CHAPTER 23

I WAS UNSURE OF WHEN a bank president departed for work, so I waited until ten A.M. to arrive at the Benedict home. I apparently had not waited long enough, however, because when the door opened, it was Hiram Benedict himself who stood in the vestibule. Alone, he appeared even more outsized, looming over me like a grizzly.

“Dr. Carroll,” he said evenly, “I have been expecting you. Jonas Lachtmann got in touch with me early this morning.”

Jonas Lachtmann? What would Jonas Lachtmann have told him? Certainly nothing of his daughter and Albert. Was it about me? Did he know about St. Barnabas? Had he told Abigail? I could only find out from her.

“I am very sorry about Rebecca,” I replied. “I thought Abigail should be told as soon as possible.”

“Abigail has been told,” Benedict said.

“How is she? May I see her?”

“She is distraught. As I am sure you would have expected. And no, you may not see her.”

“Mr. Benedict,” I said, “I am all too aware that you do not think me a suitable match for your daughter, but we have feelings for each other. I do not think it fair or in Abigail’s interests for you to deny me the right to see her.”

“I don’t think you fully understand, Dr. Carroll. I am not denying you access—she is denying you access.”

It was not possible. “Did she say why?”

“She did not need to.”

“I would feel more comfortable if I might hear these sentiments directly from her,” I insisted.

“Your comfort is not my concern. And now, I must bid you good day. Rebecca Lachtmann’s funeral is this afternoon and I have a number of matters that must be addressed before then.” I wondered if Albert would be going to the funeral as well. “By the way,” he added, “I would strongly advise against your trying to attend.”

A moment later, I found myself standing in the street, the Benedicts’ door closed behind me. It had shut with a resonant bang that had a finality about it—I was not being dismissed from a home, but from a way of life.

I needed to see Abigail, to explain, to have her tell me that she would not stand for such blatant disregard for her feelings. She would demand that her father relent. I would see her that evening, after Rebecca’s funeral. Perhaps I would arrive and insist on paying my condolences, or perhaps I would simply wait outside in the street until she appeared. I was not sure how, but I would find a way.

I had scant time to dwell on the issue, however, and as I left for my next stop, the cable office, I saw that the morning had yielded a second unpleasant surprise. I had apparently inherited Keuhn. The Pinkerton man was waiting across the street, at the edge of Rittenhouse Square, making little effort at concealment. His presence was so obvious that it was clearly less to discern my movements than to remind me that Jonas Lachtmann was always close, holding me to my promise of identifying Turk’s accomplice.

As I went to check on my inquiry at the cable company, Keuhn stood directly across the street from the front door. The eager young man was not working that morning and I was left to deal with a more typical clerical type—mid-thirties, bored, and surly. But my reply had indeed arrived. As I thanked the clerk and paid for the wire, a woman walked in and, in a heavy accent, greeted Mr. Schultz.

“Schultz?” I asked. “Does either of you speak German?”

The woman did. I showed her the cable, which was quite brief, and asked if she could translate.

“Ja,” she said. “Maybe.” She looked over it a few moments. “It say they not doing any … uh …” She was hung up on one word. “Tries?”

“Experiments?” I asked.

“Ja,” the woman replied. “Must be … speriments. They not doing any speriments on anything like you say.”

“Thank you,” I said.

When I emerged and took the streetcar to the hospital, Keuhn jumped on at the last minute. He dallied in the lobby as I made my way to the changing room, and he was down the corridor when I emerged five minutes later. Any time I chose, I could go through the laboratory and use the service stairs, from which I might walk out the back of the hospital and leave West Philadelphia by way of the Blockley. Attempting to shake Keuhn off, however, would be tantamount to admitting to Lachtmann that I had something further to hide. For the moment, it seemed, I was stuck with the Pinkerton man as a companion.

As I walked down the corridor in his direction, he smiled and backed around the corner. I was wondering if he would be in sight when I got to the turn, so I was fully unprepared to run face-to-face into the Professor. When he saw that it was I, he frowned in a manner that would ordinarily be reserved for a student who had misdiagnosed an encephalitic tumor.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said tersely. “I want you to call on me this evening at my lodgings. Seven o’clock.”

