“That’s right,” Jack said. “It’s from one of those tiny pieces I was able to find of Franconi’s liver.”

“Hmmm,” Laurie commented, continuing to look into the microscope. “That’s weird they would have used an infected liver for a transplant. You’d think they would have screened the donor better. Are there a lot of these tiny granulomas?”

“Maureen has only given me one slide of the liver so far,” Jack said. “And that’s the only granuloma I found, so my guess would be that there aren’t a lot. But I did see one on the frozen section. Also on the frozen section were tiny collapsed cysts on the surface of the liver which would have been visible to the naked eye. The transplant team must have known and didn’t care.”

“At least there’s no general inflammation,” Laurie said. “So the transplant was being tolerated pretty well.”

“Extremely well,” Jack said. “Too well, but that’s another issue. What do you think that is under the pointer?”

Laurie played with the focus so that she could visually move up and down in the section. There were a few curious flecks of basophilic material. “I don’t know. I can’t even be sure it’s not artifact.”

“Don’t know, either,” Jack said. “Unless it’s what stimulated the granuloma.”

“That’s a thought,” Laurie said. She straightened up. “What did you mean by the liver being tolerated too well?”

“The lab reported that Franconi had not been taking any immunosuppressant drugs,” Jack said. “That seems highly improbable since there is no general inflammation.”

“Are we sure it was a transplant?” Laurie asked.

“Absolutely,” Jack said. He summarized what Ted Lynch had reported to him.

Laurie was as puzzled as Jack. “Except for identical twins I can’t imagine two people’s DQ alpha sequences being exactly the same,” she said.

“It sounds like you know more about it than I do,” Jack said. “Until a couple of days ago, I’d never even heard of DQ alpha.”

“Have you made any headway as to where Franconi could have had this transplant?” Laurie asked.

“I wish,” Jack said. He then told Laurie about Bart’s vain efforts. Jack explained that he himself had spent a good portion of the previous night calling centers all over Europe.

“Good Lord!” Laurie remarked.

“I’ve even enlisted Lou’s help,” Jack said. “I found out from Franconi’s mother that he’d gone off to what she thought was a spa and came home a new man. I’m thinking that’s when he might have gotten the transplant. Unfortunately, she has no idea where he went. Lou’s checking Immigration to see if he’d gone out of the country.”

“If anyone can find out, Lou can,” Laurie said.

“By the way,” Jack said, assuming a teasingly superior air, “Lou ’fessed up that he was the source of the leak about Franconi to the newspapers.”

“I don’t believe it,” Laurie said.

“I got it from the horse’s mouth,” Jack said. “So I expect an abject apology.”

“You’ve got it,” Laurie said. “I’m amazed. Did he give any reason?”