Into the Suffering City

by Bill LeFurgy

  “I admire your robust adoption of criminal science.”

  The man’s wolfish grin returned. “That is music to my ears, of course. You mentioned that you are a doctor? How charming.”

  Sarah walked briskly over to the long bank of filing cabinets. “Tell me about all of these records. A quick summary will suffice.”

  “Nothing less than our crown jewels. Some like to call it ‘the rogues’ gallery,’ as we have five thousand photographs on file here. But we have far more than that.” He yanked open a cabinet and pulled out a large printed card filled with annotations. Two pictures of a man—one facing forward, the other in profile—were affixed to the top. “We operate the full Bertillon system with five measurements—”

  “Head length, head breadth, length of the middle finger, length of the left foot, and length of the forearm from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger.” Sarah had read a book on the system and knew that it was the brainchild of Alphonse Bertillon, a French policeman. Bertillon had come up with something known as anthropometry, based on the idea that no two people shared an identical set of physical measurements. The photographs—also known as “mug shots”—were supplemental.

  “Most impressive, Sarah. You are such a clever girl. I wish our police officials knew as much. Over here is where we take photographs and perform computations—”

  She held up her hand to quiet him. “Tell me how you use fingerprint science.”

  “Fingerprints are the latest identification technique, and many old-timers are skeptical.” He waved his hand with irritation. “We have a devil of a time getting cooperation from detectives and patrolmen. They complain the courts don’t accept prints as evidence of guilt and see the process as a waste of time. I tell them—”

  “What of fingerprints associated with Lizzie Sullivan’s murder?”

  “You have a most direct manner. I like a girl who knows what she wants.” He stepped closer.

  “I have asked you a question.”

  “I photographed the crime scene and found the fingerprints on the gun.” He frowned. “And how much interest has there been in my work? Zero. Detective O’Toole says he already has enough evidence. The photographs will just sit in our case files and remain unused, my effort wasted. Outrageous that I get so little appreciation.”

  “You have faith in fingerprint science?”

  He nodded sagely. “I think that, in time, fingerprints will prove to be a valuable addition to the Bertillon system. Sir Edward Richard Henry has set us on the right course.”

  “Who is he?”

  Her host chuckled. “My dear, he wrote the book—literally. Classification and Uses of Finger Prints. Here, I have an extra copy. I’ll give it to you on one condition.” He snatched a volume from the bookshelf and held it just out of her reach.

  “What condition do you impose?”

  “That you join me for dinner at my apartment this Saturday evening.”

  She swallowed hard. “Very well. I reserve the right to cancel upon my successful determination of the facts in connection with Lizzie Sullivan’s murder. I will need time to document my findings.”

  He was first astonished, then convulsed with laughter. “My sweet, you said that with such a straight face! You are so very droll. Investigating a murder case, indeed.” He handed her the book. Then he scribbled something on his calling card and pressed it into her hand. “Sarah, precious one,” he said. “I am so looking forward to our private rendezvous.”

  “Good day, sir. I will see myself out.” She quickly moved away from his enveloping cloud of Bay Rum and hurried down the long row of filing cabinets, past the young man at the desk and out into the hallway. She glanced at the card. He had written “Mon Chères—You have my heart. I tremble with anticipation for the moment when we can bare our souls before each other. Until then, Adieux.”

  The man could not even distinguish between the plural and the singular in his irksome French. She tore up the card and hurled the pieces into the mouth of a cuspidor. Despite the difficulty of the experience, she had obtained valuable information. Now she had to get to the waterfront as quickly as possible.

  Lucas Patterson had agreed to meet with Sarah at the Children's Benevolent and Protective Society, which was on Thames Street in Fells Point, fronting the harbor. Traffic delayed her hansom. Freight wagons, handcarts, and pedestrians—all overloaded with commodities of one sort or another—pressed in from all sides. A torrent of sensory input jostled for her attention: the crude shouts from teamsters, the flinty astringency of the dust billowing from coal yards, the penetrative clanging from iron foundries, the astonishingly putrid smell of chemicals and decaying flesh from tanneries.

