The Alienist

CHAPTER 37

Not wanting to see or talk to anyone after I left the morgue, I ordered my cabbie to take me to Number 808 Broadway. The building was fairly deserted, and when I stumbled into our headquarters the only sound I could hear was the blast of rain against the ring of Gothic windows around me. I collapsed onto the Marchese Carcano’s divan and stared at the large, note-covered chalkboard, my spirits sinking ever lower. Grief and hopelessness were finally and mercifully overwhelmed by exhaustion, and I fell asleep for most of the dark, gloomy day. But at about five o’clock I shot up to the sound of loud knocking at the front door. Staggering over and opening the thing, I found myself facing a dripping Western Union boy who had a sodden envelope in his hand. I took the message from him and peeled it apart, my lips moving rather idiotically as I read it:

CAPTAIN MILLER, FORT YATES, CONFIRMS CPL JOHN BEECHAM HAD FACIAL SPASM. CARRIED SIMILAR KNIFE. KNOWN TO CLIMB MOUNTAINS WHEN OFF DUTY. ADVISE.

As I finished reading the wire for a third time, I became aware that the delivery boy was saying something, and I looked up blankly. “What’s that?”

“Reply, sir,” the boy said impatiently. “Do you want to send a reply?”

“Oh.” I thought about it for a moment, trying to decide what the best course would be in light of the morning’s developments. “Oh…yes.”

“You’ll have to write it down on something dry,” the boy said. “My forms are soaked.”

I walked over to my desk, pulled out a slip of paper, and scribbled a short note: RETURN BY FASTEST TRAIN. EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY. The delivery boy read the thing and gave me a price for its transmission, to which I pulled some money out of my pocket and handed it to him uncounted. The boy’s attitude immediately improved, from which I divined that I’d given him a sizable tip, and then he was back in the elevator and on his way.

There seemed little point in the Isaacsons staying in North Dakota if our investigation was about to come to an abrupt conclusion. Indeed, if Kreizler was serious about dealing himself out of the game there seemed little point in any of us doing anything except cashing in our chips and heading back to our ordinary walks of life. Whatever understanding Sara, the Isaacsons, and I had of our killer was due to Laszlo’s tutelage, and as I looked out over rainswept Broadway, where furtive shoppers were doing their best to avoid rushing carriages and delivery wagons as they tried to get in out of the downpour, I could imagine no way in which we could succeed without his continued leadership.

I’d just reconciled myself to this conclusion when I heard a key turning in the front door. Sara came bustling in, umbrella and grocery parcels in hand, her movements and air nothing like they’d been that morning. She was stepping and talking quickly, even lightly, as if nothing at all had happened.

“It’s a flood, John!” she announced, shaking her umbrella and depositing it in the ceramic stand. She took off her wrap, then lugged her parcels back toward the little kitchen. “You can barely get across Fourteenth Street on foot, and it’s worth your life to try to find a cab.”

I looked back out the window. “Cleans the streets, though,” I said.

“Do you want something to eat?” Sara called. “I’ll get some coffee going, and I brought food—sandwiches will have to do, I’m afraid.”

“Sandwiches?” I answered, not very enthusiastically. “Couldn’t we just go out somewhere?”

“Out?” Sara said, reemerging from the kitchen and coming over to me. “We can’t go out, we’ve got—” She stopped as she caught sight of the Isaacsons’ telegram, then picked it up carefully. “What’s this?”

“Marcus and Lucius,” I answered. “They got confirmation on John Beecham.”

“But that’s wonderful, John!” Sara said in a rush. “Then we—”

“I’ve already sent a reply,” I interrupted, disturbed by her manner. “Told them to get back as soon as they can.”

“Even better,” Sara said. “I doubt if there’s much more for them to discover out there, and we’ll need them here.”

“Need them?”

“We’ve got work to do,” Sara answered simply.

My shoulders drooped with the realization that my worries about her attitude had been well founded. “Sara, Kreizler told me this morning that—”

“I know,” she answered. “He told me, as well. What of it?”

“What of it? It’s over, that’s what of it. How are we supposed to go on without him?”

She shrugged. “As we went on with him. Listen to me, John.” Grabbing hold of my shoulders, Sara led me over to my desk and sat me on it. “I know what you’re thinking—but you’re wrong. We’re good enough now without him. We can finish this.”

My head had started shaking even before she finished this statement. “Sara, be serious—we don’t have the training, we don’t have the background—”

“We don’t need any more than we have, John,” she answered firmly. “Remember what Kreizler himself taught us—context. We don’t need to know everything about psychology, or alienism, or the history of all similar cases to finish this job. All we need to know is this man, his particular case—and we do, now. In fact, when we put together what we’ve gathered during the last week, I’ll bet that we know him as well as he knows himself—perhaps even better. Dr. Kreizler was important, but he’s gone now, and we don’t need him. You can’t quit. You mustn’t.”

