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By Root 2793 0

the morning was only growing more beautiful, with the breeze continuing to blow the smells of fresh, full greenery and leaves around the street so that they near overcame the stench of garbage piles and horse manure and urine, he didn’t seem to take note of it. He had his right hand balled into a fist that he tapped against his mouth as he stared intensely at nothing, and with his left hand he clutched at the bunch of roses so tight that one of the thorns stabbed him. I heard him hiss a little in pain, but I didn’t say anything—I didn’t know what I could say. The man was a spent bullet, that much was clear, and the best thing for me to do was get him home in a hurry. With that in mind, I gave Frederick a little ripple of the reins and told him to pick up his pace, and soon we were moving back around Stuyvesant Park.

Once inside the house at Seventeenth Street, the Doctor, his face by now ashen with exhaustion, turned to Cyrus and me. “I’ve got to try to get some rest,” he mumbled, starting up the stairs. He stopped and flinched a bit at the sound of a bucket overturning in the kitchen hallway with what was, even for Mrs. Leshko, an amazing crash. The racket was followed by a long stream of what I figured were Russian curses.

The Doctor sighed. “Assuming it’s possible to communicate with that woman, would you please ask her to keep the house quiet for a few hours? If she’s incapable, give her the afternoon off.”

“Yes, sir, Doctor,” Cyrus said. “If you need anything—”

The Doctor only held up a hand and nodded in acknowledgment, then disappeared up the stairs. Cyrus and I looked at each other.

“Well?” Cyrus whispered to me.

“It isn’t good,” I answered. “But I’ve got an idea—” Another crash and more curses came from the kitchen. “You handle Mrs. Leshko,” I said. “I’m going to telephone to Mr. Moore.”

Cyrus nodded, and then I bolted down through the kitchen hallway and past the muttering, mopping mass of blue linen and stout flesh that was Mrs. Leshko. I kept on going through the white ceramic tiling and hanging pots and pans of the kitchen itself and finally got into the pantry, where there was a telephone on the wall. Closing the pantry door, I grabbed the ‘phone’s small receiver, yanked the stem of the mouthpiece down to my height, and got hold of an operator, telling her to connect me to The New York Times. In a few seconds, I had Mr. Moore on the other end.

“Stevie?” he said. “We’ve had some developments. Interesting ones.”

“Yeah? Any word on the baby?”

“Only confirmation that she is, in fact, missing—none of the help at the consulate have seen her in days. I didn’t want to question anybody higher up, though, not with what the señora’s been through. But tell me—what’s the word on your end?”

“Well, he’s in pretty bad shape right now,” I answered “But he’s gone up to rest. And I think—”

Mr. Moore paused, waiting for me to go on, and I could hear the clack of typewriters in the background “You think—?”

“I don’t know—this case. If you were to put it to him just the right way, he might… I mean, the whole connection to the Spanish business—and the señora, if we could get him to meet her… and that picture of the little girl…”

“What are you saying, Stevie?”

“Only that… he’s in a mood, all right. And if this case leads in the direction it might—”

“Ahhhh,” Mr. Moore noised in a happier tone. “I see. … Well. Your education’s starting to pay off, kid.”

“It is?”

“If I get you right, you’re saying that this case may enc up revealing some pretty unattractive things about the same kind of society types that’re trying to shut the Doctor down. And the fact that it involves an innocent baby is just so much gravy. Right?”

“Well, yeah. Something like that.”

Mr. Moore whistled. “I’ll tell you what, Stevie—I’ve known Laszlo since we were younger than you are. I don’t care how fed up and exhausted he is, if that doesn’t get him going, we can start planning his funeral now—because he’s already dead.”

“Yeah. But we gotta slip the idea to him right.”

“Don’t you worry about that. I’ve already figured it out. Tell the Doctor the