The Alienist

CHAPTER 20

On a particularly pleasant Thursday evening, I was sitting at my desk reading a story in the Times about one Henry B. Bastian of Rock Island, Illinois, who several days earlier had killed three boys who worked on his farm, cut up their bodies, and fed the pieces to his hogs. (The citizens of the town had been unable to think of a cause for the dastardly crime; and when local law enforcement officers had closed in to arrest Bastian, he killed himself, thus eliminating any chance that the world would ever discover or study his motives.) Sara was putting in an increasingly rare appearance at Mulberry Street, and Marcus Isaacson was there, too. He frequently visited headquarters at off-hours, in order to rummage undisturbed through the anthropometry files: Marcus still held out hope that our killer might have a prior criminal record. Lucius and Kreizler, meanwhile, were wrapping up a long afternoon at the Ward’s Island Lunatic Asylum, where they had been studying the phenomena of secondary personalities and brain hemisphere dysfunction, in order to determine if either pathology might characterize our killer.

Kreizler considered such possibilities remote, to say the very least, essentially because patients afflicted with dual consciousnesses (arising from either psychic or physical trauma) did not generally exhibit the capacity for extensive planning that our killer had shown. But Laszlo was determined to chase down even the most improbable theories. Then, too, he genuinely liked such outings with Lucius, which allowed him to trade bits of his unique medical knowledge for invaluable lessons in criminal science. Thus when Kreizler telephoned at about six o’clock to say that he and the detective sergeant had finished their research, I was not entirely surprised to hear more vigor in Laszlo’s voice than had been the case in recent days; and I replied with equal energy when he suggested that we meet for a drink at Brübacher’s Wine Garden on Union Square, where we could compare notes on the day’s activities.

I spent another half an hour on the evening papers, then wrote a note for Sara and Marcus, telling them to come along to Brübacher’s and join us. After pinning the note to the front door, I snatched a walking stick out of the Marchese Carcano’s elegant ceramic stand and headed out into the warm evening, as merrily, I’ll wager, as any man who’s spent the day immersed in blood, mutilation, and murder has ever done.

The mood on Broadway was a festive one, the stores being open late for Thursday evening shopping. It was not yet dusk, but McCreery’s was apparently still on its winter lighting schedule: the windows were bright beacons, offering what seemed certain customer satisfaction to the passing throngs. Evening services had concluded at Grace Church, but there were still a few worshipers gathered outside, their light dress a testament to spring’s long-awaited but irreversible arrival. With a rap of my stick against the pavement I turned north, ready to spend at least a few minutes back among the world of the living, and on my way to one of the best places to do so.

“Papa” Brübacher, a truly gemütlich restaurateur who was always glad to see a regular customer, had assembled one of the best wine and beer cellars in New York, and the terrace of his establishment, across the street from the east side of Union Square, was an ideal place from which to watch people stroll in the park as the sun descended beyond the western terminus of Fourteenth Street. Such, however, were not the principal reasons why sporting gentlemen like myself frequented the place. When streetcars had first made their appearance on Broadway, some unknown conductor had gotten it into his head that if the snakelike bends that the tracks made around Union Square weren’t taken at full speed the car would lose its cable. The other conductors on the line had bought into this never-proven theory, and before long the stretch of Broadway along the park had been dubbed “Dead Man’s Curve,” because of the frequency with which unsuspecting pedestrians and carriage riders lost life or limb to the hurtling streetcars. Brübacher’s terrace provided a commanding view of all this action; and throughout warm afternoons and evenings it was customary, when one of the engines of injury was heard or seen approaching, for bets to be laid among the wine garden’s customers as to the likelihood of an accident occurring. These bets could, on occasion, be sizable, and the guilt that the winners felt when a collision did take place never managed to drive the game out of existence. Indeed, the frequency of accidents, and thus the volume of gaming, had risen to such proportions that Brübacher’s had earned the sobriquet “Monument House,” and was now a required stop for any visitor to New York who aspired to the title of gamesman.

As I crossed Fourteenth Street to the small curbed island east of Union Square that was home to Henry K. Brown’s splendid equestrian statue of General Washington, I began to hear the usual shouts—“Twenty bucks the old lady doesn’t make it!”; “The guy’s only got one leg, he doesn’t have a prayer!”—emanating from Papa Brübacher’s. The call of the game sped my steps, and when I arrived I jumped the ivy-laden iron railing that ringed the terrace and nestled in with a couple of old pals of mine. After ordering a liter of smooth, dark Würzburger that had a head as thick as whipped cream, I rose just long enough to embrace old Brübacher, then finally began to lay bets with a fury.

