A Deadly Affection

by Cuyler Overholt

  “It’s quite all right. I’m accustomed to waking early. I don’t like the day to go to waste.”

  I smiled, liking him already. “I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to see her. It’s extremely important that we get a reliable diagnosis. The outcome of Mrs. Miner’s trial could depend on it.”

  He steadied his medical bag on his lap as the snub-nosed cab pulled quietly out into the light morning traffic. I noticed that his ungloved fingers were long and fine, the sort of fingers one would expect more on a surgeon than on a country doctor.

  “Perhaps you could tell me a little more about your patient and the accusations against her,” he said.

  After explaining why Eliza had been referred to my class, I told him about the details of her arrest and that the prosecution was claiming she was suffering dementia caused by Huntington’s chorea. “Although I don’t believe she’s showing the symptoms you describe in your monograph, I can’t be absolutely sure,” I explained. “That’s why I’ve been so anxious to meet with you.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, but I had just returned home when your telegram arrived. I’ve been in North Carolina, recuperating from a lung condition, and I had to take care of some business before I could leave home again. Let me ask you this: What was it that led the prosecution to suspect Huntington’s chorea in the first place?”

  “The police found a copy of the letter Dr. Hauptfuhrer sent to you, asking you to confirm his diagnosis of Mrs. Miner. I assume you received the original?”

  “Not soon enough to be of any assistance, I’m afraid. It was forwarded to me in North Carolina but didn’t reach me until after the doctor’s death.”

  “You never talked to him about Mrs. Miner, then, or made any tentative diagnosis based on his observations?”

  “I never had the opportunity.”

  So if Hauptfuhrer had conveyed his suspicions about Olivia to Lucille Fiske, I concluded with relief, he’d done it without any encouragement from Dr. Huntington. “Unfortunately, the detective on the case, a man named Maloney, has convinced himself not only that Mrs. Miner is suffering the mental impairment that Dr. Hauptfuhrer referred to in his letter, but also that it caused her to commit the murder. I’m hoping that your examination will change his mind.”

  He nodded. “Detective Maloney came to my home while I was gone. According to my housekeeper, he was very keen on questioning me about Dr. Hauptfuhrer’s patient. I contacted him after I received your telegram to let him know I’d be coming to the city to examine her. He’s asked me to meet with him this afternoon to discuss the results.”

  I supposed I should have known the detective would catch up with the doctor eventually. I reminded myself that if everything turned out as I expected, the meeting could only go in Eliza’s favor. “You should know that there’s been another murder since then,” I informed him. “Dr. Hauptfuhrer’s daughter was decapitated in her home four days ago.”

  “Good God!”

  “Mrs. Miner was under house arrest at the time, with guards standing watch over the premises around the clock. They’ve found nothing at all to connect her to the second crime. But the detective is determined to pin that one on her as well. He’s fully expecting you to confirm not only that she has the disease, but also that she likely killed both Hauptfuhrers because of it.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “It never ceases to amaze me how intolerant people are of what they don’t understand. There is no reason to assume that a victim of Huntington’s chorea, especially in the early stages, is any more likely to commit a crime than the next person. These people need our help, not our suspicion.”

  “So you don’t think the disease could drive a person with no previous criminal inclination to commit a murder?”

  He turned to look at me. His clear gray eyes were penetrating, but not unkind. “Murderers, Dr. Summerford, come in all shapes and sizes. If a murderer was short, we would not conclude that all short people are murderers. If he had a limp, we would not say that the limp caused the murder. Nor would this disease, I believe, of itself create a murderous tendency in someone who did not already possess it.”

  “Have you ever personally known a victim of this type of chorea who did commit a murder? Or any other violent crime?”

  “No, I don’t believe I have. Which is not to say they can’t become physically aggressive in the advanced stages of the disease. I’ve seen patients push or strike their family members when they’re upset. They’re like children, you see; they want everything now and are apt to react with a tantrum if they don’t get it. But for an otherwise moral and law-abiding citizen to be so transformed by the disease as to intentionally kill another human being?” He shook his head. “It strikes me as extremely unlikely.”

