The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 28

When I’d first come to live with the Doctor and undertaken to study, among many other things, the history of my own country, he’d figured that the best place for me to start was close to home. And so my earliest voyages into what was, for me, a great darkness-the story of the world before my arrival in it-had been made up of books about the history of New York City and New York State. I’d also been on a few trips up north with the Doctor, when he’d had calls to pay on the penitentiaries and lunatic asylums what were located throughout the Hudson Valley, or when he went to Albany to give testimony to some commission or other about how the state should handle its mentally deranged citizens. So I was no stranger to the beautiful-if slightly spooky-landscape that surrounded us on our very pleasant voyage aboard the Mary Powell that day; all the same, a queer sort of feeling crept into me as we headed upriver, one that I’d never experienced on any of those earlier trips. I found that I was much more aware, not just of the misty mountains and green fields that lay beyond the river-banks (the usual objects of study for the sightseer), but of the towns that were cut into the countryside, and the many factory works what had been built over the years (and were still being built) along the river itself. In other words, the growing presence of people-in what I knew had been, just a hundred years earlier, a wild wilderness-was for some reason weighing heavy on my mind.

All through breakfast I wondered what could be making me see things so differently than I ever had before; and I got worried as to whether the change might not be permanent. It wasn’t until I went up onto the promenade deck with Miss Howard after breakfast to have a smoke that I started to comprehend my own feelings a little better: it was our recent discovery that Libby Hatch had been born and raised in similar surroundings that was changing my view of the country we were passing through, and the people in it, so much. This wasn’t some quiet, simple region where people lived close to nature and far from the ugliness and violence of cities like New York, I began to see; this was just a string of smaller New Yorks, where certain people engaged in the same kind of disheartening, and in some cases sickening, behavior that so many folks in the big city did. As this grim realization started to really sink in, I was surprised to find myself making a kind of wish: a wish that the great wilderness what still dominated up on mountains like the purple Catskills-standing in the distance to my left that afternoon-would spread back down over the earth and swallow up the ugly little nests of human beings what’d sprung up in the river valley. It was a wish that, true to my original fear, has never really gone away in all the years since.

And it certainly wasn’t altered any that day when we hit the middle stretch of the Hudson, where the manor houses of the old Dutch and English river families began to dot the hillsides to our right. Mr. Moore came up to join us, and both he and Miss Howard grew very quiet as they stared out toward those heights. I knew that each of them had real cause for sadness, being as they’d both spent much of their bittersweet childhoods there. In Mr. Moore the scenery obviously brought back memories of the brother whose death had saddened him so and caused such a breach with the rest of his family (Mr. Moore having contended that they’d driven his brother to morphine and drink with their strict Dutch ways). Miss Howard, on the other hand, was clearly thinking about the many summers and autumns she’d spent hunting, shooting, and generally living a boy’s life with her beloved father, who’d had no son (nor any other child besides his one daughter) to share his sporting pursuits with. Said father had died in a mysterious hunting accident in amongst those woods some years back, and there’d been talk of suicide. But Miss Howard-who’d taken the death so hard that she’d had to retreat to a sanitarium for a time-had always denied such rumors. Considering all this, it wasn’t too surprising to see the pair’s spirits sag beyond melancholy as they watched the high hills and the stately houses pass by. And though we eventually went below again to consume a very tasty lunch, and even managed to play a few silly but diverting deck sports afterwards, the general mood among our party remained what you might call reserved.

The Mary Powell stopped only briefly in Albany, a bustling city with many factories, railroad tracks, and workers’ houses lining its riverfront: not the kind of scenery that was going to put me or anyone else in a more cheerful state of mind. Many of the steamer’s passengers debarked at the state’s capital, leaving just them what were finishing off the round trip to New York, along with those of us who were going on through a dredged upper section of the river to Troy. Only a few miles of the riverside between Albany and Troy were still unpopulated, and the fiery, smoky factories that we passed, along with the large groups of dirty, miserable workers who were coming out of them, served to underline the notion that the countryside was becoming ever more infected by mankind’s petty but brutal desires.