  When she finally stood outside the address, it looked nothing like a place where one could find a member of the city’s social elite. The three-story brick building sat in a commercial block, nestled between a liquor wholesaler and an employment agency. The Children's Benevolent and Protective Society announced its purpose with a small sign in the window: “We Help the Poor, the Orphaned, the Friendless Child.”

  Workmen were everywhere around her, rolling barrels, hauling crates, yelling at each other in a foreign language. A row of slouching vendors had rickety tables set up on the sidewalk and were selling everything from garish bolts of cloth to cheap gimcracks. A cluster of small children—barefoot and in ragged clothes—were looking at her with their thin, foxy faces as if she had just stepped out of a storybook. Sarah’s heart pounded as they moved toward her with their grimy little hands extended.

  “Nickel so I can eat, miss?”

  “I ain’t got no mama—please help me.”

  “I’m starving! Can’t work ’cause I’m lame.”

  Their piping little voices filled her with compassion, but also dread because she had no idea how to respond. She had money—how much was enough? How should it be distributed? What if they grabbed at her?

  “Clear on out,” said a large older woman as she stood in the open door of the society. “All of you had your lunch. Go.” The children scattered like startled mice. The woman turned to Sarah. She wore no hat, and her gray hair was pinned in a practical bun. Her long, lumpy nose looked like a fingerling potato. “You must be here to see Mr. Patterson, miss. A high-class girl like you ain’t got no other business around here. Come in.”

  “Yes. I have a one-o’clock appointment. I regret being one minute late.” Sarah went to the steps, careful to lift her skirts over the splintered remnants of a wooden crate on the sidewalk. Many rusty nails stuck through the boards. Those children were at serious risk for tetanus. After entering the place, she opened her handbag. “I will give you money to pass on to the children.”

  The woman pressed her lips together tightly. “It’s no good giving them money. They waste it on candy and foolishness.”

  Sarah pulled out several dollars in change and bills and thrust them forward. “Then please buy them shoes. Or whatever you think is best.”

  The woman shrugged and took the money. “Come this way, miss.” She led Sarah through a large open room with long rows of low wooden tables. Several children were scrubbing the floor and ferrying armloads of dishes to a kitchen toward the back. The room reeked of cheap cleaning powder. Pictures with captions exhorting children to behave, keep clean, and follow instructions covered the walls. Sarah followed her guide down a hallway to a door that opened quickly after a soft knock.

  “Mr. Patterson, sir, a lady to see you.” The woman nodded curtly and headed back to the main room.

  “Dr. Kennecott, how good of you to visit.” The man before her was about thirty-five years old with carefully combed dark hair, brown eyes, and a deep olive complexion. Sarah dreaded the physical aspect of introductions, but was relieved when he gave her hand just a quick, gentle touch. “Margaret Bonifant speaks about you in glowing terms.”

  She flashed quick glances at him and noticed a trimmed mustache that sat between two dimples on his clean-shaven cheeks. His tweed suit was well
tailored. Her eyes fixed on his shirt. It was cerulean blue, her favorite color. She had to suppress the urge to touch its perfect starchy sheen.

  “Have I spilled something on myself?” He dropped his head to look.

  Sarah gazed at the carpeted floor. “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Lucas Patterson.”

  After giving his shirtfront a quick brush, he looked up. “Please call me Lucas. And don’t think me forward, but do you mind if I call you Sarah? I’m happy to call you ‘Doctor’ if you wish. It’s wonderful to meet such an accomplished young woman—someone who has, I imagine, had to overcome a lot.”

  Sarah was uncomfortable with his rapid informality. Still, a more familiar approach increased the probability for getting useful information. “Please feel free to use my given name. I only prefer to be called ‘Doctor’ in a professional context.” Since eye contact supposedly put people at ease, she forced herself to stare into her host’s eyes.

