It was exactly one year since Dr. Westley called me into his office and made a proposition that changed my life. And the Old Boy was right: I had needed to be kicked out of the house. Thinking back to our balcony conversations, I began to see the method in his madness. He had mentored me into adulthood, closing one chapter of my life and opening another.

     If I had known the project would be so difficult, I wouldn’t have agreed to it. And I would have been an unemployed HPLC jockey. His proposition was like a scientific project: you get hooked on the original hypothesis — which doesn’t hold up. Then it takes ten times longer than expected to get the thing sorted out. But the experience had brought rich rewards.

     After accepting the King’s Shilling, I had learned many valuable lessons: that being well-intentioned and intelligent is not enough; that you must be willing to act on your beliefs and knowledge; that for the sake of truth you must be ready to cast off an unproductive hypothesis, even if you have spent two months on it; that you can never know from whom you can receive useful knowledge or enlightenment; that you can learn as much from their mistakes as from their successes; that backlash will be your reward for producing knowledge which threatens people; that you must always be ready to fight for the survival of any good thing you have produced; and that if you wish to sustain a stellar love of the 15th magnitude, you must be ready to forswear all love of the 12th magnitude.

     Yes, I owed a lot to Dr. Westley for setting the process in motion. Of course, I’d helped him as much as he’d helped me. My solving the murder removed his problems with the Dade County Commission. They couldn’t call the Old Man incompetent. In fact, the Ledbetter case had raised his reputation to new heights. Would he now retire or stay on for a few years? When the dust settled, I would invite him and Margaret out to dinner.

     Happily, all of my fellow students had survived the first year. As the month of August rolled along, I completed some promising experiments on my dissertation project. When I told Rebecca about finishing in three years and graduating with her, a Mona Lisa smile appeared on her face. She cast a glance toward a pile of soft-bound books in the second bedroom, which we were converting into a study.

     Later that evening, I looked at the books. They were catalogues of residency programs and graduate departments of biomedical science. The family medicine residency programs and the pharmacology programs were marked with dog-ears. The pile was organized geographically: Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Duke, the Universities of North Carolina, South Carolina and Miami, Tulane, Baylor at Houston and the University of California at San Diego. With the exception of the North Carolina schools, they were all on the water. Good thinking, girl! Can’t forget the Diogenes.

     Two of the catalogues described two-year Ph.D. —> M.D. programs which Rebecca had encircled in red. Why, you crafty little darling! At the bottom of the pile was a list of Caribbean medical schools and a brochure on physician service in the World Health Organization. So we would enjoy a two-year Caribbean vacation on the Diogenes, with Rebecca doing her anthropology studies in family medicine, while I get my foreign medical degree! Then she could help me with my "Foreign Physician Licensure Exam" and I could, of course, help her with her Ph.D. dissertation.

     Needless to say, I love her madly. After years of being out in the cold, it was Rebecca who warmed my frostbitten soul. And she loved me. She planned to introduce me to her mother and her father — before it is too late.

     So what were my career plans? Well, I didn’t want to be just another Ph.D. academic biomedical researcher from the mold of McGregor, Kozinski and Ledbetter. They spend all of their time chasing grant money. They put in long hours, and for what? To be "managed" by a corrupt, organization man like Cooper? If I had been in Ledbetter’s place, committed to a dead-end career at a medical school run by a dean whose only use for laboratory research was to collect overhead payments from the NIH — I might have killed Cooper myself.

     My experience with the Dean and his lawyer have shown me that I do have the ability to manipulate verbal symbols and to argue by leaving out certain facts. It seems what you leave out can be just as important as what you put in. Perhaps that’s the key to survival in the Information Age. I’m still grappling with the moral questions involved.

     If I don’t decide to be a physician-scientist, maybe I’ll get a law degree and become a patent lawyer. But, to be honest, I would really like to invent something as brilliant as Ledbetter did. Tricking the intestine into letting whole proteins into the bloodstream is nothing short of fantastic. Of course, if we were a nation of Spartans, we wouldn’t need his invention. But it is a fact of life that 90 percent of the people don’t like to inject themselves, even if it’s necessary to avoid premature death. The market for oral insulin is large enough for Ledbetter’s selectin delivery system to bring in tens of millions of dollars a year in royalties.

     Ironically, it was the publicity of the trial that finally sparked interest in the patent among drug-company executives. One day, McGregor told me that the Medical School had just licensed rights for the patent application to a major drug company and that they’d be paying a minimum royalty of $1 million per year. Of this, about $300,000 per year will go to Ledbetter. After five years, when the company gets FDA approval for an insulin pill, Ledbetter will get millions. But I doubt it will make him happy in prison.

