Death of the Magpie

by William McMurray

DEATH OF THE MAGPIE

  William McMurray

  Copyright 2011 by William McMurray

  "And chattering pies in dismal discords sing."

  Henry VI, Part III, Act V, Scene VI, p 48.

  It is rare that one can date precisely the death of a scientific career: in the usual case the decline is gradual rather than precipitous. The crime of scientific theft, a rarity in itself, is even more rarely apprehended in the act of commission: abrogation of credit for discoveries, a sort of scientific theft by conversion, has been known to require a subsequent generation of academic inquiry to sort out the property rights for the ideas or findings. Magpies of the scientific world may decorate their curricula vitorum with the purloined works of others and rise to prominence undetected, except belatedly by their unfortunate victims. Thus a majority of the denizens of Essex University might easily have continued to feather the nests of their own academic reputations quite unaware of the depredations of the thief within their midst. It was a curious set of circumstances that led to his exposure, to the sudden end of his scientific credibility, and culminated in the death of the magpie.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Janet Gordon stood atop the rocky cliff’s edge, a gentle breeze barely disturbing her hair and faintly rippling the water’s surface beneath her feet. Poised on the brink in more ways than one, she reflected. She had been honoured by the invitation to bring her research group to the prestigious Wotinabee Cell Conference, a collection of assorted biologists including Nobel laureates and senior scientists who annually congregated for this week-long exchange of results at the frontiers of their field. Tomorrow her work would come under scrutiny by this august and intimidating group of scholars, and would either receive the cachet of recognition or, possibly, the condemnation of triviality. As she contemplated the depths of the Wotinabee River far below, rapt in thought, a loud shout to her left interrupted her musings.

  "Don’t do it Janet! Even at Essex U life can hardly be that desperate."

  Janet smiled, recognizing the portly figure in the canoe rounding the river-bend as John Antwhistle, Professor and Head of her Biology Department. The canoe made a landing at the river's edge while Janet scrambled down the rocky bank.

  "Getting in a little early bird watching?" asked Janet, noting the binoculars hanging from the Professor's neck.

  "Ah-- you'll find many rara Aves hereabouts," he responded, "both in and outside the conference hall. There are plentiful deep data waders, spoon-billed brain-pickers, several varieties of cuckoos, and colourful evening tent-flappers. Now there, for instance," and he pointed skyward at a long-tailed bird in flight, "is your common magpie. Beware particularly the magpie, Janet- the scientific woods are full of them!" He gestured toward the bow of the canoe. "I don't have an extra paddle, but you're welcome to a free ride."

  Janet climbed over the gunwale and allowed herself to be conducted along the river. As she had done on other occasions Janet wondered at the adroit handling of the boat by one who seemed so ponderous and awkward on dry land. John Antwhistle, like the dark river they glided over, had depths and meanderings of the spirit that continually bemused his colleagues and confounded those unfortunate enough to be his adversaries. It was the latter he was concentrating upon at the moment.

  "Has our learned colleague, Beetleman, attempted to preempt your thunder yet-- pick your brains in advance of the meeting?"

  Janet replied that she hadn't encountered Processor Beadle as yet.

  "Continue to avoid the fellow if you can. Hasn't done anything significant himself in ten years, but beetles about in other peoples' bailiwicks hoping to turn up a lead he can jump on." The Professor continued to fulminate about his antagonist as he leaned vehemently into the paddle thrusts which rapidly propelled them to the landing below Wotinabee Lodge.

  Janet excused herself with a promise to join the Professor for pre-dinner cocktails, and walked briskly back to her room to finish unpacking. It was not Richard Beadle who concerned her regarding the security of her findings. Her true misgivings centred on a member within her own Department, and the worst of it was that she felt that she couldn't confide in her mentor. She frowned as she sorted through the slides for her presentation next day. If she had voiced her suspicions to the Professor she had no doubt that he would dismiss them as preposterous, and conclude that Janet was suffering from delusions of persecution.

  Through the open window Janet could make out the voices of a group of arriving conference members disembarking from their bus. They came into view a moment later as they proceeded to the registration area at the lodge entrance. Janet recognized several of her colleagues from Essex U: the geneticist, Frank Butler, and his wife, Margaret; her own graduate students, Doug Wickner, who was finishing his PhD thesis, and Linda Black, who had just started to follow in his footsteps; Frank’s graduate student, Celia Franklin, who had recently terminated a tempestuous romance with Doug. There were also some celebrities in the group including Richard Beadle, one of the conference organizers, Dr. Neuhauser, Nobel laureate and keynote speaker for the conference, and the redoubtable Mary Kay Jacobs, possibly a bit on the wrong side of forty but still a head-turner and an influential scientist. And, following in her wake Janet noted with wry distaste, hovered the figure of Karl Elster, Janet’s brilliant young collaborator, whom John Antwhistle had recruited from Europe to add his expertise as protein chemist to the Biology Department of Essex University. As the newcomers milled about in the entrance-way, Janet pulled the window drapes across, and, after dressing for the evening activities, set off in the direction of John Antwhistle’s room at the far end of the lodge.

