The Lost Art of Gratitude

“Yes. As is appropriate in such a case, I wrote to the author and asked for an explanation as to why the passage in question appeared to be lifted from somebody else’s article.”

“So you wrote to this … what was his name?”

“Dr. Jones.”

“You wrote to Dr. Jones.”

Isabel felt her resentment mounting. What business was it of Lettuce’s how she handled this issue? There were established ways of dealing with accusations of plagiarism, or accusations of anything, for that matter, and Lettuce knew this full well. He had been chairman of the editorial board for years, and during that time they had been obliged to deal with more than one allegation of plagiarism.

“I followed the usual procedures,” she said testily. “You’ll remember yourself how things work. I wrote and asked the author to comment.”

“And?”

Isabel bit her lip; this was not a courtroom and she was not a witness. “He wrote back to me and explained that it was entirely accidental. He admitted that he had read the other person’s article and said that he had taken notes from it. He said that he must have inadvertently transcribed a paragraph or two into his own text.” She paused. Lettuce was watching her with a look that was almost triumphant. “It’s easily done, you know. You make notes and then you forget that a few sentences are word-for-word transcriptions. You’ve probably done it yourself, you know.”

Lettuce snorted. “Highly unlikely.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’m extremely careful about that sort of thing—as one should be.”

Isabel rested her hands on the table. The gesture calmed her. “I’ve accepted what Dr. Jones said. And I’m going to put a small note in the next issue—in the corrections column—saying that his article inadvertently included material without acknowledgement, and that this acknowledgement is now made. Cadit quaestio.”

“Cadit quaestio!” Lettuce exclaimed. “The question certainly does not fall, Miss Dalhousie. Cadit nihil! Nothing falls.”

Isabel remained cool. “I really don’t see what else I can do, Professor Lettuce. I believe that I’ve acted fairly.”

Lettuce reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper. “Oh really? Well, I’m afraid I must disagree with you on that, Miss Dalhousie.”

Isabel stared at the piece of paper. “It’s Dr. Dalhousie, actually. I do have a doctorate, you know. Of course you know that.”

Lettuce ignored this. “I’m afraid that I am going to have to ask you to resign,” he said. “I know that you now own the Review, but the Review is also its readers and you have a duty towards them and towards the wider philosophical community, and frankly I don’t see how you can possibly continue in office.”

He unfolded the paper and handed it to Isabel. “This is a photocopy of a letter from the man who wrote the original article—the one that Jones plagiarised. It is the letter that he wrote to you before— before—you published the Jones article. You will see that he warns you that he believes that Jones has plagiarised him and asks you not to publish. But you know the contents, of course, even if you chose to ignore it.”

Isabel looked at the letter in amazement. It was addressed to her, she saw, and it said what Lettuce claimed it did. But she had never seen this letter before; she was sure of that.

“This letter may be addressed to me,” she said. “But I never saw it. Never.”

Lettuce smirked. “Really?”

She looked up from the letter. “Yes. Really. Let me repeat myself, in case you did not hear. I have never seen this letter before.”

Lettuce spread his hands in a gesture of puzzlement. “Or you chose to ignore it? Do you not think that that is the conclusion people will reach?”

Isabel closed her eyes. She was aware that the waiter had returned to the table and was laying plates before them. She kept her eyes shut. The waiter moved away and she looked down at her plate. She could not possibly eat, although Lettuce had now started to tackle his salad.

“Either this letter is a forgery,” Isabel said quietly, “or, more likely, it simply failed to reach me. Many letters go missing, and I notice from the address that this person wrote to me from abroad. Letters from abroad are even more likely to get lost in the post, you know.”

Lettuce dabbed at his mouth with his table napkin. “I wish I could share your certainty,” he said. “At any rate, I fear that the matter will look very embarrassing when Christopher Dove makes it public.”

There was now a silence that lasted several minutes. Isabel sat quite still; Lettuce lifted up his napkin again and wiped his mouth, fussily, fastidiously. She saw a small speck of salad dressing on his cheek, missed by the napkin. At last she spoke.

“I have nothing to reproach myself for,” she said. “I have acted quite properly, and I am telling you the truth when I say that I did not receive that letter. But you obviously do not believe me. That is very clear.”

Lettuce shrugged. “It is not a question of whether I believe you, Miss Dalhousie—it’s a question of whether the readers of the Review and the general …”

Isabel supplied his term. “Community of philosophers.”

“Exactly, whether the general community of philosophers will believe you. That’s the question.”