He tapped his foot as he thought, but when he came up with nothing, he rang the bell for Mrs. Mellown, his unflappable house keeper. She soon appeared, bearing a large silver tray filled with tea and an assortment of almond butter cookies. She must have prepared it after showing us in. As we helped ourselves, Alistair asked her to check whether Isabella was at home.
“I assume you want her to come over?” Mrs. Mellown asked as she busied herself removing some dishes Alistair had left on his desk.
“Please.” Alistair mumbled the word as he finished swallowing a cookie. “Of course you remember Isabella, Ziele.”
How could I not?
“She loves poetry and will be familiar with these verses. I’m sure of it,” Alistair said.
I took a gulp of tea to wash down the crumbs that had gone dry in my mouth. Facing Alistair again had been difficult enough. I had not expected to see Isabella as well. When we had last seen each other, she had been recovering from a gunshot wound sustained in the final moments of that murder case. I had felt it best to disentangle myself from everything associated with Alistair’s world— including his widowed daughter-in-law, for whom I had developed an attraction that was as uncomfortable as it was inconvenient.
It seemed mere seconds passed before I looked up— and saw her there.
She looked thinner than in November and I could sense her reserve around us. Though her eyes still sparkled warmly, she greeted me and Mulvaney with a perfunctory smile. She had not wanted to come, I realized with disappointment.
If Alistair registered any awkwardness, however, he disregarded it. For him, any lingering resentment had disappeared. The letters had sparked his insatiable curiosity, and when he was intrigued by something, all else was irrelevant.
“Look at this,” he said to Isabella, making room for her on the sofa beside him. “I’ve read this poem before, but I expect you will know exactly where it is from.”
Smoothing her dark brown skirt as she sat, she took both letters from him; her eyes darted rapidly across the page as she read. I watched her brow crinkle as she registered their contents. “How did you come by these?” she asked.
“Each was placed near a young woman found dead, most likely strangled,” I answered.
She thought for a moment. “Well, the poetry is quite simple. In your first letter, the writer is quoting from Robert Browning. His Porphyria’s Lover contains this whole stanza.”
She placed the letter on the coffee table, turning it so we might read the stanza again.
. . . I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
“But the killer didn’t do any of that,” Mulvaney said. “She wore a wig, and she certainly wasn’t strangled with her hair.”
Isabella smiled. “I’ll explain more in a moment. But first, look at what he did in his second letter, which is taken from Shakespeare’s Othello.”
Isabella rose from the sofa and walked to the bookshelves half a wall’s distance from the fireplace. Using a small stepladder, she climbed to a midlevel shelf and pulled out a large, leather-bound volume. Returning to the coffee table, she put it down and flipped through page after page.
“Here it is,” she said triumphantly. “Act five. Scene two. Line three. ‘Yet I’ll not shed her blood. Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow . . . smooth as monumental alabaster.’ ”
“Browning and Shakespeare.” Alistair mulled it over. “I’d say your writer is an educated man. That is also supported by his general writing: he uses precise diction; his words are correctly spelled; there are no errors of usage or punctuation.”
“So you think he’s an upper-class gent?” Mulvaney asked.
“Not necessarily.” Alistair was cautious as he explained. “Look at the handwriting: it’s neat and legible. He has bought quality paper. And he has quoted from two great writers of the English language. But what that tells me is not necessarily that our man is of the upper class— but rather that he has put a great deal of effort into making us think he is.”
We took a moment to consider what he had said.
“What else can you tell us about this writer, specifically from these letters?” I urged.
Alistair responded archly, “Ziele, you delight me. Am I to surmise you have come round to my way of thinking about criminal behavior?”
“No need to get carried away,” I said with good humor. “I’m no convert to your theories. But in a case like this, where we’ve so little to go on, there’s no harm in exploring all avenues of thought.”
“Especially in a case like this, where your killer is actually communicating with you,” Alistair said, and his voice had assumed a note of warning. “Ziele, you know I don’t believe criminals are born. I’ve never adhered to that particular fiction perpetuated by Lombroso and his followers that locates the reason for criminal behavior in biological makeup. Biology may play a role, to be sure. But it is not the role. The criminal is formed through some circumstance or set of circumstances in his life. So our question becomes, what formed him? You, Ziele,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “will like it better if I frame the question this way: what forms his motive? Why does he behave as he does? Why—”
“Why does he kill as he does?” I cut him off before he could finish.
“Exactly.” His voice was low and grave.
We regarded each other in silent understanding.
Alistair spread the letters on the table at an angle, allowing each of us to see them. Then he continued to talk.
“First, I ask you: what do these two pieces have in common?”
And he waited. He could have told us, of course. But it was clear he wanted us to see it for ourselves.
“Uh . . . each letter talks about a dead woman,” Mulvaney responded gamely.
“Exactly!” Alistair’s enthusiasm was as great as if we’d just discovered something very important.