There were undeniable bits of truth in what she was saying, and I took a minute to digest them; but then my head began to shake again. “Look, I know how much this opportunity means to you. I know how much it could have helped you convince the department—”

I shut up instantly as she took a good cut at my shoulder with her right fist. “Damn it, John, don’t insult me! Do you honestly think I’m doing this just for the opportunity? I’m doing it because I want to sleep soundly again someday—or have your little trips up and down the eastern seaboard made you forget?” She dashed over and grabbed some photographs off of Marcus’s desk. “Remember these, John?” I glanced down only briefly, knowing what she held: pictures of the various crime scenes. “Do you really think you’re going to spend many easy hours if you stop now? And what happens when the next boy is killed? How will you feel then?”

“Sara,” I protested, my voice rising to match hers, “I’m not talking about what I’d prefer here! I’m talking about what’s practical.”

“How practical is it to walk away?” she shouted back. “Kreizler’s only doing it because he has to—he’s been hurt, hurt as badly as anyone can be, and this is the only way he can find to respond. But that’s him, John. We can go on! We’ve got to go on!”

Letting her arms fall to her sides, Sara took several deep breaths, then smoothed her dress, walked across the room, and pointed to the right side of the chalkboard. “The way I see it,” she said evenly, “we’ve got three weeks to get ready. We can’t waste a minute.”

“Three weeks?” I said. “Why?”

She went over to Kreizler’s desk and picked up the thin volume with the cross on its cover. “The Christian calendar,” she said, holding it up. “I assume you found out why he’s following it?”

I shrugged. “Well, we may have. Victor Dury was a reverend. So the—the—” I tried to find an expression, and finally latched onto one that sounded like something Kreizler would have said: “The rhythms of the Dury house, the cycle of the family’s life, would naturally have coincided with it.”

Sara’s mouth curled up. “You see, John? You weren’t entirely wrong about a priest being involved.”

“And there was something else,” I said, thinking back to the questions that Kreizler had put to Adam Dury just as we were leaving the latter’s farm. “The reverend was fond of holidays—gave some rattling good sermons, apparently. But his wife…” I tapped a finger slowly on my desk, considering the idea; then, realizing its importance, I looked up. “It was his wife who was Japheth’s chief tormentor, according to his brother—and she gave the boys hellfire and brimstone over holidays.”

Sara looked very gratified. “Remember what we said about the killer hating dishonesty and hypocrisy? Well, if his father’s preaching one thing in his sermons, while at the same time, at home…”

“Yes,” I mumbled, “I do see it.”

Sara returned to the chalkboard slowly, and then did something that rather struck me: She picked up a piece of chalk and, without hesitation, jotted down the information I’d given her on the left-hand side of the board. Her handwriting, at that angle, was not quite as neat and practiced as Kreizler’s, but it looked like it belonged there, just the same. “He’s reacting to a cycle of emotional crisis that’s existed all his life,” Sara said confidently, setting the chalk back down. “Sometimes the crises are so severe that he kills—and the one he’ll reach in three weeks may be the worst of all.”

“So you’ve said,” I answered. “But I don’t remember there being any significant holy days in late June.”

“Not significant for everyone,” Sara said, opening the calendar. “But for him…”

She held the book out to me, pointing to one page in particular. I looked down to see the notation for Sunday, June 21st: The Feast of Saint John the Baptist. My eyes jumped open.

“Most churches don’t make much of a to-do about it anymore,” Sara said quietly. “But—”

“Saint John the Baptist,” I said quietly. “Water!”

Sara nodded. “Water.”

“Beecham,” I whispered, making a connection that, though perhaps a long shot, was nonetheless apparent: “John Beecham…”

“What do you mean?” Sara asked. “The only Beecham I found any mention of in New Paltz was a George.”

It was my turn to go to the board and pick up the chalk. Tapping it on the boxed-off area marked THE MOLDING VIOLENCE AND/OR MOLESTATION, I explained at high speed: “When Japheth Dury was eleven, he was attacked—raped—by a man his brother worked with. A man who’d befriended him, a man he trusted. That man’s name was George Beecham.” A small, urgent sound came out of Sara, and one of her hands went to her mouth. “Now, if Japheth Dury, in fact, took the name Beecham after the killings, in order to begin a new life—”

“Of course,” Sara said. “He became the tormentor!”

I nodded eagerly. “And why the name John?”

“The Baptist,” Sara answered. “The purifier!”

I laughed once and wrote these thoughts down in the appropriate segments of the board. “It’s just speculation, but—”

“John,” Sara said, admonishing me good-humoredly. “That entire board is just speculation. But it works.” I set the chalk down and turned back around to find Sara absolutely beaming. “You see now, don’t you?” she said. “We’ve got to do it, John—we’ve got to keep going!”

And of course we did.

