The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [350]
Letting one of his big fingers play around little Ana’s face, Mr. Roosevelt offhandedly asked, “Whose is she?”
Mr. Moore, Miss Howard, the Doctor, Cyrus, and I all froze; but fortunately Mr. Roosevelt was too preoccupied to notice.
“Whose?” the Doctor repeated smoothly, as our boat’s engines rumbled to life and our crew began to cast off. “Does it matter, Roosevelt?”
“Matter?” Mr. Roosevelt answered with a shrug. “I don’t know that it matters, but after what we’ve been through, I should like to meet the parents.” He grinned wide as Ana reached out to grasp hold of his finger. “And tell them how lucky they are to have engaged you all.”
“Her parents,” Miss Howard said, coolly and quickly, “are consular officials. French consular officials. Unfortunately, they plan to return home as soon as they’re reunited with the child. Understandably.”
“Ah. Yes.” Mr. Roosevelt nodded, looking serious for a moment. “That is understandable, I suppose—quite understandable. But I hope you’ll emphasize to them, Sara, that this sort of incident is hardly typical of our nation.”
“Of course,” Miss Howard answered.
Grinning again as he went back to studying Ana, Mr. Roosevelt said, “French, you say? What a pity they weren’t Spanish. She has something of a Spanish look about her, this little one. It might have been useful to show those blackguards how a free people handles a problem like this!”
“Mmm, yes,” Mr. Moore said casually. “It might have been.”
“Still,” Mr. Roosevelt went on, as our boat cruised out into the center of the Hudson, “as you say, Doctor, it hardly matters who her family is. She is a child, and she is safe now.” At that Ana reached out again to clutch Mr. Roosevelt’s playful finger, causing his smile to widen. “Do you know,” he said quietly, “I think a baby’s hand is the most beautiful thing in the world.”
CHAPTER 58
Once we were all back at Seventeenth Street, Lucius discovered that the Doctor had a nursing bottle in his consulting room (he used it, what you might call ironically enough, to lecture women who were having trouble weaning their kids) and began to mix a concoction in it what he thought might help Ana Linares get over the touch of colic what was continuing, every few minutes, to take away her usual happy smile and playful laughter. Milk, honey, and the little paregoric what was left over from my attempts to dose Kat all went into the brew, and as the detective sergeant fed it to the baby she did seem to regain her full color and spriteliness of spirit. It was a breath of fresh air, to have a contented, even happy, symbol of new life among a group of people who’d experienced nothing but violence and killing for days and nights on end. In fact, so potent was the effect of Ana’s presence that we all took turns holding and feeding her, letting the little girl’s unspoiled joy at being alive and our knowledge that we’d rescued her from a close brush with death perform the kind of healing magic what only children can bring.
Along toward one A.M. Mr. Roosevelt and Lieutenant Kimball took their leave and headed back for Washington, to resume the business of planning the war with Spain what they believed and hoped was on its way. I don’t know to this day if anyone ever told the former police commissioner just how much our business that night might’ve been connected, if things had broken only a hair differently, to the outbreak of that war; something tells me that he and the Doctor must have had words about it before Mr. Roosevelt’s death earlier this year. But the most important fact, then as now, was that Mr. Roosevelt had come to our aid without knowing anything more than that his friends and an innocent child were in trouble. It only made me like and respect the man all the more; and as I think of him now, pulling away from the house in his landau on his way to Grand Central, flashing us that wonderful grin what would one day keep political cartoonists in such clover, I wondered why it was