     A couple of weeks after I got back, Ledbetter was sentenced to life imprisonment. How much better it would have been if the Dean had reined in Cooper and had given Ledbetter the support and recognition he needed.

     I arranged with the dockmaster at Matheson Hammock for a permanent berth. It cost $300 a month, but I didn’t have the time to row out every day. The dock proved a convenient staging area for the small parties that we took down to Elliott Key on two free weekends.

     The Diogenes was retired as my cocoon and was recommissioned as the center of our social life. Our invitees were some of the most interesting Ph.D. and M.D. candidates at Bryan, together with a smattering of Mensa Society friends. The Diogenes was living up to his name, discerning honesty from falsehood beneath the rays of his mast light under the open skies. Arnie "sacher macher" Green and his wife Mona went with the first group. After Arnie got used to the on-board environment, he was actually able to a hold normal conversation with us. He called a couple evenings later to express his thanks. He said we helped him "untie some knots."

     Late one Friday afternoon in the lab, about four weeks after my return to Miami, I received a call from Dr. Westley’s secretary, Doris.

     "Ben, I’m glad I was able to get hold of you. I have some bad news which I must tell you. Otherwise, you may not have any way of knowing."

     "What?"

     "Mrs. Westley passed away yesterday morning."

     "Oh, dear." My heart rose to my throat and my vision became indistinct. I croaked, "What?"

     "She died of heart failure, but she had been failing for a long time."

     "How is Dr. Westley taking it?"

     "Well you know how he is, never saying what he really thinks. He said that he could manage. But for a few hours my husband and I thought that we were going to be the ones to make the arrangements. I notified the Bishop at Trinity Cathedral. He and the Rector are taking care of everything. Dr. W. is a pillar of the church, you know." She gave me the details on the funeral. "I hope you can come. It’s important to him, although he did not say so. They say ‘no flowers,’ but they are accepting donations to the scholarship fund of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of Bryan Medical School."

     I called the Alumni Office for the address of the President of the Ladies’ Auxiliary. I wrote a check for a generous donation with a short note saying how greatly I had admired Mrs. Westley. I mailed the letter with a little prayer.

     The next afternoon, hot, humid, August air smacked me in the face as I stepped out of the cab in front of Trinity Cathedral. Bright sunlight reflected from the white limestone of the charming little church, built to overlook the Bay, but now boxed in on three sides by massive parking garages of the Omni Center and the Marriott Hotel. Like Miami itself, the church is a hybrid: Spanish bell tower, asymmetrically placed over its three arched entranceways, stained-glass rosette window with inlaid stone cross.

     I entered the sanctuary half an hour early. The coffin stood before the chancel. Dr. Westley was kneeling in the front pew, head bowed, obviously deep in prayer. Not wishing to disturb him, I sat in the back. The church must have been a mere semblance of his Exeter Cathedral. The walls bore no dark-stained wood, but rather white sparkling alabaster. Yes, there were stained-glass windows with pictures of the saints, organ pipes and choir stalls up front. But how incongruous to sit in this Episcopal Church in the middle of the day, with an equatorial summer sun baking the roof and bombarding the stained-glass windows. Perhaps the alabaster interior walls were the Miami architect's concession to indefatigable sunlight.

     Dr. Westley’s head remained bowed and unmoved. Feeling ashamed of spying on him, I picked up a hymnal and searched for familiar hymns. A few minutes later an elderly couple came in. The gentleman wore a heavy, double-breasted, dark wool suit. His face was broad, his skin white, almost translucent, with the same little red-and-blue streaks as Dr. Westley. An Englishman. He reminded me of one of the organists on Dr. Westley’s record jackets.

     His wife’s clothing was equally dark: a heavy, navy-blue, two-piece dress, a dark silk blouse and a rounded bonnet with small black beads sewn in. She clutched a small purse, also covered with tiny beads. And beads of sweat stood out on both their faces. They must have lived in Miami because they seemed familiar with the church. But did they always dress so heavily when going to church?

     They glanced past me as if I didn’t exist and walked up to the front pew. They genuflected, she a couple of inches, he with the left knee all the way to the floor. Turning to Dr. Westley, she leaned forward, taking his hand. The husband reached over and planted his right hand on Dr. Westley’s shoulder, where it remained for a long time. At arms length, the wife expressed condolence. She nodded alternately to Dr. Westley and to her husband, who punctuated her words with his own slow thoughtful nods and with visible modulation of the pressure of his hand on Dr. Westley’s shoulder. Dr. Westley dropped his head as if to cry, and the woman grabbed his free hand and squeezed it to her body, midway between belt and breast.

