both tried to get a little more rest.
As it turned out, Marcus was quite right about Beecham: by three A.M. Saturday morning there’d still been no sign of the man, and we all began to realize that he almost certainly wasn’t going to return to the flat. I told the others about what Kreizler had said concerning Beecham’s “trophies”—that if he’d left them behind it indicated some sort of climax to his murderous career was fast approaching—and this notion underlined for us all the importance of devising an ironclad plan for Sunday night. As per our agreement of several weeks earlier, Roosevelt was included in these deliberations, which we undertook Saturday afternoon at Number 808.
Roosevelt had never actually been to our headquarters before, and watching him take in all its intellectual and decorative oddities reminded me strongly of the morning I’d first woken up in the place after being drugged by Biff Ellison. As always with Theodore, curiosity soon became dominant over perplexity: He began to ask so many detailed questions about every object—from the big chalkboard to our small kitchen stove—that we didn’t get down to work for almost an hour after his arrival. The session was much like any of the dozens that had preceded it: we all threw out ideas, to be weighed and (usually) rejected, all the while trying to assemble solid hypotheses out of airy speculations. Yet this time I found myself watching the process through Roosevelt’s initially bewildered and later fascinated eyes, and thus seeing it from a very fresh perspective. And when he started to pound his fists on the arms of one of the Marchese Carcano’s chairs and let out exclamations of approval every time we satisfied ourselves that some bit of reasoning was sound, I gained a new appreciation for the work our team had done and was doing.
We were all agreed on one essential point: that Beecham’s map of the New York City water supply system bore some kind of relevance not to his past killings but to his upcoming one. While waiting for Theodore’s detectives on the night that we’d first discovered Beecham’s flat, Marcus had confirmed his initial theory that the map had been tacked on the wall only recently by making comparative analyses of the wall plaster in different parts of the place. Taking such elements as heat, moisture, and soot into account, Marcus had satisfied himself completely that the map had not been on the wall even as recently as the night of Ernst Lohmann’s murder.
“Splendid!” Theodore judged, giving Marcus a salute. “Precisely why I brought you boys onto the force— modern methods!”
Marcus’s conclusion was further backed up by several other factors. First, it was difficult to see what connection Bedloe’s Island, Bartholdi’s Liberty statue, or indeed any of the other murder sites to date might have had to the city’s water system. In addition, the overall notion of such a system, one of the primary purposes of which was to facilitate bathing, might easily have been metaphorically connected in Beecham’s mind to the figure of John the Baptist. Add to all this the fact that Beecham seemed to have been both taunting and pleading with us by leaving the map behind, and we felt confident in saying that the thing was somehow conceptually tied to the next killing. These details were accordingly entered on the chalkboard by Lucius.
“Bully,” Theodore pronounced as Lucius scribbled. “Bully! This is what I like—a scientific approach!”
None of us had the heart to tell the man that this particular part of our approach was a good deal less scientific than it might have appeared; instead, we took out any and all books we had that related to public works and buildings in Manhattan and embarked on a tour of the island’s water supply system.
Each of Beecham’s 1896 murders had occurred on the banks of a river, from which we had already deduced that the sight of a large body of water had become a vital emotional component of his murderous rituals. It was therefore important to focus our attention on those elements of the water system that were positioned close to the waterfronts. This didn’t leave us with many choices. In fact, it left us, we felt, with only one: the High Bridge Aqueduct and Tower, whose ten-foot pipes had brought clear upstate New York water across the East River and into Manhattan since the 1840s. True, if Beecham had selected High Bridge it would mean his first murder north of Houston Street; yet the simple fact that he had confined his slaughter to Lower Manhattan did not necessarily mean that he was completely unacquainted with the northern end of the island. And it was always possible that Beecham in fact intended to visit some less imposing site on his map—a water main juncture or the like—and was just hoping that we would jump at the more obvious and dramatic High Bridge interpretation.
“But what about the boy’s story?” Theodore asked, deeply frustrated that he could not be more involved in the speculative process. “The ‘castle that overlooks the city,’ and whatnot? Doesn’t that confirm your hypothesis?”
