The Alienist

“That’s right,” I said, smiling a bit. “They don’t. But they have something even more profitable, and I’m an ass for not remembering it. Perhaps Mr. Morgan would be willing to tell you”—I turned toward the big walnut desk and found Morgan staring back at me uncomfortably—“who the largest slum landlord in New York is?”

Kreizler took in breath sharply. “I see. The Episcopal Church.”

“There is nothing illegal in any of the Church’s operations,” Morgan said quickly.

“No,” I replied. “But they’d be in a tight spot if those tenement dwellers were to rise up in a mass and demand better housing, wouldn’t they, Mr. Morgan?” The financier turned away silently.

“But I still don’t understand,” Kreizler puzzled. “If Corrigan and Potter are so afraid of the effects of these crimes, why obstruct a solution?”

“We have been told that a solution is impossible,” Morgan answered.

“But why try to frustrate an attempt?” Kreizler pressed.

“Because, gentlemen,” said a quiet voice from behind us, “as long as the case is thought to be unsolvable, no one can be blamed for not solving it.”

It was Byrnes again, back in the room without our having heard his approach. The man really was unnerving. “The great unwashed,” he went on, taking a cigar from a case on Morgan’s desk, “will be made to understand that these things happen. It’s no one’s fault. Boys engage in criminal conduct. Boys die. Who kills them? Why? Impossible to determine. And there’s no need to. Instead, you fix the public’s attention on the more basic lesson—” Byrnes struck a match on his shoe and lit his cigar, the tip of which flamed high. “Obey the law in the first place and none of the rest occurs.”

“But damn it, Byrnes,” I said, “we can solve it, if you’ll just get out of the way. Why, just last night I myself—”

Kreizler stopped me by grabbing my wrist tightly. Byrnes slowly came over to my chair, leaned down, and let me have a big dose of cigar smoke. “Last night you what, Moore?”

It was impossible not to remember at such a moment that you were dealing with a man who’d personally beaten dozens of suspected and de facto criminals senseless, a style of interrogation that had become known throughout New York and the rest of the country by the name Byrnes himself had given it: “the third degree.” All the same, I attempted defiance. “Don’t try that strong-arm stuff with me, Byrnes. You’ve got no authority anymore. You haven’t even got your thugs to back you up.”

I glimpsed teeth behind the mustache. “You’d like me to call Connor in?” I said nothing, and Byrnes chuckled. “You always had a big mouth, Moore. Reporters. But let’s play it your way. Tell Mr. Morgan here how you’ll solve the case. Your principles of detection. Explain them.”

I turned to Morgan. “Well, it won’t make sense to men like Inspector Byrnes, sir, and it may not to you, but —we’ve adopted what you might call a reverse investigative procedure.”

Byrnes laughed out loud. “What you might call ass-backwards!”

Realizing my mistake, I went for another approach: “That is, we start with the prominent features of the killings themselves, as well as the personality traits of the victims, and from those we determine what kind of a man might be at work. Then, using evidence that would otherwise have seemed meaningless, we begin to close in.”

I knew I was on shaky ground, and was relieved to hear Kreizler chime in at this point:

“There is some precedent, Mr. Morgan. Similar efforts, though far more rudimentary, were made during the Ripper murders in London eight years ago. And the French police are currently seeking a Ripper of their own— they’ve used some techniques that are not unlike ours.”

“The London Ripper,” Byrnes called out, “was not apprehended without my hearing about it, was he, Doctor?”

Kreizler frowned. “No.”

“And the French police, using their anthropo-hodge-podge—have they made any progress in their case?”

Laszlo’s scowl deepened. “Very little.”

Byrnes finally did us the decency of looking up from his book. “Quite a pair of examples, gentlemen.”

