The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 50

By seven-thirty that evening our entire team was packed into Mr. Picton’s office one more time, to weigh the results of our trip to the Franklins’ farm and determine what we should do about it all. Even El Niño was present: as usual, it wasn’t that he understood most of what was going on or had anything to contribute, but he was always concerned that “the lady,” “Mr. Mont-rose,”Mr. Picton (his future “jefe”), or one of the rest of us might be set upon by some villainous characters. He’d come to believe that it was his personal mission and responsibility to prevent any such assault; and as those of us what actually had something to say about the case sat in a circle around Mr. Picton’s desk, the aborigine stood by the door, weapons at the ready. At the time I considered this, like so much of his behavior, amusing and touching, nothing more; later, I’d come to wish that we’d all followed his cautious lead.

The main topic of conversation-a conversation what rapidly turned into a debate-was how we were going to present our discovery to the defense lawyers, and what the best deal to try to strike with them in light of it was. The general thought was that Mr. Picton would tell Libby Hatch that the state’d be willing to forget about the coffin what was buried behind her family’s barn in return for her changing her plea to one of guilty-but guilty of what? Mr. Picton was very reluctant to abandon the first-degree murder charge, what would’ve sent Libby to the electrical chair; but he knew that giving someone a choice between death now and death later wasn’t really much of a carrot. So, he tried to reconcile himself to the next best thing: second-degree murder and a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Some of our group-Marcus and Mr. Moore, mainly-didn’t see why Libby’d go for that option, either, given her personality: a woman who seemed to enjoy her freedom in as many different ways as this one did wasn’t likely to look on the prospect of spending the rest of her days behind bars with much enthusiasm.

But the Doctor disagreed. He figured that, though the woman might rebel at the idea of such a sentence on the surface, some deeper part of her soul would accept and maybe even welcome it. Mr. Moore and Marcus were skeptical about this thought, too, until the Doctor explained it further. Prison, he said, would actually satisfy the conflicting longings of Libby’s spirit: the need to be isolated while at the same time having people around; the need to perform what she saw as some sort of useful task (for a woman as clever as Libby would no doubt be assigned to a position of some authority among the prisoners in, say, the women’s block at Sing Sing) while at the same time feeling like she was defying accepted social customs and authority (she would, after all, be a jailbird). And then there was the question of her desire to control what went on around her: many criminals, the Doctor said, especially those of Libby’s stripe, secretly craved some kind of regulation and discipline in their lives (she had, he reminded us all, been able to go through hours of labor without ever making a sound loud enough to wake her parents); and though physical control in this case would actually be administered by the prison, Libby, with her talent for self-delusion, would quickly convince herself that in fact she was the one who was dictating what went on. And in a way, the Doctor said, she’d be right, being as it would be her own criminal actions what would’ve landed her in jail. But one consideration weighed above all others in convincing the Doctor that Libby would take the deal what Mr. Picton planned to offer: over and over we’d seen her demonstrate that she prized her own life above all things, including the health and safety of her own offspring-the chance to escape execution would be enough, the Doctor said, to make Libby play along, even without the other influences.

Marcus was satisfied by this reasoning, but Mr. Moore still had his doubts; and Mr. Picton, though he knew they were taking the only sensible course, continued to feel a little cheated by not being able to secure a death sentence. But the Doctor insisted to all of them that the only thing what was truly important was for Libby Hatch to be put into a place where she’d never again have any contact with children-especially her own child. On top of that, knowing that her mother was going to be jailed for life instead of executed would only help Clara Hatch’s recovery, since the girl wouldn’t have to carry the enormous weight for the rest of her life of having played a part in sending her mother to the chair. Miss Howard stated that this was the best reason of all for making the deal; indeed, she said, considering what effect her mother’s execution might’ve had on Clara, she wondered why Mr. Picton hadn’t made life imprisonment for Libby his goal in the first place. This comment led to some pretty passionate statements from the assistant district attorney about the unknowable future, and how he couldn’t trust that some governor might not get suckered-say, twenty or thirty years down the line-by one of Libby’s effective performances into reversing the part of her sentence what specified that there was to be no parole. The Doctor and Miss Howard might have done a lot that day to explain her evil, he said, but they hadn’t done anything to remove it: only death could provide that kind of solution.

