The Shadow - 312 - Murder in White by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1947-02-28T23:00:00+00:00

“I’m sure that whoever is involved in this maddening charade has seen through my excuse for being in the hospital.”

“Oh… but wait… you’re not going to leave me to this horror, are you?”

“No, I’ll see it through.”

“Then by all means keep the bandages on. It’ll keep any talk amongst the staff to a minimum. They have accepted you as an accident case. If I take the cast off, they’re going to wonder what you’re doing here.”

“If you think it’d be wiser, why all right. But I must say it’s a nuisance. Did you find out anything at all when you looked the place over?”

“Not a sign of Barren at all! To all intents and purposes he might as well have changed into smoke and vanished!”

“No one saw anything out of the way at all?”

Doctor Bennit shook his head. “Not unless you’d call this remarkable.” He took a golf ball from his pocket and rolled it across his desk towards Cranston.

“A golf ball? Where was it?”

“One of the cleaning women found it in a corner of the hall… about a hundred feet down from Suite B.”

It was a perfectly ordinary-looking golf ball and yet the expression in Cranston’s eyes as he looked at it was strange. He stared at it as though to ask it what it had seen lying in a corner of the hall. If it could talk it would have a bizarre tale to tell, he thought.

“You don’t really think that has anything to do with the disappearance of Barren’s body, do you?”

Cranston started to nod yes, but before he could speak the door opened.

His close friend, Commissioner of Police of the city of New York, was standing there. Weston eyed Cranston for a moment before he spoke. “I call your house fifteen times in a day and a half. Your servants have no idea where you are…

no idea at all… I suppose they don’t know that you’re right here in the Rabout Memorial Hospital?”

“Mmmm… if they do, they know better than to tell anyone.” Cranston grinned at his friend. “This is the police commissioner, Dr. Bennit.”

Bennit’s face lit up momentarily, “I am honored to think that you felt this was of sufficient importance for you to come in person.” But the smile faded instantly.

“I have a motive. I’ve been giving money to the hospital for a good many years. I don’t want any scandal to hurt it. I had my appendix out here, you know, Lamont.”

“I didn’t, but I’m glad you have a personal interest in this mess.”

Weston sat down and lit a cigar. “Tell me about it. All I heard from the teletype was some nonsense about a body getting up and meandering off. Now, that’s ridiculous, you know.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” agreed Dr. Bennit. “But nevertheless that is what we are faced with.”

While Cranston was sketching in the background of the case from the death of Thomas Melltin as a result of an operation by Dr. Bennit, followed by the death of Barren and the death of Jolas, a knock came at the door.

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