As for the city of Troy, it was a prosperous but dreary place, its dozens of brick manufacturing works and cargo steamships fouling the river just so’s to make the latest laundry, gardening, and locomotive machinery available to the rest of the world. By the time we left the Mary Powell, a beautiful sunset had begun to appear above the western portion of the city, making me anxious to strike out into the country, toward that fiery sinking ball and away from the city; so it came as a great disappointment to discover, when we reached the Union Depot and the offices of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Railroad Company, that the previous day’s great gale had struck this portion of the state, too, and caused a bad derailment on the line between Troy and Ballston Spa. We’d have to wait until morning to finish our journey, which meant spending a night in the nearby Union Hotel: not a terrible joint, by any means, but still discouraging for a young man who was chafing to get away from civilization and out into the wilderness.

The train ride the next morning offered me some relief, being as once we’d left Troy and its environs behind, we did start to pass through patches of countryside what hinted at how magical that part of the state must’ve been before civilization hit it like a runaway streetcar. There were long stretches of what seemed like ancient woodlands, and we passed by a couple of big silver lakes; but each time we’d quickly move on to some cluster of farms or past a bustling little town, all of which hammered home the point that the old forest was losing its fight for control of the landscape. Before long the conductor on our train was announcing our approach to Ballston Spa, and when we arrived at the town’s outskirts I found that my mood of the day before had returned, and maybe even gotten worse; though such was not a bad outlook to have, I quickly discovered, when you were entering the seat of Saratoga County.

Cyrus had brought along a little guidebook to the towns of the northern Hudson area, and he read from it as we chugged slowly toward the end of our journey. Ballston Spa, I learned, had once been famous for its string of quiet little health retreats, but over the last century things had changed pretty drastically: many of the mineral springs had dried up, and the spas had been replaced by a collection of mills. In their early days these large brickworks had produced wool, cotton, linens, and a peculiar battle-axe what looked like a Turkish scimitar (this last for the Union Army during the Civil War). But even the mills had fallen on hard times by 1897. Most of them had been built along a rushing creek what ran through the town, the Kayaderosseras (an old Iroquois word what meant something to the effect of “stream of the crooked waters”), but in the years that followed so much lumbering had been done around the stream’s watershed that the Kayaderosseras itself had been reduced to a trickling little creek what couldn’t power anything of consequence. So now the black smoke of furnaces poured from the chimneys of the mills, which, though they still made some farm tools, were currently known mostly for paper products.

Cyrus’s guidebook tried to relate all this information in what you might call a positive fashion, but there wasn’t much way to avoid the conclusion that-because of their own shortsightedness and in the space of just a century-the citizens of Ballston Spa had gone from operating the best health retreats in the North to boasting that their town was home to “the world’s finest paper bags.” The old resort hotels, which couldn’t compete with a string of gigantic, luxurious competitors what’d opened in nearby Saratoga Springs, had either been converted to boarding-houses for factory workers or burned down. Still, nobody ever thought to rename the town, even though, by 1897, there wasn’t much about Ballston that brought the word “spa” to mind.

The train depot sat just below a hill what separated the industrial parts of the town from the homes of the local swells. On top of said hill ran what some imaginative mug had named High Street, where most of the town’s churches, along with the county offices, were located. The station building itself wasn’t much to look at, just a long, low structure of the type you generally find in such places; and the few people who were standing out on the platform waiting for our train to pull in seemed made to match. All, that is, except for one of them:

He was all the way out on the easternmost end of the platform, as if he knew that Mr. Moore liked sitting at the back of trains and would’ve convinced us all to do likewise (which, in fact, he had). Smoking a pipe like his life depended on it, the short, ginger-haired man was also by turns pulling on a neatly clipped beard and mustache and running a hand through his similarly cut hair, all the while looking in every direction and walking round the platform as if the thing was on fire. His eyes, which I later determined were a very light gray, seemed a sort of silvery color from a distance, and they carried an expression that was both determined and a little wild. He pulled his watch out no less than three times while our train was slowing to a stop-just why I couldn’t say, seeing as we’d already arrived-and each time he tucked it away with a look of worry, then smoked and paced some more. I lost sight of the fellow as we made our way to the door of our car; but somehow I knew this was the man we’d come to see.

