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fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.’ I mean to gather up the fragments. I believe you possess some of them. Well, sir!”
    Janney stared fixedly at Ellery’s cheerful lips. He darted one of his quick, keen glances at Minchen from the corner of his eye.
    “I see I’m in for it. What precisely do you want me to tell you?”
    “A small order. Everything.”
    Dr. Janney crossed his legs, lit a cigarette with steady fingers. “At 8:15 this morning I was summoned from my first inspection in the Surgical Ward to the foot of the main stairway of the third floor. There I found Mrs. Doorn, where she had just been picked up. She had fallen from the head of the stairs and ruptured her gall-bladder as a result of the impact to her abdomen as she landed. Preliminary examination indicated that she had been seized by a typical diabetic coma while in the act of descending, and naturally, becoming unconscious, lost command of her muscular action.”
    “Very good,” murmured Ellery. “You had her immediately removed, I suppose?”
    “Of course!” barked the surgeon. “Had her taken to one of the private rooms on the third floor, undressed at once, and put to bed. Rupture was bad. Absolutely demanded immediate surgical attention. But the diabetic complication forced us to lower the sugar content by the dangerous but essential insulin-glucose treatments. The coma was lucky—only bit of good fortune in the whole business. Anæsthesia would have added to the risk. … As it was, we worked her sugar down to normal by these intravenous injections, and by the time I was through with a rush case in Operating Room ‘A’ the patient was already in the Anteroom, waiting.”
    Ellery said swiftly, “Are you prepared to say, Doctor, that Mrs. Doorn was alive when she was wheeled into the Anteroom?”
    The surgeon’s jaws clamped together. “I’m prepared to say nothing of the kind, Queen—not from personal experience. Patient was under the care of Dr. Leslie, an associate, while I operated in ‘A.’ Better ask Leslie. … From the condition of the body, though, I should say she’d been dead no longer than twenty minutes, possibly a few minutes less, when we discovered the wire around her neck.”
    “I see. … Dr. Leslie, eh?” Ellery stared thoughtfully at the rubber-tiled floor. “John, old man, would you mind calling Dr. Leslie, if he’s available? It’s all right, Dr. Janney?”
    “Oh, yes. Of course, of course.” Janney waved his white muscular hand negligently. Minchen left the room by the Amphitheater door, returning promptly with a white-garbed surgeon in tow—one of the men who had aided Dr. Janney.
    “Dr. Leslie?”
    “Arthur Leslie, that’s right,” said the surgeon. He nodded to Janney, who sat morosely in his chair puffing at his cigarette. “What’s this—an inquisition?”
    “Of a sort. …” Ellery leaned forward. “Dr. Leslie, were you with Mrs. Doorn from the time Dr. Janney left her to attend his other operation until the time Mrs. Doorn was wheeled into the Amphitheater?”
    “Not at all.” Leslie looked interrogatively at Minchen. “Am I suspected of murder, John? …No, old man, I wasn’t with her all the time. Left her in this Anteroom under the care of Miss Price.”
    “Oh, I see! But you were with her every minute of the time before she was brought here?”
    “Now you’re talking. That’s right.”
    Ellery tapped his finger lightly on his knee. “Are you prepared to swear, Dr. Leslie, that Mrs. Doorn was alive when you left this room?”
    The surgeon’s eyebrows went up quizzically. “Don’t know how valid my oath is, but—yes. I examined her before leaving this room. Heart was certainly pumping. She was alive, brother.”
    “Well, well! We’re getting somewhere at last,” murmured Ellery. “Limits the time nicely, and corroborates Dr. Janney’s estimate about the approximate time of death. That will be all, Doctor.”
    Leslie smiled, turned on his heel. “Oh, by