The Death Instinct

Chapter Eleven

The ordinarily genial Police Commissioner Enright liked to drop in on the men he wanted to see. Written summonses appeared only in cases of severest displeasure; they struck dread in the Commissioner's subordinates. On Friday morning at police headquarters, Littlemore received such a summons.

'Is it the Rembrandt in the evidence locker, sir?' asked Littlemore as he walked into the Commissioner's office. 'I can explain.'

Enright, behind his mahogany desk, raised his eyebrows: 'You have a Rembrandt in the evidence locker?'

'Was it the horseshoe, Mr Enright? I couldn't let Flynn get away with that story about Haggerty.'

'I didn't ask you here to play horseshoes, Mr Littlemore, or to discuss portraiture.' Enright got up, his gold watch chain glinting on an extensive waistline, his wavy gray hair abundant over a fleshy, good- natured face. A prodigious reader, an eloquent speaker, and largely self-educated, Enright had the eyes of a man who loved reciting poetry from memory. 'You remember Mayor Hylan, I'm sure, and Mr McAdoo, the President's adviser?'

Littlemore turned and saw those two important gentlemen at the other end of the office. McAdoo was seated, cross-legged, in an armchair, staring imperturbably at the detective, taking his measure. Hylan, standing and fidgeting with a glass object he'd picked up from Enright's bookcase, studiously avoided eye contact.

'Mayor Hylan received a visit from an attorney yesterday, Littlemore,' Enright continued. 'You were the subject of that visit.'

'Me, sir?'

'I want him fired, Enright,' declared Mayor Hylan.

'The attorney,' Enright continued, 'is a man of considerable reputation, well connected to the political establishment of this city. A client of his is currently a guest in one of our custodial facilities.'

'I said I want him fired,' repeated the Mayor, who had decidedly less poetry about him than did the Commissioner. Hylan was a short personage, greasy hair falling over his forehead in continual need of a comb, eyes darting like a squirrel's. A favorite occupation of Mayor Hylan's was railing from a podium, which he did often and poorly. He wore an air of perpetual embattlement, as if enemies were constantly casting outrageous aspersions on his good name. Prior to becoming Mayor of New York, he was an engineer with the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad Company, which discharged him after he nearly ran a locomotive over a supervisor. He had ascended to the mayoralty from nowhere, politically speaking, dredged up from obscurity by Tammany Hall, the doyens of which rightly estimated him a man they could trust. 'And I want that man out of jail. Today.'

'Unfortunately, Mr Mayor,' said the Commissioner, 'much as I wish I could execute your orders without question, I am subservient to another master as well — the law.'

'Don't law me,' retorted Hylan. 'I know the law. Don't forget who you're talking to, Enright. I could have you fired too.'

'That's your prerogative,' answered Enright.

'Let's keep our tempers,' said McAdoo mildly, 'and hear the facts, shall we?'

'This is none of Washington's business,' snapped Mayor Hylan. 'It's city business.'

'On September sixteenth,' answered McAdoo without raising his voice, 'New York City's business became Washington's business. I haven't reached the President today, but my wife thinks Wilson would not be pleased if the Captain were fired.'

'His wife?' asked the Mayor, incredulous. 'His wife? How about your wife, Enright — does she have an opinion? Excuse me, I'll go ask my wife what the President wants.'

'For heaven's sake, Hylan,' said the Commissioner. 'McAdoo's wife is the President's daughter.'

There was a momentary silence.

'Daughter,' Mayor Hylan humphed and wiped his brow with a soiled handkerchief.

Littlemore cleared his throat: 'Um, would I be the Captain everybody's talking about firing?'

Commissioner Enright answered: 'Is it true, Littlemore, that you took a man out of the hospital last week and jailed him even though he had just received major surgery for compound facial fractures?'

'That guy?' responded Littlemore. 'That guy has a fancy lawyer?'

'Yes. His name, I'm told, is Mr John Smith. I'm also told that Mr Smith's assailant is a very close friend of yours. And that you personally secured your friend's release on bail.'

'How'd the lawyer know that?'

'I take it these facts are true.'

'Yes, sir. I think the guy's real name is Drobac, Mr Enright, and I think he may be the Woolworth rooftop killer.'

'May be the killer?' repeated Hylan scornfully. 'Anyone may be the killer.'

'No, sir, Mr Mayor. There are only about fifty people who could be the Woolworth killer. That's how many were on the observation deck at the time of the murder, and over a dozen of them were kids. This guy was there, and he was recognized by an eyewitness as a wanted kidnapper.'

'Allegedly recognized, Captain,' corrected Enright. 'By the man who assaulted him. Whom you released. Your friend. Who is himself charged with attempted murder.'

'Dr Younger's helped the force before, sir,' said Littlemore. 'He's a Harvard man. And he fought in the war.'

'The war,' repeated Enright darkly. 'You know as well I do, Littlemore, that many men who fought have behaved unaccountably and committed criminal assaults since returning home.'

'Not this man,' said Littlemore.

'Enright, ask your Captain,' interjected Hylan, 'what proof he has that Smith committed the Woolworth murder. I'm told there's no evidence whatsoever.'

'Littlemore?' asked Enright.

The detective shifted uncomfortably: 'Okay, I don't have any proof — for now. But Dr Younger definitely identified him as Drobac, who committed a kidnapping and another killing the night before.'

'Bosh — the kidnapped girl herself doesn't recognize the man,' added Hylan. 'Not to mention the fact that she's left the state.'

'She's only in Connecticut,' said Littlemore.

'Yes, in New Haven, I know,' said the Commissioner. 'Is it true that she failed to recognize the man?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Can you identify him, Littlemore?' asked Enright. 'You rescued the kidnapped girl. Could you testify that the man in jail was one of her kidnappers?'

'No, sir,' conceded Littlemore. 'He's a little — uh — banged up at the moment.'

'You see, Enright?' declared Hylan. 'Your own officer can't identify him.'

