Dr. Whitcraft hoped next year’s discussion about his maneuver would generate this much enthusiasm and controversy. He’d squirmed in his seat just thinking about it.
On the conference’s final day, Dr. Whitcraft stumbled upon a sparsely attended lecture given by a balding young Frenchman named Dr. Guillaume Duchenne, regarding the use of electricity in the treatment of hysteria. Given that he had already considered that concept, and scorched his own arm in the process, he looked forward to hearing about this man’s experience.
He sat in the small room; finding himself among only a handful of other physicians listening to the heavily-accented man discuss his theories. At the end, the other doctors streamed out, but Dr. Whitcraft stayed behind and approached the presenter as he tucked away his notes. He was really no more than a youth.
Dr. Whitcraft held out his hand. “Sir, I am intrigued. I believe that you are quite possibly on to something here.”
The young man looked at him in wonder. “You are the only one. Frankly, I think I’ve wasted my time even coming to this conference. Women’s issues leave me a bit cold.”
“Really? I thought what you said about electricity to be very compelling.”
“It wouldn’t be limited to hysteria treatments, of course. Electricity could apply to many areas of interest, the reanimation of cells, perhaps. But these hysteria fellows...so single minded! And I’m not sure I agree with these men about the nature of hysteria. It has always seemed to me that they are classifying any unpleasant symptom shown by a distressed female to be indicative of hysteria, thereby dismissing her.”
“Regardless, I am fascinated by what you just proposed up there. I wrote a paper on the possible medical applications for electricity myself. It was published about six months ago. It’s funny, I’ve nearly forgotten about it, because I’ve moved on to this hysteria business.”
“I’ve read everything on the subject. I’m sure…what is your name?”
“Dr. William Whitcraft. I’m in from London.”
“Ah,” the young man’s face lit up. “What an amazing coincidence running in to you! I work under two other doctors at the university. They are very well-known, well respected gentlemen. They are admirers of your paper…”
“They are?” Dr. Whitcraft was giddy. “How nice to hear!”
“Would you care to join me for dinner? I would love to hear about your work.”
“Why I’d be delighted to, actually.” He followed the young man out of the stuffy little room and into the Parisian twilight.
Chapter Nineteen
Dr. Whitcraft woke early, completely energized about being back home after an exhausting trip abroad. It would take weeks to go over his notes and digest everything he had learned in Paris, but now, crossing his tiny office toward the first patients since his return, he felt reflective.
He wouldn’t be a bachelor much longer. It was difficult not to become sentimental about the time he spent living in this building while he had built his practice. Ah, but on to bigger and better things. He opened the door. The wan Miss Faffle looked up from her desk. He smiled warmly. “Why good morning, Miss Faffle! How wonderful it is to see you! I feel like I’ve been gone for a year.”
Miss Faffle looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Good morning, doctor,” she whispered, unsettled somehow, like her chair had become prickly. “When did you get in? I waited up for you last evening.”
“Oh, it was so late. I don’t even know what time it was.”
“I see. Uh…” She looked at her hands, like she was searching for something else to say. Finally, she uttered, “H-how was your trip?” Her question was barely audible.
Dr. Whitcraft strolled past her. “Splendid. Just splendid.”
She jumped to her feet and rushed after him. “Uh, doctor, there are some matters—issues. I need to speak to you.”
“Of course, of course.” He flipped open his pocket watch. “How many appointments do I have scheduled after Mrs. Princod and Mrs. Chankings?”
“That’s just it. You don’t have anything scheduled for the day. Not any more.”
When he turned to face her, she winced as if expecting to be struck. He was in such a good mood he couldn’t help snicker at the girl’s fragility.
“What do you mean? I’ve had those women scheduled for months now.”
“Yes. But when you were gone, they—and some of the others—well, they elected to seek treatment elsewhere.” Tears had filled her eyes and her lips were quivering.
“Miss Faffle, take a breath. Everything is all right. Now, what the devil are you talking about?”
