# The Patient in Room 18 — Character guide

> Key figures in The Patient in Room 18 by Mignon G. Eberhart.

- [Maida Day](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/maida_day.md): 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 
- [Lance O'Leary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/lance_oleary.md): 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, 
- [Corole Letheny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/corole_letheny.md): 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 h
- [Jim Gainsay](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/jim_gainsay.md): 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 smi
- [Dr. Balman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/dr_balman.md): 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 fac
- [Dr. Louis Letheny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/dr_louis_letheny.md): 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 ne
- [Dr. Fred Hajek](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/dr_fred_hajek.md): 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 di
- [Higgins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/higgins.md): 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 
- [Miss Keate](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/miss_keate.md): 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 ag
- [Huldah Hansinge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/huldah_hansinge.md): A patient or staff member with a secret.
- [Sonny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/sonny.md): A young boy connected to the hospital.
- [Olma Flynn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/olma_flynn.md): A woman with a role in the hospital drama.
- [Melvina Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/melvina_smith.md): A patient or nurse at St. Ann's.
- [Mr. Gastin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/mr_gastin.md): A visitor or suspect in the hospital.
- [Sarah Keate](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_patient_in_room_18_se/characters/sarah_keate.md): A nurse, possibly Miss Keate's full name.

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