“Dr. Farnsworth, please?”
He turned his head toward the doorway. She was slightly below average height, but you failed to see that in the cherry-tinted hair that was drawn back from the forehead in a series of terraces. There were dimples, too, that caught the shadows of her smile.
“Yes.”
“I’m worried about this prescription for Mrs. Grayson.”
“Prescription?” He smiled disarmingly. H’m, she had cerulean eyes. “Prescription? My, my, yes. You’re the new pharmacist, aren’t you? Little lady, I’ll let you in on a great State secret.” He had pretended to look up and down the corridor for eavesdroppers. “When we had the vacancy as pharmacist, the Board was reluctant to engage a girl. But I rose to the defense of Female Rights. I said to them, rather sternly, ‘What are we going to do when our boys leave for the front? We’ve got to realize woman’s importance in every field of endeavor heretofore reserved exclusively for men.’ Did you ever hear me make a speech, Miss—Miss?”
“Kennedy. Delaine Kennedy.”
“I’m a rough, growling, old bear, Miss Kennedy.” His smile had softened the fierceness of the grimace. They both laughed, but she had carried the melody. That had reminded him of something else. Her application stated that she had four years at the Conservatory of Music; then there was that hiatus of several years before she enrolled at the College of Pharmacy. He’d ask sometime about this.
“Now, about that prescription?”
“It calls for a grain of morphine,” she had answered. “Surely, there must be some mistake.” He looked the paper over carefully. “H’m, Mrs. Grayson, eh? Make it one-quarter grain.”
“Thank you, Dr. Farnsworth. I just had to make sure.”
She was a sweet portrait framed there in the doorway. He could understand why Larry Wayne, so wholesome himself, loved this girl. “In making sure, Miss Kennedy, you’ve saved a patient’s life.”
He had periodically studied her work in the pharmacy. She was vigilant, trustworthy, and always cheerful. She had further endeared herself to him the night when little Gloria cried for her mother. That was a nasty case. He had been in the Staff Room reading a paper on the Pituitary Hormones when they brought in Mrs. Allerton on the stretcher. He had been called to Emergency. There was no hope for the mother, but the child had come through the accident with merely a few scratches and a twisted ligament.
The youngster cried pitifully. Each sob was punctuated by the yearning call: “I wan’ my mamma.” Miss Kennedy, off duty, had been passing by. She quieted the child without apparent effort.
“There, there, Gloria. Your mama isn’t far away.” She led the child, with the assistance of Dr. Farnsworth, into the Play Room. “Your mama can’t be far away because mamas never are. Look around the room, darling. Aren’t the wall paintings lovely? See the Three Bears? Someone has taken their breakfast. And what have we here? A piano. A teeny-weeny piano. Let me play for you, Gloria.”
A very light sob had escaped the child. “I like to hear moosic.”
He had listened, too. It was a miniature piano. The sounds were quite metallic, but, yet, soothing to the child. Miss Kennedy’s left hand caressed the key-board; her right arm was around the child’s waist.
The chords were familiar and yet he could not recall the name of the piece in the greater contemplation of Miss Kennedy’s gift of lulling a motherless child to sleep. Not until he had reached the cloistered comfort of Mrs. Gray’s tea-before-the-fireplace did the melody bestir him. He had to make several pilgrimages to the piano and copious references to his music library before his curiosity was appeased. Miss Kennedy had been dashing off excerpts of Richard Strauss’s symphonic study, Pana-thenaenzug. . ..
And now, Miss Kennedy was in great trouble. The tabloids would be screaming their innuendos; Larry would be in a daze; Pawlston would be adopting new thespian attitudes in wooing the jury. The courtroom would be crowded; the Judge would feel important. Yes, all that was familiar ground to Dr. Mark Farnsworth, sitting here in a darkened room and watching the River through the casement windows. He would appear at the trial as a witness. But this time he would be more than The Expert giving telescopic testimony. He was in “at the kill.” His eyes had penetrated the traumatic depths of the man’s skull. His words, reluctantly drawn from his lips by an ambitious District Attorney, would send Miss Kennedy to the “chair.”
