The Anatomy of Deception (25 page)

Although it seemed that it had been hours since I arrived, it was actually not yet eight-thirty. That gave me ample time to stop at the Fifth Street police station on my way home. When I arrived, I was told that Sergeant Borst had left for the day, which disappointed me not in the least. I wrote him a note detailing my discovery in one of Turk’s books of a key that I had reason to believe was to his lair, which I had just remembered that he had mentioned was on Wharf Lane. I wished the sergeant good luck in his endeavors, and left both key and note in an envelope for him to open in the morning.

I
WAS QUICKLY DISABUSED OF
any notion that the notebook would provide an epiphany. When I looked more closely, I saw that Turk had coded the entries, and though I did study them for a time, hoping that he had simply used abbreviations or some other transparent method of disguising the data, the cipher remained incomprehensible.

Remembering an admonition in an Edgar Allan Poe story that the best place to hide something is where everyone can see it, I placed the notebook on my bookshelves among some octavos. I left a note for Mrs. Mooney, asking that she order some material on cryptography from the lending library, but even if I could make nothing of the code, the journal might provide solid secondary evidence. The contents could prove illuminating if other information came to light that gave some indication of records that Turk had obviously thought so important as to require coded entries.

I also needed to preempt Borst. The sergeant was sure to pay a return visit to the hospital, so I told the Professor first thing the next morning of my discovery of a key cut into the cover of one of Turk’s books—I neglected to say which one—and that I had turned it over to the police.

The Professor frowned deeply at the news. “The last thing we need at this moment is scandal,” he grumbled, but added firmly, “but of course you did the right thing.” He shook his head. “Turk seems to be more trouble dead than he was when
alive. I was saddened at Turk’s death, as you know, but now I am merely angry.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was easy up until now to see him as compelled by circumstance, but it seems that his malevolence was far more profound.”

As we proceeded with rounds, the Professor was uncharacteristically tense and somber. He snapped at Simpson when she failed to check a patient’s chart, did not make sport of Farnshaw, and was even subdued in the children’s ward. His disquiet, I was certain, was not due merely to the general inconvenience that revelations of Turk’s activities might cause, but to the more specific prospect that Halsted or even he himself would be sucked into the eddy.

Late morning, Sergeant Borst finally made his appearance. “Well, Dr. Carroll,” he said, once we adjourned to the Professor’s office, “you were quite a help.”

I thanked him, although the remark contained obvious sarcasm.

“Yes, indeed. As a result of your lucky discovery, we now know that Dr. Turk was engaged in some very unpleasant activities.”

I asked what he had found.

“Well,” began the sergeant, “Wharf Lane is about the worst part of town there is … but you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

I assured him I would not, except by reputation.

“Your Dr. Turk had gotten himself a room on the second floor of one of the buildings. Not knowing which one, though, we had to go up and down the street and alleys to find the right building.” He looked at me. “I suppose you had the same problem.”

Did he know? I had to evade the question without specifically denying my visit. “Yes,” I said, looking Borst in the eye, “but luckily Turk had given me a ball of string to make sure I didn’t get lost.”

“Very clever,” sniffed Borst.

“So,” said the Professor with irritation, “are you going to tell us what you found or simply continue wasting our time when we have work to do?”

Borst bounced on his toes, his lips pressed together. The sergeant was used to intimidating with his swagger and, like most bullies, did not take it well when one of his intended victims pushed back at him.

“All right, Doctor,” he said, and then proceeded to recount in detail the primitive conditions under which Turk performed his abortions. As the policeman described the dirty, stained oilcloth, a look of revulsion passed across the Professor’s face.

“Disgusting,” he said. “I am ashamed to ever have been associated with such a man.”

“As well you should be, Doctor,” said Borst. He had said nothing about the cutout in the wall, however, and I wondered if he had found it. I was certainly in no position to ask, however.

“So,” I inquired instead, “does this discovery help in your investigation?”

“A good question,” Borst replied. “The answer is yes and no. Yes, because anything we can do to fill in the details of Turk’s life helps, but no, because it doesn’t move us along in figuring out who killed him, or even why.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was hoping to help solve the riddle.”

Borst eyed me for a moment. “Were you, now? Well, maybe you were.” He continued to stand in the center of the room, rocking back and forth on his toes, but neither the Professor nor I continued the conversation.

“All right, then,” Borst said finally. “I’ll be back if I have any more questions.” He spun on the balls of his feet and made for the door. He opened it, began to step into the hall, and then turned back. “Oh, yes. I almost forgot. We found a hidden compartment, just like in his rooms.”

“More money in the floor?” I asked.

“No. Not in the floor. This time it was in the wall. Behind where he hung his tools.”

“Instruments,” corrected the Professor reflexively.

“Instruments,” repeated Borst.

“How much?” I asked.

“Nothing. It was empty.”

“Empty?”

“Yeah. Empty. Surprised me, too. Unless whoever killed Turk cleaned it out after he was dead.” Borst waited for a reaction but, when neither of us provided one, added, “But I’ll give you two this. I don’t think it was either one of you. Can’t imagine gentlemen like yourselves wandering down around on Wharf Lane.” A playful sneer passed across his face. “Had to make sure though, didn’t I?”

After Borst left, I could not suppress a small smile of my own. This would be the last time that I would romanticize Haggens.

The Professor misinterpreted my expression. “He is an amusing sort of ruffian, isn’t he? All that bluster, bluff, and assumption. Would never do in our business, eh, Carroll?”

“No. But I do think we should tread softly in his presence, Dr. Osler. He wants very much to prove our involvement, whether true or not.”

