The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [49]
I glanced around to find each of them staring at me. “Well—yeah, I guess.” They kept staring, and I started to fidget. “It ain’t like I do it anymore!” I protested, which seemed to give them a chuckle.
“All right, then,” the Doctor said, taking the limelight back off of me. “He’s a professional. Who happens to be about the height of his victim and possesses a remarkably light touch.” The Doctor moved to the right side of the circle. “But who can have hired him? Moore? You’re the one who favors this interpretation—give me your candidates.”
“We’re not short on those,” Mr. Moore answered from his desk. “There’s a lot of people who’d like to see a diplomatic incident between the United States and Spain right now. We can start with the war party in this country—”
“Very well,” the Doctor said, listing them as U.S. CITIZENS FAVORING WAR on the board. “Those Americans who don’t care who starts the war, so long as we finish it.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Moore said. Then he frowned. “Though I doubt they’d want Americans to come off looking quite so brutal.”
“Who else?” the Doctor demanded.
“Well, there’s the Cubans,” Mr. Moore replied. “The exiles here in New York. They’d be in favor of anything that started a war, too.”
“The Cuban Revolutionary Party,” Marcus added. “They’ve got an office down on Front Street, near the docks on the East Side. Moldy old building—they’re up on the fourth floor. Lucius and I can roust them tomorrow, if you like.”
“I submit that tonight would be more useful,” Dr. Kreizler replied. “If they have the child, they are far more likely to plan its fate in the dead of night than during the day.” CUBAN REVOLUTIONARIES went on the right-hand side of the circle.
“Then there’s the Spaniards themselves,” Mr. Moore said. “Personally, I like them the best—they remove the kid and keep the mother in the dark, figuring she’s not up to being part of it.”
“And make no announcement of what’s happened?” Miss Howard said. “Why frame our country and then fail to report the crime?”
Mr. Moore shrugged. “They may be waiting for the right moment. You know the situation in Washington, Sara—you said it yourself, McKinley’s still looking for some way out of this damned war. Maybe they’re waiting until he has no way out.”
“In that case, why not remove the child later?” Miss Howard asked. “Or sooner? There was more war hysteria in the spring than there is right now.”
“Perhaps they’ve simply mistimed their play,” the Doctor offered, writing SPANISH WAR PARTY on the board. “Spain is hardly being run by geniuses at the moment. Those who favor war are either psychopathic sadists like Weyler”—by which he meant the infamous General Weyler, the governor-general of Cuba who’d begun the practice of putting Cuban peasants into what they called “concentration camps,” where they couldn’t help the rebels but could die like flies of disease and starvation—“or deluded monarchists, dreaming of the days of the conquistadores.” The Doctor stood away from the board. “So—that completes the list of suspects. One of the groups hires a professional, he abducts the child, and it is taken into hiding. By—”
“The woman on the train,” Miss Howard answered quickly. “She’s the caretaker—unless you think the señora was mistaken about seeing the baby.”
“A different woman might have been,” the Doctor answered. “But this woman? No. She has the presence of mind to come here and discuss the affair in detail, even though she’s aware of the potential consequences should her husband discover it. This is not a woman given to either delusions or hysteria. No, when she says she saw the child, I believe her.” Inclining toward the bottom of the circle on the board, the Doctor wrote THE WOMAN ON THE TRAIN:, the colon showing that he intended to write more. “All right, John,” he continued. “Explain this mysterious woman in a political context.”
Mr. Moore looked to be at a loss. “Well, she’s—she’s just what Sara