The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 11

The next morning Miss Howard called on the telephone to say that she’d contacted Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the famous old crusader who’d been pushing women’s rights for half a century. Miss Howard, it seemed, had known and admired Mrs. Cady Stanton (who always insisted on using her maiden name in addition to her husband’s) ever since childhood; and as Mrs. Cady Stanton had blue-blood relatives in the Hudson Valley, not far from where the Howard family estate was, Miss Howard had been able to make her acquaintance early on through mutual friends. Miss Howard had warned the Doctor that there were bound to be complications with Mrs. Cady Stanton being the agent of our meeting Miss Cecilia Beaux, as the sharp old bird was well aware of Miss Howard’s personal and professional connections. She’d know full well, for instance, that Miss Howard didn’t have any recently deceased relative, if Miss Howard even tried to float that lie. This left our friend with the job of trying to make her hiring of a portrait painter look thoroughly innocent. But Mrs. Cady Stanton also knew that Miss Howard was a private detective, and she instantly became fascinated by what she was sure was some kind of intrigue-so much so that she flat-out asked to be present for the sketching session what Miss Howard scheduled for Thursday evening at Number 808 Broadway. Left without a graceful way to tell Mrs. Cady Stanton to mind her own business, Miss Howard was forced to agree. So it looked as if we were going to have an additional guest for the occasion.

Señora Linares, meanwhile, sent a note along to Miss Howard saying that her husband was definitely getting suspicious about her absences and that this was probably the last time she’d be able to get away: whatever we needed, we’d have to get it Thursday evening. As for the detective sergeants, their rousting of the Cubans had produced nothing except a lot of bad feeling, and they came away from the encounter convinced that nobody in the Cuban Revolutionary Party had the brains or the organizing skill to pull off anything like the kidnapping of Ana Linares. This little confirmation of his theory that the abductor was a woman acting alone sent the Doctor back into his study Wednesday afternoon, and by the following morning he still hadn’t emerged; his food was taken in on trays, and he left strict orders not to be disturbed. Mr. Moore and Miss Howard dropped by at around two on Thursday to plan strategy for the sketching session. On finding the Doctor still closeted away, they asked me what was going on, to which I answered that I really didn’t know, being as I hadn’t seen him for twenty-four hours. It was time, however, to get things prepared for the evening to come, so together the three of us decided to go on up to the study and find out what was happening.

Mr. Moore knocked on the door and got a sharp “Go away, please!” in return. He looked to me, but all I could do was shrug.

“Kreizler?” Mr. Moore said. “What the hell’s going on, you’ve been in there for two days-and it’s time to get ready for the portrait!”

A long, exasperated groan came from inside the study, and then the door unlocked from within. The Doctor, dressed in a smoking jacket and slippers, pulled it open, his face in a book. “Yes, and I could be in here for two years before I’d find anything really useful.” He looked up at us blankly, then, with a tilt of his head, signaled that we should follow him in.

The study was lined on three sides with mahogany shelves and paneling, while the Doctor’s large desk sat in front of the window in the fourth wall. There were piles of open books everywhere, along with journals and monographs, also open. Some looked as though they’d been placed where they lay; some had clearly been thrown.

“I have been attempting,” the Doctor announced, “to assemble some research with which we can make ourselves acquainted with the psychological peculiarities inherent in the woman-child relationship. And I have, not for the first time, been disappointed by my colleagues.”

Mr. Moore grinned and cleared some journals off of a sofa, then plopped down onto it. “Well, that’s good news,” he said. “Then we don’t have to do any lessons this time around, eh?”

He was referring to the Beecham case, during which the Doctor’d made everyone on the team read not only the basic psychological works of the day but also articles written by specialists what had particular application to the investigation. Cyrus and I had done most of the reading, too, just to keep up; and it had been, I don’t mind saying, tough going. There can’t be many people in the world what can blow wind like your average psychologists and alienists.

