“You like being boss, don’t you?”
She smiled. “Naturally. It proves to me that I am competent. Now I’d better have one of the girls prepare you.”
I lay back weakly. “Not yet, Kate. I feel terrible. How does a guy feel when he’s going out for good?”
She put her hand on my forehead. I’d been hoping for just that. I groaned.
“Don’t leave me. Please! I’m scared. You’re the only person I know in here. Kate — hold my hand. Hold it tightl...”
“Oh, now, you’re just the victim of your own imagination,” she soothed. But she took my hand in hers. I closed my fingers tight. “Kate, you’re slipping,” I told her.
She tried to pull free and didn’t. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“You just came down from surgery. Only a matter of minutes ago. Nurses on surgical duty scrub just like the doctors and, Kate — you forgot to scrub away that dark stain of gunpowder and you forgot your hands might smell a trifle oily from holding Doane’s gun.”
I give her credit. The old girl had more spunk than I reasoned. Most women would have either begged me to shut up or promptly fainted. I hadn’t been keeping track of Kate’s other hand. Now I did. It held one of those surgical knives that are so long they must be used on horses, not people.
“Keep your voice low,” she warned. “I thought you caught up with me, Trent. I was afraid of you right from the start. The others — they’re stupid. Some of them I used. The others were too blind to see.”
“All that money,” I said with considerable apprehension. She held the knife like a veteran doctor. “All that lovely money of Doane’s. With Lila the murderer of Paul — as you wanted Doane to believe — he’d do as he always said he would. Give his estate, to charity. And what better charity than the hospital where his darling aunt works? Only you’d see that you controlled it and the staff of this hospital would do exactly what you said, including the doctors you haven’t been able to boss so far. You’d be head man here, Kate. That’s what you wanted. Money meant nothing, but power does. How am I doing, Kate?”
“You just talked yourself into the grave,” she said quietly. The scalpel came closer.
I had to do something to hold her off. I said: “Sure — the same type of knife that killed Cooney and Hazy. The kind that might leave an incision any doctor would recognize. That’s why you twisted it and made the wound look bigger. How will you explain about me, Kate? Have you thought of that?”
“I’ve thought of everything — even that,” she said. Right then I didn’t feel very good and I kept getting worse. She went on: “You’re a poor fool who is in trouble with the police and even suspected of being involved in these murders. You were horribly beaten, in danger of going back to prison. It’s quite logical that you should take your own life. Snatch this scalpel from my pocket... I’m not afraid, you see. A knife really isn’t a woman’s weapon but to me it is fast and clean. Death is no stranger to me, Mr. Trent.”
I’d been bringing up one knee slowly. I let her bend over the bed and then I raised it hard. That was perfect. The biggest dope in the world should have remembered that hospital beds are made with square corners that hold the sheets in place as if they were riveted there.
The knife was poised for a slicing blow. She was going to make it look as if I’d shaved — a bit too close. Then Anna Doane screamed. It had been she who’d opened the adjoining door to hear everything. I didn’t figure on that, though I’d hoped. Along about the time that scalpel was two inches from my throat I was even hoping for miracles.
The scream did it. Kate, so intent on her gruesome little job, was startled out of her wits. She turned like a flash and I kicked the covers free.
For the next three minutes I had a wildcat on my hands. Kate didn’t look strong, but there was power in her arms. I battled that scalpel while Anna yelled her lungs out in the hall. Sedley was one of the first to barge in. Then a couple of internes showed up, followed by nurses in starched uniforms and patients in anything they happened to have on.
I told Sedley about it later. “Kate wanted the money to further her ambitions. She’d have bought her way to becoming super of the whole damn hospital. She was obsessed with ambition and drunk with the desire for power. That can be a motive even stronger than hate sometimes.”
“Anna Doane has been doing a lot of talking,” Sedley said. “She realizes she was a dope. Kate never entered surgery tonight. Anna took her place. With those masks and the long gowns, you can’t even tell a man from a woman, let alone distinguish two females.”
“I know,” I said. “She needed the time and alibi to knock off Paul Manning and blame the kill on Lila. Things worked as she planned. Paul, of course, was another of her little men, thinking he’d land Lila if he played his cards right. Lila shot at Paul — with the same gun which had already killed him.”
Sedley nodded. “I know. Paul told her Lila was going to Freddie and she instructed him to pick her up. As they neared the spot, she shot him.”
“What Lila saw was Paul getting out of the car, either still alive but dying on his feet — or Kate was in the car holding him up somehow. The luck of a killer like Kate! Lila ran to her coupe in which Kate had already ditched the gun. Kate knew Lila would fight like a wildcat to save Freddie. So Lila blazed away and hit nothing but a lot of scenery. She didn’t even put a slug in the car. That was the giveaway so far as I was concerned. Of course I was hit on the head with the knowledge that she fired four times, but two bullets were missing.”
Sedley lit a cigar. “What about Freddie? Was he framed for that first rap?”
“Sure he was,” I said. “I haven’t any proof, but Kate will furnish it. She wanted to get rid of him because Lila had fallen, and if they married, Kate’s plans would go haywire because Lila would be protected and removed from a close association with Kate. She hired Gus Cooney to embarrass Freddie in the hope Lila might give him up. But Cooney hired me for that job and he did enough prowling to find out Kate had a money motive behind her scheme. Cooney always was a fool. He tried to blackmail her and she did some carving on his neck.”
“She killed Hazy to frame Freddie again?” Sedley asked me.
“Of course, but things happened so fast then, Kate couldn’t keep up with them. What did Anna Doane say about her own part in this?”
“Kate told her Doane’s money should go to her and June. Anna fell for it. She admitted obeying Kate and having June keep you busy while the frame was set, though Anna swears she didn’t know it was murder. Kate told her later on and convinced Anna she couldn’t back out now. So Anna went on with it, taking Kate’s place in the operating room. There would have been an alibi.”
“Speaking of alibis,” I said, “how about Westover?”
Sedley puffed contentedly. “I’m going to have him kicked off the force, Rick.”
“Nix,” I said. “Not that I wouldn’t love it, but I was too mixed up in this. If I’m forced to testify, I’ll talk myself right back into the can. This is the time Westover has it on me.”
Sedley sighed. “Whatever you say, Rick. I guess you’re right at that. But we’ll let him stew awhile.”
I swung my legs off the bed. “Let’s get out of here, Mr. Sedley. I want to see Doane and tell him he’s been betting against himself all the time and Lila is O.K. Somebody ought to feel good from this.”
“Do you think you can?” Sedley asked.
I grinned at him. A rather lopsided grin because my face still hurt. “I’ve been pasted worse than this before. You know, in a way I’m sorry I had to spring it on Kate so quickly. In her own peculiar style she had a heart.”