The Death Instinct

Part 2
Chapter Eight

The morning after the attack, a hundred thousand people gathered on Wall Street.

They came unbidden, drawn by the afterimages of devastation, the lingering proximity of death. Some were gawkers from out of town. Others had employment in the financial district. But most drifted in like wanderers, with no articulate aim, moved by a need they could not have explained, as if being there might somehow supply a void they felt without knowing they felt it.

As a result, the Constitution Day celebration was the largest the country had ever known. Workmen laboring all night erected a wooden platform in front of George Washington's bronze statue. Bunting had been hung in red, white, and blue, festooned with American flags. With a fully armed company of solders still guarding the Treasury Building, the impression created was halfway between a holiday and a siege.

Patriotic speeches were made. America the Beautiful' was sung, tears glistening on thousands of faces. While the words 'sea to shining sea' still echoed in the great canyons of lower Manhattan, a ruddy, white- whiskered brigadier general took the podium. The crowd quieted.

'September sixteenth,' he proclaimed, his voice echoing off the skyscrapers. 'A date America will never forget. September sixteenth — the date on which Americans will say for the rest of time that our country changed forever. September sixteenth. On this spot where we now stand, one of the greatest outrages committed in the history of our country was perpetrated. Are we, as American citizens, going to close our eyes to this infamy? I say no, a thousand times no.'

The word was repeated thousands of times more.

The Brigadier General held up his arms, checking the crowd's cheers: 'The vampires must and will be brought to justice.'

Thunderous applause.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken this morning with Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer,' he went on, and the name of Palmer brought fresh cheers and foot stamping. 'General Palmer wished to be here himself this morning, but alas it couldn't be. The General desires me to assure you, however, not only that he is on the way to our city at this very moment but that he already knows the identity of the perpetrators of this outrage. Yes, he has their confession — their boastful confession — in hand. And he has a message both for us and for our enemies. General Palmer says, and I quote, that he "will sweep the nation clean of their alien filth"!'

There was a roar of satisfaction and a thrilling chorus of 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' On the stage a young man stepped forward and began the national anthem. A hundred thousand voices made vigorous harmony.

Younger was writing a letter at a small table in the Littlemores' living room when he sensed, rather than heard, Luc behind him.

In the previous hour, Betty Littlemore had clothed, fed, and packed off to school an endless string of little Littlemores. The apartment was still not wholly peaceful: babies cried, toddlers banged cooking pots, and the detective's wife and mother-in-law were discoursing volubly in the kitchen. Younger couldn't understand their Italian, but the topic was evidently a matter on which both women had strong opinions.

Younger turned to face Luc. The boy stood on the other side of the room, perfectly still, saying as usual nothing. His long dirty blond hair was well brushed, and his large observant eyes conveyed preoccupation with a multitude of thoughts, without giving a single one of them away.

'Your sister has told you,' said Younger in French, 'that she plans to take you back to Europe.'

Luc nodded.

'And you're wondering if I intend to change her mind.'

The boy nodded again.

'The answer is no. She knows what's best.'

Luc shook his head — just once, very slightly.

'Yes, she does,' said Younger. He put down his pen, leaned back, looked out the window. Then he turned back to the boy: 'Well, if you are going back to Europe, we shouldn't be wasting time. I'll tell you what: Bring me a newspaper. We'll see when the Yankees are playing. Maybe Ruth will hit his fiftieth today.'

The boy scampered away and returned a moment later, the morning paper in his hands and a disappointed expression on his face.

Younger looked at the page to which Luc had opened the newspaper: the Yankees were on the road and therefore not playing in Yankee Stadium — which the boy apparently understood. 'Can you read English?' asked Younger.

Luc shrugged.

'I see,' said Younger, recalling how, when he was himself a boy, he had once astonished his father by having taught himself to read rudimentary Latin. He also recalled how he used to watch everything that happened in his household, understanding secret expressions on his mother's face that he was not supposed even to have seen. 'Can you speak, Luc? I'm not asking you to talk. I just want to know if you can. Yes or no.'

The boy stared at him, unmoving.

'Right,' said Younger. 'Well, too bad about the Yankees. Let me think — how would you like to go to the roof of the tallest building in the whole world?'

Luc's eyes lit up.

'Go see if your sister will let you,' said Younger. 'And if she'll join us.'

Detective Littlemore might have passed for one of the gentlemen of the press packed into uncomfortable chairs in the Astor Hotel, except that the detective's hands were stuffed in his pockets, while the newsmen's were busy scribbling down the remarks of William Flynn, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who stood at the front of the room next to a chalkboard map of lower Manhattan. Chief Flynn had commandeered several suites of rooms at the Astor, turning them into his personal command center. Littlemore sat in the rear chewing his toothpick, straw hat so far back on his head it looked like he was braving a strong wind.

The pug-nosed, barrel-chested Flynn had massive shoulders, a correspondingly big gut, and surprisingly clean-shaven, fresh-faced cheeks. Dressed in dark suit and tie, his brown hair slicked down, he bore a striking resemblance to a nightclub bouncer. He thought of himself, however, in more militaristic terms. Flynn believed that law enforcement was essentially military in nature and prided himself on knowing how to speak in the argot of the armed forces. 'At approximately oh-twelve-hundred hours yesterday,' said Flynn, tapping the map with a pointer, 'an incendiary device detonated in front of the Morgan Bank at number 23 Wall Street.'

'You mean a bomb?' asked one of the gentlemen of the press.

'That is correct,' said Flynn.

'Captain Carey says it might have been a dynamite truck,' called out another.

'The New York police got zero to do with this investigation,' Flynn shot back. 'The incendiary device was transported to the scene in an animal-powered transport vehicle.'

'A horse and wagon?' called out a newsman.

'Ain't that what I said?' Flynn replied with asperity. 'Now pipe down so's I can deliver myself. I got something important for you boys, and if you'll shut your traps maybe I can get to it. At oh-eleven-thirty yesterday morning, a United States letter carrier opened a mail receptacle here — ' he tapped another spot on the chalkboard map — 'at the corner of Cedar and Broadway. The receptacle was empty at that time. At oh-eleven-fifty-eight, the letter carrier made another collection from that same receptacle, at which time he found five circulars' — a word that Chief Flynn pronounced soyculars — "without wrapping of any sort. Three minutes later, the letter carrier heard a loud noise, which was the incendiary device incendiarating. By order of General Palmer, we are making these circulars public, so's the law-abiding people of this country know who their enemies are.'

Flynn handed around five handbills.

'Don't paw at 'em!' Flynn barked. 'Anybody damages one of these, they're going to jail for destruction of evidence. I ain't kidding.'

Each piece of paper was rough and cheap, about seven inches wide by eleven long, and each bore the same red ink-stamped message, the unevenness of which made plain that it had been hand-printed, one letter at a time:

Rimember

We will not tolerate any longer

Free the political prisoner or it will be sure death for all of you

American Anarchist

Fighters

The newsmen copied furiously.