Mulvaney was dubious. “But if he didn’t write the poetry, why does it matter?”
“Because he used it to communicate something specific,” Alistair said.
“What about where he says he played Pygmalion at the beginning of the letter? Ziele disagrees with me, but we found the actor who played that role in Pygmalion’s revival last fall. I think it could refer to him. He even knows one of the murder victims.” Mulvaney was insistent, even stubborn in his conviction.
Alistair answered him with infinite patience.
“Normally, I would disagree with Ziele, too. But here, I think he’s right. The writer of these letters is too sophisticated. Or, to put it a different way, he’s doing something far more complex than merely referring to an actual role in a play.”
“Huh?” Mulvaney appeared thoroughly confused.
“What Alistair is saying is that it would be too obvious,” I said.
Alistair smiled with approval. “And why are these women dead?”
“Some guy killed them. What does it matter?” Mulvaney was growing impatient and began to grumble.
“I think it matters how they were killed,” Isabella said, sensing Mulvaney’s increasing frustration. “Porphyria’s lover is strangled and Shakespeare’s Desdemona is smothered. But what’s similar in both cases is that the woman bears no physical sign of it, so there’s no visible evidence of her pain.”
She paused for a moment.
“Simon, is that consistent with the actual deaths you’re investigating?” She eyed me with curiosity.
I nodded yes, but it was Mulvaney who spoke up.
“Definitely. We have been saying all day that our killer wants them to die pretty.”
Mulvaney’s comment was music to Alistair’s ears. “That’s exactly my point.” Alistair’s broad smile revealed his perfect, white teeth. “Mark my words, once we understand more about him and why it’s important to hi
m not just to kill— but to kill in this manner— then we’ll have discovered the key to understanding him.”
Mulvaney and I went on to describe how each death had been staged, in the most literal sense of the word.
Alistair said, “I think it is in the staging that the figure of Pygmalion comes into play. I’m not referring to the production that Timothy Poe starred in,” he cut off Mulvaney, who had opened his mouth to say something, “but to what the character of Pygmalion represents. So I’m certain he knows the legend of Pygmalion, the man who created a beautiful woman made of marble and fell in love with her. What seems important here is the act of creation.”
Isabella added even more. “Yes, and look at what the lines emphasize about her. In both cases, the man loves her. He doesn’t actually wish to harm her, as the Othello quote suggests when he refuses to shed her blood or scar her skin. In the Browning passage, the poet-killer wants to preserve a perfect moment, and even when she’s dead, he continues to see her features as lifelike. See the final phrase, where he says, again laughed the blue eyes?”
She pointed to the relevant phrases from the first letter. “He sees himself as having created something new and preserved it.”
Mulvaney interrupted. “Wait just a minute. You’re saying the writer of these letters killed two women because he is preserving something about them? That makes no sense.”
Isabella was quick to respond, saying, “He’s not preserving their life. He’s preserving his idea about them— about their potential, about what they might become, if he made things a bit different.”
Alistair put it a different way. “I believe what Isabella is suggesting is that for this writer, life disappoints— but perhaps art does not.”
And with that comment, Alistair overreached.
“This is murder,” I said heatedly, “not art.”
“But perhaps not from the killer’s point of view,” Alistair said, making his point with renewed urgency. “His view is what matters, you recall— not your own.” He held up both letters before us. “The man who writes this— and I do believe it is a man— is not governed by rational thought. But we shouldn’t assume he is unintelligent or uneducated. This writer knows Shakespeare. He knows Browning. And he proceeds absolutely according to his own logic. And that is what we must—” He immediately stopped himself. “Rather, that is what you must remember if you are to solve these murders.”
Mulvaney chuckled. “Unless we get lucky and catch him in the act.”
“Well then,” Alistair said pleasantly, “you will be very lucky indeed. The man you seek is a meticulous planner who is unlikely to make careless mistakes.”
Isabella retreated to the corner of the room with a cup of tea. Was it my imagination, or did she seem changed? It was unlike her to take so little interest in a case that Alistair obviously found compelling.
“Don’t discount luck. Sometimes it’s all we’ve got,” I said lightly.
I glanced at my watch. We needed to get to The Times before five o’clock.
But I had one more question for Alistair. “Why do you think he wrote these letters? I mean, why even bother? It would have been less work and less risk for him simply to kill and walk away.”
Alistair shrugged. “He’s not the first, you know. And he certainly won’t be the last. But he is highly unusual. Most criminals do not enter into correspondence about their crimes. The fact he has done so implies we are dealing with a truly unique personality.”
He picked up both letters and returned them to me.
“I’ll also make a prediction: he will keep writing, and I expect you will see more of him— and less of other writers— in his future missives. He has used the work of others to demonstrate his intelligence and get our attention. Now that he has it . . .”