     Then Dr. Westley glanced at Margaret’s open coffin, and the couple nodded and walked respectfully toward it. The lady pulled from her beaded purse a small flowered handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. The gentleman remained one step behind her, holding her lightly by the shoulders. After a few minutes, they returned to Dr. Westley’s pew, took places on either side of him, and knelt with him in prayer.

     Slowly, more people of similar description arrived. All properly genuflected to the altar before paying their respects to Margaret. From their pew, the original couple regulated the flow of condolence and silently indicated the order of seating. Semi-audible air conditioning lowered the temperature a degree or two. Slowly, the organ began improvised strains. English friends slowly formed a tightly-knit group, about 40 strong, on the left side of the sanctuary. Less intimate guests were marginated to the right side.

     Doris entered, and I followed her to the front. As we approached Margaret’s coffin, my eyes filled with tears and my throat tightened. Thankfully, Dr. Westley’s head was still bowed as we turned around. A glance from his two protectors told us that we were not bidden to express our sympathy.

     I chose a pew five rows back, just close enough to be part of the congregation but far enough to be properly ignored. Doris sat two arm’s lengths away. An usher closed the coffin, and many of the ladies quietly wept. The Rector appeared and read several pages of prayers set out in the Prayer Book. Then he announced that we would sing Hymn #680. I opened the red hymnal and found "O God, Our Help in Ages Past." The organ piped up the introductory chords, and the tight knot of Englishmen sang all five verses of the hymn, properly and stoutly.

     One of the ladies stepped to the pulpit. She read a Lesson from the Old Testament and something about death being just one step in our journey toward God. Then came another hymn and a New Testament reading. We recited the Twenty-Third Psalm.

     The Rector delivered a sermon, telling me little of Margaret that I didn’t already know. I found myself thinking of Margaret as a young lady in the suburbs of London, of her education in her adolescent years, of her service in the war, of her life with Geoffrey, their emigration to Miami, and of her love of culture and good manners. The Rector said that Margaret’s life had served as a carrier of values. This brought subtle nodding of heads. He said she had borne with grace the burden of a long, serious illness which clouded the last decade of her life.

     Then the Rector announced Hymn #208, "The Strife is O’er." The congregation started stoutly, but by the third verse, many of the singers had fallen out. The organist started the fourth verse too early and with a bad chord. Only two singers made the entrance but they quickly faltered. I raised my watery tenor voice and sang with the beat: "He closed the yawning gates of hell . . ." The two singers recommenced, and slowly we were joined by the other congregants. The flame had flickered, but had not gone out. Toward the end of the verse, I was all choked up. But the little knot of Englishmen started the fifth and final verse without my help. Slowly and individually, many of them turned and glanced back in my direction to see who was the unknown singer in the back row.

     The Rector lead out the coffin, borne by six pall bearers. Doris was not going to the burial, so I requested a ride with the most approachable-looking couple of the group. They welcomed me into their car but not into their conversation. Two uniformed black men on motorcycles escorted the black hearse into Biscayne Boulevard, playing a dangerous game of leapfrog. While one secured the intersection ahead, the other thundered past us, hurling forward at 70 miles an hour, to claim and secure the next intersection with the authority of one gloved hand and the urgent flashing of the blue light atop the seven-foot pole mounted over his rear wheel. My host commented on how difficult it was to keep up with the funeral train. I had another thought: How ironic that the living were risking their lives to save time for the dead.

     It was such a rush, streaming west on N.E. 14th Street, through Overtown, that part of town which supplied Dr. Westley with so many cases, then dipping under an expressway bridge, tires singing as we crossed the S.W. 7th St. drawbridge over the Miami River, whizzing past the Ronald Reagan restaurant, with the Bay of Pigs Memorial and fruit stand a blur. Finally, we slowed for the entrance of the Woodlawn Cemetery, and followed the winding road at a stately pace, until the large Romanesque Cathedral mausoleum came into view.

     The hearse drove up the steep motor entrance and the cars parked on the grass around a circular war-memorial statue. The coffin was removed from the back and wheeled into the mausoleum. I followed to where a throng of mourners stood before an open vault. Beside it lay its marble cover, inscribed:

     "Margaret Lloyd Westley, † London, Sep. 10, 1917, ‡ Miami, Sep. 15, 1994. She loved her God, her husband and her country."

     The vault next to hers was not inscribed. It was undoubtedly for Dr. Westley. The vault on the other side was inscribed "NELSON." I remembered the last English dinner and Margaret singing about how Trafalgar Square was good enough for Nelson and "good enough for me." My chest tightened and I could hardly breathe.

