Where the Light Enters

by Sara Donati

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEW YORK WORLD

  WHO WAS THADDEUS HOBART?

  Thaddeus Hobart’s bookshop on Sixth-ave. near Clinton-str. was founded by his grandfather, an English immigrant, sixty years ago. Until recently Hobart’s was widely considered one of the best booksellers in the country, with regular customers who ordered from as far away as India and Australia.

  Now he is a suspect in a horrific crime, a man accused of kidnapping and torture. Perhaps, those close to the investigation have speculated, out of obsession for a beautiful neighbor.

  Other business owners in the Jefferson Market neighborhood were universal in their praise of Mr. Hobart, calling him an exemplary businessman, exacting in his practices, and a gentleman of a kindly and generous nature.

  “I frankly don’t believe this kidnapping business,” said Mr. John Ackerman, a tobacconist. “He’s no more capable of kidnapping than he is of flying like a bird. It’s not in his nature. He has been down since he lost his wife, the business has slipped a little, that’s true. He let both his clerks go. But that don’t mean he’d go out and grab somebody off the street.”

  Patrol Officer Wilbur Case noted that seventy-year-old Mr. Hobart had seemed unwell more recently. “The shop was sometimes closed without explanation,” said the patrol officer. “And he looked run-down. Rumor had it he was a morphine fiend.”

  Mr. Hobart took his own life after the shocking discovery of two missing persons kept prisoner in his apartment over the bookshop.

  * * *

  • • •

  NEW-YORK EVENING POST

  MRS. SMITHSON TO BE INDICTED

  Readers eager for details about the discovery of Dr. Neill Graham and Mrs. Charlotte Louden being held prisoner at Hobart’s Bookshop will soon learn more about this disturbing case.

  According to Inspector Byrne, who spoke this morning with newspapermen outside his office, Mrs. Nora Smithson is to be indicted for her role in crimes of false imprisonment and murder (for Dr. Graham’s death is considered a certainty). The police claim to have eyewitnesses willing to testify that they saw Mrs. Louden talking to Mrs. Smithson in the apothecary on the day of her disappearance. Further details on the charges and evidence will not be made public until the preliminary hearing, which has been scheduled to begin on Monday. Until that time Mrs. Smithson will remain in police custody.

  61

  SOPHIE SAT ACROSS from her Aunt Amelie over lunch on the terrace. The weather was a pleasant seventy-two degrees with a light breeze, the sky was cloudless, and the garden was a riot of color. Everything was perfectly ordered in her household; her plans for the institute and the Fish mansion were progressing steadily with Sam Reason overseeing it all, and she had had a letter from Rosa. A letter that wasn’t cheerful, but neither was it despondent.

  Rosa reported in careful detail about work being done in the houses and gardens and in the apiary, where she had been able to help, and where she considered her efforts insufficient. She had foresworn the Catholic Church, but it seemed to Sophie that the girl felt compelled to confess what she believed to be her failures. Then there was a story about Lia getting her foot stuck in a bucket that even made Sophie smile.

  In the end, though, no story could distract her for long. Worse still, Sophie had no appetite and the beginnings of a headache, while Amelie radiated peace and contentment.

  “You can take Conrad at his word,” Amelie said, looking up from the letter to pick up her fork. A plate of fresh biscuits, baked ham, and chutney had finally caught her attention. “Comstock can’t do anything to me,” she went on. “There’s no cause to be so agitated.”

  With a little click of her tongue she got Pip’s attention and he popped up beside her, tail swooshing.

  “What a clever boy.” He took the bit of ham she offered with great delicacy. To Sophie she said, “Why is it so hard to let someone else worry about this?”

  They had had this discussion multiple times since Amelie arrived, and Sophie didn’t have the heart to go over it again. The fact was that tomorrow her aunt would almost certainly be called to testify about her history with Nora Smithson, and it was certain that the subject of abortion would be raised. They would accuse her of performing an illegal operation; she would deny it. Witnesses would be called to establish a timeline; there would be objections and counter-objections. Comstock was behind it all, the master manipulator. Sophie wanted to believe that Conrad had the matter in hand, but it was almost impossible.

  “Here’s Noah,” Amelie said, inclining her head toward the back of the garden. Pip went dashing off, and Amelie’s smile brightened. Amelie liked Noah, and made her affinity for him known to Sophie at every opportunity.

  “Perfection in human form,” she said now. Sophie knew that she was right; a strong man in his prime, beautifully put together. And of no interest to her.

  “Are you flirting, Auntie?”

  She flapped a hand to dismiss such a silly notion. To Noah she called, “News?”

  He grinned at Amelie, and Sophie told herself she was being childish.

  Noah said, “I’ll have the carriage ready at nine tomorrow.”

  Amelie got up to walk back through the garden with him, Tinker and Pip both falling in behind the two figures: one very tall and broad, the other half his size, with the beginnings of a curve to her back.

  “Never mind about me,” Sophie muttered to herself. “I’m fine here on my own.”

