The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 29

She arrived here,” Mr. Picton began, as he put some food onto his own plate, “just over ten years ago, as near as I can tell. From Stillwater.”

“Yes,” Miss Howard said. “She listed it as her place of birth on one of the hospital forms we saw.”

“Did she?” Mr. Picton answered. “Well, that was just another lie, I’m afraid. I’ve checked the birth records of every town in this county. There’s no listing for an ‘Elspeth Fraser,’ which was her name back then. She did, however, live in Stillwater for a time-though just how long, I don’t know.”

“And you never ascertained where she actually was born during your investigation?” the Doctor asked, a little surprised.

“You proceed from the assumption that I was allowed to conduct an investigation, Doctor. The case of Libby Hatch, her assaulted children, and the phantom Negro never got past a coroner’s inquest-my superior at the time could find no justification for either the effort or the expense of a formal investigation, and neither could the sheriff.”

“There’s nothing unusual in that, unfortunately,” Marcus said. “I doubt if there’s one case in twenty involving dead children that gets past a coroner’s inquest. The crimes are too private-it’s just too damned difficult to figure out who did what.”

Mr. Picton looked up with some interest. “I get the feeling you’ve had some legal training, Detective.”

Marcus had just filled his mouth with some of the sweet, buttery peas, so it was Lucius who answered: “Marcus was on his way to becoming a lawyer, when we got involved in police work instead. I was slated for medicine.”

“I see,” Mr. Picton said, smiling and looking very interested. “Well, your analysis is correct, though I’d say your numbers are a little low. I’d be surprised if one child’s death in a hundred is really investigated. And when a white woman claims that a colored man is responsible-I’m sure Mr. Montrose is aware that racial bias is very much alive in the North.” Cyrus just bent his head a little, as if to say he was only too aware of that fact. “So I wasn’t really surprised that the district attorney and the sheriff were so willing to accept Libby’s version of events. As for me, I confess I wasn’t yet aware of what bearing the woman’s background might’ve had on the matter. You see, Dr. Kreizler, I hadn’t yet encountered your writings-your theory of ‘context’-and I was fairly focused on the circumstantial evidence.”

The Doctor gave a polite little shrug to that. “Circumstantial and forensic evidence are invaluable, Mr. Picton-that is why we depend so much on the detective sergeants. But there are crimes that offer few such clues, and that cannot be solved if the personal lives of the participants are not studied in depth.”

“Oh, I completely agree with you now,”Mr. Picton answered, eating his food in quick little movements, like an animal or a bird. “But then, as I say, I hadn’t really been exposed to the concept. The only thing I thought might prove or disprove Mrs. Hatch’s claim was the apprehension of the mysterious Negro, and I unofficially pressed that search as hard and for as long as I could. But after a time, the district attorney ordered me to give up the hunt, and forget the affair. Now, however, I can see that the few facts I did assemble about Mrs. Hatch during that brief time may be relevant, somehow.”

“Very much so,” the Doctor answered. “Detective Sergeant?”

Lucius already had his small pad out. “Yes, sir. I’m on it.”

“Oh. And Mr. Picton”-the Doctor paused to take a sip of his wine-“is there a store in town where we might purchase a chalkboard?”

“A chalkboard?” Mr. Picton repeated. “How large?”

“As large as possible. And as soon as possible.”

Mr. Picton thought the matter over. “No… I can’t think…” Then his face brightened. “Wait a minute. Mrs. Hastings!” The housekeeper appeared almost immediately. “Mrs. Hastings, would you mind telephoning over to the high school? Tell Mr. Quinn that I’d like to borrow one of his largest chalkboards.”

“A chalkboard?”Mrs. Hastings repeated, moving around the table to refill the wineglasses. “What in heaven’s name would your honor want with a chalkboard? And where would we put such a thing?”

“Mrs. Hastings, please, the matter is very urgent,” Mr. Picton said. “And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I’m an assistant district attorney at home, not a judge in a courtroom-you really don’t need to address me as ‘your honor.’ ”

“Hmm!” Mrs. Hastings grunted, turning and making for the kitchen again. “As if that fool jury would’ve convicted those boys without your driving them to it!” She pounded her way back through the swinging door.