The reverie was disturbed by Mrs. Grady. “Angels and saints, would you look at him now! Sitting in a cold room and him thinkin’ he’s as young and healthy as a squirrel. Off to bed wi’ yer and none of yer big talk.”
“You wouldn’t be harsh to me, Midge, you old meanie, if you knew that I just received consolation from one of your favorites.”
“Meanin’ what?” She had turned up the lamp to find him chilblainish. Her shawl went over his shoulders.
“I was thinking of St. Paul. A great man, Midge. He once said that no obedience to moral rules can take the place of Love. Where Love is genuine, it will, if combined with intelligence, suffice to generate whatever moral rules are necessary.”
“St. Paul said that? Sure them is lovely words comin’ from him.”
“Lovely, Midge, and quite sustaining.”
The Principal Keeper greeted Dr. Farnsworth warmly. “We don’t get to see much of you, Doctor.”
“It isn’t lack of good fellowship, Tom. These walls could never be inviting. How is she?”
“Miss Kennedy? No rest at all. Paced the floor all night. That young doctor of yours is on his way over. He couldn’t get a Judge to consider bail. It’s a murder charge, you know.”
“I never thought about that, Tom. Or maybe it’s because I have some doubts that she is a . . .” He could not say the word.
The P.K. interrupted: “The police don’t have any doubts. She screamed to them that she was guilty and would they please let her kid sister alone.”
The buzzer sounded. Through the intercommunicating phone boomed the voice of a guard. “P.K.? Dr. Wayne in the outer reception room.”
The P.K. answered with a switch of the key. “Send him in.”
Dr. Farnsworth could see that Larry, too, had had a restless night. His eyes were glassy and red. His collar was smudged and his overcoat was draped over his shoulders carelessly.
“You’ll have to talk to her, Chief. I just can’t.”
“What about the sister?”
Larry drew his palms across his unshaven cheeks in a gesture that spelled despair. “From what I can piece together, the guy has been treating the sister shamefully. No—they weren’t married. He’s a dipso. And when he goes on a binge, it’s a beaut. Del insists she walked in while he was belaboring the kid. That’s what she told the cops.”
“She clipped him, eh?” Dr. Farnsworth patted Larry affectionately. “Wait for me. I’ll go see her now.”
Miss Kennedy looked up at his approach. When the door rolled back, she threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Dr. Farnsworth,” she sobbed.
“It’s all right, little lady, let it all out.” The story came in tearful staccato.
“I love her so much, Dr. Farnsworth. I know you can understand that. And when he started to hit her . . .” She was biting her lips and struggling for control. “I couldn’t stand it, I just couldn’t stand it!”
He quieted her with all the blandishments he possessed. Her head drooped on his chest, and unconsciously, he found himself stroking her hair. “You’ll be calm, won’t you? Larry and I have retained a good lawyer. And we’ll have to testify.”
She looked at him. “I’m sorry you were dragged into this sordid mess. And Larry. What must he think of me?”
“Think of you? Why, that juvenile baboon loves you—and you know I’m so jealous of him that—that I must love you, too.”
He arose to go. She clung to him for a moment. “My sister. She’s been pushed around so much. Would you see that . . .”
He nodded his head affirmatively. “She’s been held as a material witness. But I’m sure
we can send her down South for a little rest until the trial begins.”
She brushed back the tears. “I feel stronger already,” she said. And looking at her he could see that inner strength.
The trial opened in the glare of the headlines that Dr. Farnsworth predicted. Additional space had to be arranged for the newspapermen and photographers. The syndicates were represented by gushing Love-lorn advisers and visiting sociologists. The columnists were there in force, seeking tomorrow’s paragraphs. Only the stern attitude Judge Haynes’s gavel prevented the atmosphere from becoming hippo-dromish.
Pawlston, in his defense of Miss Kennedy, summoned all his adroit mannerisms to the scene.