The Doctor just frowned at Mr. Moore. “Assuming that you have retained even a portion of what you learned last year,” he said in some disgust, “then no, I don’t know that there’s a great deal more to be done. It’s idiotic. Perfectly sound, rational men, when they reach one specific instinct-the maternal-begin to blather like idiots! Listen to the august Herr G. H. Schneider-one of James’s favorites, John.” (Mr. Moore had been at Harvard with the Doctor and had also studied, though very briefly, with Professor James.) “ ‘As soon as a wife becomes a mother her whole thought and feeling, her whole being, is altered. Until then she had only thought of her own well-being, of the satisfaction of her vanity; the whole world appeared made only for her; everything that went on about her was only noticed so far as it had personal reference to herself-now, however’ ”-and here a wicked kind of sarcasm came into the Doctor’s voice-“ ‘the centre of the world is no longer herself, but her child. She does not think of her own hunger, she must first be sure that the child is fed-now, she has the greatest patience with the ugly, piping crybaby, whereas until now every discordant sound, every slightly unpleasant noise, made her nervous.’ I ask you, Sara, have you ever heard such utter rot?”

Miss Howard’s face took on a resigned sort of look. “That is the common perception, I’m afraid.”

The Doctor kept ranting. “Yes, but listen to what he goes on to say: ‘Thus, at least, it is in all unspoiled, naturally bred mothers, who, alas!, seem to be growing rarer.’ But does he go on to discuss the mental composition of those increasingly numerous ‘un-naturally bred’ mothers? He does not!” The Doctor set the book aside.

The wheels in Miss Howard’s head had started to spin during this tirade: her brow wrinkled with an idea. “Doctor-” she started.

But he wasn’t finished. Picking up another book, he bellowed, “And listen to James himself: ‘Parental love is an instinct stronger in woman than in man-the passionate devotion of a mother to a sick or dying child is perhaps the most simply beautiful moral spectacle that human life affords.’ And there ends the discussion! How would such men react, I should like to know, were I to show them the dozens of case studies I have compiled over the years of women beating their children, starving them, throwing them into lit ovens, or simply killing them outright? It’s unbelievable!”

“Yes, Doctor,” Miss Howard tried again, “but I wonder-is there some usefulness in all this prejudicial thinking?”

“Only by inference, Sara,” the Doctor scoffed, tossing the book he was holding onto a pile of others and then picking up the first volume again. “Just one brief comment of Schneider’s offers anything like illumination: ‘She’-meaning the mother-‘has, in one word, transferred her entire egotism to the child.’ ”

“Yes, that’s it-exactly,” Miss Howard said. “Suppose you were one of those unnaturally bred mothers, one who’d lost her own children and couldn’t have any more-wouldn’t you feel the desire to somehow acquire another, if only to prove that you could adequately perform what is perceived by society to be the basic feminine function?”

The Doctor’s face went blank, his hands fell to his side, and then he tossed the Schneider book onto the pile with the James. “And given the correct individual context,” he said, nodding, “that urge could grow to destroy normal inhibitory power… Well-where have you been for the last two days, my oracle of the feminine psyche?” He walked over and put his hands on Sara’s shoulders. “It’s taken me God knows how many hours and pages of fruitless reading to reach that very conclusion!” The Doctor walked to the door and called out into the hall, “Cyrus! Draw me a bath, if you don’t mind, and lay out fresh clothes!” He turned to Miss Howard again. “The last time we worked together, Sara, we studied the known laws of psychology. This time, the biases of our society will force us to write some new ones, I suspect. You must keep careful notes and be always on hand, for yours is the perspective we most need. The rest of us cannot-”

The Doctor was interrupted by the sound of light snoring coming from the sofa; we all turned to see Mr. Moore dozing. “Well,” the Doctor sighed, “let’s just say that certain other points of view will be far less crucial. However, let him rest, for the time being-because with any luck, we send him out onto the streets tomorrow.”

Once the Doctor’d gotten himself cleaned up and dressed, we found that the only way to rouse Mr. Moore was to offer him a late lunch at Delmonico’s restaurant on Madison Square. Dr. Kreizler had been spending less time than usual at that establishment, because Mr. Charlie Delmonico, keeping pace with the steady uptown movement of fashion and money, had recently opened an additional restaurant on Forty-fourth Street; and though he swore to the Doctor that he had no plans to close the Madison Square branch, the Doctor believed that it was only a matter of time before that fate befell the place. So he’d been withholding as much as he could of his patronage (he could never have stayed away altogether) as a method of protest.