'Cedar and Broadway,' Flynn resumed, using his pointer again, 'is four minutes by foot from the incendiary location. That leaves no doubt about what happened. The anarchists parked their animal-powered vehicle on Wall Street at approximately oh-eleven-fifty-four. When they reached Cedar and Broadway, they placed these circulars into the mail receptacle, three minutes before the explosion.

'It will be recalled,' Flynn went on, 'that the circulars connected with the bomb outrages of 1919 looked just like these here and were signed by the same enemy organization. If any further cooperation was needed, which it ain't, it will also be recalled that the Chicago Post Office bombing of 1918 occurred on the third Thursday' — pronounced toyd Toysday — 'of September, which yesterday was too. The exact anniversary. In other words, these are the same terrorist Bolshevikis who bombed us in 1918 and 1919 — Eye-talians associated with the Galliani organization. There's your story. You print it. I will now read you the names of the wanted.' Reading from what appeared to be an arrest warrant, Flynn continued: 'Carlo Tresca, anarchist leader and known terrorist; Pietro Baldesserotto, anarchist; Serafino Grandi, anarchist and revolutionary; Rugero Bacini, anarchist; Roberto Elia, anarchist.'

The newsmen kept scribbling some time after Flynn had finished his recitation. Then one of them called out, 'Was J. P. Morgan hurt, Chief?'

'What are you — stupid? J. P. Morgan wasn't even in town yesterday,' said Flynn. 'This outrage was not directed at Morgan or any other individual. It was an attack on the American government and the American people and the American way of life. You put that in the papers.'

'What can you tell us about the horse and wagon, Chief?' a newsman asked.

'The witnesses thus far examined,' said Flynn, 'have told us that the horse was facing east, which ain't legal under traffic regulations. But terrorists don't care too much about traffic regulations, do they?' Flynn's torso heaved up and down at the last remark, which he apparently found humorous.

'So you haven't identified the wagon?' asked a reporter.

'They blew it up, you chucklehead,' Flynn shot back, irritated. 'How are we supposed to identify it? It's in a million pieces — and so's the horse. Any more bonehead questions?'

'What about Fischer, Chief?'

'Don't worry about Fischer,' said Flynn.

'Have you caught him yet?'

'Who says I'm looking? NYPD wants Fischer; let them look.'

'But how did he know about the bombing?'

'Who says he knew about it? The postcard never said bomb. And it said the fifteenth, not the sixteenth. I ain't gonna comment on Fischer. If you ask me, he's a mental case who got lucky. Now get out of here, all of you. I got men in the field waiting for orders.'

Under vaulted gold-leaf ceilings, Younger pointed out to Colette and Luc the caricature of old Mr Woolworth himself, carved in stone, counting his fives and dimes. They boarded the express elevator. The boy's eyes fixed in wonder on the winking lights that indicated the breathtaking passage of floors. Only a slight rocking of the car and a whistling of air betrayed the rapidity of their ascent.

Fifty-eight stories up, they emerged through heavy oak doors into a blinding blue sunlight and a wind so fierce Younger had to take Colette around the shoulders and Luc by the hand. The three-sided observation deck was lined with sightseers, coats flapping. At a railing, Younger, Colette, and Luc — on his tiptoes — gazed down on roofs of buildings that were themselves taller than the tallest cathedrals of Europe. Impossibly far below, rivers of mobile humanity — minuscule models of people, cars, buses — flowed and halted en masse to strangely slow rhythms. This was not a bird's-eye view. It was the view of a god witnessing America's breach of the first axiom of divinity, the separation of earth from heaven.

Behind them, the heavy oak doors swung open again, discharging another elevator load of visitors onto the deck. Among the newcomers was a man in a fedora pulled low over his forehead. He walked with a limp, and his clean-shaven face was mottled with scarlet patches — burn marks of some kind.

As the reporters field out of his office, Big Bill Flynn sat down behind a large oak desk, taking up a fountain pen like a man with important documents to sign, although in fact the only papers on his desk were newspapers. Two dark-suited assistants stood behind him, one on either side of his desk, hands behind their backs, feet apart.

Littlemore remained in his seat, toothpick protruding from his mouth, examining one of the handbills. 'Isn't that funny?' he asked of no one in particular, after the last newsman had left.

Flynn addressed one of his deputies: 'What is this guy, deaf?'

'Hey, buddy, you deaf?' asked the deputy.

'"Or it will be sure death for all of you,'" said Littlemore, quoting the hand-stamped message. 'That's what I call a threat, because it says something's going to happen. But how about what already happened? I mean, if you were leaving behind a message after you blew up Wall Street, wouldn't you say something about what you just pulled off? You know, maybe ominous, like "Today was just the beginning." Or throw in a little taunt, like maybe, " We took down Wall Street, next we'll come for all streets.'"

The detective had sung the last words, to the tune of 'Ring Around the Rosey.'

'Who the hell is this guy?' asked Flynn.

'Who the hell are you?' asked a deputy.

'Captain James Littlemore,' said Littlemore. 'NYPD, Homicide. Commissioner Enright asked me to be the Department's liaison officer with the Bureau. I'm supposed to offer you our services.'

'Oh yeah?' said Flynn. 'Well, there ain't going to be no liaison officer, because there ain't going to be no liaisoning. Now get out of here, will you?'

The second of Flynn s assistants leaned down and spoke softly into his superior's ear.

'You don't say,' said Flynn aloud. He leaned back in his chair. 'So you're the guy who turned up Fischer?'

'That's right,' said Littlemore.

'Think you got something there, do you, Littleboy?'

'Could be,' said Littlemore.

'I'll tell you what you got,' said Flynn. 'A crackpot. You'll be interviewing him inside an asylum.'

'I don't know about that,' said Littlemore.

'I do,' replied Flynn. 'He's in one now.'

'Where?'

'You want him. You find out.'

'How do you know?' asked Littlemore.

'Let's just say I got it out of the air,' said Flynn, his torso shaking again. His deputies seemed to consider this remark a witticism; they joined in his laughter.

'Well, I guess I got to congratulate you, Chief Flynn,' said Littlemore, returning to his scrutiny of the handbill, which he now held up in the light over his head. 'Never seen a case this big broken so fast.'

'That's why they pay us the big bucks,' said Flynn.

'Say, Chief,' said Littlemore, 'did you see all those soldiers outside the Treasury Building? I wonder what they're doing there.'

'They're there because I ordered them there,' said Flynn. 'Somebody's got to protect United States property when the police department's got its heads up its pants. Now scram.'

'Yes, sir,' said Littlemore. He stopped in front of the chalkboard map of lower Manhattan and scratched his head. 'Those anarchists, I'll tell you — how do you catch people who can do the impossible?' asked Littlemore.

'What's impossible?' said Flynn.

'Well, they leave their horse and wagon on Wall Street at 11:54 and walk four minutes to the mailbox at Cedar and Broadway — that's what you said, right? Mail gets picked up at 11:58. Bomb goes off at 12:01. How much time is there between 11:54 and 12:01?'

'Seven minutes, genius,' said Flynn.