So began twenty of the most extraordinary and difficult days of my life. Knowing that the Isaacsons would not get back to New York any earlier than Wednesday night, Sara and I set ourselves the task of sharing, interpreting, and recording all the information we’d gathered during the previous week, in order to have it ready for the detective sergeants to quickly assimilate on their return. We spent most of the next few days together at Number 808, going over facts and—on a less obvious, unacknowledged level—reshaping the atmosphere and spirit of our headquarters so as to ensure that Kreizler’s would not become a crippling absence. All obvious signs and reminders of Laszlo’s presence were quietly put aside or removed, and we pushed his desk into a corner, so that the other four could be re-formed into a smaller (or rather, as I chose to view it, tighter) ring. Neither Sara nor I were particularly happy about doing any of this, but we tried not to be sad or maudlin, either. As always, focus was the key: so long as we kept our vision steadily fixed on the twin goals of preventing another murder and capturing our killer, we found we could get through even the most painful and disorienting moments of transition.

Not that we simply wiped Kreizler out of our minds; on the contrary, Sara and I spoke of him several times, in an effort to fully comprehend just what twists and turns his mind had taken after Mary’s death. Naturally, these conversations involved some discussion of Laszlo’s past; and thinking about the unfortunate reality of Kreizler’s upbringing as I talked with Sara dispelled the last of the anger I felt over Laszlo’s abandonment of the investigation, to the extent that on Tuesday morning I actually went, without telling Sara, back to Kreizler’s house.

I made the trip in part to see how Stevie and Cyrus were doing, but primarily to smooth over the bumps and cracks that had been left by Laszlo’s and my parting at Bellevue. Thankfully, I found that my old friend was also anxious to put things right in this regard, though he was still quite determined not to return to our investigation. He spoke of Mary’s death quietly, making it easy for me to appreciate how thoroughly his spirit had been savaged by the incident. But more than that, I think it was the shattering of his confidence that prevented him from coming back to the hunt. For only the second time in his life that I could recall (the first having occurred during the week before we visited Jesse Pomeroy), Laszlo seemed to truly doubt his own judgment. And while I didn’t agree with his self-indictment, I certainly couldn’t blame him. Every human being must find his own way to cope with such severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses. And so I finally shook Laszlo’s hand and accepted his determination to bow out of our work, even though it pained me deeply. We said goodbye, and I wondered again how we would ever get along without him; yet before I’d even gotten clear of his front yard, my thoughts had turned back to the case.

Sara’s trip to New Paltz, I learned during those three days before the Isaacsons returned, had confirmed many of our hypotheses concerning our killer’s childhood years. She’d been able to locate several of Japheth Dury’s contemporaries, and they acknowledged—rather ruefully, to give them their due—that the boy had suffered much mockery because of his violent facial spasms. Throughout his years at school (and as Marcus had speculated, the New Paltz school had taught the Palmer system of handwriting at that time), as well as on those special occasions when he accompanied his parents into town, Japheth would often be set on by gangs of children who made a great game out of competing to see who could most accurately imitate the boy’s tic. This last was no ordinary twitch, the now-grown citizens of New Paltz had assured Sara: it was a contraction so severe that Japheth’s eyes and mouth would be pulled around almost to the side of his head, as if he were in terrible pain and were about to break into violent tears. Apparently—and strangely—he never struck back when attacked by the children of New Paltz, and never turned a spiteful tongue on anyone who teased him; rather, he always went silently about his business, so that after a few years the children in town grew bored of tormenting him. Those few years, however, had apparently been enough to poison Japheth’s spirit, coming as they did on top of a lifetime’s coexistence with someone who never tired of hounding him: his own mother.

Sara didn’t crow excessively about the extent to which she’d been able to predict the character of that mother, though God knows she would’ve been justified in doing so. Her interviews in New Paltz had supplied her with only a general description of Mrs. Dury, but she’d read enough into those generalities to be very encouraged. Japheth’s mother was well remembered in the town, partly for her zealous advocacy of her husband’s missionary work, but even more vividly for her harsh, cold manner. Indeed, it was widely held among New Paltz’s other matrons that Japheth Dury’s facial spasms had been the result of his mother’s relentless badgering (thus demonstrating that folk wisdom can sometimes attain the status of psychological insight). Encouraging as all this was, it gave Sara only a fraction of the satisfaction offered by Adam Dury’s account. Almost every one of Sara’s hypotheses—from our killer’s mother having been an unwilling bride, to her dislike of childbearing, to her scatological harassment of her son from an early age—had been borne out by what Laszlo and I had heard in Dury’s barn; Adam had even told us that his mother often told Japheth he was a dirty red Indian. A woman had indeed played a “sinister role” in our killer’s life; and while the reverend’s may have been the hand that actually administered beatings in the Dury household, Mrs. Dury’s behavior appeared to have represented another sort of punishment to both her sons, one that was just as powerful. Indeed, Sara and I felt confident in saying that if one of Japheth’s parents had been the “primary” or “intended” victim of his murderous rage, it was almost certainly his mother.

