The Alienist - Caleb Carr [251]
I’ve killed him, I thought clearly. There was neither joy nor guilt in the realization, just a simple acknowledgment of fact—but then, after Beecham had crumpled to the stone pathway, my gaze fell on the hammer of my Colt: it was still cocked. Before I could get my confused brain to make any sense of this sight, Laszlo had jumped over to Beecham and made a cursory examination of the bullet wound. Shaking his head as the unpleasant sound of gushing air and blood continued to come out of Beecham’s chest, Laszlo made a fist and looked up furiously. His glare, however, was directed past me; and following it, I turned around slowly.
Connor had somehow slipped his bonds, and was standing in the center of the promenade. His back was bent with dizziness and pain, and he was clutching his bleeding side with his left hand as he held a small, crude twin-barreled pistol with the other. A twisted smile came into his bleeding mouth, and then he staggered forward a step or two.
“It ends tonight,” he said, holding the gun higher and pointing it at us. “Drop it, Moore.”
I complied, slowly and carefully; but just as the Colt touched the pathway another gunshot cut through the air—this one from farther off—and then Connor jerked forward as if he’d been struck hard in the back. He fell on his face with a small grunt, revealing a hole in his jacket out of which blood began to pump immediately. The powder smoke from the shot Connor had fired at Beecham had not even cleared when a new figure stepped forward on the dark promenade and became visible in the moonlight.
It was Sara, pearl-gripped revolver in hand. She stared down at Connor for an instant without betraying any emotion, then looked up at Kreizler and me.
“I thought of this place just after we’d gotten into position at High Bridge Tower,” she said tightly, as the Isaacsons appeared in the darkness behind her. “When Theodore said you’d left the opera, I knew…”
I let out an enormous breath. “And thank God you did,” I said, wiping my brow with my hand and then picking up the Colt.
Laszlo stayed in a crouch by Beecham, but looked up at Sara. “And where is the commissioner?”
“Out searching,” Sara said. “We didn’t tell him.”
Laszlo nodded. “Thank you, Sara. You had little reason for such consideration.”
Sara’s expression remained impassive. “You’re right.”
Beecham suddenly let out with a bloody, choking cough, and Kreizler got an arm under his neck, bringing the large head up. “Detective Sergeant?” Laszlo said, at which Lucius rushed over to assist him.
Taking a quick look at Beecham’s chest, Lucius shook his head definitively. “It’s no good, Doctor.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Kreizler snapped. “I just need—rub his hands, will you? Moore, get those blasted manacles off. I just need a few minutes.” As I freed the dying man’s hands Laszlo reached into his pocket, brought out a small vial of ammonia salts, and wafted them under Beecham’s nose. Lucius began to slap and rub at Beecham’s palms, while Laszlo’s aspect became steadily more concerned and his movements steadily more agitated, until they reached a level of near desperation. “Japheth,” he began to murmur, softly but pleadingly. “Japheth Dury, can you hear me?”
Beecham’s eyelids fluttered for an instant and then opened, the dulling orbs beneath them rolling helplessly about in his head. Finally he fixed them on the face that was very close to his own. He wasn’t spasming, now, and his expression was that of a terrified child who looks to a stranger for help that he somehow knows he isn’t going to get.
“I—” he gasped, coughing up a little more blood. “I’m—going to die…”
“Listen to me, Japheth,” Laszlo said, wiping blood from the man’s mouth and face as he continued to cradle the head. “You must listen to me—what did you see, Japheth? What did you see when you looked at the children? What made you kill them?”
Beecham