The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [112]
“Oh.” Miss Howard looked up, her eyes going wide like maybe something’d gotten by her that she hadn’t realized she’d missed. “But—he’s dead. We asked.”
The Doctor spun on her. “He’s what?”
“Dead,” Mr. Moore threw in simply. “Died right after the job was finished. Apparently, he was a friend of the clerk we spoke to at the Hall of Records. Did a lot of research work down there.”
The Doctor began to rub his temples. “Did the clerk happen to say what he died of?”
“He did,” Mr. Moore answered, absentmindedly rummaging through his pockets and coming out with an old piece of wrapped butterscotch. “Ahh—sustenance!”
“Moore,” the Doctor said impatiently.
“Hmm? Oh, right. The contractor. Got his name right here—it was on the permit.” He pulled out a scrap of paper as he sucked noisily on the butterscotch. “Henry—Bates. His office was in Brooklyn. Anyway, he had a massive heart attack a couple of days after he finished the Hunter job. And I don’t blame him. Working for that lady’d give me a heart attack, too.”
The Doctor just shook his head in his hand, sighing. Miss Howard grew ever more nervous as she watched him. “Do you think it’s important, Doctor?”
He lifted his head, pulling at the skin under his eyes with his fingers. “It does strike me as an odd coincidence, yes.”
“We’ve already had one coincidence on this case,” Mr. Moore announced, waving a careless hand. “You can’t take stock in too many of them.”
“I shouldn’t take stock in any of them, Moore,” the Doctor thundered back, “were they in fact coincidences! Marcus, I suggest that you find out what you can about a contractor named Henry Bates in Brooklyn. It may well be that he had a family.”
“And they’ll know his medical history,” Marcus said, noting the name on a pad with a nod.
Miss Howard clutched at her forehead. “Of course. Dammit…”
“What the hell are you all getting so worked up about?” Mr. Moore asked; and I’m bound to say that even I thought he was being a little dim at that point. “So the man had a heart attack. So what?”
“Moore,” the Doctor said, trying to be as patient as possible. “Do you happen to remember Dr. H. H. Holmes, the mass murderer whose existence caused your grandmother so much distress last year?”
“Of course I do,” he said. “Who doesn’t? Killed who knows how many people in that ‘torture castle’ of his.”
“Precisely,” the Doctor answered. “The ‘torture castle.’ A seemingly unending maze of secret rooms and chambers, each designed by Holmes himself to serve some horrendously sadistic purpose.”
“Well?” Mr. Moore asked. “What’s that got to do with this?”
“Do you know the first thing that Holmes did once the castle was completed?”
Mr. Moore’s face stayed simple. “Killed somebody, I’d imagine.”
“Correct. He killed the one person on earth besides himself who knew the exact plans of the place.”
Finally, Mr. Moore’s noisy smacking of the butterscotch came to an end. “Uh-oh …” He looked up slowly. “That wouldn’t have been—”
“Yes,” the Doctor answered quietly. “His contractor.”
Glancing from one of our faces to the next, Mr. Moore suddenly stood up. “I’m going to Brooklyn,” he said, racing toward the front door before any real abuse could be shoveled onto him.
“I’m going with you,” Marcus said, following. “The badge may come in handy.”
“We need the exact cause of death!” the Doctor called after them as they closed the elevator grate. “As well as any details of the job that he may have shared with his family, should he have had one!”
The front door banged closed, and the rest of us were left to listen as the Doctor mumbled in discouragement, “I ought to’ve known better. It’s hard enough to keep John’s mind focused in the cold weather, but in the summer …” He paused, and looked at the diagram on the wall again. “The basement,” he repeated softly. “The basement…”
Miss Howard came over to stand by him. “I really am sorry, Doctor. I was the one who should have thought of it.”
The Doctor attempted to be gracious. “I doubt that it