The Alienist - Caleb Carr [121]
I was now sure that in recent days I hadn’t developed what Dr. Krafft-Ebing called “paranoia”: we were faced with some sort of a conspiracy, a deliberate effort to conceal the facts of these murders. And what reason could these distinguished gentlemen have for such an effort, I thought with mounting excitement, other than to protect themselves from scandal—the kind of scandal that would have arisen if the murderer were revealed to be one of their own?
Marcus agreed with my reasoning; and over the next couple of days we began playing devil’s advocate in an effort to find flaws in the theory of a renegade priest. Nothing we could come up with, however, ruled out the core hypothesis. Perhaps it was unlikely, for example, that a priest would be an accomplished mountaineer, but it was not impossible; and as for his remark about a “Red Injun,” that could have grown out of missionary experience in the West. The hunting skills might have presented a problem, insofar as Lucius had already postulated that the man had spent a lifetime hunting—but our imagined priest could easily have developed the expertise in childhood. Priests, after all, are not born such. They have parents, families, and pasts like everyone else. And that, finally, meant that all of Kreizler’s psychological speculations could be made to fit Marcus’s and my picture as well as any other.
During the rest of the week Marcus and I looked for more details to support our work. A priest who possessed the kind of intimate knowledge of rooftops that our killer displayed would almost certainly be associated with mission work, we reasoned, and we therefore investigated those Catholic and Episcopal agencies that dealt with the poor. Much resistance was encountered, during this pursuit, and little hard information was gleaned. But our enthusiasm was not dampened; in fact, by Friday we were feeling so confident about our theory that we decided to explain it to Sara and Lucius. They expressed some appreciation for our efforts, but also insisted on highlighting little inconsistencies that Marcus and I had played down. What about the theory of a military background, Lucius asked, which accounted for our man’s ability to plot violence carefully and execute it coolly when danger was all around? Where would a priest have developed such a capacity? Perhaps, we answered, he had served as a chaplain in some part of the Army of the West. That would give us not only the military experience, but the Indian and frontier connections, as well. Lucius replied that he was not aware that chaplains were trained for combat; and anyway, Sara added, if our man had served many years on the frontier, and we already knew he was no older than thirty-one, then when had he found the time to become so intimately familiar with New York City? In childhood, we answered. If that were true, Sara continued, then we would have to accept that he did indeed come from a wealthy family, in order to explain his mountaineering and sporting expertise. All right, we said—so he was wealthy. Then there was the fact that Catholics and Protestants were working together: Wouldn’t either group, Sara asked, be just as happy if the other had a murderous priest on its hands? We couldn’t answer that one with anything more effective than a claim that Sara and Lucius were merely jealous of our work. They got a bit incensed at that, declaring that they were only following procedure by peppering us with objections and inconsistencies, and just to make sure we got the point, they went right on doing so.
Kreizler appeared at about five o’clock, but did not participate in the debate; instead, he pulled me rather urgently aside and told me that I was to accompany him immediately to the Grand Central Depot. The fact that I hadn’t had much contact with Laszlo for a number of days hadn’t kept me from worrying about him, and this sudden, secretive announcement that we were going to board a train didn’t ease my mind. I asked him if I needed to pack a