The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [145]
Then, on Monday the twelfth, the detective sergeants showed up at Seventeenth Street looking pretty grim. It was late in the afternoon, and the heat wave was still going strong: in fact, the weather claimed its first victim that day, a small child who was struck down by sunstroke and taken to the Hudson Street Hospital (not far, I immediately thought when I heard the news, from the house where Libby Hatch lived her life as Nurse Elspeth Hunter). The Doctor was in his study working, Cyrus was out in the carriage house tending to the horses, and I was in the kitchen, helping Mrs. Leshko clean up half a dozen plates what she’d smashed to bits with the end of a mop during a moment of typically vigorous but destructive cleaning.
When the doorbell rang, I ran to answer it, leaving a wailing Mrs. Leshko to the last of the sweeping up. The detective sergeants were all business when they came in, immediately asking where the Doctor was. I told them he was in his study, and they marched right upstairs, looking like they’d been hoping to avoid this moment but were now resigned to it. There wasn’t any way I was going to miss what came next: I let them get a floor or so ahead of me, then followed on up at the same distance, finally dashing to the study door when I heard it close. Creeping carefully, I made my way to the thing, then lay on the carpeted floor and peered through the narrow crack underneath it, seeing several pairs of feet along with the bottoms of many piles of books and papers.
“We’re sorry to bother you, Doctor,” I heard Marcus say, as his feet came to rest in front of the legs of one of the chairs near the Doctor’s desk. “But we thought we’d better let you know what’s going on with the—other matter.”
There was a pause, and Lucius’s feet started tapping nervously between the legs of the sofa. “The news isn’t bad, exactly—but we can’t really say it’s good, either.”
The Doctor drew a heavy breath. “Well, gentlemen?”
“So far as we can tell,” Marcus said, “there’s no reason to believe that the McPherson boy’s suicide was prompted by anything or anyone at your Institute. We’ve questioned and requestioned the entire staff, and put together a general chronology of events from the time the boy arrived to the time he died. There’s simply nothing that suggests he was treated in a way that would have sparked self-destructive tendencies.”
“Even members of the staff who don’t particularly like each other,” Lucius added carefully, “—not that there are more than two or three of them—can’t find fault with each other’s behavior toward the boy. As for family—assuming he was going by his right name, we really can’t find any relations at all.”
“I tried myself,” the Doctor added quietly. “Without success.”
“We checked out the cord he used,” Marcus said, trying to sound more optimistic, “and it doesn’t match the materials found in any of the drapery or curtain mechanisms in the building. Which means he must’ve brought it in with him—”
“Which suggests that he’d been contemplating the act before he got there,” Lucius said.
“And that,” Marcus continued, “will be useful in court, I think. Now—about that court date …” There was another pause before Marcus went on. “Judge Reinhart, who was in charge of your initial hearing, neglected to inform anyone that he’s retiring at the end of this month. His caseload has been farmed out to a series of other magistrates. You, I’m afraid, have drawn Judge Samuel Welles.” I heard a hiss come out of the Doctor. “Yes. You’ve crossed paths with him before, we understand,” Marcus said.
“Several times,” the Doctor answered quietly.
“We don’t know him,” Lucius said, “but we hear that he’s fairly stern.”
“That’s not my main concern,” replied the Doctor.