He could not have chosen a worse possible night. It was imperative that I see Abigail as soon as possible. “I’m sorry, Dr. Osler,” I said, “but I’ve got a very important engagement this evening.”

“Cancel it,” he snarled and stalked away. I was left standing in the corridor, my hands hanging at my sides, Keuhn at one end, the Professor marching off down the other. Lachtmann had not kept his word. The truth was out and I was done for.

The Professor’s rooms were on Twelfth Street, north of downtown, two floors of a fashionable town house in a better section of the city, but removed from Millionaire’s Row. Like every other aspect of the Professor’s fortunes, his living standards were soon to be vastly enhanced. I had learned during our weekend that Gilman had arranged for him to reside in a large, extremely well-appointed town house in Baltimore.

I arrived precisely on time. Widows were the servants of choice for bachelors and, like my arrangement with Mrs. Mooney, the Professor engaged Mrs. Barlow to cook his meals and tend to his domestic needs. She opened the door and smiled when she saw me. Mrs. Barlow was an open-faced woman with six grown children. She was almost shapeless, but utterly unflappable, as if there were not a single of life’s crises or calamities that she had not witnessed or was without a plan to manage. With total aplomb, she removed vials filled with tissue samples that the Professor had deposited absent-mindedly in his coat, or answered the front door for four A.M. emergencies as if she had been awake for hours. I had been a guest here often and Mrs. Barlow had taken to doting on me, attentions that I accepted with a combination of embarrassment and gratitude.

“Come on in, Doctor,” she said in a soft brogue. “The Professor is waiting in the drawing room. You know the way.” Mrs. Barlow was the only person I knew other than myself who referred to Dr. Osler as “the Professor.”

She turned for the kitchen, leaving me to make my own way. As I trudged toward the drawing room, I heard a soft hum of voices. Who had the Professor invited to share the occasion of my dismissal? Was it Gilman himself, or Billings, or even Welch, up from Baltimore to make things official? I turned into the room and saw that it was none of those men.

It was Halsted.

He rose as I entered, dressed as before in a perfectly cut dark suit, with a brilliantly white shirt and collar, pearl cuff links, and dark cravat. A silver-framed pince-nez rested on the bridge of his nose.

He offered his hand, and I realized that, at Hopkins, I had failed to notice the lines around his eyes and tinge to the skin. I had learned during the visit to Hopkins that Halsted was only thirty-seven, three years younger than the Professor, but he appeared at least ten years older. The cause of the disparity between appearance and reality was not difficult to deduce.

We shook hands, Halsted with that same strong and confident grip, and he said, “Thank you for coming, Dr. Carroll. I was hoping to have the opportunity of speaking with you. The last occasion was hardly conducive.” There was still a rigidity to the man, which in Baltimore I had attributed to coldness, but which now seemed to stem more from a need for self-control.

I told Dr. Halsted stiffly that I was pleased to see him again as well, trying once more to read something in his eyes.

The Professor stepped forward and placed his hand upon my shoulder, an odd show of amity after his icy behavior in the hospital. It left me completely unsure of my ground. Might I be reprieved after all, or simply slaughtered more amiably?

“I thought, Ephraim,” he said, “that you should meet the man whose life you are about to destroy.”

“But I was not … never …” I stammered.

“Oh, come now, Ephraim,” said the Professor. “You are not the only person capable of building a theory from incongruent bits of data. We are physicians, after all. We use logical extension every day in moving from symptom to diagnosis. It was not all that difficult to work backward from your activities to the motivation that prompted them. Quite evidently, your theory, which you were attempting to prove by surreptitious visits to the medical library, dens of iniquity and, finally, a cemetery—Oh, yes, we are aware of that—was that Dr. Halsted was complicit in the death of Rebecca Lachtmann and quite possibly responsible for Turk’s murder.” He smiled. “You were also trying to figure out whether I was involved too, eh?”

“No, Dr. Osler,” I protested, feeling my shirt stick to my back despite the chill in the room. “I was not trying to prove a theory … only to find out if it was true. And I prayed every minute that it was not.”

“It was not,” said Halsted, with finality. The eyes behind the thick lenses never wavered.

