Beacon Street Mourning

by Dianne Day

  When I looked up, I saw that he was again bumping his fists together at the knuckles. He narrowed his eyes at me and said, “Caroline, what are you thinking? I’veknown you since you were about three years old. I suggest you just come out with it.”

  I shook my head from side to side, to indicate no. I couldn’t trust myself to say anything yet.

  “For heaven’s sake, young woman, I’m your family’s doctor. If you can’t trust me, then whom can you trust?”

  I supposed that was a very good question. My dilemma was that my family’s doctor had announced his intention to discharge my father from the hospital before I could possibly find another doctor, suitably highly recommended, to give me a second opinion.

  Perhaps too late I realized he might have taken the shaking of my head to indicate that I didn’t trust him, rather than simply that I did not know whom to trust. I was not yet ready to burn this bridge, so to speak, and so I began to speak even though I was not prepared.

  “I beg your pardon, Dr. Cosgrove,” I said. My voice wobbled, so I took a deep breath and tried again. “I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t trust you. It’s rather that I … I’m in a quandary.”

  Beside me Michael recrossed his legs. I could almost feel the intensity with which he was scrutinizing Dr. Searles Cosgrove. And then, suddenly, I knew what I had to do and how to do it: I would treat Cosgrove as if he were involved in one of our investigations. I would interrogate him. With my partner by my side during this interview, I would glean all possible information. That way, if I missed something Michael might pick up on it. Yes! Instantly I felt a thousand times better.

  I sat up straighter and leaned forward in the chair.

  “Dr. Cosgrove, in April of last year I saw my father face to face for the first time since I left Boston in 1905. I was shocked to see how much weight he had lost, by the pallor of his skin and, in general, how much he seemed to have aged in so short a time. I would like to know: Had Father been to see you regularly during those three years?”

  Cosgrove’s dark eyes flashed. Then he too sat forward. He turned some pages, going backward through the papers in Father’s medical records. But he disappointed me; he didn’t read aloud what he had written there. Instead he read silently, nodding to himself, then looked at me and said, “Yes, I had seen him. But in all honesty I cannot say that I saw him regularly after the first two of those three years.”

  “What do you mean, precisely?”

  “Your father’s medical records—and all medical records, in case you didn’t know, young lady—are confidential. You may be his daughter, but that doesn’t give you the right to pry.”

  So much for feeling like an adult, professional investigator!

  I shot a quick glance at Michael, to find him already watching me, and I inclined my head all but imperceptibly.

  He immediately picked up my subtle cue. “What Miss Jones is trying to ascertain is whether or not you treated her father in the past for this current illness, which seems—from all I can gather, I have not yet seen the man myself—to have become terminal.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kossoff,” I said. He had given me the respite I required, and I was able to go on forcefully. “My partner is quite right. I would appreciate an answer to that question.”

  Again, Cosgrove made fists of his fingers and pounded them against each other; really it was the most irritating habit. I stared at him as intently as I had ever stared at anyone in my life, as if with my eyes alone I could force him to tell me—as they say in court—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Finally he said, “I treated your father for a condition he was much concerned about during the first two years of his marriage, that would be 1905 and 1906. A condition that is peculiar to males of the human species, and which I am certainly not going to discuss with afemale, particularly not when the female is the patient’s daughter. Nor will I discuss it with Kossoff here, no matter that he is your business partner and appears to be a gentleman.”

  Cosgrove paused, raised his eyebrows in a supercilious expression and added, “Although one would have to question the gentility of anyone whose business is a so-called detective agency.”

  Oh really? I sat straighter. My chin came up. “Dr. Cosgrove, do you want me to tell my father that you have insulted me, and my partner as well?”

  Cosgrove sniffed. “Frankly, Caroline, I feel you have insulted me when you question my ability to care for a man who has been my patient over so many years.”

  Once again I took a deep breath in order to better control myself before replying. “In that case, I apologize. It was not my intention to insult you.”

  “I accept your apology.”

  But he couldn’t very well say he hadn’t intended his insult, could he? Because it had been very obviously deliberate. I ground my teeth together and kept silent. So did Michael, though I thought I detected a certain heat of anger radiating from him as well.

  Cosgrove bowed his head briefly, which I took to be a conciliatory gesture, and said, “Perhaps we can start over.”

  “That would be an admirable course,” Michael agreed. I had seldom heard him speak so formally. I wondered what Cosgrove would think if he were to find out that in Russia, where Michael has citizenship as well as here in the United States, Michael is an aristocrat, a duke I do believe. And then I wondered if it might be possible for me to make sure Cosgrove did find out.

  On the other hand, Michael was well able to take care of himself, and I knew he would; he certainly wouldn’t tolerate being taken for less than a gentleman just because of his profession.

  “All right,” I said. “I agree, we can start over. However, if you didn’t treat my father for the illness he has presently, then … then I am at a loss for information.”

  “So was I, when your friend William Barrett called me. I was indeed shocked to find poor Leonard so sadly deteriorated. Leonard and I are of an age, did you know that? He was at Harvard when I was at Princeton. We—”

  He stopped abruptly and threw his hands up in dismissal. “Ah, what does it matter? It’s possible, I suppose, your father may have been unhappy with my inability to help him in that matter I mentioned.”

