by Caleb Carr
“Then what’s our answer?” Lucius asked, looking around the room.
I knew what I was thinking, and I knew that Mr. Moore and Marcus probably felt the same way: if nobody else was going to take care of the job, it was up to us to go down there, bust into that hell house on Bethune Street, and do what had to be done. But none of the three of us was going to give voice to this opinion while the Doctor was in the room, knowing, as we did, that he placed such a high value on our taking Libby Hatch alive.
Which was why his next line of thought came as kind of a surprise: “The navy,” he said quietly, his black eyes lighting up.
“The what?” Mr. Moore responded, looking dumbfounded.
“The navy” the Doctor repeated, turning to Marcus. “Detective Sergeant—we know that the Hudson Dusters relish conflict with the New York City Police Department. How would they feel, do you suppose, about an encounter with the United States Navy?”
“Kreizler,” Mr. Moore said, “you have obviously gone around some bend—”
Ignoring Mr. Moore, Marcus began to nod. “Offhand, I’d say they’d back off—navy men are, as you know, pretty renowned brawlers. And they carry the authority of the federal government, not just the city—political connections and local rivalries wouldn’t get into the thing.”
The Doctor began to bounce the knuckles of his right hand against his mouth. “Yes,” he said quietly. Then another thought seemed to flash in his head. “The White Star Line’s pier is, I believe, just a few blocks around the corner from Libby Hatch’s house on Bethune Street, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, it is,” Miss Howard said, looking puzzled. “At Tenth Street. Why, Doctor?”
Seeing a copy of the morning edition of the Times tucked into Marcus’s jacket pocket, the Doctor stood up and snatched it away. Quickly ruffling its pages, he searched for what seemed like some small but important piece of information. “No White Star ships currently in port,” he eventually said with a nod. “Then he could have a vessel land there, and we could approach the house from the rear—taking the gang by relative surprise.”
“Who could?” Mr. Moore near shouted. “Laszlo, what in hell—” All of a sudden, his jaw dropped as he got it. “Oh, no. Oh, no, Kreizler, that is insane, you can’t—not Roosevelt!”
“Yes,” the Doctor answered, looking up from the paper with a smile. “Roosevelt.”
Mr. Moore scrambled to his feet. “Get Theodore involved in this case? Once he finds out what’s going on, he’ll start his damned war against Spain right here in this city!”
“Precisely why,” the Doctor replied, “he must not be told all the details. Ana Linares’s name and lineage need not concern him. The fact that we are attempting to solve a string of murders and a kidnapping and can get no satisfaction from the New York police will be more than enough to rouse Theodore’s interest.”
“But,” said Miss Howard, who, like Mr. Moore and the Doctor, had known Mr. Roosevelt for most of her life, “what can even Theodore possibly do? He’s assistant secretary of the navy, yes, but—”
“And just now he’s treating the entire fleet as if it were his own,” the Doctor replied, holding up an envelope. “A letter from him came during our absence. It seems that Secretary Long is on vacation for the month of August, and Theodore has been making bold moves. He’s becoming known as ‘the warm-weather secretary’ around Washington, a fact of which he is inordinately—and typically—proud. I’m certain there are one or two serviceable vessels and crews out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard—perhaps even closer. More than enough men to meet our purposes. An order from Roosevelt is all the thing would require.”
Mr. Moore was gently slapping his own face, trying to come to grips with the notion. “Let me get this straight: You’re proposing that Roosevelt order the United States Navy to invade Greenwich Village and engage the Hudson Dusters?”
The Doctor’s mouth curled up gently again. “Essentially, yes.”
Marcus stepped in quickly. “It may sound outlandish, John,” he said, looking encouraged by the idea. “But it won’t play that way in reports. If any violence should occur, it’ll just read like a typical brawl between sailors and gangsters. And while it goes on, we’ll be able to do what we need to.”
Tucking his letter from Mr. Roosevelt into his jacket, the Doctor dashed for the stairs. “I’m going to telephone him in Washington straightway,” he said, heading down toward the kitchen. “There’s no time to be lost—the woman must even now be planning her flight from the city!”