'Would you say you have probable cause, Littlemore?' asked the Commissioner.

'Probable cause? You're not talking about letting him go, are you, Mr Enright? This guy's dangerous. He's gone after the French girl twice. He might kill her if we let him out.'

Enright sighed: 'You can't presume guilt, Littlemore, and you can't hold a man without probable cause. You know that.'

'We've held plenty of men on a lot less than this, sir,' objected Littlemore. 'We've held them for months.'

'Yes, but in those cases, the men we were holding — well — ' Enright did not finish his sentence.

Littlemore did: 'Didn't have a lawyer fancy enough to get a meeting with the Mayor.'

'That's the way of the world,' said the Commissioner.

'Give me a few weeks, sir. I'll nail him.'

'A few weeks?' said Hylan. 'An outrage. I won't tolerate it. I've always stood up for the common man against the interests. There's only one true threat to this Republic — the international bankers, the moneymen, like a giant octopus spreading their slimy legs over all our cities. As long as I'm Mayor, the interests won't rule this city. The common man will have his rights.'

His back to Hylan, Commissioner Enright rolled his eyes. 'I'm sorry to say it, Littlemore,' said Enright, 'but your conduct merits an immediate suspension. Releasing from jail a personal friend charged with attempted murder. Imprisoning his victim without probable cause. Really. You should know better.' The Commissioner was one of those men who, when standing, like to bob up and down on the balls of their feet, hands behind the back. 'However, Mr McAdoo happened to be in my office at the very same time Mayor Hylan came in. As fate would have it, McAdoo was also speaking to me about you. He gave me this.' The Commissioner picked up from his desk several pieces of typed stationery. 'It's a copy of a letter delivered today to President Wilson and every member of his Cabinet in Washington, DC. The letter is from Senator Fall of New Mexico. Do you know Senator Fall?'

'No, sir.'

'A very powerful man,' said Enright. 'He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will soon be Secretary of State, in all likelihood, under Mr Harding.'

'What's that got to do with me, sir?' asked Littlemore.

'Can you enlighten Captain Littlemore, McAdoo?' said Enright.

'Certainly,' said McAdoo, putting his fingertips together. His calm demeanor, smooth-backed hair, fine features, and long elegant face contrasted sharply with the uncombed, frowning, and overanxious Mayor. McAdoo spoke with a distinctly Eastern, well-educated accent, with only the occasional twang giving away his Tennessee roots. 'Fall's a fire-breather — and a very effective one. He's been denouncing us — the Wilson Administration, that is — for our failure to respond to the outrage on Wall Street. Fall says that an attack of this magnitude can only have been organized and carried out by a foreign power intent on our destruction — a reference, I assume, to Lenin and his Bolsheviks. He says the bombing was an act of war plainly targeting one of America's most important financial houses, while we in the Administration, far from preparing for war, proclaim that it was the work of a few disorganized Italian malcontents. And then, Captain Littlemore, Senator Fall names you.'

'Me?'

'You. He says that the New York Police Captain closest to the investigation — naming you personally — has in private advised Mr Thomas Lamont of J. P. Morgan and Company that the evidence refutes Flynn's theory of the case and demonstrates a purposeful attack against the Morgan firm.'

'I didn't say demonstrates. I said it was a possibility.'

'You are to be congratulated, Captain Littlemore,' said McAdoo.

'I am?'

'Yes. I share Senator Fall's views in every respect.'

'If you'll excuse me, Mr McAdoo,' said Littlemore, 'I don't get it. I thought Senator Fall was criticizing President Wilson, and I thought you were the President's man.'

'I don't know if I'm his man, Captain,' said McAdoo, 'but I'm certainly in his camp. The President wants this bombing solved. That's all he wants. And he doesn't, to speak frankly, have perfect confidence in Chief Flynn. Flynn works for Attorney General Palmer; together they see a cabal of Italian and Hebrew anarchists lurking everywhere, or at least so they want our citizens to believe. If you, Captain Littlemore, are willing to pursue avenues that Flynn can't or won't, the President is entirely in favor. Many of us agree with Senator Fall that this attack was of a magnitude too great for a handful of impoverished anarchists.'

'Whoever did it wasn't impoverished — I'm pretty sure about that,' said Littlemore.

'Why?' asked Commissioner Enright.

'The horseshoe, sir,' said Littlemore. 'It was brand-new. You could tell from the union mark on it. Shoeing a horse isn't cheap. Nobody poor would ever put brand-new shoes on a horse they're about to blow to pieces. I'd say these guys had plenty of cash behind them.'

'Excellent, Captain,' replied Enright. 'That's how a detective does his job.'

'Making it more likely,' said McAdoo, 'that a foreign power was behind this outrage. If that's true, it must come out, and the enemy must be made to feel the full force of American might. Commissioner, your Captain can't be fired — or suspended. It would look as if we feared war and feared the truth. They would say we'd deliberately eliminated the one man daring to ask what enemy of this country might have massacred our people and attacked our finances. Fall would undoubtedly cast it in that light, and the story would run in every newspaper in the country.'

'I make the decisions in this city,' said the Mayor.

'To be sure, Hylan, to be sure,' replied McAdoo. 'I wouldn't dream of interfering. Nor would I hesitate to urge the Attorney General to revisit your statements in opposition to the late war. The Sedition Act is still in force, I believe.'

Hylan looked stricken. 'I don't care about your Littlemore. Let him stay on. Just give me Smith.'

'And I don't care about your Smith,' said McAdoo. 'Let him go free.'

'I don't know what's wrong with me,' said Enright. 'I seem to be the only one who cares about both Captain Littlemore and Mr Smith. I'm not going to suspend Littlemore — '

'Good,' said McAdoo.

'And I'm not going to release Mr Smith,' said Enright.

'What?' said Hylan.

'You have until Monday, Captain,' replied Enright.

'I'm sorry?' asked Littlemore.

'To obtain probable cause against Smith, if that's in fact his name.'

