The Alienist

arrived, however, without our having had any word from the detective sergeants, and so Sara and I decided to attend to another unpleasant task: that of convincing Theodore to allow us to go on with the investigation in spite of Kreizler’s departure. We both suspected that this wasn’t going to be easy. It had only been Roosevelt’s great respect for Kreizler that had allowed him to consider the idea in the first place (that, and his propensity for unorthodox solutions). Having spent the beginning of the week searching for Connor, as well as attending to the ongoing battle between the forces of reform and corruption at Police Headquarters, Roosevelt remained unapprised of developments within our investigation as of Wednesday evening; but, knowing that he would learn the truth from either Kreizler or the Isaacsons eventually, Sara and I decided to take the bear by the ears and tell him ourselves.

Anxious to avoid stirring up a potentially dangerous new round of speculation among the journalists and detectives at headquarters, we elected to visit Theodore at his home. He and his wife, Edith, had recently rented a town house at 689 Madison Avenue that belonged to Theodore’s sister, Bamie, a comfortable, well-furnished home that was nonetheless inadequate to the task of containing the antics of the five Roosevelt children. (It must be remembered, in fairness, that the White House itself would soon prove similarly inadequate.) Knowing that Theodore generally made sure to be home for dinner with his brood, Sara and I took a hansom up Madison Avenue to Sixty-third Street at about six o’clock, mounting the steps of Number 689 at sunset.

Before I’d even rapped on the door the sounds of youthful mayhem became audible from within. The front portal was eventually opened by Theodore’s second son, Kermit, who at the time was six years old. He wore the traditional white shirt, knickers, and longish hair of a boy of his age during that era; but in his right fist he rather ominously held what I supposed to be the horn of an African rhinoceros, mounted on a heavy stand. His face was all defiance.

“Hello, Kermit,” I said with a grin. “Is your father at home?”

“No one shall pass!” the boy shouted grimly, staring me in the eye.

I lost my grin. “I beg your pardon?”

“No one shall pass!” he repeated. “I, Horatio, will guard this bridge!”

Sara let out a small laugh and I nodded in acknowledgment. “Ah. Yes, Horatio at the bridge. Well, Horatio, if it’s all the same to you…”

I took a step or two into the house, to which Kermit raised the rhino horn and banged it down with surprising force on the toes of my right foot. I let out a sharp cry of pain, prompting Sara to laugh harder, as Kermit again declared, “No one shall pass!”

Just then Edith Roosevelt’s pleasant but firm voice echoed in from somewhere to the rear of the house: “Kermit! What’s going on out there?”

Kermit’s eyes suddenly went round with apprehension, and then he spun and made for the nearby staircase, hollering “Retreat! Retreat!” as he went. With the pain in my toes beginning to subside I marked the approach of a rather serious-looking young girl of four or so: Theodore’s younger daughter, Ethel. She was carrying a large picture book full of vivid zoological illustrations and walking with evident purpose; but when she caught sight first of Sara and me and then of Kermit vanishing up the stairs, she paused, flicking a thumb in her brother’s direction.

“Horatio at the bridge,” she droned, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Then she put her face back in the book and continued her progress down the hall.

Suddenly a doorway to our right burst open, producing a rotund, uniformed, and clearly terrified maid. (There were very few servants in the Roosevelt household: Theodore’s father, a prodigious philanthropist, had given away much of the family fortune, and Theodore supported his family primarily through his writing and his meager salary.) The maid seemed oblivious of Sara’s and my presence as she dashed over to take refuge behind the open front door.

“No!” she screamed, to no one that I could see. “No, Master Ted, I will not do it!”

The hall doorway through which the maid had appeared thereupon disgorged an eight-year-old boy who wore a solemn gray suit and spectacles much like Theodore’s. This was Ted, the oldest son, whose status as scion of the family was amply demonstrated not only by his appearance, but by a rather intimidating young barred owl that sat perched on his shoulder, as well as by a dead rat that he held by its tail in one gloved hand.