Cyrus and I walked with the rest of them up to Madison Square. Though we never actually ate with the Doctor in the restaurant-that just wouldn’t have been possible in those days-we liked to go along, anyway, being as I’d been able to make friends with Mr. Ranhofer, the French head chef and bullyboy of the kitchen, and could usually net us a couple of containers of good food what we could eat in the park. We saw the Doctor and his guests to the main entrance, where Charlie Delmonico stood greeting patrons. Dr. Kreizler extended a hand what Mr. Delmonico shook, even as the Doctor announced half seriously, “I’m still not speaking to you, Charles.” Then, once they were inside, I ran around the corner to the delivery station.

Winding my way through shouting men carrying crates of vegetables and fruit, as well as ice-covered wooden pallets of fish and big sides of beef and lamb, I passed through a dark hallway and soon found myself in the brick kitchen, where dozens of pots and pans hung from the vaulted ceiling. I could already hear Mr. Ranhofer’s voice bouncing off the tiled walls: “No, no, no! Pig! I would not feed that to an animal! Why, why is it so impossible for you to learn?” The object of his bellowing, I soon saw, was a young dessert chef, who seemed to be taking all the insults very much to heart and looked ready to break down. Mr. Ranhofer-his huge round body wrapped in white and his big, similarly colored mustache bristling-tried to calm down a bit, then stepped over to the young man’s station. “Here, come, I show you-but only once!”

Waiting for the exercise to be over, I glanced around at the enormous space, where some twenty or thirty chefs, assistant chefs, and assistant assistants were all working like mad and hollering at the top of their lungs-sometimes to nobody at all that I could see. Different-colored flames occasionally shot up from the stoves, and the hundred different smells of the place-some tasty, some just peculiar-blended together into one unidentifiable aroma. The whole joint had the general air of some of the insane asylums I’d visited with the Doctor-except that in the elegant dining rooms upstairs, people were paying top dollar for what came out of this madhouse.

Eventually I saw an opening and grabbed at Mr. Ranhofer’s apron. “Say! Mr. Ranhofer!”

He turned and, after a quick smile, frowned. “Please-Stevie-go away! Not today, it is lunacy-lunacy!”

“Yeah, looks like it,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“He’ll kill me-that Charles will kill me! Three private luncheons and then to follow a dinner for eighty! How in God’s name can any human manage such things?”

“Ah, you’ll do it,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. “You always do, right? That’s why you’re top dog in the chef pack.”

That got him. He smiled quickly again and called out, “Franz! Two containers-the soft-shell crab! Now!” He started wiping and wringing his hands as he surveyed all the activity in the place and then glanced down at me again. “Please-Stevie-take the food and go. This is no day for me to converse-” Something caught his eye. “No! Stop! Do not, you imbecile, how can you possibly-” Then he disappeared in a fat flash.

I took the containers of food from the man called Franz, who kept one eye out for his boss like he was wondering when it was going to be his turn to catch hell. On my way out I snuck two forks and a like number of napkins out of a rack, then ran back through the same hallway, which was now packed even thicker with deliverymen.

Cyrus was sitting on a bench inside Madison Square Park, beyond a long line of hansoms that were waiting for fares on Fifth Avenue. Still running, I made my way through the cabs, past the grass at the edge of the park, and then clear over the bench, handing Cyrus a container, a fork, and a napkin as I sat down on the ground beside him. We talked while we crunched on the crabs-done the way I liked them that day, just fried plain in some butter-and ate the side portions of Italian salad and rice with bananas. It was a fine meal, all the better for being free, and after I’d finished I lay on the grass and had myself a smoke.

“Cyrus,” I said, looking up through the big tree boughs and branches to the sky, “how long do you figure it’ll be before the Doctor gives Mrs. Leshko the sack?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, polishing off the last of his food. “But things can’t go on forever like this.”

“Yeah.” I waited a moment before voicing what’d been on my mind since I’d seen Pinkie’s “Little Maid of Acadie” the night before. “Cyrus?”

“Still here.”

“You figure the Doctor might hire Kat? As a maid, I mean.”