'Seven minutes,' said Littlemore, shaking his head. 'Now that surprises me, Chief You think they'd leave their bomb ticking for seven whole minutes? I wouldn't hive. I mean, with the horse blocking traffic and all. If it were me, I'd have set my timer for one or two minutes. Because in seven minutes, somebody might move the horse out of there — maybe even discover the bomb.'

'Well, nobody did, did they?' barked Flynn. 'Nothing impossible about that. Get him out of here.'

'Maybe nobody moved the horse,' said Littlemore as the two deputies approached him, 'because it was only there two minutes.'

Flynn signaled his deputies to wait: 'What are you talking about?'

'My men took statements from a lot of folks who were there yesterday, Chief Flynn. Eyewitnesses. The horse and wagon pulled up on Wall Street only one or two minutes before the bomb exploded. Your anarchists, you got to hand it to them. They leave Wall Street at 11:59 or 12:00, and they get to Cedar and Broadway before 11:58, when the mailman picks up their circulars. How do you catch people who can do that?'

No one answered. Flynn stood up. He slicked back his oiled hair. 'So you're a captain, huh? How many men report to you? Six?'

'Enough,' said Littlemore, thinking of Officers Stankiewicz and Roederheusen.

'I got a thousand. And my men ain't like yours. There are two kinds of cops in the NYPD — the ones on the take, and the ones too stupid to realize that everybody else is on the take. Which kind are you?'

'Too stupid,' said Littlemore.

'You look it,' said Flynn. 'But not stupid enough to get in the way of my investigation. Are you?'

Littlemore went to the doorway. 'I don't know; I'm pretty stupid,' he said, shutting the door behind him.

Flynn turned to his deputies. 'Get me a file on that guy,' he said. 'Get me wife, friends, family — everything. And see if Hoover's got anything on him.'

Luc broke free from Younger and ran to the far side of the deck, which looked out on the water. Nearby, a pack of schoolboys shouted to one another about something they saw below. Luc ran toward them.

'Look at him,' said Younger. 'He understands what those boys are saying.'

'Not their words — how could he?' replied Colette.

'He can read the newspaper,' said Younger.

'In English? Impossible,' answered Colette. They stood side by side at the railing and gazed out onto the vast urban panorama. She put her hand on his. 'I wish I didn't have to go back.'

He removed his hand and took out a cigarette.

'You don't care if I leave?' she asked.

'I recommended you to Boltwood. You're leaving him with no one running his laboratory. Of course I care.'

'Oh. Well, I don't like your Professor Boltwood anyway. Do you know what he called Madame Curie the other day? A "detestable idiot.'"

'He's just jealous. Every chemist in the world is jealous of Marie Curie.'

'Men are very cruel when they're jealous.'

'Are they? I wouldn't know.'

No one glancing at the man who had limped into the center of the platform would have seen the dagger in his right hand, tucked invisibly against his inner sleeve. Colette herself might have turned around without recognizing Drobac, whose mass of whiskers was now shaved off. Only his eyes — the small, black, perceptive eyes peering out below his low-cocked hat — could have given him away He held the knife by its blade, one finger caressing its edge. There was no danger of his being cut: as with all good throwing knives, both of its edges were dull. The point alone was sharp.

An experienced practitioner of the knife-throwing art, if he intends to kill, will throw at the victim's heart. Of those organs whose puncturing is virtually certain to cause death, the heart is the largest — saving of course the brain, which is rendered inaccessible by the hard bone of the cranium. The victim's ribs might be thought a significant obstruction, but it isn't so. Provided that the throw is sidearm, not overhand, there is no real difficulty. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the victim's ribs will let the point slip through. Indeed one might almost say they guide it home.

Younger and Colette had their backs to Drobac, as did everyone else on the observation deck, because he stood in the center while they were all at the railings. A good knife-thrower has no compunction about taking aim at his victim's back, which assures, after all, the element of surprise. All that's required is a blade long enough to pass through the soft tissue of the left lung with sufficient metal remaining to pierce the meat of the heart. In the case of a slender victim, a shaft of eight inches will usually do. Colette Rousseau was slender, and the knife in this case was a dagger with a ten-inch steel blade. Drobac's breathing slowed.

'That's good,' shouted Detective Littlemore to a workman operating a pneumatic drill. 'Keep her clear.'

Littlemore was now on Wall Street, in front of the Morgan Bank, where the bomb had exploded the day before. Two uniformed officers — Stankiewicz and Roederheusen — kept pedestrians at bay. Across the street, the Treasury and Assay buildings still looked like an army garrison, with a company of soldiers positioned around them.

The drill bit cracked one cobblestone in the blackened crater, then another. Littlemore signaled the workman to stop. Crouching down, brushing dust and pebbles aside, the detective prized free a horseshoe from the stones. It was a size four shoe; the remains of a shamrock nail were visible. Stankiewicz and Roederheusen peered over his shoulder. Littlemore flipped the shoe over; the letters HSIU were imprinted on it.

'How do you like that?' said Littlemore. 'You boys know what HSIU stands for?'

'No, sir,' said Roederheusen.

'Horse Shoers International Union.'

'Something strange about that, Cap?' asked Stankiewicz.

'Sure is.' Littlemore did not explain what.

On the Woolworth Building observation deck, a clutch of schoolboys erupted with shouts and stampeded at full speed from one side of the deck to the next. Luc chased them, close on their heels; an alarmed schoolteacher trailed after, close on his. Colette cried out her brother's name and broke into a run, certain that Luc was going to trip and tumble over the guard rail.

Drobac smiled. He was still standing, alone and unmoving, in the center of the platform. Colette was running from his right to his left at the far side of the deck. The gusting wind died for an instant, and in that instant he took a single broad step, as a fencer does in a lunge, flinging his knife backhanded. In general, he favored moving targets, which offered more of a challenge. But Colette did not present even that challenge. She had become quite suddenly stationary: Luc had stopped abruptly, bringing the schoolteacher to a halt just behind him, bringing Colette to a similar halt.

The dagger spun in the air exactly three and a half rotations, parallel to the ground, and entered the girl's back. The point slipped through her ribs, puncturing her lung. But it was the right lung, not the left, and as a result the knife point, when it emerged from that lung, never touched her heart.

A knife piercing an individual's back characteristically causes its victim to throw both arms wide and high in the air, to scream, and to fall forward at least a step or two. All that happened here. This was unfortunate, because her forward steps propelled her over the railing. There was still a fair chance her fall might have been arrested by one of the balconies below. It was not to be. Her body, somersaulting, hit a parapet and bounced outward. The collision caused a morsel of concrete to crack loose and fall alongside the girl's body, accompanying her fifty-eight stories to the earth. At exactly the same moment, the girl and the concrete chip hit the sidewalk, which there consisted of a mosaic of colored glass squares. On contact, the concrete chip rebounded several stories high in the air. Considerably heavier, the girl's plummeting body ripped through the colorful glass tiles with a sickening thunderclap, plunging into the subway station below.

