The Alienist

one sibling, a brother. Remember Sara’s idea about his being from a small family, because the mother disliked childbearing?”

“Kreizler…,” I said, trying to slow him down.

“And that tantalizing reference to ‘a facial tic,’ which even in his hospital record is never explained in any greater detail than ‘an intermittent and violent contraction of the ocular and facial muscles.’ No explanation as to why.”

“Kreizler—”

“And then there’s the pronounced emphasis on sadism in the admitting alienist’s report, along with the particulars of the incident that caused his commitment—”

“Kreizler! Will you please shut up and let me look at this?”

He rose suddenly, all excitement. “Yes—yes, of course. And while you do, I’ll check the cable office for messages from the detective sergeants.” He put the document I’d given him back down. “I’ve a powerful feeling about this, Moore!”

As Kreizler dashed out of the dining room I began to carefully go over the first page of the hospital file:

Corporal John Beecham, admitted to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in May of 1886, had at that time stated that he’d been born in New Paltz, the small town just west of the Hudson River and some sixty-five miles north of New York that had been the scene of the Dury murders. The specific date of birth cited was November 19, 1865. His parents were identified only as “deceased,” and he had one brother, eight years older than himself.

I reached over and grabbed the Interior Department document that told of the murdered minister and his wife. Those crimes had been committed in 1880, and the victims were listed as having a teenaged son who’d been kidnapped by Indians. A second and older son, Adam Dury, was apparently at his home just outside Newton, Massachusetts, at the time of the murders.

I grabbed another sheet of the hospital file and scanned the notes penned by John Beecham’s admitting alienist, in an effort to find the specific cause of the corporal’s confinement. Despite the sloppiness of the doctor’s handwriting, I soon had it:

“Patient was part of force requested by governor of Illinois to quell disturbances arising from strikes in Chicago area beginning May 1st (Haymarket riots, etc.). During May 5th action against strikers North Chicago, soldiers ordered to open fire; patient subsequently found stabbing corpse of one dead striker. Lieutenant M— discovered patient in flagrante; patient claims M—always ‘had it in for him,’ etc., and was constantly ‘watching’ him; M—ordered patient relieved of duty, regimental surgeon pronounced him unfit for service.”

Then followed the comments on sadism and delusions of persecution that Kreizler had already told me about. In the rest of the file I found more reports written by other alienists during Beecham’s four-month stay at St. Elizabeth’s, and I scanned them for further references to the man’s parents. There was no mention anywhere of his mother, and very little talk of his childhood generally; but one of the final assessments, written just before Beecham’s release, contained the following paragraph:

“Patient has applied for writ h.c. [habeas corpus] and continues to claim nothing wrong or criminal in behavior; says society must have laws and men to enforce them; father was evidently a very godly man, who emphasized importance of rules and punishment of violators. Recommend increased dosage c. hydrate.”

Just then Kreizler came speeding back to the table, shaking his head. “Nothing. Their arrival must have been delayed.” He indicated the various papers I was holding. “Well, Moore, what do you make of it all?”

“The timing matches,” I answered slowly. “Along with the location.”

Kreizler clapped his hands together and sat back down. “I never would have dreamed of such a possibility. Who could have? Kidnapped by Indians? It’s almost absurd.”

“It may be absurd,” I replied. “I haven’t gotten the impression in the last couple of days that Indians take many male children captive—and certainly not if they’re as old as sixteen.”

“Can you be certain of that?”

“No. But Clark Wissler probably could. I’ll put in a call tomorrow morning.”

“Do that,” Kreizler answered with a nod, taking the Interior document back from me and again studying it. “We need more particulars.”

“That occurred to me, too. I can telephone Sara, and put her onto a friend of mine at the Times who’ll let her into the morgue.”

“The morgue?”

“Where back issues are kept. She could find the story, it must have made the New York papers.”

“Yes—yes, it would have.”

“In the meantime, Hobart and I’ll see if we can find out who this ‘Lieutenant M—’ is, and whether or not he’s still in the army. He might be able to supply more details.”

“And I’ll return to St. Elizabeth’s, and talk to anyone who had any personal knowledge of Corporal John Beecham.” Kreizler lifted his wineglass with a smile. “Well, Moore—new hope!”

Anticipation and curiosity made sleep difficult that night, but morning brought the welcome news that the Isaacsons had finally arrived in Deadwood. Kreizler instructed them by wire to stay put until they heard from us that afternoon or evening, while I went to the lobby to place my telephone calls to New York. It took some doing to get through to the Museum of Natural History, and locating Clark Wissler was an even greater challenge; but when his voice finally did come through the line he was not only helpful but quite enthusiastic—largely, I think, because he was able to say confidently that the story described in the Interior Department document was almost certainly a fabrication. The idea that any Indian chieftain would dispatch assassins all the way to New Paltz—and that they would reach that destination without incident—was outlandish enough; but the further assertions that, having committed the murders, they would then leave behind an explanatory note, kidnap rather than kill the victims’ adolescent son, and make their way back across the country without ever being noticed was too far-fetched even to be considered. Someone, Wissler was sure, had put a none-too-clever bit of trickery over on the obviously dull- witted authorities in New Paltz. I thanked him heartily for his help, then rang off and ’phoned Number 808 Broadway.

Sara answered in a very edgy voice: Apparently there’d been a lot of interest displayed in our headquarters during the previous forty-eight hours by a variety of unsavory characters. Sara herself had been followed fairly constantly, she was certain of that; and even though she never went out unarmed, such close scrutiny was nerve- racking. Boredom only worsened things: Because Sara had had little to do since our departure, her mind was free to focus all the more on her spectral stalkers. For this reason the thought of activity, even if it was only research at the Times, acted as a tonic on her spirits, and she devoured the details of our latest theory with relish. I then asked her how long she thought it would be before Cyrus would be able to accompany her around town, to which she answered that although the big fellow had been released from the hospital, he was still too weak to leave his bed at Kreizler’s house.

“I’ll be all right, John,” she insisted to me, though her words lacked some of their usual conviction.

“Of course you will,” I answered. “I doubt if half the criminals in New York are as well armed. Or cops, for that matter. All the same, get Stevie to stick with you. He’s quite the item in a brawl, even at his size.”

“Yes,” Sara answered, with a calming laugh. “He’s already been very helpful—sees me home every night. We smoke cigarettes together, though you needn’t tell Dr. Kreizler that.” I wondered for a moment why she persisted in calling him “Dr. Kreizler,” but there was more pressing business at hand.

“I’ve got to go, Sara. Telephone as soon as you have anything.”

“All right. Watch out for yourselves, John.”

I rang off and went to find Kreizler.

He was still in the cable office, putting the last words to a wire that he proceeded to send to Roosevelt. Phrasing his sentences vaguely (and putting no signature to the message), Laszlo asked Theodore to contact first the office of the mayor of New Paltz, in an attempt to ascertain whether a family or person named Beecham had lived in that town at any point during the last twenty years, and second the authorities in Newton, Massachusetts, to see if one Adam Dury still resided there. Anxious as we both were to get replies to these questions, we knew that they would take time, and that we still had plenty of work to do at St. Elizabeth’s and the Interior Department. Somewhat reluctantly, we left the cable office and went out into another magnificent spring morning.