Our host smiled in his nervous, quick way, tugging at his beard and then his hair. “I think we can find something that will suit your needs, Doctor… And so! We return to the facts of Libby Hatch’s background. Or at least, to what bits and pieces I eventually assembled. Libby Fraser, as I say, was her name when she arrived here. She tried to get all sorts of employment in town, but nothing worked out-she was too headstrong to follow the rules of conduct at the telephone exchange, expressed too many opinions about customers’ tastes to hold a sales position in the ladies’ clothing department of Mosher’s store, and had no real education of any kind, which narrowed her remaining choices down to various domestic positions. Yet she seemed to find that work more objectionable than anything else-she took and lost three positions as a maid in as many months.”

“And yet Vanderbilt had only high praise for her,” Mr. Moore said.

“Yes, I noted that in your last telegram, John,” Mr. Picton replied. “It’s curious. She may have been putting on an act, or she may simply have let the less aggressive side of her nature take over, for a time. After all, most people who knew the woman in her early Ballston days didn’t think she was a wicked person, really-just entirely too determined to do and have things her own way. Everyone expected that those qualities would be knocked out of her, though, when she accepted a post as housekeeper to old Daniel Hatch. He was the local miser-most of these villages have a character like him. Lived in a big, ramshackle house outside town, alone, except for his servants. Dressed in rags, never bathed-and was rumored to have cash stuffed and sewn into every wall and cushion in his place. As mean as a snake, too, and went through housekeepers as if he were keeping score. But Libby took him on-and the shocks just kept coming, for the next several years.”

“Shocks?” the Doctor asked.

“Indeed, Dr. Kreizler. Shocks! Within a few months the old miser and his housekeeper were engaged to be married. The wedding followed a few weeks later. That in itself should not, perhaps, have come as such a surprise-even though she had just turned thirty, Libby Fraser was a youthful, handsome woman. Lovely, in some ways, despite her impulsive manner. And Hatch, though a shriveled old goat, did have a great deal of money. But when a child followed, just nine months after the marriage… Well, Hatch was seventy-three at the time. And when that first daughter was followed within thirty months by two sons-as you can imagine, it set tongues wagging all over town. Some saw the hand of God in it, and some the work of the Devil. And then there were those few of us who chose to look a little closer to home in trying to determine if Libby Hatch had evil intentions.”

“Evil intentions?” the Doctor repeated, his eyebrows arching a bit.

Mr. Picton laughed and then pushed away from the table, having eaten only half the food what was on his plate. “Oh, dear,” he said, getting up and checking his watch again as he took his pipe out of his jacket pocket. “That’s right, you object to that word, don’t you, Dr. Kreizler?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I don’t know that I object to it,” he said. “I simply find it an ambiguous concept-one that I’ve never had a great deal of use for.”

“Because you feel it contradicts your theory of context,” Mr. Picton answered with a nod, as he began to pace around the table, chewing on his pipe. “But it may surprise you to learn that I disagree with you on that score, Doctor.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, indeed! I accept your proposition that a human being’s actions cannot be fully understood until one has studied the context of his or her entire life. But what if that context has produced a person who is, quite simply, evil? Wicked, pernicious, threatening-to use just a few of Mr. Webster’s definitions.”

“Well,” the Doctor answered, “I’m not at all sure that-”

“I’m not making a mere academic point, Dr. Kreizler-believe me, it will be crucial, if we ever get our day in court!” Stopping to study each of our plates, his head snapping around on his neck like a scared rodent’s, Mr. Picton asked, “Everyone finished eating? Mind if I smoke? No? Good!” He lit a match against his pants and then drew on his pipe in that quick, violent sort of way. “As I was saying-I know that what you seek are explanations for criminal behavior, Doctor, and not excuses for it. And as I say, I admire your quest. But in a case such as this, and a town such as this, we must be especially careful to frame our explanations so that they do not cause either the populace or the jury to view her sympathetically. Because believe me, they will already be inclined to do so, given what will surely be their reluctance to accept our charges against her. Any psychological explanations must only underline the idea that her nature is evil.”

“You seem quite certain that evil does exist, Mr. Picton,” the Doctor said.

