The Anatomy of Deception

by Lawrence Goldstone

  Once a scourge that killed millions across the civilized world, cholera had largely been brought to heel by modern science. Although much of the public still blindly feared contagion, since Robert Koch identified the Vibrio cholerae bacillus in Egypt six years before, doctors had learned that the disease is transmitted only by consuming food or water contaminated with high concentrations of the bacteria. A high concentration is required since Vibrio cholerae is acid-sensitive and most of the organisms are destroyed in the stomach before reaching the intestines. Little are most people aware that they ingest small amounts of Vibrio cholerae almost every day. Transmission can be prevented through proper sanitation. Washing thoroughly with carbolic soap after handling contaminated material also eliminates any possibility of acquiring or transmitting the disease.

  As such, I knew Mrs. Fasanti was no threat to others, so I instructed the woman to report Turk’s death to the nearest precinct house personally. With respect to Turk’s assertion to his landlady that someone had been out to do him in, I assured her that it was likely delirium brought on by his illness and, in any case, there was no reason to introduce the notion of foul play into the proceedings. She readily agreed, more than willing to keep the story as bald as possible.

  Before I allowed Mrs. Fasanti to leave, however, I required some information. “How much did he pay you not to call the authorities?”

  “I won’t give it back,” she sputtered indignantly. “Not with what I had to do these past three days.”

  “If you do as I say,” I replied, “no one will ask for your money, and the police will leave you alone. Now, how much did he give you?”

  Mrs. Fasanti looked to the floor. “Two hundred.”

  “Two hundred dollars?” A fortune. Any lingering doubt that Turk was involved in illicit activity was dispelled. “Did he ever have visitors here? Anyone at all?”

  “Almost never,” Mrs. Fasanti replied. “He didn’t want nobody to know where he lived. I’m surprised he told you.”

  “‘Almost never’? Who came here?”

  “There was an elderly gent who came once.”

  “Elderly?” I asked. “How elderly? What did he look like?”

  “He wasn’t real old. Had a mustache and a beard. Funny kind o’ glasses.” She gestured across her hair. “Kinda thin on top.”

  It occurred to me that the description, cursory as it was, corresponded to the man with whom I had seen Turk argue at The Fatted Calf.

  “Anyone else come here?”

  “A couple of girls,” admitted Mrs. Fasanti.

  I showed her the picture of Rebecca Lachtmann, but the woman shook her head. I tried one last question. “Tell me, Mrs. Fasanti, did Turk send word to the hospital last Friday that he was ill?” If he had not, how could the professor have known of his “gastrointestinal ailment”? Although it was likely delirium, Turk had, after all, told her that a doctor was out to kill him and, had Dr. Osler been in my place, he would certainly have asked the same question.

  She thought for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah. He had me send a boy.”

  “When? What time of day? Was it early?”

  “Real early,” she confirmed to my relief, although I had not seriously suspected the answer would be otherwise. “He didn’t get home until after three the night before,” the woman went on, “and he was already sick. Woke me up comin’ in. Told me to send someone first thing.”

  Three? Turk had dropped me at Mrs. Mooney’s no later than one. I sent Mrs. Fasanti on her way to the local precinct house and, as soon as she had gone, I pulled back the sheet and conducted a cursory postmortem examination on my former colleague. Poor Turk had been ravaged, the agony of his last days etched on his face. The immediate cause of death certainly appeared to be extreme dehydration. For the condition to become sufficiently acute to kill in such short time, cholera was the most obvious culprit.

  As far as I was aware, there had been few cases of the disease in recent months, and those that had occurred were largely confined to the waterfront district, where Turk, I knew, was no stranger. Still, with cholera now a far less prevalent threat, what if Turk’s pronouncement to his landlady had not been delirium? It certainly no longer came as a surprise that Turk might have made enemies fierce enough to want him dead. But a doctor? It would be a simple matter to determine whether the death was as it seemed with an autopsy. Formad, pathologist or no, might be squeamish at dissecting a possible cholera case, but the Professor would leap at the opportunity. I completed my examination, scrubbed my hands in the basin with the bar of carbolic soap that Mrs. Fasanti had purchased at Turk’s direction, and then turned my attention to his possessions.