She gripped the sides of her dress and took a breath. “After that journal came out, and it has been in the newspapers too, of course. Everyone has been talking about it.” She brought her hands to her ears, like she expected a gunshot. “Everyone has been very excited about…The Marplot Maneuver.”
Dr. Whitcraft cocked his head and echoed, “The Marplot Maneuver?”
She nodded.
It was as if Miss Faffle had been speaking a language with which he wasn’t entirely familiar. He stared, watching as she clasped her arms around her head, while the meaning of her words began to take hold of his heart.
“What?” he whispered.
“The Marplot Maneuver!” she repeated, as if he had actually needed to hear it spoken again.
He inhaled a long, strident breath before his voice broke into a shrill cry, “What are you talking about?”
Miss Faffle just shook her head, tears falling now. “On my desk. It’s in the journal and the newspapers—the newspapers have written something about Dr. Marplot almost every day since you’ve been gone.”
He ran past her, his heart fluttering dangerously within his chest. He grabbed at the pile of newspapers. He only had to flip through a few sheets before he saw it.
Revolutionary New Treatment for Hysteria
Dr. Edward Marplot Makes the Most Important Discovery of our Day
She puffed and wiped tears from her cheeks as Dr. Whitcraft collapsed into a chair, dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. Why have they printed this?” he whispered, crumbling the paper in his hands.
“It’s that journal, Dr. Whitcraft.” She dashed to her desk, digging under the newspapers to produce a two-week-old copy of The Lancet. She glanced at it before holding it out, like she was giving a straight razor to a suicidal man.
He snapped it away and at once saw that virtually the entire issue was a celebration of Dr. Edward Marplot and his miraculous new treatment for hysteria.
“Is my name mentioned at all…at all?” He clawed through its pages, recognizing his own prose in print.
“Y-yes. At the end…it mentions you.”
He flipped to the end and gazed mouth agape at the last page. “His research assistant?” He jumped to his feet and searched the devastated face of Miss Faffle.
Then it occurred to him. Of course it was his maneuver, and he could prove it! He had scores of evidence in his cabinet—notes, diagrams, explanations, patient records. He threw himself into his office. Maybe if he hurried, he could take the lot down to The Lancet and be there when they began business, proving to them all how he was a victim of that evil man’s treachery.
He cackled like a man possessed. He flung his cabinet open, easily flipping through the familiar papers, one by one—but then his stomach lurched. He spun around, trying to manage the building panic as he searched the top of his desk. Surely he hadn’t left it out, mislaid it, somehow.
“Miss Faffle,” he said in a quivering, breathless plea. “Miss Faffle, he wasn’t here, was he? You never would have let him in here…”
“No! No, of course not!” she cried from the doorway.
“My papers…my records on the maneuver. I don’t understand where—” He spun around and the deathly-white pallor of Miss Faffle’s face betrayed something. Something worse.
“H-he wasn’t here. But…” her arms were draped over her head again, bracing for his reaction.
“But what?”
“She was. She came and took some—”
“WHO?”
“Miss Reave! She said he needed them to finish the paper. I didn’t know what…”
But the throbbing in his ears made perception of any further information impossible. The thunderstruck doctor disintegrated on the spot, feet sliding out from under him as he landed on to his floor, dissolved into an indiscrete collection of humors and misery at the foot of his cabinet. It was too much to comprehend.
Catherine.
After a few moments, his head snapped up. “My patients…my patients. I don’t understand.”
Miss Faffle had slid to the floor as well, and was propped in the doorway. “Dr. Marplot told them that he could do the maneuver since he had invented it, and that he was the famous one. He told most of them that you had moved to Paris, and wouldn’t be coming back. I tried to call on them, sir, but they wouldn’t listen to me.”
Dr. Whitcraft jumped to his feet, leaped over the body of Miss Faffle and sprinted full-speed out his front door.
“Doctor!” she called from the floor. “Doctor?”
****
“Where is he?” he shouted at the surprised looking matron behind the desk.
“Ah, you must be Dr. William Whitcraft.”
“Yes, I must be! Where the devil is that charlatan? That fraud!”
