Dutch Shoe Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

institution. Dr. Dunning was grey, with a startling seamed face from which mild brown eyes peered. The girl was fair and unhandsome. There was an appreciable tic in one eyelid.
    The gallery rose from the floor of the theater, separated from the orchestra by a high impassable barrier of white wood. The rows of seats ascended steeply toward the rear—much as in the balcony of a theater for the drama. At the rear wall was a door, opening outward on a circular staircase which led to the floor below and gave directly on the North Corridor. *
    The sound of footsteps now became audible, the door swung open, and Philip Morehouse stepped nervously into the gallery, his eyes roving. His brown overcoat and hat had disappeared. Spying the Medical Director, he ran down the stepped ramp and bent over to whisper into Minchen’s ear.
    Minchen nodded gravely, turned to Ellery. “Meet Mr. Morehouse, Ellery—Mr. Queen.” He waved his fingers. “Mrs. Doorn’s attorney.” The two men shook hands; Ellery smiled mechanically, turned back to watch the orchestra.
    Philip Morehouse was a lean man with steady eyes and a stubborn jaw. “Hulda, Fuller, Hendrik Doorn—they’re downstairs now in the Waiting Room. Can’t they possibly be present during the operation, Doctor?” he whispered urgently. Minchen shook his head. He indicated the seat next to him. Morehouse frowned, but sank into the chair and instantly became absorbed in the movements of the nurses below.
    An old man in white shuffled up the steps, peered into the gallery, caught the eye of an interne, nodded violently, and at once disappeared. The click of the lock in the door held a note of finality. For an instant the old man could be heard rustling about behind the door; then even the sound of his movements died.
    The orchestra of the Amphitheater had settled down now to a hushed expectancy. Ellery thought it very like the moment in a legitimate theater just before the rise of the curtain, when the audience holds its breath and absolute quiet descends on the house. … Under a triple brace of electric globes of immense size, emitting a cold, steady and brilliant light, stood an operating-table. It was denuded, pitiless in its lack of color. Near it was a table stacked with bandage, antiseptic cotton, small bottles of drugs. A glass-covered case of shining, wicked-looking steel instruments was being watched over by an interne, who kept sterilizing them in a compact little machine at his right hand. At one side of the room two white-gowned surgical assistants—men—stood over porcelain bowls carefully washing their hands in a bluish fluid. One imperiously reached for a towel handed him by a nurse; he dried his hands quickly and on the instant bathed them once more, this time in a watery-looking fluid.
    “Bichloride of mercury solution, then alcohol,” whispered Minchen to Ellery.
    Immediately upon drying his hands of the alcohol, the assistant surgeon held them out while a nurse removed a pair of rubber gloves from a sterilizing machine and smoothed them onto the doctor’s hands. A similar procedure was followed with the other surgeon.
    Suddenly the door at the left of the room opened and the slight, limping figure of Dr. Janney appeared. He looked around with one of his bird-like glances, then limped rapidly over to a wash-bowl. He slipped out of his gown and a nurse skilfully dressed him in a freshly sterilized gown. While the surgeon bent over the bowl, rinsing his hands thoroughly in the blue bichloride solution, another adjusted a fresh white cap on his head, carefully tucking in his greyish hair.
    Dr. Janney spoke without looking up. “The patient,” he said brusquely. Two assistant nurses quickly opened the door leading to the Anteroom. “The patient; Miss Price!” one said. They disappeared into the room, emerging a moment later pushing a long, white rubber-shod wheel-table on which lay a quiet figure covered with a sheet. The patient’s head was thrown far back;