“In this case? I have no doubt of it! And when I show you certain things-well, I think that you will believe it, too.” Taking out his watch and checking the time yet again, even though no more than a few minutes had passed since the last time he had, Mr. Picton nodded in satisfaction. “Well! We’ll need to hurry! No time for dessert, I fear-sweets for you later, Master Taggert, along with a lesson on the banister!” In a quick move, he pulled my chair out from the table, and then went around to do the same thing-though more gently-for Miss Howard. Holding one arm toward the door, he looked to the others. “We’ll walk up to the court house, and after that drive out to the eastern outskirts of town.” His eyes came to rest on the head of the table. “And there, Dr. Kreizler, you will see and hear some surprising things. About how a lone woman can cast first a sinister and then a sympathetic spell over an entire town. And when you’ve heard and seen the details-not to mention the effects-of her technique and her actions, I daresay you may change your opinions concerning the existence of evil.”

Our curiosity most definitely roused, we all got up to follow Mr. Picton to the front door; and as we went, I noted that his agitated manner had a sort of infectious quality, being as we were all starting to move and talk in a much quicker and jumpier way. All of us, that is, except the Doctor, who moved steadily and curiously through the front hall, his mind clearly focused on the matter of Libby Hatch but possessing enough spare energy to try to figure the riddle of our host, too.

It was pretty apparent from the size of the houses on Ballston Spa’s High Street that it had been favored by the gentry of the town for many generations. There were joints that were even bigger than Mr. Picton’s place; and those what were smaller generally made up for the deficiency by being very old and bringing to mind, with their simpler but still refined styles, the days when white men had first put the power of the Kayaderosseras behind their moneymaking schemes. Some of the trees around the newer houses were young, but there were enough thick, shady old-timers to give testimony to the age of the land that the town was built on; and as I studied those stout maples, oaks, and elms, I again began to feel very sorry that what must’ve once been a beautiful stretch of landscape should’ve been turned into a homely little mill town. Yet that same feeling of sadness and waste made the place a peculiarly fitting spot in which to be talking about a woman like Libby Hatch.

“Until shortly before the birth of her second child,” Mr. Picton said as we left his front yard, “Libby was the same mercurial woman the town had come to know over time. But then, suddenly, she changed-drastically. She seemed to become nothing short of a loving mother and doting wife, happy in a situation that most women wouldn’t have wished on their worst enemy.”

“Isn’t it possible,” Miss Howard said, “that she might have been just what she seemed, Mr. Picton? No one ever knows the intimate facts of a marriage except the couple themselves, after all. Perhaps she really had learned to care for the old man.”

“Don’t listen to her, Rupert,” Mr. Moore threw in. “She’s just trying to rationalize her pal Nellie Ely’s marriage to that old fossil Seaman.”

If we’d all known Mr. Picton a little better, I’m sure that Miss Howard would’ve belted Mr. Moore right then; as it was, she gave him one of her more deadly looks.

Mr. Picton chuckled a bit. “To tell you the truth, there’s a part of me that would like to agree with you, Miss Howard.”

“Sara,” Miss Howard said, her look changing with typical speed to a very engaging smile. “Please.”

Though caught up in his story, Mr. Picton flushed and stuttered a bit. “Why, I-I’m honored!” he said. “And you must call me Rupert, Sara-unless of course you dislike the name. Some people do. I’ll answer to almost anything, as Moore will confirm. However, I digress! Yes, Sara, if I could believe that Libby Hatch had ever actually cared, on the deepest level, about either her husband or her children, I would be far less haunted by this case. But you tell me what you think of the facts that follow. About two and a half years after her second son was born, Libby’s mood again changed overnight. One day she was the same pleasant, engaging citizen whom people had gradually grown to accept; the next, she had reverted to her old self. Worse, really: she became a scowling, seemingly desperate ball of nerves. No one could explain it-until word got around that Daniel Hatch was mortally ill.”

“Did that come as a surprise?” the Doctor asked. “He must have been close to eighty by then.”

“True,” Mr. Picton answered. “And as a result, it did not come as a surprise, but rather served to explain why Libby’s behavior had become so agitated. She was, apparently, deeply distressed over the fate of the old miser that she and she alone had found a way to love.”

“If anybody feels a little moist,” Mr. Moore said, “that’ll be Rupert’s sarcasm.”

Laughing once, Mr. Picton nodded. “All right, I confess, I was and remain utterly skeptical. But I later learned that I had reason to be. You see, old Hatch suffered through a prolonged illness, punctuated by two severe attacks. Yet when I came to assemble a chronology of the period, I discovered that Libby’s pronounced change in mood had preceded the onset of the illness. So it was not concern for his health that rattled her so badly.”