'But today's Friday, Mr Enright,' said Littlemore.

'And you've had Mr Smith in jail since last Friday, when he should have been in a hospital. By Monday you will have had ten days to collect evidence against him, Littlemore, which is more than adequate. Either you come up with hard evidence by Monday, or you let him go. Will that do, Hylan?'

'That'll do,' grumbled the Mayor.

'That will be all, Captain,' said Enright.

Younger tried to write a letter to Colette, seated at his hotel room desk. How could she love a convicted criminal so devoted to the German cause that he had volunteered to serve in its army? There had to be some reality to love — surely. If a girl loved a man who wasn't the man she thought he was, she didn't really love him — did she?

But perhaps Hans Gruber wasn't the man Younger thought he was. Why shouldn't Gruber be the sweet, devout, ailing soul that Colette remembered? Yes, he was in prison for assault on an innocent victim, but his imprisonment might be a mistake. Younger himself had been jailed for assault only last week. Worse, much worse: Didn't Gruber deserve Colette more than Younger did? Gruber had instantly seen what Younger had taken years to grasp — that his life would be void and dull and pointless and black without her.

The letter he was trying to write, offering Colette reasons not to go to Europe, failed to flow trippingly off his pen. He started, stopped, and started again, crumpling sheets of hotel stationery and throwing them into a wastebasket. Eventually he pulled them out and burned them, one by one, in an ashtray. It had come to him that, with Freud having agreed to treat Luc, Colette would never be dissuaded from going to Vienna.

Younger packed his bags.

Littlemore reexamined the evidence seized from Colette's and Luc's kidnappers. He combed through every item, turned inside out every article of clothing. He looked for laundry marks, for threads of hair, for anything that would connect the jailed man, Drobac, to the kidnapping. All to no avail.

Then he went to the police garage, where he personally re-dusted the criminals' car for fingerprints, both exterior and interior, from tailpipes to steering wheel to ashtrays. This painstaking process took many hours. It proved equally futile, revealing a host of prints, none of which matched the ones taken from the man Younger had assaulted. Frustrated but not beaten, Littlemore went home for the night.

Even as the train conductor announced New Haven as the next stop, Younger still had not decided whether to disembark there or continue on to Boston, the city that had been his home most of his life.

The landscape outside the train's windows had grown increasingly New England. Trees blazed with color. Every bridge over every river, every bend of the coastline, was familiar to him. He had taken the Shore Line into or out of Manhattan too many times.

When the train pulled into New Haven, Younger stepped out on the platform. He smelled the autumn air and dropped into a mailbox a letter for Colette. Under his Boston address, the letter said:

September 24, 1920

I'll come to Vienna, but only on one condition: that you renounce any intention of seeing Hans Gruber.

— Stratham

The whistle blew, the conductor called out, and Younger returned to his seat.

Littlemore spent the next day — Saturday — tracking down and interviewing occupants of the building where the criminals had stayed. No one had anything of value to tell him. He found the owner of that building, but the landlord was equally unhelpful. He cut through the police ropes and reentered the room where Colette and Luc had been taken. On hands and knees, he went over every inch of the room with his magnifying glass. This too was in vain.

Younger woke up Saturday morning in his old bedroom in his old house in the Back Bay. It wasn't the house of his parents — the house he'd grown up in — but a townhouse he'd bought after returning to Boston when his marriage broke up in 1911. It was a handsome place, with fine old furniture, high ceilings, and well-proportioned rooms. Leaving the accumulated mail untouched, he went outside.

What he liked about Boston was that it was such a small town. That was also what he didn't like about it. He walked to the Public Garden, passing rows of townhouses more or less identical to his own, and took a seat on a bench by the lake. It was so placid he could see in it an upside-down double of every swan and paddle boat plying the water. He put a cigarette in his mouth but discovered he had no matches. The fact that he was in Boston with no employment irritated him.

After his divorce, Younger had thrown himself into his scientific work, spending days and nights in a laboratory underneath the Harvard medical school. His field in those days was microscopic infectious agents. He made his scientific name in 1913 by isolating syphilitic spirochetes in the brains of individuals who had died of general paresis, a condition previously believed to be psychiatric in origin. He saw no one. He socialized not at all.

Then something unexpected took place. He had assumed he would be a pariah because of his divorce, which was not proscribed in Boston society, but was not regarded favorably Instead, his social reputation soared. Whether due to his respectable position at Harvard, or the notoriety attaching to his supposed affair in New York, or, most likely, the inheritance that fell into his lap from his mother's Schermerhorn relatives, Younger became a prize commodity in both Boston and New York. At first he refused all invitations. But after two years playing the reclusive scientist, he began to go out. To his surprise, he enjoyed it.

He lent his arm to coveted young women at society events. He kissed their fingers and danced with them as if he were courting. But he never was; the society girls bored him. He preferred actresses, and in New York he was infamously seen with them. Over these years, there were only three women he slept with — and even those he could stand only for short stretches of time. A moment arrived when he was simultaneously the most eligible and most hated man in two cities. Even the actresses generally ended up enraged. Every year, he expected society to revolt against him and put him under a ban. But somehow the number of mothers believing that their daughter might be the one to land him only increased. In 1917, at a party in the Waldorf celebrating the coming out of the pretty Miss Denby, the debutante's charming mother pressed him so assiduously to dance with her daughter that he made a conscious show of partnering with every girl other than Miss Denby. He drank to such excess that he didn't remember leaving the ball and woke the next morning in a hotel room with an unknown female beside him. It turned out to be Mrs Denby.

A few weeks later, the United States declared war. He enlisted at once.

When Younger got back to his townhouse, the afternoon mail had come, and with it a letter from Colette. He opened it still standing in his hallway:

25-9-1920

Dearest Stratham,

I can't do what you ask. I realize now that everything that's happened in America has been a sign telling me to go back to Europe. God must want me to. Vows are sacred. I have to honour mine, no matter how rash or wrong I was to make it. Maybe I will see when I'm there that he is not the one. But God puts these feelings in our hearts: of that I'm sure. I beg you to understand — and to come with me. I need you.

