The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  “So you believe that the police are wrong, and that the man in jail is innocent.” The doctor’s expression did not change.

  “I wouldn’t swear to either one,” said Mr. Clemens. “If the murderer had laid for Parkhurst in some back alley and shot him there, I’d probably never even have heard about it. But he didn’t. Instead, he decided to do it right in front of me—and in front of my wife and daughter, too. I can’t help but take that kind of thing personally. I’ll take a certain measure of satisfaction to know I helped catch the killer. It may be petty of me, but I won’t apologize for it. Are you going to help me?”

  Dr. Ashe looked my employer in the eye for a long moment, then shrugged and averted his eyes. “Of course, Mr. Clemens. If I weren’t going to help you, I wouldn’t have invited you to my office.” He leaned down and opened a drawer in the desk, and took out a small stack of dossiers. He put them on the desktop between us, leaving his right hand resting atop the stack. “These are patients’ records. I don’t know how much medical terminology you understand, Mr. Clemens. But I think you will find much of what you need in here. I do hope you understand that normally these records would be shown only to another physician, and I trust you to keep anything not relevant to this case in confidence.”

  I glanced at the stack, and saw the name on the paper at the top: Richard Boulton. Hannah Boulton’s late husband—yes, of course, he had been one of Parkhurst’s patients. How many of the others who came to that séance had loved ones who had been under the doctor’s care—who had died in his care?

  Mr. Clemens must have read my thoughts, for he raised his hand and said, “Dr. Ashe, I appreciate all this. To tell the truth I’m likely to understand the medical lingo in these papers about as well as a Bulgarian sermon. So before I go digging through them, maybe it would make things easier if you could answer a couple of questions for us.”

  Dr. Ashe nodded. “I can spare you a few minutes more, Mr. Clemens, but please remember that there are others who have a claim to my attention. Especially now that my partner is gone . . .”

  “I understand,” said my employer. “But murder is a matter of life and death, as well as medicine. Especially medicine as practiced by Dr. Parkhurst—I’ve heard hints that his surgical skills were a bit erratic.”

  Dr. Ashe grimaced and spread his hands. “That is a delicate way to put it,” he said slowly. “My colleague’s training was of the highest caliber, and I believe he was a fine surgeon when he began practice. But in his later years he did not keep up with advances in the science, and I fear his hand was no longer as steady as it had been. This is often true of older surgeons, I am sorry to say. Younger doctors often make it a point to look out for them, or for those who have drunk too much, and to take over for them—for the patient’s sake.”

  “But sometimes nobody stops them,” said Mr. Clemens, raising an eyebrow.

  “No one could stop Dr. Parkhurst when he was determined to do something,” said Dr. Ashe, and for the first time I thought I detected a note of bitterness in his voice. “One of the unavoidable facts of medicine is that patients often choose doctors for reasons having nothing to do with their competence. Dr. Parkhurst’s social standing guaranteed him a following among the best people in London—at least, so they would consider themselves. And he was sufficiently aware of his own limitations to take me on as a partner. I was fresh out of school, with good recommendations and plenty of prospects. But there are limits on what someone of my religion can achieve, Mr. Clemens. The average Briton does not like to put himself into the hands of a Jew—not even when his life may depend upon the skill of his surgeon.”

  “Damn fools, if that’s true,” said Mr. Clemens. “But I reckon it’s not much better in America, or anywhere else. There’s always somebody who sets himself up as better than the rest, usually for no good reason. The only thing we’ve done in America is make it easier for a man to advance on his merits—most of the time. But that’s not the point, right now—you were talking about Dr. Parkhurst.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Ashe. “My partner recognized that his eroding skills jeopardized his ability to keep his following, and so he took on the best young surgeon he could find—or so I flatter myself. He would interview and examine the patients, he would be the physician of record—but more and more, when the ether took effect, it was I who stood there to do the real work. Many patients believed he had operated on them, when in fact he had left the surgery after seeing them go under the ether. He had the reputation, he had the following, he had the rewards of his position. And I remained the junior partner, behind the scenes, to be ordered about and reminded of my inferior status almost every day.”