  “The one peculiar to males,” I said quietly.

  “Yes. And he may have gone to someone else. If so, then he is the only one who knows whom he consulted. Augusta does not know, for I have asked her. The day I examined your father at Beacon Street and ordered him brought immediately to Priory, Leonard was so badly dehydrated and malnourished that the powers of his mind had deserted him. It was no use questioning him.”

  “In other words,” Michael said sharply, “you had to base your diagnosis of his current condition on your examination alone. You could not ask for history of the complaint, because the patient was unable to give it to you.”

  “I could ask his wife, and I did. What do you take me for, man?”

  “Dr. Cosgrove,” I intervened, making a quick decision because Michael’s tone indicated he was ready to pick a verbal fight, “I believe we can save a great deal of further misunderstanding if I will simply be blunt. I realize how this is going to sound, but I am going to say it nevertheless: For me, Augusta Simmons is a problem. Perhaps even the problem. I believe she may have been, and may still be, poisoning my father.”

  To my absolute horror and complete surprise, after a moment in which he opened his eyes almost comically wide, Searles Cosgrove laughed. He threw back his immaculately combed dark head, swiveled his chair from side to side, and laughed.

  I looked at Michael, Michael looked at me; we were both stunned and perplexed.

  Then Michael said in his darkest, most compelling voice: “I fail to find the humor in this situation.”

  “You’re quite right, of course.” Cosgrove’s laughter stopped as abruptly as it had burst forth. “It’s just that I wondered the same thing myself, at first, and here we three have been tiptoeing around the subject, creating a misunderstanding to the point of t
rading insults.”

  “You, too, thought she might be poisoning Father?” I heard a little-girlish eagerness in my tone that might be deplorable, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Yes, Caroline, at first I did wonder, because your father had never before shown any signs of having a weak gastrointestinal system. When I quizzed his wife as to whether or not Leonard had seen another doctor since his last visit to my office, which was—hmm, let’s see here”—he consulted the chart—“in December of 1906, she claimed that he had indeed gone regularly to a doctor but she did not know the man’s name, or where his office was located. I asked her to look for some record, such as a bill that had been paid, but she said your father took care of all his bills through his office at the bank, and had continued that practice even after his retirement.”

  “Gladys,” I murmured.

  “I beg your pardon?” Cosgrove inquired.

  “Nothing important. Please, go on.”

  “Very well. Under the circumstances, I thought it would be best if I dropped that line of inquiry.”

  “Yet,” Michael prompted, “you suspected poison.”

  “Well, yes, initially I thought perhaps arsenic, because Leonard had always been in good physical health up to that time, at least so far as I knew, and some of his symptoms did fit.”

  He hesitated, bumped his fists together a couple oftimes, then seemed to come to some decision and went on: “I was somewhat influenced in my suspicions by the fact that Augusta Simmons is not—that is, she has never—well, no one in our circle knows her very well, anything of her background and so forth. However, I did not want to be unfair to the woman in so serious a matter, and once I had Leonard in the hospital for a thorough examination, I was able to rule out arsenic. Primarily through examination of skin, hair, and fingernails—there are tests that can be done, you understand, which will determine if residue of arsenic is present.”

  “And it was not, I take it?” Michael inquired.

  “It was not.”

  “Might there have been something else, some other poison?” I asked.

  Dr. Cosgrove shrugged. “I dropped that line of thought, because almost as soon as the Sisters of Charity—they are the religious order of nuns at Priory Hospital—began to care for your father around the clock, he showed improvement. He rallied, and since then I’ve been concerned with helping him maintain. At least his mind is clear most of the time now. As for his physical condition—”

  Cosgrove broke off, turned his chair to one side, and gazed out of his window, deep in thought. Michael and I waited politely. When he was ready, the doctor faced us again and said, “I got to know Augusta Jones better, and that made all the difference. That woman could never poison Leonard. She adores him.”

  I blinked, as if that might remove the skepticism from my eyes.

  Michael said, “Is that your professional opinion, or merely a personal one?”

  “Both. I do not believe Leonard Jones was poisoned, by Augusta or by anyone else. I do believe his health began to fail, and because he had been, um, offended and perhaps discouraged with my treatment of that othermatter I mentioned, he either did not seek medical help or went to an inferior physician with this illness he now has. I cannot say that I could have helped him myself. These diseases of the stomach and intestines often do not respond to treatment. By the time the liver is chronically affected—as you can see by his skin color it is in Leonard’s case—it is too late. A slow death becomes inevitable.”

  On hearing those words, I felt a shudder begin somewhere down deep inside of me. It traveled up my spine, turning each vertebra to ice along its way. I gripped the arms of the chair in which I sat with both hands as hard as I could and prayed that I could keep my body outwardly still while inwardly I was experiencing my own personal earthquake.

  I felt Michael glance at me even as he continued to engage Searles Cosgrove’s attention, for which I was most grateful. Michael said, “So we are to understand that you’re allowing Mr. Jones to return home, in essence, because there is nothing more to be done for him in the hospital.”

