
He tried to amass enough saliva to moisten his mouth and bone-dry throat but, failing in the effort, croaked, “Wa … water.”
Obviously startled, the seated woman dropped her book and sprang to her feet. “Certainly, Mr. Moray, of course you may have water, all the water you want. But you’ve got to try to stay awake for a little while, too. Poor Dr. Guiscarde is dead on his feet, but he insisted that he be called as soon as you woke up again. He needs to examine you and talk with you about something he thinks important.”
While speaking, she had pushed a button, and, when another woman in white opened the door, she said, “Miss Pollak, please get word to Dr. Guiscarde that Mr. Moray is conscious now.”
Although she had promised him all the water he wanted, she actually allowed him only small sips from the glass tube and carried on a nonstop monologue for the ten minutes before a spare, gangly young man entered and took her place at the bedside, signaling her to raise the head of the bed. From his black bag he removed a stethoscope, a reflector mounted on a headband and several other instruments, with which he proceeded to subject the patient to a brief examination. Then, bidding the woman to leave the room, he took her chair, slumping into it with a deep sigh.
“Do you recall anything of what happened to you night before last, Mr. Moray? No? Well, a beat cop interrupted a pair of men who had slugged you, knocked you down and were in the process of robbing you. When he went to the callbox to get an ambulance down there, the two came back, but that was when their luck ran out; one ran again but the other fought, and the cop killed him with his baton, I hear tell. Officer Robert Emmett Murphey is as strong as the proverbial ox, so I find it entirely believable that he bashed the robber just a little too hard.
“The hoodlum who got away must have had the money from your billfold, that and your watch and chain, which were ripped from your vest to the severe detriment of the pocket and buttonhole, I fear me. But they never had time or leisure to get your vest open, much less the shirt, so your moneybelt and all within it are laid away in the hospital safe in an envelope that I personally sealed before turning it over to the administrator. But, man, don’t you know that it’s been illegal to hold gold for more than two years now? If the federal government knew you were walking around with six or seven pounds of double eagles, they’d roast you over a slow fire.
“Not that I necessarily agree with Roosevelt’s policies, you understand, for they don’t seem to be working out all that well for the vast majority of the people who have elected him twice, now. About the only good thing he’s done was to make it legal to sell good booze again, in place of those poisonous bootleg slops.
“When you are ready to convert some of those gold pieces to cash, let me know. I think my father would buy them from you at a premium, since they look to be brand-new, unworn coins. He’s a well-known numismatist, so he can buy and hold them legally, which is one way to get around Roosevelt and his socialism.
“Strange thing about you, though. When they brought you in here, your hair was a sticky mat of blood, yet I could find no wound or even an abrasion anywhere on your head to account for that blood. Your hat was crushed, which might mean that the thick, stiff furfelt absorbed most of the blow you were dealt, but that still doesn’t account for the blood. My theory is that blood, from the man the cop killed ran down to the center of the alley and pooled under your head. Gruesome, heh? But it’s as reasonable a theory as any other, I think.
“I’m going to have you moved upstairs to a nicer room, a real private room. I’d like to observe you for a few days —head injuries can be tricky. You can easily afford private nurses and these days most of the nurses are in dire need of patients who can pay for their services. Mrs. Jennings, who was here when you woke a few minutes ago, will be your night nurse, and I have another in mind for your day nurse, too. Should you not care for what the hospital kitchen calls food, and not many do, there are several restaurants hereabouts that can cater your meals for reasonable costs.