Dr. Quirk squinted at the picture, held it out at arm’s length, turned it at several angles, squinted again, brought it closer, then slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think—” Suddenly he slapped his hand across the upper part of the photo. “Sorry,” he said. “Change signals. Her hair fooled me. I never saw her as a blonde before. That’s Patty Erryl.”
“An ex-patient?”
Dr. Quirk nodded. “She came to Carville as a kid. Her father was an Air Force officer in the Far East. She was raised out there — Philippines, I think; one of the endemic areas, anyhow. When her father was killed in Korea, her mother brought her back to the States. The girl developed clinical symptoms. Her mother brought her to Carville and then faded out of the picture.”
“Did she die, too?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe she remarried. Anyhow, she never once came to Carville to visit Patty. Patty responded very well to sulfones and when she was discharged as bacteriologically and clinically negative, an aunt from somewhere in the Middle West came to get her.”
“That would be Auntie Min of Northbank,” said Dr. Coffee. “How long ago was Patty discharged?”
“Two or three years ago. Do you want the exact date?”
“I want to know particularly whether Paul Wallace was a patient here while Patty was still in Carville.”
“I’m not sure. I’ll check with Sister Frances in Records.” Dr. Quirk poured fresh Sazaracs.
“No hurry. I suppose you know that Patty is quite a singer.”
“Do I! When she sang in the Recreation Hall, radio and television people used to come down from Baton Rouge to tape her concerts.”
“How far away is Baton Rouge?”
“Oh, twenty, twenty-five miles.”
“Did Patty’s voice develop spontaneously, or did she have a coach?”
“Well, I guess you could say she had a coach of sorts.”
“Papa Albert?”
Dr. Quirk’s teeth clicked against the rim of his cocktail glass. His eyebrows rose. “You come well briefed, Dan.”
“Where does Papa Albert live? Baton Rouge?”
Dr. Quirk laughed briefly. “For twenty-five years,” he said, “Carville has been home to Albert Boulanger. He was a promising young pianist when the thing hit him. This was before we discovered the sulfones, so he was pretty badly crippled before we could help him. Hands are shot. He can play a few chords, though, and he’s still a musician to his fingertips.”
“Fingertips with papillae, and interpapillary pegs obliterated?”
Dr. Quirk looked at the pathologist strangely. He muddled the ice in the bar glass, and squeezed out another half Sazarac for each of them. He took a long sip of his drink before he resumed in a slow, solemn voice.
“Patty Erryl was a forlorn little girl when she came here,” he said, “and Albert Boulanger sort of adopted her. He taught her to sing little French songs. When she began to bloom, he fought off the wolves. He would invite her to his cottage out back to listen to opera recordings evening after evening.
“She was an early case. She could have been discharged in three years, except that she wanted to finish her schooling here. I think, too, that she appreciated what Papa Albert was doing to bring out the music in her. He was like a father to her. And since she scarcely knew her own father, she was terribly fond of the old man.”
Dr. Coffee drained his glass again. “I suppose your records will show that Albert Boulanger was here at Carville last Wednesday night.”
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Quirk frowned. “He had a forty-eight-hour pass to go to New Orleans last Wednesday. He wanted to see his lawyer about a new will. The old man hasn’t long to live.”
“I thought people didn’t die of Hansen’s disease,” Dr. Coffee said.
“Boulanger has terminal cancer. He found out just two weeks ago that he’s going to die in a month or two.”
“Could I speak to him?”
“Why not?” Dr. Quirk picked up the phone and dialed the gate. “Willy, has Mr. Boulanger come back from New Orleans?... Yesterday? Thanks.” He replaced the instrument. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “Papa Albert has one of those cottages beyond the golf course. We won’t move him to the infirmary until he gets really bad.”
Albert Boulanger must have been a handsome man in his youth. Tall, white-haired, only slightly stooped, he bore few external signs of his malady. Only the experienced eye would note the thinning eyebrows and the slight thickening of the skin along the rictus folds and at the wings of the nostrils.
As Dr. Coffee shook hands, he saw that Papa Albert had obviously suffered some bone absorption; his fingers were shortened and the skin was smooth and shiny.
“I stopped by to bring you greetings from Patty Erryl in North-bank,” Dr. Coffee said, “and to compliment you on the fine job you did on Patty’s musical education.”
Papa Albert darted a quick, startled glance at Dr. Quirk. He apparently found reassurance in the MOC’s smile. He coughed. “I take no credit,” he said. “The girl has a natural talent and she’s worked hard to make the best of it.”
“I hope she wins the opera finals,” the pathologist said. “Did you get to see her when you were in Northbank on Wednesday?”
Papa Albert looked Dr. Coffee squarely in the eyes as he replied without hesitation, “I’ve never been in Northbank in my life. I was in New Orleans on Wednesday.”
“I see. Did you know that Paul Wallace was killed in Northbank last Wednesday night?”
“Paul Wallace is not of the slightest interest to me. He was a blackguard, a swindler, a thoroughly despicable man.”
“Do you have a bank account in Baton Rouge, Mr. Boulanger?”
“No.”
“But you did have — until you sent about $1700 to Paul Wallace.”
“Why would I send money to a rotter like Wallace?”
“Because you love Patty Erryl as if she were your own daughter. Because you’d do anything to stop someone from wrecking her career just as it’s about to start.”
“I don’t understand you.” Papa Albert wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. He coughed again.
“Mr. Boulanger, you and I and Dr. Quirk know that there are dozens of maladies more dreadful and a thousand times more infectious than Hansen’s disease. But we also know that the superstitious horror of the disease is kept alive by ignorance and a mistaken interpretation of Biblical leprosy which equates the disease with sin. Despite the progress of recent years there is still a stigma attached to the diagnosis.
“Suppose, Mr. Boulanger, a blackmailer came to you or wrote to you making threats that suggested a newspaper headline such as ‘Girl Leper Barred from Met After Winning Audition.’ Wouldn’t you dig into your savings to prevent such a headline? And if the blackmailer persisted, if his greed increased, I can even envision—”
“Dr. Coffee, if you want me to say that I’m happy that Wallace is dead, I’ll do so gladly and as loudly as I can. But now...” Papa Albert had begun to tremble. Perspiration was streaming down his pale cheeks. “Now, if you will excuse me... Dr. Quirk has perhaps told you of my condition — that I’m supposed to get lots of rest. May I bid you good evening, Doctor?”
He tottered a little as he walked away.
The drainage ditches were aglitter with the eerie light of fireflies as the two doctors left Papa Albert’s cottage.
“What do you want me to do, Dan?” Dr. Quirk asked.
“Nothing,” Dr. Coffee replied, “unless you hear from me.”
Max Ritter was at the Northbank airport to meet Dr. Coffee.
“News, Doc,” he said, as the pathologist stepped off the ramp. “Rhodes has confessed.”
Dr. Coffee stopped short. “Who did what?”
“Rhodes, the lush, the lover boy, the star reporter and the talent scout. He signed a statement that he killed Wallace.”