Free Murder on Lenox Hill by Victoria Thompson Page B

convinced he was in love with them, too. They couldn’t think or talk about anything else.”
    Dr. Newton’s wise eyes lit with understanding. “I think I know what you’re talking about. Many female patients fall in love with their doctors. It’s mostly gratitude, and they usually get over it when they get well and their lives return to normal, but sometimes they don’t. They actually continue to imagine themselves in love.”
    â€œWhat happens then?”
    â€œFortunately, I’ve never had this happen to me,” he explained, “but some of my colleagues have. It’s very awkward and embarrassing. The women often make a nuisance of themselves. One woman came to her doctor’s office every day for weeks, bringing him gifts and leaving him love notes. Sometimes they even go to the man’s home, imagining themselves to be married to him.”
    â€œIs this a real illness? Can you treat it like you treat a disease?” Frank asked, trying to determine if Tom Brandt had simply been performing his professional duty.
    â€œI’m afraid I can’t say. I operate on people’s bodies. Their minds are beyond my field of expertise. I can give you the name of a doctor who might be able to answer your questions, though. He’s recently returned from Vienna where he studied with Dr. Sigmund Freud.”
    â€œFreud?” Frank repeated with a frown. “Isn’t he that foreign fellow with all those strange ideas they’re always making fun of in the newspapers?”
    Dr. Newton smiled. “People always ridicule what they don’t understand. Dr. Freud has made some important discoveries in the treatment of insanity.”
    â€œHas he cured hysteria or dementia praecox ?” Frank asked skeptically.
    â€œNo, not yet,” Dr. Newton said graciously. “But he’s the first to offer any real hope for eventual cures to all forms of insanity. Let me give you the name and address for my friend, Dr. Quinn. He’ll be happy to answer your questions and will probably have much more information than I. Just tell him I sent you,” he added as he picked up a pencil and began to write down the information.
    The reference was more than Frank had expected and absolutely necessary if he was going to get this Dr. Quinn to see him. No one wanted to talk to the police unless they had to. He thanked Dr. Newton when he handed Frank the address.
    â€œGlad to help,” Newton assured him. “Tell me, what kind of a case are you trying to solve?”
    â€œA murder,” Frank said.
    â€œWill you let me know when you solve it?”
    Frank remembered that Newton had known Tom Brandt well. He and Sarah were still friends. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
    Â 
 
“ H URRY, MISSUS, PLEASE,” THE YOUNG MAN BEGGED SARAH the next morning as he led her through the crowded streets. “It is not far, only around the corner.”
    Sarah didn’t bother to point out to the expectant father that babies rarely came as fast as most people feared. He wouldn’t believe her. Men never did. So she quickened her pace as much as she could. The young man carried her medical bag for her, but even still, it was hard to keep up. As much as she dreaded being summoned to a delivery in the middle of the night, at least then she didn’t have to worry about being delayed by the daytime traffic choking the streets and the pedestrians clogging the sidewalks, in spite of the winter cold.
    All around her, street vendors shouted the virtues of their wares from the carts parked along both sides of every street. Whatever one might need was available for sale within a block or two, from the evening meal to shoes to ribbons to furniture. Little, save the food, was new, but no one on the Lower East Side could afford anything new anyway. Wagons and carts made their laborious way down the center of the streets, while people of all