by Caleb Carr
“That’s all right,” Marcus said. “Just asking.” But then he glanced up and looked at Miss Howard—and from the apprehensive expressions that came into both of their faces, I could tell that there was no way in hell he’d been “just asking.”
Marcus returned to his questioning: “How tall are you?”
“Mmm—a little over five feet and five inches.” Marcus nodded, murmuring, “Straight blow across. Not a sap.”
“Point of impact’s too distinct, too hard,” Lucius agreed. “Piece of pipe, I’d guess. They’ve started work on the new Fifth Avenue wing of the museum. Plumbing’s going in …”
“Lot of pipe handy.” Marcus looked my way. “Stevie. Get over here.”
A little surprised, I followed the order and moved between Marcus and Lucius to take a gander at the nasty bump on the back of the señora’s head. “Look familiar?” Marcus asked me with a small smile.
“You been through my file at Mulberry Street?” I asked.
“Just answer the question,” Marcus went on with the same small grin.
I took another look, then nodded. “Yep. Definitely coulda been. Nice little piece of lead pipe.”
“Good,” Marcus said, sending me with a nod back to my windowsill.
(All right, so now the world knows how I got my nickname—and for those who want an even more detailed explanation, don’t worry, that’s part of this story, too.)
The Isaacsons then moved around to the front of the Linares woman’s head, at which she quickly closed her right eye again. Lucius took in the bruises and the broken nose very quickly, nodding all the while. “This’ll be the husband’s work.”
“Very characteristic,” Marcus said. “And completely different from the other.”
“Exactly,” Lucius added. “Which further suggests—”
“Exactly,” Marcus echoed. “You say neither you nor anyone else at the consulate ever received a ransom note, señora?”
“No, never.”
The Isaacsons exchanged somewhat confident looks and nods, through which the barest beginnings of excitement showed clear. “All right,” Marcus went on, crouching down on one knee. The señora started a little as he took her hand: it seemed like he was just trying to reassure her, but then I noticed that one of his fingers went up to the inside of her wrist. “Please keep your eyes closed,” he said, drawing out his pocket watch. “And tell us everything you can remember about the woman you saw with your child on the train.”
Mr. Moore turned to Miss Howard, mumbling something under his breath and looking like his skepticism was returning.
“Try to keep quiet, John,” Lucius called over to him. “We’ll bring you up to speed in a few minutes. But it’s getting very late, and the señora will be missed at home—”
“There is no difficulty about that,” Señora Linares said. “I shall go from here to a good friend who works at the French consulate—the same woman who sent me to see Miss Howard. She has engaged rooms at the Astoria Hotel, and we have told my husband that we are spending the night in the country.”
“The Astoria?” Marcus said with a grin. “Beats any night in the country I ever had.” The señora smiled along with him, at least as much as her battered mouth would allow her to. “Now, then,” Marcus continued. “About the woman …”
At the words Señora Linares’s face filled to brimming with the same dread what had flitted around her all evening, and she couldn’t help but open her good eye. “Never have I been so afraid, señor,” she murmured. “So—struck by evil.” Marcus indicated with his finger that she should shut her eye again, and she followed the instruction, after which he looked at his pocket watch again. “Not at first, though. No, at first she was simply sitting down, holding Ana. She was dressed in the clothing, it seemed to me, of a children’s nurse or a governess. Her face, when she looked at Ana, seemed affectionate enough—even loving, in a way. But when she looked up and out the window”—the señora gripped the arm of the chair hard with the hand that Marcus wasn’t holding—“they were the eyes of an animal. Like a great cat, entrancing, and yet—so … hungry. I thought I had been afraid for my Ana before I saw that face, but it was only then that I knew real fear.”
“Do you remember the color of her clothes?” Lucius asked. It seemed to me that the question involved more than just a minor detail to him. But the señora said that she could not recall the color. “Or if she was wearing a hat?” Again the señora drew a blank.
“I am sorry,” she said. “It was the face—I was so concentrated on the face, I noticed little else.”
Miss Howard was busily transcribing all these statements, and I saw Mr. Moore glance over at her and then roll his eyes a bit, as if he thought all this dramatic detail was just the rantings of a hysterical woman who’d been through what even he’d conceded was a terrible tragedy. But the Isaacsons turned to each other with very different expressions: knowledge, confidence, anticipation, they were all there. And I could see that Mr. Moore was a bit deflated about missing whatever they were getting.