That set the Doctor off again, on the subject of how was science ever supposed to learn anything from criminals like Libby if the state went around frying and hanging them all; and this discussion, along with all others related to it, went on and on as the sun set beyond the train depot down the hill from Mr. Picton’s window. Finally, at a few minutes after nine, there was a knock at the door of Mr. Picton’s outer office. El Niño pulled the thing open, and in wandered Mr. Darrow and Mr. Maxon, the first looking curious but confident as he took in the scene around him, the second seeming, as ever, very nervous. With formal little movements El Niño showed the pair into Mr. Picton’s inner office, and we all stood up.

“Ah! Maxon, Darrow,” Mr. Picton said. “Good of you to come so late on a Sunday evening.”

“Quite a conference you’ve got going here,” Mr. Darrow said, glancing around at us all and nodding a polite greeting. “Having trouble planning your summation, Mr. Picton?”

“Summation?” Mr. Picton said, playing at surprise. “Oh! Great jumping cats, do you know, with all that’s happened today, I’m afraid I completely forgot about closing arguments! But then, I’m not entirely sure we’re going to need them.” He pulled out his pipe and clamped it between his teeth, looking very pleased with himself.

Mr. Maxon-who’d had a lot of run-ins with Mr. Picton in court, and was in a position to know when the man was up to something-started to look even more jittery than he had when he came in. “What is it, Picton?” he asked, pushing his pince-nez down tighter on his skinny nose. “What have you got?”

“What can he have?” Mr. Darrow asked with a chuckle. “The state’s closed its case in chief, Mr. Picton. I hope you didn’t make the mistake of saving anything for last-minute theatricals. Judge Brown doesn’t seem like the kind of man that’ll go for them.”

“I know it,” Mr. Picton answered. “And your colleague Maxon, there, knows I know it. So whatever I’ve ‘got,’ it must be something fairly good to warrant my asking you here tonight-don’t you think so, Maxon?” Mr. Maxon, unlike Mr. Darrow, seemed to take this statement straight to heart; and, pleased by that fact, Mr. Picton looked over to me. “Stevie? I wonder if you’d just run down and tell Henry to have Mrs. Hatch-I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hunter-brought up from her cell.”

“Got it,” I said, making for the door.

As I went out I heard Mr. Picton continuing, “Doctor, why don’t you stay in here with the three of us? The rest of you might just have a seat in the outer office-we don’t want to overwhelm the defendant, after all…”

After bolting down the hall, I dashed onto the marble stairs, taking them two at a time on my way down to the guard’s station in the entryway. Running to it without looking up, I began to say, “Mr. Picton wants-”

Then I saw who I was talking to. It wasn’t the guard Henry at all, but one of the other big men what’d watched the courtroom doors all through the trial.

“Where’s Henry?” I asked.

The man looked at me with a sour expression. “What’s it to you, kid?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. But what it is to Mr. Picton is he’s got orders for him.”

Looking even more irritated, the guard nodded toward a doorway behind him. “Henry’s downstairs. Guarding the prisoner.”

I heard the statement; I accepted it with a simple nod of my head, and never thought twice about it. But now, looking back across the gap of so many years, I find myself once again wishing desperately that something could have made me see what was going on.

“Well,” I told the guard, “Mr. Picton wants he should bring the prisoner up to his office.”

“What, now?”the guard asked.

“I don’t figure as he meant next Thursday,” I said, turning around and heading back to the staircase. “If I was you I’d get moving-they’re all up there waiting.”

“Hey!” the guard called after me, as I started up the stairs, “just remember, I don’t get paid to take orders from any kid!” Then he turned to go through the door behind him.

“You just took one, mug,” I mumbled, smiling as I got back to the second floor. “So go chase yourself.”

Back in Mr. Picton’s outer office I found that Cyrus, the detective sergeants, Mr. Moore, Miss Howard, and El Niño were all crowded around the closed oak door to the inner chamber. Cyrus had the aborigine up on his shoulders, from which spot El Niño was looking through a partly open transom, spying on what was going on among the three lawyers and the Doctor and trying to whisper his intelligence back to the others; the only problem was that his English wasn’t good enough to understand much more than half of what the men inside were saying.

“They are speaking of the girl, Clara, now,” El Niño whispered as I came in.

“What about her?” Miss Howard asked.

