The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [116]
“You are a fine scientific practitioner, Ephraim,” the Professor told me. “Your method, tenacity, and use of logic, as this episode has demonstrated, are all first-rate. But there is more to science than logic. You need instinct and, yes, even heart. You will develop these qualities, I am sure, but you should always bear in mind how, in these events, pure method not only led you astray, but came perilously closer to causing the ruination of an innocent man.”
There was nothing to do at that point but agree and ask Dr. Halsted’s forgiveness. He was quite magnanimous in granting it. Dr. Osler then asked if I could still feel comfortable in having him and Dr. Halsted as colleagues. Of course I was comfortable—I was a man reprieved. A little less than twenty-four hours earlier, I had sat in Jonas Lachtmann’s study with my freedom and even my life left to the financier’s whim, and now I would leave for Johns Hopkins in three days to take up a position of responsibility and respect.
As promised, Mrs. Barlow had prepared dinner. For the next ninety minutes, I sat and discussed the future of medicine, with two of the greatest men in the field. They treated me thoroughly as an equal. It was perhaps the happiest hour and a half of my life.
As soon as I was out of Dr. Osler’s door, however, I was reminded that I had not quite fully emerged from the shadow of Rebecca Lachtmann’s death. Waiting outside, a reminder of my promise to deliver up a murderer to Jonas Lachtmann, was Keuhn.
CHAPTER 24
THREE DAYS. I TRIED TO convince myself that once I left for Baltimore, the threat from Lachtmann would recede, that the man’s power somehow ended at the city limits. But distance would only prolong my separation from Abigail. I must see her, help her to defy her father, and come with me to start a new life in a new city. What impact her brother’s despicable behavior would have, if she or her father even knew of it, was not clear, but I was certain that she and I could surmount any obstacle. I wanted to rush once more to the Benedict home, but the appearance of desperation was not the answer. I must seem calm and in control of events if I was to expect her to place her trust in me.
Upon my arrival at the hospital the next morning, Keuhn once again an obvious presence at a respectful distance, I went straight for the administrative offices and, after complimenting her on her dress, I asked Miss Prendergast to please allow me to use the telephone. She cocked her head disapprovingly and noted that the telephone, one of only three in the entire hospital, was restricted to official use and emergencies.
“But this is an emergency, Miss Prendergast.” I sighed. “A sort of emergency, anyway.”
Miss Prendergast pursed her lips and looked out at me over the tops of her glasses. “An emergency of the heart?” she asked with a knowing smile. Miss Prendergast was a rail-thin spinster of forty with muddy brown hair who, it was rumored, had rejected the one man who had proposed marriage on the grounds that a better proposal was in the offing, but no other proposal ever came. Now, her only opportunity for passion was in observing the passion of strangers.
I confessed that, yes, I did wish to telephone a young lady. When I told her which young lady so that she could place the call with the exchange, she fluttered with excitement. To a woman of Miss Prendergast’s romantic bent, a young, rich, and beautiful woman such as Abigail Benedict was an object of both fascination and self-satisfying contempt. “Why, Dr. Carroll,” she said with schoolmarm disapproval, “you do fly close to the sun. You’d best be careful if you intend to go traipsing with that set.” She allowed her judgments to lie in abeyance at the prospect of overhearing my conversation, however.
To Miss Prendergast’s disappointment, and mine, the Benedict servant who answered claimed that Abigail was not yet awake, so I was forced to leave word that I would call on her that