By the time Kreizler and Lucius Isaacson showed up, at just past seven, my friends and I had witnessed two near-misses on nannies with perambulators and one brush of a streetcar against a very expensive landau. An intense debate as to whether this latter contact constituted a collision ensued, one that I was just as glad to get away from by retreating to a relatively remote corner of the terrace with Lucius and Kreizler, who ordered a bottle of Didesheimer. The debate that I found them engaged in, however, steeped as it was in references to brain parts and functions, proved no more entertaining. The distant sound of an approaching streetcar at last signaled a new round of betting, and I had just wagered the full contents of my billfold on the agility of a fruit peddler when I looked up to find myself face-to-face with Marcus and Sara.

I was going to suggest that they get in on the action, as the fruit peddler’s pushcart was particularly heavy-laden and the encounter looked to be an exciting even-money affair; but when I paused long enough to study their respective faces and attitudes—Marcus’s wild-eyed and agitated, Sara’s pallid and stunned—I realized that something extraordinary had occurred, and put my money away.

“What in hell’s happened to you two?” I said, setting my beer stein on a table. “Sara, are you all right?”

She nodded rather weakly, and Marcus began to scan the terrace fervently, while fidgeting with his hands uncontrollably. “A telephone,” he said. “John, where’s a telephone?”

“Just inside the door, there. Tell Brübacher you’re a friend of mine, he’ll let you—”

But Marcus was already shooting away from me into the restaurant, while Kreizler and Lucius, who had broken off their conversation, stood and watched in confusion.

“Detective Sergeant,” Kreizler said, as Marcus passed. “Has there been some—”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Marcus said. “I’ve got to—Sara has something you ought to see.” Marcus took two steps inside the open terrace doorway and grabbed the telephone, putting the little conical receiver to his ear and clicking the armrest rapidly. Brübacher looked on in surprise, but at a nod from me he let Marcus continue. “Operator? Hello, operator?” Marcus began to stamp his right foot hard. “Operator! I need to get a line through to Toronto. Yes, that’s right, Canada.”

“Canada?” Lucius echoed, his own eyes going wide. “Oh, God—Alexander Macleod! Then that means—” Lucius glanced at Sara, looking as if he suddenly understood what she’d been through, and then joined his brother at the ’phone. I guided Sara over to Kreizler’s table, and then she very slowly drew an envelope out of her bag.

“This arrived at the Santorellis’ flat yesterday,” she said, in a dry, pained voice. “Mrs. Santorelli brought it to Police Headquarters this morning. She couldn’t read it and was asking for help. No one would give her any, but she refused to go home. Eventually I found her sitting out by the front steps. I translated it. At least, I translated most of it.” She shoved the note into Laszlo’s hand and her head dropped lower. “She didn’t want to keep it, and since there’s nothing anyone at headquarters can do with it, Theodore asked me to bring it along and see what you make of it, Doctor.”

Lucius came back over to join us, and he and I watched anxiously as Kreizler opened the envelope. When Laszlo had glanced over its contents he drew in breath quickly though quietly, and nodded his head. “So,” he noised, in a voice that seemed to say he’d been expecting something like this. Then we all sat down, and without any introduction Kreizler read the following in a very quiet voice (I have preserved the author’s original spelling in this transcription):

My dear Mrs. Santorelli,

I don’t know as it is you what is the source of the vile LIES I read in the newspapers, or if the police are behind it and the reporters are part of their scheme, but as I figger it might be you I take this occashun to straten you out:

In some parts of this world such as where dirty immigrants like yourself come from it is often found that human flesh is eaten regular, as other food is so scarce and people would starve without it. I have personally read this and know it to be true. Of course it is usuly children what is eaten as they are tenderest and best tasting, especially the ass of a small child.

Then these people that eat it come here to America and shit their little children shit all around, which is dirty, dirtier than a Red Injun.

On February 18 I seen your boy parading himself, with ashes and paint on his face. I decided to wait, and saw him several times before one night I took him away from THAT PLACE. Saucy boy, I already knew I must eat him. So we went straight to the bridge and I trussed him and did him quick. I collected his eyes and took his ass and it fed me for a week, roasted with onions and carrots.

But I never fucked him, though I could have and he would have liked me to. He died unsoiled by me, and the papers ought to say so.

