I remembered that Dr. Osler had remained behind when the rest of us had left the autopsy session to return to the hospital. Could the Professor have been responsible for the disappearance of the bodies? Unlikely, I decided. He was hardly intimate enough with Charlie to join with him in a conspiracy. The mystery of the young girl in the ice chest, it seemed, would remain, at least for the moment, just that.
Disappointed that I had risked this nocturnal visit for naught, I blew out the candle, replaced the matches, and was on my way, my departure not nearly so eerie as my arrival. I crossed back to University Hospital to discharge my second errand.
As I reached the third floor, I hoped that this visit would be for naught as well, that Annie, the sad girl with the pulmonary infection, would be asleep, since rest came so sporadically to her because of the inability to take in sufficient oxygen. But if she was not, I intended to sit with her at her bedside.
As I got to the door of the children’s ward, I heard the sound of low conversation inside, odd at such an hour. I pushed open the door only a crack and peeked in. There was the Professor, sitting at Annie’s bedside, reading to her.
March 7, 1889
SOMETIMES IN LIFE, SHE REALIZED, no choice is a good one. Still, it was surely better to take action, to make your own decision, than to have your life ruled by others. Now that she had elected a course of action, as distasteful and fraught with danger as it was, she felt stronger.
She had astonished herself just to get this far. Who would have imagined that she, who never so much as purchased her own eggs and bacon for breakfast, had planned and executed an elaborate conspiracy, and then arranged through an intermediary to meet a complete stranger in a waterfront saloon? Her heart had been in her throat since she slipped into the carriage that she had hired surreptitiously earlier in the day. What if she was observed? No matter, though. This had to be done.
Within seconds of meeting him, she knew he could not be trusted but, again, she had no alternative. She had planned to offer only half the agreed amount until the job was finished, but he had insisted on the entire sum in advance. She prayed it was sufficient to ensure, if not his loyalty, at least his competence. And his silence.
CHAPTER 6
BOTH THE PROFESSOR AND I left the hospital at four the following day in order to prepare for our dinner engagement at the Benedict home. On rounds, Simpson and I, in unspoken agreement, had conducted ourselves as before, neither of us acknowledging that we had met away from the hospital. We had, however, passed a look between us when Turk for a second day failed to appear for rounds.
At six-thirty, Dr. Osler’s carriage came for me at Mrs. Mooney’s. The Professor’s consulting practice, which he ran out of a small office on South Fifteenth Street, had begun to thrive, and with the supplement to his university salary, he had been able to acquire clothing suitable for a man whose future greatness was an accepted fact to all in his field. Fees from private patients, mostly hospital cases who needed care after discharge, had allowed me to acquire at least the rudiments of proper dress, although I had yet to replace my cutaway frock coat with the new, tailless “tuxedo,” and my low formal boots were stiff as iron.
The hesitancy I felt about that evening’s dinner was not limited to fears of sartorial inadequacy. I would be attending as the Professor’s assistant, my first assignment in that role, and I did not want to bring even the slightest obloquy upon him as a result of my woeful lack of experience in better society. How would I fare at the home of Hiram Benedict, who, in addition to heading the board of trustees of the university, was chairman of the Pennsylvania Merchant Bank? My only knowledge of the manners of the rich had come from books—The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells, or The Europeans by Henry James, Jr….
The Professor’s hansom was a proper affair, crisply lacquered and pulled by an elegant black horse. He looked me up and down as I climbed on board. “Very well turned out,” he said.
I was grateful to the Professor for the sentiment, but I nonetheless continued to feel as though those serving the soup were certain to be more fashionably attired than I. When I noted that I did not feel as if I belonged at a gathering of such eminence, he laughed.
“Eyewash,” he declared. “They are just people, Carroll. You will do wonderfully. Best get used to the rich—this is hardly the last time that you will attend an affair of this sort. Hospitals don’t build themselves, eh? In modern medicine, the ability to chat amiably over dinner is almost as important as recognizing scarlet fever.”