  I was not sure what I was looking for—a notebook, perhaps, or other material to indicate the source of his extensive funds, or perhaps some piece of trivia that would establish a link with Rebecca Lachtmann. I had never had cause to search anyone’s rooms before, and I feared to be too obvious in my rummaging with the police on the way. I looked briefly through his desk and the large oak armoire that held an extensive and costly wardrobe, but could discover nothing untoward. In the sitting area was a bookcase filled with the works of Greek philosophers, particularly Plato. There were also an impressive number of medical books, as well as Bancroft’s ten-volume history of the United States. Here, away from the fleshpots, Turk apparently engaged in intellectual pursuits. As with Monique, I felt a melancholy that came with intimate revelations, in this case the portrait of a talented, highly intelligent, and in many ways admirable man, done in by bitterness and greed.

  Three grim, burly, uniformed police officers arrived soon after, with a wagon to transport Turk’s body to the destination on the Blockley grounds with which he had been all too familiar in life. It was a small matter to avoid controversy with the authorities. I merely told the officers the truth about missing Turk at the hospital, seeking him out at the professor’s suggestion, the mislaid records, and my subsequent conversations with his acquaintances. As I promised, I saved Mrs. Fasanti any unpleasantness by noting that Turk was a doctor and that she had acted under his direction, isolating the area where the illness was located and following sanitary procedures elsewhere in the house. They were none too pleased to have been called only after the fact, but they did not feel competent to challenge one physician discussing the behavior of another.

  The policemen wrapped Turk in a clean sheet that they procured from the landlady, avoiding all but minimal contact with the body. Then they hefted the bundle and carried it out the door. Given what I had heard from Monique, I felt a far deeper wrenching watching Turk’s corpse removed than I would have thought possible. I asked Mrs. Fasanti how she intended to dispose of his belongings. She reacted to the question with annoyance.

  “I woulda sold them,” she maintained, “but who’s gonna want them now? I’ll just have to pack the lot and leave it for the junk man.”

  “I would like the books,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said, brightening. “I’ll let you have them all … for just … ten dollars.”

  I glared at the repulsive woman. “I had a different price in mind.”

  “Yeah?” Her eyes narrowed at the prospect of haggling. “How much?”

  “Nothing,” I replied.

  “Noth …”

  “I think that my saving you the additional attention of the police ought to be payment enough. If you disagree, however—”

  “Take them,” she snapped. “They ain’t worth nothing anyway.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure that’s true.” I told her, if the police approved, I would send a boy to fetch them. Then, still quite shaken but feeling that, in taking the books, I would salvage something of the memory of their owner, I sadly left for home.

  CHAPTER 10

  AS SOON AS I ARRIVED at the hospital the following morning, I sought out the Professor and told him what had transpired at Turk’s. As with the police, I related the events precisely as they had occurred, but omitted any mention of Turk’s po
ssible activities as an abortionist or of Rebecca Lachtmann. The Professor, after all, had reacted strangely at the sight of the cadaver in the ice chest as well.

  “Kill him? You said he thought someone was trying to kill him?” the Professor asked incredulously. “That’s why he didn’t seek help? What could possibly have made him think that? Must have been off his head. But anything’s possible, I suppose. Cholera is a bit out of the ordinary as well. Where would someone with Turk’s knowledge of the disease have contracted cholera?”

  I noted Turk’s attraction to the underside of Philadelphia and his habit of frequenting establishments near the waterfront.

  “That accounts for it, I’m sure,” the Professor replied. “Have we had any other cases?”

  “The police said that this is the first in some weeks, but isolated outbreaks are common near the docks.”

  “Hmm. Bad luck for Turk then, eh? Too bad. I’m going to miss him. He had a first-rate mind, Turk did, and I continued to hope that he would begin to apply himself more seriously. Frankly, Carroll, I was hoping that he would begin to emulate you.”