Suddenly there was a new feeling of life in the house, one brought on, I knew, by the bare possibility of even indirect involvement in the case on the part of Mr. Roosevelt. He had that effect on people, did the former police commissioner: of all the Doctor’s close friends there wasn’t one with a purer love of life, of action—and most especially of a good fight, whether boxing or politics or war. But he was a kind man, too, was Mr. Roosevelt, as kind as anyone what ever came to the Doctor’s house in all the years I lived there; and I found that even I, in my saddened state, took a lot of heart from the thought that he might give us a hand in bringing Libby Hatch to justice. Oh, the idea was a crazy one, Mr. Moore was right about that much; but practically every undertaking Mr. Roosevelt got involved with seemed crazy, at the start—yet most of them ended up being not only important but happy achievements. So as we waited for the Doctor to return from the pantry, we began to talk over the details of the plan with an interest what bordered on enthusiasm—enthusiasm what was very surprising, considering all we’d been through.
When the Doctor came back upstairs, he was, if not out-and-out excited, at least very satisfied. “He’ll do it. He wants us to wait here—he’ll have someone from the navy yard inform us of what vessel will be available and when. But he promises action tonight.”
Mr. Moore let out another moan of disbelief, but even he was smiling a bit by that point. “May God help us …”
So began more long hours of waiting. During the first couple of these our quiet anticipation grew, fed by more of Cyrus’s coffee, into a strange sort of hopeful fidgeting; but as the afternoon wore on this feeling started to ebb, mostly because the telephone and the doorbell remained notably silent. Mr. Roosevelt was not a man to waste time; and the fact that we weren’t getting word from any of his people, in Brooklyn or anywhere else, seemed what you might call mystifying. The rain didn’t let up, and eventually its steady rhythm helped exhaustion take hold of each of us: eager we might’ve been, but that didn’t change the fact that nobody’d really slept for more than an hour or so since Saturday night. One by one members of our group began to drift off to bedrooms for catnaps, and each, including me, woke from these fitful spells of slumber to the disappointing news that there’d still been no message from either Washington or Brooklyn.
Finally, as five o’clock drew near, the Doctor went back downstairs to call Mr. Roosevelt again; and when he returned this time his mood was very different from what it’d been earlier. He hadn’t gotten through to his friend, but he had come away from a conversation with Mr. Roosevelt’s secretary with the distinct impression that the man was in his office and avoiding the Doctor’s call specifically. No one could make any sense out of this at all: Mr. Roosevelt was not a man to avoid a straight, nose-to-nose jawing with anybody, especially someone he cared about and respected. If he’d found he couldn’t deliver on his earlier pledge to the Doctor, he would certainly have gotten on the telephone to say so. What, then, could be the explanation? Had he discovered the Spanish connection to the case of Libby Hatch somehow, and decided to pursue a separate course on his own?
Such questions were not exactly the kind what would’ve revived our weakened enthusiasm; and by seven o’clock the whole bunch of us were strewn around the Doctor’s parlor, dozing. The rain had finally lightened up, and I was lying in front of one of the open French windows on the carpeted floor, letting the cool air that the storm had brought into the city play over my face and lull me into the f
irst really decent rest I’d had all day. Still, it was a light sleep, one easily interrupted by noises from outside; and the noise what I heard coming from that direction at about seven-thirty was one what was at once so familiar yet so out of place that I honestly couldn’t tell if I was asleep or awake:
It was the forceful, high-pitched sound of Mr. Roosevelt’s voice.
“Wait here!” it was saying; then I heard the sound of a carriage door closing. “I shall want you to take us to the yard as soon as we’ve had a chance to speak with the others!”
“Yes, sir!” came a crisp, efficient answer, one what caused me to roll over and look outside.
And there he was, all right, the assistant secretary of the navy, done up in his best black linen and walking side by side with an older man who wore a navy officer’s uniform.