  “And you resented it, didn’t you?”

  “It would take a better man than I am not to, Mr. Clemens,” said the doctor, spreading his hands. “But all of us have our price. To do work that benefits society, to support my parents in their old age, to give my wife and children a good home—to me, those things were worth the price I paid for them. And now, if I do not let the opportunity slip, perhaps I can gain for myself some of the recognition Dr. Parkhurst denied me.”

  Mr. Clemens looked the doctor straight in the eye. “You didn’t do anything to hasten the arrival of that opportunity?”

  Dr. Ashe clenched his fist. “There were times—oh, yes, there were times,” he said, and there was steel in his voice. Then he relaxed, and said, “There were times I could have cut his throat with a scalpel to keep him out of the operating room. We had very harsh words over that issue on more than one occasion. Luckily, I usually managed to persuade him to let me perform the operation in his place.”

  “But not invariably,” said Mr. Clemens.

  “No, I am afraid not,” said Dr. Ashe. “Even then, he was often lucky—or perhaps it was the patient who was lucky. But the luck sometimes ran out. There were . . . tragedies. You will find a brief summary of them—the ones I think are relevant to your inquiry, at least—in the records there.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Ashe,” said my employer. “One last question, and then I’ll let you return to your work. You had as much reason as anyone to benefit from the doctor’s demise—not that I think you did it, mind you.”

  “I appreciate your faith in me,” said Dr. Ashe. “But if you want something more solid, I can produce several very credible witnesses who can testify to being in my presence the evening of the murder. Although one of them was under anesthesia, and is probably unable to swear that he saw me the entire time.”

  “I looked into that before I came to see you,” said Mr. Clemens, smiling. “I like to know that kind of thing in advance. But what I wanted to ask was whether you had a strong reason to suspect any of the people in that room. I take it you know who was there.”

  “Oh, yes, I read the newspapers,” said Dr. Ashe. “I must say that your name would have caught my eye even if the victim had not been my partner. But the rest of the list was full of very familiar names, as well—Cedric Villiers, for example.”

  “Ah, yes, what about him?” Mr. Clemens leaned forward in anticipation.

  “A pathetic case,” said Dr. Ashe. “He originally came to us for a broken collarbone, which Dr. Parkhurst set. When he complained of persistent pain, my partner prescribed morphia—to which Villiers became addicted. He began to haunt the office on a regular basis for several years, begging for more. Dr. Parkhurst finally had the good sense to stop supplying him—but not before Villiers made a dreadful scene, out in the waiting room. There were threats—”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Something under a year since Dr. Parkhurst cut him off,” said Dr. Ashe. “I remember we’d had the first snowfall of the season.”

  “Hmm,” said Mr. Clemens. “Maybe Villiers would nurse a grudge that long, or maybe not. And maybe he got another source for the stuff.”

  “It’s long enough for him to do the kind of planning the killer did,” I added.

  “A determined addict can usually find someone willing to s
ell him what he wants,” said Dr. Ashe. “I am afraid that some of my colleagues are less scrupulous than they should be in prescribing opiates.”

  Mr. Clemens picked up one of the dossiers. “Richard Boulton—what do you remember about him?”

  The doctor wrinkled his brow a moment, then said, “Mr. Boulton had a cancer of the bowels. I examined him and was of the opinion that he had only a few months to live no matter what we did. His wife wanted to attempt a pilgrimage to Lourdes. I myself recommended palliative measures—anything to make his last days comfortable, but Dr. Parkhurst overruled me and persuaded them that an operation might save him. Boulton died in the recovery room—in his weakened condition, the operation was more than his system could bear. Perhaps, in the long run, that spared him a great deal of suffering. But I think Mrs. Boulton saw things otherwise. I myself felt he could have lived at least six months longer, possibly a year or more. Only at the very end would he necessarily have been an invalid.”

  Mr. Clemens flipped over another dossier and I saw his eyebrows rise. “Emily Marie DeCoursey. Is she who I think she is?”