“The poor girl was finally given a proper interment today,” said the Professor. “It was in the afternoon papers. It was a private affair. I don’t know how the family is going to be able to maintain that she died abroad, though, if they expect to eventually bring someone to trial for her murder.”

I did not comment, although I believed Jonas Lachtmann had little intention of putting his faith in the judicial system.

“In any event, Ephraim,” the Professor went on, “I am afraid you have evaluated the symptoms and come to a faulty diagnosis, but given the circumstances, neither I nor Halsted here can take you too much to task. In fact, in any other context, your behavior would have been quite praiseworthy. You showed yourself to be a dogged and clever investigator and your conclusions were actually quite reasonable. We can only hope that you will continue to bring similar zeal to your duties as a physician.”

“Dr. Carroll,” Halsted said evenly, “I had nothing at all to do with Rebecca Lachtmann’s death and certainly nothing to do with poisoning George Turk, although I will say in candor that I am not the least bit sorry that he is dead.” The dispassion of Halsted’s delivery made the denial itself more persuasive. “The man was evil, a parasite. He preyed on the misfortune of others to line his pockets. I have heard tell that Turk’s activities may be excused because of the deprivations he experienced when he was a youth, but I can think of no justification for performing abortions or selling morphia to those who could not live without it.”

“Activities, by the way, Ephraim,” added the Professor, “of which I knew nothing until just before his death.”

“As a result of all this innuendo and confusion, Dr. Carroll,” Halsted went on, “Dr. Osler thought that you should hear the truth from us … from me … particularly since we will be working together.”

Working together? For a moment, I doubted my hearing. “Thank you, Dr. Halsted,” I said. “I would like that very much. I am mortified at having misjudged you.”

Halsted nodded perfunctorily, but his expression did not change. Still, he seemed much more to fear the rejection of others than to be rejecting others himself.

“Let’s sit and have some wine,” said the Professor, “and afterward, if you still wish to remain in our company, Ephraim, Mrs. Barlow can make us some dinner.”

I took a seat as the Professor poured two glasses of claret, one for me and the other for himself. I had arrived expecting to be eviscerated and instead I was apparently being … courted. I glanced to where Halsted was seated and saw a cup of tea on the side table next to his chair. After each of us took a sip of our respective beverages, Halsted replaced his cup on in its saucer and began.

“Let us first dispense with the obvious. My addiction to drugs is not to be denied, either in the past or, unfortunately, in the present. It is why, to answer your unspoken query, I do not take alcohol. I have learned that it is far too easy to substitute one dependency for another. But before you judge me, Doctor, allow me to enlighten you as to the genesis and history of my condition.”

I had heard of Halsted’s coca experiments before, but never from the man himself.

“As I believe you know,” he began, “I came late to medicine, during my final year at Yale. I had been an uninspired student before but medicine fascinated me such that I graduated first in my class from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.” Even reciting the story of his own life, Halsted seemed personally removed, as if he were listing a set of symptoms. “I was accepted on the staff of Bellevue Hospital and my interest turned from general medicine to surgery. Although Lister’s advocacy of asepsis had converted a small percentage of the staff, most of the surgeons continued to perform operations under filthy conditions, wearing street clothes and handling instruments with unwashed hands. One or two even smoked cigars as they cut.

“I was convinced that hygienic surgery would vastly reduce infection, and I became somewhat fanatical on the subject. Many of my colleagues grew more than a bit annoyed, being lectured to by someone no older than you are now, Dr. Carroll, but subsequent events have more than justified my behavior. Still, I was forced to move on to New York Hospital, which had a more enlightened view of scientific advance, and, I daresay, I began to build a sterling reputation as a surgeon and a researcher.” Halsted’s tone still did not waver, and there was not the slightest degree of braggadocio in his words.

“It was at New York Hospital that I met Welch. He was just my age, a brilliant pathologist, and was, at the time, teaching the first pathology course in the United States. He had converted an old morgue near the East River into a laboratory. We each saw instantly that surgery and pathology formed a symbiosis and we became both professionally inseparable and intimate friends. It is to that friendship that I owe my professional survival and quite possibly my life.

