The Alienist - Caleb Carr [205]
“Well,” Edith finally said to us quietly, still watching her family, “you’d better have pressing business indeed, if you intend to break the power of that lobby.” Then she turned our way, comprehension evident in her glittering, rather exotic eyes. “Although I understand that all your business, these days, is pressing.” I nodded once, and then Edith clapped her hands loudly. “All right, my terrible tribe! Now that you’ve almost certainly woken Archie from his nap, what about washing up for dinner?” (Archie, at two, was the baby of the family; young Quentin, whose death in 1918 would have such a catastrophic effect on Theodore’s emotional and physical health, had not yet been born in 1896.) “And no guests that aren’t human tonight,” Edith went on. “I mean that, Ted. Pompey will be perfectly happy in the kitchen.”
Ted grinned. “Patsy won’t be, though.”
Reluctantly but without loud protest the children dispersed, while Sara and I followed Theodore into his book-lined study. Works in progress covered several desks and tables in this ample room, along with a plethora of open reference volumes and large maps. Theodore cleared off two chairs near one particularly large and cluttered desk by the window, and then we all sat down. No longer in the children’s presence, Roosevelt seemed to take on a subdued air, one that struck me as odd, given events at headquarters in recent days: Mayor Strong had asked one of Theodore’s chief enemies on the Board of Commissioners to resign, and though the man had refused to go without a fight, there was a general feeling that Roosevelt was gaining the upper hand in the struggle. I congratulated him on this, but he just waved me off and put a fist to his hip.
“I’m not at all sure how much it will amount to, John, in the end,” he said gloomily. “There are times when I feel that the job we have undertaken is not one that can be addressed at the metropolitan level alone. Corruption in this city is like the mythical beast, only instead of seven heads it springs a thousand for every one that is cut off. I don’t know that this administration has the power to effect truly meaningful change.” Such wasn’t the kind of mood that Roosevelt would tolerate for long, however. He picked up a book, slammed it down on his desk, and then looked at us through his pince-nez engagingly. “However, that’s none of your affair. Tell me—what news?”
It didn’t prove quite so easy to get our news out, however; and once Sara and I finally had, Theodore slowly sank into his chair and leaned back, as though his melancholy mood had just been validated.
“I’ve been worried about what Kreizler’s reaction to this outrage would be,” he said quietly. “But I confess I didn’t think that he’d abandon the effort.”
At that point I decided to tell Theodore the entire story of Kreizler’s and Mary Palmer’s relationship in an attempt to make him understand just how crushing an effect Mary’s death had had on Laszlo. Remembering that Theodore had also endured the tragic and early loss of someone very dear to him—his first wife—I expected him to react with sympathy, which he did; but a crease of doubt nonetheless remained lodged in his forehead.
“And you’re saying that you wish to go on without him?” he asked. “You believe you can see it through?”
“We know enough,” Sara answered quickly. “That is, we will know enough, by the time the killer strikes again.”
Theodore looked surprised. “And when will that be?”
“Eighteen days,” Sara answered. “The twenty-first of June.”
Folding his hands behind his head, Roosevelt began to rock back and forth slowly as he studied Sara. Then he turned to me. “It’s not just grief that’s caused him to withdraw, is it?”
I shook my head. “No. He’s full of doubts about his own judgment and abilities. I never really understood before how much he’s tortured by that—self-doubt. It’s hidden most of the time, but it goes back…”
“Yes,” Roosevelt said, nodding and rocking. “His father.