“Patsy, you really are being ridiculous,” Ted said to the maid. “If we don’t teach him what his natural prey is, we’ll never be able to send him back into the wild. Just hold the rat above his beak—” Ted stopped as he finally became aware that there were two callers standing in the doorway. “Oh,” he said, his eyes brightening behind the spectacles. “Good evening, Mr. Moore.”

“Evening, Ted,” I answered, shying away from the owl.

The boy turned to Sara. “And you’re Miss Howard, aren’t you? I met you at my father’s office.”

“Well done, Master Roosevelt,” Sara said. “It seems you have a good memory for detail—a scientist needs one.”

Ted smiled very self-consciously at that, then remembered the rat in his hand. “Mr. Moore,” he said quickly, with renewed enthusiasm. “Do you think you could take this rat—here, by the tail—and hold it about an inch above Pompey’s beak? He’s not used to the sight of prey, and it sometimes scares him—he’s been living on strips of raw beefsteak. I’ve got to have a free hand to make sure he doesn’t fly off.”

One less accustomed to life in the Roosevelt household might’ve balked at this request; I, however, having been present for many such scenes, simply sighed, took the rat by the tail, and positioned it as Ted had requested. The owl spun his head around once or twice rather bizarrely, then lifted his large wings and flapped them in apparent confusion. Ted, however, had a good hold of the talons with his gloved hand, and proceeded to make some hooting, squealing sounds that seemed to calm the bird. Eventually Pompey turned his remarkably flexible neck so that his beak was pointing directly at the ceiling, grabbed the rat by the head, and proceeded to swallow the thing, tail and all, in a half-dozen gruesome gulps.

Ted grinned wide. “Good boy, Pompey! That’s better than boring old steak, isn’t it? Now all you’ve got to do is learn to catch them for yourself, and then you can go off and be with your friends!” Ted turned to me. “We found him in a hollow tree in Central Park—his mother’d been shot, and the other hatchlings were already dead. He’s come along fine, though.”

“Look out, below!” came a sudden cry from the top of the stairs, at which Ted’s face grew very anxious and he hustled back out of the hall with his owl. The maid tried to follow him, but became transfixed by the sight of a large white mass that was bulleting down from the second floor atop the staircase bannister. Unable to decide which way to run, the maid finally crumpled to the floor and covered her head with a shriek, narrowly avoiding what might have been a very grim collision with Miss Alice Roosevelt, twelve years old. Slamming from the bannister to a carpet on the floor with well-practiced skill and a howling laugh, Alice proceeded to jump up, straighten her rather busy white dress, and hold a taunting finger out to the maid.

“Patsy, you great goose!” she laughed. “I’ve told you, never stay still, you’ve got to pick a direction and run!” Turning the delicate, pretty face that would, in several years, cut a swath through Washington’s most eligible bachelors like a scythe through so much wheat, Alice faced Sara and me, smiling and curtsying ever so slightly. “Hello, Mr. Moore,” she said, with the confidence of a girl who knows, even at twelve, the power of her own charms. “And is this really Miss Howard?” she went on, more excitedly and ingenuously. “One of the women who works at headquarters?”

“It is, indeed,” I replied. “Sara, meet Alice Lee Roosevelt.”

“How do you do, Alice?” Sara said, extending a hand.

Alice was all mature confidentiality as she took Sara’s hand and replied, “I know that a lot of people think it’s scandalous that women are working at headquarters, Miss Howard, but I think it’s bully!” She held up a small satchel, the drawstring of which was wrapped around her wrist. “Would you like to see my snake?” she asked, and before the somewhat startled Sara could answer Alice had produced a wriggling, two-foot garter snake.

“Alice!” It was Edith’s voice again, and this time I turned to see her lithely moving down the hallway toward us. “Alice,” she repeated, in the careful but authoritative voice she used with this, the only child in the house that was not her own. “I do think, dear, that we might let newcomers in the house get their things off and sit down before we introduce them to the reptiles. Hello, Miss Howard. John.” Edith touched Alice’s forehead gently. “You’re the one I depend on for civilized behavior, you know.”

Alice smiled up at Edith and then turned to Sara again, putting the snake back in the satchel. “I’m sorry, Miss Howard. Won’t you come into the parlor and sit down? I’ve so many questions I want to ask you!”