The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [60]
“But …”
The Professor walked over and clapped me on the back. “You know nothing of politics, my boy,” he said. “Just as well, actually, eh? When three plutocrats invite you to dinner, you go to dinner. I’m just lucky they handled it so poorly … made it easier. Besides, Weir had told me in advance that Schoonmaker had been opposed to retaining me. He evidently considers me something of a wild-eyed revolutionary. As it turns out, the major objections on the board to what I was trying to accomplish here came from him.”
“You mean including women among the student body.”
“That certainly, but also the curriculum changes, the requirements that students spend time in the wards … just about everything, really.”
“So my comment about Dr. Burleigh made no difference.”
“None. Benedict, I am told, had to use all his persuasive powers for Schoonmaker to go along with keeping me on, but I suppose once the old boy was forced to actually share a table with the evil Osler, he couldn’t go through with it.” The Professor smiled. “But the evening was far from unproductive. I found Mrs. Gross quite enchanting. A very handsome woman, don’t you say?”
“Yes, quite handsome indeed,” I replied instantly, thinking of the plain, squared-off woman with whom the Professor had shared dinner.
“I suppose you know that we attended the theater together and are dining tonight. And you, I am sure, have found a way to see Miss Benedict, eh? You were obviously quite taken with her.”
“I suppose my behavior was excessively forward.”
“Forward?” laughed the Professor. “Ephraim, it was hardly you who was forward. In fact, you gave every impression of a puppy dog trotting after his master.”
“Miss Benedict is quite good friends with Lachtmann’s daughter.”
“The girl in Italy? So I was led to believe.”
“What of Lachtmann?” I asked. “Had you known him before?”
The Professor eyed me strangely. “By reputation, certainly. We had never met previously.”
“Dr. Osler,” I began, “do you remember … ?”
“Remember what, Ephraim?”
“Nothing. It isn’t important.”
CHAPTER 12
IF TURK KNEW HE HAD been poisoned, his refusal to be taken to a hospital was not delirium, but instead lent credibility to his insistence that a doctor was trying to take his life. But which doctor? And why?
There were a plethora of facts with no confirmation—the cause of the young girl’s death, her identity, the medical problem for which Rebecca Lachtmann was seeking treatment, the identity of the man who had appeared at The Fatted Calf, and whether my hallucinatory sighting of the Professor had been hallucinatory after all. But the most pressing unknown, that which threatened not only my future but also everything that I had come to believe in, was what role, if any, the Professor might have had in the death of George Turk and possibly of Rebecca Lachtmann. Distrust coincidence indeed. I knew the instant that I withheld mention of Rebecca Lachtmann in Dr. Osler’s office that I feared he was involved in some way.
I needed to unburden myself, to talk the questions through. There was only one person in Philadelphia in whose judgment and discretion I trusted sufficiently.
I knocked on the rectory door at about seven and Reverend Powers himself answered. I inquired whether or not I was interrupting his dinner, but he assured me my visit was welcome. He escorted me through the hall, allowed me to pay my respects to Mrs. Powers, and bade me join him in his study.
He poured us each a small glass of port and we sat in two red leather wing chairs set on diagonals to each other, with a small, low table in between.
“I am in need of guidance,” I said.
“I’m happy to be of whatever help I can,” the Reverend replied, leaning back, allowing me to tell the tale at my own pace.
I took a sip of excellent port and then began. I detailed the incident in the Dead House, stressing that my observations had come at the end of a grueling day and that I could not be precisely certain of what I had seen. I then described my evening with Turk,