He confused the coroner and the police repeatedly. The theme was reiterative. “But you did not see either of these girls actually strike the fatal blow? How. do you know that some person or persons unknown, but bearing a grudge against the deceased, might not have struck him? Do you realize that Miss Kennedy weighs only one hundred and twenty-four pounds? Do you realize that her sister weighs a mere one hundred and eighteen pounds? Could either one have wielded a hammer weighing forty-one pounds?”
At the counsel table, Miss Kennedy fought to control the storm rising within her. She pleaded with Dr. Wayne. “Stop him, Larry. He’s violating our agreement.”
“Agreement?”
“Pawlston is casting doubt on my confession. I killed Mulgrew. They can’t—they dare not pin it on Carol. Tell him to stop, Larry.” He patted her hand. “Hush, darling. We’re here to help you.” “I don’t want that kind of help!”
Judge Haynes glared at her. “The defendant will restrain her conduct,” he warned.
The District Attorney was enjoying the performance. Here was a defendant so cooperative that all he had to do was place her on the stand and she assumed the entire guilt. The D.A. knew all the artifices in this arena, too. When to feint, when to lead, when to dodge. He was lenient with Carol; he was unctuous with Miss Kennedy.
The confession, as given to Lieutenant Decker, was admitted in evidence over the objections of Pawlston. The hammer became Exhibit S-2, over the further objections of Pawlston.
The testimony of the interne and that of Dr. Wayne followed. Their presence on the stand was brief. “What was the condition of Paul Mulgrew on the night he was brought into Mercy Hospital? What was the clinical picture? What was the hour he expired?”
“Dr. Farnsworth,” the bailiff called out with the pride he felt in the Doctor’s friendship. Bulbs flashed from the corners of the room.
Larry studied the face of Dr. Farnsworth. There was nobility of character and intellect in the way his preceptor placed his hand on the Bible and swore “to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Last night in Dr. Farnsworth’s library this scene had been rehearsed.
“You see, Larry, one’s presence on the witness stand is as sacred an endowment as a call to Holy Orders. The oath that you take is a direct communication to the All-Highest.”
Larry knew the inward fires that must now be burning in Dr. Farnsworth’s mind. They had recruited eight nurses from the Hospital, all of whom weighed the same as Miss Kennedy. And all of them had, with some effort and using both hands, lifted a forty-one pound bar and crashed it against the face of a skeleton.
It would be driving a stake in his heart when the D.A. would pin him down to the direct question. Dr. Farnsworth’s expert, as well as eye-witness opinion, would influence any jury. Miss Kennedy’s fate was sealed.
The voice of the D.A. boomed across the courtroom. “Dr. Farnsworth, I understand that you are a regularly licensed physician and surgeon of this state; that you hold a degree of Doctor of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University; that you are also a graduate of the University of Heidelberg, and have done post-graduate work at the University of Vienna; that you have specialized in neurology and traumatic surgery; that you are a consultant in neurology in the State Hospital; senior visiting surgeon at the local hospital; clinical professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, and attending neurologist at the Mercy Hospital?”
Dr. Farnsworth’s hands were clasped during the recital of this introduction. He nodded at its conclusion. “And may I add, with pardonable modesty, that I am also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and a member of the American Neurological Association?”
Pawlston had been on his feet during this ritual. “If Your Honor pleases, I do not think any of us could question either Dr. Farnsworth’s eminent qualifications or his established sense of probity.”
Dr. Farnsworth’s eyes strayed toward the defense table. Miss Kennedy had a protective arm linked within her sister’s.
The D. A. was now on the firing line. “I’m not going to bore the Court, nor you, Dr. Farnsworth, with repetitious medical history of one Paul Mulgrew, now deceased. Your associate, Dr. Wayne, and the attending interne have described the traumatic picture.”
Dr. Farnsworth leaned forward. The Court Stenographer’s pen dangled loosely in his hand.
“Doctor,” continued the D.A., “you performed an emergency operation on the deceased? What was the cause of death?”
