Death of the Magpie

by William McMurray

CHAPTER EIGHT

  The concluding session of the conference was only sparsely attended. It was apparent that almost one-third of the original membership had skipped the Friday afternoon workshops to make travel connections for distant locations. The remainder, amply fortified by the wine from the final banquet, were in a warm and festive mood in spite of the tragedy earlier in the week. As she settled into her chair Janet found herself adapting to acceptance of what had transpired, to a different perspective of Karl. She thought of the waste of his talents (for he had some creditable traits): drive, hard work, ambition, a certain imagination, ability to arouse enthusiasm in others toward his projects. His projects! There was the tragedy-- that all his efforts had been so aggressively and totally self-serving. He actually seemed to have convinced himself that these were all his projects, that through his efforts to solve problems, although the work may have been undertaken by others, he had acquired sole proprietary rights to the solutions.

  Taking the long view, she wondered what posterity would remember of Karl. His name would be cited henceforth occasionally in connection with some of his publications on tyrosine phosphatases, cytomitins or possibly proteastatin, but within a year or two most of the one hundred souls in this room would recall Dr. Elster only as an aberration, a brief diversion in the smooth flow of this year's conference. Janet gave a little shudder in the realization of just how ephemeral the reputation of a scientist was, much in the same way that the sight of Karl's broken body and piercing stare had brought home the realization of her own mortality. As her eyes were gradually adjusting to the dim light of the hall, Bob Hayes bounced into the next seat shattering her reverie.

  "I swear you're trying to avoid me," he declared accusingly. "I couldn't find you at any of the workshop sessions or the dinner table. Where have you been hiding?"

  Janet explained the curious state of her health and her enforced absence from the afternoon's activities.

  "Well, Margot has been feeling pretty low as well. Although in her case I'm sure it's chiefly a psychological problem."

  "Hardly unexpected in the situation she's in. Frankly I don't know how she managed to hold up as well as she has so far!" replied Janet with admiration.

  "There's something else as well," Bob whispered as the conference session started to get underway. "Look, if you are feeling OK after this maybe we could go somewhere for a bite to eat and a talk."

  Janet nodded in affirmation, then turned her attention to the podium. The chairman for the evening was Professor Antwhistle, and he was making the most of his privileged position and the general bonhomie of his audience to roast the conference organizers, particularly his bête-noire, Professor Beadle.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, he commenced. "Some of you of tender years or limited experience in administrative matters may be labouring under the misapprehension that science begins and ends in the laboratory and/or library. Moreover, you may mistakenly believe that conferences such as ours rise up spontaneously in the manner of mushrooms in the early morning; in fact they require hard digging for funds, sowing of the proper fertile minds in the programme, and considerable energy to bring in the harvest."

  "He missed little light and much manure!" put in Bob Hayes in a loud, irreverent stage-whisper.

  "For all this we must thank our old friend, Dick Beadle," the Professor continued with the emphasis on 'old', and proceeded to show some candid photos of a youthful D.B. "complete with hair", and in a laboratory gown -- "the last day that D.B. actually did an experiment on his own". Janet noted that Professor Beadle joined in the jocularity, although his smile had a somewhat forced quality.

  "The conference depends on its organizers no doubt," continued the Professor, "but without the presenters it would have no point, and without the youthful experimenters, the actual labourers of science, there would be no data to present. And so in thanking the speakers for their contributions to our meeting I especially want to direct my final remarks to the true students of science. If it seems to you that the fruits of your labours tumble as windfalls into the laps of your undeserving supervisors, bear in mind that they also may bear a disproportionate share of bad fruit or broken limbs if your efforts turn out to be rotten through errors or artefacts. Also be heartened by that famous tombstone elegy 'where thou now standest there once did I, where I now liest thou too shall lie'. So in your turn you shall reap all the harvest from the work of your associates and students, and the penal ties for their wrongs. It is only necessary to do as myself and my old colleague, D.B., persist, survive, encourage others, you shall find your just deserts."

  With these portentous remarks he sat down and handed the meeting over to Mary Kay Jacobs, who provided a summary critique of each of the work-shop sessions. Janet found this particularly useful to fill in the gaps from her afternoon's absence. She thought ahead to their return to Essex U, and determined to hold a discussion seminar about the key new findings of the conference with the students, a sort of post-mortem. The thought brought her back again to the nagging questions concerning Karl's demise. Perhaps it was one of those situations with a host of coincidental contributing factors, no one of which could be the isolated or sufficient cause.

  When the formal proceedings concluded Janet went to the front of the room to say her farewells to Professor Beadle and to arrange to meet Mary Kay for a last chat next morning at breakfast. Then she and Bob walked across to the snack-bar, and took a light supper out to the terrace. Most of the action was taking place in the bar-room, and they managed to find a secluded table away from the main crowd. Janet satisfied her indifferent appetite fairly quickly and eyed Bob impatiently.

  "What exactly is on your mind Dr. Hayes?"

  "It's something that has been troubling both Margot and me. Actually, you're much to blame."

  "Now hang on a bit. I have enough feelings of guilt about Karl's case. If I had been there sooner he mightn't have fallen, and so on. Don't try to make me feel any worse."

  "I'm sorry , but that isn't it at all. You see, you were the one who raised the question whether Karl's fall had been accidental."

  "Which both you and Margot pooh-poohed as I recall.”