“Something-something-” El Niño shook his head in frustration. “The Señor Doctor is saying things I do not understand-some things about sickness, and about the mother-she who is the killer…”

“Oh, this is useless,” Mr. Moore said in frustration. Then he signaled to me. “Stevie, trade places with your friend. I want to know what the hell’s happening in there.”

I was about to follow the order when there came a knock at the outer door. Waiting for El Niño to get down off of Cyrus’s shoulders, I opened the thing, and found myself facing the guard Henry and Libby Hatch. Better than a week in jail hadn’t done anything to damage the way the woman carried herself-her black dress looked as crisp as it had on the night she got off the train-or to dull the devilish gleam in her golden eyes. I’d never been so close to those eyes, before, nor had them focused directly on me; and I found that their general effect was to cause me to back up, slowly and silently, until I near fell over the unused secretary’s desk what sat in that outer office. This reaction caused Libby to smile at me in a way what I hope never to see in another person, a way what brought Mr. Moore’s earthy language at the Café Lafayette back into my mind: you really couldn’t tell, from the look in her face, just what this woman might have in store for you. Love, hate, life, death-all of them, it seemed like, were very possible, so long as they served her purposes.

And from the proud way that she moved through the others to get to the thick door to the inner office, it was pretty clear that Libby Hatch felt like her purposes were being very well served, just at that juncture. She glanced at each of the silent faces before her and kept smiling, then started to shake her head, as if to say that we’d all been terribly foolish to even think about taking her on. Henry kept one hand on her arm (she wasn’t wearing any manacles, another fact what should’ve struck me as odd but didn’t) as he knocked on the inner office door and Mr. Picton told him to enter. He opened the door and indicated to Libby that she should go on in. He did this by way of a single look, the kind of quick, meaningful glance what only people who know each other very well use to communicate.

“Come in, Mrs. Hunter,” I heard Mr. Picton call. “Thank you, Henry. I’ll send someone down when we’re finished.”

“You don’t want me to wait?” the guard asked.

Mr. Picton just sighed. “Henry, am I speaking Greek? If I wanted you to wait, I’d ask you to wait. Go back downstairs, and I’ll send someone when we’re finished, thank you very much!”

Looking the way he always did when Mr. Picton gave him a hard time-like some kind of injured animal-the guard glanced at Libby again, and she nodded at him once. Only at that signal did Henry turn around to storm moodily out of the room. As for Libby, she went on in and took a seat before Mr. Picton’s desk next to Mr. Darrow, while Mr. Maxon closed the door on the rest of us.

“All right, Stevie,” Mr. Moore whispered. “Up you go!”

In a quick move I stepped into a cradle what Marcus made with his hands, then grabbed Cyrus’s hands and let him pull me onto his shoulders. Once comfortably seated, with Cyrus holding on to my legs, I carefully moved my face up to the transom, which was open just far enough for me to see all the players in the room, along with a swatch of Mr. Picton’s desk. Whispering down to the others at regular intervals, I witnessed and narrated the following scene:

“Why’ve I been called up here at this hour?” Libby asked softly and sadly. Her expression, what I could only see in profile, looked much more timid than it had in the outer office. “Is it Clara? Has something happened to my baby?”

“Now, now, Mrs. Hatch,” Mr. Maxon said, putting a hand to her arm. “I beg your pardon-Mrs. Hunter. Please, calm yourself.”

“Yes, do spare yourself the effort, Mrs. Hunter,” Mr. Picton said, without any trace of sympathy in his voice. “You’re not in court now, nor are there any members of the press lurking about. Your usual histrionics are not required.”

“Instead of being insulting, Picton,” Mr. Darrow said, crossing one leg over the other and then leaning back in his chair, “you might tell us what the hell it is you want.”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton answered, lighting his pipe with quick little moves of his arms and hands. “I don’t see that there’s any reason to beat around the bush.” Letting out big blasts of smoke, he sat forward. “The raspberry bush, to be precise, Mrs. Hunter-the one behind your family’s barn in Schaghticoke.” He opened his eyes a bit wider. “Or weren’t the bushes there when you were still living at home? No, I don’t suppose they would have been-too difficult to get under them to do all that digging. Still, they grow like weeds, do raspberries-quite tall, now. They almost hide the thing. Almost.”