Yours,

Colette

He didn't understand. Why say she 'needed' him when she so obviously didn't? If it was money she needed, he wished she would simply ask him for it outright.

Rummaging through his mail, Younger found a statement from his bank. With a cold eye, he observed that his balance, once a thing of six figures — that was before he'd bought his house — had shrunk to four, and the first of those four was a one. Ever since Younger had come into his inheritance, he had turned over his professor's salary and, later, his soldier's wages to one or another insufferable Bostonian charity. He had lived without thought of money. The bequest having fallen into his lap, he had determined never to let it become an anchor.

He knew he would give it to Colette — the money for her passage — fool though that would make him. All she had to do was ask. He threw on some evening clothes, and went out. At the Post Office, he dropped off the following scribbled reply:

September 25, 1920

Since it's God's will, go with Him.

— Stratham

Littlemore, arriving home late and frustrated Saturday night, found his wife in a state of distress. Her mother, a robust little woman who spoke only Italian, was next to her. 'They came for Joey,' Betty exclaimed, referring to her younger brother.

'Who did?' asked Littlemore.

'You — the police,' answered Betty.

It turned out that policemen had paid a visit to Betty's mother's apartment on the Lower East Side looking for Joey, a dockworker who still lived with his mother. Mrs Longobardi told the police he was out, which was true. They entered and ransacked the apartment, seizing newspapers, magazines, and letters from relatives in Italy.

'They say they're going to arrest him,' Betty concluded. 'Arrest him and deport him.'

'What kind of policemen?' asked Littlemore.' What were they wearing?'

Betty translated this question. The policemen, Mrs Longobardi answered, were wearing dark jackets and ties.

'Flynn,' said Littlemore.

On Sunday morning, Younger didn't wake rested. In fact he didn't wake at all, because he had never gone to sleep. When he got back to his house, unshaven, tie askew, it was well after dawn. Making himself coffee, he decided it was high time he got back to work.

He hadn't written a scientific paper since 1917. He hadn't even contacted Harvard about resuming his professorship. But he did have notes from the experiments he had conducted during the war; there was a paper on the medical use of maggots he wanted to write; and he did have an old set of patients who would probably be delighted to make him their doctor once again. It was time to return to his senses.

He went to his study and began organizing his papers and his finances.

At dusk he jerked awake — having fallen asleep at his desk — heart pounding with a dream whose final image he could still see. Colette had come straight back to America after her Austrian voyage. She had cabled him: she didn't care for Hans Gruber after all; it was he, Younger, whom she loved. He waited for her in Boston Harbor. She came running down from the ship, but when she reached him she froze, her green eyes shrinking from him in horror. He limped to a mirror. In it he saw what she had seen. During her five weeks' absence, he had aged fifty years.

Skipping church and canceling his usual weekly visit to his father in Staten Island, Littlemore returned on Sunday to the police garage. He climbed inside the kidnappers' car and went through it minutely again, even though the vehicle had already been fully searched and inventoried by other policemen. He was rewarded with exactly one discovery. Wedged deep in a crevice between seat back and seat cushion, Littlemore found a scrap of Western Union paper. It was not a telegram, but a receipt, showing only that some message had been sent somewhere by some customer.

With a few weeks at his disposal, and a dozen men pounding the pavement, such a receipt might conceivably have been tracked to its originating office. But Littlemore didn't have the men, he didn't have the time, and sending a telegram obviously didn't count as evidence of a crime.

The telephone rang in Younger's house on Sunday evening. He answered it, cursing himself for hoping it was Colette. It wasn't.

'What are you doing in Boston?' asked Littlemore s voice.

'I live here,' answered Younger.

'I left you messages all weekend at the Commodore. You didn't tell me you were going to Boston.'

'You told me not to tell you if I left town.'

'Oh yeah — good point,' said Littlemore. The detective described the unfortunate turn of events. 'Drobac gets out of prison tomorrow afternoon. I'm sorry, Doc. And I'm worried. Seems like Drobac's lawyer knew all kinds of things about Colette, including that she was up in New Haven. How would he know that? I think they've got somebody tailing the Miss. Or maybe somebody she knows in New Haven reports to these guys, whoever they are. I'll tell you what: after Drobac gets out, I don't know where is safe for her. I think the Miss and her brother should go into hiding.'

Younger rang off, grabbed his coat and hat, and left to make arrangements. When he'd finished, he sent a wire for immediate delivery to Colette:

YOU AND LUC MUST LEAVE AT ONCE STOP DROBAC BEING

RELEASED FROM JAIL TOMORROW STOP GENUINE DANGER

STOP HE KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE STOP I HAVE BOOKED

YOU A CABIN ON THESS WELSHMAN LEAVING NEW YORK

HARBOR FIVE-THIRTY PM MONDAY FOR HAMBURG STOP

LITTLEMORE WILL BE THERE WITH TICKETS STOP TELL NO

ONE REPEAT NO ONE

Because it was a Sunday night, Younger was obliged to pay a king's ransom to get this telegram sent and to have it hand-delivered upon transmission. Unfortunately, Western Union's hastily hired delivery boy in New Haven couldn't distinguish among Yale University's dormitories, and the telegram was slipped under the door of the wrong residence.

Colette, returning to her room Sunday night after working late at the laboratory, found the door unlocked. This dismayed her. She had told Luc over and over to keep the door locked; he didn't listen to anything she said anymore. Colette stepped into the silent darkness of her dormitory room. It shouldn't have been so dark — or silent. Could Luc already be asleep? He never went to bed until she made him.

The air felt damp, heavy, pregnant. She fumbled to turn on a lamp, but couldn't find the switch. Then she heard dripping — as if it were raining, but inside. The sound came from her bedroom.

'Luc?' she called out. No answer came. She felt her way to the bedroom, found a light, switched it on.