“Oh dear. Dr. Marplot told us to expect you. He said you might be a little excited. Have you had a difficult trip, then?” she asked, her face wrinkled in concern.
His body trembled, his fists opening and closing in rage. “Take me to him this instant!”
“Oh, he is not here. I’ll give him a message, if you like.”
Women of various ages were seated in the small space. A few held books in their laps, and one was knitting a long red scarf that twisted into a puddle on the floor. Most frowned at him suspiciously.
“These patients are obviously waiting for him. Wait…Mrs. Princod?”
Mrs. Princod’s hat was tipped over her face in an obvious attempt at disguising herself from her enraged former doctor. At the sound of her name, however, she looked into his eyes with self-righteous indignation and announced, “Dr. Whitcraft, I am here to receive the Marplot Maneuver, if you must know.”
“Dr. Marplot will be back, of course,” the woman at the desk interrupted. “He was called to the hospital. He’ll be back this afternoon if you’d care to—”
He turned and darted out the door, knowing that if he ran, he could be at The Barts in fifteen minutes. But he stopped short. A terrible thought occurred to him, and remembering it felt like an icy claw tightening around his heart. He would go to the hospital, but he had to make another stop first.
****
“My check…I need to have my check back. I’ve run into some, some financial complexities.” He was sweating and disheveled, having just sprinted across town to the estate agent’s office.
London was just waking up when he had dashed though its streets. Shopkeepers had leaned out of their doors to watch him in wonder. Calling street-hawkers went silent as he had sped past. A frightened barrow boy leaped out of his way. The movement flung his cargo of fish all over the street, but to Dr. Whitcraft, it was all a blur. All he could envision was that empty house in St. James Square, gaping and open, like a giant mouth ready to swallow him alive.
In his haste, he barely heard a voice calling to him. When he slowed for a passing carriage, Dr. Scamble rushed over.
“Good to see you,” he panted. “How was your trip? Did you hear about Dr. Marplot’s good fortune? The news has been absolutely everywhere.”
Dr. Whitcraft grunted in reply. As the traffic cleared, he catapulted himself into the street once again. But Dr. Scamble was undeterred, and trotted alongside. “Weren’t you up to something similar? Too bad he got there before you did.”
At that, Dr. Whitcraft made a sudden turn and quite accidentally knocked his friend into the curb, causing him to lose his footing and land in the gutter with a dull thump. He would apologize later, he thought, nearly toppling the handcart of a costermonger as he doubled his speed and left his friend splattered and struggling in the mud.
When he had reached the estate agent’s office, he had stayed outside for a time, gasping for breath and composing himself the best that he could. Now, he stood rigidly in front of the old man’s desk, trying to keep from betraying his desperation.
“Well, normally, you’d be out of luck. Once you make a deposit on a house, you don’t usually get it back, but in the case of this property, there has been a stop to the whole process.” The old man looked quizzically over his spectacles. “I’m surprised someone didn’t contact you about this.”
“I’ve been out of town.” A stop to the whole process? Thank God. Maybe now he wouldn’t be ruined, owning a house he couldn’t bloody afford now that his practice had been obliterated thanks to that, that cloven-footed imposter.
“Out of town. Yes. I see.” The old man opened a file and pulled out an envelope. “There you are, sir.”
Dr. Whitcraft’s body sagged as he took the envelope, the exact one he had delivered here so many weeks ago. It had been opened, but his check remained inside, uncashed. Thank God!
“Thank you so much. I can just take this, then, and the deal is off?”
“I am rather relieved you are so understanding,” the man said. “Yes, the deal is off. When the other offer came in, the seller was delighted, and just went ahead―”
“Other offer?”
“Yes. The gentleman agreed to just buy the house outright…and for more than the asking price. Apparently the chap has access to boatloads of family money, or some such thing. He’d been wanting a house like that for quite some time. I’ll tell you, property in that part of London does create quite the stir.”
“Wait a minute.” Dr. Whitcraft’s ears began to buzz. “Wh-who was it that put in this other offer?”