“As was customary, I left New York for two years to study in Europe. I wanted in particular to observe Billroth, who, with apologies to Gross, was certainly the finest surgeon in the world. While there, I observed the most extraordinary phenomenon, not from Billroth, but from one of his students. Mikulicz, the Pole, had taken to employing clamps to stanch the flow of blood whilst he operated on the large bowel, thus improving his view of the affected region. I realized immediately that not only would clamping render the tissues in the open area more visible, but that it would prevent surgical shock. That, in turn, would not only save lives in and of itself, but would also allow the surgeon to proceed at a more thorough, less frenetic pace. When I returned, I employed both clamping and asepsis, and achieved astounding results.”

“You must understand, Ephraim,” interjected the Professor, as Halsted took a sip of tea, “that the innovations Dr. Halsted employed at first made him an object of ridicule. He was, after all, only twenty-eight years old. Soon, however, the results inspired many to copy his methods while arousing the enmity and jealousy of others.”

Having seen Burleigh operate, I did not need to be persuaded of that.

Halsted waited until he was certain that the Professor had finished before speaking again. “By 1884, I was at the peak of my profession. I had perfected radical mastectomy, a technique that bears my name and has saved the lives of hundreds of women. I also developed techniques for emergency transfusion and saline infusion as a treatment for shock. I was teaching anatomy to private students, was an attending physician at four hospitals, and was engaged to perform surgery for private patients who paid up to ten thousand dollars for my services.”

Ten thousand dollars? I almost asked Halsted to stop to confirm that stupendous figure, but he was continuing as if he had said “ten dollars.”

“I was also, although it is difficult to comprehend now, considered one of the leading bon vivants in New York, accepted and valued in the highest society. Then, Dr. Carroll, I read an article that changed my life. Karl Koller, a German ophthalmologist, had introduced a solution of cocaine, an alkaloid of Erythroxylum coca, to his own eye, and then pricked it with pins but felt no pain. He had successfully anesthetized the cornea and conjunctiva. Koller, like Mikulicz, saw only the narrow applications of his finding, but I knew at once that he had discovered that cocaine could block individual nerves. It was potentially one of the most important discoveries of the century. As you know, at the time, surgeons had to choose between chloroform and ether. Ether was safe, but unreliable. Anesthetized patients had been known to get up off the operating table and walk away. Chloroform was more reliable, but extremely hazardous. Cocaine seemed to hold promise of both safety and reliability and so I felt I needed to test it at once. I recruited a like-minded colleague at Roosevelt Hospital and we injected ourselves with a solution of the drug.

“Before I continue, it is important to point out that Hall and I were correct. Nerve blocking was possible and cocaine was a correct agent to achieve the result. But, as you know, there were other results as well. I continued my experiments and within months, I had become addicted.

“I hope for the sake of your soul, Dr. Carroll, that you never have to cope with addiction. It is not, as portrayed in dime novels, a fall from Grace brought on by weak character or a plunge into sin—it is a far more insidious phenomenon that comes on gradually, soundlessly, invisibly. The poor wretch who is afflicted is the last to know and, by the time he does know, the vise has clamped shut and he is doomed.

“We all pass through adolescence, believing that we are in control of our destinies, that life is an exercise in free will. If one’s will is sufficiently strong, there are virtually no obstacles that cannot be overcome.” A wry smile passed across his face. “I know I believed so.

“At Yale, I became a superb athlete despite a lack of stature. Although I received what might best be described as mediocre grades, after I purchased a copy of Gray’s Anatomy in my senior year and decided to become a physician, once again, by dedicating myself to the goal, I made it so. My career was testament to the power of will and the drive to succeed. And success fathered success. What’s more, my achievements were not simply such that they brought me personal wealth or fame—I was saving lives, many lives. If there was a formula as to how one should lead one’s life, I had found it, or so it seemed.

“Imagine then, Dr. Carroll, if you will, the shock when I realized that not only had I fallen into the grip of a hideous drug, but that I was unable, regardless of effort or will, to rid myself of it. That was a far more painful realization than finding myself in the throes of addiction itself.

