“There goes Miller!” Marcus said suddenly, at which I looked down to see the watchman fleeing without his hat toward the Bedloe’s Island ferry station. “Fortunately I kept his keys,” Marcus added. “He didn’t look like a man who’d be around long.”
Just then the noise of the largest group of people, who were straight ahead of us and quite visible through the branches of the park’s still-bare trees, began to grow louder, reaching a crescendo with a couple of venomous yells. We heard a clatter of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels, and then Kreizler’s calash appeared, barreling down the main path of the park toward the castle. Stevie held his horsewhip high and drove Frederick hard, around the front walls of the fort to the pair of large doors in the rear.
“Good man, Stevie,” I murmured, turning to the others. “That’ll be our best way out—through the back doors and up the river side of the park!”
“I suggest we get to it,” Marcus said. “They’re moving.”
With another series of shouts, the crowd at the main entrance came into the park, at which the groups to their right and left also began to surge forward. It now became clear that there were still more people streaming into the area from surrounding streets—the mob would soon number in the many hundreds. Someone had done an expert job of inflammation.
“The devil!” Theodore grunted ferociously. “Where is the night watch from the Twenty-seventh? I’ll have them over hot coals!”
“An ideal plan for the morning,” Kreizler said, making for the staircase. “At the moment, however, escape seems imperative.”
“But this is a crime scene!” Theodore continued indignantly. “I will not have it disturbed by any mob, whatever their complaint!” He glanced about the roof, then picked up a stout section of cut wood. “Doctor, none of you can be found here—take Miss Howard and go. The detective sergeants and I will face these people at the front gate.”
“We will?” It had gotten out of Lucius’s mouth before he quite knew what he was saying.
“Steel yourself,” Roosevelt answered with a grin, grabbing Lucius’s shoulder heartily and then taking a few good cuts at the night air with his piece of wood. “After all, this fort defended us from the British Empire—it can certainly withstand a mob from the Lower East Side!” It was one of those moments when you wanted to slap the man, even if there was sense in his blustering.
In order to conceal completely the nature of our work, it was necessary for the rest of us to take the Isaacsons’ equipment away in the calash. Having made our way back down and through the tanks of fish, we stowed the various boxes on board the carriage, and then I turned to wish the Isaacsons good luck. Marcus seemed to be searching the ground for something, while Lucius was checking a police-issue revolver uncomfortably.
“You may not be able to avoid a fight,” I said to them, with a smile that I hoped was reassuring, “but don’t let Roosevelt force you into one.”
Lucius only groaned a bit, but Marcus smiled bravely and shook my hand. “We’ll meet you at Number 808,” he said.
With that they closed the fort’s rear doors and replaced the chains and locks. I jumped up and grasped the side of the calash—Kreizler and Sara were already in the two seats, and Cyrus was up top with Stevie—and we started with a jolt down a path that took us to the harbor’s edge and then northward along the river. The noise of the crowd outside Castle Garden had continued to grow, but as we passed within sight of the fort’s front gates the angry shouts suddenly subsided. I strained my head around to see Theodore outside the structure’s heavy black portal, calmly holding his club with one hand and pointing toward the edge of the park with the other. The action- crazed fool simply couldn’t stay safely inside. The Isaacsons were in the doorway behind him, ready to rebolt the doors at a moment’s notice. But that didn’t look to be necessary—the crowd actually seemed to be listening to Theodore.
As we approached the northern edge of the park, Stevie picked up speed, and nearly ran us headlong into a phalanx of about twenty cops as they trotted toward Castle Garden. We took a hard left at Battery Place in order to keep to the deserted waterfront, and as we did I got a brief but clear glimpse of an expensive brougham that was parked at a corner which enjoyed a full view of the events at the fort. A hand—well manicured, with a tasteful silver ring on the little finger—appeared at the brougham’s door, followed by the upper part of a man’s body. Even in the dim light of the arc lamps I could see the gleam of an elegant tie stud, and soon a set of handsome Black Irish features: Paul Kelly. I yelled to Kreizler and told him to look, but we were moving too fast for him to catch a glimpse. When I related what I’d seen, however, his face showed that he’d drawn the obvious conclusion.
The crowd, then, had been Kelly’s work, probably in response to Steffens’s remarks about Biff Ellison in the
Stevie didn’t ease up on Frederick at any point during our ride home, and no one asked him to—each of us, for his or her own reasons, wanted to put some distance on Castle Garden. There were pools of rainwater in many of the roughly paved streets on the West Side, and by the time we reached Number 808 Broadway I was splattered with mud, cold as the tomb, and ready to call it a night (or a morning, since dawn was not far off ). But the job of dragging the equipment upstairs and recording our thoughts on the murder while they were still fresh remained, and we set about it dutifully. When the elevator reached the sixth floor, Kreizler discovered that he had misplaced his key, and I gave him mine, which was caked with mud. Overall, it was a bedraggled, exhausted little group that filed into headquarters at 5:15 A.M. that Saturday.
My surprise and joy were all the greater, therefore, when the first thing that greeted my senses was the smell of steak and eggs frying and strong coffee brewing. A light was on in the small kitchen at the rear of our floor, and I could see Mary Palmer—dressed not in her blue linen uniform but in a pretty white blouse, a plaid skirt, and an apron—moving about in quick, capable motions. I dropped the cases I was lugging.
“God has sent me an angel,” I said, stumbling toward the kitchen. Mary started a bit when she saw my muddy frame coming out of the shadows, but her blue eyes soon settled down and she showed me a little smile, offering a bit of hot, sizzling steak on the end of a long fork and then a cup of coffee. I started to say, “Mary, how did you…,” but quickly abandoned the attempt and concentrated on the delicious food and drink. She had quite a production going: a legion of eggs and what looked like sides of lean beef in deep iron skillets that she must have brought from Kreizler’s house. I could have stayed in there for quite a while, bathing in the warmth and the aromas; but as I turned back around, I found Laszlo standing behind me, his arms folded and a sour scowl on his face.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose I know now what happened to my key.”
I assumed his admonishment was in jest. “Laszlo,” I said through a mouthful of steak, “I believe I may actually revive—”
“Will you excuse Mary and me for a moment, Moore?” Kreizler said, in the same hard tone; and from the look on the girl’s face, I could see that she knew he was quite serious, even if I didn’t. Instead of questioning him, however, I scooped some eggs and a bit more steak onto a plate, grabbed my mug of coffee, and headed for my desk.
As soon as I was out of the kitchen I heard Kreizler start to lecture Mary in no uncertain terms. The poor girl was unable to offer any reply other than an occasional no and a small, quiet sob. It didn’t make sense to me; for my money she’d done yeoman service, and Kreizler was being inexplicably mean. My thoughts were soon distracted, however, by Cyrus and Stevie, who hovered over my plate in drop-jawed hunger.
“Now, now, boys,” I said, covering my food with my arms. “No need to get physical. There’s plenty more in the kitchen.”
They both bolted energetically toward the back, straightening up only slightly when they encountered Kreizler. “Get something to eat,” Laszlo told them brusquely, “and then take Mary back to Seventeenth Street. Quickly.”
Stevie and Cyrus each mumbled assent, and then descended on the unsuspecting steak and eggs. Kreizler pulled one of the Marchese Carcano’s green chairs between Sara’s and my desks and fell into it wearily.
“You don’t want anything to eat, Sara?” Laszlo asked quietly.
She had her head on her arms on top of her desk, but picked it up just long enough to smile and say, “No. Thank you, Doctor, I couldn’t. And I don’t think Mary would appreciate my presence in the kitchen.” Kreizler
