Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [78]
“Of course you break in,” said Littlemore, “if you’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Everywhere’s the middle of nowhere.”
“No wonder the Miss wants to go back to Europe. You’re so cheerful. Well, I got some news for you. The headless girl from Wall Street? They never identified her. She disappeared from the morgue—body, head, and all.”
“Why am I not surprised to hear that?” asked Younger.
“The one good thing is that they had already done the autopsy. Guess what: she was missing a molar. Couple of molars, actually. It’s not proof, but I’d say we found your Amelia. Found her and lost her, that is. Something else too. Look what my dental guys found.” The detective took out his magnifying glass and, in a handkerchief, two tiny halves of a tooth, which he set down on the table. He let Younger examine them through the magnifying glass. “That’s the tooth Amelia left for the Miss at your hotel. See the holes?”
Pockmarking the internal enamel—the inner surface of the tooth, exposed where it had been broken in two—were dozens of almost microscopic vesicles or pores.
“Caries?” said Younger.
“What’s that?” replied Littlemore.
“Tooth decay.”
“Nope. The dental guys said it can’t be normal decay because the outside of the tooth is too perfect. No discoloration even. It’s like the tooth was being eaten away from within.”
Colette’s letter arrived in Younger’s hotel room the following morning. He read it lying in bed. The letter provoked in him a wave of contradictory feelings. He both wanted to go with Colette to Vienna and found himself contemptible for having that desire.
What kind of man would accompany a girl halfway across the world to find her long-lost lover? He pictured himself smiling as he was introduced to Hans Gruber. The image filled him with disgust. What exactly was he supposed to do in Vienna? And why exactly did she want him there?
It occurred to him at last that she did not want him there: that her reason for inviting him was simply that she needed money to pay for the trip. The realization made him stare at the ceiling for a long time. Surely not. Surely Colette would never stoop to using him for his money. Would she?
He wondered how, without his help, she intended to pay for the voyage. And he saw, of course, that she had no means.
TEN
AT THE CORNER of Fifth Avenue and Eighty-seventh Street, a stone’s throw from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stood a grand mansion in the classical style. On Tuesday morning before the sun had risen, Littlemore instructed Roederheusen to cover the back of that mansion while he approached the front door.
There was no activity in the house. Fifth Avenue was quiet at five in the morning; a lone omnibus clattered down the street. One block north, a limousine idled on the park side of the avenue. Littlemore wondered whether it was Speyer’s car, waiting to take him to the harbor.
Littlemore rang the front bell—and rang again and again, when no one answered. At last he heard footsteps on stairs. A light went on in the foyer.
“What is it? Who’s there?” called a man’s voice from behind the door, with the same German accent Littlemore had heard at Delmonico’s.
In his best cockney accent, which was fair, Littlemore said, “Is there a Mr. Speyer in the house? Sailing today on the Imperator? Message for him from the Captain.” The Imperator was a British ship, its crew English.
“The Captain?” asked Speyer, opening the door.
“Yeah,” said Littlemore, pushing through and entering the foyer. “The Police Captain you played for a sap on Sunday.”
Speyer, in a burgundy satin bathrobe, belted at the waist, fell back a step. “I wronged you, Officer. I ask your forgiveness.”
“Turn around,” said Littlemore.
Speyer complied, saying, “I ask you to forgive me.”
Littlemore jangled his handcuffs behind Speyer. “Give me one good reason not to haul you downtown for absconding from a police officer.”
“I broke faith with you. Please forgive me.”
“Stow the forgiveness