  Cosgrove nodded. “That is essentially correct.”

  “Yet I’m puzzled by something that appears to me a contradiction. Perhaps you can clear it up for me, Doctor.” Michael paused, then went on. “Mr. Jones’s health improved when he was taken from his home and brought to the hospital; now you intend to return him to his home because you say he cannot improve any further. Do you not have any concern that he will deteriorate to his former state when he is taken home again?”

  “Augusta did not know how to take care of him properly before. I have instructed her, and I will stop by from time to time to see that she is following my instructions.”

  Aha!

  My shuddering stopped. I saw an opening, a possibility, a glimmer of hope, and I plunged into it: “May I suggest a kind of compromise? I would be much happier if Father could remain at Priory, but since that is not what he wants, nor what Augusta wants, I’d feel much better if you would order, Dr. Cosgrove, a trained nurse to be on duty in his room at home twenty-four hours a day.”

  “An interesting suggestion,” Cosgrove said. “But expensive.”

  “We can afford it. You know that,” I said.

  That is, I thought, we could have afforded it in the past, and so should we be able to still, unless something had changed dramatically without my knowledge.

  “Augusta will not be pleased,” Cosgrove said. “She wants to care for him herself.”

  I was adamant. “Augusta Simmons has been my father’s wife for four years, but I have been his daughter for far longer than that. I want Father to have a nurse at his bedside when he returns home. For his care, and for my own peace of mind. You can do that for us, you have only to write the order. Will you, please, Dr. Cosgrove?”

  Searles Cosgrove acquiesced, bowing his head rather more gracefully than I would have thought possible. “Very well. I will write the order.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Michael and I said simultaneously.

  There was little left to be said, other than a bit of inconsequential small talk. We were soon shaking hands with the doctor and saying goodbye to Nurse Bates.

  For me it was a considerable relief to leave that elegant house and office on Commonwealth Avenue. We took our time, the fresh air feeling good if rather cold, as we walked to the corner. Chances of hailing a cab, either horse-drawn or motor-driven, would be better there than in the middle of the block.

  Along the way Michael commented, “There was something rather remarkable about that whole thing with Cosgrove. I wonder if you noticed.”

  I thought for a while, and finally admitted, “Other than what we discussed, no. I don’t think I noticedanything else remarkable. This whole situation is bizarre enough, I think.”

  “I don’t disagree with your assessment. However, I still think it’s remarkable that not once did your family doctor say anything, or ask a single question, about the fact that you are walking with two canes. For a doctor, I do think that is odd.”

  SEVEN

  THAT AFTERNOON MICHAEL accompanied me to the hospital and I introduced him to Father. It was a bittersweet experience.

  Oh how much I wished I had not waited so long to bring together these two men I love most in the world! Now Michael could never know Father as he’d been when he was healthy, vigorous, and full of life. That wasted shell, that pale shadow of a man who lay in this hospital bed—surely that could not be Leonard Pembroke Jones.

  Yet within minutes of my having made their introduction, Michael had engaged Father in a conversation on the subject of the monetary situation in Europe—a topic I had never heard Michael mention before, and had had no idea he knew or cared anything about. Of course Michael and I do not discuss money unless in connection with the running of the agency, so how would I have known?

  Father being a banker, he warmed immediately and leapt right into a spirited discussion, seemingly unembarrassed by his occasional hesitancy an
d groping for words. Obviously he’d been hungry for male companionship—especially from someone who knew the world of finance, in which he’d spent most of his professional life. Now, to see Michael satisfying my father’s need flooded me with a kind of warmth I had never felt before. It was really quite extraordinary.

  Yet I did wonder once more about William Barrett, for I’d been assuming that he was visiting Father right along. Surely William would have filled this need?

  In addition to his profession as a banker, Father was for one or two terms an elected member of the Massachusetts Commonwealth’s legislature—which was how he came by the honorific he seldom uses: The Honorable Leonard Pembroke Jones. I had not had cause to remember my father’s political career for years, but now I saw it again, however improbably, as from his sickbed Father charmed and manipulated the unmanipulatable Michael Archer Kossoff.

  What a curious pleasure it was for me to watch them together! I relaxed and let this new experience warm me, leaning back in my chair, not really part of the conversation, and not minding that a bit. Gradually my attention wandered, and I fell to thinking about what Michael had told me earlier over lunch at our hotel.

  While we were waiting for our food, I had asked Michael if he could explain to me the “condition peculiar to males of the human species” that Dr. Cosgrove had thought so unsuitable for my delicate, feminine ears. Naturally enough, I had already surmised this condition must have something to do with either the sexual act or the male genitalia.

  Michael initially had difficulty answering me. This came as a surprise since he usually doesn’t mind explaining such things to me—in fact, there have been plenty of times when he has positively enjoyed it—but this was, apparently, quite different. He had to ruffle his hair and clear his throat a time or two before he got started:

  “I believe, given the doctor’s report that your father consulted him for this condition soon after marriage, and persisted with the treatments—whatever they may have been—over a period of almost two years … Oh, damn!”