The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [134]
“He should go into dime novels,” Mr. Moore said, wiping up the wine and broken glass that covered the floor by his chair with a napkin. “Does it say anything more about Vanderbilt?”
“No,” the Doctor answered. “But she was apparently living in a flat near Fifty-seventh Street—that’s why she took the child to St. Luke’s. The hospital was still located on Fifty-fourth Street at the time. Here are some more statistics. Under ‘Age,’ she writes ‘Thirty-seven.’ ‘Occupation: Day maid.’ ‘Place of birth: Stillwater, New York.’ “The Doctor looked up. “Anyone?”
“Upstate?” Lucius tried.
“There isn’t a great deal of ‘downstate’ from here, Lucius,” Miss Howard said with a smile. “I know the town, Doctor. It’s on the upper Hudson, near Saratoga.” She cleared her throat proudly and took a small bite of food. “Exactly, if anyone cares to remember, the area in which I placed her by her accent.”
“Congratulations, Sara,” the Doctor said. “Let’s hope you are as successful with the next set of mysteries. Cyrus? Any luck with those newspapers?”
Cyrus didn’t answer. He’d stopped eating altogether, though he was only halfway done with his food; and he was staring at the old, yellowing newsprint as if he were reading about his own death.
“Cyrus?” the Doctor repeated. When he turned and saw the look on the man’s face, he immediately got out of his chair and rushed over to him. “What is it? What have you found?”
Looking up slowly, Cyrus seemed to stare right through the Doctor. “She’s done it before …”
Mr. Moore asked, “What do you mean? Done what?” But the rest of us were silent, having gotten the point of what Cyrus was saying, though not wanting to.
Cyrus touched the papers and turned to Mr. Moore. “There’s four clippings here. The first three are from the Journal and the World. They all contain stories about a kidnapping, in May 1895. A couple named Johannsen—they owned a grocery store on East Fifty-fifth Street, and had a son, Peter. Sixteen months old. The mother was attacked on a side street, when she was bringing the baby home alone. The boy was taken, and no ransom note was ever received.”
As Cyrus said all of this, the Doctor grabbed the newspapers hungrily and began to scan them. “And the last paper?” he asked.
“A copy of the Times,” Cyrus answered. “Two months later. It lists a death notice—for Jonathan Hatch. Age, eighteen months. Survived by his loving mother …”
“Libby, “the Doctor finished. Then he waved an arm at Lucius. “Detective Sergeant—on those forms there should be a physical description of the child—”
Lucius ran over and picked up the hospital forms. “Description, description …” he mumbled, going through the things. “Here we are, description.”
“What do you have for hair and eye coloring?” the Doctor asked.
“Let me see—length—weight—ah! yes. Eyes: Blue. Hair: Blond.”
“Typical Scandinavian coloring,” the Doctor murmured. “Not that it’s conclusive, at such an age, but—” He slapped his hand down. “Why does she keep these? As trophies? Or as mementos?”
Holding a little more raw beef in front of Mike’s mouth and watching him grab it away and then rip into it, I said quietly, “She’s got his picture …”
The Doctor looked my way. “Indeed, Stevie?”
I turned to him and nodded. “It was in the secretary. Little blond boy. Blue eyes. Picture looked pretty recent. I mean, compared to—”
I stopped, suddenly realizing what you might call the implications of what I was about to say.
“Yes, Stevie?” the Doctor asked quietly.
“Compared to the others,” I answered, looking out the window to the dark churchyard below and suddenly feeling cold. “She’s got more. A couple of individual kids—babies, like the Linares girl and this one. Then there’s a picture of three other kids, all together. They were older.”
Again, there was silence