In sum, it now seemed certain that we were dealing with a man whose fantastic bitterness toward the most influential woman in his life had led him to shun the company of women generally. This left us with the question of why he should have chosen to kill boys who dressed up and behaved like females, rather than de facto women. In coming up with an answer to this riddle, Sara and I were led back to our earlier theory that the victims all possessed character traits not unlike the killer’s own. The hateful relationship between Japheth Dury and his mother must, we reasoned, have spilled over into self-hatred, as well—for how could any boy despised by his mother fail to question his own worth? Thus Japheth’s anger had crossed sexual lines, becoming a sort of hybrid, or mongrel; and it had found its only release in destroying boys who embodied, in their behavior, similar ambiguity.

The final step in Sara’s and my process of assembling our recently collected clues was the fleshing out of our killer’s transformation from Japheth Dury into John Beecham. Sara had learned little about George Beecham in New Paltz—he’d lived in the town for just a year, and only appeared in local records because he’d voted in the 1874 congressional election—but we were fairly sure that we understood the selection of the name, nonetheless. Since the beginning of our investigation, it had been clear to all of us that we were dealing with a sadistic personality, one whose every action betrayed an obsessive desire to change his role in life from that of the victim to that of the tormentor. It was perversely logical that, as a way of initiating and symbolizing this transformation, he should alter his name to that of a man who had once betrayed and violated him; and it was just as logical that he should keep that name when he began to murder children who apparently trusted him in just the way that he had once trusted George Beecham. There was a clear sense that, careful as the killer doubtless was to cultivate that trust, he despised his victims for being foolish enough to give it. Again, he hoped to eradicate an intolerable element of his own personality by eradicating mirror reflections of the child he’d once been.

And so Japheth Dury had become John Beecham, who, according to the assessments of his doctors at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, was highly sensitive to scrutiny of any kind, and also harbored at least strong feelings (if not outright delusions) of persecution. It was unlikely that these traits of personality had been much ameliorated after his release from St. Elizabeth’s in the late summer of 1886, since that release had been secured through the exploitation of a legal technicality and against the doctors’ wishes; and if indeed John Beecham was our killer, then, in fact, his suspicion, hostility, and violence had only worsened over the years. Sara and I determined that in order for Beecham to have gained the thorough familiarity with New York that he evidently had, he must have come to the city very soon after his release from St. Elizabeth’s, and stayed in it ever since. There was cause for hope in this supposition, because he’d probably had contact with a good many people over the course of ten years, and become, in some neighborhood or walk of life, a familiar character. Of course, we didn’t know precisely what he looked like; but, starting with the physical characteristics that we’d theorized early on, and then refining them by using Adam Dury as a physical model, we believed we could concoct a description that, in conjunction with the name John Beecham, would make identification a fairly easy matter. Of course, there was no guarantee that he was still using the name John Beecham; but both Sara and I believed that, given what the name meant to him, he had continued and would continue to do so, until forced to stop.

That was about all the hypothesizing we could do, pending the Isaacsons’ return. Wednesday evening arrived, however, without our having had any word from the detective sergeants, and so Sara and I decided to attend to another unpleasant task: that of convincing Theodore to allow us to go on with the investigation in spite of Kreizler’s departure. We both suspected that this wasn’t going to be easy. It had only been Roosevelt’s great respect for Kreizler that had allowed him to consider the idea in the first place (that, and his propensity for unorthodox solutions). Having spent the beginning of the week searching for Connor, as well as attending to the ongoing battle between the forces of reform and corruption at Police Headquarters, Roosevelt remained unapprised of developments within our investigation as of Wednesday evening; but, knowing that he would learn the truth from either Kreizler or the Isaacsons eventually, Sara and I decided to take the bear by the ears and tell him ourselves.

Anxious to avoid stirring up a potentially dangerous new round of speculation among the journalists and detectives at headquarters, we elected to visit Theodore at his home. He and his wife, Edith, had recently rented a town house at 689 Madison Avenue that belonged to Theodore’s sister, Bamie, a comfortable, well-furnished home that was nonetheless inadequate to the task of containing the antics of the five Roosevelt children. (It must be remembered, in fairness, that the White House itself would soon prove similarly inadequate.) Knowing that Theodore generally made sure to be home for dinner with his brood, Sara and I took a hansom up Madison Avenue to Sixty-third Street at about six o’clock, mounting the steps of Number 689 at sunset.

Before I’d even rapped on the door the sounds of youthful mayhem became audible from within. The front portal was eventually opened by Theodore’s second son, Kermit, who at the time was six years old. He wore the traditional white shirt, knickers, and longish hair of a boy of his age during that era; but in his right fist he rather ominously held what I supposed to be the horn of an African rhinoceros, mounted on a heavy stand. His face was all defiance.