“There is no closing and no signature,” Kreizler finished, in a voice that was little more than a whisper. “Understandably.” He sat back and stared at the note on the table.

“Good Christ,” I breathed, falling a few steps back and then into a chair.

“It’s him, all right,” Lucius said, picking up the note and scanning it. “That business about the—the buttocks, that was never reported in any of the papers.” He put the letter down and returned to Marcus, who was still bellowing the name Alexander Macleod into the telephone.

Staring blankly, Sara began to feel into the air behind her for a chair, at which Laszlo snatched one and slipped it under her. “I couldn’t translate the entire thing for the poor woman,” Sara said, her voice still almost inaudible. “But I did give her the gist of it.”

“You did well, Sara,” Kreizler said reassuringly, crouching by her, and being careful that he wasn’t overheard by anyone else on the terrace. “If the killer is aware of her, it’s best that she be aware of him, and of what he’s thinking. But she hardly needs the details.” Returning to his chair, Laszlo tapped one finger on the note. “Well, it appears that opportunity has placed a treasure trove into our hands. I suggest we make use of it.”

“Make use of it?” I said, still in some shock. “Laszlo, how can you—”

Laszlo ignored me, and turned to Lucius. “Detective Sergeant? May I ask who your brother is attempting to contact?”

“Alexander Macleod,” Lucius answered. “The best handwriting man in North America. Marcus studied with him.”

“Excellent,” Kreizler said. “The ideal place to begin. From such an analysis we can proceed into a more generalized discussion.”

“Wait a minute.” I stood up, trying both to keep my voice down and to prevent all the horror and revulsion I felt at the note from rushing out; nevertheless, I was somewhat astounded by their attitude. “We have just found out that this—this person not only killed that boy but ate him, or at least part of him. Now what exactly do you expect to find out from some goddamned handwriting expert?”

Sara looked up, forcing herself to get a grip on it all. “No. No, they’re right, John. I know it’s horrible, but give yourself a minute to think.”

“Indeed, Moore,” Kreizler added. “The nightmare may have deepened for us, but imagine how much more it has done so for the man we seek. This note shows that his desperation has reached a new height. He may, in fact, be entering a terminal phase of self-destructive emotions—”

“What? Excuse me, Kreizler, but what?” My heart was continuing to beat fast, and my voice trembled as I strained to keep it at a whisper. “You’re still going to insist that he’s sane, that he wants us to catch him? He’s eating his victims, for God’s sake!”

“We don’t know that,” Marcus said, quietly but firmly, as he leaned out the terrace doorway and covered the telephone’s mouthpiece with two fingers.

“Precisely,” Kreizler declared, standing and coming round to me as Marcus began to talk into the ’phone again. “He may or may not be eating parts of his victims, John. What he most certainly is doing is telling us that he is eating them, knowing that such a statement can only shock us and cause us to work all the harder to find him. That is a sane action. Remember all we’ve learned: if he were mad he’d kill, cook the flesh, eat it, and God knows what else, without ever telling anyone—at least, not anyone he knew would go directly to the authorities with the information.” Kreizler gripped my arms hard. “Just think what he’s given us—not only handwriting but information, a vast amount of information to be interpreted!”

Just then Marcus yelled “Alexander!” again, but with more satisfaction this time. He smiled as he went on. “Yes, it’s Marcus Isaacson, in New York. I have a rather urgent matter, and I just need to clear up one or two details…” At that Marcus lowered his voice and leaned into a corner by the doorway, his brother staying with him and straining to listen.

Marcus’s telephone conversation lasted another fifteen minutes. In the meantime the note sat on the table, as gruesome and unapproachable in its own way as had been the dead bodies that the killer had left lying all over Manhattan. Indeed, in one respect it was even more frightening: for the killer, despite the ghoulish reality of his work, had thus far been little more than an imaginary patchwork of traits so far as we were concerned. But to hear his particular and bona fide voice changed everything at a shot. No longer could he be anyone out there—he was him, the only person whose mind could plan these acts, the only person capable of speaking these words. Looking around at the shouting bettors on the terrace and then out at the passersby on the street, I suddenly felt that I’d be much more likely now to know him if I met him. It was a new and haunting sensation, one that I had difficulty absorbing; yet even as I grappled with it, I could already sense that Kreizler was right. Whatever terrible and troubling thoughts dominated the murderer, this note could not be dismissed as a series of mad ravings—it was undeniably coherent, though just how coherent I was only on the verge of learning.

