The Alienist

by Caleb Carr

  As Kreizler finished his story, I heard the first whistle of the New York train in the eastern distance. Still stunned, I nonetheless began going over the events of recent weeks in my mind, trying to determine where it was that I had gone so wrong in my interpretation.

  “It was Sara,” I finally said. “Since the beginning she’s been behaving like—well, I don’t know just what she’s been behaving like, but it’s been damned peculiar. Does she know?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Kreizler answered, “though I’ve never told her. Sara seems to view everything around her as a test case on which to sharpen her detecting skills. I believe this little puzzle has been most entertaining for her.”

  “Entertaining,” I said with a grunt. “And I thought it was love. I’ll bet she knew I was off on the wrong track. It’s just the kind of thing she’d do, let me go around thinking—well, you wait till we get back. I’ll show her what happens when you play that kind of game with John Schuyler—”

  I stopped as the New York train appeared a mile or so down the tracks to our left, still moving at high speed toward the station.

  “We can continue this on board,” I said, helping Kreizler up. “And rest assured we will continue it!”

  After waiting for the train to come to a full, grunting halt outside the station, Kreizler and I began a quick trot across another rock- and ditch-riddled field toward the vehicle’s last car. We climbed onto the observation deck and then moved stealthily on inside, where I got Laszlo comfortably positioned in a rear seat. There was as yet no sign of the conductor, and we used the few minutes before our departure to neaten Kreizler’s bandage, and our general appearances, as well. I glanced out at the station platform every few seconds, trying to spot anyone whose demeanor might betray him for an assassin, but the only other people entraining were an elderly, well-to-do woman with a walking stick and her large, rather harried nurse.

  “Looks as though we may have gotten a break,” I said, standing in the aisle. “I’ll just have a quick look up ahead and—”

  My voice froze as my eyes turned to the rear door of the car. Two large forms had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, on the observation deck; and although their attention was directed away from the train—they were arguing with a station official—I could see enough of them to recognize the two thugs who had chased Sara and me from the Santorellis’ flat.

  “What is it, Moore?” Kreizler asked, eyeing me. “What’s happened?”

  Knowing that in his current condition Laszlo wasn’t going to be much good in a confrontation of any kind, I tried to smile, and then shook my head. “Nothing,” I said quickly. “Nothing at all. Don’t be so jumpy, Kreizler.”

  We both turned at the sound of the elderly woman and her nurse entering the front door of our car. Though my stomach was alive with sudden dread, my mind was working reliably: “I’ll be right back,” I told Laszlo, and then I approached the newcomers.

  “Excuse me,” I said, smiling and doing my best to be engaging. “May I be of some assistance in getting you settled, madam?”

  “You may,” the old woman answered, in a tone that indicated she was very familiar with being waited on hand and foot. “This wretched nurse of mine is utterly useless!”

  “Oh, surely not,” I answered, eyeing the walking stick that the woman was leaning on: it had a fine head of heavy silver, which was fashioned into the likeness of a swan. I seized the woman’s arm and guided her into a seat. “But there are limits,” I said, surprised at the old woman’s weight and ungainliness, “to even the best nurse’s capabilities.” The nurse gave me a smile, at that, and I took the opportunity to lay hold of the old woman’s stick. “If you’ll allow me to hold this, madam, I think we can—there!” With a loud groan the seat received its occupant, who let out a rush of air.

  “Oh!” the woman exclaimed. “Oh, yes, that’s better. Thank you, sir. You are a gentleman.”

  I smiled again. “A pleasure,” I said, walking away.

  As I passed Kreizler he gave me a dumbfounded look. “Moore, what the devil—”

  I indicated silence to him, then approached the rear door of the car, keeping my face to one side so that I couldn’t be seen from without. The two men were still arguing with the station attendant on the platform, about what I couldn’t tell; but when I looked down I saw that one of them held a rifle case. “He’ll have to go first,” I mumbled to myself; but before making any move I waited for the train to start rolling out of the station.

  When that moment finally came I heard the two men outside yell some final, and fairly raw, insults at the stationman: in seconds they would turn and be inside. I took a deep breath, then opened the door quickly and quietly.

  Not for nothing had I spend many seasons following the trials and tribulations of New York’s baseball Giants. During afternoons in Central Park I’d developed a healthy batting swing of my own, which I now exercised with the old woman’s cane across the neck and skull of the thug who held the rifle case. The man cried out, but before he could even clutch at the injury I’d put a hand between his shoulder blades and shoved him over the railing of the observation deck. Although the train was still moving fairly slowly, there was no chance of the man getting back on board—but I was still faced with the second thug, who screamed “What in hell?” as he spun on me.

