The Anatomy of Deception (27 page)

“Poor Rebecca,” Abigail said finally in a choked whisper, dropping her hands into her lap. Her face had become a blank, as if now even tears would have been inadequate. “I suppose I knew all the time, but refused to admit it.”

In that second, I knew I could not let my revelations be the source of her desolation. I had to prove to her that all was not lost. “Wait,” I interjected quickly. “I know this is dismaying news, but it is hardly the end. All I have said is conjecture. Conjecture, Abigail! I can be in no way certain that the corpse I saw for only a brief moment was Rebecca. Nor has any other evidence been brought forth to support that conclusion. It is certainly not impossible, in a city where so many die young,
that the woman in the morgue merely bore a close resemblance to your friend.”

At that, Abigail straightened in her chair, her eyes alert and hopeful. Encouraged, I continued. “I am a scientist, Abigail. I don’t accept something as true simply because it is probably true, nor should you.”

“He’s right, Abby,” said Eakins, grasping eagerly at my words as well. “There’s no reason to give up now. Dr. Carroll will continue his inquiries, isn’t that true, Dr. Carroll?”

“Certainly,” I agreed.

“Is there no way to determine if Rebecca was the woman you saw?” Abigail asked me.

“At this juncture, there is no way to be certain without an exhumation.”

“An exhumation?” she exclaimed, horrified. “That would be barbaric.”

“I did not say that I would recommend such a course now,” I said, “merely that if Rebecca is not found, it might be the only eventual alternative.”

“Yes, Abby,” Eakins enjoined. “Not now. For now, we will keep looking. Dr. Carroll will tell us how to proceed. After all, he’s done a splendid job so far. I for one would not have believed that he could have found out as much as he has. And who knows that at any moment Rebecca won’t appear at your door?”

Abigail was frantic to maintain hope. “Will you, Ephraim? Will you keep looking?”

“Of course,” I assured her. She had not turned to Eakins in her moment of greatest anxiety; she had turned to me. I am embarrassed to confess that my spirit soared at the knowledge. Then, to complete my triumph, she said to the painter, “Thomas, I thank you for being here, but I would like to be alone with Ephraim.”

To my surprise, Eakins was more than amenable to the notion. He rose immediately, made his farewells, and strode to the door. I followed him with my eyes as he moved across
the room in that coiled way he had. I was about to turn back to Abigail when, just as Eakins reached the exit, the man with the handlebar mustache who had been waiting outside his house on Mount Vernon Street got up from the bar. Like a shadow, he followed the painter out.

Although there was no solid evidence, I felt certain that this unknown man was an agent of Jonas Lachtmann. I might fall under his gaze next, I knew, but before I could weigh on the perils of further involvement, Abigail leaned forward. “Ephraim, could you please take me home?”

She was silent on the ride to Rittenhouse Square, and I knew better than to intrude. I helped her down from the carriage and walked with her to her door. “I’m sorry the evening turned out so disastrously,” I said.

She forced an ephemeral smile. “I’d like you to come in,” she said softly. “There is something I want you to see.”

She led me quietly through the foyer to a set of back stairs. Holding my hand, she led me to the second floor, then down a hall, past a number of closed doors to a narrow staircase at the far end.

She mounted the first step, still holding my hand, and then stopped and turned about. Smiling softly once more, she bent and kissed me lightly, her lips brushing fleetingly across mine. Our eyes held for a moment before she turned to lead me up the curving staircase.

At the top was a small hall, with three doors. Abigail reached into her bag, withdrew a key, and then walked to the far door and turned the lock. The door opened onto a dark room, and she beckoned for me to enter. Only after I had done so did she turn the switch on the wall to engage the electric light. She closed the door behind us.

This was her studio. Not as expansive as Eakins’, perhaps, but still quite large. There were a number of canvases in the room in various states of completion, all in the same powerful, disturbing style as her portrait of Rebecca Lachtmann. An easel in the middle of the room evidently held the painting
that she was working on, but a sheet was draped over it and I could not discern the subject.

Without speaking, Abigail gestured for me to stand in front of the easel. She stepped to the side, grasped the sheet, and pulled it off.

The portrait was of me.

It was unfinished, some of the borders still simple sketch lines, but she had done substantial work on the face. I stared at myself in utter fascination. As in her portrait of Rebecca, Abigail had bent reality just enough to project a subjective image while preserving instant identification of the subject, and once again utilized the bold, flat swatches of color that forced one’s gaze to the eyes of the subject on the canvas.

Those eyes—my eyes—had been rendered a powerful chestnut—like Eakins’—more arresting, I thought, than in life, and gave off intelligence, strength, and resolve. The portrait had a kinetic quality, but with an overall impression of sensuality, the very combination of traits that I envied in Eakins.

Could this be the way she saw me? Or perhaps it was the way she wished to see me. I stared at the painting for some moments.

“Do you like it?” she whispered.

“It is the most remarkable thing that has ever happened to me,” I replied honestly. “I want to be the man in the portrait rather than myself.”

“You are the man in the portrait,” she said. “Come with me.” She led me to a door at the far end of the studio. “Sometimes when I’m painting, I don’t leave here for days. My meals are left outside.” We had reached the door. Abigail pushed down on the handle. “I had Father fix a place for me to sleep.” She swung open the door to reveal a small bedroom. “It’s completely removed from anyplace else in the house,” she said, leading me inside.