  I could have hugged him in relief. Of course, the prosecution could still try to argue that Eliza had struck the doctor with the sword in a fit of temper. But it was immensely comforting to know that the leading expert on the disease had never heard of an afflicted individual going to such extremes.

  The light caught the doctor’s profile as he turned to cough into his hand, accentuating his sunken cheeks and furrowed brow. I felt a sudden surge of gratitude for his tireless efforts to understand this loathsome disease, thinking of all the stricken people he must have tended to over the years and the suffering he must have witnessed. “I can’t imagine what it must be like,” I murmured.

  “To have the disorder, you mean? That’s what they call it, you know—‘the disorder.’ Whole families of them, affected generation after generation. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it. I was just a young boy, driving with my father on his rounds, when we passed two women walking on the Amagansett road. They were thin as cadavers, bowing and twisting in the most unnatural way. I couldn’t stop staring when my father slowed the carriage to bid them good day. I was horrified when he told me later there was nothing he could do for them. I determined then and there to dedicate my life to conquering the disease.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, it has proved to be a more stubborn adversary than I anticipated.”

  We arrived at the Brauns’ building a little after seven o’clock, to find Eliza waiting for us alone inside the flat. I introduced her to Dr. Huntington and we all sat down at the small kitchen table, Eliza glancing apprehensively from me to the doctor.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “None of the tests I’m going to perform are the least bit painful or intrusive, I promise.” Pointing to his medical bag, he added with a smile, “This is just for show.” He stowed the bag under his seat, then asked, “I wonder, Mrs. Miner, if you might bring me a glass of water before we start.”

  “Of course.” She fetched a glass from the cupboard, then filled it and carried it back to him. I noticed he was watching her closely the entire time.

  “Thank you,” he said, taking a sip. “And now, since you’re already up, why don’t we begin by having you walk back over to the door there, touching your heel to your toe with each step.”

  She did as he asked, evidencing no difficulty with the maneuver. “Like that?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Like that exactly. Now, if you would just stand there for a moment with your eyes closed and your heels together. Excellent. All right, you can come sit down.”

  When she was seated, he asked her to recite the months of the year, then instructed her to tap her thumbs and forefingers together. He stuck his tongue rapidly in and out, eliciting laughter from his subject, and asked her to do the same. Raising his hat high above his head, he told her to look from his nose to the hat, then spread his empty hands apart and had her look from thumb to thumb. I couldn’t see anything unusual in any of her responses, but then, I didn’t know what to look for.

  Finally, he smiled and sat back. “There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “You mean we’re finished?” she asked.

 
“We’re finished.”

  I sat up straighter in my chair.

  “Well, am I…am I all right?” Eliza asked.

  “I wish I were in as good health.”

  “You mean she doesn’t have it?” I asked.

  “She shows none of the usual indicators.”

  I turned to Eliza and saw my own relief magnified in her eyes. I leaned over impulsively and gave her a hug.

  “Does this mean that the detective will have to leave me alone?” Eliza asked breathlessly when I had released her.

  “Knowing Maloney, I wouldn’t count on it,” I said. “But it should certainly take some steam out of the prosecution’s case.”

  Dr. Huntington rose and put on his hat. “I’ll convey the results of my exam to the detective personally when I see him this afternoon. Of course, I’m only one doctor, but I don’t think he’ll find anyone to controvert my opinion.”

  “I should say not,” I agreed, rising alongside him. Not even Maloney would be foolish enough to insist Eliza had Huntington’s chorea if Dr. Huntington himself declared that she didn’t.

