Final Proof; Or, The Value of Evidence

by Rodrigues Ottolengui

"I deserve no credit for that. It seems that Miss Lederle had long had a little fleshy tumor on the inside of her cheek, which had had an opportunity to grow because of the loss of a tooth. Her dentist often advised her to have it removed, lest it might become cancerous. She put it off from time to time, but recently it had grown more rapidly, and at last she called on the dentist and asked him to recommend a surgeon. He tells me that he gave her the names of three, one residing in Newark, and two in this city. Of the New York men, one was Dr. Mortimer."

"By Jove! Doctor Mortimer!" exclaimed Mr. Barnes. "I begin to see daylight. It was he who supplied the morphine powders, then?"

"Ah, then you know so much? Yes, Dr. Mortimer instigated the transfer of bodies. As soon as I charged him with murder, he thought it safest to tell me the truth and throw himself upon my mercy."

"Upon your mercy?" said Mr. Barnes, mystified.

"Yes; the man has not committed a crime, at least not the crime of murder. It seems that on the afternoon of the day before that fixed for the funeral of Mr. Quadrant, this Miss Lederle called at his office and requested him to remove the tumor from her cheek. He consented, and suggested the use of cocaine to deaden the parts. The woman insisted that she must have chloroform, and the doctor explained that in the absence of his assistant he would not care to undertake the administration of an anæsthetic. But the woman was persistent; she offered a liberal fee if the operation could be done immediately, since it had required so much time for her to bring her courage to the point of having the tumor removed; then the operation itself seemed so simple that at last the surgeon was overruled, and proceeded. He did cause the patient to remove her corset, and, her garments thoroughly loosened, she was placed on the operating-table. He says he administered very little chloroform, and had not yet attempted to operate when the patient exhibited dangerous symptoms. In spite of his most untiring efforts she succumbed, and he found himself in the dreadful position of having a patient die under an operation, with no witnesses present. He closed and locked his office and walked from the house in great mental agitation. He called at the Quadrants', and heard there that the coffin would not again be opened. Then a great temptation came to him. The woman had not given him her address, nor had she stated who had sent her to Dr. Mortimer, merely declaring that she knew him by reputation. There was no way to communicate with the woman's relatives except by making the affair public. He recalled that a similar accident to an old surgeon of long-established reputation, where several assistants had been present, had nevertheless ruined the man's practice. He himself was innocent of wrong-doing, except, perhaps, that the law forbade him to operate alone, and he saw ruin staring him in the face, just at a time, too, when great prosperity had appeared to be within his grasp. The undertaker, Berial, was an old acquaintance, indebted to him for many recommendations.

"The plan seemed more and more feasible as he thought of it, and finally he sought out Berial, and confided to him his secret. For a liberal fee the undertaker agreed to dispose of the body. Dr. Mortimer supplied him with a drug with which to overcome the watchman at the stables, so that the wagon could be taken out unknown. He himself visited the Quadrant house, and, under the plea of relieving Mark Quadrant of a headache, gave him also a dose of morphine. At the appointed time Berial arrived at the doctor's office and took away the woman's body, first replacing the corset, which, of course, they were bound to dispose of. Together they went to the Quadrants', and there exchanged the bodies. Subsequent events are known to you. Thus the truth has arisen, Phœnix-like, from the ashes of the dead. The question remaining is, what claim has Justice upon the doctor? Gentlemen, is it needful to disgrace that man, who really is a victim of circumstances rather than a wrong-doer? He tells me, Mr. Barnes, that he has not had a moment of mental rest since you asked him whether ashes could be proven to be the residue of a human body."

"I recall now that he started violently when I spoke to him. Perhaps, had I been more shrewd, I might have suspected the truth then. The difficulty of hushing this matter up, Mr. Mitchel, seems to be the friends and relatives of the dead woman. How can they be appeased?"

"I will undertake that. I think the real estate which she leaves behind will satisfy the one relative. I have already communicated with this man, a hard, money-grubbing old skinflint, and I think that with the assistance of Mr. Berial we can have one more funeral that will satisfy the curiosity of the few neighbors."

And thus the matter was permitted to rest. There was yet one point which puzzled Mr. Barnes, and which never was made clear to him.

"What of the scar that I could not find on Rufus Quadrant's foot?" he often asked himself. But as he could not ask either of the brothers, he never got a reply. Yet the explanation was simple. Mark Quadrant told Mr. Barnes that his brother had such a scar, his object being to baffle the detective by suggesting to him a flaw in the identification. The idea occurred to him because his brother Amos really had such a scarred foot, and he so worded his remark that he literally told the truth, though he deceived Mr. Barnes. When the detective repeated this statement to Amos, he noticed the care with which his brother had spoken, and, in turn, he truthfully said that his brother had spoken truthfully.