The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [114]
“It won’t be easy,” Miss Howard said. “She’s being watched very carefully, day and night.”
“Then we must be creative,” the Doctor answered. “But we must know. This mysterious little man’s behavior has been marked by two apparently contradictory intentions—we must find out why, so that we can determine when or if we are likely to encounter him again.” As he crossed back to the sketch on the wall, his voice grew discouraged again. “None of which, I fear, solves the problem of this bloody basement…. How do we get in? And once in, how do we discover what she’s created there, and if, in fact, she is keeping the child within it?”
Lucius grunted. “There aren’t many times that I’d advocate the department’s usual methods,” he mumbled. “But in this case—what I wouldn’t give to break the door in and get down there with a good old-fashioned bloodhound, to smell the baby out.”
Everyone fell silent for a minute or two. I just sat there in my windowsill, knees tucked up under my chin, waiting for one of them to come up with a more practical idea. In such a state of mind, it took a few minutes for me to notice a small noise: Cyrus, gently clearing his throat in, it seemed, my direction. I looked over to find him staring at me, raising his eyebrows in an expression that appeared to say, “Well…?” I had no idea what he meant by the look, and I wrinkled my eyebrows and hunched my shoulders to tell him so. At that point he looked to the others, making sure they were still staring at the diagram, and then wandered over to me, leaning on the window frame and looking outside so that what he said couldn’t be seen or overheard.
“You still know that boy downtown?” he mumbled, casually putting an arm on the window frame and a hand across his mouth. “The one with the animal?”
For a minute I was bewildered, and even when I realized who he was talking about, it didn’t clear much up for me. “Hickie the Hun?” I said. “Sure, I still know him, but—”
“And you’ve seen the woman’s house,” Cyrus said. “Figure you could crack it?”
It was a little shocking to be asked such a thing—I mean, I was supposed to have forgotten all about such matters. “That joint?” I finally answered. “Yeah, of course, but—”
Cyrus finally looked dead at me. “This is your play, Stevie. If you want to make it …”
He wandered away again, leaving me a little stunned. I whispered, “But, Cyrus—” after him urgently; urgently enough to cause the Doctor to turn around.
“Stevie?” he said. “Do you have something to contribute?”
Turning quickly, I shook my head innocently. “No, sir.”
Cyrus mumbled, “Yes, you do,” toward the wall.
“No, I don’t” I said out of the side of my mouth.
“Okay,” he answered. “If that’s how you want it…”
“What is it?” the Doctor asked, perplexed. “Stevie, if you have some notion of how to break this deadlock, then please …” He held his hand toward the diagram.
I didn’t move right away, just sat there and ran the thing through my head. Then I groaned and stood up. There wasn’t much else to do. After all, I’d played a part in talking the Doctor into trying to save the Linares baby; and I figured, as I dragged myself across the room, that if I did know a way to take the next step, I owed it to the man to come across. So, shooting Cyrus a little look that said “Thanks for nothing”—to which he only smiled wide—I joined the other three at the diagram.
“Uhh,” I noised, not sure just where to start. “You—uh—might not have to do it the way Detective Sergeant Lucius says. I mean, you might be able to get the same job done without all the noise.” I pointed to the diagram. “If what you’re saying is that the baby’s scent oughtta be detectable in the basement, even if we don’t know just where the Hunter woman’s got her locked up—well, then, you might not have to bust in with cops and a bloodhound to find out. Did anybody notice what was on the back windows of the house?”
“Yes,” Lucius said. “I made a special note. They’ve had bars installed. Not too thick, but spaced at narrow intervals.”
“So you’d need a spreader,