Alistair paused for a moment, then leaned closer to us as he continued to talk. “He wants to communicate something specific. The question is, to whom? He may be taunting you to show he’s smarter than you. And we can’t avoid thinking of Jack the Ripper, can we? He began by insulting the police, but when the papers published his letters— well, assuming at least some of the letters were his and not hoaxes— I think he fell in love with his own celebrity. I say this in order to warn you to be very careful in this case.”
“Comparisons to other letters aside, Alistair, what do you really think of all this? Whom, exactly, are we looking for?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted frankly. “But I do know one thing. What you’ve seen so far is only the beginning if you cannot stop him. He put a great deal of effort into first creating a perfect crime scene and then penning a letter to make sure others would understand what he hoped to accomplish. I daresay you’ll find he put similar effort into his choice of victim. He is enjoying every aspect of his handiwork. And a man who enjoys something this much will not stop— at least, not of his own accord.”
After a moment’s reflection, he added, “At least your man appears to be writing personally to whoever finds the body, not to the police or the papers.”
Mulvaney and I exchanged guilty looks.
“Actually,” Mulvaney said as he drew in a deep breath, “the man is writing to the papers now. I got word this morning that The Times received a letter. I’ve no idea if the other papers received one as well. If they did,” his voice was grim, “they may not be so considerate as to check with us before printing it for the masses.”
“We’re headed to the Times offices now. Maybe you’d like to join us?” I asked.
Alistair’s expertise would be useful, and I expected him to be interested enough to agree. But he accepted with so much exuberance that I almost began to second-guess my decision to involve him in the matter. I had not forgotten how, during our last case together, he had withheld significant information from me because it jeopardized his own ambitions. The last thing I needed was for him to allow his own interests once again to interfere with the investigation. He would be helpful only so long as our concerns were aligned.
“Isabella?” Alistair glanced toward her, and it was plain he wanted her to accompany us.
I busied myself replacing the letters in my leather bag, and I did not look up until I heard her response.
“No, thanks, I prefer to stay home.”
Her refusal had been crisp, but she came over to us and shook hands politely with Mulvaney, then me.
“It was good to see you again, Simon.” She was pleasant but distant.
To think it could be otherwise would be presumptive. But once, just a few months ago, it might have been different— and that realization itself was bittersweet.
We exited the apartment into the hallway and caught the elevator waiting on Alistair’s floor.
If I hadn’t chanced to look back, just before I stepped into it, I wouldn’t have seen the peculiar expression with which Isabella watched us leave.
But once she caught my gaze, she bit her lip, retreated into her apartment, and closed the door firmly between us.
CHAPTER 6
The City Room, Times Building, West Forty-second Street
“Those hot off the press? Bring ’em over here.”
The front-desk editor, a balding man seated at the head of multiple rows of desks, barked the directions to a copyboy who was struggling to balance a stack of papers on each shoulder as he walked into the City Room of The New York Times. The papers the young man carried were newly printed, and their ink had marked his skin and clothing with giant black stains. He wobbled under their weight but did not drop them until he reached the editor’s desk. Each pile then landed with a loud thud as the copyboy’s careful efforts to ease his papers onto the desk failed, sending pencils, scissors, and notes flying.
Alistair, Mulvaney, and I surveyed this scene from the sole enclosed office on the fourteenth floor. We had been asked to wait here for the managing editor, whose office overlooked the entire room— a maze of wooden desks occupied by reporters and editors who worked amid a tremendous din, breathing air
that was heavy with a mix of cigarette and cigar smoke. With the door to the office open wide, we were free to observe reporters furiously punching out their stories on new Hammond typewriters; editors working with scissors and paste pots to make corrections; and even a small group of five men, their work presumably done, engaged in a raucous poker game in the back corner. Their game was punctuated only by the frequent spitting of tobacco into shiny brass spittoons that lined the room. Somehow, amid this chaos, tomorrow’s paper was being produced.
“Let’s check out the competition.” The front-desk editor ground his cigar butt into a saucer and grabbed a copy of The Tribune off the top of the stack. After thumbing through it in what seemed a matter of seconds, he moved on to The Post. He grunted in displeasure. “We got scooped on the Tyler embezzlement story.”
All the reporters in the room began to study what ever was on their desks with renewed interest.
“Johnny, next time you gotta work your sources on Wall Street better. Okay?”
“Sure, boss.” Nervously, the reporter who answered ran both hands through his tousled mop of brown hair.
But the front-desk editor moved on to other concerns. “Frank,” he said. “We got the story about the Snyder woman’s acquittal in that poisoning trial, right?” He neither looked up nor ceased flipping pages.
“Yeah, we got it, boss.” The answer came from a lean, wiry man. His voice, low with a rich timbre, came from the fifth desk down.
It was an unwelcome reminder of the verdict in my case, delivered only this morning. My stomach lurched and I felt my face burn with mortification— as though they were criticizing me, not merely discussing the jury’s verdict. Of course I should not have taken it personally, but I did. If only I had found better evidence against the woman . . . evidence that might have withstood her protestations of innocence.
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