  “All right then, Sarah.” Patterson’s warm smile faded as he held her unblinking gaze. “Before we get down to the business of your visit, please allow me to present you with a gift.” Patterson strode to a sideboard and lifted a published volume from a stack. With a solemn look, he offered her a copy of Diary from the Shameful Heart of the Rebellion.

  “I do not know this book,” she said while flipping to the title page. The author was listed as Alice Monroe Green, described as “wife of Beauregard Green, plantation slave master and aide to the treasonous Jefferson Davis, president of the purported Confederate States of America, 1861–1865.” The publication date was 1908.

  “I had it printed,” said Patterson. “It’s the diary of a privileged white woman living in Georgia during the War of the Rebellion. Despite living on a plantation operated on the backs of Negroes, Alice Green hated slavery and wrote many heartfelt observations. Here, listen to this.”

  He snatched the book from her, opened to a section near the front, and began reading in a loud voice. “‘One sees racially mixed children at every plantation, so many with the features of their master. When one converses with the planter’s lady, she quickly notes such resemblance with regard to the husbands of others. When it comes to her own domestic domain the same lady is mute.’”

  Sarah’s throat constricted as she listened to language that was utterly unsuitable for a lady to hear, especially immediately upon introduction. She held up her hand to stop him, but without any effect.

  “‘One cannot deny that our men enjoy their concubines—’”

  She interrupted. “There is no need to recite more.”

  He stared at her, mouth agape. “As you wish.” He gestured to a leather armchair. “I would be thrilled to talk with you more about race matters, but Margaret has told me you want to discuss something almost as sordid—Baltimore city politics.”

  “Yes.” She placed the book in her bag and sat in the chair.

  Patterson busied himself at a credenza before presenting her with a small crystal glass of amber liquid. “I hope you find this amontillado acceptable,” he said as he sat.

  She was very finicky about sherry. Too often she found offerings to have a maritime quality with a smell redolent of a fish market in summer. Just the thought of it made her gag. It would be rude not to take a sip. To her astonishment the smell was exquisite; even better, it tasted bone dry with just the right acidity.

  “This is the best amontillado I have ever tasted.” She took another sip.

  “I see you have a good palate. Please finish your glass, and let me get you another.”

  “No.” Sarah was dizzy from the sensory pleasure. Another glass of that amazing sherry would just be too much. “Please . . . Lucas, tell me why a wealthy, cultured man such as yourself has an office on the waterfront. And why are you interested in politics?”

  “I do get those questions quite a bit.” Patterson chuckled as he adjusted his red paisley ascot, which he wore wrapped high around his neck with an open-collared shirt. The effect was one of a young English aristocrat relaxing at his country estate. “The simplest answer is that I want to help the less fortunate.”

  “That is a platitude. Do you have a more substantive answer?” She had retrieved her notebook and pencil and was scribbling.

  A few moments ticked by and Sarah was compelled to glance up at her host. His smile was gone. “Scratch below anyone’s surface and you will find complexity,” he said. “In my case, I want to improve the lives of people who have been cast aside by the rich and the powerful. Children are the most vulnerable, and that is why I founded this charity. I chose to locate it here, in the heart of the Polish tenement district among the needy, the struggling. You ask why I have an office here. I ask: How can I not?”

  “You wish to set a commendable example for your class—”

  “I don’t want your approval.” Patterson’s brow was low over his eyes as he set his sherry glass down with a loud clink on a marble-topped table next to his chair. “Or anyone else’s. One must live and work among the poor, the shunned, the deprived to know their struggles. Only then can anyone appreciate their nobility.”

  Sarah looked at a row of colorfully framed illustrations past Patterson’s left shoulder while preparing to move the conversation back to topics relevant to the investigation. “Now, what of politics—”

  “What are you doing to help the poor, Doctor? You should be fighting tuberculosis and syphilis. Helping men whose bodies are broken from work, women destroyed from prostitution, children suffering from disease. You should be easing their pain. Or are you too busy wasting time and money on the latest fashions like other empty-headed society women?”

