The Alienist - Caleb Carr [159]
“Pressed on?” I said, my immediate dislike for the postal censor giving me confidence. “This isn’t a morals case, Mr. Comstock.”
“Assault,” Inspector Byrnes said quietly, looking at the crowded bookshelves, “is a criminal charge, Moore. We’ve got a guard at Sing Sing who’s missing a couple of teeth. Then there’s the matter of consorting with known gangland leaders—”
“Come on, Byrnes,” I said quickly. The inspector and I’d had many run-ins during my years at the Times, and though he made me very nervous I knew it would be foolish to show it. “Even you can’t call a carriage ride ‘consorting.’”
Byrnes didn’t acknowledge the comment. “Finally,” he went on, “there’s your misuse of the staff and resources of the Police Department…”
“Ours is not an official investigation,” Kreizler replied evenly.
A smile seemed to grow under Byrnes’s mustache. “Cagy, Doctor. But we know all about your arrangement with Commissioner Roosevelt.”
Kreizler showed no emotion. “You have proof, Inspector?”
Byrnes pulled a slender volume from a shelf. “Soon.”
“Now, now, gentlemen,” said Archbishop Corrigan in his affable way. “There’s no reason to leap to adversarial positions.”
“Yes,” Bishop Potter agreed, without much enthusiasm. “I’m sure that an amenable solution can be reached, once we understand one another’s—points of view?”
Pierpont Morgan said nothing.
“What I understand,” Laszlo announced, primarily to our silent host, “is that we have been abducted at gunpoint and threatened with criminal indictment, simply because we have attempted to solve an abominable murder case which has so far baffled the police.” Kreizler pulled out his cigarette case and, removing one of the number within, began to knock it noisily and angrily against the arm of his chair. “But perhaps there are subtler elements of this escapade to which I am blind.”
“Blind you are, Doctor,” Anthony Comstock said, with the annoying grate of a zealot. “But there is nothing subtle about the matter. For many years I have attempted to suppress the written work of men such as yourself. An absurdly broad interpretation of our First Amendment by so-called public servants has made that impossible. But if you believe for one moment that I will stand by and watch you become actively involved in civic affairs—”
A flash of irritation passed over Morgan’s face, and I could see that Bishop Potter caught it. Like a dutiful lackey—for Morgan was one of the Episcopal Church’s chief benefactors—the bishop stepped in to cut Comstock off:
“Mr. Comstock has the energy and brusqueness of the righteous, Dr. Kreizler. Yet I fear that your work does unsettle the spiritual repose of many of our city’s citizens, and undermines the strength of our societal fabric. After all, the sanctity and integrity of the family, along with each individual’s responsibility before God and the law for his own behavior, are twin pillars of our civilization.”
“I grieve for our citizens’ lack of repose,” Kreizler answered curtly, lighting his cigarette. “But seven children that we know of, and perhaps many more, have been butchered.”
“But that is a matter for the police, surely,” Archbishop Corrigan said. “Why involve such questionable work as your own in it?”
“Because the police can’t solve it,” I threw in, before Laszlo could answer. These were all fairly standard criticisms of my friend’s work, but they were making me a bit hot, nonetheless. “And, using Dr. Kreizler’s ideas, we can.”
Byrnes let out a barely audible chuckle, while Comstock’s face grew red. “I do not believe that is your true motivation, Doctor. I believe you intend, with the help of Mr. Paul Kelly and whatever other atheistic socialists you can find, to spread unrest by discrediting the values of the American family and society!”
If it seems surprising that Kreizler and I neither laughed at this grotesque little man’s statements nor rose to physically thrash him, it must be remembered that Anthony Comstock, however harmless his title of Postal Censor might sound, wielded