The room was empty. The boy's narrow bed was undisturbed. On the ceiling, drops of water were forming and falling into a puddle on the floor.

One flight above lived a graduate student in divinity and his kind wife, who had often taken Luc and watched him when Colette was at work. In fact Luc had a standing invitation from these neighbors to come up to their kitchen for milk and cookies any time he wanted — an invitation he'd taken advantage of more than once. The leak was surely coming from their apartment. Luc must be up there as well, Colette thought.

She went out into the unlit common stairwell of the dormitory building and, groping in the darkness, found the handrail and climbed the steps. A light showed beneath her friends' door. She knocked; the door swung open. The small apartment was bright, silent, and still. The living-room window was open, its curtain fluttering. Colette called out the names of her friends; there was no answer.

Colette's heart began to beat faster. The divinity student and his wife shouldn't have been out; they were always home at night. Colette went to the kitchen, which was empty, but the icebox door was open, which was wrong; one always shut one's icebox door. Then she heard the sound of water running. A door from the kitchen led to the bathroom. Colette looked down: from the bottom of that door, water was seeping out onto the kitchen floor. Colette opened the bathroom door.

No one was there. The bath was running, unattended. The tub was full; water overflowed onto the tile floor. Colette didn't shut off the tap. Instead, for no reason she could have explained, she ran back to the living room, pulled open the window curtain, and looked down into the courtyard outside. Luc was there.

He was standing under a tree near a lamppost, a glass of milk in one hand, a cookie in the other, staring at a female figure who was on her knees, looking into his eyes, her wispy hair tinged red in the lamplight. The girl's lined face was strained and taut. She could almost have been pretty, if the eyes hadn't been so frightful — eyes that had seen something unspeakable or were contemplating something unspeakable. She unbuttoned her dress and pulled it open, showing the boy her throat and her naked chest. Though her face was as taut as a madwoman's, her throat and chest were unmarred, white, soft — almost radiant. The glass slipped from Luc's hands. It fell to the grass, and so didn't break, but for a moment a circle of white milk glistened in the darkness at his feet. The figure stretched out her arms as if beckoning him to her.

Colette cried out from the upstairs window. She ran into the hallway and down the stairs. When she heaved open the heavy front door, other voices in the courtyard were crying an alarm too — but they were calling out to her, not to Luc. The girl under the tree had disappeared.

The other voices belonged to Colette's upstairs neighbors — the divinity student and his wife — who breathlessly declared that they had in their possession a telegram that Colette must read at once. They had been home when an undergraduate came knocking with a message from Western Union erroneously delivered to him. The moment the couple read the urgent wire, they ran off to Colette's laboratory, telling Luc to stay behind and wait; they had rushed so precipitously that the divinity student had left his bathtub running. But when they reached the laboratory, Colette had already left.

After Colette had taken Luc back to their room, after she had read the message, after the neighbors had retired upstairs, she looked at her brother. 'Did she touch you?' asked Colette.

The boy shook his head. He pointed to his neck and made signs with his hands, which Colette understood.

'Yes, I saw it too,' she answered. 'The aura.'

Detective Littlemore returned to the law library early Monday morning. It took him several hours, but he finally found what he was looking for. Armed with this knowledge, he set off for the Astor Hotel, where

Chief Flynn had set up his command post. Littlemore picked up a couple of hot dogs on the way.

Inside the Astor, ignoring the protests of a secretary, Littlemore ambled directly up to Flynn's closed door, outside which his two familiar deputies were standing guard. One of them rubbed his jaw on seeing the detective.

'Big Bill around?' Littlemore asked them. Receiving no answer, Littlemore said, 'I'll just knock, if you don't mind.'

Both deputies placed their hands on Littlemore's chest. 'We mind,' said the one who had been to the detective's house.

'No problem,' said Littlemore, taking a bite of his hot dog. 'I'll come back in a few hours. Got to go to court anyway. Make out an arrest warrant. Say, you know those soldiers Big Bill stationed outside the Treasury Building? Reason I ask is the Posse Comitatus Act. You don't want a dog, do you? I got two.'

The deputies stared at Littlemore.

'See, the Posse Comitatus Act,' continued the detective, 'that's a federal law, and it says that anyone who orders any part of the United States army to deploy on US soil for law enforcement purposes — well, he's breaking the law. Anyone except the President, that is. So do me a favor. Tell Big Bill that Captain Littlemore of the New York Police Department's coming back at five o'clock with a gang of reporters and a warrant for his arrest. And tell him that the reporters are going to want to know what he's hiding inside the Treasury.'

On the fifth floor of the massive, gray, chateau-inspired jail known as the Tombs, the order was given at two-thirty Monday afternoon to unlock a temporary detention cell. The flesh around Drobac's eyes remained swollen and bruised. His mouth was wired shut, and a circular metal apparatus was clamped around his jaw and cheeks.

A well-dressed lawyer, highly satisfied with the proceedings, entered the cell the moment it was unlocked, accompanied by the murderer's surgeon. They each reached for one of the prisoner's arms to assist him from his cot. Drobac shrugged off their hands and rose on his own.

Littlemore stood a long way off, at the other end of a long corridor, chewing his toothpick, a barred door separating him from the cells. Several guards and officers milled about near him, including Roederheusen and Stankiewicz. Younger, having come down from Boston that morning, was there as well.

'You sure you want to see this?' Littlemore asked him.

Younger nodded.

At the end of the corridor, Drobac emerged from his cell, walking slowly, unaided, his wired chin held ostentatiously high. Lawyer and surgeon followed behind, chatting with each other.

'In that case I'll need your gun, Doc,' said Littlemore in a low voice.

'What gun?' answered Younger just as quietly.

'Right now,' said Littlemore.

Younger didn't move. Slanted light fell on Drobac and his coterie as they approached.

'Boys,' said Littlemore, raising his voice very slightly, 'restrain Dr Younger.'

Roederheusen and Stankiewicz stepped up behind Younger and seized his arms.