Libby’s head had frozen, and her hands were clutching tightly at the arms of her chair. I could only see one of the golden eyes, but it had opened wide, wider than I’d ever seen before: wide enough to make me believe that for once she might have been truly surprised and at a loss.

“Picton,” Mr. Darrow said, scratching at his head and looking very annoyed, “have you taken complete leave of your senses, or does all this babbling actually mean something?”

But Mr. Maxon’s face revealed a very different kind of reaction; he may not’ve understood exactly what his opponent was talking about, but he obviously knew that the assistant district attorney didn’t spend a lot of time ranting pointlessly about nothing at all.

“Picton,” Mr. Maxon said quietly, “do you have new information you plan to introduce?”

Mr. Picton didn’t answer either of the questions, just continued to stare at Libby, his gray eyes turning that strange silvery color they did when he was excited. After a few seconds, he started to nod. “Yes, Mrs. Hunter. We’ve found them-your mother, and your brother Elijah. And, more importantly, we’ve found it, and heard the whole story.” This last statement contained a bit of a bluff, I knew-but all good lawyers know the value of a calculated bluff.

Libby continued to say nothing, causing both of her counsels to turn to her in some concern. “What’s he talking about?” Mr. Darrow said, his deep voice sounding like he, too, was beginning to suspect that Mr. Picton might have hold of something real.

Libby just kept staring silently at Mr. Picton; but she seemed to sense that he wasn’t the real cause of her predicament, and soon the golden eyes moved over to fix on the Doctor.

“Who-what in hell are you?” she near whispered, in a voice so icy-mean that it seemed to shock both Mr. Maxon and Mr. Darrow.

For his part, the Doctor just shrugged and stared back at the woman. “Only a man who knows what you are capable of, Mrs. Hunter. Nothing more.”

Growing very uneasy, Mr. Darrow stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. “All right, look-is somebody going to tell us what’s going on here, or not?”

“It’s fairly simple, Darrow,” Mr. Picton answered, finally looking away from Libby. “Though horrifying, in its simplicity. Ten years ago-I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact date, though we suspect it was in the spring-your client bore a child. An illegitimate child. She murdered it, and buried the body behind her family’s barn in a coffin that also contained the body of her dog. Which, I’m sure, she also killed, to provide a cover for the burial. We’ve seen the grave site, and have corroborating statements from members of her family. We’re prepared to discuss a deal.”

Mr. Darrow’s eyes went wide. “Well, of all the desperate, eleventh-hour tricks-”

He stopped as Libby silently raised a hand to him. “And if we don’t take your deal?” she asked.

“Then,” Mr. Picton replied, smoking again, “we exhume the child’s body, making your mother-who is still, by the way, ignorant of our discovery-fully aware of the crime, and arrest you as soon as the current trial is over. We may also arrest your brother as an accessory-he did, after all, build the coffin and dig the grave-”

“He knew nothing about it!” Libby said without thinking.

Moving automatically, Mr. Darrow put a firm hand to his client’s shoulder. “Say absolutely nothing, Mrs. Hunter.” Satisfied that she would obey him, Mr. Darrow turned to Mr. Picton again. “Are you finished?”

“Yes, just about,” Mr. Picton answered.

Sitting back down and rubbing his furrowed brow, Mr. Darrow studied Libby’s face carefully for what seemed like a long time. There was obviously something there what he didn’t like, something what told him that maybe Mr. Picton wasn’t talking through his hat. “Hypothetically speaking,” Mr. Darrow said slowly, without turning away from Libby. “What kind of a ‘deal’ are you talking about?”

“We will reduce the charge in the current case to second-degree murder if she will change her plea to guilty.”

“And,”the Doctor added carefully, “contact her associates in New York tomorrow morning, and instruct them to release the child Ana Linares into our custody, when we return.”

Mr. Picton nodded. “In return, she receives a life sentence without the possibility of parole.”

Libby seemed like she was about to respond; but Mr. Darrow moved one of his big hands back to her shoulder. “Don’t say anything,”he told her again, even more firmly this time; then he glanced over at Mr. Picton. “Do you suppose Mr. Maxon and I could discuss this privately with our client-maybe have some time to think about it?”

“You can discuss it in this office for the next fifteen minutes,” Mr. Picton answered. “That’s how long the deal’s good for. The Doctor and I will leave you.”

