The Alienist - Caleb Carr [66]
“You’re preaching to the converted,” I answered.
Kreizler poked and prodded me a bit more, then stood away. “How’s your jaw?”
I hadn’t thought of it, but when I put my hand to my mouth there was some tenderness. “That dwarf,” I said. “He hasn’t got much without the razor.”
“Good man!” Kreizler laughed, slapping my back lightly. “Now finish your broth and get dressed. We’ve got an assessment to do at Bellevue, and I want Jonas’s men to finish this place. Our first staff meeting will be at five o’clock.”
“Assessment?” I said, getting to my feet and expecting to swoon again. But the broth really had restored me. “Who?” I asked, noticing that I was wearing a nightshirt.
“Harris Markowitz, of 75 Forsyth Street,” Lucius answered, walking (I’m reluctant to say waddling, though it had that aspect) over to me with a few sheets of typewritten paper. “A haberdasher. A couple of days ago his wife came in to the Tenth Precinct claiming her husband had poisoned their two grandchildren—Samuel and Sophie Rieter, ages twelve and sixteen—by putting what she called ‘a powder’ in their milk.”
“Poison?” I said. “But our man’s not a poisoner.”
“Not that we know of,” Kreizler answered. “But his activities may be more varied than we think—although I don’t actually believe this man Markowitz is any more connected to our case than Henry Wolff was.”
“The children do, however, fit the apparent pattern among the victims,” Lucius said, tactfully but pointedly. And then to me: “The Rieter children were recent immigrants—their father and mother sent them over from Bohemia to stay with Mrs. Rieter’s parents and try to find domestic work.”
“Immigrants, true,” Kreizler answered. “And if this were three years ago I might be impressed. But our quarry’s recent taste for prostitutes seems too significant, as do the current mutilations, to allow us to concentrate solely on the immigrant connection. However, even if this Markowitz isn’t involved with our business, there are other reasons to investigate such cases. By eliminating them, we can gain a clearer picture of what the person we seek is not—a negative image, if you will, that we can eventually print into a positive.”
Cyrus had brought me some clothes, and I began to put them on. “But aren’t we going to raise suspicions by doing so many assessments of child-murderers?”
“We must rely on the Police Department’s lack of imagination,” Laszlo answered. “It’s not unusual for me to be seen doing such work. The explanation for your presence, Moore, will of course be reporting. By the time anyone at headquarters thinks to connect it all to the current string of murders, our work will, I hope, be done.” He turned to Lucius. “Now, then, Detective Sergeant, you might just review the details of the case for our adventurous friend, here.”
“Well, Markowitz was clever enough,” Lucius answered, almost as if he admired the man. “He used a large amount of opium, all residual bodily traces of which, as you may know, vanish within hours of death. He put it in two glasses of milk, which were fed to the grandchildren at bedtime. When they’d slipped into a comatose state, Markowitz turned on the gas jet in their room. The police arrived the next morning, the place stank of gas, and the detective in charge drew the obvious conclusion. His hypothesis seemed confirmed when the coroner—actually a fairly capable man, in this case—had the contents of the stomachs checked and nothing out of the ordinary turned up. But when the wife kept insisting that the poisoning had in fact taken place, an idea occurred to me. I went down to the flat and located the bedclothes that the children had slept on. It was likely that at least one of the victims had vomited sometime during unconsciousness or the death throes. If the sheets and blankets hadn’t been washed yet, there would be stains. Sure enough, I found them. We ran the standard Stas and reagent tests, and that was where we found the