The Girl in the Glass

BLOOD

You mean like frothing at the mouth?" asked Schell. "When I met him, he didn't seem any worse than a crank." "No, no," said Stintson. "I'm talking about the work he was doing at the ERO. Agarias was sold-lock, stock, and barrel-on the whole concept of thinning the unsavory elements from the country's breeding stock. A true zealot. We tried to force him out of the organization, because his practices were so blatantly immoral. He was doing some experiment that involved the interbreeding of fraternal twins. He'd found these test subjects somewhere in Pennsylvania-second-generation twins, born of an incestuous union between twins. We believed that he either paid or coerced this particular pair to mate. I never found out for sure, but it was rumored that this union resulted in yet another pair of twins-also fraternal, brother and sister, whom he'd adopted. I had a hard time believing it, for even though there is always a certain percentage of a chance that twins will result from a pregnancy, the chances that it would occur in this same family seemed infinitesimal."

"So you and some of the others questioned him?" asked Schell.

"We went above his head, to our boss, Davenport, and told him we wanted Agarias out. They either wouldn't or couldn't relieve him of his position, but soon after he got a grant, private money, and a lot of it, to build a facility elsewhere, all on his own, and continue his research."

"When was this?" I asked.

Stintson thought for a moment. "About…1918 perhaps, maybe even earlier. I've seen him since then, but he doesn't speak to me. He's been at the ERO on occasion, for instance the gathering in that photo. He still has an office there, and I heard that he also opened a private medical practice, catering to wealthy families here on the North Shore, although I doubt he needs the money. I don't know anything more about his present circumstances."

"Can you tell us anything more about the research he was doing?" asked Schell.

"His specialty was hematology. That I remember. He had an insane notion that racial difference was found in the blood, which has no scientific basis. It's like something out of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the people supporting him also cull their science from the Bible.

"One other thing, and this will explain to you why I was so cautious. One of my ERO colleagues insisted on investigating Agarias on his own. He wound up dead. Shot through the back of the head while kneeling on his living room floor. Coincidence? Maybe. Then again, maybe not."

"An execution," said Schell.

"The police report called it a robbery, but according to his daughter, nothing was missing from the house. After that, no one asked about Agarias any further."

"How do I find out more about Agarias without getting shot in the back of the head?" asked Schell.

"I wouldn't confront him," said Stintson. "But you might take a look through his office. He still has one at the ERO."

"Locked up, I imagine," said Schell.

"Are you a con man, or are you a con man?" said Stintson.

We eventually said our good-byes to Stintson after getting a hand-drawn map from him depicting the layout of the ERO, in particular the location of Agarias's office and the security guard's station. His parting remark was a plea not to ever mention that he spoke to us. On the drive home, Schell admitted to me that things had finally broken open in his mind and were beginning to become clear to him. He wasn't quite ready to share his theory, but he predicted that after our trip to the Eugenics Record Office and a look at Agarias's papers, if we should find them, we'd know the full story.

"In a few hours we've gone from abandoning this goose chase to being on the verge of solving the whole thing," I said.

Schell smiled, ruefully it seemed. "Remember you were saying I never made mistakes? Well I was completely wrong about Greaves/Agarias. He seems to be the guy, though, or at least a part of it, I'm sure of that," he said.

"I see the connection between him and what the coroner told us about the death of Charlotte Barnes. Blood and transfusion," I said. "But why was Parks murdered? I don't get that."

"Think about when it happened," said Schell. "Directly following Charlotte Barnes's funeral. I'm betting Agarias, in his guise of Doctor Greaves, showed up at the funeral or the wake or both. Parks probably recognized him, tried to remember where he'd seen him before, and eventually put it together. That's why he had the photograph on his desk. As a friend of Barnes, perhaps he wanted to figure out what kind of scam Agarias was pulling, using an assumed name. Parks might have remembered that some of the other researchers had wanted to drum Agarias out of the ERO."

"So they killed him and two of his employees?" I asked.

"Agarias is covering his trail. Like Stintson said, the guy's a lunatic. And if what I'm thinking about the rest of it is even close to true, we're going to see that he's crazier than we could ever imagine."

When we reached the house, before getting out of the car, Schell put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Listen, I'll fill Antony in, but don't say anything to Morgan or Isabel about what we learned."

I nodded.

For the rest of the day, Schell was very quiet. He told me he was planning how we would gain access to Agarias's ERO office the following day, but I could tell there was something else on his mind as well. Isabel and I packed a lunch and took a walk through the trees to sit by the sound. The day was very cold, threatening a first snow, but we huddled together against the wind and watched the choppy water. In the course of our conversation she admitted to me that as soon as things blew over and Schell thought it was safe for her to leave the house, she would find a way to go back to Mexico.