Rising, Mr. Picton nodded to the Doctor, who slowly followed him toward the door. Not wanting to get caught spying, I quickly slipped off Cyrus’s shoulders and jumped to the floor with a bump. When the door opened, I’d just managed to get myself upright again; and as the Doctor came out, he gave me a curious look what said he suspected I’d been up to something. When Mr. Picton closed the door, though, all attention turned to other subjects.

“Well?” Mr. Moore said; though I’d already told him and the others where things stood, I guess he figured he ought to observe the formalities.

“Well,” Mr. Picton echoed quietly in response, “I think we’ve got a very decent chance. She seems to be taking us quite seriously. I don’t think she wants to have her mother made aware of what her only daughter’s done with her life, or dragged into court to testify about an infanticide that took place right under her nose. The possibility of her brother’s being prosecuted seemed to strike a nerve, too.”

“There’s no reading the woman, though,” the Doctor added, considering it. “Something in her tone was-wrong. She was shocked, certainly, but-she doesn’t have the manner of someone who feels the trap closing. Not yet.”

“Maybe what you said is true, then, Doctor,” Lucius answered. “Maybe some part of her unconscious mind is drawn to the idea of prison.”

The Doctor shook his head quickly, struggling with something. “No, there was a different quality. I can’t quite define it. And I don’t think I’ll be able to. Not, at any rate”-he pulled out his watch-“for another fourteen minutes…”

Those fourteen minutes passed in almost complete silence. The three people in Mr. Picton’s office kept their voices very low, making it impossible for us to tell what they were talking about; and as for our group, I think we were all too nervous to speculate any further about what might happen. Both the Doctor and Mr. Picton checked their watches every minute or so, always breathing heavily when they found how little time had passed. Finally, though, the moment did come for them to head back into the office. Mr. Picton gave the Doctor a little nod of his head, and then he rapped on the door gently. Not waiting for a reply, he headed in, holding the door open for the Doctor and then closing it on the rest of us.

“Stevie!” Mr. Moore whispered; but I’d already gotten halfway up Cyrus’s back, and was looking through the transom by the time Mr. Picton said:

“Well, Darrow? Do you have a decision?”

Looking at the floor and going through his pockets in a busy but meaningless sort of way, Mr. Darrow said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to direct your questions to Mr. Maxon from now on, Picton.”

Mr. Picton looked surprised. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Mr. Darrow answered, still not wanting to look either Mr. Picton or the Doctor in the face. “Mrs. Hunter has seen fit to dispense with my advice. Such being the case, I intend to return to Chicago by the next available train.”

Trading what you might call astonished looks, Mr. Picton and the Doctor both did their best not to show any obvious signs of relief or gloating. “Oh, surely not!” Mr. Picton said.

“You can spare me the professional courtesy, Picton,” Mr. Darrow said. “But if you want to crow, feel free-you’ve managed to pull off one hell of a stunt.”

Through all this, Libby Hatch just sat staring straight ahead, with a look on her face what said she’d pretty well had done with Mr. Darrow. As for Mr. Maxon, his usually nervous face showed, for the first time, a certain sort of relief.

“I’ve got to catch the trolley and get my things,” Mr. Darrow went on as he headed for the door. His big shoulders looked more stooped to me than usual, though I could’ve been imagining it. “There’s a midnight train, I think, to Buffalo-I can catch a connection there.”

“Well!” Mr. Picton said, relighting his pipe, “I am sorry you won’t be here-”

“Oh, I’m sure you are, Picton,” Mr. Darrow said, smiling a bit; then, before I had a chance to do anything but rap on Cyrus’s head, the lawyer grabbed hold of the knob on the door and pulled. Cyrus jumped to the left, so that at least the rest of the people in the office wouldn’t be able to see us; but when Mr. Darrow came out and closed the door behind him, he looked up to see me still perched on Cyrus’s shoulders. I half expected him to give out with some kind of outraged lecture concerning the ethics of our behavior; so I was very surprised when he just shook his head, causing one of those locks of hair of his to fall forward, and then chuckled in a very friendly fashion.

“I have never seen anything to beat this,”he said, saluting our group with two fingers and then exiting through the outer office door.

As soon as he was gone, Cyrus stepped back over to his right, positioning me by the transom again. I carefully peered into the office once more, to find that the Doctor, Mr. Picton, and Mr. Maxon were all staring at the still-silent Libby Hatch.