“Mr. Picton,” Marcus said, asking the question that was in all our heads, “just what kind of ‘attacks’ were they that Mr. Hatch suffered?”

Mr. Picton smiled. “Yes, Detective. They were heart attacks.” As the rest of us received this news silently, our host stopped walking and reached into his jacket pocket. “After I got your messages, John, I went out to the old Hatch place. It’s falling down, now, and the garden’s terribly overgrown. But I was able to find this…”

Out of his pocket Mr. Picton brought a withered but still very distinctive-looking flower.

“Digitalis purpurea,”Lucius announced quietly. “Purple foxglove.”

“Oh, it wasn’t easy to kill him!” Mr. Picton said, in a tone that you might almost call excited. “Hatch was a strong old coot, and as I’m sure you know, Detective, digitalis induces many toxic side effects if given in doses that are insufficient to produce fatal overstimulation of the heart.”

Lucius nodded as we all started walking again. “Nausea, vomiting, blurred vision…”

“He held on to life almost as tightly as he’d held on to his money,” Mr. Picton went on, in the same energetic tone. “Lasted some three months, before she could finally get enough of the stuff into him without any of the servants noticing.” At the sound of his own words, Mr. Picton’s smile shrank up and his voice grew quieter. “The poor, unpleasant old soul. No one should have to go like that.”

“There was never any suspicion cast on Mrs. Hatch?” the Doctor asked.

Mr. Picton shook his head. “No. Not given the way she’d always acted toward her husband. But as it turned out, Hatch had been less fooled by his wife than had most of the town. She received virtually nothing in his will.”

“Who’d he leave it all to?” Mr. Moore asked. “The children?”

“Just so,” Mr. Picton said. “In trust, until they achieved their majority. And he named the local justice of the peace-not his wife-as trustee. Libby was to receive only enough money to support the family. Apparently, Hatch had become quite bitter about something toward the end. But his actions were foolish, because the arrangement of the estate only put the children at terrible risk.”

“Meaning that if anything happened to them,” Miss Howard said, “the fortune would pass to her?”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton answered. “And, bitter as he obviously was, I don’t think even Hatch knew what his wife was really capable of-ah! Here we are.”

We’d reached the front of what Mr. Picton later told us was called the “new” court house, being as it’d been occupied for less than ten years. It wasn’t a particularly interesting-looking building, just a big, gabled mass of stone with a square tower rising out of one corner; but my guess was that, whatever the architectural types might think of its design, as a jail it was probably top of the line: the walls were ponderously thick, and the bars across the cell windows in the basement were strong enough to contain even a seasoned escape artist.

“Well, with any luck at all, this will be our battleground before long!” Mr. Picton announced, looking up at one of the four clock faces what were set into each side of the tower’s roof and pulling out his watch to check it against the bigger time piece. Then his silvery eyes moved steadily around our group, taking, it seemed to me, the measure of each of us in turn. After that he smiled. “I very much wonder if you know what you’ve gotten yourselves into…”

Mr. Picton walked up the court house’s few steps, then held the big door open for us; and as we all filed in without a word, he kept on smiling, without ever telling us why.

The inside of the Ballston court house more than made up for the place’s run-of-the-mill exterior. The walls in the main hall were constructed of alternating types and colors of stone, set in pleasing patterns, and the double-height windows were framed in deep oak what was kept richly polished, as were the big mahogany doors to the main courtroom, located at the far end, and the smaller hearing room on the left. Sunlight was thrown across the marble floor from a few different directions, and the marble stairs what led up to the offices had a beautiful semicircular window at their first landing, along with a series of expertly made iron lighting fixtures running along the banisters. There was a guard’s post to one side of the large space, and Mr. Picton called out to a big man who was standing at it, reading a copy of the town paper, the Ballston Weekly Journal.

“Afternoon, Henry,” he said.

“Afternoon, Mr. Picton,” the man answered, without looking up.

“Did Aggie bring those files from the clerk’s office?” Mr. Picton asked, leading us to the stairs.

“Yeah,” the man answered. “She said it looks like you’re gonna try to go after that nigger ag-” The man stopped suddenly when he looked up and saw Cyrus standing near Mr. Picton; his small eyes grew as big as they could, and he rubbed the top of his narrow head in confusion. “That-uh-that fellow who shot Mrs. Hatch’s kids. She said it-looks like you’re gonna go after him again.”