  I knew that the Professor meant his remarks in a complimentary fashion, but I was not all that pleased in being described in effect as a humorless drudge.

  “Well, no time to waste,” said the Professor, moving for the door. “Let’s hurry across to the Dead House and see what did poor Turk in, eh?” As Turk had died of a suspected communicable disease and without next of kin, no permission was required for an autopsy.

  For those unacquainted with scientific inquiry, it might seem ghoulish to express anticipation at the prospect of cutting open one’s coworker, but for us dissection was as natural as conversation. The Professor had made it widely known that not only would he instruct that an autopsy be conducted on him after his death, but that he intended, as he was failing, to predict what the anatomist would find and expected the eventual results to be matched against his prognostication. If I had expired under circumstances of the least suspicion, it would be my absolute wish that the Professor perform a postmortem.

  The Professor was so impatient to race across the grounds that I was able only to locate Simpson and Farnshaw to join us. Farnshaw seemed stricken by the news that it would be Turk on the table but Simpson was more circumspect. “Cholera?” she asked, as Farnshaw walked ahead. “An odd affliction, don’t you think, for a man with Turk’s training?”

  I agreed, but mentioned Turk’s predilection for the waterfront district. Simpson remained dubious.

  “I don’t see that it matters much where he spent his time. For a doctor, cholera is a disease that one almost has to want to contract.”

  “We will soon know,” I said.

  “Soon know?” Simpson repeated. “Then you suspect …”

  “I don’t have any reason to suspect anything,” I protested, none too convincingly.

  Simpson moved closer and lowered her voice. “There’s more to this, Ephraim. I know there is. You must tell me what’s going on.”

  But I couldn’t do that. I did not know for certain what was going on myself and, I confess, I did not want to mention Abigail Benedict to Mary Simpson.

  Simpson took me by the arm. It was the first time she had ever touched me. “Ephraim, I told you to be careful before. That admonition is even more crucial now. Involvement in this can lead to no good. I’m certain of it.”

  It only seemed to occur to her as she finished speaking that she had her hand on me. She pulled it away as a blush crept up her cheeks.

  “Thank you, Mary,” I said. “I will do as you say.”

  When we arrived at the Dead House, Formad was upstairs and the Professor had already bounded up to speak with him. He reappeared a few moments later. As I had suspected, although Formad was entitled to conduct the autopsy, he was more than willing in this case to cede his authority to the Professor. Although Koch’s work had made it possible to handle the dead in addition to treating the living, Formad had refused to purge himself of the common misconception that proximity to a cholera patient would put one at risk.

  Our late colleague was in the first chest in the mortuary. The Professor swung it open, and there before us lay the gray, desiccated form of George Turk. His lean frame was emaciated as if by famine, his ribs and ilia protruding and prominent. His features seemed to have acquired a new placidity and I thought of his bookshelf filled with the classics.

  The others had also paused. One’s own mortality is reflected in the face of a dead friend, and even the Professor must have felt that one day it would be he lying in the ice. The moment quickly passed, however, and we removed Turk from the ice chest, wheeled him to the table, and set to work.

  Farnshaw took notes while Simpson and I assisted. Once the Professor had made the usual cuts in the torso, creating the Y-shaped opening, my initial squeamishness ceased. The procedure went quickly and smoothly, and the results were completely consistent with death by dehydration. We focused on the digestive tract, from which a number of samples were taken. We took great care, of course, since direct contact with Vibrio cholerae in the intestinal tract was to be avoided. Turk’s stomach contained only a small amount of brown fluid, and the duodenum and small intestine contained small amounts of yellow mucus. The large bowel contained yellowish brown mucus, and the area of the throat at the back of the mouth, the esophagus, and the trachea also contained brown mucus. A fatty infiltrate was detected in the liver. The kidneys contained yellow deposits. A cursory examination of the brain cavity showed evidence of increased cranial pressure. The immediate cause of death was cardiac failure, unremarkable since severe dehydration leads to a change in blood chemistry, which in turn often leads to a collapse of the circulatory system.

  “I think that is about all we’re going to learn,” said the Professor, after all the material for slides had been secured. “If there are no objections, I believe we can return the organs and close up.”