  "Yes. Well, we're beginning to wonder a bit."

  "And what brought about this change of heart?"

  A couple emerged from the bar and noisily occupied the adjacent table. Bob leaned across the table and suggested a walk. They passed the tennis courts and strolled slowly along the path by the river. A waning moon cast a few shadows through the trees.

  "It had to do with Karl’s remaining insulin supply," Bob went on. "There was one unused vial, seal still intact, then two others that were partly used."

  "So I suppose he found there wasn't enough in one for a new dose and opened another."

  "I don' t think so because they were both over half-full."

  "Or then he suspected one batch and started a new one?"

  "There was something else."

  "You're not going to tell me that Karl left a suicide note or a letter."

  "He did leave a letter as a matter of fact but it couldn't be interpreted that way. The letter was addressed to Margot, and there wasn't much personal content. The main item concerned obtaining a supply of proteastatin."

  "Which he presumably already had," mused Janet. "Could you tell when it was written ?"

  "It was started up here because it was on Wotinabee Lodge stationery."

  "So what is the mystery about the two opened insulin vials?" asked Janet after a pause.

  "One is normal looking, the other, rather turbid with an oily film on top."

  "As though it had gone off?"

  "Or had something added to it."

  Janet thought back to her conversation with Mary Kay Jacobs. For anyone who seriously wanted to be rid of Karl the simplest solution was to slip some toxic substance into his insulin supply. Provided of course that one could do so without provoking suspicion. The bottle would have had to be opened already, and the ad
ulterant would have to be uncoloured and readily miscible with the contents of the vial. That condition surely hadn't been met if it was so obvious to Margot that the vial had been tampered with.

  "It makes no sense though," argued Janet. "Unless we assume that Karl detected something amiss with that bottle and opened another."

  "Then why keep the contaminated one?"

  "Oh I don't know. Perhaps to confront the manufacturer. Perhaps he realized the cleanup in this place is slow to nonexistent," and she related the situation with the accumulated trash in her room.

  "Or perhaps," said Bob evenly, "because it was Karl himself who put some toxic substance into the bottle."

  Janet stared at him incredulously.

  "To what end? You surely don' t believe that he--"

  "Killed himself," Bob nodded emphatically. "It all seems to point to that end. Karl was a moody fellow. I had seen that side of him as you must have. Black moods."

  "More of anger than remorse I should have thought," snorted Janet scathingly.

  "Yes, but a lot of that anger could be self-directed too. He seemed an arrogant person, perhaps totally insensitive."

  ‘"That's an understatement!"

  "But not so. He was really terribly unsure of himself underneath."

  "Ye gods!" interjected, Janet impatiently, "next you'll be telling me he wasn't responsible for his actions."

  "I wouldn’t put it just that way," Bob replied cautiously. "But he was an impulsive sort, could be carried away by uncontrollable urges."

  Janet was struggling to keep her temper under rein.

  "I have an uncontrollable urge right now to tell you that is so much B.S. Karl had no more of a suicidal temperament than some carnivorous animal with his prey. He was a predator and you know it."

  "Well, as I said at first I'm still not really convinced. But Margot has come to the conclusion that Karl tried to poison himself."

  "What with?"

  "Possibly the proteastatin. It wouldn't take much of that stuff, it's so fantastically toxic. Karl was supposed to be bringing a sample for Dr. Jacobs's lab, and that has never turned up."

  "Maybe he just forgot, or never intended to follow through, at least until he saw whether she would really offer him a job."

  "Perhaps. But he could have taken it up in a syringe, shot it into the insulin bottle to make an emulsion."

  "It all sounds pretty far fetched to me. If he wanted to do away with himself why not just take the stuff? Why go to such trouble?"

  "I don't know."

  "And why go all the way down to the cliff? Why not do it right in his room?"

  "Hard to say. Maybe he wanted people to think it was an accident."

  "Well anyway, there's no way of proving it now that Karl's been cremated is there?"

  "That's certainly true. Although there were those funny indications; you said yourself he was reeling before his fall."

  "The only sort of proof would be an analysis of the contents of the bottle. I presume you have taken precautions to keep it out of harm's way?"

  "Safe enough. I was very careful to see that Margot didn’t handle it once we suspected something. I sealed it up in plastic, then put it into an empty tin and sealed that thoroughly."

  "Good. We can verify that when we get back to the lab."

  "In which case it would surely point to suicide. No-one else knew that he was carrying the inhibitor with him."

  "Except for Dr. Jacobs, who might have told somebody else."

  "True. But not very likely," said Bob as they returned to their starting point.

  "Not very likely." The phrase echoed in Janet’s brain. And who else beside Mary Kay Jacobs, whom she couldn’t suspect for an instant, was not very likely to be involved. Celia, for example, who knew as much about proteastatin and its toxicity first-hand as anyone, including Karl and Margot. Or Doug, who may have discussed the compound with her. Even Linda for that matter could have heard about the inhibitor and its killing properties. There were enough people with knowledge, motive, opportunity. Except for one puzzling factor-- how the stuff had been administered. There was nobody nearby to deliver the fatal dose. And if Karl had injected it into himself in the contaminated insulin preparation, why on the cliff-top, and where was the incriminating syringe which he used? Janet went to bed with a number of new posers troubling her. By the time that sleep came finally she was no nearer to solving them, although the train of her thinking had ordered itself into an agenda for inquiry the following day.