Sara pointed out that, while it might indeed confirm the hypothesis (for the High Bridge Tower, built to equalize water pressure in Manhattan’s inland reservoirs, did indeed resemble a tall castle turret), such confirmation did not necessarily mean that Beecham intended to take his victim there. We were dealing with an excessively perverse and devious mentality, Sara explained to Theodore, one who was well aware of our activities and who would get great pleasure from doing all he could to lead us down a false trail. Nonetheless, it was doubtful that Beecham was aware of our understanding of his need to be near water—indeed, he might not be aware of it himself, and High Bridge Tower therefore stood as the most promising location.
Roosevelt absorbed this information with keen interest, nodding and rubbing his jowl and finally clapping his hands together rather thunderously. “Well done, Sara!” he said. “I don’t know what your family would say if they could hear such talk, but by thunder, I’m proud of you!” So full of genuine affection and admiration were Theodore’s words that Sara forgave their slightly patronizing air and turned away with a satisfied smile.
Roosevelt became more intimately involved in the discussion when the time came to plan the actual disposition of police forces for Sunday night. He wanted to handpick the men who would watch the High Bridge Tower, he said, recognizing that it was a job requiring enormous tact—any sign of police activity, we all knew, and Beecham was likely to bolt. In addition to the High Bridge surveillance, Roosevelt intended to have all bridges and ferry stations closely scrutinized, and extra roundsmen would patrol the waterfronts on both the east and west sides at regular intervals. Finally, detective units would be assigned to all the same disorderly houses that we’d watched on the night of the Lohmann boy’s death, even though we had good reason to believe Beecham would be abducting his victim from another locale.
All that remained was to decide what part Sara, the Isaacsons, and I would play in the drama. The obvious choice was for us to join the surveillance group at the High Bridge Tower, at which point it became necessary for me to announce that I wouldn’t be able to do so until a late hour, as it was my intention to attend the opera with Kreizler. This brought instant expressions of incredulity to my teammates’ faces; but since I’d agreed not to reveal the exact terms of the bargain I’d struck with Laszlo, I could offer no plausible explanation for my behavior. Fortunately, before Sara and the Isaacsons could get a full head of baffled steam going, I got help from an unexpected source: Theodore, who, it turned out, was also planning to attend the benefit performance. Roosevelt explained that it was very unlikely that Mayor Strong would sanction calling out a large part of the police force to put in a night’s work on the boy-whore murders. But if Roosevelt were seen at a highly publicized society event, which would also be attended by the mayor and one or two of the other members of the Board of Commissioners, it would help to ensure that the night’s activities did not become a focus of attention. Theodore supported the idea of my going to the opera as well, saying it could only heighten such a misdirection of official scrutiny; besides, he said, repeating Kreizler’s logic, Beecham had never struck before midnight, and there was no reason to think he’d start now. Roosevelt and I could easily join the hunt once the opera was over.
Faced with this attitude on the part of their highest departmental superior, the Isaacsons reluctantly acquiesced. Sara, on the other hand, eyed me suspiciously, and pulled me aside when the others began to discuss further details of the police deployment.
“Is he up to something, John?” she asked, in a tone that indicated she’d brook no nonsense at this stage of the game.
“Who, Kreizler?” I said, hoping it sounded better than it felt. “No, I don’t think so. We made the plan some time ago.” Then a ruse: “If you really do think it’s a bad idea, Sara, I can easily tell him that—”
“No,” she answered quickly, but without looking convinced. “What Theodore says makes sense. And we’ll all be at the tower anyway, I can’t think why you’d be needed as well.” I bridled a bit at that, but discretion demanded I not show it. “Still,” Sara went on, “after three weeks without a word it seems odd that he’d choose tomorrow night to reappear.” Her eyes roamed around the room as her mind ran through possibilities. “Just let us know if it looks like he’s got a scheme.”
“Of course.” She scrutinized me skeptically again, and my eyes went wide. “Sara, why
She couldn’t answer that;