Mr. Moore turned to the rest of us as the train groaned and squeaked into the station. “All right, listen, all of you,” he said, his voice urgent. “Especially you, Kreizler. There’s one thing I neglected to mention about Rupert, because I didn’t want to discourage you from trusting the case to him. He truly is brilliant, but-well, the fact of the matter is, he can’t shut up.”

The rest of us looked at each other with expressions what indicated a shared belief that this must be some kind of gag.

“What do you mean, Moore?” the Doctor asked. “If he’s excessively verbal-”

“No,” Mr. Moore answered. “I mean he can’t shut up.”

Marcus laughed. “Of course he can’t. He’s a lawyer, for God’s sake-”

“No,”Mr. Moore said again. “It’s something more-something physical. He’s been to doctors about it. Some kind of-compulsion or something, I forget what they call it.”

“Pressured speech?” the Doctor guessed, looking intrigued.

Mr. Moore snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Anyway, it works wonders in court, but in conversation it can be a little much-” Banging into the closed front door of our car as the train came to a halt, Mr. Moore started for the steps. “I just wanted to warn you-he’s as nice a person as you’ll ever meet, but thoughts just come into his head and shoot right out of his mouth. So don’t take anything he says too personally, all right?” Checking each of our faces, Mr. Moore nodded once, and then we followed him out onto the platform.

Mr. Rupert Picton was still pacing and smoking, those big silver eyes looking very anxious. When Mr. Moore saw the sight, he grinned in a heartfelt way.

“Picton!” he called, walking toward his friend on the platform. “Good God, man, you look like you’re going to have kittens!”

“Your train’s late!” answered Mr. Picton, smiling through what he seemed to realize was very obvious nervousness. “They’re always late, these days-we can talk about going to war with Spain, but we can’t make our trains run on time! How are you, John?”

“Fine, fine,” Mr. Moore answered, as the rest of us joined him. “Let me introduce you to the others. This is Miss Sara Howard-”

“Hello, Mr. Picton,” Miss Howard said, extending a hand. “I’m afraid I’m the one who started all this unfortunate business.”

“Nonsense, Miss Howard,” Mr. Picton answered, shaking her hand vigorously and talking not only a lot, but at a very fast pace. “You mustn’t think that way. You didn’t start it-Libby Hatch did, when she first drew innocent blood and found that she had a taste for it! What you have started is an end to her sinister tale, and you should be proud that-ah! And here’s Dr. Kreizler!” The active little hand shot out again. “I recognize you from the pictures that have appeared with your monographs, sir-fascinating work, yours is, fascinating!”

“Thank you, Mr. Picton. It’s kind of you to-”

But Mr. Picton had already turned to Lucius and Marcus; he grinned and grabbed each of their hands in turn. “And I assume that you gentlemen are the Detective Sergeants Isaacson?”

Marcus smiled, and had just managed to say, “Why, yes-” before he was cut off.

“Don’t go crediting me with any powers of detection,” Mr. Picton said. “None greater than smell, at any rate. There is a vague aroma of sulfuric acid-”

Lucius cast his brother a hard glance as he took his turn shaking Mr. Picton’s hand. “I’m sorry about that, sir. If someone hadn’t made me perform that strychnine test again before we left New York…”

“I hope you’ve brought all your chemicals and devices along,” Mr. Picton answered, nodding encouragingly. “We’ll need them. Now, then, let’s get your things together-”

Cyrus and I, having found a porter to help us tend to the baggage as we watched all this, now approached the group from behind our host. Cyrus cleared his throat just once-but once was enough to make Mr. Picton, who hadn’t seen us coming, shoot into the air.

“Great jumping cats!” he cried, spinning on Cyrus. “Who’re you? Ah! Don’t tell me-John wrote about you. You’re Dr. Kreizler’s man, correct? Mr.-ah-ah-”

“May I present Mr. Cyrus Montrose,” the Doctor said, at which Mr. Picton shook Cyrus’s big hand. “As well as Master Stevie Taggert. Both associates of mine.”

