“What might those have been?” I asked.
“Ways of restoring the use of limbs with intricate surgery, as well as helping those who had suffered burns. He was most fascinated by records discovered in Egypt about ancient procedures to repair facial features as well as surgeries of the brain. The Egyptians were quite advanced in those things.”
I then asked him if he had noticed any recent changes in Dr. Bennett. For some it would have been a delicate matter— a wife’s inquiries about absences, then not returning at all the past three nights.
“If you are inquiring as to whether or not there might have been another woman, or perhaps something else that occupied his time, my response would be no. He is not the sort.”
As opposed to a man who would be the sort?
He was thoughtful. “I do hold you and your efforts in high esteem, Miss Forsythe. You seem a woman of common sense and not given to rash behavior.”
I accepted that as a compliment, odd as it seemed.
“In the past you have conducted yourself with discretion.”
If not the possibility of another woman and an affair, I did wonder where this was leading.
“Joseph has spoken often about the need to follow certain techniques outside the usual boundaries of our fellow gentlemen in medicine. To that end, he indicated that he needed a place apart from St. James and the established medical profession.
“He seemed to be of a mind to work independently to establish the practices that he had discovered in his time away from Oxford.”
“When was this?”
“He first mentioned it upon his return. However, more recently he has been absent from the hospital and taken fewer patients.”
More recently turned out to be the past six months.
“It is possible that he set up a private practice apart from St. James,” he commented.
When he had the occasion to ask Dr. Bennett about those absences, he had only provided a vague response.
“He said that his wife was having some health issues. However, now with your inquiry, it is even more puzzling.”
Puzzling indeed. Mrs. Bennett seemed quite healthy when last we met. Most interesting.
We shared a lunch at the inn. Dr. Pennington was then expected back for his afternoon lecture.
“I do hope nothing serious has happened,” he said in parting. “As I said, the man is brilliant and I greatly miss our conversations. You will let me know once you’ve resolved your inquiry?”
I assured him that I would. I then returned to the rail station to await the next return train to London.
Dr. Pennington had been extremely complimentary of Dr. Bennett. Quite brilliant he had called him, and deeply affected by the loss of his younger brother. So much so that he had sought out medical treatments that might have made a difference had he known about them earlier.
It wasn’t unusual that a tragedy set someone on a particular course in life. On the one hand, as Brodie would say, the man was to be commended for pursuing something that would make a difference to others in the future. On the other hand, there was the fact that Dr. Bennett was now apparently among the missing.
What did it mean?
Was it possible he had taken himself off, as Dr. Pennington explained, to pursue private practice that might provide him the freedom to apply the things he had learned? If so, then what reason was there for him to simply disappear?
Surely he could pursue those aspects of his profession in private. Couldn’t he? And where might that be?
A private office to be certain, some place discreet and away from those who would have been critical of his techniques?
Where to begin?
I was going to need assistance with this, from someone who knew the streets of London, had lived on them and had connections where others might not. Quite naturally Brodie came to mind, however, I already had my answer there. He had made it very clear that I could pursue this on my own.
Very well, I thought as my train pulled into Paddington Station, I would pursue this. After all, we had a client who was very much in need of answers.