Littlemore reached into Younger's jacket, drew out a revolver, and handed it to a prison guard for safekeeping. 'Sorry, Doc. Cuff him.'

Arriving at the barred door, Drobac saw Younger being handcuffed. Their eyes met. If a man can smile with his jaw wired shut, Drobac smiled.

'Open the gate,' ordered Littlemore.

'Don't let him go,' said Younger, hands locked behind his back and arms still in the grasp of Stankiewicz and Roederheusen.

'Open it,' Littlemore repeated.

A guard opened the barred gate. Drobac's lawyer spoke: 'Thank you, Captain. I'm glad my little conversation with the Mayor was so effective, but I shudder to think of all the other impoverished men in here unconstitutionally. Do you enjoy breaking the law, Captain? Sign the release, please.'

A clerk handed Littlemore a clipboard. 'If your client's so poor,' asked the detective, 'who's footing your bill, Mr-?'

'Gleason,' replied the lawyer. 'I charge nothing for a case like this, Captain. It's pro bono publico.'

'Sure it is,' said Littlemore.

'Don't let him out,' said Younger.

'No choice,' said Littlemore, signing the release. 'The law.'

Mr Gleason accepted his copy of the release with relish. He addressed Younger: 'So you're the one who beat my client within an inch of his life. We're pressing charges, you know.'

Younger didn't reply.

'How agonizing it must be,' Gleason continued, 'to stand there believing the fantastic delusions you do. That my client is a highly trained killer. That he's going to pursue the pretty French girl no matter where she runs, from New Haven to Hamburg to the farthest ends of the earth. That one night he'll find her, slip into her bedroom, and cut her throat.'

Younger's straining at his handcuffs only caused Roederheusen and Stankiewicz to hold him more firmly. 'Not if I find him first,' he said.

'You heard that, Captain!' crowed Gleason. 'He threatened my client. I demand that you revoke his bail. He belongs behind bars. I'll have your badge, Captain, if you don't.'

'Get out,' said Littlemore.

'Very well — if you insist,' replied the lawyer. He turned to Younger again: 'My client was in jail ten days. You'll be there twenty years.'

Younger was silenced by these words. Not, however, by the threat; it was the phrase ten days that caught his attention. 'Littlemore,' he said as Gleason guided Drobac toward the stairwell that led to freedom. 'Have him take off his shirt.'

'His shirt?' replied the detective.

'The kidnapper has a mark on the front of his torso,' said Younger. 'A red mark, in the shape of a test tube.'

The guard posted at the stairwell door looked uncertainly at Littlemore, waiting to be told whether to let Drobac pass.

'This is absurd,' said Gleason.

The surgeon spoke up: 'Is the mark visible to the naked eye?'

'Yes,' said Younger.

'I operated on Mr Smith,' the surgeon continued, referring to Drobac, 'and I assure you he has no such mark on his torso.'

'Then he has nothing to fear from taking off his shirt,' said Younger.

'Don't be ridiculous,' said Gleason, pushing past the guard and opening the stairwell door himself. 'You heard the surgeon. My client has been released. Now, if you'll excuse us-'

'Littlemore,' said Younger.

Drobac started to pass through the door held open by his attorney.

'Hold it,' the detective called out. 'Take his shirt off.'

A half-dozen guards pulled Drobac back into the hallway and formed a circle around him.

'You have no authority,' said Gleason.

For the first time, Drobac spoke. 'Is all right,' he said in his Eastern European accent, the wires around his jaw glinting silver. 'I do it. Why not? I hide nothing.'

Littlemore looked at Younger, who raised an eyebrow.

Drobac calmly removed his jacket, slipped off his suspenders, and began unbuttoning his white shirt, never taking his eyes from Younger. When his chest was bare, everyone could see it: under his left ribs, below the thick hair of his chest, slightly angled from the vertical, was the perfect likeness of a test tube, inscribed in a deep red rash.

'How do you like that?' said Littlemore.

Drobac looked down, uncomprehending. 'What — what is?'

'A radium burn,' said Younger. 'They take ten days to emerge. Yours comes from a test tube you stole from the Commodore Hotel and put in your jacket pocket.' 'This is an outrage,' declared Gleason. 'The Mayor will hear of this.'

'Put "Mr Smith" back in his cage,' said Littlemore to the guards.

Drobac, still looking at the red mark on his torso, made a snort that managed to convey both grudging acknowledgment and condescension. 'Is all right,' he said, buttoning his shirt. 'Your prison? Is more like hotel.'

'Glad you like it,' replied Littlemore. 'You're going to be here a long time.'

Drobac only smiled through his glinting steel wires.

Outside the Tombs, Littlemore returned Younger's gun and invited him to the Astor Hotel, where he was going to meet with reporters and Chief Flynn. 'Should be some fun,' said the detective. 'Until I get myself fired.'

Younger declined, saying he had a rendezvous he couldn't miss.

'Say, Doc, do you believe in premonitions?' asked Littlemore.

'No.'

'I'm just thinking about this guy Eddie Fischer. Everybody treats him like he's crazy, but what if he's really psycho?'

'Psychic.'

'Some people believe in premonitions, don't they? Some scientists? How about when you knew the bomb was about to go off on Wall Street before anybody else did? How do you explain that?'

'Something in the air,' replied Younger.

'That's just what Fischer says. He got it "out of the air.'"

'If you want to talk to a believer,' said Younger, 'go to the American Society for Psychical Research. Their office is here in New York somewhere. They're as good as it gets. Ask for Dr Walter Prince.'

'Thanks. I'll do that.'

They stood for a time without speaking.

'Sorry about the cuffs up there,' said Littlemore. 'Just protocol. I know you weren't actually going to shoot the guy.'

'I would have killed him,' said Younger.

'Christ — you can't do that, Doc. War's over.'

Younger nodded. 'Maybe there's always war. Maybe some of us just aren't fighting.'