  The doctor retrieved his bag from under his chair, and we all walked to the front door. “Good-bye, Mrs. Miner,” he said. “Please tell your attorney that I’d be happy to testify on your behalf if he thinks it would help.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” I told him. I gave Eliza another hug and then accompanied the doctor out of the building. I practically skipped out onto the sidewalk, so happy I even smiled and nodded at Simon’s man on the stoop. He nodded back, tipping his cap.

  The doctor offered me his elbow and I fell into step beside him, moving at a much more dignified pace than I could have managed just then on my own. “Are you absolutely certain?” I asked him.

  “As certain as it’s possible to be.”

  “How can you tell? What exactly were you looking for in there?”

  “Over the years, I’ve noticed a number of indicators that crop up in the early and middle stages of the disease. They may not all be present in a particular case, but I always see at least some.”

  “What are they, exactly?”

  “The most obvious, of course, would be any choreic movements of the hands and feet, along with the typical gait abnormalities and slurring of speech. But if those aren’t present, I have to look for more subtle signs. A very low body weight can be a clue, although it’s not always present initially. To look for early interference with voluntary muscle movement and balance, I’ll ask the patient to walk heel-to-toe across the room, as you saw, or manipulate her tongue and fingers.”

  “Why did you ask her to recite the months of the year?”

  “If you listen to the speech of a person with this type of chorea, you’ll notice that they have difficulty sustaining their vowels. The names of the months include all of the vowel sounds, so I use them for convenience. Recently, I’ve observed that many of my patients have unusual eye movements as well. Their eyes seem to travel more slowly than normal between objects, making little stops along the way, especially when they’re looking up. They also tend to blink excessively, and to move their head along with their eyes when they’re tracking something. But Mrs. Miner had no difficulty looking from my nose to my hat or fixing her gaze on an object for an extended period of time.”

  “I had no idea there were so many clear signs,” I said, shaking my head, “and I thought I’d covered all the literature. You must think me terribly uninformed.”

  “Nonsense, my dear. It’s not in the literature. This disease isn’t widely recognized, let alone well documented. It’s my fault, I suppose. I’ve always meant to publish more and to share what I’ve observed. But…” He shrugged. “Life has a way of intruding on one’s plans.”

  “What about the hand motions and facial grimacing I read about in the reports?” I asked, wanting to be sure we’d left no stone unturned. “I have seen Mrs. Miner wring her hands on occasion. And her lips twitch at times, especially when she’s upset.”

  “I’d suspect those are more signs of a nervous disposition, possibly a compulsion, than symptoms of this disease, especially the hand wringing. In the early stages of chorea, you’re more apt to notice only a general clumsiness of the hands and feet. The writhing movements come later, when the muscle contractions are too severe for the patient to voluntarily suppress.”

  I nodded, delighted to cross another concern off my list. “Her mother says she’s also prone to forgetfulness and changes of mood,” I added in the interests of full disclosure, “although I can’t believe that those things alone would support a diagnosis.”

  “I’m afraid that the mental aspects of the disease are even less well documented than the physical ones,” he told me. “It does appear that the range and progression of symptoms vary considerably among patients. But it’s a far cry from a lapse of memory to the mental derangement that would induce a person to commit murder. Absent any physical signs, I’d have to assign Mrs. Miner’s psychical symptoms to another cause.”

  I was trying hard to remain objective, although by now, I felt as if I were floating several feet above the ground. “Of course, she is only thirty-five,” I cautioned, releasing his arm as we reached the intersection. “I suppose it’s possible that she could start showing symptoms later on.”

  He turned to face me. “It’s highly unlikely that she’d be completely symptom free at this point if she had the disease. Especially if her father is the suspected carrier, as you’ve mentioned. Three generations of my family have administered to these afflicted souls, Doctor, and our combined case records have yielded some very interesting statistics. One curious thing I’ve discovered is that when the disease is passed by the father, the offspring show the symptoms at an earlier age than when they receive it on the maternal side. I was inclined to dismiss this as coincidence at first, but recently, other researchers—Hoffman and Curschman, to name just two—have remarked on it as well. Now, the more I look for it, the more I see it. Not only does the disease appear earlier with paternal transmission, but it also progresses more rapidly and with more severe symptoms. Hoffman noticed something else, which my own records support: if the disease is passed by males in successive generations, the onset will occur progressively earlier.”