  The first of the Professor’s ample servings from the martini-shaker was accompanied by general conversation about the conference environs, the Wotinabee River, and the fishing therein. Now, as she plied her way through the second of these potent offerings Janet found the courage she had lacked earlier to raise the subject that had been troubling her.

  "What information did you have about Karl before you hired him?"

  "About Karl? I can’t recall a candidate for a position so highly commended in his references. And of course he had a formidable record of publication. Was that the sort of information you meant?"

  "Actually, I was thinking of more personal matters. Formal schooling, family affairs --."

  " Now about affairs. I try not to dig too deeply in that area," he replied with a chuckle. "But his scientific training was first-rate. PhD with Gunther Lankenauer- seven publications on tyrosine kinase activators- then a post-doctoral with Sir Reginald Cunningham at London. You know all the papers from that work on characterizations of somatamedin analogues. He gave an impressive poster on that work at the workshop I attended in Europe. I really thought myself quite fortunate to have button-holed him right after the session. Accepted my suggested offer with no hesitation. That was one aspect of his character I admired right off-- he didn't shilly-shally- we needed him for our research projects, he knew what he wanted. and he went for it."

  "Oh yes," Janet replied, "with Karl there's never much hesitation in getting what he needs or wants. But did you have any idea about how he got along in either of those labs?"

  "You mean personally?"

  Janet nodded.

  "Well, both letter's from Lankenauer and Cunningham were very laudatory about his work. There was no mention of any personal matters."

  "Then you didn't have any conversation with his former supervisors, just the letters?"

  "That's true. Though I'm sure if there were any serious problems they would have come out in the references." He got up to refill her glass, but Janet declined. Her head was beginning to get a little fuzzy after one and a half of the Professor's cocktails; to embark on a
third portion would be suicidal. She settled back in her chair with the remnant of her martini, and contemplated the river scene beyond the balcony of the Professor's room. The late afternoon sun sparkled on the almost mirror-like water. If only she could calm her emotional surface like that of the river. "Has some difficultly developed with Karl's work?"

  "Not with his work exactly." Janet paused momentarily, "Has he told you that he's leaving the University?"

  The Professor was genuinely startled.

  "No, he has not. In fact we talked about his future work, his grant application, lab facilities, and so on. After the alterations we planned to suit him-- well, I just assumed he intended to be around for several years. He has interviewed technicians, agreed to take on a graduate student. Have you some definite information?"

  "No. Just indications, and a pattern of behaviour."

  "Well, I can't approach him with 'indications' can I?" he responded impatiently. "What do you mean by a pattern of behaviour? My impression is that he has been very steady, and productive. You have to admit that his work on your project was pivotal in characterizing the growth factors "

  Janet winced at the word 'pivotal'. If her own Professor took this view of the role Karl had played in her research, the outside world of science might be justified in assuming that the whole isolation process had been a mess until the brilliant young protein chemist came across the ocean to solve all the difficulties. She was groping for words to describe her suspicions without undue emphasis on her feelings of bitterness when a knock on the door announced the arrival of the Butlers.

  The Professor busied himself with another round of martinis, while Margaret Butler detailed the discomforts of their aeroplane connections, the bus-ride, and the spartan accommodations at the cabin they had been assigned.

  "Yet another instance of the advantages of staying single," volunteered the Professor. "Janet, take note. Married couples are banished to the hinterlands," and he managed to refill her glass without her realization.

  "What, Janet? Contemplating marriage?" Margaret's face beamed in anticipation of a juicy morsel of gossip. "Now who might it be?" she inquired archly. "Not young Douglas on the rebound from our dear Celia?" Her husband grimaced at this reference to his graduate student. "Or is it your other collaborator, the so brilliant Dr. Elster?"

  Janet, struggling with her confusion, had been unconsciously attacking the cocktail glass, and disposed of its contents. In spite of herself she felt a storm of fury rising inside as her cheeks, forehead and neck flushed to the roots of her scalp.

  "I have no intentions about entering the marriage market," she replied, rising carefully and deliberately from her chair, "but if I did it would certainly not be with that SOB!" and she left the room with as much dignity as she could muster and set off toward the dining hall.

  In the gathering dusk Janet could just make out the figures of her two graduate students by the water's edge. Their voices had been raised in argument, but as they saw her approach the conversation died away to an embarrassed silence. It did not seem to have been lovers’ quarrel. From appearances, Linda had been attempting to placate Doug, whose grim countenance betrayed a pent-up hostility that Janet knew too well could erupt quite abruptly in an explosion. Somehow his anger quietened her own, and she commenced to lead the discussion to lighter matters.