Two hours later, we lay in her bed and I felt the deepest and most profound sense of well-being I had ever known. Love-making with Abigail had been a transcendent experience, not like the mere animal release with Wanda. I wanted to stroke her skin, smell her hair, feel the warmth of her against me, blend our bodies and our souls together for eternity. For the first time, I understood the true nature of addiction—I would risk anything not to lose these sensations.

She reached over and touched my cheek. “I miss Rebecca.”

“Yes,” I replied. “I know.”

“You have given me hope, Ephraim, or perhaps only a respite. In either case, I am grateful. But I cannot continue to live with uncertainty. I must know the truth. You will find out the truth for me, won’t you?”

I thought of her painting of me.
That
man would do anything necessary for the woman he loved.

“Of course,” I said.

It was going to be dangerous, I realized, trying to live up to a portrait.

I
SKULKED OUT OF THE
Benedict house before sunrise, leaving like a thief through a door at the back of the garden. I had not been the first to tread that same path, I knew, but I could not let that concern me. There was no point in going home, so I went directly to the hospital. I succeeded in gaining a few hours’ sleep curled up on a settee in the doctors’ lounge.

When I awoke, I made once more for the library and, using the German-English dictionary and phrase book, I laboriously drafted an inquiry to the Bayer Company. With apologies for my
grauenhaft Deutsch—
my atrocious German—I asked about their experiments with diacetylmorphine. As a physician, I added, I was extremely interested in the analgesic properties of the substance and would be most interested to learn of the results of any clinical tests. Then I went to the cable office and was informed by a young and eager clerk whose skin still bore marks of a recent eruption of
acne vulgaris
that a number of relays would be required after the message was sent by transatlantic cable, but should arrive in Germany within a day. Any response would be held for me on a will-call basis.

The clerk then not only insisted on explaining the many ways in which the miracle of modern telegraphy was changing the world, but also on favoring me with a rendition of the tribulations in establishing a worldwide system of communication. Did I know how many times the cable snapped when
being lowered into the pitching waters of the ocean? Was I aware of the persistence of Cyrus Field and those other visionaries who refused to abandon the project even though most investors refused to continue their support?

Although I was impatient, lest I be missed at the hospital, the boy’s enthusiasm was infectious. He had as much zeal for the future of electrical communication and magnetics as I did for diagnostics and surgery. A new century would be upon us in just over a decade and, with breathtaking advances in virtually every field of human endeavor, the world did unquestionably belong to the young.

I returned with about fifteen minutes to spare before afternoon rounds. I saw Simpson in the halls, but when I approached her to say hello, she nodded perfunctorily and turned to leave. I inquired if there was anything the matter, but she assured me quietly that there was not, so I joined the others and entered the main ward.

In the second bed, we encountered a newly admitted patient, a nearly comatose male in his twenties, with an exceptional set of symptoms. He had been found lying in the street, mumbling incoherently, and been brought to the hospital by the police. The man showed severe muscle spasticity, and there was a bluish tinge to his lips and fingernails. His breathing was slow, labored, and shallow, his pulse weak, his blood pressure low. The man’s tongue was discolored and his pupils, when we could rouse him sufficiently to open his eyes, were mere dots. He appeared to be severely constipated with a spasmodic gastrointestinal tract.

“Morphia poisoning,” said Corrigan immediately, “but I’ve never seen it so severe.”

“Nor I,” Simpson added. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

When the Professor finished his examination, he noted from the accompanying documents that the man was a denizen of the waterfront district. “Any ideas, Carroll?” he asked pointedly.

I looked at the Professor, trying to determine whether his
question was genuine or rhetorical, but he gave no indication of his thinking.

“None,” I said.

“You’re becoming quite a regular,” Haggens grunted as he ushered me into the office later that evening. “Getting a little more attracted to the criminal element, Doc?”

“Do you want me to listen to your heart or not?” I asked, brandishing my stethoscope.

Haggens dropped his bravado, as he had done in the room on Wharf Lane. “Yeah. I do,” he replied meekly. Swagger did not hold up well against the prospect of a medical examination.

I instructed him to remove his vest and shirt. Haggens seemed slight in clothes, but bare-chested, he was deceptively broad across the chest and his arms were thick cords of muscle.

“I was a prizefighter, Doc,” he said, noticing me notice. “Gave it up, though. Much better ways of making a dollar.”

“I’m sure you were quite adept,” I said, breathing on the stethoscope’s diaphragm to warm it.

“I can still go a round or two.”

I was certain he could. I instructed Haggens to take deep breaths as I auscultated front and back. There was a soft rumble directly over the heart during the resting phase of the heartbeat, which became more distinct just before contraction. With Haggens’ history of rheumatic fever, it was a simple matter to determine the problem. I told him to dress.

“Is it serious, Doc?” he said, a look of genuine fear passing across his face. What power physicians possess!

“Have you had a cough? Was there blood in it?”

“I had a cough a while back,” Haggens answered softly. “No blood, though.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Do you ever get a constriction … tightening in your chest?”