Character guide

Maida Day

major

Also known as Miss Day, Miss Maida Day

Maida moves through the hushed corridors of St. Ann's with the practiced calm of a woman who has made the hospital her home, answering bells and soothing restless patients. When she emerges from Room 18 looking peculiar and admits the patient 'does not seem to like the room,' her unease becomes the first crack in the hospital's routine. Her reluctance to speak plainly, and the quiet dread she carries back into the ward, makes her a barometer for the strange dread settling over the case.

Lance O'Leary

major

Also known as O'Leary, Mr. O'Leary

O'Leary works the hospital corridors with the weary patience of a man who has learned that important things get forgotten and that keys vanish at convenient hours. He badgers Miss Keate about the missing south-door key, then shuts himself in the inner office to think, linking the crimes to the radium and to whoever slipped through the south wing at midnight. His willingness to suspect doctors, nurses, and neighbors alike keeps the investigation moving even as it strains the nerves of everyone around him.

Corole Letheny

major

Also known as Corole, Letheny

When word of her father's death reaches St. Ann's, Corole is the person everyone agrees someone must go to, and Miss Keate hurries through the wet orchard to her cottage. She inhabits the strange borderland between the hospital and the Letheny household, close enough to the staff to be confided in and close enough to the family to be watched. Her presence keeps the human cost of the case in view even as suspicion falls on the people nearest her.

Jim Gainsay

supporting

Also known as Gainsay, Mr. Gainsay, Mr. James Gainsay

At the inquest Gainsay admits he collided with Miss Keate near the porch, borrowed Dr. Letheny's car, and wired a message about an 'unexpected development' he will not discuss. His good-natured manner and half-amused smile sit oddly against the coroner's growing irritation and the wary look in his own half-closed eyes. Whether he is a suspect, a witness, or something else entirely, his refusal to explain himself makes him the most tantalizing figure in the early investigation.

Dr. Balman

supporting

Also known as Dr. Balman

Called to the hospital in the small hours, Balman takes charge of the nursing staff, doubles the night watches, and keeps the news from the patients with practiced composure. Yet his explanation for the bruise on his face — that he bumped it running through the apple orchard — lands oddly on Miss Keate's ear, and his decision to sleep on the office couch keeps him uncomfortably close to the scene. He is the steady hand the hospital needs and, at the same time, a man whose movements that night do not quite add up.

Dr. Louis Letheny

major

Also known as Dr. Letheny, Louis, Poor Louis

Dr. Letheny is felt everywhere in the early chapters — in the patients who were under his care, in the cottage where his daughter waits, in the car Jim Gainsay borrowed, and in the corridor where Miss Keate learns the news. His absence is the wound around which the other characters organize themselves, and the question of what happened to him shadows every conversation about the radium, the missing key, and the figure who moved through the south wing at midnight. He never appears on the page, yet his fate is the engine of the book.

Dr. Fred Hajek

supporting

Also known as Dr. Hajek, Fred Hajek, Hajek

Dr. Hajek moves through the hospital's corridors as a trusted colleague of Dr. Letheny, yet he balks at putting a new patient into Room 18, as if the room itself carries a stain. Miss Keate overhears him in a singular dialogue with Corole that she cannot explain, and the memory of it tightens her nerves. His unease, and his connection to the dead man's circle, make him one of the first figures O'Leary's quiet investigation must weigh.

Higgins

supporting

Also known as Poor Higgins, old Higgins

Higgins belongs to the unglamorous machinery of the hospital, the hands that move beds and carry messages while doctors and nurses keep their secrets. In a place suddenly thick with locked doors and nervous whispers, an orderly sees what no one thinks to hide. Whatever trouble finds him, it finds him because he was simply doing his job, which is exactly the kind of witness a murder case cannot afford to lose.

Miss Keate

supporting

Also known as Miss Keate

Miss Keate superintends her wards with a nurse's brisk authority, but the murder in Room 18 has left her nerves raw and her imagination unwilling. When O'Leary asks her to keep his presence in the hospital secret, she agrees, then immediately regrets it, and her overheard fragment of talk between Corole and Dr. Hajek only deepens her dread. Her running account of the hospital's hushed, frightened days gives the story its anxious pulse.

Huldah Hansinge

minor

Also known as Huldah

A patient or staff member with a secret.

Sonny

minor

A young boy connected to the hospital.

Olma Flynn

minor

Also known as Olma

A woman with a role in the hospital drama.

Melvina Smith

minor

Also known as Melvina

A patient or nurse at St. Ann's.

Mr. Gastin

minor

A visitor or suspect in the hospital.

Sarah Keate

minor

Also known as Sarah

A nurse, possibly Miss Keate's full name.

Miss Letheny

minor

A relative of Dr. Letheny, possibly Corole.

Old Mr. Jackson

minor

Also known as Mr. Jackson, Jackson

An elderly patient at the hospital.

Miss Dotty

minor

A nurse or staff member at St. Ann's.

Miss Jones

minor

Also known as Occasionally Miss Jones

A minor nurse character at the hospital.

O'Brien

minor

A police officer or orderly involved in the case.

Chief Blunt

minor

Also known as Blunt

A police chief investigating the crime.

Franz Balman

minor

Also known as Franz

A relative or alias of Dr. Balman.

Miss Flynn

minor

A nurse, possibly related to Olma Flynn.

Miss C

minor

An unnamed nurse referred to by initial.

Mr. Gansie

minor

Also known as Gansie

A possible suspect or visitor.

Miss Ferguson

minor

A minor nurse character.