“Yes, quite correct. The mediocre always try to bring down the mighty. Perhaps now that he has come to an impasse, this incident might begin to fade, at least until we are safely in Baltimore.”

“Perhaps,” I acceded. “Although I suspect Sergeant Borst gets most of his results through tenacity rather than inspiration.”

“Yes.” The Professor nodded. “It might be well to move up the date of our departure.”

After I took my leave, I made for the chemical laboratory. Although many analytic techniques—chromatography, crystal tests, and microscopic examination—would be perfected
in the coming years, chemical analysis at this point remained in a formative stage, essentially little more than trial and error. In this case, however, I was able to compress the process and make an educated guess. Since I was dealing with what I assumed was a powerful new drug, I would first seek to determine if the substance was from either the morphia or cocaine families. The only reliable test for the former was Frohde’s, published in 1866 in an article, “Zum Nachweis des Morphiums.” Frohde had introduced molybdate in concentrated sulfuric acid into powdered morphine and observed a set of distinctive changes. The powder turned violet on contact, changed to a strong purplish red, which eventually faded to a weaker brown until finally turning green. Molybdate in concentrated sulfuric acid had since been dubbed “Frohde’s reagent.” As it contained a description of the only definitive test for morphia, the article had been translated from the German and was well known to physicians and chemists. I had first used Frohde’s reagent while I was a student in Chicago.

The lab was empty but still I chose a station at the far end where I might only be casually observed if anyone else arrived. I placed a small amount of the powder that I had taken from Turk’s lair in a test tube and introduced Frohde’s reagent. As soon as the powder struck violet, I knew that I was dealing with a morphiate. The other color changes followed as expected. While a positive result narrowed the question, it did not fully solve the puzzle. There were not, to my knowledge, any morphia derivatives that would rate the praise heaped on this powder by Haggens and his associates, nor had anyone discovered an additive that would render morphia so much more potent.

My next stop was the medical library. I had never heard of the Bayer Company before, so I pored through available medical directories and journals to find out who they were, but at first could find no record of the company at all. Fortunately, with so many members of the staff having studied in
Germany, there was a section devoted to imported periodicals and reference materials. In a directory of German corporations, I found a listing for the Bayer Company of Wuppertal, a chemical firm. Checking some entries in a German-English dictionary, I discovered that Bayer was a dye maker. I couldn’t be sure of the extent of Turk’s depraved activities, but I felt certain that selling dye was not among them.

The Bayer Company having been identified, albeit perplexingly I read through journals for any literature relating to a new, exceedingly powerful morphia derivative. For over an hour, I found nothing until, in an 1874 edition of an English publication,
Journal of the Chemical Society
, I came across an article by a researcher at St. Mary’s Hospital in London named C. R. Alder Wright entitled “On the action of organic acids and their anhydrides on the natural alkaloids.”

Wright was trying to determine the constitution of some natural and purified alkaloids and had boiled powdered morphine with acetic anhydride for several hours. The resulting liquid, which he called “tetra acetyl morphine,” was an acetylized derivative that, given the change in our understanding of the morphia molecule, would now be referred to as “diacetylmorphine.” Wright sent the compound to an associate, who tested it on animals and reported:

After the extreme results of these animal tests, Wright decided that the drug was too powerful for practical medical use and no further experimentation was undertaken. Nor were there any recorded attempts to repeat Wright’s experiment or synthesize the drug by other means.

While I could not, of course, be certain that the powder I had tested was diacetylmorphine, I felt confident that this article bore some relation to my discovery. How the German dye maker came to be involved, if in fact I was dealing with the same substance, remained a mystery. Still, there was every chance that when I discovered the explanation, I might also unravel the circumstances of George Turk’s murder.

I remained at the table in the library for some moments, the journal open in front of me, trying to project where all of this might lead, deaf to the world. I did not hear the door open and close behind me, nor the sound of footsteps heading in my direction. I was, therefore, taken completely by surprise when I heard my name being called.

“Carroll, what are you doing in here? I have been looking all over for you.”

My eyes darted about to see the Professor standing over me. “You missed afternoon rounds,” he said.

Before I could make an explanation, he had placed his fingers on the open journal. “What are you looking at?” He leaned over to look. “Why are you interested in Wright’s experiment?” he asked, a chill in his voice to which I was unaccustomed.

“You know it?”

“Certainly,” the Professor replied curtly. “It was more accident than experiment. He boiled up some morphine in anhydrous acetic acid and came up with a morphia derivative that proved to be too potent for medical use. No one, as far as I know, has performed any further research.”

“Yes,” I said. “So it seems.”

“So what is your interest?”

There was no lie that would not sound ridiculous, so I
resorted to a half-truth. “Turk had spoken of some intensely powerful morphia derivative.”

“In what context?”

“He had simply stated that, with the predilection to use opiates at every stratum of society, it would only be a matter of time before the drugs were engineered to higher intensity. He said he expected that day to arrive sooner rather than later.”

“Why didn’t you mention it?”

“There seemed no point. Turk spoke of many things that evening and this seemed to be idle musing. But after listening to Sergeant Borst, I became curious. Turk had certainly created that compartment to hold something.”

“And,” asked the Professor, “what have you concluded?”

“This was all I could find.” I gestured to the journal. “Turk must indeed have been merely speculating. He could hardly have based his evidence on a fifteen-year-old article about an obscure experiment that no one seems to have pursued further.”

“Yes,” the Professor agreed. “Hardly.”

I closed the journal and replaced it on the appropriate shelf. I couldn’t determine whether the Professor suspected me of duplicity or was merely unnerved by the prospect of a dogged policeman instigating a scandal on the eve of his greatest triumph. In either case, this was not a fortuitous moment to have him peering over my shoulder.