Mr. Picton turned his hand in my direction, and I stuck my own out to receive his jolting shake. “Master Taggert! Good to meet you! Well-” He stood back and put his hands to his hips, taking us in. “So this is the group that has actually put fear into that murderess’s heart, eh? I admire you for it, I must say! Libby Hatch certainly never had anything to be nervous about in this county, I can tell you. Let’s get your bags onto my rig, and get over to my place. We need to get to business as soon as we can! Porter-follow me!”

“Your place?” Mr. Moore said. “But Rupert, I made reservations at the Eagle Hotel-”

“And I canceled them,” Mr. Picton answered. “I’ve got a house big enough for a regiment, John, with just me and the housekeeper. I won’t hear of you staying anywhere else!”

“But,” Mr. Moore said carefully, as we made for an old surrey what was standing outside the station, “are you sure you’re up to it, Rupert? I mean, I heard you weren’t well-”

“Not well?!” Mr. Picton thundered back. “Why, I’m as sound as a dollar-in fact, I’m even sounder, given the current strength of our currency. Oh, I know what they said in New York before I left, John, and I’ll admit that I needed a rest at the time. You know my disposition-high-strung I am, certainly, you’ll get no argument from me. But those rumors about my suffering a breakdown were just further attempts to discredit what I was saying.”

“Mmm, yes, I’m acquainted with that phenomenon,” the Doctor said, as Mr. Picton began to lob our luggage from the porter’s truck into his surrey, smoking furiously all the while.

“Yes, I understand you are, Dr. Kreizler!” our host answered. “I understand you are! And so you probably know the weariness it breeds-trying to stop what was going on in the district attorney’s office fairly well exhausted me, as I say, and wore my nerves positively raw. But that’s a far cry from madness, don’t you think?”

“Well-” the Doctor answered slowly; too slowly, it turned out, for Mr. Picton.

“Exactly my point!” he said. “It’s a funny world we’re living in, Dr. Kreizler-and I don’t mean funny in the amusing sense-where a man can be labeled mad simply for trying to expose egregious corruption! Ah, well, no matter…” Tossing the last of our bags into the surrey, Mr. Picton made for the driver’s bench. “Climb aboard, everyone. Mr. Montrose, perhaps you and Master Taggert might not mind riding on the steps, there. You can get a grip on the canopy, and we’re not going far.”

“Fine with me!” I said happily, finding that I was starting to enjoy Mr. Picton’s slightly crazy way of saying and doing things.

“Of course, sir,” Cyrus said, also taking an outside perch after the others had climbed aboard.

“Good men!” Mr. Picton said with a grin, saluting us with his pipe. “Hang on, now-here we go!” The surrey began to roll, but we hadn’t even gotten out of the station yard before Mr. Picton had started in again. “As I say, Doctor, it doesn’t matter, really, all that business in New York, and what those people may have said about me-doesn’t matter at all, not in the long term. The world is going to Hell in a hack, and New York will be one of the first places to arrive, if it hasn’t already, and I could make a case for it having done so. That’s one of the reasons I came back to Ballston-it’s actually possible to do an occasional bit of good here without having to worry about the magnates and the bosses.” He let out a few more smokestack blasts with his pipe as he steered his horse along a street that ran west below the steepled hill. “But don’t let’s get drawn too far into this sort of talk-we have other matters that are pressing.” He took out his watch and checked it again. “Pressing, indeed! You must all get settled in and fed-Mrs. Hastings will see to that. My housekeeper.” He shook his head as we rattled our way toward the western edge of town. “Terrible case. She and her husband ran a dry-goods store together for most of their lives. Then, a couple of years ago, three local toughs-not all that much older than you, Master Taggert-robbed the place while she was out. Beat her husband to death with a shovel. I prosecuted the case, and afterwards she came to work for me-as much out of gratitude as anything else, I think.”

“Gratitude?” Miss Howard asked. “Because you helped her through a difficult time?”

“Because I made sure those three boys went to the electrical chair!” Mr. Picton answered. “Ah! There’s my house now-at the end of the street.”

