The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [12]
“I think, John,” she said evenly, “that even through the sheets I could clip off both your testicles with one shot—so I advise you to unhand me.”
Mr. Moore darted away from her with a shriek, then covered himself completely with the sheet like a kid who’d just been caught abusing himself.
“Sara!” he shouted, half in fear and half in anger. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? And how the hell did you get in here?”
“The front door,” Miss Howard answered simply, as the derringer disappeared into the folds of her dress again.
“The front door?” Mr. Moore bellowed. “But the front door’s locked, I’m sure I—” Looking to the doorway, Mr. Moore caught sight first of Cyrus and then of me—and that was all he needed to see. “Stevie! So!” Patting his hair down onto his head and trying to compose himself, Mr. Moore stood, still covered in his sheet, and drew up to the fullest height he could manage. “I would have thought, Taggert, that the bonds of male honor would have prevented you from playing a part in a scheme like this. And what have you done with Lily?”
“She’s in the bathroom,” Miss Howard answered. “Didn’t seem at all disappointed to see us. You must be losing your touch, John.”
Mr. Moore only frowned and looked to the doorway again. “I shall direct my comments to you, Cyrus. Knowing you to be a person of integrity, I can assume that there is some good reason for your being here.”
Cyrus nodded, with the ever-so-slightly-patronizing smile that often came onto his face when he spoke to Mr. Moore. “Miss Howard says there is, sir,” he answered. “That’s good enough for me. You’d better ask her about it.”
“And supposing I don’t wish to speak to her?” Mr. Moore grunted.
“Then, sir, you’ll be a long time getting an explanation …”
Faced with no other option, Mr. Moore paused, shrugged his shoulders, then plopped down onto the bed again. “All right, Sara. Tell me what’s so all-fired important that it’s got you breaking and entering. And for God’s sake, Stevie, give me a cigarette.”
As I lit up a stick and handed it to Mr. Moore, Miss Howard moved around in front of him. “I have a case, John.”
Mr. Moore let out a big, smoky sigh. “Splendid. Do you demand the front page, or will the inside of the paper do?”
“No, John,” Miss Howard said earnestly. “I think this is real. I think it’s big.”
Her tone took a good bit of the sarcasm out of Mr. Moore’s voice. “Well—what is it?”
“A woman came to Number 808 this evening. Señora Isabella Linares. Ring a bell?”
Mr. Moore rubbed his forehead hard. “No. Which gives her something in common with you. Come on, Sara, no games, who is she?”
“Her husband,” Miss Howard answered, “is Señor Narciso Linares. Now, does that ring a bell?”
Mr. Moore looked up slowly, intrigued in a way that clearly pleased Miss Howard. “Isn’t he … he holds some position in the Spanish consulate, doesn’t he?”
“He is, in fact, private secretary to the Spanish consul.”
“All right. So what’s his wife doing at Number 808?”
Miss Howard began to pace around the room purposefully. “She has a fourteen-month-old daughter. Or had. The child was kidnapped. Three days ago.”
Mr. Moore’s face turned skeptical. “Sara. We are talking about the daughter of the private secretary of the consul of the Empire of Spain in the City of New York. The same Empire of Spain that Mr. William Randolph Hearst, our friend in the Navy Department”—by which he meant Mr. Roosevelt—“certain of my bosses, some of the business leaders, and much of the populace of this country have been openly insulting and trying to goad into war for years now. Do you honestly think that if such a child were to be kidnapped in New York, said Empire of Spain would not make the most of the chance to cry foul and declare the barbarity of its American critics? Wars have been fought