She stopped before the open door of a laboratory where several men and two women were bent over microscopes and lab books. The blackboard behind them was covered in what looked like hieroglyphics.

“My father’s dream was to cure the diseases of the lame, the halt, and the blind,” she said. “Every person who walks through the gates of Blackstone College feels the same, even though we know it’s going to be a steep road. If finding a cure was easy, it would have already been done. So we chip away at the problem, year after year, decade after decade. We lose more battles than we win, but we don’t give up, because each failure means we are one step closer to the finish line.”

Next she took him to a room with a wall of refrigerated cases, briefly opening them to reveal test tubes of serums and samples.

“These are strains of cowpox, chicken pox, and smallpox,” she explained. “We send professors and graduate students to India and China to collect additional strains of the diseases as they evolve, trying to stay one step ahead and mass produce vaccines that will treat these diseases anywhere in the world. The college has already vaccinated almost half a million people for smallpox in India.”

She led him to the next room, which looked like a library, but instead of bookshelves it held rows of maps and floor globes. “This is where we track disease,” she said, showing him how colored thumbtacks pushed into the maps indicated disease outbreaks.

He’d never heard of most of them. Beriberi, pellagra, yaws, and pertussis were all unfamiliar words to him, but apparently the college had teams of people working on each disease. Each year they spent a fortune sending their scientists abroad to gather samples and bring data home to analyze. They sponsored conferences and scientific journals to share information. They had an alert system to communicate news of outbreaks that might occur anywhere in the world. Chemists could swing into gear to mass-produce vaccines and then transport them to people in need.

“We are on the cusp of something wonderful,” Mrs. Kellerman said. “The lame, the halt, and the blind can be cured. We can move the unmovable object. We’re fighting against all odds to accomplish something that’s never been done before. This is where our treasure lies. This is what I’m fighting for.” The radiance in her face dimmed. “And when someone smears the Blackstone name, this is what they’re smearing.”

It felt like she’d struck him, and in a way she had. He was paving the way for a seedy memoir to pollute the air with old grievances against the Blackstone family. It wasn’t something he could be proud of.

“For what it’s worth, I wish Malone had taken your offer.”