“Hmm.” The old man went back to rifling through the clutter on his desk. He looked under one sheet of paper and then another until he finally seized a particular page. He skimmed the script with a thin, bluish finger, and stabbed at one line in particular. “Yes…oh look. Another doctor, like yourself. A Dr. Edward Marplot. Maybe you know the fellow?”
It was as if he had been struck by a sledgehammer, the blow taking the breath right out of his lungs, leaving him palsied and wheezing. His uncashed check wafted gently to the floor, while he staggered and grabbed at his throat, the blood rising red up his face like a thermometer plunged in hot water.
“My boy? Angels in heaven! This man’s been stricken! Someone get a doctor!”
****
As Dr. Whitcraft sprinted down the long and crowded hospital hallway, he growled the name Marplot, but received only opened-mouth stares in response. He dove into an empty surgical theater and out again, nearly tripping over a trio of wheel-chaired unfortunates. He hurdled past them like a champion of track and field, ignoring the shouts of the hospital workers as he indiscriminately canvassed the hall, opening doors and then slamming them shut. There was no method to his search, other than a personal vow to scour every ward, every office, every engaged surgical suite for the man who had ruined his life.
He flung open yet another non-descript door, and there, as if by divine providence, stood the object of his passion. The tall, well-made form of Dr. Edward Marplot casually struck a pose against the room’s back counter while he chatted with a pretty young nurse.
Dr. Marplot turned at the sound of the opening door, and took note of the doctor’s appearance with an arched eyebrow and a quick, gentle smile. “Ah, Dr. Whitcraft.”
Dr. Whitcraft remained in place, snarling as his hands clenched into fists.
The nurse’s pleasant expression darkened at the sight, and she began walking backwards, feeling for the door. Finding it, she disappeared with the swiftness of a specter. The two doctors were alone in a large and cluttered examining room.
“Judging by y
our rather flustered appearance, Dr. Whitcraft, perhaps you would like to sit down and talk about this like the two rational and learned creatures that we are.” He sounded chipper and calm, like he was chatting up an old woman at the post office.
Dr. Whitcraft stepped in, but stopped, throwing a quick glance at the shelves next to the door, estimating which of the articles within his reach could be used to kill.
“Listen my friend, you think this has been some terrible plan on my part to arrange your undoing, but that is where you are wrong. It has merely been a series of unfortunate misinterpretations by a variety of people, none of which has the slightest thing to do with me…other than my getting the credit for work which you surely believe to be your own.”
At that, Dr. Whitcraft grabbed an empty porcelain basin and cast it full force at the man’s head, but Dr. Marplot had anticipated the launch and ducked. The basin smacked the floor with a hollow clank, and he rose back up with a look of surprise and thrill on his face.
“Well, whoever would have guessed you had such a temper, Dr. Whitcraft? And such good aim, too.”
It was as if a dam had broken. Propelled by a strength he had never known, Dr. William Whitcraft leaped forward into a running dive and tackled his oppressor, knocking him into the long side of an examining table, sending both men and the table toppling onto the floor with a thundering crash.
Briefly, Dr. Whitcraft had the upper hand and landed a rather solid blow, but the slippery Dr. Marplot wriggled out of his grasp. His escape was thwarted, however, when Dr. Whitcraft managed to grab both ends of his fluttering ascot, jerking him backwards like a jockey pulling on the reins of his horse. “There you go, old man. How do you like it?” The image of himself at the gallows for this man’s murder was at present judged to be well worth it.
“You’re mad!” Dr. Marplot sputtered, clawing at his throat. He squirmed and kicked, grasping for anything that might disable his attacker. As luck would have it, a wooden leg that had been resting in wait on the now toppled table, rolled loose among the fray; his hand had just glided across it.
Dr. Marplot seized the limb. In a single burst of strength, he pivoted his body and smashed the weapon directly into the eighth, ninth and tenth left ribs of his opponent. Dr. Whitcraft collapsed to the floor, windless and writhing.
The Five Step Plan Page 17