“Hello, Kermit,” I said with a grin. “Is your father at home?”

“No one shall pass!” the boy shouted grimly, staring me in the eye.

I lost my grin. “I beg your pardon?”

“No one shall pass!” he repeated. “I, Horatio, will guard this bridge!”

Sara let out a small laugh and I nodded in acknowledgment. “Ah. Yes, Horatio at the bridge. Well, Horatio, if it’s all the same to you…”

I took a step or two into the house, to which Kermit raised the rhino horn and banged it down with surprising force on the toes of my right foot. I let out a sharp cry of pain, prompting Sara to laugh harder, as Kermit again declared, “No one shall pass!”

Just then Edith Roosevelt’s pleasant but firm voice echoed in from somewhere to the rear of the house: “Kermit! What’s going on out there?”

Kermit’s eyes suddenly went round with apprehension, and then he spun and made for the nearby staircase, hollering “Retreat! Retreat!” as he went. With the pain in my toes beginning to subside I marked the approach of a rather serious-looking young girl of four or so: Theodore’s younger daughter, Ethel. She was carrying a large picture book full of vivid zoological illustrations and walking with evident purpose; but when she caught sight first of Sara and me and then of Kermit vanishing up the stairs, she paused, flicking a thumb in her brother’s direction.

“Horatio at the bridge,” she droned, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Then she put her face back in the book and continued her progress down the hall.

Suddenly a doorway to our right burst open, producing a rotund, uniformed, and clearly terrified maid. (There were very few servants in the Roosevelt household: Theodore’s father, a prodigious philanthropist, had given away much of the family fortune, and Theodore supported his family primarily through his writing and his meager salary.) The maid seemed oblivious of Sara’s and my presence as she dashed over to take refuge behind the open front door.

“No!” she screamed, to no one that I could see. “No, Master Ted, I will not do it!”

The hall doorway through which the maid had appeared thereupon disgorged an eight-year-old boy who wore a solemn gray suit and spectacles much like Theodore’s. This was Ted, the oldest son, whose status as scion of the family was amply demonstrated not only by his appearance, but by a rather intimidating young barred owl that sat perched on his shoulder, as well as by a dead rat that he held by its tail in one gloved hand.

“Patsy, you really are being ridiculous,” Ted said to the maid. “If we don’t teach him what his natural prey is, we’ll never be able to send him back into the wild. Just hold the rat above his beak—” Ted stopped as he finally became aware that there were two callers standing in the doorway. “Oh,” he said, his eyes brightening behind the spectacles. “Good evening, Mr. Moore.”

“Evening, Ted,” I answered, shying away from the owl.

The boy turned to Sara. “And you’re Miss Howard, aren’t you? I met you at my father’s office.”

“Well done, Master Roosevelt,” Sara said. “It seems you have a good memory for detail—a scientist needs one.”

Ted smiled very self-consciously at that, then remembered the rat in his hand. “Mr. Moore,” he said quickly, with renewed enthusiasm. “Do you think you could take this rat—here, by the tail—and hold it about an inch above Pompey’s beak? He’s not used to the sight of prey, and it sometimes scares him—he’s been living on strips of raw beefsteak. I’ve got to have a free hand to make sure he doesn’t fly off.”

One less accustomed to life in the Roosevelt household might’ve balked at this request; I, however, having been present for many such scenes, simply sighed, took the rat by the tail, and positioned it as Ted had requested. The owl spun his head around once or twice rather bizarrely, then lifted his large wings and flapped them in apparent confusion. Ted, however, had a good hold of the talons with his gloved hand, and proceeded to make some hooting, squealing sounds that seemed to calm the bird. Eventually Pompey turned his remarkably flexible neck so that his beak was pointing directly at the ceiling, grabbed the rat by the head, and proceeded to swallow the thing, tail and all, in a half-dozen gruesome gulps.

Ted grinned wide. “Good boy, Pompey! That’s better than boring old steak, isn’t it? Now all you’ve got to do is learn to catch them for yourself, and then you can go off and be with your friends!” Ted turned to me. “We found him in a hollow tree in Central Park—his mother’d been shot, and the other hatchlings were already dead. He’s come along fine, though.”

“Look out, below!” came a sudden cry from the top of the stairs, at which Ted’s face grew very anxious and he hustled back out of the hall with his owl. The maid tried to follow him, but became transfixed by the sight of a large white mass that was bulleting down from the second floor atop the staircase bannister. Unable to decide which way to run, the maid finally crumpled to the floor and covered her head with a shriek, narrowly avoiding what might have been a very grim collision with Miss Alice Roosevelt, twelve years old. Slamming from the bannister to a carpet on the floor with well-practiced skill and a howling laugh, Alice proceeded to jump up, straighten her rather busy white dress, and hold a taunting finger out to the maid.