  “She was the daughter of Sir Denis DeCoursey and Lady Alice, if that is what you mean,” said Dr. Ashe. “She was visiting her mother’s sister in town, and complained of violent stomach pain. This was, if I remember correctly, seven years ago. The family doctor prescribed a laxative, but to no effect. When Dr. Parkhurst saw her, he diagnosed her condition as acute appendicitis, and urged an immediate operation. She died of a secondary infection several days later. Perhaps my partner did something to cause the infection, or perhaps the family doctor’s misdiagnosis gave the septic agents time to spread through her system before the operation. I cannot say for certain—all this happened when I myself was ill with a fever, and in no condition to see patients. I do know that Sir Denis was in the office a few days later, asking several very sharp questions.”

  “I’m beginning to see a pattern,” said Mr. Clemens. “Everybody at the séance seems to have had a grudge against the doctor. Not to forget his wife—his sister-in-law makes it clear that he was no model husband.”

  “Ah, yes, Miss Donning,” said the doctor. “Normally I would advise taking her remarks with a grain of salt—she is a very bitter woman, quick to find fault and to impute blame, whether or not there is cause for it. In this instance, however . . .”

  “So I gather,” said Mr. Clemens. “She gave us a fairly long bill of particulars on damn near everybody in the case, including herself. Is it true the doctor was seeing another woman?”

  “Until quite recently, yes,” said Dr. Ashe. “He cut the relationship short just over a month ago. But I don’t believe she can be considered a suspect. I know for a fact that she was out of town when Dr. Parkhurst died.”

  “What, do you know her?” Mr. Clemens’s eyebrows were raised again.

  “Oh, yes. May I depend on you to be discreet?” Mr. Clemens and I nodded, and Dr. Ashe continued. “You already saw her in the outer office. It was our secretary, Miss Ellsworth.”

  Now Mr. Clemens thought he scented the quarry. “She continued to work here after he broke off the relationship?”

  “No, in fact she gave notice the very day he broke up with her,” said Dr. Ashe. “It was the worst thing that could have happened, as far as the office was concerned. We had some young creature in here trying to do Miss Ellsworth’s work, and the poor girl was hopeless. Or course, it was unthinkable to bring Miss Ellsworth back as long as Dr. Parkhurst was here. But after his death, I made efforts to locate her. From the family friend who had originally recommended her to us, I found she had gone back to Bath—she was from there, originally. Luckily, I persuaded her to return. This is her first full day back at work.”

  Dr. Ashe picked up a pencil from the desk and twiddled it in his fingers a moment, then looked out the window as he spoke. “What Dr. Parkhurst did to that poor woman is far from the least of his sins,” he said. “She was an innocent girl from the West Country, completely new to London, when she first came to us. She fell under the spell of his power and position—he could be quite charming when he wished to, Mr. Clemens. When he moved to take advantage of her admiration, she was powerless to resist.”

  He shook his head, and let the pencil drop upon the desk, then looked at us with pleading eyes. “She should have been meeting people of her own age, eligible young men. She should be married, with a family of her own, by now. But she wouldn’t look at another man; she believed Oliver when he told her that his wife was deathly ill, that he would soon be free to marry her. Of course that was a lie. In the end, he abandoned her in her turn, leaving her ruined and too old to find a husband. And it was I who inadvertently exposed her to his snares, hiring her upon the recommendation of one of my best friends. I feel a debt to her, Mr. Clemens. It is the least I can do to give her a new chance.”

  My employer and I exchanged glances. “Very good of you to take her back into your employment,” said Mr. Clemens quietly. I silently agreed. I felt sorry for the poor woman, but she must have known what she was doing. Naturally, I could understand Dr. Ashe’s desire to keep word of this from his patients—it would only prejudice them further against him if it were known that he gave a loose woman employment in his office.

  Dr. Ashe shook his head. “Oh, no, it was quite selfish of me. She may have made a very bad mistake, but that does not change the fact that she is extremely good with figures and organization, and very good with the patients. Do you need to talk to her? I have already advised her that you may need to, but I hope you will be gentle with her. She is more sinned against than sinning.”