“And you’re certain the woman didn’t see you?” Lucius asked.
“Yes, Detective. I was well under the roof of the platform as I ran alongside the train, and it was already dark. I did scream and leap at the window as it left the station, but it was already moving too fast. She may have seen someone, but she could not have known it was me.”
“Could you estimate the woman’s height and weight?” Lucius asked, returning to look at the wound on the back of the señora’s head once more.
The Linares woman paused to consider this. “She was seated,” she finally answered slowly. “But I would not say that she was very much taller than I. Perhaps heavier, but only slightly.”
“I’m sorry this is taking so long,” Marcus said. “But just one more thing—do you happen to have a picture of the child? You can open your eyes to get it, if you need to.”
“Oh—yes.” Señora Linares turned in her seat. “I brought one for Miss Howard, she asked—Miss Howard, do you have the photograph still?”
“Yes, señora,” Miss Howard answered, taking a mounted image about three inches by five off the mahogany table. “It’s right here.”
As Miss Howard handed the picture to the Linares woman, Marcus didn’t move a muscle, keeping a grip on the señora’s right hand, which forced her to take the picture with her left. Marcus watched her as she glanced at the image, all the time checking his watch, and then she handed the picture to Lucius, who held it in front of Marcus’s face.
“It was taken only a few weeks ago,” Señora Linares said. “Quite remarkable—Ana is so full of life and energy, and it is rare to find a photographer who can capture the true spirit of a child. But this man succeeded quite well, wouldn’t you say?”
Both the Isaacsons gave the picture what you might call the quickest of glances, and then Lucius, not knowing quite where to put it, looked my way. “Stevie—would you—?”
I jumped down again to retrieve the photograph and return it to Miss Howard, who was once more busily taking notes. Pausing just a second or two to look at the thing, I was kind of—well, struck, in a way. I’ve never had much experience with babies, and as a rule I’m no sucker for them. But this little girl, with her swatch of soft dark hair, her huge, nearly round black eyes, and her big cheeks swelling around a smile that said she was game for just about any amusement life could throw at her—well, there was something about it that kind of tugged at you. Maybe it was because she seemed to have more of a personality than the usual infant; then again, maybe it was because I knew she’d been kidnapped.
As I returned to my windowsill, Marcus—his eyes still on his watch—murmured, “Good,” very slowly. Then he finally let go of the señora’s hand and stood up. “That’s very good. Now, señora, I think you should rest. Cyrus?” Cyrus finally let up on the piano and stood to cross to Marcus. “Mr. Montrose will, I’m sure, be happy to see that you get safely to the Astoria. You have nothing to fear under his pr
otection.”
The señora looked at Cyrus with gentle confidence. “Yes. I sensed that.” Confusion came back into her features. “But what of my daughter?”
“I will not lie to you, señora,” Marcus said. “This is a very difficult case. Your husband’s forbidden you to go to the police?” Señora Linares nodded miserably. “Easy, now,” Marcus went on, guiding her to the door as Miss Howard fell in with them. “That may, in the long run, turn out to be an advantage.”
“But you are policemen yourselves, yes?” the señora asked in confusion, as Cyrus opened the elevator grate for her. She put on her big black hat, fixing it to her hair with an eight-inch, stone-headed pin.
“Yes—and no,” Marcus answered. “The important thing is that you mustn’t give up hope. The next twenty-four hours will, I think, be enough time for us to give you an idea of what we can do.”
The señora turned to Miss Howard, who only added, “Please trust me when I say that you couldn’t be in better hands than those of these gentlemen.”
Señora Linares nodded again, then stepped into the elevator and pulled her veil down. “Well, then—I shall wait.” She studied the office once more and then quietly added, “Or rather, I think, we shall all wait…”
Mr. Moore looked at her in some surprise. “‘All’? What shall we all wait for, señora?”
The Linares woman indicated the room with her umbrella. “There are five desks, no? And you all seem as though … yes. I think we shall all wait. For the man who sits at the fifth desk. Or once did …”
I don’t think there was one of us who didn’t shiver a bit at the sound of her quiet words.