  Suspecting that his first instinct would be to go for my throat, I crouched down low and let him have the silver swan in the groin. The man doubled over for just an instant, and when he rose again he looked more infuriated than disabled by the blow. He threw a fist that glanced off my skull as I leaned out over the railroad tracks to avoid it. The train, I divined from a brief, somewhat dizzy glance downward, was picking up speed. Clumsy even for a man his size, the thug had stumbled when his blow failed to land securely, and as he tried to regain his balance I laid the swan across his cheek, although the move was cramped and didn’t prevent him from coming for me again. I held the stick up with both hands, but my opponent, anticipating another swing, raised his beefy arms to protect either side of his head. Then he grinned maliciously and moved forward.

  “Now, you shit,” he grunted, and then he suddenly lunged. I had only one avenue of attack: leveling the stick at his throat, I shot its end into his Adam’s apple sharply, producing a sudden, choked cry and momentarily paralyzing the man. I quickly dropped the stick, grabbed hold of the roof of the deck, pulled myself up, and let the thug have a full kick with both feet. The blow sent him, too, over the railing, and into an embankment by the tracks. There he rolled to a halt, still clutching his throat.

  Lowering myself back down I took a few deep, gasping breaths, then looked up to see Kreizler coming through the door.

  “Moore!” he said, crouching by me. “Are you all right?” I nodded, still breathing hard, as Laszlo looked into the distance behind us. “Your condition certainly seems preferable to the state those two are in. However, if you’re able to walk I suggest you get back inside—that woman’s gone into hysterics. She thinks you’ve stolen her walking stick, and she’s threatening to send for the authorities when we reach our next stop.”

  With my pulse finally beginning to calm, I straightened out my clothes, then picked up the walking stick and headed into the car. Stumbling a bit as I walked down the aisle, I approached the old woman.

  “Here you are, madam,” I said, cordially if still a bit breathlessly. She drew back in fear. “I only wanted to admire it in the sunlight.”

  The woman accepted the stick without saying anything; but as I walked back to my seat I heard her shriek and exclaim: “No—get it away! There’s blood on it, I tell you!”

  Collapsing with a groan, I was joined by Kreizler, who offered me his flask. “I can only suppose that those were not men to whom you owe a gambling debt,” he said.

  I shook my head and had a drink. “No,” I breathed. “Connor’s boys. More than that I can’t tell you.”

  “Did they really intend to kill us, do you think?” Laszlo wond
ered. “Or simply to frighten us?”

  I shrugged. “I doubt we’ll ever know. And frankly, I’d rather not talk about it just at the moment. Besides, we were in the midst of a very important discussion, before they butted in…”

  The conductor soon appeared, and as we bought two tickets to New York from him, I began to cross-examine Laszlo about the whole Mary Palmer business, not because I had any trouble believing it—no one who’d ever met the girl would have had any trouble believing it—but because, on the one hand, it soothed my nerves, and, on the other, it disarmed Kreizler so thoroughly and refreshingly. All the dangers we’d faced that day, indeed all the grimness of our investigation generally, somehow shrank in significance as Laszlo very tenuously revealed his personal hopes for the future. It was an unfamiliar sort of conversation for him, and difficult in many ways; but never had I seen the man look or sound so completely human as he did on that train ride.

  And never would I see him so again.

  CHAPTER 36

  * * *

  Our train, a local to begin with, made abominably poor time, so that when we stumbled out of the Grand Central Depot the first hints of dawn were beginning to show in the eastern sky. After agreeing that the long job of interpreting the information we’d gotten from Adam Dury could wait until that afternoon, Kreizler and I got into separate cabs and headed for our respective homes to get some sleep. All seemed quiet at my grandmother’s house when I reached Washington Square, and it was my hope that I’d be able to slip into bed before the morning’s activities began. I almost made it, too; but just as I was preparing to undress, having successfully navigated the stairs without making a sound, a light knocking came at my bedroom door. Before I’d given any reply, Harriet’s head poked into the room.

  “Oh, Mr. John, sir,” she said, clearly very upset. “Thank heavens.” She came fully into the room, pulling her robe tighter around herself. “It’s Miss Howard, sir—she was calling all yesterday evening, and last night, as well.”

  “Sara?” I said, alarmed at the look on Harriet’s usually cheerful face. “Where is she?”

  “At Dr. Kreizler’s—she said you’d find her there. There’s been some sort of—well, I don’t know, sir, she didn’t explain much of anything, but something terrible’s happened, I could tell it from her voice.”

  I jammed my feet back into my shoes in a rush. “Dr. Kreizler’s?” I said, my heart beginning to race. “What in the world’s she doing there?”

  Harriet wrung her hands vigorously. “Like I say, sir, she didn’t tell me—but please hurry, she’s called more than a dozen times!”