'Uh-huh,' said Littlemore. 'Or maybe you just wanted to kill somebody.'

'Maybe.'

They shook hands and parted. After Younger's taxi had driven off, another vehicle pulled up beside Littlemore — a black-and-gold Packard. At the same time, two large men in suits converged on the detective from the steps of the Tombs. The rear passenger window of the Packard rolled down. 'Would you mind getting in, Captain?' said a voice from within.

'Depends who's asking,' said Littlemore.

The man nearest the detective put his hand between Littlemore's shoulder blades to guide him into the car. He opened his jacket just enough to let Littlemore see the butt of a gun holstered within.

'That supposed to scare me?' asked Littlemore, reaching with astonishing quickness into the man's jacket, pulling the gun out of his holster, and pointing it at his chin — while at the same time, with his other hand, drawing his own gun from his belt and aiming it at the other man. 'Where do they train you Bureau guys anyway?'

'Please, please, put your weapons away,' said the voice within the car.' I assure you there's no need. These men are not from the Bureau of Investigation. They work for me.'

'And who would you be?' asked Littlemore.

'I'm the secretary.'

'Whose secretary?' asked Littlemore.

'President Wilson's, I suppose. My name is David Houston. I'm Secretary of the Treasury. Please come in, Captain. There's something we need to discuss.'

Littlemore got in the car.

At the harbor, Younger found Colette and Luc waiting on a pier, near the berth of the steamship Welshman. Beside them were three forlorn, ragged-edged pieces of brown leather luggage. The air had already begun to cool; it would be a brisk autumn evening. The ship was boarding.

After they'd greeted one another, Colette described the events of the previous night. 'It's strange,' she said. 'When I first saw her, I was frightened, but later I felt there was nothing to be afraid of.'

Silence hung in the air.

'I didn't expect you,' said Colette, brushing a lock of hair from her face. 'Your telegram said Jimmy.'

Younger nodded. He handed her the tickets.

'They let him out of jail?' she asked. 'The killer?'

'No, he's back in,' said Younger. 'And he won't be coming out for a long time. It doesn't matter. You want to take this ship.'

She looked down at her hands. 'You-' she said.

'We took a wrong turn a long time ago, you and I,' answered Younger. 'All my fault. Better this way. I doubt your soldier deserves you, but you deserve to find out.'

Her gaze fell on the tickets. 'These are for Bremen, not Hamburg.'

Younger had bought a second set of tickets, on a different ship, the George Washington, when he arrived at the port an hour earlier. Drobac's attorney, Gleason, seemed to know that Colette was bound for Hamburg. If so, that meant Colette's pursuers would be expecting her to board the Welshman.

'A first-class cabin,' added Colette, still looking at the tickets. 'We don't need that.'

Younger handed her two more white envelopes. 'This one,' he said, 'has ready money for the trip. The other contains a draft on my accounts in England that you can negotiate at any serious bank in Vienna. No, take it. You can't live on nothing.'

She shook her head and tried to return the envelopes, but Younger wouldn't take them back. He crouched and extended his hand to Luc. The boy hesitated a moment, then held out his own.

'He did it,' said Younger. 'Ruth hit his fiftieth. And fifty-first.'

Luc nodded: he knew it already.

'Take care of your sister,' said Younger. He winked: 'Every girl needs a man taking care of her.'

Secretary Houston led Littlemore up the marble steps, past the soldiers standing at attention, into the Treasury Building. Houston was a gracious and handsome man in his early fifties, his genially crinkled eyes suggesting a friendliness contradicted by everything else about him, particularly the cold soft intelligence of his Southern voice. The detective followed the top-hatted Houston through the rotunda, then down several narrow stairwells. Soldiers lined every flight, every doorway.

They entered a sub-basement and came eventually to a narrow arched stone door, so low they had to stoop passing through it. On the other side, Houston threw a switch; dim electric lights flickered on. They were in a large chamber with a low vaulted ceiling, filled with endless stacks of neatly arranged, crisscrossing bricks, glinting darkly yellow.

Houston led Littlemore on a tour through these stacks of bricks, which, like the shelves in an overfull library, left just enough space for persons to pass between them in single file. There seemed to be miles of them.

It was gold, all gold, as far as the eye could see.

'Pick one up, Captain,' said Houston.

Littlemore removed a bar from the top of the nearest pile. It was inordinately heavy for its size.

'Twenty pounds,' said Houston. 'There is no larger store of gold anywhere on earth. There never has been. Not in the Bank of England, not in the palaces of the Turk, not in the tomb of the Inca. You are looking at the metal reserves of the United States of America, on which the credit of your government, the value of the dollars in your pocket, and ultimately the liquidity of every bank in this country depend. Have you any idea how much gold is here, Captain?'

'Less than there was on the morning of September sixteenth.'

'Most astute. How long have you known?'

'I saw one of your guards lying dead outside the Treasury with a piece of gold in his hands,' said Littlemore. 'I knew you'd been robbed when I found out you tried to erase his name from the casualty list.'

'Yes, a bit heavy-handed, that,' said Houston. He took a deep breath. 'The gold in these vaults is worth approximately nine hundred million dollars. Just think. The bomb, the deaths, the incalculable misery — all that for a bank robbery.'

'That's why Flynn called in the army.'

'It wasn't Flynn,' said Houston dismissively. 'The man is a blowhard. I ordered the soldiers here, and I'm well aware it was against the law to do so. But it would have been criminal not to. I tried to get Wilson's authorization. The President, however, is not — fully active, you know.'

'Why am I here, Mr Houston?' asked the detective.

'We couldn't have you telling the press the Treasury's been robbed, could we?'

'How much did they get?'

'Oh, it's not the dollar value of the loss that counts. Gold doesn't have value because someone will give you dollars for it, Captain. Dollars have value because the United States will give you gold for them. The real value of gold is psychical. It is valuable because men believe it to be valuable. And because they do, gold gives men faith in the government that possesses it — or is believed to possess it. We could lose every ounce of gold in these vaults, and so long as people didn't know of the loss, they would continue to invest in our bonds, trade in our dollars, leave their money in our banks, and so forth. Conversely, we could hold on to every brick, but if people believed the gold reserves of this country were insecure, we could have a panic making 1907 look like a baby's fretting.'

