The Alienist

base of the cavities—several small indentations. All consistent with the cutting edge and point of a knife, of the type most frequently used by hunters, I’d say. My guess would be that if we exhumed the bodies of the two 1893 victims—and I intend to request such action—we would find the same thing. In other words, gentlemen, the eyes were removed by the hand of man.”

My dread was increasing, and I fumbled for an argument: “But what about what Sergeant Connor said —”

“Moore.” Kreizler’s voice was definitive. “If we are to continue this discussion we really must dispense with the opinions of men such as Sergeant Connor.”

Roosevelt shifted in his chair apprehensively; I could see in his face that he had run out of ways to avoid bringing Kreizler fully up to date. “I feel I must tell you, Doctor,” he announced, gripping the arms of his chair, “that we have had two more murders in the last three months that might also fit the…pattern you’re describing.”

The statement stopped Laszlo dead in his tracks. “What?” he said, urgently but quietly. “Where—where were the bodies found?”

“I’m not precisely sure,” Theodore answered.

“And were they prostitutes?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“You believe so? Records, Roosevelt, I must have the records! Didn’t anyone in this department ever think to make a connection? Didn’t you?”

The records were sent for. From them we discovered that the bodies of the other two boys, both of whom had indeed been prostitutes, had also been found within what the coroners guessed were hours of their deaths. As Roosevelt had told me the night before, there was somewhat less mutilation involved than in the Santorelli murder; that seemed, however, a difference of quantity rather than quality, for the similarities among the cases far outweighed any slight differences. The first boy, a twelve-year-old African immigrant with no known name other than “Millie,” had been chained to the stern of an Ellis Island ferry; and the second, a ten-year-old named Aaron Morton, had been found suspended by his feet from the Brooklyn Bridge. Both were nearly naked, according to the reports; both had their throats cut, along with various other bodily lacerations; and, again, both were missing their eyes. As Laszlo finished reading the accounts, he mumbled that last fact to himself several times, lost in cogitation.

“I believe I understand what you’re suggesting, Kreizler,” Theodore figured aloud; he never liked to be left behind in any intellectual discussion, even one that took place on what was, for him, very alien territory. “A murderer committed just this kind of an outrage three years ago. It was reported. And now another such man, who at some point read the story, has been inspired to imitation.” He was satisfied with his own extrapolation. “Is that correct, Doctor? It wouldn’t be the first time stories in certain of our newspapers have had that effect.”

Kreizler, however, just sat tapping a forefinger against his pursed lips, with a look that clearly stated that the whole affair was far more complicated than even he had guessed.

I searched for some way to reach a different conclusion. “What about the rest of it?” I asked. “The…the missing organs, and the cut-away flesh of the…well, the rest of it. There was none of that in the earlier cases.”

“No,” Kreizler answered slowly. “But I believe there is an explanation for that difference, not that it need concern us now. The eyes are the link, the key, the way in—I would stake everything on that…” His voice faded again.

“All right,” I said, throwing up my hands. “So someone murdered those two children three years ago, and now we’ve got a mimicking lunatic who also likes to mutilate dead bodies on our hands. What are we supposed to do about it?”

“Almost nothing in what you have just said, John,” Kreizler replied evenly, “is accurate. I am not at all certain he is a lunatic. Nor am I inclined to believe that he likes what he does, in the sense that you understand or intend that statement. But most importantly—and I’m afraid that here I must disappoint you, too, Roosevelt—I am as sure as I can be that this is not an imitator but the same man.”

And there it was—the statement that both Roosevelt and I had been dreading. I’d been a police reporter for quite a while, ever since my unceremonious removal from the Washington beat as a result of my previously mentioned defense of Roosevelt during his battle with the patronage system in the Civil Service. I’d even covered some celebrated murder cases abroad. I therefore knew that murderers like the one Kreizler was describing did exist; but that never made it any easier to hear that one was on the loose. And for Roosevelt—who, though a born fighter, understood few of the intimate details of criminal behavior—it was an even harder notion to swallow.

“But…three years!” Theodore said, aghast. “Surely, Kreizler, if such a man did exist he could not have eluded the law for so long!”

“It’s no great job to elude that which is not pursuing,” Kreizler answered. “And even if the police had taken an interest, they would have been helpless. Because they could not have begun to understand what motivates the murderer.”

“Do you?” Roosevelt’s words were almost hopeful.

“Not completely. I have the first few pieces—and we must find the rest. For it is only when we truly understand what drives him that we will have even a prayer of solving this case.”

“But what could drive a man to such things?” Roosevelt said in uncomfortable confusion. “After all, the Santorelli boy had no money. We’re investigating the family, but they all appear to have been in their home throughout the night. Unless it was a personal quarrel with someone else, then…”

“I doubt there was any quarrel involved,” Laszlo replied. “In fact, the boy may never have seen his murderer before last night.”

“You’re suggesting that whoever it is kills children he doesn’t even know?”

“Possibly. It is not knowing them that is important to him—it is what they represent.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“That—is what we must determine.”

Roosevelt continued to test carefully: “Do you have any evidence to support such a theory?”

“None, of the kind that you mean. I have only a lifetime of studying similar characters. And the intuition it has given me.”

“But…” As Roosevelt stood to take his turn pacing the floor, Kreizler grew more relaxed, the hard part of his work done. Theodore pounded one fist into an open hand insistently. “Listen, Kreizler, it’s true that I grew up, as we all did, in a privileged household. But I have made it my business since taking this job to acquaint myself with the underworld of this city, and I have seen many things. No one needs to tell me that depravity and inhumanity have taken on dimensions in New York unheard of anywhere in the world. But what unnameable nightmare, even here, could drive a man to this?”

“Do not,” Kreizler answered slowly, trying very hard to be clear, “look for causes in this city. Nor in recent circumstances, nor in recent events. The creature you seek was created long ago. Perhaps in his infancy—certainly in childhood. And not necessarily here.”

Theodore was momentarily unable to answer, his face an open display of conflicting feelings. The conversation disturbed him deeply, in the same way that similar discussions had disturbed him ever since the first time he met Kreizler. Yet he had known the talk would come to this; known it, even counted on it, I began to see, since the moment he asked me to bring Laszlo to his office. For there was satisfaction in his aspect, too, the realization that what seemed a forbidding, unchartable ocean to every detective in his department was, to the experienced Kreizler, full of currents and courses. Laszlo’s theories clearly offered a way of solving what Theodore had been assured was an unsolvable mystery, and thus extending justice to one (or, as it now seemed, more than one) whose death would never have been explored by anyone else in the Police Department. None of which explained why I was there.

“John,” Theodore said abruptly, without looking at me. “Kelly and Ellison have been here.”

“I know. Sara and I ran into them in the staircase.”

“What?” Theodore fixed the pince-nez to his nose. “Was there any trouble? Kelly is a devil, particularly when there’s a woman about.”

“It wasn’t what I’d call pleasant,” I answered. “But Sara stood her ground like a trooper.”