Mr. Picton brought himself to a stop at the bottom of the marble staircase. It looked like he might get hot for a second, but then he just stopped, sighed, and said, “Henry?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Picton?” the guard answered.

“Mr. Montrose, here, is going to be working with me for a bit.”

“That so, Mr. Picton?”

“Yes. So, Henry-find another word. I doubt that you’d appreciate my coming in here every day and saying, ‘Good morning, Henry, you pinheaded shanty trash’!”

The guard’s face sagged like a kicked dog’s. “No, sir. I would not.”

“I didn’t think so,” Mr. Picton said, turning and continuing to lead the way upstairs. Once we were on the second floor, he turned to Cyrus.

“I am sorry, Mr. Montrose,” he said.

“It’s nothing unusual, sir,” Cyrus answered.

“Yes, and not very helpful to our cause, in its commonness,” Mr. Picton said with another deep sigh. “Such a quaint-looking little town, too, isn’t it?”

The hallway on the second floor was less grand than the big entry way downstairs, but just as pleasant to look at. There was a series of polished oak doors leading back toward an entrance to the gallery of the main courtroom. We grabbed a quick look inside this last chamber, as court was not in session that day; and though it had less frills than most of the courtrooms in New York I’d frequented, it was still handsome, with fruitwood pews for the spectators on the main floor and in the gallery, and a high judge’s bench made out of the same fine material. Looking down at the room, I began to realize that this might actually be the place where we would bring the golden-eyed woman with many names to some kind of justice for murdering God-only-knew how many children; and as my nerves started to flutter with this thought, I began to understand why Mr. Picton had wondered if we were really ready for all the things that might happen during what was sure to be a controversial and probably very unpopular trial.

Mr. Picton’s office was located across and down the hall from the gallery doorway, around a corner from the district attorney’s much grander suite. As only an assistant D.A., he had just two rooms, one a small space for a secretary (though he preferred to work without one), the other, beyond a thick oak door, a larger office that looked out over the railroad tracks and the train depot what lay down the hill. The office had a big rolltop desk and the usual endless quantity of law books and files that could be found in any lawyer’s office, all of them scattered around in what seemed a very disorganized way. But as soon as we were inside, Mr. Picton began to retrieve things in a fashion what showed that the clutter made perfect sense to him.

“Just clear a space for yourselves wherever you can,” he said to the rest of us. “I fear that I’m too ardent a disciple of the philosophy that an orderly office indicates a disorderly mind. And vice versa.”

“Amen to that,” Mr. Moore said, quickly dumping some books off of a big leather chair, then sinking down into it before anyone else had a chance.

As he continued to go through some files on his desk with fast motions what made him look like a second-story man at work, Mr. Picton caught sight of Miss Howard still standing, and then pointed with some embarrassment to the outer office. “Oh, I am sorry, Sara. There are more chairs outside. Moore, you swine, get out of there and let Sara sit down!”

“You don’t know her yet, Rupert,” Mr. Moore answered, settling in further. “Sara despises deference to her sex.”

Cyrus had snatched an oak desk chair from outside. “Here you are, Miss Howard,” he said, setting it near her.

“Thank you, Cyrus,” she answered, sitting down and giving Mr. Moore a sharp kick in the shin as she did.

He let out a yelp and bolted upright. “Dammit, Sara! I will not take any more abuse! I mean it! I’ll go to Saratoga and start gambling right now, and you and your señora can go hang!”

“As you can see, Mr. Picton,” the Doctor said, shooting Mr. Moore a warning with his eyes, “ours is a rather unusual investigative style. But please, if you would return to your story?”

“Certainly, Doctor.” Mr. Picton handed a file across to him. “Here is the sheriff’s report on the incident-Sheriff Jones was his name. Since retired.”

The Doctor began to read the document quickly as Mr. Picton related its contents to the rest of us in a way what was not only agitated, but hinted at the kind of dramatics the man might be capable of in a courtroom.