     Flanked by the protective couple, Dr. Westley stood, gazing into the opened vault. It was just like the picture in the magazine, of him looking into the refrigerated vault at the morgue. Fame, like life, is so ephemeral. At that moment I realized Margaret had been like a mother to me.

     My field of vision narrowed, and I remembered how, as a young acolyte standing at attention, I used to faint. The group of mourners became a blur, and I felt myself floating in a sea of piped-in music, gently lifted and dropped by waves of strings and a chorus of voices singing "ah." The music had the sad, heart-wrenching simplicity of the sound track of a Walt Disney movie, like when Bambi’s mother dies. As the strings were joined by horns and the music worked up into a slow crescendo, I felt a press of people around me.

     Far off, a disembodied Rector’s voice echoed words of consecration. The strings and voices disappeared as a solitary French horn made a statement. It was joined by a violin. The two instruments receded and a choir of strings repeated the statement. A brass choir replied. Then a solitary violin resolved the theme in a slowly developing diminuendo. I opened my eyes to find the vault closed. Only Westley, the protective couple and a middle-aged man were left. Dr. Westley looked toward me, his eyes clear, his face dry and resolute.

     "Benjamin, thank you ever so much for coming and lending your voice to the prayers and the hymns sung for Margaret. She was truly fond of you. She always looked forward to your visits and our little chats. I am sure that she would have been delighted to know — "

     He stopped abruptly as he realized the impossibility of completing his sentence. He was silent for a second or two.

     "You were the reincarnation of our lost son." Under his fuzzy eyebrows, his eyes glistened.

     I started to take Dr. Westley’s hand but threw my arms around him instead.

     "Now, now. You mustn’t feel sorry for me. I shall manage. But I do wish that you would drop in on me once a fortnight. Margaret was quite proud of you, but we haven’t made a proper Englishman out of you yet."

     He slowly disengaged me and held me by the shoulders at arm’s length. He looked to the side and nodded to the protective couple.

     "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Worthington, may I present Mr. Benjamin Candidi."

     Mr. Worthington gave me his hand, and while shaking it said, "Yes, my pleasure. We appreciated your adding your voice to our choir."

     Mrs. Worthington extended her gloved hand sideways, a few inches in front of her clutched purse. I squeezed her hand lightly and shook it gently.

     Dr. Westley turned to the other gentleman and said, "Gerald, Mr. Gerald Hartley. I would also like you to meet Mr. Candidi. Perhaps you would be good enough to drop him off."

     I said goodbye to Dr. Westley and promised to call him. Walking with Mr. Hartley to his car, I learned that he was from Toronto and worked with the Canadian Consulate. I let him drop me off in front of the Ronald Reagan restaurant, intending to walk the rest of the way back. A moving body can pump life into a drained soul.

     The sun set over the Miami River just as I crossed the bridge. For some strange reason, my feet took me back to the med school. The friendly guard I met the day of the animal rights demonstration was manning the desk. He remembered me and let me in without my badge. In the elevator, I must have pushed the wrong button, because it took me a floor too high. I got off and walked through the Cell Biology Department and toward a convenient stairwell. It was there that I saw a list on a laboratory door, which I stopped to read.

GHANDI’S DEADLY SINS:

Wealth without work

Pleasure without conscience

Knowledge without character

Business without morality

Science without humanity

Politics without principle

Worship without sacrifice

     The card beside the door said "Ragu Parikh." He was a post-doc, a quiet guy. He seemed to be quite intelligent, but never had that much to say in seminars. Why had he put this up on the door to his lab? I reread the page, and then it became clear to me that these were actually seven moral equations. And the simultaneous solution of these seven moral equations could have prevented most of the problems I had seen in the last year: the ruthlessness of Cooper, the white hatred of Ledbetter and the aloofness of Ashton. Trouble had compounded itself because those people had allowed themselves to fall deeply into one or more of these lethal states.

     None of us was free of each of these sins. Westley’s petty prejudice against Irishmen, wrapped in the sheepskin of cultured Anglophilia, was actually Worship Without Sacrifice. And Ben Candidi? Was he a perpetual Diogenes or a Holden Caulfield, the Catcher in the Rye? Could he turn the lantern to his own face and stop calling other people phony? Yes, my sin had been the worship of my own ideals without sufficient sacrifice to them. I thanked God for sending Dr. and Mrs. Westley to pass to me the torch and for sending me an angel to hold a mirror to my face. My feet slowly took me to my new home with her.