“The lame, the halt, and the blind can be cured.” He straightened as Gwen Kellerman’s voice sounded in his head. Tetanus had been among the diseases Blackstone College was trying to cure.

He vaulted to his feet. Dr. Phalen had already left, but Patrick bounded after him. “Wait!” he shouted, his voice echoing down the hallway. “Blackstone College is working on a cure for tetanus. I heard about it.”

The doctor shook his head. “They are decades away from a vaccine,” he said. “I wish it were otherwise.”

Was it a vaccine? He tried to remember exactly what he had seen in the laboratories of the college. Mrs. Kellerman said their serums to treat disease were still in the testing phase. Serums, not a vaccine.

He didn’t care. Doing nothing was intolerable. Even if it was only a slim chance for a cure, he was going to reach for it.

Gwen considered canceling the Friday evening soiree after the catastrophe in court that day. News of the humiliating defeat was already spreading on campus, and she didn’t want to discuss it with anyone.

But she quickly rejected the idea of canceling. She had hosted these gatherings every Friday evening for the past ten years. Even on the dreadful week when Jasper and her father died, the campus community gathered at her home to support her, and it had been one of the most affirming nights of her life. The professors had more respect than to gloat or gossip about Blackstone family problems. As she prepared for the soiree, her spirits began lifting, ready to engage with the lively and intelligent people who made these gatherings so rewarding.

The first cluster of professors arrived, along with a visiting paleontologist from the Smithsonian, who brought a dinosaur bone from an excavation in Nevada. Gwen marveled at the heft of the bone as they passed it from person to person. Others began a game of charades in the garden. Inside, a chemistry professor argued with an English professor about whether tea could be reheated without affecting the flavor.

Proceeding with tonight’s soiree had been the right decision. That silly memoir didn’t matter to the rest of the world. And the strange man she saw in the courtroom? It could be weeks before Uncle Oscar’s detectives learned anything about him, but the odds were that Oscar was right. Her overactive imagination had probably gone too far.

She joined the debate about the wisdom of reheating tea. Some insisted no one could tell the difference, while others vehemently disagreed.

Dennis Conway, a young professor from the chemistry department, stood on the reheating side. “Reheating will not affect the molecular structure of plain black tea,” he insisted.

Old Professor Snow disagreed. “I can always tell,” he claimed, but Dennis wanted proof and turned to her in supplication.