  Like a shot I was back out onto the street. Knowing that I wouldn’t find a cab any closer than Sixth Avenue at that hour, I bolted west at the fastest pace I could manage and didn’t come to a halt till I’d jumped into a hansom that was parked underneath the El tracks. I gave the driver Kreizler’s address and told him the matter was urgent, at which he grabbed his whip and put it to work. As we charged uptown—myself in a kind of fearful daze, too tired and mystified to make sense out of Harriet’s statement—I began to feel an occasional splash against my face and leaned out of the cab to look at the sky: heavy clouds had rolled in over the city, staving off the light of daybreak and moistening the streets with a steady rain.

  My driver didn’t let up for a moment during the trip to Stuyvesant Square, and in a remarkably short time I was standing on the sidewalk in front of Kreizler’s house. I gave the cabbie a generous amount of money without asking for change, to which he announced that he would wait for me at the curb, suspecting that I would need another ride soon and not wanting to lose so openhanded a fare at such a slow hour of the morning. I moved cautiously but quickly to the front door of the house, which was pulled open by Sara.

  She looked uninjured, for which I was grateful enough to give her a big embrace. “Thank God,” I said. “From the way Harriet sounded I was afraid that—” I suddenly pulled back when I caught sight of a man standing behind Sara: white-haired, distinguished, wearing a frock coat and carrying a Gladstone bag. I glanced at Sara again, and noticed that her face was full of an exhausted sadness.

  “This is Dr. Osborne, John,” Sara said quietly. “An associate of Dr. Kreizler’s. He lives nearby.”

  “How do you do?” Dr. Osborne said to me, without waiting for a reply. “Now, then, Miss Howard, I hope I’ve been clear—the boy is not to be moved or disturbed in any way. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial.”

  Sara nodded wearily. “Yes, Doctor. And thank you for being so attentive. If you hadn’t been here—”

  “I only wish that there was more I could have done,” Osborne answered quietly. Then he put his tall hat on his head, nodded to me, and set off. Sara pulled me inside.

  “What in hell’s happened?” I said, as I followed her up the stairs. “Where’s Kreizler? And what’s this about a boy? Has Stevie been hurt?”

  “Shush, John,” Sara answered, quietly but urgently. “We’ve got to keep things quiet in this house.” She resumed the climb to the parlor. “Dr. Kreizler’s—gone.”

  “Gone?” I echoed. “Gone where?”

  Walking into the dark parlor, Sara made a move toward a lamp, but then decided with a wave of her hand to leave it alone. She collapsed onto a sofa, and took a cigarette out of a case on a nearby table.

  “Sit down, John,” she said; and something about the range of emotions contained in those few words—resignation, sorrow, anger—made me comply instantly. I held out a match for her cigarette and waited for her to go on. “Dr. Kreizler’s at the morgue,” she finally said, in a smoky breath.

  I took in air quickly. “The morgue? Sara, what is it, what’s happened? Is Stevie all right?”

  She nodded. “He will be. He’s upstairs, along with Cyrus. We’ve got two cracked skulls to care for now.”

  “Cracked skulls?” I parroted again. “How in—” A sudden, sickening rush swept through my gut, as I glanced around the parlor and the adjacent hallway. “Wait a minute. Why are you here? And why are you letting people in and out? Where’s Mary?”

  Sara didn’t answer, at first, just rubbed her eyes slowly and then drew in some more smoke. Her voice, when it reemerged, was curiously faint. “Connor was here. Saturday night, with two of his thugs.” The twisting in my stomach became more extreme. “Apparently they’d lost track of you and Dr. Kreizler—and they must have been taking a lot of heat from their superiors, based on the way they were acting.” Standing up slowly, Sara strode to the French windows and opened one just a crack. “They forced their way into the house, and shut Mary in the kitchen. Cyrus was in bed, which left Stevie. They asked him where you and Dr. Kreizler were, but—well, you know Stevie. He wouldn’t say.”

  I nodded, and mumbled, “‘Go chase yourselves,’” softly.

  “Yes,” Sara answered. “So—they started in on him. Along with his skull he’s got a few broken ribs, and his face is a mess. But it’s the head that—well, he’ll live, but we don’t know yet just what sort of shape he’ll live in. Things ought to be clearer by tomorrow. Cyrus tried to get out of bed to help, but he only collapsed in the hallway upstairs and bumped his head again.”

  Though afraid to ask, I did: “And Mary?”

  Sara’s arms went up in resignation. “She must’ve heard Stevie screaming. I can’t imagine what else would have made her act so—rashly. She got hold of a knife, and managed to get out of the kitchen. I don’t know what she thought she was going to do, but…The knife ended up in Connor’s side. Mary ended up at the bottom of the stairs. Her neck was…” Sara’s voice trailed off.

  “Broken,” I finished for her, in a horrified whisper. “She was dead?”

  Sara nodded, and then cleared her throat to speak again. “Stevie got to the telephone, and called Dr. Osborne. I came by when I got back from New Paltz last night, and everything was—well, taken care of. Stevie did manage to say that it was an accident. That Connor didn’t mean to do it. But when Mary stabbed him he
spun around and…”