Without even trying to argue the point, Marcus nodded to the señora and then spoke to Cyrus: “Straight to the Astoria, then meet us at the Lafayette. We’ll be on the outdoor terrace. There are questions that only you and Stevie can answer.”
Cyrus nodded and pulled on his bowler as Miss Howard gave Señora Linares a final encouraging look before closing the office door. “Try to have hope, señora.” The señora only nodded, and then she and Cyrus were gone.
Marcus began to pace as Lucius packed up the medical instruments. Miss Howard turned to the front windows and walked toward them, staring kind of sadly down at Broadway. Only Mr. Moore seemed particularly anxious.
“Well?” he said finally. “What did you find?”
“A great deal,” Lucius answered quietly. “Though not enough.”
There was another pause, and Mr. Moore’s arms went up high. “And are you going to share your information, gentlemen, or is it a secret between you and the señora?”
Marcus chuckled once thoughtfully. “She’s one smart lady …”
“Yes,” Miss Howard added from the window, with a little smile of her own.
“Smart?” Mr. Moore asked. “Or just crazy?”
“No, no,” Lucius answered quickly. “A long way from crazy.”
Mr. Moore seemed just about ready to bust. “All right. Look, are you people going to tell me what’s on your minds or not?”
“We will, John,” Marcus answered. “But let’s get to the Lafayette first. I’m starving.”
“That makes two of us,” Lucius said, picking up the instrument satchel. “Stevie?”
“I could eat,” was all I said. The truth was that I, too, was anxious to know what the detective sergeants were thinking; but I’d also felt the full hit of Señora Linares’s parting words, and wasn’t in what you might call an optimistic mood.
Miss Howard turned to take a small jacket off of a wooden rack near the door. “Let’s go, then. We’ll have to take the stairs—nobody left in the building to bring the elevator back up.”
As we filed toward the back door, Mr. Moore fell in behind us, still frustrated. “What’s gotten into all of you?” he demanded. “I mean, it’s a simple enough question—is there a case here or not?”
“Oh, there’s a case,” Marcus said. He turned to Miss Howard. “You got your wish there, Sara.”
She smiled again, still looking melancholy. “One really must be careful about wishes …”
Mr. Moore put his hands to his hips. “Oh, and what’s that supposed to mean? Look, I’m not going anywhere ’til somebody gives me some idea of what’s happening! If there’s a case, why are you all so damned dejected?”
Lucius groaned as he pulled the satchel over his shoulder. “The short version is this, John: there’s a case, all right, a very perplexing one. And I hardly need to tell you that, given the players involved, it could turn into something very big. Very big—and very ugly. But the señora was right. Without him”—Lucius turned to look at the desk that sat to the right of the other four—“we don’t have a prayer.”
“And given what he’s been through,” Miss Howard added, as we all filed on toward the fire stairs near the kitchen, “I don’t think any of us can really say that he’ll do it. Hell, I’m not even sure it would be right of us to ask.” She paused and turned to me. “Questions, as Marcus says, that only you and Cyrus can answer, Stevie.”
I felt all attention in the room settle on me—not the kind of position I’ve ever been comfortable with. But it seemed like I had to say something. “Well—I should wait for Cyrus, I guess, but—”
“But?” Marcus asked.
“But,” I answered, “for my money, it all hinges on tomorrow morning. How he takes leaving the Institute. And you’re right, Miss Howard—I don’t even know that it’s right to ask…”
She nodded and turned away, disappearing through the black stairway door; and in that somewhat uncertain state of mind, we all started the long, dark descent to Broadway.
CHAPTER 6
As we ate supper in amongst the iron trellises and overhanging greenery of the Café Lafayette’s outdoor terrace on Ninth Street and University Place, the Isaacsons told us what they believed they’d learned from their interview with Señora Linares. The theory put their talent for drawing unexpected conclusions from what seemed like a confused jumble of facts on ample display—and, as usual, kept the rest of us shaking our heads in amazement.