Littlemore heard the crash all the way from Wall Street. He listened for an aftermath, for the sounds of riot or terror. Hearing nothing more, he resumed his instructions to his men: 'Stanky, you take this shoe straight to Inspector Lahey.'

'Can I tell the press about it?' asked Stankiewicz.

'Make sure you do,' said Littlemore. 'But the Feds don't touch that shoe, you hear me?'

'Excuse me, Captain,' said Roederheusen. 'Mr O'Neill's still waiting to talk to you.'

Terrified screams rent the rooftop of the Woolworth Building. Schoolboys gaped and yelled in horror. Only Luc was perfectly silent, reaching his hands, with a strange and protective intelligence, to take those of his sister.

The dead girl was the schoolteacher who had stopped short behind Luc. Had Colette taken one more step, Drobac's knife would have found her. But because of the schoolteacher's unexpected halt, the knife had pierced the right lung of the wrong victim — the unlucky schoolteacher — rather than the left lung of its intended target.

The mass of people on the observation deck, not having seen the knife, believed they had witnessed a ghastly accident. A new load of sightseers just then emerging onto the deck added to the confusion. Younger, however, had seen the knife in the schoolteacher's back, and now he saw a man limping toward the heavy oak doors that led to the elevator bank — the only person leaving the platform amid the pandemonium. Drobac glanced back as he passed through the doorway. Younger recognized the small, black eyes at once.

Younger rushed across the deck and through the doorway. Between the closing doors of an elevator car, Younger saw those same black eyes again, peering at him from below a fedora's brim. The narrowing gap between the doors was too small for a man to fit through, but it was large enough for Younger s arm, which he thrust into the car, grabbing Drobac by the lapel. The elevator operator, barking out in surprised protest, reopened the doors. Younger yanked Drobac out and threw him to the floor.

Drobac tried to fight, but it was no contest. Younger beat him and beat him and kept beating him until the bones of his nose, his jaw and even his eye sockets all gave way.

'O'Neill — who's that?' Littlemore asked Officer Roederheusen on a street corner near the Morgan Bank.

'That's him over there, sir. He's been waiting all morning. He says he got a warning about the bomb too.'

'Bring him over. Then go find the mailman who picks up at Cedar and Broadway. And not next week. I want that mailman in my office tomorrow morning, got that?'

'But tomorrow's Saturday,' said Roederheusen.

'What about it?' asked Littlemore.

'Nothing, sir.' Roederheusen crossed the street and returned with a man barely over five feet in height, with a waistline of approximately the same size and whose arms, as he walked, moved like those of a toy soldier. 'Sorry you had to wait, Mr O'Neill,' said Littlemore. 'You have some information for me?'

'Yeah — it was last Thursday, see,' said O'Neill. 'Or else Friday. No, Thursday.'

'Just tell me what happened,' said Littlemore.

'I'm on the train from Jersey, like every morning. This guy, he gets on at Manhattan Transfer and we get to talking. Friendly-like.'

'Describe him,' said Littlemore.

'Nice-looking,' said O'Neill. 'About forty, forty-two, maybe. Never saw him on the train before. Six-footer. Athletic type. Blond. Educated. Tennis racket.'

'Tennis racket?' asked Littlemore.

'Yeah, he was carrying a tennis racket. Anyways, we're in the Hudson Tube, see, and he asks me where I work. I tell him 61 Broadway. He says he works on the same block, at some kind of embassy or something, and we keep talking, this and that, you know, and then he leans over and whispers to me, "Keep away from Wall Street until after the sixteenth.'"

'He said the sixteenth?' asked Littlemore. 'You're sure?'

'Oh yeah. He says it a couple of times. I ask him what he's talking about. He says he works on the sly for the Secret Service and his job is to run down anarchists. Then he goes, "They have 60,000 pounds of explosives and they're going to blow it up." He meant it too. You could tell. It was him, wasn't it, detective? It was Fischer?'

'What did you do?'

'I stayed away from Wall Street on the sixteenth, that's what I did.'

Three Woolworth security personnel, when at last they arrived, tore Younger from the bloodied man and put him — Younger — in handcuffs.

They were not impressed by Younger's claim that the victim of his assault had killed the girl who had just fallen to her death. No one else had seen the murder, and Younger conceded that he hadn't actually witnessed the deed. The guards were equally unmoved by Younger's assertion that the man had kidnapped a different girl the night before — a girl who was still standing outside on the observation deck. On the whole, they seemed to think he was raving.

Colette and Luc were brought forward. Without allowing Younger to speak, the guards asked Colette if she recognized the unconscious man whom Younger had beaten almost to death. She said no. Drobac's gashed face was in fact quite unrecognizable.

'Your husband says this man kidnapped you yesterday,' said one of the guards.

'He's not my husband,' said Colette.

'You lying SOB,' the other security officer remarked.

'I didn't say I was her husband,' said Younger.

Luc, tugging sedulously at Colette's sleeve, got her attention and made signs with his hands. She asked if he was certain; he nodded. 'It is the man who abducted us,' she said to the guards. 'My brother recognizes him.'

The officers, dubious, asked how the boy knew.

Luc made another sign. 'He just knows,' said Colette.

This assertion somehow failed to allay the security officers' doubts. In the end, they took the bloodied man to a hospital — and Younger into custody.

The Morgan Bank, open for business the day after the explosion, looked more like a hospital infirmary than a temple of high finance. Bandaged heads and patched eyes could be seen at every other desk. Clerks limped. Sling-armed men pecked one-handedly at adding machines. A watchman's face was so heavily wrapped that only his eyes and nose were visible.

'Mr Lamont will be with you in a moment,' said a receptionist to Littlemore.

The J. P. Morgan Company was not an ordinary bank. The House of Morgan was a mover of international relations, a maker of history. It was Morgan that saved the United States from ruin in the gold panic of 1895 and again in the bank panic of 1907. It was Morgan that led a consortium of financiers to float a five-hundred-million- dollar loan to the Allies in the Great War, without which they almost certainly could not have won. The old titan J. Pierpont Morgan had died in 1913; his son Jack Jr, who didn't spend as much time at the bank as his father had, relied on one partner in the firm to manage the company's vast assets and worldwide financial interests. That partner was Thomas Lamont!

Littlemore tipped his hat to the dozen uniformed policemen adding their bulk to the bank's security contingent. He also nodded imperceptibly to the additional half-dozen plainclothesmen scattered about the central atrium. Littlemore looked up at the dome far above, where scaffolding allowed workmen to reach its inner recesses. The resounding echo of hammers filled the air.

Below the dome, Mr Lamont — slight, diminutive, expensively but conservatively dressed — was addressing some twenty other men, answering questions like a tour guide. He was the right sort of man to run the House of Morgan: a graduate of Philips Exeter Academy and of Harvard College, a man chosen by Washington to represent the United States at the Paris peace conference of 1919. He had thinning gray hair, large ears, and risk-averse gray-blue eyes. The twenty men whom he addressed were not tourists; they were a grand jury conducting a physical inspection of the effects of the bombing. Pointing up at the dome overhead, where massive cracks in the plaster could be seen, Lamont explained that a team of engineers had pronounced the dome safe and secure.