As soon as Marcus returned from the ’phone he picked up the letter, sat at the table, and studied the thing intensely for some five minutes. Then he began to make affirmative little humming noises, at which we all drew around him expectantly. Kreizler produced a notepad and a pen, ready to write down anything of value. The calls of the bettors continued to burst out every few minutes, and I shouted over to ask them to keep it down. It was a request that, ordinarily, would have produced howls of outrage and derision; but my voice must have betrayed some of the urgency of the moment, for my friends did comply. Then, in the dwindling light of that beautifully balmy spring evening, Marcus began to expound, quickly but clearly.

“There are two general areas involved in the study of handwriting,” he said, his voice dry with excitement. “First, there’s document examination, in the traditional legal sense—meaning strictly scientific analysis with a view toward comparison and establishing authorship; and second, a group of techniques that are more—well, speculative. This second group isn’t considered scientific, by most people, and it doesn’t carry much weight in court. But we’ve found it very useful in several investigations.” Marcus glanced at Lucius, who nodded without speaking. “So—let’s start with the basics.”

Marcus paused long enough to order a tall glass of Pilsener to keep his throat from drying up, then continued:

“The man—and the attack of the pen in this case is undoubtedly masculine—who wrote this note had at least several years of schooling that entailed penmanship. This schooling occurred in the United States, no more recently than fifteen years ago.” I could not help a befuddled look, to which Marcus explained, “There are clear signs that he was trained, hard and regularly, in the Palmer system of penmanship. Now, the Palmer system was introduced in 1880, and was quickly taken up by schools all over the country. It remained what you might call dominant until just last year, when it began to be replaced in the East and in some big western cities by the Zaner-Blosser method. Assuming that our killer’s primary education ended at no later than age fifteen, he can’t now be any older than thirty-one.”

It seemed a sound line of reasoning; and with small scratching sounds, Kreizler put these points on his pad, to be transferred later to the big chalkboard at Number 808 Broadway.

“All right, then,” Marcus went on. “If we assume that our man’s about thirty now, and that he finished school at fifteen or younger, then he’s had another fifteen years to evolve both his writing and his personality. It doesn’t look like that’s been a particularly pleasant time. To begin with, and as we’ve already guessed, he’s an inveterate liar and schemer—he actually knows his grammar and his spelling, but he’s gone pretty far out of his way to try to make us think that he doesn’t. See, up here, at the top of the note, he’s written ‘straten,’ along with ‘figger’ and ‘occashun.’ He’s had the idea that maybe he can get us to believe that he’s ignorant, but he’s slipped up—at the bottom, he writes that after he snatched Giorgio he took him ‘straight to the bridge,’ and he has no trouble spelling it.”

“One can only assume,” Kreizler mused, “that by the end of the letter he’s concerned with making his point, rather than with playing games.”

“Exactly, Doctor,” Marcus said. “So his writing is extremely natural. The fact that the misspellings are intentional is also indicated by his script—the false passages are much more hesitating and less certain. The t’s in particular lack the hard, slashing definition that they have in the rest of the writing. His grammar reveals the same point: in some spots he tries to mimic the talk of an uneducated farmhand—‘I seen your boy,’ and whatnot—but then he can let off a sentence like, ‘He died unsoiled by me, and the papers ought to say so.’ It’s completely inconsistent—but, assuming he checked back over the thing after writing it, he failed to spot the inconsistency. That indicates that, while he’s unquestionably a capable planner, he may have an exaggerated opinion of his own cleverness.”

After another sip of Pilsener Marcus lit a cigarette and continued, his words finally starting to emerge at a relaxed pace: “Up to this point, we’re on pretty solid ground. All this is good science, and would stand up in a court of law. Age about thirty, several years of decent schooling, a deliberate attempt at deception—no judge would reject it. Now, however, things become less clear-cut. Are any traits of character betrayed by the script itself? A lot of handwriting analysts believe that all people, not just criminals, reveal their basic attitudes during the physical act of writing, regardless of what words are actually written. Macleod’s done a lot of work in this area, and I think it may be useful to apply his principles here.”

