The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [132]
“Long story,” I said. “She’s down there, all right—I don’t think we’re wrong about that. But getting to her’s going to be tough. Maybe impossible. The rack of preserves is some kind of mechanical doorway, and it won’t give. I found some other stuff, though—”
I clammed right up when I heard a soft tapping on the side of the calash. “Stevie? Marcus?” It was Detective Sergeant Lucius. “Are you in there?”
“Yes,” Marcus answered. “And we’re all right.”
“I heard shouting,” Lucius said. “From inside. What happened?”
“Later,” Marcus whispered. “Get us out of here!”
“What about the girl? Did you find her?”
“Lucius! Get us out of here—now!”
In a few seconds the calash started to roll out toward the front of the stables. Lucius paused to pay the attendant, and then it was out onto the street, turning left: he’d rightly decided to head uptown along the river, as far from the Dusters’ joint as possible. Within half a block he had Frederick up to a nice clip, and when we felt the carriage turn right, Marcus and I figured it was safe to come out from under the tarpaulin.
The sky above the Hudson was still blazing with fireworks, and there were groups of people all along the waterfront watching them. But we didn’t pause for any sightseeing, just kept cantering forward toward Number 808 Broadway. Lucius was full of questions, but Marcus told him to hold them all ’til we got there. I undid my satchel to see if Mike was okay, and found him peering up at me, still very agitated but otherwise fine. With that, I took a deep breath and leaned back on the seat of the calash. Bringing the stolen papers out from inside my shirt, I handed them to Marcus, then lit up a cigarette and offered him one.
We were both bitterly disappointed about how things had worked out; and because of this, the warm welcome we received from the others—whose disappointment could not have been much less than ours—when we got back to Number 808 was all the more appreciated. I think that both Marcus and I, in mulling over what had happened, had forgotten just how much more wrong things could have gone. But the relief what was clear in the faces of all our friends served as a reminder. Miss Howard offered me a big hug that lifted me clear off the ground, while the Doctor put an arm around my shoulders and near squeezed them through to each other, smiling all the while. The fact that we hadn’t succeeded was obviously far less important than the fact that we’d survived—and seeing that thought reflected in all their faces, in turn, made it much easier to talk about the break-in.
The Doctor’d ordered supper from Mr. Delmonico and had it brought down to our headquarters, a fact what put the joy of life back into Marcus. As for me, I was deeply grateful that the Doctor had not only ordered me a plain-grilled steak and fried potatoes but’d had Mr. Ranhofer send along a few fillets of raw beef for Mike, too. Mr. Moore’d set all the food out on the billiard table, buffet style: there were olives and celery, anchovies on toast, pheasant and guinea fowl (complete with ornamental feathers), foie gras aspic, lamb chops, lobster and shrimp salad, rice pudding, small meringues with fruit, Neapolitan iced cream, and, of course, bottles of champagne, wine, and beer, along with root beer for me. As the adults all got platefuls of their luxurious fare, I retreated into my windowsill with my steak, the beef fillets, and Mike, who proved to be almost as hungry as yours truly. One by one the others made their way over to the big chairs and desks with their suppers and drinks, and as they did we all started to go over the strange events that Marcus and I had just been through, a process what began with the two of us laying out the basic facts and ended with Marcus handing the papers