Mr. Picton had a mansion-sized place at the juncture of Charlton and High Streets, not too far from the court house and close to the old Aldridge Spa (currently a boardinghouse) and the Iron Railing Spring, the pair of which were the last real remains of the town’s salad days as a health resort. To judge by the four big turrets what formed the corners of Mr. Picton’s house, along with the wide porch what was wrapped around the whole structure, it wasn’t as old as many of the residences we’d seen and passed. But the size alone was enough to give it kind of an eerie quality, and I wondered why a man would choose to live alone with his housekeeper in such a building. The front and rear gardens were full of climbing roses and ivy that’d gone a little berserk, along with a couple of elm trees what must’ve been considerably older than the house itself-all of which only added to the feeling that this was a very ghostly dwelling indeed.

“My father built it for my mother,” Mr. Picton explained as we neared the house. “And thirty-five years ago it was considered the height of Victorian Gothic style. Nowadays, well-fashion has never mattered much to me, so I’ve left it more or less as it was. Mrs. Hastings is constantly after me to redecorate, but-oh, there she is now!” A round, kindly-looking woman of about sixty or so, wearing a blue dress with a white apron, came out the front door of the house just as we pulled into the yard. Mr. Picton drew the surrey to a stop and then smiled as he waved to his housekeeper. “Mrs. Hastings! You see, I managed to find them without any trouble. I trust the turret rooms are all ready?”

“Oh, yes, your honor,” Mrs. Hastings answered, wiping her flour- and food-coated hands on her apron and smiling warmly. “And lunch is waiting for you all. Welcome, welcome, it’ll be a real breath of fresh air, it will, having guests!”

Mr. Picton made the introductions, and then the others started toward the house while Cyrus and I hung back to unload the bags.

“Well?” I said quietly to my big friend. “What do you think?”

Cyrus shook his head once. “He’s a character, all right. Mr. Moore sure wasn’t exaggerating about that talking business.”

“I like him,” I said, starting toward the front door with a batch of suitcases. Looking up at the high walls and dark turrets before me, I paused for a minute. “The house looks like it might have a ghost or two, though,” I whispered over my shoulder.

Cyrus smiled and shook his head again. “You always like the odd ones,” he said. Then his face went straight. “But I don’t want to hear any more about ghosts.”

The ground floor of Mr. Picton’s house had a reception room what might’ve served as a convention hall. Stocked to overflowing with heavy, velvet-upholstered furniture that was centered around a carved stone fireplace you could’ve walked right into, it also contained the usual recreational items, like a piano and a big card table. At the center of the house was a staircase made out of heavy, polished oak, and then, mirroring the reception room on the other side of the stairs, there was an enormous dining room crammed full of chairs, sideboards, and a table what were all in the same style as the things in the living room. The bedrooms on the upper floors-located, as Mr. Picton’d said, in the four corner turrets-were of similarly huge dimensions, each with its own big fireplace and most with their own baths. By the time I got upstairs, the others were roaming around shopping for rooms, and I could hear Mr. Picton saying:

“Oh, good choice, Miss Howard-that’s really the best room in the house! You get a splendid view of the garden and the stream.”

On the third floor I could hear the detective sergeants arguing over another bedroom, but I couldn’t make out what’d become of the Doctor and Mr. Moore, whose suitcases I was carrying. Then the sound of low conversation came from down one long hall, and I followed it to find the two of them in yet another bedroom.

“Kreizler, I swear to you, I don’t know,” Mr. Moore was saying as I reached the door. “And I don’t think he does either, or at least he’s never told me-”

“There are several manias that could account for it,” the Doctor said carefully. “And some of them are degenerative.” He gave Mr. Moore what you might call an uncertain look. “We’re risking a great deal on this man, John.”

“Laszlo, listen to me. It has never impaired his work. It used to be a bit of a joke in social situations, but in the courtroom it’s a genuine boon. He can absolutely overwhelm defense lawyers when he gets going-” Mr. Moore stopped as he caught sight of me at the door; then he smiled, thankful for a way, I think, to end his conversation with the Doctor. “Hello, Stevie. Got my things, by any chance?”

Ignoring the question, I just shrugged, looked to the Doctor, and repeated what I’d said to Cyrus: “I like him.”

“There you are,” Mr. Moore announced, taking two of the suitcases from me. “What is it they say about children and dogs being the best judges of character, Kreizler? I don’t remember alienists elbowing their way onto the list anytime recently.”