The long pause that followed told me clearly what Cyrus thought, but he soon gave out with the words: “Kat’d have to want the work, Stevie. She’s got big ideas. Big plans for herself. I doubt she’d be interested.”

“Yeah. I guess so. I just thought…”

“I know,” he said, trying hard to be sympathetic. “You could ask the Doctor-but like I say, she’d have to want the work.”

I didn’t pursue the topic, and after a few silent minutes we passed on to other things. But the idea had planted itself in my head, and I meant to explore it.

It was past four by the time the Doctor, Mr. Moore, and Miss Howard came out of Delmonico’s-and they didn’t look happy when they did. The Doctor just strode quickly past Cyrus and me, saying “We’ll walk” crisply, and the rest of us fell in with him. I started purposely dragging my steps, as did Cyrus and Miss Howard, while Mr. Moore kept up with the Doctor, talking to him. Neither Cyrus nor I needed to ask what had happened; Miss Howard could read the question in our faces.

“It was awful,” she said. “Word of the investigation into the Institute’s affairs has gotten all over. Even friends of his cut him dead. It was like we weren’t even there. Thank God for Charlie, or it wouldn’t have been tolerable.”

We walked on down Broadway.

It was a predictable reaction, I suppose, from them what likes to call themselves “society,” and while I knew the Doctor would make like he didn’t care, I also knew that in fact it would anger him deeply. For, as Miss Howard had said, there were some few in that society crowd what the Doctor counted as his friends, and to see them retreat into rudeness with the rest… Well, I was just as glad that we had time to walk to Number 808 Broadway. I could only hope that Mr. Moore would be able to get the Doctor refocused on our purpose by the time we got there.

He actually managed that job, or at least as much of it as could reasonably be expected. When we reached the yellow brick building, we found the Isaacson brothers waiting for us, and the Doctor was all business with them. As we went up and into the sixth floor, the conversation turned to how we were going to present the sketching session to our guests. Miss Howard had apparently warned Señora Linares to say nothing about what was really happening, but she went on to tell us that “nothing” wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy the extremely curious Mrs. Cady Stanton. Miss Howard had toyed with the idea of saying that the subject of the sketch was an old friend-or even, again, a relation-of the señora’s, but that wouldn’t explain the latter’s bruises and cuts; and Miss Howard knew that Mrs. Cady Stanton would ask all about those, since husbands beating on their wives was a topic that she’d been lecturing on for decades. In fact, Miss Howard told us, Mrs. Cady Stanton had often been criticized by other women’s rights leaders because she put as much emphasis on trying to change the conditions that caused violence in the home (drunkenness and the like) and on making it easier for women to get out of bad situations by loosening up divorce laws as she did on securing the vote for her sex. I’m bound to say that I saw her point: most of the women in my old neighborhood couldn’t have cared an owl’s hoot about who was president-they were too busy trying to survive the rampages of their husbands.

Anyway, Miss Howard and Mr. Moore were still playing with ideas as to just what lie they were going to present Mrs. Cady Stanton with when the Doctor said that they should just drop the subterfuge and tell the old girl the truth-or rather, most of the truth: there was no reason to say who Señora Linares was exactly and no reason to mention her daughter. We could just explain that she’d been attacked by another woman in Central Park and robbed; if Mrs. Cady Stanton wanted to make more out of it, let her try. Miss Howard didn’t much like that idea, and only gave in when an electrical buzzing device what was connected to a button in the lobby of the building let us know that Señora Linares had arrived. As she went down to retrieve our first guest, it remained obvious that Miss Howard figured “make more out of it” was just what Mrs. Cady Stanton was likely to do.

The señora was in a bit of a state when she first got out of the elevator, convinced that she’d been followed, either by her husband or somebody else. Cyrus was sent down to scout the area but couldn’t spot anyone who seemed to be keeping an eye on Number 808. This offered the señora some consolation, but not much, and it was all she could do to focus on the instructions the Doctor gave her about what she was and was not supposed to say in front of the other women. The sound of the buzzer going off again sent her back into a bit of a panic, but Mr. Moore stayed with her and got her calmed down, while Miss Howard went to fetch the promising painter and the living legend.