“Multiple blows in the tempero-occipital-parietal area of the skull. As Dr. Wayne testified, we usually find that at the point of impact fractures by irradiation—in other words, continued fractures—result.” He looked toward the jury as though he had drawn up a chair in their living rooms for a fireside chat. “The fractures begin on the convexity of the skull and follow the shortest route from that point to the base of the skull. We call it Aran’s Law.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Now will you be specific in the injuries that resulted in Paul Mulgrew’s death?”
“The fracture passed from a line between the parietal-temporal region toward the occipital, taking in the middle fossa of the skull between the wings of the sphenoid and the petrous portion of the temporal bone. There was extradural hemorrhage from the middle meningeal artery, as Dr. Wayne explained on the chart.”
The D.A. edged in closer. Any minute now, a greater blow would fall. Dr. Farnsworth wet his lips nervously and for the first time since he began his medicolegal career he was uneasy. “Dr. Farnsworth, the deceased was a railroad section foreman. A hammer, weighing forty-one pounds, was found at his body. Could his death, could the injuries which you have just described, have been caused by such an instrument?”
The answer was slow and painful. “I . . . would . . . say . . . yes.”
“Dr. Farnsworth,” continued the D.A., “you have heard the defense Opening? Opposing counsel has inferred that the defendant, despite her confession to the police, Exhibit H-3, was physically unable to wield a hammer, Exhibit S-2, weighing forty-one pounds. Could the defendant, weighing one hundred and twenty-four pounds strike the deceased with this hammer, inducing injuries that resulted in death?”
A thousand imps were pounding in Dr. Farnsworth’s ear. This is IT.
But Pawlston was on his feet. “I object, Your Honor! It’s irrelevent and immaterial what the Doctor thinks. The District Attorney knows he can only get this into the record by asking the witness a hypothetical question.”
The D.A. smiled. “I withdraw the question, Your Honor, and I shall abide by my learned friend’s suggestion, Now, Dr. Farnsworth, assuming that the deceased, on the fourth day of December, was struck in the parietal and temporal region, sustaining a compound fracture as described, and assuming that the defendant weighs one hundred and twenty-four pounds, as has been testified, and that a hammer weighing forty-one pounds, admitted in evidence as Exhibit S-2, is assumed to be the weapon of death, would it be possible for the defendant to have wielded the hammer, Exhibit S-2, in such a way as to produce the injuries to the head that you described?”
The blood was coursing madly through his temples. Now his tongue was dry. He had to gulp before he could frame his answer. His fingers clutched at the chair for support. “No. I do not believe that the defendant was physically able to lift such a hammer.”
There, the lie was out. And all the St. Pauls could not rebut what St. Augustine wrote to Consentius, could they? He who says some lies are just might also say that some sins are just, and therefore, some things are just which are unjust: what can be more absurd?
Zeus gives no aid to liars, so Homer said. Congreve had his measure, too: Thou liar of the first magnitude.
Dr. Farnsworth looked down from the witness chair toward the girl. Her handkerchief, now in threads, lay on the counsel table. There were two extra big tears ski-ing down her cheeks. “Gratitude’s liquid,” he mumbled to himself. But he would need more than tears to purge himself.
The D.A. was undaunted. He strode challengingly toward the box. “Isn’t it possible, Dr. Farnsworth, that the close association of your assistant, Dr. Wayne, with the defendant may have obscured your judgment?”
The Judge frowned on the District Attorney. “Is it possible, sir, you are impugning your own witness?”
The D.A. bristled up. “If it pleases the Court, this testimony comes as a complete surprise to me.”
Pawlston rose to object. Dr. Farnsworth motioned him to silence. “The District Attorney is sugar-coating his inference. If Your Honor permits, I would call Mr. Shakespeare as a witness. ‘For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.’ ”
The Judge quelled the ripple of laughter with a light tap of the gavel. “The answer will be stricken from the record. Henry IV has no legal entity in this Court.”
Dr. Farnsworth smiled at the jurist. But perhaps the jury had not yet been convinced. To tell a lie is bad enough; not to have it believed is worse. “Too regrettable, Your Honor. For I might also have added to the District Attorney, and quoting the same Bard, ‘If I tell thee a lie, spit in my face; call me horse.’ ”
A Treasury of Doctor Stories Page 50