The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [224]
“And?” Miss Howard asked.
“And, he lost, of course,” Mr. Picton answered. “But it was quite a good fight. And, more importantly, while Debs and the others were serving several months in jail for the civil violations, they were indicted on a more serious criminal charge: attempting to obstruct the mails by way of the railway strike. Darrow took the case again, and won by default—the government eventually dropped the charges. So while he lost the less serious civil case, Darrow won the more important criminal one.”
“Which doesn’t tell us,” Lucius said, “why Mr. Vanderbilt thinks that a man who splits his time between working for railroad corporations and workers’ unions—a combination that strikes me as awfully odd, by the way—is the ideal candidate to come in on a murder case.”
“No,” Mr. Picton answered, his mood brightening. “No, it doesn’t. But I’ll tell you, Detective—I’m relieved! Whatever Darrow’s talents may be, Vanderbilt could, as I say, have brought some very big guns up from New York, once he chose to get involved.”
“Perhaps that’s the point,” the Doctor said. “Perhaps Mr. Vanderbilt senses that there may be something untoward about this case, and doesn’t want his name connected to it in any New York circles.”
Mr. Picton considered that, then nodded. “I suspect you’re right, Doctor—I suspect you’re absolutely right! Doubtless Marcus can confirm the theory for us when he gets back. But for now”—Mr. Picton clamped his pipe between his teeth and put his hands on his hips—“I vote that we go home and have ourselves a pleasant dinner. Things are starting to look up, I daresay!”
Feeling much relieved by this turn of events, as well as by Mr. Picton’s confidence, we all started to head for the office door, hungry and more than ready to take his advice regarding a relaxing evening at home. True, we had the grand jury to wrangle with in the morning; but with Clara Hatch now talking, there seemed little reason to think that we wouldn’t proceed easily past that obstacle to the criminal trial what lay beyond, where, we happily assured ourselves, we’d be faced by a lawyer inexperienced in such cases, who wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight against two men as seasoned in these sorts of contests as the Doctor and Mr. Picton.
It was one of the worst errors of judgment we made during the entire case.
CHAPTER 40
Mr. Moore arrived that night, looking bedraggled and persecuted, and rightfully so: he’d had a pretty devilish week in the city, and had barely gotten back out with all of his organs and limbs intact. And even when he and Marcus hadn’t been in situations where their lives were in immediate danger—like when they’d gone to interview the Reverend Clayton Parker—violence had been a topic of conversation: apparently the reverend had been set on about six months earlier by several men who we could reasonably assume to’ve been Hudson Dusters, and’d had both of his knee caps shattered with baseball bats, along with one of his ears cut off. Even as he retold the story to us, Mr. Moore got so jittery that he needed a couple of stiff belts of Mr. Picton’s best whiskey to calm his nerves. But the news that we were ready to face the grand jury the next morning cheered him up considerably, as did the leftovers from our dinner, with which he stuffed himself ’til fairly late in Mr. Picton’s kitchen. By the time he retired, he’d taken in enough encouraging intelligence—along with enough whiskey—to be able