“The realization did not come immediately. Quite the contrary. At first, I decided that I would overwhelm cocaine as I had overwhelmed every other obstacle. I took a leave from my practice and entered a convalescent clinic in Providence, where I remained for a year. For my first months, although it was torture to abstain, I sustained myself with the knowledge that I was asserting my will over a demon, that I was persevering through to victory. But slowly I wore down. Eventually, I was helpless to resist. I began to make arrangements with members of the staff, the very people who were charged with ensuring that the facility remained untainted, to purchase and smuggle the drug to me. It was a costly proposition, but I would have paid anything.

“Upon my departure from Providence, I was pronounced cured, my secret safe. Still, when I returned to New York, my friends and associates abandoned me. For many, the opportunity to sneer at the fallen Halsted was simply too great a temptation to resist. Except for Welch. Welch remained as intimate as before and was also the only one who at first guessed that I was still in the grip of the drug. My demeanor had been so altered, however, that it was not long before tongues began to cluck. When Welch went on to Baltimore, I was left completely alone, a pariah.

“But my salvation was at hand. Welch persuaded Gilman and Billings to take me on. My gratitude was boundless and I was determined to justify his trust by ridding myself of my addiction once and for all.

“I decided that if I could not resist the drug, I would put myself where there were no drugs to be had. I booked passage on a ship bound for South America, and, lest I lose control completely, took with me a minimal amount of cocaine. Within two days of sailing, I had used my entire supply. I stayed in my cabin, refusing to come out, even for meals. The agony became so great that I was emitting loud moans, more animal than human. On more than one occasion, the steward knocked on my door and asked if I needed the services of a physician … quite humorous, don’t you think?

“Finally, I could endure it no longer. I burst from my cabin in the middle of the night, tore through the ship, and smashed my way into the captain’s cabin, with the aim of availing myself of whatever narcotics were in the medicine chest. I overpowered the captain and was subdued only when he raised the alarm and four sailors came to his assistance. By that time, the captain had grabbed his pistol and it was only because I was so obviously mad that I was not shot. I eventually managed to explain my situation, how I had come to be the way I was, and the captain, a decent and sympathetic man, did not have me arrested when we reached port. He even supplied me with small amounts of morphia on the return voyage to keep my situation manageable.”

“On Dr. Halsted’s request,” said the Professor, “the captain had cabled Welch in Baltimore. Welch came immediately and, as a result, the affair was not made public, not even to the Hopkins administration. I am counting on your discretion, Ephraim, to see that it remains that way.”

“I will not repeat what I have been told in confidence,” I said.

“I have no doubt of your honor,” the Professor replied. The remark stung like nettles.

“Welch took me to Baltimore,” Halsted went on, “and into his home. He watched over me as one would tend a sick child. I told him of the success that the ship captain had substituting small quantities of morphia for cocaine, and Welch thought that an excellent idea. His hypothesis was that if cocaine addiction was the more powerful, it was vital to put an end to it by any means possible. That hypothesis proved correct. By injecting small amounts of morphia, I was able to rid myself of cocaine. It was my most blissful and productive period in five years. And, although I found that I had to slightly increase the frequency of my morphia injections over time, the effects of that drug were far less deleterious than of the other. Moreover, Welch was able to quietly spread word that Halsted was cured.

“Everything seemed to be going smoothly until six months ago, when I had occasion to come to Philadelphia to consult with a private patient. This patient, quite well-to-do, had a testicular tumor and was too embarrassed to come to Baltimore. He had set up a surgical facility at his country home and asked me to remove the growth there. His personal physician would assist and three private nurses would tend to him during his recuperation.

“More to the point, however, this man had also used morphia, but was of course unaware that we had that in common. He had been attempting to cure himself for years, although his wealth enabled him to remain a user with no one the wiser. Whilst we spoke, he told me of a new and miraculous substance, whose origins and composition were unknown, which had allowed him to break his dependency. It was only available, he said, through underworld channels and was extremely costly, but well worth it to anyone of means who found himself in a similar state.

“As you might imagine, Dr. Carroll, I was buoyed by this news, but unable to request specifics from my patient without revealing my own dependency. I immediately made inquiries in the lesser areas of the city, however—one learns by necessity how to do such things—and was soon rewarded with the information that someone known as ‘George’ was the source of this new drug.”

“And ‘George,’ of course, was Turk,” I said.