“Mrs. Hunter has decided that she will accept your terms,” Mr. Maxon said, looking calmer by the second. “Mr. Darrow advised against it, but I-”

“You don’t need to explain, Maxon,” Mr. Picton said good-naturedly. “Darrow’s a big-city lawyer who wants to make a national name for himself. Not much publicity in accepting a plea bargain, is there? Not when you had every reason to expect a dramatic victory. But I’m sure Mrs. Hunter knows that you have her best interests, rather than your own reputation, at heart.”

“Thank you, Picton,” Mr. Maxon said with a nod. “That’s very decent of you. Yes, all things considered, I do think acceptance of your terms is the wisest choice. Do you need anything else from us right now, or shall we leave the rest for court tomorrow?”

Shaking his head, Mr. Picton said, “No, I have nothing more-unless Mrs. Hunter wants to make some kind of a statement?”

Still sitting very still, Libby slowly began to shake her head; then, thinking of something, she held up a finger. “There’s just one point,” she said quietly. “My brother Eli. I don’t want you going after him. He didn’t know anything about it.”

“Surely he suspected something?” Mr. Picton asked.

“Do you prosecute people for being suspicious these days?” Libby countered. “No-I want your guarantee, on that.”

Mr. Picton nodded. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hunter. By accepting this deal, you abort any investigation into the business at your family’s house. If that isn’t too unfortunate a choice of words…” Looking to the door, Mr. Picton then called, “Stevie!”

“Lemme down!” I whispered to Cyrus, who grabbed my arms and lowered me to the floor, more gracefully this time. I opened the office door and stuck my head in to see Mr. Maxon helping Libby to her feet.

“Stevie, would you ask Henry to come back up and escort Mrs. Hunter back to her cell?” Mr. Picton asked.

I just nodded and bolted off again-though this time, I got only as far as the second-floor hallway:

There, pacing nervously, was Henry, smoking on a cigarette what he held in one hand and biting the fingernails of his other paw between drags.

“Say!” I called to him. “Mr. Picton says Mrs. Hunter’s supposed to go back to her cell.”

Throwing his cigarette onto the floor and stamping it out with one of his heavy boots, Henry rushed past me into the office. I didn’t even have time to get back in myself before he’d reappeared with his charge, who looked for all the world as though the roof of her world had just caved in. I had no reason to think that she didn’t really feel that way; and as I watched her wander toward the stairs, my own spirits began to pick up considerably, though in a quiet sort of way. The speedy departure of Mr. Maxon only increased this mood; and when I finally got back into Mr. Picton’s office, I found that everybody else was feeling about the same: happy, yes, but sort of stunned at how quickly the whole thing had turned around.

Mr. Moore was the first one to actually say anything: “Well, what’s the procedure, here, Rupert? Is it time to celebrate, or…” His words trailed off as he looked to his friend.

Mr. Picton just smiled, shrugged, and tried not to look too excited. “Guardedly, John-guardedly. Judge Brown still has to approve the deal, and he’s not very fond of surprises.”

“Still,” Miss Howard said, also not sure just how happy she ought to let herself get, “he can’t quash it, can he? Not when the defendant herself has agreed.”

“I, Sara,” Mr. Picton answered, starting to organize some papers on his desk, “am a particularly superstitious person. Which I’m sure hasn’t escaped you. I would not care to make any predictions about what will happen tomorrow morning.”

“What about you, Doctor?” Lucius asked.

The Doctor had wandered over to Mr. Picton’s window, and was looking down at the Presbyterian church. “Hmm?” he noised.

“Any prediction to make?” Lucius said. “Or is there still something that doesn’t feel right about it to you?”

“Not about it, Lucius,” the Doctor answered. “About her. The deal itself is quite sound, and I’m convinced that Judge Brown, though possessed of a singularly rigid mind, will approve it.”

Mr. Picton made a little hissing noise; and though he was smiling, he seemed more than a bit uneasy. “I do wish you wouldn’t say things like that, Doctor…”

“Oh, come on, Rupert!” Mr. Moore said, allowing his spirits to rise a bit. “Leave all that mumbo jumbo to the darker regions of the world! You’re the master of your own fate in this case, I don’t know how you could have demonstrated that any more clearly. You and Kreizler-yes, and you, too, Sara. You’ve pulled off a coup, and I say we ought to get back to your house and crack open some of that very excellent champagne I saw hidden away in one corner of your cellar.”