The blow that the señora’d taken across the back of the head, the detective sergeants said, presented us with two choices as to her attacker: either a good sap man, a specialist who’d had a lot of experience rendering people unconscious, or someone of much more limited strength who’d landed a lucky shot that didn’t do any really severe damage. There were real problems with the first idea: if the attack had been the work of an expert, he’d have to’ve been about the same height as the señora, given the angle and location of the hit, and he’d have to’ve put his sap away in favor of a much harder and more risky weapon, such as a piece of pipe. Even more important, though, was the fact that he’d risked being spotted in what was a very public and popular location—right outside the Metropolitan Museum—at an extremely risky time of day.
Given these considerations, the detective sergeants were prepared to dismiss the idea that the Linares baby had been taken by a professional kidnapper, whether someone working for hire or in business for himself. Such characters just wouldn’t take the risk of whacking somebody on the head with an unpadded piece of pipe, and they certainly liked to make their moves in more isolated spots than the Egyptian obelisk in Central Park. That left us with the notion of an amateur, one probably working without a plan—and it was very possible, maybe even likely, that said amateur was a woman. The fact that the señora herself had referred to her attacker as “him” didn’t count for anything: she’d admitted that she’d never gotten a look at the person, and, coming from an upper-class diplomatic family, she’d just assumed that no woman would be capable of such an act. But the blow itself was consistent with a woman of average strength who was about the señora’s size—and the description that she herself had given of the woman on the train matched these specifications.
What about that description, anyway? Mr. Moore wanted to know. What made the detective sergeants so ready to accept what she said? Wasn’t
it an awfully detailed story for someone with one good eye who’d just caught a quick glimpse of her missing child—and was in a sudden state of shock as a result—to come up with? Not at all, Lucius answered; in fact, the señora’s description had lacked certain details that what he called “pathological liars” (which, I knew from the Doctor’s work, meant people who were so far gone that they actually believed the lies they told) would’ve included. For instance, she could say generally what kind of clothes the woman was wearing but not what color; she could give a vague idea of the woman’s size but nothing more; and she couldn’t even remember if the woman’d had a hat on. And there were other, more subtle reasons to think that she’d been telling the truth at just that point—“physiological reasons,” Lucius termed them.
Apparently, some bright bulbs in the detecting world had recently been floating the idea that people undergo physical changes when they lie. Some of the possible symptoms, these types said, were a quickening of the pulse rate and respiration, increased perspiration and muscle tension, and a few other, less obvious alterations. Now, there was no actual medical or what Lucius called “clinical” support for any of this; but all the same, Marcus had, as I’d noticed, kept one finger on the señora’s wrist while they were discussing the mysterious woman on the train. At the same time, he’d kept a steady eye on his watch. They’d been talking about some very upsetting subjects, but there’d been no change in Señora Linares’s pulse rate at any time, not even when she looked at the photograph of her daughter. Like so many of the Isaacsons’ techniques and conclusions, that one wouldn’t have meant anything in a court of law, but it gave them further reason to buy what she was saying.
All this was enough to quiet Mr. Moore’s doubts about the señora—but the more important issue continued to be whether or not Dr. Kreizler would be willing to get involved in the case. I took a lot more grilling on this score, along with Cyrus, after he got back from the Astoria, and I’ll confess that the both of us grew a little defensive after a while. Whatever our own fascination with the case, our first loyalty was to the Doctor, and the Linares business was quickly growing into something much deeper and more challenging than a night’s diversion. Neither Cyrus nor I was sure that the Doctor was in any shape to go getting involved with a venture what was so demanding. It was true, as Mr. Moore pointed out, that given the court order, our friend and employer would have some time on his hands; but it was also true that the man was in sore need of rest and healing. Miss Howard respectfully observed that the Doctor always seemed to find the most peace and solace in some kind of work; but Cyrus answered that he was at a lower point than any of us had ever witnessed before and that sooner or later every person has to stop and take a breather. There was just no way to call it in advance, and by meal’s end we’d come back to the same conclusion I’d voiced to the others as we’d left Number 808: the Doctor’s reaction to the idea was going to be determined by how hard he took his departure from the Institute. Cyrus and I promised that one or the other of us would phone Mr. Moore at the Times as soon as the Doctor was back home. Then we all went our respective ways, each bearing the queer feeling that the actions we took in the next day or two could have ripples what would reach far beyond the confines of Manhattan, an island that suddenly seemed, somehow, smaller.