“Patsy, you great goose!” she laughed. “I’ve told you, never stay still, you’ve got to pick a direction and run!” Turning the delicate, pretty face that would, in several years, cut a swath through Washington’s most eligible bachelors like a scythe through so much wheat, Alice faced Sara and me, smiling and curtsying ever so slightly. “Hello, Mr. Moore,” she said, with the confidence of a girl who knows, even at twelve, the power of her own charms. “And is this really Miss Howard?” she went on, more excitedly and ingenuously. “One of the women who works at headquarters?”

“It is, indeed,” I replied. “Sara, meet Alice Lee Roosevelt.”

“How do you do, Alice?” Sara said, extending a hand.

Alice was all mature confidentiality as she took Sara’s hand and replied, “I know that a lot of people think it’s scandalous that women are working at headquarters, Miss Howard, but I think it’s bully!” She held up a small satchel, the drawstring of which was wrapped around her wrist. “Would you like to see my snake?” she asked, and before the somewhat startled Sara could answer Alice had produced a wriggling, two-foot garter snake.

“Alice!” It was Edith’s voice again, and this time I turned to see her lithely moving down the hallway toward us. “Alice,” she repeated, in the careful but authoritative voice she used with this, the only child in the house that was not her own. “I do think, dear, that we might let newcomers in the house get their things off and sit down before we introduce them to the reptiles. Hello, Miss Howard. John.” Edith touched Alice’s forehead gently. “You’re the one I depend on for civilized behavior, you know.”

Alice smiled up at Edith and then turned to Sara again, putting the snake back in the satchel. “I’m sorry, Miss Howard. Won’t you come into the parlor and sit down? I’ve so many questions I want to ask you!”

“And I’d love to answer them sometime,” Sara said amiably. “But I’m afraid we need to talk to your father for a few minutes—”

“I can’t imagine why, Sara,” Theodore boomed, as he emerged from his study and into the hallway. “You’ll find that the children are the real authorities in this house. You’d be better off talking to them.”

At the sound of their father’s voice the other Roosevelt children we’d encountered reappeared and mobbed him, each shouting out the events of his or her day in an effort to gain his counsel and approval. Sara and I watched this scene along with Edith, who simply shook her head and sighed, unable to quite comprehend (as was anyone acquainted with the family) the miracle of her husband’s relationship to his children.

“Well,” Edith finally said to us quietly, still watching her family, “you’d better have pressing business indeed, if you intend to break the power of that lobby.” Then she turned our way, comprehension evident in her glittering, rather exotic eyes. “Although I understand that all your business, these days, is pressing.” I nodded once, and then Edith clapped her hands loudly. “All right, my terrible tribe! Now that you’ve almost certainly woken Archie from his nap, what about washing up for dinner?” (Archie, at two, was the baby of the family; young Quentin, whose death in 1918 would have such a catastrophic effect on Theodore’s emotional and physical health, had not yet been born in 1896.) “And no guests that aren’t human tonight,” Edith went on. “I mean that, Ted. Pompey will be perfectly happy in the kitchen.”

Ted grinned. “Patsy won’t be, though.”

Reluctantly but without loud protest the children dispersed, while Sara and I followed Theodore into his book-lined study. Works in progress covered several desks and tables in this ample room, along with a plethora of open reference volumes and large maps. Theodore cleared off two chairs near one particularly large and cluttered desk by the window, and then we all sat down. No longer in the children’s presence, Roosevelt seemed to take on a subdued air, one that struck me as odd, given events at headquarters in recent days: Mayor Strong had asked one of Theodore’s chief enemies on the Board of Commissioners to resign, and though the man had refused to go without a fight, there was a general feeling that Roosevelt was gaining the upper hand in the struggle. I congratulated him on this, but he just waved me off and put a fist to his hip.

“I’m not at all sure how much it will amount to, John, in the end,” he said gloomily. “There are times when I feel that the job we have undertaken is not one that can be addressed at the metropolitan level alone. Corruption in this city is like the mythical beast, only instead of seven heads it springs a thousand for every one that is cut off. I don’t know that this administration has the power to effect truly meaningful change.” Such wasn’t the kind of mood that Roosevelt would tolerate for long, however. He picked up a book, slammed it down on his desk, and then looked at us through his pince-nez engagingly. “However, that’s none of your affair. Tell me—what news?”

It didn’t prove quite so easy to get our news out, however; and once Sara and I finally had, Theodore slowly sank into his chair and leaned back, as though his melancholy mood had just been validated.

“I’ve been worried about what Kreizler’s reaction to this outrage would be,” he said quietly. “But I confess I didn’t think that he’d abandon the effort.”

