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By Root 1823 0

gloomy morning. Since Sara would not yet be at our headquarters, we decided to make stops at our respective homes, then rendezvous at Number 808 when we were feeling (and hopefully looking) a bit more human. I got another two hours’ sleep and a splendid bath at Washington Square, then breakfasted with my grandmother. The mental ease that had so thankfully settled on her following the execution of Dr. H. H. Holmes was, I noticed during the meal, beginning to wear thin: she scanned the back pages of the Times nervously, looking for the next deadly threat with which to preoccupy her evening hours. I took the liberty of pointing out the futility of such a course to her, only to be told rather curtly that it was not her intention to take advice from someone who found it appropriate to commit social suicide in not one but two cities by being seen in public with “that Dr. Kreizler.”

Harriet packed me a fresh overnight bag for the trip to Newton, and by nine o’clock I was in the caged elevator at Number 808 Broadway, full of coffee and feeling remarkably game. Now that I was back, it seemed as though I’d been away from our headquarters far longer than four days, and I looked forward to seeing Sara again with unabashed enthusiasm. When I reached the sixth floor I found her in close conversation with Kreizler, but, determined now to utterly ignore whatever it was that was going on between them, I dashed over and gave her a big, spinning hug.

“John, you ass!” she said with a smile. “I don’t care if it is spring—you know what happened the last time you were fresh with me!”

“Oh, no,” I said, dropping her quickly. “Once in that river is enough for any lifetime. Well? Has Laszlo brought you up to date?”

“Yes,” Sara answered, tightening the bun on the back of her head and flashing defiance in her green eyes. “You two have had all the fun, and I’ve just told Dr. Kreizler that if you think I’m going to sit around here for one more minute while you barrel off to yet another adventure, you’re very much mistaken.”

I brightened up a bit. “You’re coming to Newton?”

“I said I wanted adventure,” she answered, swiping at my nose with a sheet of paper. “And being locked up on a train with you two does not, I’m afraid, fill that bill. No, Dr. Kreizler says someone’s got to go to New Paltz.”

“Roosevelt telephoned a few minutes ago,” Laszlo said to me. “Apparently the name Beecham does appear in various records in that town.”

“Ah,” I said. “Then it would appear that Japheth Dury did not become John Beecham.”

Kreizler shrugged. “It’s a further complication, that’s all we can be sure of, and it requires investigation. You and I, however, must get to Newton as soon as possible. And with the detective sergeants still gone, that leaves Sara. It’s her territory, after all—she grew up in the region and doubtless knows how to ingratiate herself with the local officials.”

“Oh, doubtless,” I said. “What about coordinating things here?”

“An overrated job, if ever there was one,” Sara answered. “Let Stevie do it, until Cyrus is out of bed. Besides, I shouldn’t be gone more than a day.”

I turned a lecherous glance on the girl. “And how valuable is my support in this scheme?”

Sara spun away. “John, you really are a pig. Dr. Kreizler’s already agreed.”

“I see,” I answered. “Well, then—that’s that, I suppose. My opinion not being worth the air it takes to express it.”

And in such fashion was Stevie Taggert set loose to ransack our headquarters for cigarettes. As of high noon that day the youth was left in charge of the place, his face as we departed giving me the impression that he’d smoke the upholstery from the Marchese Carcano’s chairs if he couldn’t find anything better. Stevie paid careful attention to Laszlo’s instructions about how to contact us while we were gone, but when those instructions led into a warning speech concerning the evils of nicotine addiction, the boy seemed suddenly to go deaf. Laszlo, Sara, and I had barely started downstairs in the elevator when the sounds of drawers and cupboards opening and closing became audible from above.