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By Root 2898 0

what was waiting down at the pier; otherwise, they never would’ve gotten so close in the first place. O’Brien would choke before he gave what looked to be the summer’s biggest catch to a pair of detectives who spent near all their time telling him that his methods were so out of date as to be laughable. But the Isaacsons had really finished any chance what they might’ve had of working on the thing by writing up an initial report along the lines of what we’d heard Lucius saying that night by the river: all indications were that it was a crime of passion committed by someone close to the victim, someone who knew his identifying marks and had carefully cut them away—someone, in other words, whose main concern was hiding the victim’s identity and throwing suspicion off of themselves. But for the brass at the Detective Bureau, such wasn’t good enough. They preferred the idea of a crazed anatomist or medical student dealing in body parts, the kind of spooky tale what always sparks the public’s imagination. And that’s just what they started to give out to the papers that very night. The fact that everything about the body spoke directly against such an idea, well, that kind of thing never bothered the Detective Bureau much. A real solution to a crime never rated against an invented story that could be used to their advantage.

Anyway, when Monday morning rolled around, Captain O’Brien saw the Isaacsons’ initial report and decided that if he was going to milk “the mystery of the headless body” for all it was worth, he’d have to keep the brothers as far away from it as possible. It so happened that he also needed to make an assignment that morning of two detectives to investigate conditions at the Kreizler Institute for Children and the apparent suicide of young Paulie McPherson; and he took no wee bit of fiendish Irish pleasure in informing the Isaacsons that not only were they off the torso case, they were on the McPherson business. He knew that they were acquaintances of Dr. Kreizler’s—but, like most cops, O’Brien had no liking for the Doctor and would only be tickled by making the situation even more difficult for him than it already was. If the thing turned out bad and the Isaacsons had to come down on their friend, well, that would just be a bigger laugh; and if nothing came of it, O’Brien would at least have succeeded in keeping the brothers out of the more important “headless body” business.

“And so,” Marcus finished up, “here we are. I’m sorry, Doctor. We’ll try to make it as convenient and—well—dignified for you as we can.”

“Indeed we will,” Lucius tacked on anxiously.

The Doctor moved in quickly to put them at their ease. “Don’t let yourselves feel odd about it, either of you. There was nothing you could have done. Such a move was to be expected, really. We must try to make the most of it.” His voice became touched by sadness for a moment. “I’ve racked my own mind, and those of my staff, for any clue as to what drove the McPherson boy to take his own life—without success, I’m afraid. I’m as certain as I can be that there was no incident at the Institute to spark it, though you must of course decide all that for yourselves. I do hope you know, however, that there are no two people in the world I would sooner trust with the matter than yourselves.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lucius mumbled.

“Yes,” Marcus said. “Though I’m afraid we’ll be a damned nuisance to you.”

“Nonsense,” Doctor Kreizler added—and I could hear in his voice that the relief he felt over things working out this way was growing into a kind of happiness. I glanced at Mr. Moore and Miss Howard and found them smiling in a fashion what said they were positively delighted things had worked out this way, and it was no big job to figure out why: while the Isaacsons’ new assignment would only increase the chances of the Doctor taking on the Linares case, it would also cinch it that we’d have the talents of the detective sergeants on tap twenty-four hours a day. Such was cause for smiles, indeed.

“It’s all a lot of noise over nothing, anyway,” Mr. Moore said as he