'Let me add,' he said to the jurors and newsmen encircling him, 'how proud I am today of this firm. We are J. P. Morgan. We don't panic. We opened today at our usual hour, and rest assured, we will continue to do so.'

Lamont shook hands with the jury foreman and ushered the group into the care of an associate. He approached the detective, introduced himself, and asked how he could help.

'Sorry to take your time, Mr Lamont,' said Littlemore. 'It can't be easy for you.'

'Not easy?' replied Lamont, whose normally bland countenance looked overburdened by responsibility. 'With Mr Morgan overseas, the duty of speaking to the families of the dead and wounded has fallen to me. I feel responsible for every one of them. Do you know that our dome very nearly fell? And the entire Exchange almost came down yesterday as well. We were a hair's breadth from complete catastrophe. Thousands would have died. Wall Street would have been ruined. I can't comprehend how this could have happened. If you could be brief, Captain, I'd appreciate it.'

'Okay,' said Littlemore. 'I'd like to know who your enemies are.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Not yours personally. The company's.'

'I don't think I understand,' said Lamont. 'Mr Flynn of the Bureau of Investigation assured me this morning that the explosion was not directed against the Morgan firm in particular.'

'They left the bomb right outside your door, Mr Lamont. They almost brought your building down.'

'That's not how Mr Flynn sees it.'

'Those are facts, sir,' said Littlemore.

'If I'm not mistaken, Captain, this whole tragedy might yet prove the result of an accident on a dynamite wagon. I will not be party to speculation that J. P. Morgan and Company is under attack.'

'When was the last time you heard of a dynamite wagon loaded with a half ton of shrapnel?'

'But who would attack a bank in such a way?' asked Lamont. 'Where is the profit in it? This firm comes to the assistance of people in need all over the world. Who would want to attack us?'

'Let me put it this way, Mr Lamont. My men deal with murders of loan sharks all the time. Your business isn't too different — just bigger. What I always ask is who the shark's been leaning on to pay up. Or whether there's another shark in the water that might want a piece of the action.'

'I see,' said Lamont.

'If you'll forgive the comparison,' said Littlemore.

'I don't,' said Lamont. 'This firm does not "lean on" its debtors, Captain.'

'Sure you don't. And you don't have any enemies either, right? Only friends?'

Lamont didn't answer.

'You hedge your bets for a living, sir,' said Littlemore. 'Every banker does. I'm offering you a hedge. There's a chance the bombers are after your company. Maybe they were sending you a message. Maybe they'll send you another. Do you want to take that chance?'

Lamont lowered his voice: 'No.'

'I might just catch them if you put in a little time helping me out. That'd be a pretty big return for a small investment, Mr Lamont.'

'It would indeed,' Lamont agreed. 'You are independent of Chief Flynn?'

'I'm with the New York Police Department,' said Littlemore. 'We don't take our orders from Mr Flynn.'

'Give the receptionist your card, Captain. You have a card?'

'I've got a card.'

'I'll consider what you've said.'

Dusk had fallen when Littlemore arrived at Younger's detention cell.

'Geez, Doc, you pulverized him,' said the detective, unlocking the barred door. 'He looks like a bulldozer ran over his face.'

Younger put on his jacket and came out of the cell.

'I bailed you,' said the detective. 'Smoke?'

'Thanks,' said Younger. His shirt collar was loose, knuckles bruised. 'Did he get away?'

'No,' replied Littlemore. 'I sent a couple of boys to the hospital as soon as I heard. When the doctors clear him, we'll put him behind bars. I've got him — for now.'

The detective handed a large brown paper envelope to Younger, from which the latter shook out his necktie, watch, wallet, and other personal effects. 'For now?' he asked.

'How do we prove he's Drobac? Even I can't identify the guy after what you did to his face. We're going to need a lot more before his trial rolls around. But that's okay. Trial won't be for another six months.'

'I can identify him,' said Younger, putting on his watch.

'Hate to tell you, but your say-so became a little less weighty when you got yourself charged with attempted murder.'

Younger eyed the detective.

'That's how the DA saw it,' said Littlemore. 'Assault with intent to kill. I was lucky to get you out. The judge wasn't going for it until I mentioned that you were a Harvard man. Harvard man and Harvard professor. And Roosevelt was your cousin. And you slept with Roosevelt's daughter. Okay, I didn't say that.'

'As a matter of fact,' said Younger, looping his tie around his neck, 'I did intend to kill him.'

'No, you didn't.'

'Who does he say he is?'

'Funny thing,' said Littlemore, 'but he's not talking. Seems his mouth is wired shut because somebody broke his jaw in three places. Boy, you better be right.'

'It's Drobac. He was limping. He had marks on his face.'

'Not proof.'

'Can't you take his fingerprints?'

'Did it,' said Littlemore. 'But they have to match something. We got no prints on the knives. No matching prints in the room downtown. No matching prints on the car. No prints at all on Colette's laboratory box. Nothing. He knew what he was doing.'

Neither spoke.

'Why would he come after us?' asked Younger.

'Maybe he wanted to get rid of the people who can finger him.'

'Where is she?' asked Younger, fastening his cufflinks.

'The Miss? Giving her lecture.'

'What?'

'She wouldn't take no for an answer,' said Littlemore. 'Made me get all her samples out of the evidence locker.'

That night A. Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General of the United States, arrived in Manhattan by special train from the nation's capital.

A long black-and-gold car — a Packard Twin Six Imperial, the kind of car only very rich men could afford — was waiting for him outside Pennsylvania Station. Inside was a dapper gentleman who wore a top hat, with the points of his shirt collar up.

The car took Palmer to the Treasury Building opposite the Morgan Bank on Wall Street. Soldiers, saluting, stepped aside as the two men ascended the marble stairs and passed through the massive portal. A half-hour later, Palmer and the well-dressed gentleman reappeared. The latter led the Attorney General around the colonnade to a narrow alleyway separating the Treasury from the adjacent Assay Building. The alleyway was barred by a tall wrought-iron gate, which had to be unlocked to let the Attorney General through.

The two men walked halfway down that alley, the top-hatted gentleman pointing up to the second floors of the not-quite-abutting buildings. There, one story above the street, what looked strangely like garage doors in midair faced each other across the alley. Attorney General Palmer shook his head grimly, then informed the gentleman that he would be quitting New York the next day. The investigation of the bombing would remain in the hands of Bureau Director Flynn. Palmer himself would travel on to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to visit with family.

The Marie Curie Radium Fund held a special lecture presentation on September 17, 1920, in the Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue. The Fund was the brainchild of Mrs William B. Meloney, a well- upholstered lady of a certain age, well known in New York philanthropic and literary circles. Mrs Meloney was a working woman, a newspaper woman, who by virtue of her tireless reporting on Manhattan high society had eventually taken a place in it. Like many American women, Mrs Meloney had avidly followed — indeed she had reported on — the travails of the great Marie Curie of France.

