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By Root 3004 0

wisdom, managed to get yourself mixed up in a private investigation that is directed at the woman who was known in this town as Libby Hatch, then be as careful as you know how to be. The story you heard from Mr. Vanderbilt is indeed true, or rather, is the commonly accepted explanation of a horrendous crime that occurred here just over three years ago. Her three children were shot, supposedly by an itinerant Negro lunatic—who was never seen by anyone but Mrs. Hatch. Two of the children died. The third survived but has been mute ever since. An extensive search failed to produce any sign of the Negro, or of anyone who’d even gotten so much as a glimpse of the man—nevertheless, the case never got past a coroner’s inquest, so effective was Mrs. Hatch’s inventiveness, and so scarce the support for any other interpretation. I had my own ideas—and having been through what you have, I’m sure you can guess what they were.

“‘As to the other matters you say you are looking into, I am appalled but not surprised to learn of them. The woman is, I believe, one of the most dangerous persons alive. It’s a pity I couldn’t ever convince anyone else of that. You indicate that your investigation in New York is at a bit of a standstill. If this is true, I advise you to take it as a sign. Make no more direct moves against Libby Hatch yourself, and, if the people you’re working with are even semicapable investigators, waste no time getting up here with them. Dr. Kreizler I of course know by his writings and reputation, and I should be delighted to make his acquaintance.

“‘Wire me if and when you’re coming. I am in deadly earnest, John—don’t try to beat this woman with an informal investigation. Even if you had the entire Police Department on it with you, I should worry—she’d find a way to con them all and kill you, if it came to that. Either leave the thing be, or get up here and we’ll see what we can do together. Any other course will be disastrous.

“‘Your friend, Rupert Picton.’”

Miss Howard folded up the sheet of paper and replaced it in the envelope. “That’s all,” she said.

The Doctor just sat still for a moment, then looked over to the sofa, where Mr. Moore appeared to have recovered. “He seems quite a colorful fellow, this friend of yours, Moore.”

“Don’t let the banter fool you,” Mr. Moore answered, going for a box of cigarettes that sat on the Doctor’s desk. “He’s got one of the sharpest legal minds I’ve ever run across. He could have had any job in the state, but like the fool he is he decided to play it straight instead—cried bloody murder to the legislature about corruption in the city DA’s office, and got run out of town on a rail. There were rumors about some kind of a mental breakdown after that.” Mr. Moore lit his cigarette. “I never really got the details.”

Cyrus spoke up, in a slightly perplexed voice: “Then he’s saying that she shot the children?”

“Yes,” Miss Howard answered. “He seems quite certain of it.”

“More victims to add to the roster,” Lucius said.

“They could’ve been the ones in the picture,” I threw in. “The photograph I saw in the desk, of the three older kids together.”

“It would make sense,” Lucius answered. “You can’t exactly induce cyanosis in three children who’re old enough to struggle—and to talk, if they survive.”

“But it doesn’t really fit the pattern, does it?” Cyrus asked, still unclear. “She’s only killed infants, that we know of—because she’s had trouble with them during that stage of life.”

“It’s a wrinkle, Cyrus, to be sure,” the Doctor answered, toying with a pen on his desk. “But the overriding similarity remains—the children were attacked, and the attacker’s intention was clearly to kill them all.”

Marcus let out a stunned kind of sigh. “If this whole thing weren’t so horrifying, I’d say it was getting ridiculous”

“Far from it, Marcus,” the Doctor answered. “This news only confirms the entrenched nature of her tendencies. Her past is at one with her present behavior.” The Doctor’s voice grew quieter as he mouthed the words that were the closest thing he had to a motto: “The keys are in