  Anna would laugh at her if she told her about this. Just yesterday she had asked Sophie exactly what or who she was jealous of. To avoid the question Sophie acknowledged the bigger truth.

  “If I want to keep Auntie to myself for a little while, is that selfish of me?”

  “It’s understandable,” Anna said. “But futile. People are drawn to her, and it’s not in her nature to turn anyone away. You know this yourself, you are just overwhelmed by—everything.”

  Anna, loyal to a fault, was more generous than Sophie deserved.

  * * *

  • • •

  THAT NIGHT SHE didn’t sleep well. Instead she got up and wrote letters with Pip snoozing on her lap, waiting for the dawn. When the room was filled with first light, she consulted the clock and her conscience, dressed, and went out into the garden to knock on the door that led up to Noah Hunter’s small apartment.

  He was already dressed and ready to start work, and never even blinked when she asked him to bring the carriage around early.

  “How early do you want it?”

  “Now,” Sophie told him. “I need to get to St. Luke’s, and then to the courthouse.”

  It was unseemly to sneak around her own home, but Sophie simply did not want to discuss her plans with anyone, and she wanted no company when she spoke to Neill Graham. A short while later when the carriage turned onto Broadway and headed north, she knew that she’d managed to slip away, and she sank back against the cushions in relief.

  All the way up Fifth Avenue, passing fine mansions and imposing churches, she asked herself what she hoped to accomplish by confronting Neill Graham. The most obvious truth was the simplest: she didn’t want her Aunt Amelie to testify at the hearing, if there was any way to avoid it. Neither did she want to take the stand herself. The only way to stop this avalanche of disasters was to find a shortcut to the truth. The hearing was scheduled to start at ten, which gave her a window of opportunity.

  At fourteen Sophie and Anna had sometimes accompanied Amelie when she went to see patients. They were there to observe, and then to sit with Amelie and ask questions. It was from those simple encounters that Sophie had her most basic understanding of what it meant to practice medicine. Patients lied, whether they meant to or not. With the best intentions, they lied, or out of fear or anger.

  “You need the truth,” Amelie had said. “To get to it you have to listen to more
than the words you hear.”

  * * *

  • • •

  ST. LUKE’S WAS on upper Fifth Avenue surrounded by luxurious mansions, just down the block from the cathedral. And of course, it was not a hospital where Sophie had ever had privileges. Once inside she found nothing unexpected; it was just another hospital, though less in need of paint and repairs.

  She asked for Neill Graham’s room, and was sent, as she anticipated, to the office of the hospital director. To her relief he had just come in. He greeted her politely and didn’t challenge her identity or qualifications, because, as was immediately made clear, she had information he wanted to hear.

  “Your name was mentioned in the papers. I understand you were instrumental in finding Dr. Graham and Mrs. Louden.”

  She admitted that much, and then to satisfy his curiosity and keep his goodwill, she told him about what had transpired at the bookshop.

  “Hard to imagine,” was all he had to say. “Well. If you want details about Dr. Graham’s condition, you can ask for Dr. Maxwell, who was on duty when the ambulance arrived. He’s one of our very best. Please let me know if you need any assistance.”

  Sophie followed the directions he gave her to a ward where patients who could afford the expense got privacy and close attention from the nursing staff.

  A man coming out of Graham’s room seemed to recognize her, because he stopped and smiled politely.

  “You must be Dr. Savard. I’m Vincent Maxwell. Would you like to see Dr. Graham? He’s fairly comfortable just now, and awake.”

  Sophie didn’t know how to account for this extreme polite collegiality, but she would take advantage for as long as it lasted.

  “If you could tell me first about his condition?”

  He nodded. “It is tetanus. He has scratches from what I’m told are rusty nails that were driven through a door as a kind of barrier.”

  “That’s right,” Sophie said.

  “The first symptoms are well established. He’s also dehydrated and addicted to morphine by injection. Do you know how that came about?”

  “No. He wouldn’t give us any information.”

  “He hasn’t been very forthcoming with me, either. At least about his recent history. I did hear a great deal about your aunt Amelie Savard.”

  This was something she had not anticipated, but probably should have. For as long as Graham could speak, he would be trying to draw attention away from his sister and her crimes, and Amelie was the most obvious way to do that.

  “He told you that she’s my aunt?”

  “You needn’t worry,” Dr. Maxwell said. “I don’t believe any of the stories he tells about her, or you, for that matter.”

  In her surprise Sophie drew in a sharp breath. “Excuse me?”

  “I was hoping that your aunt might come by to look in on him if she’s in the city,” he went on. “I last saw her when I was about sixteen, and I would very much like to see her again. Without your aunt, I never would have become a doctor.”

  He told her about growing up on Charles Street just a couple minutes away from Amelie’s little cottage. She had attended his mother at the birth of his younger brother while their father was away in Brooklyn on business.