'How outrageous it is,' declared the bow-tied Mrs Meloney from the opulent but somber church chancel, 'that Madame Curie, the world's most eminent scientist, the discoverer of radium, should for mere want of money be prohibited from continuing her investigations — investigations that have already led to the radium cure for our cancers, the radium face and hand creams that eliminate our unsightly blemishes' — Mrs Meloney was, in addition to her other pursuits, editor of a leading woman's magazine — 'and the radium-infused waters that restore conjugal vitality to our husbands.'

The audience, almost exclusively female, applauded warmly.

Mrs Meloney congratulated her listeners for their fortitude in coming out only one day after the terrible tragedy on Wall Street. 'It has always been woman's lot,' she said, 'to persevere when man's violent passions overwhelm him. And persevere we must. The cost of a gram of radium is appalling — a hundred thousand dollars — but the sum must be raised. The honor of America's women has been pledged. I myself pledged it — to Madame Curie herself, at her home in Paris — and it is now the obligation of every one of us to contribute generously to the Fund, or make our husbands contribute.'

As the ladies applauded once again, the front door of the church creaked noisily.

'Thank heavens,' said Mrs Meloney, 'here is Miss Rousseau at last. We were growing concerned, my dear.'

The audience of fashionable ladies swiveled. Colette walked up the cavernous central aisle in silence, a picture of self-consciousness, lugging with two hands the heavy case of sample ores and radioactive elements. She murmured an apology, but her faint voice failed to carry in the huge, dimly lit Gothic church, with its great columns and vaulted ceiling. Colette had expected a few women in a small lecture room, not two hundred in a place of worship, assembled before a pulpit with a larger-than-life-sized crucifixion on the enormous reredos behind it.

'Over the last several weekends,' Mrs Meloney continued, 'along with Miss Rousseali — who studied with Madame Curie herself in Paris and who will shortly enlighten us on "The Wonders of Radium" — I have been making a tour of the largest factories in America where radium products are made. We have sought to impress upon the owners of these factories how much they owe to Madame Curie. Our efforts have not been in vain, as I will soon have the pleasure of announcing to you.'

Here Mrs Meloney exchanged a knowing glance with a plump, impeccably dressed gentleman seated to her left, who gestured to the audience munificently. She then turned the pulpit over to Colette, who, smiling to cover her strenuous effort, hoisted the case of elements up the steps to the chancel.

'Thank you, Mrs Meloney,' said Colette. The pallor of her cheeks was attributed by her audience to her foreign birth. 'It is my warm honor and my privilege to give whatever small assistance I can to the Marie Curie Radium Fund.'

Colette paused, somehow expecting that her audience might applaud the name of Marie Curie. Instead there was a noticeable silence.

'Well, I begin,' she resumed, trying to press flat onto the lectern the curling pages on which she had carefully written out her presentation. 'Twenty-four years ago, Henri Becquerel, a French scientist, placed a dish of uranium crystals next to a wrapped photographic plate in a closed drawer and left them there for over a week. Was he conducting an experiment? No — Monsieur Becquerel was only cleaning up his laboratory, and he forgot where he put his uranium!'

Colette waited for laughter; none came.

'But when he unwrapped the photographic plate, he found an image on it — which should have been impossible, because the plate had not been exposed to light. Thus was the mystery of atomic radiation discovered, quite by accident! Two years later, in 1898, Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, solved this mystery. Madame Curie proved that uranium's atoms emit invisible rays, and she coined a word for this phenomenon — radioactivity. Working in almost complete isolation, Madame Curie discovered two new elements previously unknown to man. The first she called polonium, after her native Poland; the second and by far the more powerful, she called radium. The potential energy of radium is so great it is almost impossible to describe with normal measures. You are familiar with horsepower? A single gram of radium contains an energy equivalent to that of eighty thousand million horses.'

Colette paused again, expecting a gasp at so enormous a figure. The only sound was the rustling of women's skirts and gloves.

'Such power,' Colette went on, speaking now a little too quickly, 'if released at once, would be enough to destroy every building in New York City in one terrible explosion. But science has found a way to harness radioactivity to save lives rather than destroy. Doctors today insert micrograms of radium, encased in tiny glass nodules, directly into a cancer patient's tumor. In weeks, the tumor is gone. All over the world today, because of radium, people are alive and well who would have died from cancer only a few years ago.' Here was a pronouncement the audience was in fact prepared to applaud, but this time, her nervousness growing, Colette failed to pause. 'Now I will demonstrate for you one of the extraordinary by-products of radioactivity: luminescence.'

'Oh, my child,' said Mrs Meloney, 'you're going to experiment — in church? Do you think that appropriate?'

'It will be only a small demonstration,' said Colette.

'All right,' said Mrs Meloney. 'But let's not demonstrate very long, shall we?'

Gathering two vials from her case, Colette stood awkwardly in the pulpit. The awkwardness lay in the absence of a table. Colette needed to combine the two compounds. Smiling nervously, Colette knelt to the floor and set her materials down. This allowed her to work with both hands; unfortunately it also made her invisible to her audience.

Suddenly there was an outburst of clapping. Colette looked up, puzzled. The ladies' attention was fixed on the plump gentleman behind her, who, beaming jovially, had raised his fists high over his head. From each hand dangled a wristwatch, casting a greenish phosphorescent glow.

'There's your luminescence, Miss Rousseau,' announced the gentleman. 'There's the magic of radium.'

More applause.

'Thank you, sir,' cried Mrs Meloney, 'you are a knight in shining armor. And thank you, Miss Rousseau, for that most educational lecture.'

'But I — ' began Colette, who had only just started.

'And now, my friends,' continued Mrs Meloney, 'for the most gratifying portion of this evening's event. In Connecticut last week, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the titans of American industry, whose kindness and sense of public duty are every bit the equal of his eminence in commerce. He is one of this nation's leaders in oil, in mining, and in radium. Please join me in welcoming Mr Arnold Brighton.'

The plump gentleman came up and bowed in all directions to a long ovation. He was completely bald except for a tuft of wiry brown hair above each ear, but fastidiously attired, with shiny trimmed fingernails and gold cufflinks that glittered as he raised his arms to quiet the ladies' applause.

'Thank you, thank you — oh my, where did I put my speech?' Brighton patted his pockets with gleaming fingernails. 'Did I give it to you, Mrs Meloney?'

'To me, Mr Brighton?'

'Oh my. Is Samuels here? He would know where I put it. Well, my competitors always say I lose my head with the ladies. They won't employ women, you know, whereas my luminous dial factories are the largest employers of women in their states. My competitors can't understand how I could employ girls in a factory. My answer is simple. The female wage is lower than the male — significantly lower. Oh, I know what you're thinking. With so many men out of work, especially men who served in the war, don't they deserve the jobs? I beg to differ. Men have wives and children they're expected to support. That costs more. Whereas ninety percent of my girls are unmarried. That costs less. And look at their handiwork — look at these lovely watches. Applying radium paint to such tiny surfaces requires feminine dexterity and cleanliness. Mrs Meloney, will you permit a gentleman to offer you a gift? Or would Mr Meloney object?'