At that point I decided to tell Theodore the entire story of Kreizler’s and Mary Palmer’s relationship in an attempt to make him understand just how crushing an effect Mary’s death had had on Laszlo. Remembering that Theodore had also endured the tragic and early loss of someone very dear to him—his first wife—I expected him to react with sympathy, which he did; but a crease of doubt nonetheless remained lodged in his forehead.

“And you’re saying that you wish to go on without him?” he asked. “You believe you can see it through?”

“We know enough,” Sara answered quickly. “That is, we will know enough, by the time the killer strikes again.”

Theodore looked surprised. “And when will that be?”

“Eighteen days,” Sara answered. “The twenty-first of June.”

Folding his hands behind his head, Roosevelt began to rock back and forth slowly as he studied Sara. Then he turned to me. “It’s not just grief that’s caused him to withdraw, is it?”

I shook my head. “No. He’s full of doubts about his own judgment and abilities. I never really understood before how much he’s tortured by that—self-doubt. It’s hidden most of the time, but it goes back…”

“Yes,” Roosevelt said, nodding and rocking. “His father.” Sara and I glanced at each other quickly, both of us shaking our heads to indicate that we had not divulged the story. Theodore smiled gently. “You remember my bout with Kreizler in the Hemenway Gymnasium, Moore? And the night we had afterwards? At one point he and I were rearguing the question of free will—quite congenially, mind you—and he asked me when I’d learned to box. I told him how my dear father had built me a small gym when I was a boy and taught me that vigorous exercise represented my best chance of overcoming illness and asthma. Kreizler asked if, as an experiment, I thought I could force myself to live a sedate life—to which I replied that everything I’d ever learned and held dear required me to be a man of action. I didn’t realize it right away, but I’d proved his point. Then, out of curiosity, I asked him about his own father, whom I’d often heard mention of in New York. His aspect changed—drastically. I’ll never forget it. He glanced away, and for the first time he seemed afraid to look me in the face—and then he grabbed at that bad arm of his. There was something so instinctive in the way he did it, at the merest mention of his father’s name, that I began to suspect the truth. Needless to say, I was utterly aghast at the thought of what his life had been like. And yet I was fascinated, too—fascinated by how different that life had been from my own. How does the world look, I often found myself wondering, to a young man whose father is his enemy?”

Neither Sara nor I could offer any answer to the question. For several minutes the three of us just sat in silence; and then, from outside, we heard Alice shout vehemently:

“I don’t care if he is a Strix varia varia, Theodore Roosevelt, Junior! He’s not going to eat my snake!”

That brought quiet laughter from those of us in the study, and got us back to the business at hand.

“So,” Theodore said, with another pound of another book on his desk. “The investigation. Tell me this—now that we have a name and an approximate description, why not make it a standard manhunt and let my men turn the city upside down?”

“And do what when they find him?” Sara replied. “Make an arrest? With what evidence?”

“He’s been a lot smarter than that,” I agreed. “We’ve got no witnesses, and no evidence that would be admissible in court. Speculations, fingerprints, an unsigned note—”

“Which shows at least several signs of deceptive script,” Sara threw in.

“And God knows what he’ll do if he’s captured and then released,” I went on. “No, the Isaacsons have said from the beginning that this is going to have to be a flagrante delicto case—we’ll have to catch him at it.”

Theodore accepted all this with several slow nods. “Well,” he eventually said, “I fear that presents us with a new set of challenges. Kreizler’s departure from the investigation, you may be surprised to learn, won’t make things any easier for me. Mayor Strong has learned of the rigor with which I’ve been searching for Connor, and why. He views that search as another way in which this department might be connected to Kreizler, and has asked that I not jeopardize my position by letting my personal relationship with the doctor make me overly aggressive. He’s also heard rumors that the Isaacson brothers are pursuing an independent investigation of the boy-whore murders, and he’s ordered me not only to stop them, if the rumors are true, but to proceed with great caution regarding the case generally. You probably haven’t heard about the trouble last night.”

“Last night?” I said.

Roosevelt nodded. “There was some sort of a gathering in the Eleventh Ward, supposedly to protest the handling of the murders. The organizers were a group of Germans, and they claimed it was a political event—but there was enough whiskey in evidence to float a small ship.”

“Kelly?” Sara asked.

“Perhaps,” Roosevelt answered. “What’s certain is that they were on their way to getting well out of hand before they were broken up. The political implications of this case are growing more serious every day—and Mayor Strong has, I fear, reached that deplorable state where concern over the consequences of action leads to paralysis. He wants no precipitate steps taken in this matter.” Theodore paused to give Sara a small, only half-serious frown. “He’s also heard rumors, Sara, that you’ve been working with the Isaacsons—and as you know, there are many who will protest vehemently if they find out that a woman is actively involved in a murder investigation.”

“Then I’ll redouble my efforts,” Sara answered with a coy smile, “to conceal that involvement.”