“Of course.” Halsted was so terse in his confirmation that I felt a fool for my comment. “I arranged a rendezvous at which I purchased a small quantity of the drug. I had no idea that this mysterious ‘George’ was a doctor, just as Dr. Osler had no idea that he was a drug supplier. To my view, while obviously a more educated and polished sort than one usually encounters in such places, I assumed that he was simply a man who had been raised in wealth and descended into iniquity. I am, as you know, familiar with the breed.”

“Nonsense,” said the Professor. “You have never and will never descend into iniquity.”

Halsted ignored the comment. “Before injecting myself, I performed an analysis of the powder with Frohde’s reagent, as I am sure you have, and then checked the literature. When I came across Wright’s experiment, I knew precisely with what I was dealing. Only then did I inject the drug and, once I did, it became clear that my patient was correct. Diacetylmorphine did most definitely quell the need for the more pedestrian form of the drug.

“I decided to be clever. Not wishing to be dependent on a denizen of the underworld, I attempted to replicate Wright’s experiment. I would synthesize diacetylmorphine myself. Wright must have been lucky, though, because my attempts were not successful. As far as I can determine, acetylizing morphine renders it fat-soluble and therefore more efficacious, but my efforts produced no such result. Assuming that Turk was also not producing the drug himself, my next step was to attempt to discover where he was acquiring his supply of diacetylmorphine, but I failed here as well. I wonder, Dr. Carroll, if you have had more success?”

“Actually,” I said, feeling quite proud of myself, “I have.” I began to recount my correspondence with the Bayer Company, but then stopped, knowing that I could have no honest reason to suspect that a German dye maker was synthesizing diacetylmorphine. But it was too late.

“The Bayer Company?” asked the Professor. “Wherever did you get hold of that?”

I was trying to think of a creditable lie, but Halsted made it unnecessary. Rather than pursue the Professor’s query, he began to tug lightly on his beard.

“Aniline dyes,” he mused. “Very interesting.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would a dye maker be involved with such a substance?”

“You should have read further, Ephraim,” said the Professor. “There has been growing awareness in Germany of a parallel between aniline dyes and synthesized medicines. As you may know, mauve, the first synthesized coal tar dye, was discovered quite by accident in 1856, while the Englishman, Perkin, was attempting to synthesize quinine. Three years ago, the most effective antipyretic we have was discovered by two German interns who used a mislabeled jar of naphthalene while experimenting on treatments of intestinal parasites. The substance, which reduced fevers, but did nothing to the parasites, turned out not to be naphthalene, but acetanilide, a commonly used aniline dye intermediate made by the Kalle Company. Kalle had no previous experience in pharmaceuticals, but immediately sought a patent, and so we now have Antifebrin. Bayer, another dye works and one of Kalle’s competitors, then also began experimenting heavily in medicines. Two years ago, they thought they had stumbled on a pain reliever, which they called phenacetin, but it was found to cause kidney failure. Diacetylmorphine is obviously one of the substances with which they are currently working.”

“But they responded to my cable denying any such work.”

“That is hardly surprising, Doctor,” said Halsted. “There are millions to be made in pharmaceuticals. We are dealing with easily synthesized substances here. The trick is to find one that works before your competitors. If diacetylmorphine is seen to have medicinal properties, whoever acquires the patent will accrue all the profits. Bayer would never chance alerting any potential challenger to its researches.”

“Then how did Turk get it?”

“Drugs are like a leaky roof, Ephraim,” said the Professor. “Water always finds the hole. In this case, someone at Bayer must have been stealing a supply of the drug and either he or a confederate had the foresight to ship it to America, where demand is always high and German authorities would have no power.”

I turned my attention back to Halsted. “But isn’t diacetylmorphine addicting in its own right?”

“The evidence is not clear,” replied Halsted. “I am able to maintain equilibrium on a substantially more modest dose than of morphia, so it is quite possible that it can be used safely for clinical purposes. Addiction tends to be progressive, however, so there is no telling what the future holds.”

“We are dealing with that issue in Dr. Halsted’s case,” said the Professor, “as you will see.” I thought we would move on from there, but the Professor had not forgotten. “So, Ephraim, how did you come up with the Bayer Company?”