  “You can trust me,” said my employer. “I will want to ask her a few questions, but first let me try to plow through these papers. I don’t want to waste her time asking about details of these cases if I can find the answers here.”

  “Good, then I’ll leave you alone for now,” said the doctor, getting to his feet. “Tell Miss Ellsworth if you need me again, and I’ll try to come back when I’ve a moment free.”

  “Appreciate your help, Doctor,” said Mr. Clemens, shaking his hand, “Maybe the answers will be here—I sure hope so.”

  The doctor nodded and hurried out to see his patients, and Mr. Clemens and I sat down to look through a stack of medical files.

  25

  Reading through the records of Dr. Parkhurst’s patients was slow going. I knew nothing of medical language, other than the names of a few common diseases, and Mr. Clemens knew little more than I. From time to time one of us would ask the other what something meant; the answer was usually “I don’t know.” Still, it was clear that practically everyone at the séance had some reason to feel animosity toward Dr. Parkhurst. “I reckon we’re lucky we didn’t know the fellow any better,” said Mr. Clemens, at last. “We’d have ended up wanting to shoot him ourselves.”

  “That’s a sorry observation, but perhaps a true one,” I said. “So much for thinking we could narrow the number of potential suspects. At least, the doctor’s secretary was evidently out of town at the time of the killing, and Dr. Ashe seems to have a good alibi. So there are two we don’t have to worry about.”

  “Still, it looks as if the secretary had motive enough,” said Mr. Clemens. “She may have had friends or family who knew her story and wanted to avenge her. Besides, she’ll know more than most about the doctor’s doings. We’ll talk to her before we go.”

  I went out to ask the secretary if she could speak to us, and found her busy with an accounts book. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, and she looked up at me with a trace of annoyance at the interruption. But when I added, “Mr. Clemens would like to speak to you, if it is convenient,” she quietly put down the book, and followed me into the back office.

  My employer stood as she entered, and said, “I’m sorry to take you away from your work, young lady. Have a seat, and we’ll try to waste as little of your time as we can.”

  “Dr. Ashe told me you are looking into Oliver’s murder,” she said, taking the c
hair behind the desk—the one Dr. Parkhurst had probably used. Her voice was low and melodious, and her expression became more animated as she spoke. For the first time, I could see how the doctor might have found her attractive. “Has he told you that Oliver and I were . . . ?”

  Mr. Clemens nodded in answer to the unfinished question. “It was actually Miss Donning who gave us the first hint of that,” said Mr. Clemens. “Dr. Ashe merely confirmed what we already knew.”

  “Miss Donning,” she said, and a hint of a sneer came to her lip. “Ah, yes, the estimable Miss Donning must have given me a fine character.”

  “She didn’t mention you in particular, just the general fact of the doctor’s . . . uh, affairs,” said my employer. “She did manage to tear just about everybody else’s reputation to shreds, so I reckon you got off light. Now, most of what went on between you and the doctor isn’t my business.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way,” said Miss Ellsworth. “It saves me telling you so myself.” Her face flushed red, whether from anger or shame—or possibly both—I could not tell.

  “Then we understand each other,” said Mr. Clemens. “That’ll save us both some aggravation. Just a few questions, then. Was it you or Dr. Parkhurst who broke off your relationship?”

  She looked him in the eye, and for a moment, I thought she was not going to answer. Then she looked downward and said, “It was he, of course. Oliver grew tired of me; he let me know that I had become inconvenient, and that it would be best for me to leave his employment. And so I did, until Dr. Ashe called me back.”

  “You say he grew tired of you,” said Mr. Clemens. I could see that he was somewhat uncomfortable to talk to a young woman about the most delicate of subjects. “Is that the whole story? Or did something else happen—like his wife finding out about you?”

  “Cornelia knew about me quite some time ago,” she said, raising her chin. “Oliver never much cared what she knew about, once he had secured the benefits of her social position and her fortune. After that, she ceased to be of much interest to him. She was certainly never a threat to me.”