  “It was a very difficult delivery, but she was so calm and focused. Never a single wasted motion in the things she did, and she talked to my mother the whole time. There was no one else to assist so she put me to work, though I was just twelve. In all my training in all the years since I have never had a better teacher. She explained things as she went along as if it were the most normal thing in the world to discuss childbirth with a boy of twelve. I was hooked, right then and there.

  “I went to visit her after that, and I’m sure I made a nuisance of myself, but she never sent me away or was impatient. It all came to a stop when she moved out of the city.”

  He paused. “There were rumors about why she left, but my mother would not credit them, and neither would I. So when Graham started telling me—” He broke off, and shrugged. “Generally I wouldn’t argue with a patient who is in such a critical state, but I couldn’t let it go. We’ve been talking on and off all night.”

  Sophie had to clear her throat to speak. “And did he believe you?”

  “Not at first,” he said. “But eventually I think things began to come together for him. He had a lot of questions about the neighborhood, and about his grandparents.”

  “Questions you could answer.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. His smile was grim.

  “I see.” Sophie pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. “Did he talk to you about his sister?”

  “Only in as far as her accusations against Amelie Savard are concerned.”

  “Yes, well. That’s what I’m here to talk to him about.”

  Vincent Maxwell regarded her closely for a moment. “If you’d like me to come in with you, it might help.”

  Sophie nodded. “I think you’re right.” She paused. “I hope you are.”

  * * *

  • • •

  GRAHAM HAD BEEN bathed and tended by the nursing staff, and at first glance he looked like a man recovering from a flu. Underweight, haggard, his eyes rimmed with red and unfocused.

  “His next injection is due in a half hour,” Dr. Maxwell said.

  “Twenty-eight minutes.” Graham’s voice was rough. When he spoke the muscles in his jaw trembled visibly.

  “I would like to talk to you about your sister,” Sophie said.

  He turned his face to the side. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  “That’s all right,” Sophie said. “I’ll do the talking. First I’m going to read you the entries from the midwife’s day-book that concern her.”

  Sophie read at a measured pace, trying to keep her tone neutral. From Dr. Maxwell’s expression it was obvious that the story that came from Amelie’s very factual accounting needed no dramatic flourishes. She could see surprise and then shock and then something more that she recognized as professional detachment.

  Graham was still turned away from her when she finished. She could only hope he was listening.

  He said, “So now Maxwell is going to tell me I have to believe all that.”

  “I’m not finished,” Sophie said. “I have a signed and notarized affidavit from a physician that will corroborate the day-book. It will be read in court later today when the hearing opens. Dr. Maxwell, would you be so kind as to read it aloud?”

  He looked surprised, but took the document without hesitation and read.

  Affidavit

  I, Seth Channing, M.D., resident in this city since my birth, was a fully accredited physician on the staff at St. Vincent’s for more than thirty years. I also maintained a private practice during that period. I retired from practice in 1873 when I lost my sight in a carriage accident.

  On July 6, 1871, I received a note from Amelie Savard, a midwife who often referred patients to me. In working with her over many years, I found A. Savard to be an excellent practitioner. I trusted her judgment and her technical and diagnostic skills implicitly. The patient she referred was Nora Graham, a young woman of twenty-two years, unmarried, who had presented in utmost critical condition resulting from an incomplete nonsurgical abortion. In such cases placental tissue not expelled from the uterus causes infection. If not treated this condition is generally fatal.

  According to my notes Miss Graham called on me in my surgery on Greenwich Avenue on July 13.

  Upon examination I determined that Miss Graham was severely anemic, undernourished, and in a state of nervous exhaustion. She attributed her condition to unusually long and heavy menses but denied that she had seen A. Savard because of an incomplete abortion. Because she was still in considerable pain and given her fragile mental state, I suggested that she would be more able to bear the discomfort of a thorough pelv
ic examination under anesthesia. She agreed, and we proceeded with the procedure.

  On examination I found signs of a recently gravid uterus. In an unremarkable pregnancy the uterus is entrapped in the pelvis between the sacral promontory and pubic symphysis. After birth it begins to retract. Miss Graham’s uterus had not retracted to the expected degree and was still somewhat flaccid. Further examination led me to conclude that this had to do with the trauma associated with an incomplete abortion. In all particulars my examination confirmed A. Savard’s report. In my professional opinion, the midwife saved Miss Graham from a very drawn-out and painful death due to sepsis.

  On the basis of my examination, in which I documented extensive scar tissue in the uterus, I concluded that Miss Graham would slowly recover her strength, but that it would not be possible for her to conceive or bear another child. I presented her with my findings when she roused from anesthesia.

  Her distress was so extreme that I feared about her mental stability, but she never returned to my care after that day and I was unable to follow her progress.

  I give my nurse, Susan Wylie, permission to answer questions on this matter in a court of law. Nurse Wylie was in attendance at all times while Miss Graham was in my care. This statement was dictated to and taken down by H. E. York with my permission.

  Under the penalty of perjury of the law of the State of New York I certify that the above written statements herein are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.