“Not without someone seeing him,” Mabry replied. “They can be barred. And they let in light. If the generator goes, we want to be in the best-lit room in the house, at least during daylight hours.”
I turned to Jack. “Can we move beds in there? I don’t like having patients on the floor.”
Paulus answered me. “We’ve no folding beds, but we can move mattresses down. How many would we need?”
“Seven,” I replied. “We’ve five sick men, and Archie. And a mattress for the attending nurse to use.”
“Do it,” Jack said to the orderlies.
“We’ll be quick.” Paulus was even paler than before. “I’ve no desire to be up here longer than I have to. Not after that.”
Jack, Mabry, and I descended the stairs to the main floor. “I wish I had a weapon,” Mabry said. “I don’t like how he’s creeping around the house behind our backs. We should be armed.”
“I agree,” said Jack. “A handgun would be best. Too bad they don’t keep them in madhouses.”
I halted on the stairs.
The men stopped and turned. “What is it, Kitty?” said Jack.
I looked at them uncertainly. “Is a Luger a handgun?”
Jack and Mabry exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Mabry said. “It is.”
“Then we have one,” I said. “At least, I think we do. It’s Creeton’s.” I bit my lip. “He told me they took it from him when they checked him in here. There’s a safe in Matron’s office where she locks up the men’s valuables, the things she doesn’t keep in the main cupboard.” I glanced at Jack. “Boney told me about it. If she confiscated Creeton’s gun, she wouldn’t have discarded it. She would have locked it up.”
The men considered this. “And how,” Jack said slowly, “would we get into Matron’s safe?”
I pulled out the key ring I’d taken from her cardigan pocket. It held the key to the cupboard where I’d found Jack’s clothes, but there was a scrap of cloth attached to it as well. I’d noticed it when I’d first grabbed the ring, but I hadn’t paid it much attention. Now I did. Because Matron would have kept the two things together—the key to the men’s belongings and the key to the valuables, two things that were her responsibility alone.
“I think this is it,” I said.
Jack reached for it, but it was Mabry who took it from my hand. He stared at it with what seemed like fascination. Numbers were inked onto the scrap of cloth. Six numbers. A combination.
“The safe,” I said, “will have any valuables the men brought in. Money. Watches. Gold. Passports.” I bit my lip. “All of it.”
Mabry closed his hand around it. He really did look tired, I worried. “Well,” he said quietly. “I believe it’s official. The inmates are now running the asylum.”
“Take it,” I said. “But be aware. Creeton’s going to want the contents of that safe. And he’s going to want his gun.”
“We’ll get it, and we’ll help the orderlies move the sick,” Jack said. “Then we’ll scout the west wing for signs of Creeton. Roger has a key.” He looked at me. “And where are you going?”
“I’m going to find Nina,” I said. “She was exhausted. I think she may have gone to bed.”
“Upstairs in the nursery?”
“Yes. She doesn’t know what Creeton’s been up to. I don’t want her up there alone.”
“Right,” said Jack. “Go get her. We’ll set up her mattress downstairs with the others.” His blue gaze was steady on me. “And for God’s sake, Kitty, be careful.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He’d been there before me. Of course he had. In the pit of my gut, I was starting to know that so far we had always been a step too slow, waiting to see what he’d left behind. This time it was Nina.
She lay on the floor of the nursery, where she’d been undressing to go to bed. There was blood on her temple, as if she’d been struck, but her face was flushed and I could see the rise and fall of her chest. For good measure, Creeton had taken a stocking from her drawer and tied her wrists to the foot of the brass bedstead.
“Nina.” I fell to my knees, pressed my hand to her forehead and her temple. She didn’t move, didn’t groan. She was out cold. I had no idea what to do, of course, if there was anything to be done. But the stocking I could take care of. I lunged for my own bed and felt under the mattress.
My knife wasn’t there.
Cold steel touched my throat. “Looking for this?”
I froze.
“Interesting,” said Creeton. “One of our own nurses was armed. I guess you were a little bit suspicious of us.”
I glanced over my bed. All of my things had been rifled through, my bedding disturbed. Martha’s and Nina’s things had been searched as well, their undergarments taken from the drawers. Practical Nursing lay facedown on the floor as if someone had shaken and dropped it. I’d noticed none of this when I’d come in; I’d seen only Nina.
“What do you want?” I managed.
I was still crouched beside my bed, my hands on the mattress. Creeton shifted behind me, and I could hear his heavy breath. “You know what I want. I wrote a little note and put it on Yates’s pillow. You’ve all found it by now.”
“‘Eliminate the weak,’” I quoted.
“Do you hear it?” said Creeton. “He’s telling me. I can hear it in my head. Only at night at first, but lately it’s been stronger and stronger. There. I can hear him now. Can you?”
I heard nothing but the pounding of my own heart. “He isn’t real. It’s this place, Creeton. I told you.”
“In my mind, he’s real. But then, I’m mad, aren’t I?” The knife drew tighter against my throat. “I’d like to try killing you. You’ve never liked me and I’ve never liked you. But you aren’t the assignment. You’re a means to an end. So was the other nurse.”
“What end?” I choked out. “For God’s sake, what do you want?”
“The key to the west wing,” said Creeton. “I’ve tried to get in there but all the doors are barred. Just one is locked. I want the key, and I want my Luger. I want the combination to the safe where it’s kept.”
“I don’t know of any safe.”
“That’s a nice lie,” he said. “But I already questioned the other nurse, and she told me that’s where it is. But she didn’t have the combination. I was finished with her.” He leaned closer, exhaling in my ear as he spoke. “I think you have it. I think you have both.”
I thought frantically. There was no point in stalling him; everyone was busy with the patients two floors down, and no one was coming this way. If I screamed, how quickly would they come? And would he kill me before they got here?
Creeton pressed the tip of the knife harder into my throat. “Don’t scream. I can see you thinking about it. If you try, I’ll cut you with this, and then I’ll cut her. I swear it.”
“Jack Yates has the combination to the safe,” I choked. “He has your gun.”