'How'd they do it?'

'You've seen the new building adjacent to this one, Captain — the Assay Office? Deep within it we've built new secure treasure vaults, much more suitable than this musty old basement. The gold is being transferred to the new vaults. We had devised a way to make that transfer without ever having an ounce of gold leave our property.'

'A tunnel?' asked Littlemore.

'No — a bridge. An overhead bridge.'

Littlemore nodded: 'In the alley between the buildings. I saw the doors.'

'Exactly. The bridge connected their second floors. It was built specially to move this gold. Triply reinforced to carry the weight. A moving automatic belt to make the conveyance of so much metal feasible. All without ever exposing a single brick to the outside world. Or so we thought.'

'You were moving the gold on the sixteenth?' asked Littlemore.

'Yes, we were. It was a carefully guarded secret. Or supposed to be. Evidently someone knew. The workmen inside reacted quite well, by the way. When they heard the explosion, they shut the doors on either side of the bridge, as they were trained to do. The only loss was the gold that happened to be on the bridge, which burned and collapsed. The robbers must have had a truck waiting in the alley.'

'How much did you lose?'

'We still don't know exactly,' Houston answered. 'It takes time to recount 138,000 bars. In addition to the gold on the bridge, I lost a man too — the man whose name we want off your lists. He may have gone onto the bridge to try to save the gold.'

'Riggs,' said Littlemore. 'So if the bombing was a robbery, why is Big Bill Flynn chasing anarchists?'

'Nearly no one knows about this robbery, Captain,' said Houston. 'Senator Fall, for example, does not know of it. Neither does Chief Flynn.'

Littlemore thought about that: 'You're afraid the Bureau has a leak.'

'Only a handful of people knew the date on which we were transferring the gold. There are men in the Bureau who knew. Someone betrayed us.'

'Could have been someone inside Treasury,' said Littlemore. 'Could have been Riggs.' '

'I can't rule that out,' replied Houston.

'You must know more or less how much they got away with.'

'Oh, more or less, certainly,' replied Houston. 'A paltry amount. We will hardly notice it, even if we never get it back. Five or six hundred bricks, give or take.'

'Which comes to?' asked the detective.

'In dollars? Perhaps four.'

'Four thousand?'

'Four millions,' said Houston.

The number hung in the air for a moment, echoing. 'What is it you want from me, Mr Secretary?' asked Littlemore.

'Why, just to refrain from telling the press about the robbery. It wouldn't do for the public to learn the United States Treasury has been breached — and certainly not that there are people inside the government with the will and wherewithal to steal the nation's gold. Wouldn't do at all.'

'Too late,' said Littlemore. 'I already told a couple of reporters there was something they might find interesting at the Treasury. Something to do with gold.'

'I know,' said Houston. 'We've received inquiries. That much is all right. I don't mind telling them the gold is here. The financial world is already aware of it. I don't even mind telling the press we've been moving the gold to the Assay vaults. I intend simply to let it out that my men happened to take their lunch break just before the explosion. A simple story. It was noon; the men had shut the doors for lunch; they heard the bomb go off; that was all. A coincidence. The great point is that there was no robbery, no breach in security, no loss of gold. Lunchtime.'

'Think anyone will buy that?' asked Littlemore.

'The gullibility of the common man constantly surprises, Captain. If everyone tells the reporters the same thing, I think we'll be all right. Especially if you tell them. You'll be doing your country a service.'

Littlemore weighed the Secretary's request. 'I want in on your investigation — who knew the gold was being moved, everything you've got on Riggs, who's selling bullion on the black market.'

'Why not?' said Houston. 'You might help. Unlike my other officers, you at least are not a suspect.'

'And one more thing. Get Flynn off my back. Any of Flynn's men come within spitting distance of my wife's family, I tell the press everything I know.'

'That will be more difficult. The Bureau is not under my control.'

'No deal then.' Littlemore put his hat back on and snapped its brim.

It was Houston's turn to weigh his options. 'Consider it done,' he said. 'I'm speaking with General Palmer tonight.'

Colette uttered not a word. She turned away and waved for a porter, who quickly loaded the three tattered suitcases onto his hand truck. The porter set off. Colette, followed by Luc, walked slowly into the crowd.

Younger, lighting a cigarette, gazed past the Welshman to the vast black George Washington, memories boiling up. It had been a great ship once. It had brought Freud to America. It had taken Woodrow Wilson to Europe. It had carried kings and queens and heads of state. Now it was relegated to commercial passenger duty once again. All greatness fades.

Colette stopped. She turned, burst out of the crowd, and ran back to him. 'I'm such a fool,' she said. 'I'm not going.'

'Get on board,' said Younger. 'You'll regret it — you'll resent it — the rest of your life if you don't.'

The ship spoke in an earsplitting blast. Seagulls took flight. The call for all passengers went out.

Colette buried her cheek on his chest.

'Go on,' said Younger. 'It won't be so hard. You can cry on my shoulder in Vienna when we get there.'

She looked at him; he looked back. 'You don't mean it,' she said.

'Why shouldn't I come?' he asked. 'You're in love with me, not Heinrich.'

She didn't deny it.

Younger went on: 'If I let you go by yourself, you might actually marry this convict. Don't think I'm coming for your sake, though. It's Heinrich I'm worried about. You don't do a man any favors by marrying him when you're in love with someone else. You'd be killing him, slowly but surely. Besides — ' he removed from his jacket another ticket for passage on the George Washington — 'my bags are already on board.'

Colette's whole body seemed to exhale with relief, and she smiled her most irresistible smile. As the ship steamed out to open sea, the three uncorked a bottle of champagne. Even Luc was allowed to try a little.