The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [347]
“All right,” Mr. Moore said. “Everyone set?” Nobody said they were, but nobody said they weren’t, either, and Mr. Moore took that as a sign to proceed. “Then follow me.”
He swung the little door open, and we entered the room.
The first thing you noticed about the space was light: bright light, produced not by bare electrical bulbs but by very pleasant little lamps what sat on a pair of wooden night tables and a small chest of drawers what was painted a gentle pink. The walls had been covered with patterned paper what showed little pictures of smiling baby animals against a white ground. The paper reflected the light of the lamps and made the glare, especially as you came out of the dark passageway, all the harsher. As Mr. Moore had said, the draft we’d felt became a kind of breeze once we’d entered the room, one what was actually very refreshing: it was produced, he told us, by electrical fans inside smaller ventilation shafts what led up to the backyard and drew air down from there. On the wall opposite the chest of drawers was a handsome crib with a white lace canopy over its top. In a third wall a window frame had been installed, complete with glass, and behind this some talented person had painted a quiet country scene, one what resembled the rolling hills and open pasture-lands of Saratoga County. There was a handmade carpet on the floor, and a fine oak rocking chair in one corner; and all over the place there were mountains of toys, everything from an expensive musical box to stuffed animals to building blocks.
In fact, if you’d been above ground, it would’ve been a first-class nursery.
“Holy Christ,” I mumbled, too shocked to offer anything else by way of an opinion. My dumbfoundedness was only increased when I looked into the corner and at the rocking chair:
In it was sitting Detective Sergeant Lucius, gently rocking back and forth as he held a content Ana Linares in his arms.
Faced with three stunned faces, the detective sergeant blushed a bit. “I had to change her diaper to get her to stop crying,” he said with some embarrassment. “But it was all right—I’ve had a lot of practice with my sister’s children.”
“Apparently,” the Doctor said, approaching the pair and bending down to put a finger to Ana’s face. “You’ve done very well, Detective Sergeant. My compliments.”
Miss Howard and I gathered around. “She’s all right, then?” Miss Howard asked.
“Well, she’s undernourished, certainly,” Lucius answered. “And slightly colicky. But that was to be expected, I suppose.” His eyes suddenly lit up with interest. “What about Mrs. Hatch?”
“The aborigine got her,” Mr. Moore announced. “The navy boys are fetching her body now. And according to our resident gangland expert, here”—he pointed my way—“we’ve all got to get moving, before the Dusters come back looking for even bigger trouble.”
“Yes,” Lucius replied nervously, as he carefully stood up with the baby. “I think that would be a wise idea. Sara, would you like to—”
Miss Howard, though, made no move to take the child; instead she just smiled a little deviously. “You’re doing extremely well, Lucius. And I’ve had a rather nasty bump on the head, I’m afraid—I might lose my balance on the way out.”
“Do you mind taking her, Detective Sergeant?” the Doctor asked, roaming around the room and trying, it seemed to me, to burn the startling image of it into his mind before we had to leave.
“No, no,” Lucius answered, still rocking the baby. Then he turned a warning look on the rest of us. “I just don’t want to hear about it for years to come, that’s all.” Taking a few steps forward, he stood by the Doctor and gazed around the room with him. “A little difficult to accept, isn’t it?