“Holy Christ,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. “Holy Christ!” I repeated, loud enough for the others to start coming out of their slumbers. Unable to stop myself from breaking into a smile, I scrambled to my feet and began shaking whatever shoulders I could grab fastest. “He’s here! Doctor—Miss Howard—it’s Mr. Roosevelt! He’s here! Holy Christ!”
At this news the others got to their feet, looking just as confused and unsure of their senses as I’d felt—that is, until they heard the sound of the front door opening.
“Doctor?” came the bark from downstairs. “Moore! Where in thunder are you all?” Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs as the shouting continued. “And where is the brilliant Sara Howard, that former secretary of mine?”
A few more heavy steps, and then those unmistakable features began to appear in the shadows at the top of the stairs: in a sort of reversed version of Mr. Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, Mr. Roosevelt generally became visible grin first, his big teeth standing out in even the deepest blackness. Next to be seen were the small, squinting eyes behind the little steel-rimmed spectacles, and finally the square head, the broad mustache, and the huge barrel chest, the last of which had been built up, after enduring a childhood of terrible asthma, to become one of the most powerful in the world.
“Well!” he cried out, as he moved down the hall followed by the much calmer—and very wise-looking—navy officer. “I like this! Crime and outrage running rampant, and you all lollygagging about as if there were no action to be gotten!” He put his hands to his hips as he came into the parlor, still grinning from ear to ear; then he shot his right paw out to the Doctor. “Kreizler! Delighted to see you, Doctor, dee-lighted!”
“Hello, Roosevelt,” the Doctor answered with a smile. “I suppose I should’ve known you wouldn’t miss this chance.”
“Hell,” Mr. Moore said, “we all should’ve known.”
Making his way around the room, Mr. Roosevelt pressed the flesh hard with everybody, and accepted a warm hug from Miss Howard. He was especially glad, it seemed to me, to find that the Isaacson brothers were there, and still on the police force—for it was himself who’d brought them in, as part of his effort to loosen the grip what the Irish clan of Tammany hirelings had on Mulberry Street. When he finally got around to saying hello to me, I’d gotten so excited by his presence and the new hope it seemed to bring that I was shifting from foot to foot nervously. Still, there must have been much of the morning’s sadness left in my face, for Mr. Roosevelt’s smile shrank a little as he leaned down to shake my hand and look into my eyes.
“Well, young Stevie,” he said, with real sympathy. “You’ve had a hard time of all this, I understand. But don’t doubt this, my boy—” He put one of his tough hands on my shoulder. “We have come here to see that justice is done!”
CHAPTER 54
As the Isaacsons began to sort through all their housebreaking equipment and weapons, figuring out what we’d need for our final assault on Number 39 Bethune Street, the rest of us rushed to get into suitable clothes for the mission: you didn’t often stand still, and you never wasted time, when Mr. Roosevelt was around. Once we were reassembled in the parlor, the former police commissioner took a moment to introduce us to his companion.
“Lieutenant William W. Kimball of the United States Navy,” Mr. Roosevelt said proudly, almost as if the officer was one of his own kids, instead of a man what obviously had a few years on him. Quite a few years, in fact: when it came my turn to shake hands with the officer I wondered why, at his age (almost fifty, it turned out), he was still stuck with such a low rank. It wasn’t until later that somebody explained to me that his situation wasn’t unusual: being as the navy hadn’t seen any real action since the Civil War, advancement had gotten to be a very slow process. “Lieutenant Kimball lectures at the Naval War College,” Mr. Roosevelt continued, “and has no equal when it comes to the business of war plans.”
“Why, Roosevelt,” Mr. Moore mocked, “are you planning a war?”
Mr. Roosevelt held up a finger. “Now, now, Moore, you won’t snare me with any of your reporter’s questions. The navy is always developing contingency plans, in the event of conflict with any power.”
“I shouldn’t have thought that we required any strategic planning for what we are to undertake tonight,” the Doctor said, studying Lieutenant Kimball curiously. “Though you are of course welcome, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” the lieutenant answered gamely; but even though he seemed to have some of the swagger (along with the usual large mustache) of a sailor, you could tell from his voice that he also had far more brains than your garden-variety naval man. “It’s not my war planning, though, that prompted Mr. Roosevelt to ask me along. I have some other areas of expertise that he thought might be useful.”
