The Alienist - Caleb Carr [193]
With my pulse finally beginning to calm, I straightened out my clothes, then picked up the walking stick and headed into the car. Stumbling a bit as I walked down the aisle, I approached the old woman.
“Here you are, madam,” I said, cordially if still a bit breathlessly. She drew back in fear. “I only wanted to admire it in the sunlight.”
The woman accepted the stick without saying anything; but as I walked back to my seat I heard her shriek and exclaim: “No—get it away! There’s blood on it, I tell you!”
Collapsing with a groan, I was joined by Kreizler, who offered me his flask. “I can only suppose that those were not men to whom you owe a gambling debt,” he said.
I shook my head and had a drink. “No,” I breathed. “Connor’s boys. More than that I can’t tell you.”
“Did they really intend to kill us, do you think?” Laszlo wondered. “Or simply to frighten us?”
I shrugged. “I doubt we’ll ever know. And frankly, I’d rather not talk about it just at the moment. Besides, we were in the midst of a very important discussion, before they butted in…”
The conductor soon appeared, and as we bought two tickets to New York from him, I began to cross-examine Laszlo about the whole Mary Palmer business, not because I had any trouble believing it—no one who’d ever met the girl would have had any trouble believing it—but because, on the one hand, it soothed my nerves, and, on the other, it disarmed Kreizler so thoroughly and refreshingly. All the dangers we’d faced that day, indeed all the grimness of our investigation generally, somehow shrank in significance as Laszlo very tenuously revealed his personal hopes for the future. It was an unfamiliar sort of conversation for him, and difficult in many ways; but never had I seen the man look or sound so completely human as he did on that train ride.
And never would I see him so again.
CHAPTER 36
* * *
Our train, a local to begin with, made abominably poor time, so that when we stumbled out of the Grand Central Depot the first hints of dawn were beginning to show in the eastern sky. After agreeing that the long job of interpreting the information we’d gotten from Adam Dury could wait until that afternoon, Kreizler and I got into separate cabs and headed for our respective homes to get some sleep. All seemed quiet at my grandmother’s house when I reached Washington Square, and it was my hope that I’d be able to slip into bed before the morning’s activities began. I almost made it, too; but just as I was preparing to undress, having successfully navigated the stairs without making a sound, a light knocking came at my bedroom door. Before I’d given any reply, Harriet’s head poked into the room.
“Oh, Mr. John, sir,” she said, clearly very upset. “Thank heavens.” She came fully into the room, pulling her robe tighter around herself. “It’s Miss Howard, sir—she was calling all yesterday evening, and last night, as well.”
“Sara?” I said, alarmed at the look on Harriet’s usually cheerful face. “Where is she?”
“At Dr. Kreizler’s—she said you’d find her there. There’s been some sort of—well, I don’t know, sir, she didn’t explain much of anything, but something terrible’s happened, I could tell it from her voice.”
I jammed my feet back into my shoes in a rush. “Dr. Kreizler’s?” I said, my heart beginning to race. “What in the world’s she doing there?”
Harriet wrung her hands vigorously. “Like I say, sir, she didn’t tell me—but please hurry, she’s called more than a dozen times!”
Like a shot I was back out onto the street. Knowing that I wouldn’t find a cab any closer than Sixth Avenue at that hour, I bolted west at the fastest pace I could manage and didn’t come to a halt till I’d jumped into a hansom that was parked underneath the El tracks. I gave the driver Kreizler’s address and told him the matter was urgent, at which he grabbed his whip and put it to work. As we charged uptown—myself in a kind of fearful daze, too tired and mystified to make sense out of Harriet’s statement—I began to feel an occasional splash against my face and leaned out of the cab to