“Mrs. Hatch claimed that on the night of May thirty-first, 1894, she was driving her family’s depot wagon home after spending the afternoon buying groceries and gardening supplies in town and then taking her children over to Lake Saratoga to watch the sunset. At what she guessed to be about ten-thirty P.M., out on the Charlton road about half a mile shy of her house, a colored man armed with a revolver jumped out of a stand of bushes and demanded that she come down off the wagon. She refused, and tried to drive quickly on. But the man leapt onto the driver’s seat and forced her to stop. Then, seeing the children, he said that if Mrs. Hatch did not do everything he told her to, he would shoot all three of them. At that point, although close to hysteria, she agreed to follow the man’s orders.

“He told her to get down off the wagon and remove her clothes. She followed the command. But as she was removing her undergarments she stumbled, apparently making the man think that she was trying to either flee or go for a weapon. The man shouted, ‘Lousy white bitch-this’ll be on your head!’ and shot each of the children. Thomas and Matthew-ages three and four, respectively-died instantly. Clara, aged five and a half, survived, though she was comatose. The man, after firing the shots, jumped down from the wagon and fled back into the woods, leaving the now-distraught Mrs. Hatch to first try to tend to her children and then, when she realized how dire the situation actually was, to make for home as quickly as possible. Dr. Lawrence, one of our medical men who doubles as the town’s coroner, was summoned. However, he could do nothing. Clara Hatch survived, but did not regain consciousness for quite some time. When she did, it was found that she had lost the ability to speak, along with the use of her right arm and hand.”

There were some quiet expressions of sadness in the room (though none of surprise), along with the scratching sound of Lucius taking notes. Then the Doctor asked, “Was the little girl shot in the head?”

Mr. Picton looked very happy with the question. “No, Doctor, she was not. The bullet entered the upper chest and traveled at an upward angle, passing out through the neck.”

“But-that doesn’t make sense,” Lucius said softly.

“Nor do a great many other things, Detective,” Mr. Picton answered. “Our next chapter”-he handed the Doctor another file-“is Dr. Lawrence’s report. By the time he arrived, Mrs. Hatch and her housekeeper had moved the children inside. Mrs. Hatch was in a state of hysterical distraction, alternately trying to revive the boys and racing through the house-through every room in the house, including her dead husband’s-screaming incoherently. Lawrence quickly determined that Thomas and Matthew were dead and that Clara was in a desperate state. He informed Mrs. Hatch of all this, sending her off into an even greater fit. She told Dr. Lawrence-and I’d like the detectives to note this, particularly-that her husband had kept a revolver under his pillow all his life, and that she had never removed it after his death. But now, she said, she was afraid that she might seize the gun and do herself harm, so great was her grief and guilt at allowing her children to be attacked. Lawrence immediately administered laudanum to get the woman under some kind of control, and told the housekeeper-Mrs. Louisa Wright, a widow woman who’d taken on the housekeeping chores after Libby and Daniel Hatch were married-to retrieve the gun from Mr. Hatch’s room and dispose of it. He then did what he could for Clara and sent to Saratoga for a surgical specialist.”

“And did he make a report on the particulars of the wounds themselves?” Lucius asked, still scribbling away.

“He did,” Mr. Picton answered, handing over another file. “Each child had been shot in the chest. The boys’ bullets had struck their hearts, while Clara’s, again, had passed at an angle through the upper chest and neck, grazing the spine as it exited.”

“And the range,” Marcus said. “Did he hazard a guess at that?”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton answered, again pleased that the right questions were being asked. “Point-blank. There were powder burns on both the clothing and the skin.”

“And where exactly were the children when the attack occurred?” Miss Howard said.

“That, Lawrence did not bother to ask,” Mr. Picton replied, picking up another file. “Nor did Sheriff Jones. They were, you see, accepting the story completely at face value. But Jones had telephoned me at home, and asked me to come out-thoroughly expecting that I, too, would buy into Mrs. Hatch’s tale.”

“And you did not?” the Doctor asked.

“No, no,” Mr. Picton said. “You see, I had-encountered Libby Hatch several times since my return to Ballston Spa. That’s the Presbyterian Church you can see across Bath Street, there”-he pointed to his window, and we all looked out to get a glimpse of a fair-sized, steepled structure, older and less luxurious than the other churches along High Street-“where she and Hatch were married and attended services. I would sometimes go walking on Sunday morning when church let out, and eventually we were introduced by mutual acquaintances.” Mr. Picton paused, looking to the men in the room. “I don’t have to tell you what meeting Libby is like.”

“No, you do not,” Mr. Moore answered, a shiver running through his body. “But what could she have wanted from you, Rupert?”