“Hear, hear,” Marcus agreed. “Come on, all of you. We’ve been on the ropes for so long that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to land a solid blow. Solid blow, hell-we’ve knocked the stuffing out of them!”

Watching the Doctor carefully, Cyrus said, “It does seem like the tide’s turned.”

I was starting to get swept up in the growing mood of victory, myself; but then a practical thought struck me. “What about Kat?” I said. “Shouldn’t we try to get word to her?”

“Not yet, Stevie,” the Doctor answered quickly. “Not until Judge Brown has made the arrangement official. Miss Devlin will only put herself in danger, if she makes any unusual moves before we have returned to New York to assist her.”

I nodded to that; and as I proceeded to think the rest of the matter over, I really couldn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t go home and celebrate. “So why are we standing around here?” I asked. “And how come it doesn’t feel like we can just cut loose?”

Miss Howard turned to me. “Remember those men in Stillwater, Stevie?” she said. “You wouldn’t have thought they’d have had anything to fear, either-it’s been years since the Muhlenbergs’ house burned down. But the feeling never went away…”

“Oh, fiddle-faddle, as my grandmother used to say,” was Mr. Moore’s answer to that. “We’ve got the woman caged, and her fate is sealed. Come on, all of you, let’s get back home and start patting ourselves on the back!”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton finally agreed with a nod. “I do think we owe ourselves at least one evening free of anxiety. Why don’t you all go along and get started? I just want to review a few things and get my proposal to Judge Brown ready-and I’ll thank you not to dispose of all the champagne before I join you, John.”

So the rest of us departed, passing out into the warm night and starting the walk home at a good clip. Our spirits continued to pick up as we moved down High Street, and though I can’t say that we were exactly ecstatic when we reached Mr. Picton’s house, we were feeling sound enough to break into general cheers when we discovered that our host had called ahead and had Mrs. Hastings bring a few bottles of the champagne up from the cellar and put them on ice. Dinner was laid out and waiting, and the amiable old housekeeper’s handiwork had never looked so inviting: there was roast capon, cold curried lamb with raisins, a variety of delicious potatoes (included salty fried ones for me), and a positive bounty of young vegetables what had come in just that day from local farms. Add to that fresh strawberry shortcake and homemade ices, and you had a feast what we simply couldn’t wait for our host before diving into. Laughter and high spirits filled the dining room in ever-greater amounts as we ate and drank; and though I was only downing root beer, my behavior, before long, was just as loose as that of the wine-swilling adults. Caught up in this mood, I don’t think any of us were really conscious of how much time was slipping by: we might’ve stayed at that table all night, so powerful was the general feeling of relief at knowing that we were finally on the verge of what looked to be a happy conclusion to the case of Libby Hatch.

Then, just before midnight, we began to hear a bell tolling in the distance.

Marcus was the first to take note of it: in the middle of laughing at a story what Mr. Moore was relating about being chased around Abingdon Square by a bunch of Hudson Dusters during his recent trip to New York, the detective sergeant suddenly cocked his head and looked toward the front of the house. He didn’t stop smiling, but his laughter died down pretty quickly.

“What the hell,” he mumbled. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Mr. Moore answered, going for more champagne. “You’re delusional, Marcus-”

“No, listen,” the detective sergeant replied, taking his napkin from his lap and standing up. “It’s a bell…”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Doctor’s head jerk up: in an instant he, too, had registered the noise, and the rest of us soon did likewise.

“What in the world?” Lucius said.

El Niño moved quickly to the screen door out front. “It comes from one of the churches!” he called back to us.

“Services?”Cyrus said. “A midnight mass in August?”

Feeling suddenly uneasy, I looked to the Doctor, who was holding out a hand in an effort to get the rest of us to be quiet. As we followed his instruction, another sound began to rise over the pulsing chirp of the crickets and grasshoppers outside:

It was a man’s voice, calling desperately for help.

“Picton,” the Doctor whispered.

“That’s not Rupert’s voice,” Mr. Moore answered quickly.

“I know,” the Doctor said. “And that is precisely what frightens me.” With that he raced for the front door, while the rest of us followed close behind.