Appreciatively scandalized laughter attended this remark.

'For shame, Mr Brighton,' said Mrs Meloney, but she extended her ample arm coyly, allowing Brighton to secure to her wrist the larger of the two watches, in which violet gemstones were embedded. She held up her arm, displaying the object to the ladies of the audience, who clapped most cordially.

'Mrs Meloney can now tell the time in the blackest hour of night,' said Brighton. 'If the police and firemen of this city had been wearing my watches, they would never have been hindered by the great smoke cloud of yesterday's explosion. They would have had a source of light, requiring no batteries, no fuel, no power source at all. That's the wonder of radium. Now for you, Miss Rousseau, we had to make a special item. Our usual products wouldn't fit the delicacy of your wrist. May I?'

The watch Brighton offered to Colette was encircled with round- brilliant diamonds, refracting every color in the rainbow despite the dim illumination of the church. Uncomfortably, Colette lifted her hand. Brighton fastened his gift to her forearm, the green glow of the luminous watch face reflected in his polished fingernails. He expressed the hope that his present was to her liking. Colette didn't know what to say.

'Your generosity leaves us speechless, Mr Brighton,' said Mrs Meloney. 'Pray continue.'

'Continue?'

'Your contribution, Mr Brighton.'

'My contribution? Oh, my contribution, of course.' Brighton patted his pockets again and withdrew a bank draft from his vest — nearly knocking over the lectern in the process. After a lengthy preface, he declared it his great pleasure to present to the Marie Curie Radium

Fund a check in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars. Gasps came from the audience, together with loud, sustained applause.

Mrs Meloney thanked her benefactor profusely. She then opened the floor to questions, professing her certainty that many in the audience would have questions for Miss Rousseau.

'Excuse me,' said a woman three pews back, 'but I've been using radium soap every day for the last year, and I still have warts on both my elbows. I'm very upset about it.'

'Oh,' said Colette. 'I'm afraid I don't know much about radium's cosmetic uses.'

Mrs Meloney came to Colette's assistance: 'Have you tried Radior night cream, my dear? It's done wonders for me.'

Another hand went up. 'I have a question for Miss Rousseau. What is the proper dosage of radium water for a sixty-year-old man to restore his vitality?'

'I'm sorry?' said Colette. 'His what?'

'His vitality,' repeated the woman.

Mrs Meloney whispered to Colette, whose livid cheeks reddened.

Afterward, during refreshments, Mrs Meloney complimented Mr Brighton on his height. 'You are so very much bigger than one expects, Mr Brighton,' said the gray-haired Mrs Meloney coquettishly. It was true. From a distance, Brighton looked short, and his countenance suggested an absent-minded professor of mathematics. Up close, he proved much taller; one couldn't quite tell where the height came from. The effect was to make his clumsiness considerably more concerning. 'And your gift,' added Mrs Meloney, showing off her sapphire wristwatch, 'I have never received a present so entrancing.'

'While I,' replied Brighton chivalrously, 'have never received so entrancing a visit to my factory as the one you and your assistant paid me two weeks ago.'

'Heavens, Mr Brighton,' protested Mrs Meloney, 'what would my husband say?'

'Why?' asked Brighton in some alarm. 'Did I do something wrong?'

'Would that men always did such wrong,' Mrs Meloney reassured him. 'I must insist you attend our presentation ceremony, Mr Brighton, when we give Madame Curie her radium next May — if only we can raise the rest of the money. I intend to persuade the Mayor to preside.'

'The Mayor?' said Brighton. 'Why not the President? I'll speak with Harding about it; he'll be in the White House by then. Miss Rousseau, have you seen our nation's capital? I'm going down — oh my, when am I going down? Where's my man Samuels? I can't remember a thing without him. There he is now, the dour fellow. What were you saying, Madam?'

'I, Mr Brighton?' said Mrs Meloney. 'I believe you had just made reference to Mr Harding.'

'Oh, yes — I'm going to Washington to meet with Harding. Why don't you ladies accompany me? I have my own train, you know. Quite comfortable. You and Miss Rousseau will find many eleemosynary organizations in the capital — fertile soil for your Fund.'

'We'd be delighted, wouldn't we, dear?' Mrs Meloney asked Colette.

'Look at Samuels,' said Brighton, vexed. 'He wants me, as usual. Will you excuse me, ladies?'

'What a prepossessing man,' declared Mrs Meloney as Brighton went to his secretary, who draped a coat over his employer's shoulders and whispered in his ear. Most of the women in attendance remained in the church, trading information about which radium products they liked best. 'He has his eye on you, my dear,' Mrs Meloney added.

'On me?' said Colette. 'No — on you, surely, Mrs Meloney.'

'Tush — what am I? An old lady. Look at the watch he gave you. It's diamond. Have you any idea what such a thing is worth?'

'I can't keep it,' confided Colette.

'Why on earth not?' the excitable Mrs Meloney replied.

'It's very wrong to use radium on a watch face, Mrs Meloney. And please, you mustn't encourage these women to use radium cosmetics.'

'Don't tell me you're a radio-skeptic, dear. My husband is a radio-skeptic of the worst sort, but I assure you my Radior night cream has taken a decade off my face. I can see it, even if he can't.'

'It's the cost,' said Colette. 'Companies like Radior have made radium unaffordable to scientists.'

'Tush — my night cream is only ninety-nine cents.'

'Of course, Mrs Meloney, but because so many women pay that ninety-nine cents, a gram of radium now costs over a hundred thousand dollars.'

'I'm afraid you scientists rarely have a firm grasp of economics, dear. The cost of radium determines the price of my Radior night cream, not the reverse.'

'No, Mrs Meloney. Think of all the people buying radium cosmetics and radium watches. The more those products are sold, the less radium there is in the world, and the more precious it becomes.'

'You're making my head spin, Miss Rousseau. All I know is that our Fund is off to a flying start. Let's concentrate on that, shall we?'

'I can't tell you how important this is,' said Colette. 'There's so litde radium. Companies like Mr Brighton's consume over ninety percent of it. They leave next to nothing for science and medicine. What they do leave is too expensive to afford. Thousands of people dying from cancer today will never be treated with radium simply because of the cost. These companies are killing people — literally killing people. I tried to explain that to Mr Brighton when we visited his plant, but I don't think he was listening.'

'I certainly hope not,' said Mrs Meloney. 'He'll withdraw his donation. Can't you be a little nicer to the dear man? Why, I daresay he'd fund the entire gram of radium himself if you would just be kind to him.'

A jovial Mr Brighton returned to bid them adieu, bowing this way and that. 'Samuels says I must be off. Don't forget, Miss Rousseau: you've promised me Washington.' He extended his elbow to the older woman. 'Will you escort me to the door, Mrs Meloney?'

'Why, Mr Brighton — people will think we've just been married,' said Mrs Meloney.

'Very well,' said Brighton, 'then both you ladies must escort me.'

