“There was once a young doctor in a town a long way from here,” Ledwich began. “He got mixed up in a scandal—a pretty rotten one—and escaped the pen only by the skin of his teeth. The state medical board revoked his license.
“In a large city not far away, this young doc, one night when he was drunk—as he usually was in those days—told his troubles to a man he had met in a dive. The friend was a resourceful sort; and he offered, for a price, to fix the doc up with a fake diploma, so he could set up in practice in some other state.
“The young doctor took him up, and the friend got the diploma for him. The doc was the man you know as Dr. Estep, and I was the friend. The real Dr. Estep was found dead in the park this morning!”
That was news—if true!
“You see,” the big man went on, “when I offered to get the phony diploma for the young doc—whose real name doesn’t matter—I had in mind a forged one. Nowadays they’re easy to get—there’s a regular business in them—but twenty-five years ago, while you could manage it, they were hard to get. While I was trying to get one, I ran across a woman I used to work with—Edna Fife. That’s the woman you know as the first Mrs. Estep.
“Edna had married a doctor—the real Dr. Humbert Estep. He was a hell of a doctor, though; and after starving with him in Philadelphia for a couple of years, she made him close up his office, and she went back to the bunko game, taking him with her. She was good at it, I’m telling you—a real cleaner—and, keeping him under her thumb all the time, she made him a pretty good worker himself.