A sudden shout of “Jesus Christ, I never seen a fat man move like that in my life!” came from across the terrace, and I was about to make another request for quiet when I saw my friends already attending to the job. Marcus was then free to proceed:

“First of all, the slashing downstrokes and the extreme angularity of a lot of the characters suggest a man who’s pretty tormented—he’s under enormous inner tension of some kind, and it can’t find any vent other than anger. In fact, the thrusting, snapping motion of the hand—you see it, here?—is so pronounced that a tendency toward physical violence, and maybe even sadism, is pretty safe to assume. But it gets more complicated than that, because there are other, contrasting elements. In the high register, what’s called the ‘upper zone’ of the writing, you can see these florid little wanderings of the pen. They usually indicate a writer with imagination. In the lower zones, on the other hand, there’s a fair amount of confusion—it’s most apparent in the tendency to place the loops of letters like g and f on the wrong side of the stem. It doesn’t happen every time, but the fact that it keeps happening is important, given that he’s been trained in penmanship and is at all other times very deliberate and very calculating.”

“Excellent,” Kreizler judged; yet I noticed his pen wasn’t moving. “But I wonder, Detective Sergeant, if these last elements could not have been divined from the contents of the note, as well as from your initial and somewhat more scientific analysis of the handwriting?”

Marcus smiled and nodded. “Probably. And that shows why the so-called art of reading personality into handwriting hasn’t been accepted as a science yet. But I thought it’d be useful to include the observations, because they at least show no marked inconsistency between the content and the script of the note. If it were a fake, you’d almost certainly find that kind of a gap.” Kreizler accepted the statement with a nod, though he still didn’t write any of it down. “Well, that about does it for the handwriting,” Marcus concluded, as he pulled out his vial of carbon powder. “I’m just going to dust the edges of the paper itself for fingerprints and make sure we get a match.”

As he did so, Lucius, who’d been scrutinizing the envelope, spoke up: “There’s nothing particularly revealing about the postmark. The thing was sent from the Old Post Office by City Hall, but our man probably traveled to get there. He’s careful enough to expect that the postmark will be examined. But we can’t rule out the possibility that he lives in the City Hall area.”

Marcus had pulled a set of photographed prints from his pocket, and was holding them against the now smudged letter.

“Um-hmm,” he noised. “A match.” And as he said it the unrealistic but flickering hope that the note was a forgery was snuffed out.

“Which leaves us,” Kreizler said, “with the considerable task of interpreting the contents.” He pulled out his watch and checked the time—nearly nine. “It might be better if our minds were fresh, but…”

“Yes,” Sara said, her balance finally restored, “but.”

We all knew what the “but” was—our killer wasn’t factoring rest periods for his pursuers into his schedule. With that pressing thought in mind, we got up to depart for Number 808 Broadway, where coffee would be brewed. Whatever engagements any of us had been foolish enough to make for later in the evening were implicitly canceled.

As we left the terrace, Laszlo touched my arm, indicating that he wanted a private word. “I had hoped that I was wrong, John,” he said, as the others went ahead. “And I still may be, but—I’ve suspected from the beginning that our man has been observing our efforts. If I’m right he probably followed Mrs. Santorelli to Mulberry Street and kept careful track of whom she spoke to. Sara says she translated the note for the unfortunate woman near the front steps of the building—the killer, if he was there, could not have missed their discussion. He may have followed Sara here; he may be watching us right now.” I spun to look at Union Square and the blocks around us, but Kreizler pulled me back in a jerk. “Don’t—he won’t be visible, and I don’t want any of the others to suspect this. Especially Sara. It may affect their work. But you and I should heighten all precautions.”

“But—watching us? Why?”

“Vanity, perhaps,” Laszlo answered. “Desperation, as well.”

I was dumbfounded. “You say you’ve suspected all along?”

Kreizler nodded as we began to follow the others. “Since we found that bloodstained rag in the calash on the very first day. The torn page that was wrapped up in it was—”

“Was an article of yours,” I said quickly. “Or so I guessed.”

“Yes,” Laszlo answered. “The killer must have been observing the bridge anchor at the time I was called to the scene. I suspect that the page was his way of acknowledging me, somehow. And mocking me, too.”

“But how can you be sure it was definitely the killer who left it?” I asked, looking for a way to avoid the harrowing conclusion that we had been, at least intermittently, under the scrutiny of a murderer.

“The rag,” Kreizler explained. “Though bloodied and soiled, the material bore a striking resemblance to that of the Santorelli boy’s chemise—which, if you recall, was missing a sleeve.”

Ahead of us, Sara had begun to look over her shoulder inquisitively, prompting Laszlo to pick up his pace. “Remember, Moore,” he said. “Not a word to the rest of them.”

Kreizler rushed up to Sara, leaving me to steal one more very nervous glance at the dark expanse of Union Square Park across Fourth Avenue.

The stakes, as they say, were rising.