I had no choice at that point than to admit that I had not simply found a key and turned it over to the police, but had visited the den on Wharf Lane before the police. I told them of the discovery of the hidden compartment and finding the drugs and the weapons inside. I did not mention the journal. I wanted to decipher the entries before I divulged its existence to anyone.

They both listened, rapt. When I was done, the Professor sighed and shook his head. “Ephraim,” he said. “We have underestimated you. You’ve been cleverer than we supposed—and a good deal more reckless. You must have had the devil of a time of it, juggling the police, Miss Benedict, Jonas Lachtmann, and us.”

“It has been something of a strain,” I admitted, but I was also feeling more than a little self-important at having impressed Halsted and the Professor with my sleuthing.

“Well, Ephraim, I think you can relax now. Perhaps we should allow Dr. Halsted to finish.”

Halsted nodded and took another sip of tea. He was methodical in his movements, almost practiced, as if he had taught himself to think through even the simplest action before actually performing it. “During one of my visits to Turk,” he went on, “he informed me that he knew that I was a surgeon of some repute. At the time, I could not imagine how he had come on such knowledge. I was making only occasional visits to Philadelphia and had in no way identified myself. Now, of course, it is clear from whence this bit of knowledge emanated.

“As a price for his silence—and an uninterrupted supply of the drug—Turk demanded that I perform certain services for him. When I asked what services he had in mind, he told me that, from time to time, young ladies in trouble came to him for assistance. His meaning was instantly clear. I told him he was insane if he expected me to perform abortions. He merely shrugged and said that there had been no harm in trying.

“When I returned to Baltimore with the supply that Turk had then sold me, I discovered that it was not diacetylmorphine at all, but simple morphia. I confess to say that I panicked. The prospect of a return to morphia addiction was terrifying. I surreptitiously returned to Philadelphia to confront him. I had a difficult moment when I ran into Weir Mitchell on the street, but I told him that I had come to town to perform surgery.

“I found out where Turk lived … a tortuous process, as I am told you know as well … and surprised him at his home. He told me that I could have the new drug anytime I wanted—all I needed to do was to help him out. I refused.

“I went back to Baltimore, but became increasingly desperate. I returned to Philadelphia yet again and accosted Turk at that waterfront saloon he frequented.”

“The Fatted Calf?” I asked.

“Yes. That was the place.” Halsted removed his pince-nez and polished the lenses with a handkerchief that he removed from his vest pocket, slowly, his fingers moving at constant speed like a metronome. When he was done, he checked the result, then replaced it on the bridge of his nose. “By that time, Welch had begun to suspect that my situation had deteriorated and that it had something to do with my frequent trips to Philadelphia. He made Dr. Osler aware of the situation. Together they resolved to once more render me assistance beyond that which anyone has a right to expect.

“I was beside myself by the time I arrived at the bar. I had come to see Turk as the embodiment of evil, a fiend withholding a lifesaving drug from a desperately ill unfortunate. I burst in and accosted him. Turk responded by threatening to expose me to the world. ‘The great Halsted on drugs again,’ was I think how he put it. At just that moment, Dr. Osler arrived. Unbeknownst to me, Welch had been observing me and cabled Dr. Osler that I was on the train. Dr. Osler followed me from the station to the bar, and then took me back to the station and returned me to Baltimore.”

“Even then,” the Professor said, “I never knew that it was Turk whom Halsted had come to see. I waited at the door whilst someone else went across the room to fetch him. When we left, Halsted merely said that the man was a monster. He did not identify him by name.”

“Thus, when you saw me arguing with Turk at The Fatted Calf,” Halsted went on, “it was natural to assume that I knew him as a physician or even a fellow conspirator, instead of merely as a drug supplier. In that, Dr. Carroll, you were mistaken.”

“How did you know that I saw you at The Fatted Calf?” I asked, astonished.

“I knew you had been with Turk that evening,” said the Professor. “The extrapolation was not unreasonable.”

At that point, Halsted placed his hands in his lap. He had finished. For some moments, no one spoke as I tried to digest all of what he had said. He had accounted for every incident, every open question. Each conclusion that I had drawn could be accounted for by this alternate construction of the facts. Halsted’s version amounted to a set of coincidences, certainly, but no more so than mine.

