The Alienist

hopes that your young friend Joseph would give us help with the first of those questions—”

“He very nearly did,” I said, a now familiar pang of guilt and pain tugging at me. “As it was, he gave us an idea of who the victim wouldn’t be—we knew he didn’t come from one of the disorderly houses, that he was a street cruiser.”

“Yes,” Laszlo said, as we got to the east side of the avenue. “The boy did great service, and his death was a tragedy.” He hissed once, in deep remorse. “There are moments when this entire case, when everything and everyone that comes into any kind of contact with the life of John Beecham, seem destined for a tragic end…” His determination came suddenly bounding back: “At any rate, what Joseph said about a ‘castle,’ from which the intended victim would be able to view the entire city, was an unqualified help—that is, when considered in conjunction with what you found at Beecham’s flat. That really was a superb piece of work, by the way—your finding the place, I mean.”

I only nodded and smiled in appreciation, having by now abandoned any further attempt to question the course of action that Kreizler had evidently settled on for the evening. If such comparatively speedy aquiescence seems surprising, it must be remembered that for weeks I had worked without the benefit of Laszlo’s friendship and guidance, and had often felt their absence keenly. To be once again walking purposefully by his side, to hear him dissecting the case in such a deliberate and confident manner, and, above all, to know that Sara, the Isaacsons, and I, along with the investigation itself, had been in his thoughts throughout the time we’d spent apart, all gave me a great deal of joy and relief. I knew that he was now working somewhat at cross-purposes with the rest of our team; and it was easy to see that his wild-eyed enthusiasm contained an unpredictable and perhaps uncontrollable element; but such considerations seemed to count for little as we made our way down Thirty-ninth Street. We were on the correct trail, I was certain of that much, and my own excitement soon made short work of the small, prudent voice in the back of my mind that said that we were only two, rushing in to perform a task that had originally been planned for scores.

I gave Kreizler a conspiratorial glance. “When Roosevelt finds that we’ve left the opera,” I said, “he’ll tear the city apart looking for us.”

Laszlo shrugged. “He’d be better off using his head. He has the clues he needs to determine our whereabouts.”

“The clues? You mean the things in Beecham’s flat?” I grew puzzled yet again. “But it was what we found there that led us to decide on High Bridge Tower—that and the business about a castle.”

“No, John,” Kreizler answered, his hands moving again as he spoke. “It was part of what you found at Beecham’s flat that led you to such a conclusion. Think again. What did he leave behind?”

I went over it in my mind. “The collection of eyes…the map…and the box with the daguerreotype on it.”

“Correct. Now think what conscious or unconscious considerations caused him to leave only those things. The eyes tell you unmistakably that you have the right man. The map gives you a general idea of where he’ll strike next. And the box—”

“The box tells us the same thing,” I interjected quickly. “The daguerreotype lets us know that we’ve found Japheth Dury.”

“True,” Kreizler said emphatically, “but what about the thing that’s in the box?”

I wasn’t following him. “The heart?” I mumbled in confusion. “It was an old, dried-up heart—you think it was his mother’s.”

“Yes. Now, put the map and the contents of the box together.”

“The city water system…and the heart…”

“Now add what Joseph said.”

“A castle or a fort,” I answered, still not getting it. “A place from which you can see the whole city.”

“And…?” Kreizler urged.

As we turned and began to walk up Fifth Avenue, the answer hit me like a cartload of bricks. Stretching away for two blocks to the north and one block to the west, its walls as high as the buildings around them and as prodigious as those of the fabled city of Troy, was the Croton Reservoir. Built in the Egyptian mausoleum style, it was indeed a castlelike fortress, on whose ramparts New Yorkers often strolled, enjoying the splendid, panoramic views of the city (as well as of the man-made lake within) that the structure afforded. In addition, the Croton was the main distributing reservoir for all of New York; it was, quite simply, the heart of the city’s water system, the center to which all aqueducts fed and from which all mains and arteries drew their supply. Astounded, I turned to Kreizler.

“Yes, John,” he said, smiling as we approached the thing. “Here.” Then he pulled me in close under the walls of the reservoir, which were deserted at that late hour, and lowered his voice. “The rest of you no doubt discussed the possibility that Beecham knows our first move would be to watch the waterfronts—but in the absence of a suitable alternative, you remained focused on those areas.” Laszlo looked up and, for the first time that night, displayed some little bit of apprehension. “If my guess is correct, he’s up there now.”

“This early?” I asked. “I thought you said—”

“Tonight is very different,” Kreizler answered quickly. “Tonight he has set his table early, the better to be ready for his guests.” Reaching inside his cloak, Kreizler produced a Colt revolver. “Take this, will you, Moore? But do not use it, unless you must. There is much I want to ask this man.”

Kreizler started to move toward the massive main gate and staircase of the reservoir, which strongly resembled the entranceway to an Egyptian temple of the dead. Given our purpose that night, the similarity caused a strong shiver to rattle my bones. I stopped Laszlo as we neared the portal.

“One thing,” I whispered to him. “You say Byrnes’s men have been following you—how do you know they’re not watching us now?”

There was something about the blank way in which he looked back at me that was deeply unsettling: like a man who has divined his fate and has no intention of trying to avoid it.

“Oh, I don’t know that they’re not,” he answered, quietly and simply. “In fact, I’m counting on the fact that they are.”

With that, Laszlo entered the gate and took to the broad, dark stairs that wound up through the massive wall to the promenade. I shrugged helplessly at his cryptic words and was about to follow him, when a faint glimmer of brass somewhere on the other side of Fifth Avenue suddenly caught my eye. I stopped short and tried to locate the source.

On Forty-first Street, beneath one broad-boughed tree whose leaves provided an effective refuge from the glow of the arc streetlamps on the avenue, was an elegant black brougham, whose lanterns were glittering ever so slightly. Both horse and driver appeared to be asleep. For a moment the sense of dread that I felt about climbing the reservoir walls heightened dramatically; but then I shook it off and moved to catch up to Kreizler, telling myself that there had to be a great many people in New York besides Paul Kelly who owned elegant black broughams.

CHAPTER 44

As soon as we reached the top of the reservoir’s walls I realized the potentially disastrous error I’d made in allowing Kreizler to talk me into coming to this place alone with him. The eight-foot- wide promenade atop the walls, ringed on either side by four-foot iron fences, was some six stories from the ground, and when I looked down I saw the streets from an angle that instantly recalled all the rooftop work we’d done in recent months. That reminder was forbidding enough on its own. But when I looked straight out and around me I saw the tar surfaces and multitudinous chimneys of the buildings that surrounded the reservoir, all of which made it even more plain that while we might not be standing on a rooftop per se, we had nonetheless reentered the lofty realm over which John Beecham was acknowledged master. We were in