“Indeed!” Mr. Roosevelt agreed, pounding on the lieutenant’s back. “Kimball, here, is a man ahead of his time. I hear nothing but battleships, battleships, battleships, from most of our officers, but Kimball has put his mind to developing the weapons that will determine the course of naval warfare in the next century, rather than the last. Torpedoes! Submarines! I tell you, that French novelist Verne has nothing on the lieutenant, here.”
That comment snagged my interest, for the Doctor’d often given me books by Mr. Jules Verne to read, and the Frenchman’s tales of life under the sea, trips to the moon, and powerful new weapons had kept me up late more than one night, wondering just what sort of a world we were actually heading for. “Is that true, Lieutenant?” I asked, as respectfully as I knew how. “Will we really fight underwater, like Captain Nemo?”
The lieutenant smiled and reached out to tousle my hair some. “Oh, yes, Master Taggert—but without Nemo’s electrical guns, I’m afraid. At least for the moment. The torpedo will be the submarine’s principal armament, and together with torpedo boats they will become the deadliest enemies of all ships.”
“Torpedo boats?” I echoed. “What are those?”
“Those,” Mr. Roosevelt answered, “are the reason that Lieutenant Kimball is here, Stevie. Small, lightly armored craft, capable of remarkable speeds. I cruised in one from Oyster Bay to Newport a few weeks ago, and I don’t mind telling you all—it was bully! Like riding a high-mettled horse—agile, quick, capable of striking without warning and then disappearing.” He turned to the Doctor. “Just the sort of thing, it seemed to me, that your business tonight requires, Kreizler.”
The Doctor considered that idea. “Yes—yes, the ability to arrive suddenly and depart at high speed will be a great asset. And where are these craft at the moment?”
“We have several out at the navy yard,” Lieutenant Kimball answered. “They require relatively small crews, but more men can be taken on, if we feel we need them.”
“The more the better, if we’re going up against the Dusters,” Mr. Moore said. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance these ‘torpedoes’ can reach a few blocks inland, Lieutenant?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Moore,” Lieutenant Kimball answered with a smile. “Once ashore, we’ll have to rely on ourselves.”
“Yes,” Mr. Moore said, not very e
nthusiastically. “I was afraid of that.”
“Take heart, John!” Mr. Roosevelt said, thumping his old friend on the back the way he had Lieutenant Kimball. Mr. Moore, though, didn’t look too pleased by the action. “Why, we can put three score sailors against those—”
“Teddy,” Mr. Moore interrupted, using the childhood name what Mr. Roosevelt was known to dislike. “It’s going to be a hell of an evening, and if you start slapping me now I won’t be able to stand up by the time it’s all over.”
“Ha! You don’t fool me with that talk. I know the true measure of your abilities, Moore—I saw them amply displayed on our last adventure together!” Walking over to Miss Howard, Mr. Roosevelt took her hands in his warmly. “And you, Sara—that dress may be plain, but I’ll wager it has room enough for a certain pearl-handled Colt of yours!”
“Along with a considerable supply of cartridges,” Miss Howard replied with a nod. “So don’t anyone think of jeopardizing themselves by keeping a special eye out for me.”
“As if we don’t know that,” Lucius said, shaking his head.
“Ah, and my Maccabees!” Mr. Roosevelt said, moving over to the Isaacsons. “Kimball, you will never meet two men who combine bravery and brains more than the detective sergeants, here. I was called a lot of things for bringing Jews onto the police force, but I stand by the decision. Why, if we had six or seven men like these in Naval Intelligence, I daresay—ah.” Realizing that he was about to say too much about his business in Washington, Mr. Roosevelt smiled and raised a hand. “But I’m straying from the affairs of the moment. Cyrus!” he went on, approaching my big friend. “What about you—will you rely on those fists alone, or will you take along something a little more substantial?”