There was a moment of silence, during which I felt our cause to be weakening. Putting new determination into my words, I said, “The fact remains—”

“The fact remains,” Byrnes interrupted, coming back over to us but speaking to Morgan, “that this is an intellectual exercise which offers no hope of solving the case. All these people are doing is giving every person they interview the idea that a solution is possible. As I say, that’s not just useless, it’s dangerous. The only thing the immigrants ought to be told is that they and their children had better obey the laws of this city. If they don’t, nobody else can be held responsible for what happens. Maybe they’ll find that point hard to swallow. But this idiot Strong and his cowboy police commissioner will be out before long. And then we’ll be able to bring back the old force-feeding techniques. Quickly.”

Morgan nodded slowly, then glanced from Byrnes to Kreizler. “You’ve made your point, Inspector. I wonder if now you’ll excuse us?”

In contrast to Comstock and the churchmen, Byrnes seemed almost amused by Morgan’s curt dismissal: as he left the library he began to whistle lowly. When the paneled door had closed again, Morgan stood up and looked out a window. It almost seemed as though he was making sure Byrnes left his house.

“Can I offer you gentlemen anything to drink?” Morgan said at length. After Kreizler and I both declined, our host took one of the cigars from the case on his desk and lit it, then began slowly to pace the thickly carpeted floor. “I agreed to see the delegation that has just left us,” he announced, “out of deference to Bishop Potter, and because I have no desire to see the recent outbreaks of civil unrest go on.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Morgan,” I said, a bit amazed by his tone. “But have you, or any of the gentlemen who were here, even discussed this matter with Mayor Strong?”

Morgan passed a hand before him quickly. “Inspector Byrnes’s point about Colonel Strong is well-taken. I have no interest in dealing with a man whose power is limited by elections. Besides, Strong doesn’t have the mind to deal with a matter of this nature.” Morgan’s heavy, deliberate pacing went on, and Kreizler and I remained silent. The library slowly filled up with thick cigar smoke, and when Morgan finally stood still and spoke again, I could barely see him through the brownish haze.

“As I see it, gentlemen, there really are only two advisable courses—yours, and that advocated by Byrnes. We must have order. Particularly now.”

“Why now?” Kreizler asked.

“You are probably not in a position to know, Doctor,” Morgan answered carefully, “that we are at a crossroads, both in New York and in the country as a whole. This city is changing. Dramatically. Oh, I don’t simply mean the population, with the influx of immigrants. I mean the city itself. Twenty years ago, New York was still primarily a port—the harbor was our chief source of business. Today, with other ports challenging our preeminence, shipping and receiving have been eclipsed by both manufacture and banking. Manufacture, as you know, requires workers, and other, less fortunate, nations in the world have provided them. The leaders of organized labor claim that such workers are treated unfairly here. But fairly or no, they continue to come, because it is better than what they have left behind. I mark from your speech that you are of foreign extraction yourself, Doctor. Have you spent much time in Europe?”

“Enough,” Kreizler answered, “to take your point.”

“We are not obligated to provide everyone who comes to this country with a good life,” Morgan went on. “We are obligated to provide them with a chance to attain that life, through discipline and hard work. That chance is more than they have anywhere else. That is why they keep coming.”

“Assuredly,” Laszlo answered, impatience beginning to show in his voice.

“We shall not be able to offer such a chance, in future, should our national economic development—which is currently in a state of deep crisis—be retarded by foolish political ideas born in the ghettos of Europe.” Morgan put his cigar down in a tray, went to a sideboard, and poured out three glasses of what turned out to be excellent whiskey. Without asking a second time if Laszlo and I wanted any, he handed two of the glasses to us. “Any events which can be prostituted to serve the purposes of those ideas must be suppressed. That is why Mr. Comstock was here. He believes that ideas such as yours, Doctor, can be so prostituted. Were you to succeed in your investigation, Mr. Comstock believes that your ideas might gain greater credence. Thus you see—” Morgan took up his cigar again, and drew in an enormous volume of smoke. “You have made yourselves a wide variety of powerful enemies.”