  “You mean the victims will be younger and younger in each generation?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Why should that be?”

  He shook his head. “I wish I knew. Like so many other things about this disease, it leaves me baffled.”

  “But based on your understanding, if Eliza had inherited the disease from her father, she would definitely be showing symptoms by now?”

  “That is my considered opinion, yes.”

  If only Dr. Hauptfuhrer had waited to hear these same words! Instead, he had panicked and run to Lucille with his worst fears, costing him and his daughter their lives. “I never really believed that she had it,” I gushed, riding a fresh wave of relief. “It was just that Olivia seemed so clumsy at the ball, and then there was that story about her falling, and it was all just so odd and unexplained that I started to think it must be related in some way…”

  “I’m sorry; I don’t remember you mentioning anyone named Olivia.”

  I realized that if he’d never communicated with Dr. Hauptfuhrer, he couldn’t know about Eliza’s daughter. “She’s Mrs. Miner’s illegitimate daughter, although I’ll have to ask you to keep that in confidence, as it isn’t generally known. Dr. Hauptfuhrer attended Olivia’s birth and arranged for her to be adopted. I think he came to believe that the daughter had inherited Huntington’s chorea and intended to warn her once you’d confirmed that her mother was ill.”

  “I see,” the doctor said. “And how old is the child now?”

  “She just turned twenty.”

  “And you say she’s been acting clumsily?”
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br />   I told him what I’d personally witnessed on the night of the ball, along with what Bartie had related. “But of course, she’s far too young to be manifesting the signs of chorea. And her movements are stiff rather than rolling or writhing. Stiff and slow. Almost forced.”

  “You say her hand seemed to jerk toward the glass when she knocked it over,” he repeated, stroking his goatee.

  “Yes, I saw it quite clearly.”

  “What about her speech? Do the vowels seem to fall short?”

  “Well, I didn’t speak to her at any length. I do remember thinking she sounded a little…flat, but I assumed she was just feeling a bit downcast because of her situation. She’s being courted by a titled foreigner, you see, and everyone around her has been holding their breath, waiting for him to propose.”

  “Curious. I’d love to have a look at her sometime if I could.”

  “But she can’t be affected,” I said in surprise. “You said yourself, the disease never skips a generation.”

  “It never has, to my knowledge. I’d be interested in taking a look, all the same.”

  “I’m afraid that would be difficult to arrange. She doesn’t have any idea of Dr. Hauptfuhrer’s suspicions. Although I suppose if you wanted to observe her from afar, you could go by the lake in Central Park tomorrow evening. Olivia will be attending a skating party there; I believe it starts at six o’clock. You could watch her from the bank, and no one would be the wiser.”

  “Perhaps I will, if I’m not otherwise engaged.” He smiled ruefully. “That’s one of the privileges of getting older: having the time and freedom to satisfy one’s idle curiosity.”

  He looked tired as he said this despite his smile, and I took it as my cue to say good-bye. “Thank you again for coming, so very, very much,” I said, shaking his hand. “You may very well have saved Mrs. Miner’s life.”

  “It’s always a pleasure to deliver good news.”

  I watched him cross Third Avenue, feeling the weight on my shoulders lighten by half. He was clearly a man of integrity, and I was hopeful that he’d be able to make Maloney accept the truth, no matter how little the detective wanted to hear it. I would go see Maloney myself after they had met and see if he was ready to consider another suspect. With Lucille planning to leave the city on Saturday and Eliza’s grand jury trial apt to be called at any moment, I couldn’t afford to wait any longer. It was time to lay everything I had learned—along with Hagan’s pen and ink jar—on the table.