The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [137]
“How do you know?” Although I had heard the words, I could not yet grasp that the man on whom I had modeled my life had just admitted to being an accessory in two deaths.
“Halsted told me.” He tried to speak evenly, without passion, as if he were dictating statistics in the Dead House, but his voice quavered. “As you have learned, Turk had found that doling out drugs to his victims in the proper quantities could render them helpless when the drug was withheld. Turk was frightened of performing an abortion on someone of Rebecca Lachtmann’s social standing, lest something go amiss … quite an irony, as things turned out. He told Halsted only that the patient was from a prominent family and then forced him to agree to perform the odious chore. Halsted begged Turk to supply him with some of the drug before he operated, but Turk, fearing that once in control, Halsted would change his mind, refused.
“You have guessed accurately what transpired. Halsted’s hand was shaking from drug deprivation. One of the surgical sounds slipped and perforated the poor girl’s bowel. When she began to scream, Halsted tried to save her, but Turk pushed him aside. He suffocated her lest the noise be heard on the street below. After she was dead, Turk gave Halsted a supply of diacetylmorphine to keep him quiet.
“Halsted came straight to me after the abortion, distraught. I was the only person in Philadelphia he could trust. He told me that a hoodlum had forced him to perform an abortion and the girl had died. He described her, but assured me that he never learned her name. His first instinct was to go to the police, but he was afraid. It’s a lot to ask for a man to turn himself in for murder. I told him not to say anything but instead to return to Baltimore. After all, the poor girl could not be brought back to life and it was hardly Halsted’s negligence that had caused her death. I was sorry for the family and that the girl, whoever she was, would not receive a proper burial, but there seemed little alternative since I assumed the body had been disposed of in a location where it would never be found.
“Then, of course, a woman who precisely matched the description Halsted had given me turned up in the Dead House. I knew instantly. I had met Miss Lachtmann once at a charity function and put a name to the face. Turk knew the wind might be up when he noted my reaction. Then, that night, Halsted took care of matters on his own, although I daresay he would never have done so without Turk’s initiative.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Turk contacted Halsted after his return to Baltimore and demanded that he continue to travel here and perform abortions. I tell you, Ephraim, it made no sense. The last thing Turk should have wanted was Halsted in Philadelphia, where at any time he could bring both of them down. It almost seemed that Turk bore Halsted a personal grudge so deep that it eroded his judgment. I asked Halsted later if he had wronged Turk in some way, but there was nothing.”
Mary had been correct, then.
“Halsted did come to Philadelphia, but only to confront Turk. During the altercation Halsted insisted that they speak at his hotel afterward. After Turk took you home, he went to meet Halsted. Halsted pretended to reluctantly agree to Turk’s demands. As you have seen, Halsted does not take alcohol, so Turk was not suspicious when he was the only one drinking the port. When Turk began to feel ill, Halsted got a carriage to take him home.”
“Yes,” I said. “Turk’s landlady said that he had gotten home at three, although he had dropped me off at one.”
“By the time he realized that it was not simply a reaction to bad liquor,” the Professor continued, “there was no saving him. He must have thought that if he went to any hospital, I would learn of it and do him in, you see. If the police had been better at their jobs, they might well have filled in the sequence of events and traced Turk to Halsted’s hotel, but they never noticed the two-hour discrepancy.”
“And what