I was relieved to hear that among the guests would be Weir Mitchell and Hayes Agnew, the Professor’s closest friends in Philadelphia. I had met each man previously; perhaps their presence might lend at least a semblance of familiarity to the occasion.
Mitchell, in addition to being one of the world’s leading authorities on nervous diseases, was also a noted novelist and had recently taken to writing poetry, but his manner with patients could be eccentric in the extreme. Once he had been asked to see a woman whose condition was sufficient to convince her attending physician that she was dying. After a cursory examination, Mitchell dismissed everyone from her room, and then walked out himself a few minutes later. Asked whether the patient would live, he replied, “Oh yes, she will be coming out in a moment. I have set her sheets on fire.” When the terrified but obviously robust woman burst out of her room and ran down the hall, Mitchell nodded and said, “There! A clear-cut case of hysteria.”
Agnew, the man who had tried unsuccessfully to oust Burleigh, was an eminent surgeon and esteemed professor of anatomy at the university. Eight years earlier, he had attended James Garfield in a doomed attempt to save the President’s life after the latter had been shot. Just turned seventy, Agnew had recently announced his retirement.
“And then, of course, there will be the women,” the Professor added, mischief playing at the corners of his eyes. “The presence of a couple of bachelors like us will require the balance of two attractive and charming ladies.”
“I’m always happy to share a table with attractive and charming ladies,” I replied without enthusiasm. On Rittenhouse Square, among the millionaires, chatting amiably at dinner might prove daunting. I was certain to be paired with someone who knew less about rural Ohio than I knew about Patagonia.
“As am I,” Dr. Osler agreed, unable to mask his eagerness. “When I arrived in Philadelphia after accepting my chair, everyone seemed quite astonished when I stepped off the train alone. They had somehow gotten the notion that I was a married man. Agnew later told me that he had come to the station more to meet Mrs. Osler than me, because he had been told that she was a Buddhist. I have never quite deduced how that rumor got started. My colleagues quickly overcame their disappointment, however, and replaced it with what seems to be a competition to see which one of them will succeed in introducing me to my future wife. Tonight, Mitchell tells me that my dinner companion is to be young Gross’ widow, Grace.”
Dr. Samuel W. Gross had recently died of sepsis at age fifty-two. Although a noted physician and surgeon in his own right, he had toiled in the shadow of his father, Samuel D. Gross, who himself had died at age seventy-nine only five years before. The elder Gross had been the dominant figure in American surgery and medical education for four decades.
“Mrs. Gross is a direct descendant of Paul Revere, you know,” the Professor observed, “although that is not as significant in the wilds of Ontario as here.”
“Perhaps you should carry a single lantern, since you come by land,” I offered. “Do you know who has been invited as my companion?”
“I believe you will be seated next to Abigail Benedict, the old boy’s daughter. Do you know of her?”
I admitted I did not.
“Well, Carroll,” he said, reveling in my ignorance, “it might have been best to wear armor.”
All too soon, we pulled up to the Benedict home, a wide-fronted, granite Greek revival with a small second-floor balcony over the entrance on Walnut Street, facing
south on Rittenhouse Square. The carriage came to a halt and we were met by a liveried Negro coachman who helped us down and ushered us into the house.
I had on occasion strolled across Rittenhouse Square and seen the mansions, a line of monuments to rewards of class, but had never before been inside one of them. However exalted my expectations for what I would find, they nonetheless proved inadequate. The second I stepped across the threshold, I was overpowered by opulence. The foyer was a huge oval, two stories high, with a promenade ringing the second floor, and topped by a stained-glass skylight, a celestial incarnation of the layout in the Dead House. The entire building appeared to be illuminated by electric lighting. Directly opposite the front door, a staircase of gleaming white marble snaked up to the second floor, lined with oil portraits of gloomy colonials or musty dowagers. Thick, ornately patterned Oriental rugs lay on either side of the mouth of the staircase. As I perused art and furnishings worthy of a museum, the four thousand dollars I was to receive at Johns Hopkins did not seem at all like a great deal of money.
Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Benedict waited to greet us. Benedict was in his late fifties and immense, well over six feet, with a large gray mustache and an even larger stomach. He wore what seemed to be an embedded glower, and there were tufts of white hair growing from each ear, giving him the mien of an angry Etruscan god. Mrs. Benedict was portly as well, white-haired, and handsome, wearing a gown of green lace, buff lace gloves, and a diamond tiara. Four long strands of fat pearls draped over her more than ample bosom.
“Thank you for coming, Dr. Osler,” said Benedict, stepping forward. “We are honored that you have joined us this evening.” He turned to me. His eyes were sapphire and, although a bit rheumy, his gaze was nonetheless penetrating. “And this must be your young protégé. It is good to meet you, Dr. Carroll.” Benedict’s voice was deep and seemed to roll out from within him. He spoke with the casual ease of a man comfortable in his supremacy. “May I present my daughter, Abigail.”
I had not seen Abigail Benedict as we entered but, from the moment she appeared at her father’s side, I knew she was remarkable. She was not pretty in the way that women were typically thought to be pretty—her nose was a trifle long and her lips a bit full—but I was transfixed all the same. She wore a high-necked gown of black velvet and no jewelry whatever. She was tall, like her parents, auburn-haired and lean, with her father’s extraordinary blue eyes.
I knew those eyes. I had seen them at Barker’s restaurant two days before. A fleeting smile played across Miss Benedict’s face and I knew that she remembered as well.
“Dr. Carroll,” she said, stepping forward and extending her hand assertively, as would a man. She was not wearing gloves, revealing long and graceful fingers. “I have been looking forward to meeting you. I expect you to regale me over dinner with exotic tales of modern medicine.”
I took her hand and bowed, unsure if I was being mocked. How could anyone be sure of anything, standing amid the wealth of the pharaohs in a room the size of an operating theater, opposite a rich and beautiful woman who expected me to be witty and entertaining?
“I believe I warned you to wear armor, Ephraim,” said the Professor.
“Oh, I hope I am not as frightening as all that,” Miss Benedict said.
“Perhaps you would like to escort Dr. Carroll into the drawing room to join the other guests?” suggested Mrs. Benedict.
“I would be happy to, Mother,” Miss Benedict replied. She took my arm properly, not like Monique, but I found the very propriety somehow more discomfiting. The drawing room was cavernous and created the illusion of seeing those inside as at a distance, in the manner one would observe an acquaintance walking on the other side of a boulevard. The ceiling was at least twelve feet high, ringed with dentil molding. A chair rail divided the walls between the buff-painted bottom third and the deep green brushed silk wallpaper that covered the rest. Another immense crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, again lit by electricity rather than gas or candle.
What must it be like, I wondered, to live in such luxury?
The guests had divided themselves into two groups, split according to profession. Drs. Mitchell and Agnew stood in a small knot near the door, chatting and sipping champagne with their wives. Mitchell was invariably the first person to be noticed in any gathering. Tall and gaunt, he wore an imposing full gray beard and had more than once been compared to Uncle Sam or President Lincoln. I’d once overheard a student exclaim that to sit in Weir Mitchell’s class was “like being taught neurology by Jehovah himself.” Agnew, short, bald, and jovial, with a full white mustache, was a perfect match for his short, jovial, white-haired wife.
The Mitchells and the Agnews apparently knew Miss Benedict well, and everyone spoke quite cordially. There was an ease to their manner, a nonchalance that I knew I must perfect if I was ever to fit into this society. I did not say a great deal, preferring to observe, but nor did I embarrass myself.
“Excuse me, please,” said Miss Benedict after a few minutes, “but I must introduce Dr. Carroll to our plutocrats.” She nudged me gently from the physicians and escorted me toward a group of six people across the room.