"Come with me," she said.

I'd had a feeling that things would come to this, but I wanted to put off thinking about it as long as possible. If she went away and I didn't go with her, I knew I would never see her again. But if I left Antony and Schell and the promise of college behind, I would be writing off that part of my life. All I said to her was, "When you're ready to go, tell me." She smiled and said nothing more about it, and I wasn't sure if she thought I was promising I'd follow or if she knew I couldn't decide, but I didn't have the courage to contemplate the choice any further.

Back at the house, we found Antony sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning the Mauser. He was bent over the gun, whistling, amid all manner of rods, brushes, and solvents laid out.

"I haven't cleaned this damn thing in years," he said, "and it's not in bad shape-a little copper fouling, that's about it."

"Are you getting an itchy trigger finger?" I asked.

"Not me," he said. "This is by order of the boss."

"Is he expecting gunplay?"

"Beats me," said Antony. "I just clean the gun, drive the car, get strangled by the bad guys, and make the dinners around here." He started whistling again and went back to his work.

Schell and Morgan only appeared at dinnertime. I didn't inquire what they'd been up to all afternoon. During the meal, Isabel asked Schell when he thought it would be safe for her to leave the house.

"Give it a few more days," said Schell. "Where are you thinking of going?"

"Mexico," she said.

"I'll give you some money," he said.

"I couldn't take your money," she told him.

"Well, it's going to take you a long time to walk there," he said.

"Take his money," said Antony. "I would."

"We could drive you over to Jersey and put you on a bus," Schell said. "Once you get to Mexico, send the dough back to me if you want, or not. I don't care."

"Why not a train?" asked Morgan.

"More people traveling on trains read newspapers than people on the bus," said Schell.

"Don't sweat it, hon," Antony said to Isabel. "It's going to work out."

I quickly changed the conversation to the upcoming presidential election, which was only weeks away. With the exception of Antony expressing his hopes for the repeal of Prohibition, the topic soon died from overall disinterest, but it was enough to divert the discussion away from Isabel's departure.

Later that night, once Isabel was asleep, I went in search of Schell. I wanted to talk to him about my possibly leaving. Luckily, he'd not gone to bed but was sitting on the couch in the Bugatorium. Morgan, stretched out next to him, had fallen asleep with her head resting on a pillow propped against his thigh. As I entered the room, he looked over at me, and I said, "Sorry," and began to leave, but he waved me back. I walked over and sat down across from him.

Before I could speak, he whispered to me, "I've been meaning to talk to you."

I was going to tell him the same, but his expression was one of perplexity, as if he'd made himself weary from too much thought.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I've been thinking about the butterflies," he said.

"That's not exactly unusual," I said, smiling.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I think once this present group dies out in a few weeks, I'll discontinue the Bugatorium."

"Why?"

"Recent developments have left me with a bad taste for the idea of breeding in any capacity. It's never struck me before, but now the whole thing"-here he lifted his hands in the air, the same motion he used to release butterflies during the sйances-"seems to me wrought with vanity; the most self-serving affectation."

"But the study of butterflies excited you," I said.

"I think I conned myself into the excitement."

"I always enjoyed them," I said.

"Did I ever tell you how I got started?"

"No," I said.

"It was my first con," he said. "My father, the great Magus Jack, would bet on anything. He'd bet me on things and never lose-coin flips, horse races, how many times a woman at the mailbox on the corner would open and close the little door after putting her letter in. When I'd lose, he'd laugh at me. It got to the point where all I wanted to do was beat him-if only just once.

"One morning, before the sun was even up, one of the few days he ever spent with me, we were walking through the park-he was going to show me some scam-and I spotted a butterfly, closed, on a flower. I bet him I could wiggle the flower and the butterfly wouldn't fly away. He laughed his condescending laugh at me and took the bet. I got down, grabbed the flower by the stalk, and moved it back and forth, a good six or seven times. The butterfly hung on, wouldn't budge. He didn't laugh then but paid me in silver with a grim look on his face."

"Why didn't it fly away?" I asked.

"It was something Morty had read to me one of the nights I'd stayed with him. Out in the wild, a butterfly can't fly until it's warmed by the sun. It needs the heat to move its blood up into the wings. I never forgot that con. Butterflies became my good luck charm."

"You never told me that before," I said.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "It feels like a lot of things are about to change." He looked up then and followed the flight of some white specimen whose name I didn't know. As if snapping out of a daydream, he again focused on me. "Was there something you wanted to talk about?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I just came in to say good night."

"Okay," he said and leaned back, closing his eyes. His left hand descended to rest on Morgan's shoulder.