“But nothing,” advised Lieutenant Valcour as he opened the door to Endicott’s room.
The effect was shockingly garish. All shades had been removed from their lamps, and the various details of the furnishing stood out in the painful white light brightly clear.
Andrews was alone. He stood near the bed upon which Endicott had been placed, looking in rather shocked bewilderment at the body. Lieutenant Valcour joined him. A blanket had been drawn up to Endicott’s chin, and the face which remained exposed looked very waxlike—very still—very much like a dead man’s indeed.
“This is the damnedest thing, Valcour.”
“What is, Chief?”
“They say there’s a chance that this man isn’t dead. Worth is going to operate.”
“Operate? But Dr. Worth himself admitted that the heart had stopped beating after testing with a stethoscope. What sort of an operation?”
“Worth’s going to inject adrenaline into the cardiac muscles.”
“I wonder just how much value there is in that stuff.”
“Well, unless Endicott’s been poisoned, the medical examiner and Worth both seem to think there’s a chance. They feel there’s no harm in trying, anyway. It sounds silly to me, but they reminded me of that recent case in Queens—you probably read about it—where a man had been pronounced dead for six hours and was revived. Of course, they said he wasn’t really dead, just as they now think that Endicott may not be really dead. No one can bring back the dead.”