  "Now you two, have you discovered any diversions on the river? There are boats and canoes to rent you know."

  "No, we just took a hike along one of the nature-trails," put in Linda quickly. "There's a lot of interesting wild flora in the back meadows," she continued earnestly, listing her sightings. Always serious and methodical, Linda, thought Janet so unlike the flamboyant Celia, Doug's erstwhile love-interest. As she prattled on with her catalogue, Janet glanced across at Doug, who was still wrestling to recapture his composure. After a few moments he broke away as though he had given up the struggle, and didn't trust himself to enter the conversation. The two women carried on across the lawn to the entrance to the dining hall.

  A number of conferees had already arrived in anticipation of the banquet and were milling about near the doorway, renewing acquaintances, and arranging themselves into small affinity groups with whom they might amusingly or profitably get through the formal dinner. Janet and her student were noted, or rather their name tags were noted, by Professor Beadle who then proceeded to introduce himself.

  "Dr. Gordon!" he enthused, "so happy you were able to join us and bring your young people along. I believe that tomorrow will be the highlight of our conference," and he bubbled on about the upcoming programme. "I do hope that the order is satisfactory. With the morning session all devoted to the chemistry of growth factors it did seem best to put Dr. Elster at the end of that group, as the 'clean-up man' you might say. And then of course, your talk on the biology of cytomitins will be a fitting finale for the evening session."

  Had he looked at Janet's expression while he made these explanations the Professor would have had difficulty in deriving reassurance. In fact, it was the order of presentations that had been giving her the most trouble. With Karl leading off the description of what she had come to think of as her own proprietary interest, the audience might be excused from making the erroneous conclusion that it was he rather than Janet herself who had originated the work. She might have conveyed these feelings, but the Professor was captive of his own exuberance.

  "I expect there will be some marvellously stimulating discussions about your new growth factors, and their role in the development and malignant spread of cancers. You will be coming to our reception after the banquet won’t you? I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Jacobs (you two will have much in common), and of course hear for myself more details about what you and your group are up to now. But excuse me please, I must attend to our guest speaker," and he bustled off in the direction of the elderly Nobelist who had just entered the dining hall. Together they headed toward the front of the hall and the head-table, where a number of dignitaries including John Antwhistle and Mary Kay Jacobs were also proceeding.

  Janet and Linda moved surreptitiously to a more obscure location, and were just getting seated at a small table near the back of the hall, when they were noticed and joined by the Butlers. If she was aware at all of the feelings she had aroused before Margaret Butler gave no sign of it. She chattered on to Linda about the eligible young male scientists she could expect to find in such a setting, and how she had met and caught the handsome young male scientist who was now her husband at just such a gathering. For his part Frank Butler was quietly trying to mollify Janet about his wife's lack of tact and feeling.

  "Don't concern yourself in the least," laughed Janet. "We all expect Margaret to liven things up that way. Silly of me to overreact to the suggestion about Karl. To tell the truth, things have not been going smoothly in the way of our collaboration. I hate to say it but I've come to mistrust him and his motivations."

  "To tell the truth, I never did trust the guy, either with my data or my wife," rejoined Frank sotto voce.

  Janet considered him with new-found respect. A few tables over she could see the subject of the conversation pressing his attentions on a well-known professor from MIT. Doug was at the same table, still looking like a thundercloud about to spurt a few lightning bolts, and between them sat Celia. Janet recalled the gossip about the Department that it was Karl who had broken up the relationship between Celia and Douglas. Whatever he may have thought of her once however, Karl was giving very little attention to Celia at the moment. She sat in silence, head bowed, almost tragically lovely in desolation, toying with her food. As the waitresses cleared the tables Janet reflected that she would have a hard time recalling what she had eaten herself. The combination of Professor Antwhistle's cocktails, her resentment and mistrust regarding Karl, and anticipation for tomorrow's presentations, had submerged her notice of what was going on around her. Preliminary remarks from the head-table and the introductory portion of Dr. Neuhauser's key
note address had passed by before she had roused herself and tuned in to the proceedings.

  The Nobel prize-winner, a spare wiry man, was equally at home scaling the Himalayas, working at the lab-bench, or spell-binding an audience as he was at the moment. He discoursed, effortlessly, it seemed, on the evolution of hormones, those ubiquitous proteins that lock onto the outer surfaces of certain cells and transmit signals inside to command them to grow, to divide, to develop special functions-- all without the use of visual aids, conjuring vivid pictures in the minds of his audience. Janet knew that the performance had been honed to a fine art after numerous repetitions on the same theme, at several thousand dollars per appearance, but the effect was nonetheless awe-inspiring.