“I assure you both, my concern in no way reflects on the man’s character,” the Doctor said. “He seems entirely straightforward and likable-and that’s not a bad bit of work for a lawyer. Nor am I saying that his difficulty is without doubt mental or emotional in origin-there are several physical pathologies that could easily be responsible.”

Mr. Moore nodded once. “All right, then. Let’s drop this business for now.”

“For now,” the Doctor agreed, taking his suitcases from me and then examining my neck and hands. “Good Lord, Stevie,” he said, with a combination of a scowl and a laugh. “What have you been doing? Make certain you find a washroom before lunch, young man.”

Once Cyrus and I had all the bags inside, I took a bedroom up on the third floor with the detective sergeants and went into the bathroom to wash up before lunch. The noise of the running water bounced off the marble and tiles of the big chamber, to the point where it sounded as though I might be standing by a waterfall: everything in that house, it seemed, was unusually large-cavernous, even-and as I dried my face, neck, and hands I began to wonder who would’ve built such a place, and what had become of them. But, funnily enough, there was no longer any fear in the wondering: huge and mysterious as the house might be, I found that Mr. Picton filled it with a feverish but friendly kind of activity, and that I’d stopped feeling like I might be in a dangerous spot.

Starting back down toward the ground floor and the dining room, where the others were already collected, I ran my hand along the fat banister of the staircase and suddenly realized that it would be just the thing for sliding. I didn’t know why the thought should’ve occurred to me, I only knew that it was the first really amusing idea that I’d had in days. So I looked down, scouted the ground-floor hallway, and, not seeing anyone, decided to give the banister a try. Feeling ever more playful and relaxed, I climbed aboard on the second-floor landing and gave myself a little push-off-

And in about a second and a half found myself sprawled on the floor in the front hall. The banister had been even more suitable-which is to say slippery-than I’d figured, and after flying off of it I’d hit the hallway carpet at high speed, sliding across the polished floor and into the front door with a crash. That brought the others out of the dining room, and produced a look of shock on the Doctor’s face.

“Stevie!” he said. “What in the world-”

“Ha!” Mr. Picton bellowed, snatching his pipe out of his mouth and leaning back to have a good laugh. Then he came over to help me up. “More slippery than it looks, eh, Master Taggert? Don’t be embarrassed-the same thing happened to me the first time I tried it, and that was just a few years ago! Nothing broken, I hope?” I shook my head, feeling my face go red; but Mr. Picton’s open confession of similar foolery made me feel much better about it. “Good!” he went on. “Then come in and have some lunch. Afterwards, I’ll show you a few tricks that’ll keep your speed down-and your backside intact!”

I followed the others into the dining room, getting another perplexed look from the Doctor as I went.

Mr. Picton insisted on escorting each of us to our seats and further insisted that the Doctor take the head of the table. “I’m perfectly happy at the foot,” he said, when the Doctor protested, “and this is your investigation, Doctor-I don’t want you to think for a minute that I don’t understand that. We’ll have a great deal to discuss at this table, and I want you to consider me simply your latest ally-and pupil.”

“That is gracious indeed, Mr. Picton,” the Doctor said in an even tone, as he carefully and curiously studied our host.

Mr. Picton took his seat at the foot of the table and rang a small bell, at which Mrs. Hastings appeared through a swinging door what led through to the kitchen. She was carrying the first of many platters of food. “All from the farms and streams of our own county,” Mr. Picton explained. “And, though simply prepared, no less appetizing for its humility. John, there’s some decent claret on the side table there, if you wouldn’t mind pouring.” As Mr. Moore eagerly moved to follow the order, Mr. Picton looked my way. “And we have a full case of root beer in the kitchen for you, Master Taggert-Mrs. Hastings will bring you a bottle. John tells me you are a devotee, and I confess, I have a weakness for the stuff myself.” Glancing around the table as the rest of us started heaping chicken, brook trout, sweet peas, baby carrots, and mashed potatoes onto our plates, Mr. Picton held up his glass. “And so-welcome, all of you!” He took a deep drink, and then his silvery eyes opened wide. “Now, then-let me tell you what I know about Libby Hatch…”