Colette tried to decline this invitation, but Mrs Meloney wouldn't hear of it. Descending from the chancel by a short flight of steps, the three made their way down the central aisle of the nave, at the far end of which Brighton's assistant, Samuels, was handing out products to a small crowd of appreciative, departing ladies.

'You uttered the nefarious name of Radior,' Brighton explained to Mrs Meloney. 'I couldn't let the competition be advertised without a response. We've just started our own line of eye shade. Luminous, of course — as you can see.'

A number of ladies had tried on the shadow and mascara they had received, creating paired circles of phosphorescence that turned the dark portal of the church into a kind of grotto from which nocturnal birds or beasts seemed to peer out. Mrs Meloney apologized to Brighton: she'd had no idea that his company had entered the cosmetics line; she would be sure to mention it in the next issue of The Delineator. She and Mr Brighton were so engrossed in their affable chat, and Colette so provoked by it, that they didn't notice the solitary figure ahead of them, kneeling among the shadowed pews, head down as if in prayer.

'Mrs Meloney — I left my elements by the lectern,' said Colette. 'I should go back for them.'

'Don't be rude, dear,' replied the older woman, pulling firmly on Brighton's arm, who in turn pulled Colette.

The kneeling figure began to stir as they approached. A hood covered its head.

'Yes, don't desert me, Miss Rousseau,' said Brighton. 'I'll have Samuels collect your things.'

Colette didn't answer. Her tongue had gone dry. The hooded figure had stepped into the aisle, blocking their advance. It was a woman. Wispy red hair emerged from the hood. One bony hand rested on a scarf around her neck — hiding something that seemed to bulge out from beneath it.

'Can we help you, dear?' asked Mrs Meloney.

Colette knew she ought to say something, to cry out in warning. But she found herself transfixed. The gaunt creature's eyes seemed to call out to her. They seemed to take in the connection between her and Mr Brighton and Mrs Meloney — the linking of their arms, their apparent unity — and to condemn it. A hand rose up toward Colette, beckoning her. Colette felt herself surrendering. For reasons opaque to her — perhaps it was simply that she was in a church; perhaps it was the accumulated effect of the harrowing incidents of the last two days, breaking down her resistance — Colette felt she had to meet the creature's outstretched hand with kindness, not horror. Whatever the reason, Colette reached out to the shrouded woman. Their fingers made contact.

The touch was repulsive, damp, communicating illness or contagion as if the creature had emerged from a fouled pool and would soon return there. The hooded figure clenched her fingers around Colette's and took a step backward, pulling Colette with her.

'Stop that at once,' said Mrs Meloney, as if addressing children with bad manners.

'Yes, stop that at once,' said Brighton. The hooded girl turned her eyes on him and pointed an outstretched hand at his face. He fell back, letting Colette go. 'Samuels?' said Brighton weakly.

The shrouded woman drew Colette another step back, always keeping one bony, blue-veined hand on the scarf around her neck. Colette didn't resist. It was the wristwatch — the gift from Brighton, now only a few inches from the hooded girl's face — that broke the spell.

In the greenish luminosity of the watch dial, Colette saw eyes that struck her momentarily as sweet, like a doe's. Then the eyes changed. They seemed to become aware of the glinting diamonds at Colette's wrist, and they filled with fire. With sharp nails, the creature began clawing at the watch and its diamond-studded band, scratching Colette's skin, drawing blood. Colette tried vainly to wrest her hand away.

'It's a thief cried Mrs Meloney.

In a fury, the red-haired woman scraped at Colette's flesh and spoke for the first time: 'Give me — give me Colette's breath caught in her throat: the woman's voice was guttural, like a man's, only lower in pitch than any man's voice Colette had ever heard. In her thrashing, the woman's scarf fell away from her chin. A pair of thin, colorless lips was the first thing to appear. Then the scarf fell farther down, and Mrs Meloney screamed at the sight, just as Betty Littlemore had.

'My God,' said Colette.

The hooded figure, fixated on the diamond watch, drew from her cloak a shaft of glinting metal — a knife. Colette was now pinioned. Mr Brighton had retreated, but the bold Mrs Meloney had taken his place, evidently believing that she could best render aid to Colette by seizing her free arm and refusing to let go. The redheaded woman, wild-eyed, raised her knife. Colette, with one wrist seized by her assailant, the other by her would-be protector, was helpless.

Mrs Meloney cried out: 'She's going to cut off her arm! Someone help!'

A shot rang out. A bullet ripped into the crucifix behind the pulpit, tearing a shoulder of carved wood off the savior. The hooded woman spun around, holding her knife high above her head. There came another shot, then another. The woman's flashing eyes went still. The knife slipped from her hand. An unnaturally deep groan came from her lips, and blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. Her body collapsed into Colette's arms.

The French girl felt a fleshy, sickening contact as the woman's throat pressed against her own. Shuddering, Colette let the body fall to the floor. In the church vestibule, Brighton's amanuensis, Samuels, stood with a smoking gun in his hand.

For a long moment, no one moved. Then, from behind Mrs Meloney,

Arnold Brighton poked his head out. 'Oh, well done, Samuels,' he said. 'Well done.'

'Mr Brighton,' said Mrs Meloney reprovingly.

'Yes, Mrs Meloney?'

'You hid behind me.'

'Oh, no, I wasn't hiding,' said Brighton. 'Everyone knew where I was. I was taking cover. Most satisfactory cover, I might add. Most ample cover.'

'You held me, Mr Brighton, when the shots were fired. I tried to run, but you held me fast.'

'You mean — oh, I see what you mean. I benefitted from you without compensating you. How can I repay you? Would a thousand dollars be appropriate? Five thousand?'

'My word,' said Mrs Meloney.

'Samuels, don't just stand there,' said Brighton. 'Clean up. One can't leave a dead body on the floor of a church. Could we pay the trash men to take her, do you suppose?'

'She's still alive,' said Colette, kneeling by the fallen woman.

'She is?' asked Brighton, looking as if he might need to take cover behind Mrs Meloney again.

'Police!' shouted Detective Littlemore, bursting through the front door of the church. 'Drop your weapons!'

The woman's body lay crumpled on the cold stone floor, a dark stain of blood spreading out below it. Younger and Littlemore had arrived just in time to hear cries of 'murder' from ladies fleeing the church. As Mrs Meloney explained to the detective how the mad woman had attacked Colette, and how Mr Samuels had saved them,' Younger sought a pulse in the fallen woman's wrist. He found one, very faint.

Colette knelt next to him. 'Look at her neck,' she said.

Matted, unhealthy red hair masked the woman's face. Grimly but gingerly, Younger pushed the hair away. He saw vacant eyes, a pretty nose and thin, parted lips. The fraying scarf had regained its place over her neck. Younger pulled it away.

The woman had no chin at all. Where a chin should have been, and where a throat should have been, there was instead an engorged bulbous mass, almost as large as the woman's own head, attached to her neck. It had wrinkles, dimples, lumps, indentations, and many, many veins.

'What in the love of Pete is that?' asked Littlemore.