The three couples varied greatly in age. Abigail Benedict led me first to a wizened, sallow man named Elias Schoonmaker, who, from the tone of his skin, appeared to be suffering from a liver disorder. His head bent slightly forward when he spoke, eyes rolled upward, as if he were a stern clergyman passing judgment on a sinner. His wife was a squirrel-like woman whose dress and demeanor seemed more suited to the Puritan era.
The second couple was much younger, in their early thirties. The man was tall, full but not fat, clean-shaven, with dark hair parted on the side. He wore spectacles, but they did not obscure a pair of powerful Benedict blue eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Carroll.” He thrust his hand forward. “I’m Albert Benedict.” His smile held charm and distance. “I’m a great admirer of your profession. How thrilling it must be to save a life.”
I acknowledged the compliment, but there was a serrated edge to Albert Benedict’s casual manner that was unsettling, as I assumed it was meant to be.
“The excitement of science,” he continued, too enthusiastically, “so much more vital than the idle pursuits.”
Miss Benedict’s jaw tightened. “My brother is a banker, Dr. Carroll, which is hardly an idle pursuit,” she responded immediately. “Of course, it becomes a bit more idle when one works for one’s father.”
“It is true,” her brother agreed amiably. “My father’s dynastic aspirations have eased my path to glory, Dr. Carroll. Everyone, I suppose, tries to hitch their wagon to some star or other. Success comes simply in choosing the right star.”
I felt a momentary flush as the Professor flashed in my mind. Miss Benedict opened her mouth to respond, but before she could get the words out, her older brother, ever smiling, shot her a brief but frozen glance and broke off the exchange. Albert then introduced me to his small and fragile-looking wife, Margaret, whose elaborate pearl choker served only to make her appear more birdlike. Margaret Benedict was extremely polite, with the perfect diction and practiced gestures that bespoke a finishing school education. They stood together but, instead of appearing as a unit, she and her husband seemed to occupy separate space.
The third man was the most striking of the three. He was no more than fifty, but with a bearing so severe that the upper half of his face appeared not to move when he spoke. Miss Benedict introduced him as Jonas Lachtmann.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Lachtmann said to me, managing to sound disagreeable while attempting to be cordial. “And this is my wife, Eunice,” he added, gesturing to an attractive but lifeless woman with graying strawberry blond hair.
“Jonas is one of our leading citizens,” interjected Abigail Benedict. Whereas she and her brother had carped at each other in sibling irritation, her hostility for this man was conspicuous and profound.
Lachtmann did not reply. Provoked or not, it was obvio
us that no one outside the family took liberties with Hiram Benedict’s daughter.
“And how is Rebecca?” Miss Benedict continued, and then turned to me in explanation. “Jonas’ daughter is on holiday in Italy. She is one of my best friends.” She exhibited no outward change in demeanor, but I sensed this subject was disturbing to her, although she herself had raised it.
“She is quite well,” Lachtmann replied, refusing to warm even to the subject of his child.
“I believe she has gone into the countryside on her way to Rome, my dear,” added Mrs. Lachtmann stiffly. “That, at least, is what she intended in her last letter from Florence. I think the mails are probably even less reliable there than in the rest of Italy, which means they are not reliable at all.”
“I hope that the travel has not been too oppressive,” Albert Benedict remarked. “Europe can be quite difficult for the uninitiated.”
Mrs. Lachtmann smiled, although it fixed on her face as a pinched line. “Our daughter seems to be enjoying herself.”
“Please convey my best regards when you next write to her,” Benedict said.
“Yes. Philadelphia is not the same without Rebecca. Everyone says so, don’t they, Albert?” added Margaret Benedict.
Before he could answer, Miss Benedict interrupted. “As much as I know how much you’d all like to chat with Dr. Carroll,” she said, her unease now a bit more apparent, “I’m going to tear him away.”
She led me, seemingly with relief, across the room to a table at which a retainer was pouring champagne. It was a thrill to be alone with Miss Benedict. She seemed content to be in my company and I had never met a woman as beautiful or sophisticated—or so desirable.
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