  I never contradicted the Professor in front of others—and rarely in any case—but on this occasion I was forced to interject. “Are you not going to take hair follicle and toenail samples, Doctor?”

  The Professor eyed me for a moment before replying. “Of course, Carroll. I was intending to do just that after we closed. I was unaware that hair follicles or toenails are found inside the thorax or abdomen, but perhaps my anatomy is not up-to-date.” I began to stutter an apology, but before I could speak, the Professor said, “Farnshaw, why is Carroll insistent on follicle and toenail samples?”

  Farnshaw put down his pen with a start. “Well,” he began, “perhaps …”

  “You have no idea, do you?”

  “No, Dr. Osler,” Farnshaw admitted.

  “Simpson?”

  A smile played at the corners of Simpson’s mouth, which, although she never took her eyes from the Professor, I knew was meant for me. But then, instead of responding with the correct answer, she said, “I don’t know, either.”

  “Well, Carroll, why don’t you tell them then?” the Professor said.

  “Hair follicles and toenails are the most reliable places to test for residual arsenic trioxide. The chemical remains in those areas after it has been flushed from other parts of the body.”

  “And why test for arsenic trioxide?”

  “The symptoms of arsenic poisoning can easily be confused with those for cholera. Those affected die of severe dehydration, often in the same time period as those with cholera.”

  “So, it is your theory, then, that Turk was poisoned.”

  “Not a theory, but it cannot be ruled out.”

  “Quite so. Quite so. Very good work. Would you be so kind as to take the samples?”

  As I began to do so, the Professor asked, “How can we test for arsenic poisoning, Farnshaw? Or did they not cover unnatural death at Harvard?”

  “Marsh’s test,” replied Farnshaw instantly. “Developed by James Marsh in England about… 1835, I believe.”

  “’36,” noted Simpson.

  “Quite r
ight,” said the Professor. “Go on, Farnshaw.”

  “Marsh was angered when a poisoner was acquitted of his crime because the test used for detecting arsenic, passing hydrogen sulfide through it in hydrochloric acid—”

  “Hahnemann’s test, yes?” prompted the Professor.

  “Yes,” agreed Farnshaw. “Hahnemann’s test allowed the resulting arsenic sulfide to deteriorate before it could be used in evidence. Marsh decided to create a better test. He started with nitric acid, but eventually discovered that mixing the suspect substance with sulfuric acid, exposing the product to zinc, and igniting the resulting gas, would result in a silvery deposit on a cool surface if arsenic had been present.”

  “Bravo, Farnshaw,” said the Professor. “My faith in Boston is restored.” He turned to me. “Only one thing wrong with your approach, Carroll. Marsh’s test does not always detect small amounts of arsenic in hair or toenails. In this case, however, there should be no problem. If arsenic was the cause, there should be plenty of it around. Well, let us finish with poor Turk here and go upstairs and see what we find, eh?”

  Thirty minutes hence, we had prepared and were viewing slides taken from Turk’s intestinal tract under a microscope in the chemistry room on the second floor. We checked six separate samples.

  “Anyone detect Vibrio cholerae?” asked the Professor, but no one had. “It appears Carroll’s notion has gained credibility.”

  We soon set up the apparatus for Marsh’s test. The Professor warned us that arsine gas, the initial product of the sulfuric acid–zinc process, was quite deadly, and thus we had to take care to ignite the gas as it escaped the tube. As the experiment began, we waited to see if the distinctive silvery product would form on the cold ceramic plate that Simpson held near the stream of combusted gas. Within seconds, we all knew the truth. I had known it, I suppose, all along.

  Turk, as he so correctly determined, had been poisoned.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE POLICE CAME TO THE hospital the following morning in the person of a diminutive, sandy-haired sergeant named Borst from the Fifth Street station, who tended to clench and unclench his fists as he spoke and in general conduct himself with bullying pugnacity. We later learned that his moniker on the force was “Brass Buttons.” He specifically asked to see the Professor and me, and we convened in the Professor’s office.