The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [128]
“Yes,” I agreed, “I believe you’re correct about the man. But to sit down and pen a meaningless journal and then hide it? That surely is too much trouble to go to.”
“Approach the question from the other end. Ask yourself, why would he keep a journal? He would have known it could sink him. For money? How was a journal possibly going to make him money? Anyone Turk was blackmailing was not going to be more likely to pay just because Turk had written his name in cipher in a book.”
“Why hide it, then?”
“Maybe he had plans to use it as a red herring in one of his schemes. Who knows? Maybe he simply did it for fun, telling himself that one day he would use it to have the inferior minds with whom he matched wits—like us—chase their own tails.”
“But what about the journal in his rooms? The one Borst uncovered?”
“That was different. That one had an obvious purpose. You were correct. If he ever needed to bargain with the police or anyone else, he could point to the journal and use it as proof that it was not he who had done the deed. Then he could trade the identity of ‘GF’ for a better deal.”
“So it is your contention that both books were fraudulent.”
“Everything about Turk was fraudulent. He told you so himself. Didn’t he say that he was a creation only of himself? You could not have known at the time just how true that was.”
I should have known precisely, of course, being of similar creation myself, but I had missed the significance. “But how does this help Farnshaw?”
“It helps a great deal,” she replied. “Don’t you remember what Dr. Osler said to Turk, after we autopsied the carpenter who had died of hypertrophy? ‘We have chronicled a case that does not correspond to accepted data. It is an enigma therefore open to the first who deciphers it.’ The journals are just such an enigma.
“Think for a moment about Borst’s case against Farnshaw. It rests on the assumption that the journal with ‘GF’ is genuine. But the existence of this second journal casts doubt on the legitimacy of the first. If it is authentic and eventually deciphered, it will likely contain the names of Turk’s true associates and prove Farnshaw’s innocence. In the more likely case that it is not deciphered, it will be dismissed as a hoax. If that comes to pass, it becomes difficult to assert that the ‘GF’ journal is not a hoax as well.”
“We must get it into the right hands, then,” I said. “I don’t trust giving it to Borst.”
“No. If Borst is under Lachtmann’s sway, I am confident the journal would vanish before anyone could be made aware of its existence. What about Dr. Osler?”
“Of course,” I agreed but, although I felt a sharp pang of guilt, I was not sure.
Simpson noted my ambivalence. “Yes,” she agreed, “that is the conundrum. We cannot underestimate how well it suits everyone to have Farnshaw accused of this crime. No one will want him to be innocent, let alone be proved innocent. If Farnshaw is guilty, Lachtmann will have his revenge, the Pinkertons will have a success, the newspapers will have a juicy scandal, and the policeman who arrested him will have a triumph. Even Dr. Osler benefits—he can continue his career with neither scandal nor professional acrimony dogging his footsteps. I think it is important that we understand that in pursuing this matter, we do so against the interests of everyone involved, even those we admire and respect.”
“Does it not disturb you to include Dr. Osler?”
“Of course. You are disturbed as well. But it is his own doing, really. It was he who trained us to be scientists, to follow the evidence wherever it might lead, no matter the consequence. I fully expect that he will be found to have no part in this, but we must account for every hypothesis. We cannot allow Farnshaw to hang for crimes in which he had no part. I think we must hold on to the journal and wait for the proper moment.”
I agreed, and she stood and emitted a deep sigh. “That’s all we can do for tonight.”
“Thanks to you, we have made some significant progress.”
“I’m sorry for the circumstances,” she told me, “but it has been