But the more powerful impression was of Halsted, the man. The Professor had been correct. Greatness fairly flew off him. I thought of the passion with which Dr. Osler had spoke of the noble, doomed Servetus and understood why he would go to such enormous lengths to protect the man before me. For the Professor, Halsted, like Servetus, had every element of the protagonist of a Greek tragedy: accomplished, courageous, indomitable, but ultimately struck down by circumstance and coincidence. For Servetus, there had been no pulling back from tragedy, while here, Welch and the Professor—and quite possibly I—might succeed in carving a very different end to the story.

“So, Ephraim,” Dr. Osler said, “now that you have heard the truth, perhaps you will enlighten us as to your theory of the events? It seems apparent that you believe that Dr. Halsted bungled Rebecca Lachtmann’s abortion and, to cover it up, he poisoned Turk.”

“Yes,” I was forced to admit, “that is what I thought.”

“In your version, was I complicit in these crimes? Or simply aware of them and covering up?”

“The latter,” I confessed weakly.

“Very well,” the Professor said. “Not an unreasonable conclusion, as I said. But how did you account for a surgeon of Dr. Halsted’s talents perforating the bowel during a routine procedure, even granting that the environment was challenging?”

“I assumed that the drug had rendered his hand unsteady.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do at all, Dr. Carroll,” said Halsted. “I’ve performed hundreds, if not thousands, of operations under the influence of drugs and have never … not once … botched any of them.”

“That is what I wanted to tell you, once again trusting in your confidence,” interjected the Professor. “Dr. Halsted is too valuable to society—too many lives are at stake—for us to take a risk on his incapacitation. Dr. Halsted’s efforts to shake free of drug addiction have been Herculean and, one day, might well have resulted in a freedom from dependence. For the time being, however, Welch and I have convinced Dr. Halsted that, rather than continue to compromise both his health and his abilities, he should instead maintain himself on morphia. He can do so at minimal levels, which will allow him to continue to work.”

“Is it possible to attain such an equilibrium?” I asked, skeptical.

“Most definitely,” avowed Halsted. “Once I had freed myself from a need to eliminate morphia entirely, I found that I could control the cravings with judicious administration. Would that I had done so before I encountered Turk.”

I had a final question. “Dr. Osler, why did you refuse to autopsy Rebecca Lachtmann if you had no idea who she was or how she died?”

The Professor’s expression grew serious, almost sad. “In that, Ephraim, Turk was correct. While in Montréal, I fell in love with a young woman named Elise Légér. She was a remarkable beauty, but her father was a clergyman who disapproved of my profession, or at least the manner in which I conducted it. He refused to give his consent to my proposal of marriage. Elise and I were heartbroken. We even discussed elopement. In the end, however, she simply could not disobey her father and we never saw each other again. But she is in my thoughts often.”

The Professor’s eyes drifted away, into his youth. “When I swung open the cover of the ice chest, the resemblance was remarkable. It was as if I were staring at Elise. I knew after a few seconds that it could not have been, of course. I had not seen her in over fifteen years, and she would by now be thirty-five, far older than the woman we saw. But it was quite a shock all the same. It is not every day that one sees a ghost of one’s past, eh?

“It seems,” he went on, “that this was another occasion where you took a set of symptoms and extrapolated into a reasonable diagnosis that turned out to be incorrect. Turk reacted because he knew it was Rebecca Lachtmann, and it must have given him quite a fright to believe that I was reacting for the same reason. So, knowing that I often confided in you, he asked you to join him for the evening, gave you too much to drink, and then, I am sure, tried to persuade you to divulge anything that I might have said that would have put him at risk.”

“Yes, he did try to get me to talk about you,” I admitted. “This all seems plausible, certainly, but then who poisoned him?”

“We may never know. I am sure Turk had any number of enemies.”

“Despite what you seem to think, Doctor,” interjected Halsted, “it does not take a scientist or a physician to administer arsenic in an appropriate quantity to replicate cholera. Poisoning has been a time-honored means of murder for centuries, and there are countless cases in which poison was confused for some other malady. In its storied history, arsenic was often referred to as ‘inheritance powder’ because of the facility with which an heir might dispatch an unwanted legator.”

“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.