“I shall ignore the insult implied in that question, John,” Mr. Picton answered, “and say only that I was baffled by her flirtatious, seductive manner myself. But looking back, I realize that she was hoping to buy herself some safety when the inevitable crisis came.”

“Crisis?” Marcus asked.

“Hatch’s death. She was planning, I think, even then to kill him, and she was covering her bets-trying to cultivate a friendly ear in the district attorney’s office, aware that we would have to at least look into the death, when it happened. And her method was, I’m bound to say, well conceived-at least objectively. She divided her conversation with me between inquiries about affairs in the district attorney’s office and those coy, seductive remarks with which she attempted to charm you gentlemen.” Mr. Picton paused, staring out his window and down at the church. “But she’d miscalculated, in my case…”

“Had she?” the Doctor asked, sensing that he was about to get a useful little nugget of information concerning Mr. Picton. “And why is that?”

“Well, Doctor,” Mr. Picton said, turning back to us, “I’m quite beyond such things, you see. Quite beyond them.” For just an instant, his attention seemed to wander. “Seen a lot of such behavior…” He shook himself hard. “As has anyone who’s ever worked in the New York City office. Yes, I’m afraid that I was in a position to detect Libby Hatch’s true nature from the beginning!”

I could see that the Doctor believed this last statement, but I could also see that he wasn’t buying that it was a complete explanation of Mr. Picton’s suspicions. But Mr. Picton didn’t know the Doctor well enough yet to recognize such things himself, so he just went on with his story.

“I’d had my doubts about Daniel Hatch’s death, when it finally had occurred, but there really hadn’t been any way to pursue them. Dr. Lawrence had cited some sort of unexplained heart disease as the cause, despite the old man’s lack of any history of such a disorder. And that, so far as the district attorney was concerned, was that. But when the children were attacked-well. I wanted to be particularly careful that we got all the facts. So I went out to the Hatch place myself, to make inquiries. It was an ugly scene, I can tell you-blood everywhere, and poor little Clara-but Libby’d been calmed by the laudanum, so I decided to get a few details. According to her, the children had been riding in the bed of the wagon with the gardening supplies. Their backs had been to the driver’s seat and front wall of the bed, and Clara’d been holding little Thomas. Libby claimed that she’d told them to stay where they were when the attacker appeared, and that they’d obeyed.”

“Which means,” Marcus announced, “that the ‘attacker’ had to’ve had some mighty long arms.”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton agreed. “Either she was mistaken, or she was lying. No one could reach all the way around from the driver’s seat of such a wagon and fire point-blank into the chests of three children who were below him in the bed and whose bodies were facing in the opposite direction. And even if he had managed the angle, surely one of the other children would have moved after the first shot, preventing point-blank execution of all three. Then there was the question of why the man hadn’t shot Libby, too-she was, after all, the one who’d seen his face clearly. Her explanation was that he must’ve been crazy, and that there’s no accounting for what crazy people do-not the kind of reply that inspires a great deal of confidence. Most disturbing of all, though, was her attitude toward Clara. She seemed to have no trouble mourning over the bodies of the boys, embracing them, kissing them-but she could barely approach her daughter, and her constant questions to Dr. Lawrence about whether or not the girl would regain consciousness seemed to stem out of a variety of emotions. Grief wasn’t necessarily the strongest of them, to my way of thinking. Guilt was very evident, too, though that could perhaps be laid to her failure to protect her children. But there was fear, it seemed to me, as well.”

“Did the sheriff organize a search?” Mr. Moore asked.

“Immediately. Volunteers were easy to raise, and the area was combed with dogs throughout the night and the following days. Inquiries were made in all the surrounding towns, and men who knew the hills well-men who ordinarily would’ve been reluctant to get involved in such matters-were persuaded to check any and all hiding places in the high ground. The case aroused that much emotion. But no trace of the man, as I’ve told you, was ever found.”

“What about the money?” Miss Howard said. “Surely someone other than you considered the fact that Mrs. Hatch stood to gain from her children’s deaths?”