  With only passing reference to his own epochal work on growth hormones, Dr. Neuhauser managed to cite all the pertinent researches, from the beginnings of Banting & Best with insulin up to the current brief abstract of the current work of Elster & Gordon in discovering the novel cytomitins. Janet blushed furiously and tried to look unconcerned, while noting that Karl beamed and virtually took a bow from his place of primacy in the citation. The Nobelist concluded with a wry anecdote regarding the numbers of trips to Stockholm already fostered by these hormones, and predicted from the exponential rise of interest that the current hall would shortly be unable to contain all the contenders for future awards. For an instant Janet fantasized herself before the King of Sweden, as she had in her youth imagined herself at the centre-court of Wimbledon. A round of applause brought her sharply to the realty of the present, and she followed the rest of the group back towards the main lodge where the evening reception was scheduled to take place.

  There were three main categories of players at the reception: a select group of established investigator's like John Antwhistle and Richard Beadle used such occasions for forays into one another’s camps to garner valuable intelligence clues concerning enemy operations, or to conduct raiding parties on promising junior faculty members; an aspiring cohort of the latter eagerly displayed their scientific wares to would-be employers; an amorphous buffer group came with the delusion that the reception was merely a social event, or an opportunity to consume as much free booze as possible courtesy of the sponsor Biotechnonics Supply Co. Although Janet counted herself among the third group, she was barely emerging from the haze of the pre-dinner cocktails and banquet wine. Accordingly she avoided the crush of participants crowding the bar and wandered out onto the terrace for a respite from the hubbub within.

  In the gloom at the far end of the terrace Janet could make out a couple who seemed to be engaged in animated discussion. As she averted her eyes from this apparently romantic scene she heard the unmistakable slap of palm upon face. Shortly after the male participant strode back along the verandah and through the reception-hall doors not far from where she stood. He was readily identifiable as Karl, and he scowled rubbing his reddened cheek, but too preoccupied to notice that he had been observed. Janet walked down to where the female half of the action was standing. She was also readily identifiable, to Janet 's surprise as Linda. The girl, still but shaking with emotion, allowed herself to be led to one of the lawn-chairs where Janet sat down beside her.

  "Are you alI right?" The question seemed fatuous the moment she had uttered it. The scene carried Janet back several months to a similar occasion when she had herself been in unpleasant proximity to Karl and his importunate demands. She hadn't needed to resort to the extreme of physical force to repel his unwanted attention, but she now had more compelling motivation to do so herself, and experienced some vicarious satisfaction that Linda had responded in this way.

  "Well, Doug was probably right in the first analysis, but I wanted to see if I could head off any unpleasantness-- without involving you."

  "Without involving me in what?"

  "It had to do with Karl’s lecture tomorrow. You see Doug happened to overhear him rehearsing his slides in an empty lecture room back home the night before we left for the meeting. And he could tell that Karl had copies of some of the same slides you planned to use in your presentation. Doug wanted to tell you as soon as we arrived here, but I wanted a chance to straighten things out with Karl myself." Even in the dim light from the distant reception hall Janet could tell that Linda was blushing with embarrassment.

  "You see Karl and I -- well, we became pretty close --so I thought--" (You and how many others? Janet wondered) -- instead of stirring everyone up I could go to Karl and ask him not to present your data-- or at least get him to ask your permission."

  "And how did he react to that?"

  "Just laughed. Told me I was naive and foolish-- that if it had been my data or Doug's it made no difference-- we all worked together, and you were at liberty to use his results in your talk. You were going to present the experiments on biological effects of the cytomitins he had purified, so why shouldn't he talk about the work on isolation of the factors in your lab."

  All of which is carefully calculated to appropriate senior authorship on the original work for Karl, reflected Janet grimly. There was no longer any shadow of doubt about the game he was playing. If he cared little about the reactions from his present collaborators to this blatant theft of their experimental findings there was a fairly likely explanation-- he was in the process of engineering another position, and didn’t intend to work with them further. By now he assumed that he had skimmed the cream off the cytomitins project-- as far as his limited biological assessment could take him at any rate-- and he would try to make his skills as a protein chemist indispensable to some other unwitting biologist.

  "Anyway," sighed Cindy, "I discovered one useful fact from all this."

  "And that is?"

  "Anything there might have been between Karl and me is dead and finished as far as I am concerned. God, he made me feel such a fool."

  Janet felt a surge of tenderness for the girl. She had only been working under her direction for a few months but already there was a closer bond between them than she could ever have had with the aloof and independent Douglas. While reassuring Linda she examined her closely about the information which Doug had passed along from his eaves-dropping. Somehow Janet realized that any further confrontation either with Doug or Karl himself about the matter could only lead to more frustration and humiliation for her.

  As she made her way back with Linda toward the main lodge, avoiding the revellers in the reception hall, she choked down her bitter anger. She would need all the mental control she could muster to get through the next twenty-four hours.