  “Your argument is fallacious.” Sarah was up from her chair, standing rigidly straight, hands clenched into fists. “You are weaving glib generalizations with a baseless personal attack.”

  “So much needs to be done.” Patterson’s eyes blazed, and Sarah wondered if he had forgotten she was in the room. “Feeding the poor, clothing the naked. Healing the sick. The children in our city, regardless of race, nationality, or creed, must be our top priority. And there’s the money to do it!” He punched the air excitedly as his voice kept getting louder. “All we lack is political will. That’s why we need to bring about the revolution.”

  Sarah reminded herself she was here to get information and sat back down.

  “Let’s consider getting women the vote—surely something you support,” said Patterson, suddenly calmer. “You know the motto of the English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst: ‘deeds, not words.’ I only wish we could stir up as much trouble here as she has in London. Wouldn’t it be great to see Baltimore women breaking windows, smashing mailboxes, chaining themselves to railings, getting arrested, and going on hunger strikes?” Patterson’s eyes were bulging with zeal.

  “I support female voting and extension of women’s rights, yet the militancy of some British suffragettes is disturbing. Do you believe violence is an acceptable means to an end?”

  Patterson leaned back in his chair. “Please excuse me, Sarah. I express my beliefs with passion. I feel called to help the downtrodden of our city and have the arrogance to press for change, even if my views are considered extreme.” He noticed her eyes focused on the wall behind him. “Are you interested in ragtime music? Wonderful!”

  Patterson jumped up as if launched from a spring and pointed to a framed sheet music cover. The lithograph drawing featured a crude depiction of a Negro man wearing a red polka-dot bow tie against a bright red background. “This is ‘The Dusty Rag,’” Patterson said. He began snapping his fingers and singing with gusto. “‘I could keep on dancin’ all the night / Sets my heart thumpin’ playin’ tag / Oh! It’s the Dus-ty Rag.’”

  “I know nothing of that music.” A grandfather clock in the corner sounded a chime—it was now one thirty p.m. Every additional minute Sarah stayed here with this erratic man increased the chance that she would be late in returning to the hospital. Still, she had more questions to ask.

  “Then ther
e’s this one.” Patterson pointed to an adjacent framed cover with the title “Ma Ragtime Baby.” The drawing pictured a well-dressed, black couple promenading against shades of red and pink. With fingers snapping time, he sang, “‘The black four hundred were there right in line / Bad coons from Johnson Street looking mighty fine—’”

  “I heard you know Nick Monkton, a musician.”

  “His fame grows by the day.” Patterson’s nostrils flared as he crossed his arms. “Nick’s a musical genius but wastes his talent on silly pursuits. I’ve told him again and again to stick close to his true friends and to focus on writing and playing.” He leaned close to her, eyes wide. “Nick wants to do things his own way. I can only hope the boy comes to his senses before it’s too late.”

  “And Lizzie Sullivan, Nick’s . . . former companion?”

  “How on Earth do you know about her?” Patterson’s eyes narrowed. “And why do you care?”

  “I attended Lizzie’s postmortem examination and am curious about the circumstances of her life and death.”

  “Forgive my earlier outburst. You have more interest in the demimonde than I gave you credit for. Nobody else in your social class would give a second thought about a murdered prostitute.” Patterson fussed with his ascot. “I feel compassion for any woman forced to sell herself, although Lizzie was more of a leech than a victim. She sucked at Nick’s attention and money. I told him that she stood between him and greatness. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Nick is better off without that woman.”

  “Have you discussed her death with Nick?”

  Patterson gave her a hard glare before walking briskly to the door and opening it with a flourish. “Sarah, I must conclude our chat. By all means, please come back again, and we can talk more about music or even politics—I promise to keep my enthusiasm more under control.” He smiled, displaying his large white teeth.