“Hmm, yes,” Theodore noised dubiously. He studied us for a few seconds more, then nodded. “Here’s what I’ll offer you—take the next eighteen days. Find out all you can. But when the twenty-first comes around, I want you to tell me everything you know, so that I can post officers I trust at every potential murder site and avenue of escape.” Roosevelt pounded one beefy fist into his other hand. “I will not have another of these butcheries.”

I turned to Sara, who gave the deal quick consideration and then nodded certainly.

“We can keep the detective sergeants?” I asked.

“Of course,” Roosevelt answered.

“Done.” I put my hand forward and Theodore shook it, taking his pince-nez from his nose.

“I only hope you all have learned enough,” Roosevelt said, as he turned to shake Sara’s hand. “The idea of leaving my post without solving this case is not one that I relish.”

“You planning to quit, Roosevelt?” I jibed. “Has Platt finally made things too warm for you?”

“Nothing of the sort,” he replied gruffly. Then it was his turn to coyly reveal his legion of teeth. “But the conventions are coming up, Moore, and then the election. McKinley will be our party’s man, unless I’m mistaken, while the Democrats look as though they’ll actually be foolish enough to nominate Bryan—victory will be ours this fall.”

I nodded. “Going to campaign, are you?”

Theodore shrugged modestly. “I’ve been told that I can be of some use—in both New York and the western states.”

“And if McKinley should prove grateful for your help…”

“Now, John,” Sara chided sarcastically. “You know how the commissioner feels about such speculation.”

Roosevelt’s eyes went round. “You, young lady, have spent too much time away from headquarters—dashed impudence!” Then he relaxed and waved us toward the door. “Go on, get out. I’ve got a pile of official papers to sort through tonight—being as someone seems to have stolen my secretary.”

It was nearly eight o’clock by the time Sara and I got back out onto Madison Avenue; but between the exhilaration of having been allowed to continue our investigation and the warmth of the clear spring night, neither of us felt much like going home. Nor were we in any mood to lock ourselves back up in our headquarters and wait for the Isaacsons to show up, although we were anxious to talk to them as soon as they got back. As we began to stroll downtown a happy compromise occurred to me: we could dine at one of the outdoor tables in front of the St. Denis Hotel, across the avenue from Number 808. Thus positioned, we’d be sure to spot the detective sergeants on their return. This idea suited Sara thoroughly; and as we continued our march down the avenue, she became more thoroughly delighted than I’d ever seen her. There was little of the usual edgy intensity in her manner, though her mind was quite focused and her thoughts were consistently sharp and relevant. The explanation for all this, when it came to me during dinner, wasn’t particularly complicated: despite what Theodore had said about the possible official and public reaction to her involvement in the investigation, Sara was, for the moment, her own woman, a professional detective—in fact if not in name. In the days to come we would face many trials and frustrations, and I would have much cause to be grateful for Sara’s increasingly good spirits—for it was she more than anyone else who became the driving force behind the continuation of our work.

My consumption of wine that night was such that by the time dinner was over, the hedges that separated our table outside the St. Denis from the sidewalk were proving insufficient to contain my ardent attentions to the many lovely women who were innocently drawn to the still-bright windows of McCreery’s store. Sara became quite impatient with my behavior and was on the verge of leaving me to my fate when she caught sight of something across the street. Following her indication I turned around to see a cab pulling up in front of Number 808, from which Marcus and Lucius Isaacson stepped rather wearily. Perhaps it was the wine, or the events of recent days, or even the weather; but I was absolutely overjoyed at the sight of them, and, leaping over the hedges, I dashed across Broadway to offer profuse greetings. Sara followed at a more rational pace. Both Lucius and Marcus had apparently seen a good amount of the sun during their sojourn on the high plains, for their skins had darkened considerably, giving them a warm, healthy look. They seemed very glad to be back, though I wasn’t sure they’d stay that way once they heard about Kreizler’s resignation.

“It’s amazing country out there,” Marcus said, as he pulled their bags off of the hansom. “Puts an entirely different perspective on life in this city, I can tell you that.” He sniffed at the air. “Smells a lot better, too.”

“We were shot at on one train ride,” Lucius added. “A bullet went right through my hat!” He showed us the hole by poking a finger through it. “Marcus says that it wasn’t Indians—”

“It wasn’t Indians,” Marcus said.

“He says that it wasn’t Indians, but I’m not so sure, and Captain Miller at Fort Yates said—”

“Captain Miller was just being polite,” Marcus interrupted again.

“Well, that may be,” Lucius answered. “But he did say—”

“What did he say about Beecham?” Sara asked.

“—he did say that, although most of the larger bands of Indians have been defeated—”

Sara grabbed him. “Lucius. What did he say about Beecham?”

“About Beecham?” Lucius repeated. “Oh. Well. A great deal, actually.”

“A great deal that comes down to one thing,” Marcus said, looking at Sara. He paused, his large brown eyes full of meaning and purpose. “He’s our man—he’s got to be.”