“You would think so, Sara, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Picton answered. “But I’m afraid you’d be wrong. I brought the subject up exactly once, to the district attorney. He informed me that if I wanted to commit professional suicide by pursuing such a line of inquiry, I could go ahead-but I’d get no help from him or anyone else in the office! I did what I could in the months that followed-checked, as I’ve told you, the county records, wrote some letters… But Libby left Ballston within a matter of weeks, to take the job with the Vanderbilts in New York. She had, after all, no real prospects here-none to suit a woman of her restless and ambitious nature, at any rate. Just a small stipend, a decrepit old house, and a daughter whose recovery would be a long and painful one, requiring constant and careful attention.”

“Concerning that,” the Doctor said, “the daughter was left in whose care?”

“A couple who live out on the Malta road,” Mr. Picton answered, producing his watch again and looking at it. “They’ve taken in a couple of orphans, over the years, and were more than willing to look after Clara. They’re expecting us shortly.”

The Doctor seemed slightly surprised at that, but pleased, too. “It’s completely consistent, of course,” he said, “that Mrs. Hatch would want to avoid caring for the child herself. But tell me: when she left, had the doctors assured her that Clara would never speak again?”

“Oh, yes, indeed!” Mr. Picton answered. “They thought it impossible, though even I questioned why a wound to the cervical spine should impair the power of speech. But the doctors in this area are not what one might term brilliant-or even, in some cases, competent.” Mr. Picton snapped his watch closed and tucked it away. “But we really should be on our way,” he said, starting toward the door. “I’m afraid that the Westons-that’s the couple-don’t want Clara to be overwhelmed by visitors, so I told them I’d just be bringing you, Doctor. The girl is still quite fragile, emotionally, and extremely shy of strangers-of people in general, really. I hope you all don’t mind.”

“No,” Miss Howard said, “it’s perfectly understandable.”

“We’ll just go back to my house and get the surrey,” Mr. Picton said to the Doctor. “As for the rest of you, there is a livery stable quite close by, and they hire rigs for very reasonable prices. There are a great many other things for you to do and see, after all.”

“There certainly are,” Lucius said. “Any chance of getting that chalkboard today?”

“It should arrive by this evening at the latest,” Mr. Picton answered.

“And what about the old Hatch place?” Marcus asked. “Not to mention the wagon, and Hatch’s gun-what happened to them?”

“The house and grounds are available for our inspection,” Mr. Picton said. “Mr. Wooley, at the stable, can give you directions on getting there-it’s quite easy. The wagon is still in the barn, though I’m afraid it’s falling apart. As for the gun, that’s a bit more complicated. Yes, indeed, a bit more complicated. Mrs. Wright told me that she wrapped it up and dropped it down a dry well, which you’ll find about a hundred yards down a hill, behind the garden. You’ll probably want to take the files”-he handed the stack over to Marcus-“so you can go over the details during your ride.”

“Just one more thing before we go,” Miss Howard said. “The children-do you happen to know if they were looked after by a wet nurse when they were babies?”

“A wet nurse?” Mr. Picton answered. “No, I don’t know. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out, though-Mrs. Wright still lives here in town. Why, Sara?”

“I’m just trying to explain the ages of the children. If they lived past infancy, there’s got to be a reason.”

Dr. Kreizler nodded to this, and followed Mr. Picton out into the hall. “Sound reasoning. I’m sure Mrs. Hastings can tell you how to contact the housekeeper, Sara. Now, Mr. Picton-concerning this visit of ours. I certainly understand the delicacy of the situation, but I should nonetheless like both Cyrus and Stevie to accompany us. If you don’t mind.”

Mr. Picton stopped at the top of the marble staircase, glancing from Cyrus to the Doctor uncomfortably. “Dr. Kreizler-Mr. Montrose-I don’t wish to appear rude, but-surely you understand the risk-”

“I do,” the Doctor answered. “And in the unlikely event that Mrs. Hatch’s story should prove true, I shall have a great deal to answer for.”

“Well…” Mr. Picton started down the stairs at what, for him, was a ponderous pace, though it was still faster than the rest of us were moving. “All right, but-” He turned to me and Cyrus. “I warn you both, the situation really is very delicate. I must respect the Westons’ feelings, you see, and Clara’s, too-she and I have become quite good friends, the poor girl-and I would hate for you to make the trip and then be forced to wait in the carriage-”

The Doctor caught up with Mr. Picton and put a hand to his shoulder. “Calm yourself, Mr. Picton,” he said with a small smile. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” The Doctor thought about the matter for another instant, then proceeded farther down the stairs. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary at all.”