The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)

by Caleb Carr

At the same instant I spotted Kreizler; odd, how strongly the sight of him has always been associated, in my mind, with such sounds. As usual, his suit and coat were black, and as often he was reading the music notices in the Times. His black eyes, so much like a large bird’s, flitted about the paper as he shifted from one foot to the other in sudden, quick movements. He held the Times in his right hand, and his left arm, underdeveloped as the result of a childhood injury, was pulled in close to his body. The left hand occasionally rose to swipe at his neatly trimmed mustache and the small patch of beard under his lower lip. His dark hair, cut far too long to meet the fashion of the day, and swept back on his head, was moist, for he always went hatless; and this, along with the bobbing of his face at the pages before him, only increased the impression of some hungry, restless hawk determined to wring satisfaction from the worrisome world around him.

He made some good-natured but pointed remarks about Laszlo’s ‘mystical mumbo jumbo concerning the human psyche’ and how it was all the result of his European background; but he went too far when he spouted a jibe about ‘gypsy blood,’ for Laszlo’s mother was Hungarian and he took great offense.

The woman exchanged a few words in Hungarian with Kreizler, but his knowledge of that language was limited (his German father had not wished his children to speak their mother’s tongue) and the conversation soon shifted back to English.

Laszlo expressed his indebtedness somewhat awkwardly, but nonetheless genuinely; and the look of fulfillment on Sara’s face was worth all the trials of the day.

It was an outrageous but nonetheless typical incident: there were undoubtedly many people in the audience that night who would have said very similar things to Kreizler, given the chance. Laszlo, Cyrus, and I, having heard it all before, didn’t take it as hard as Sara, who was a newcomer to this kind of intolerance.

The Isaacson brothers were already seated at a small but elegant table, looking a bit bewildered.

‘Oh, are you trained in it?’ Sara said. ‘I’ve been anxious to meet someone who is.’ Marcus looked surprised. ‘You know Bertillon’s work, Miss Howard?’ As Sara nodded eagerly

‘Oh, all right. Go ahead.’ Marcus spoke confidentially. ‘It’s called dactyloscopy.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You mean fingerprinting.’ ‘Yes,’ Marcus replied, ‘that’s the colloquial term.’

‘The doctor and Miss Howard went looking for furniture yesterday, over in Brooklyn. At an office supplier’s. But the doctor said he couldn’t live with that sort of stuff for a day, much less an extended period of time. So they bought just the desks, and then went to an auction on Fifth Avenue. The furniture of the Marchese Luigi Carcano of Italy was being sold off. They bought quite a bit of it.’

My suspicion, however, was that she was preoccupied with that great guiding goal of her life, to prove that a woman could be a capable, effective police officer.

and as we passed the graveyard at Trinity Church – where the father of the American economic system, Alexander Hamilton, lay buried

Kreizler put his hands on Sara’s shoulders. ‘It’s not an easy sight, Sara.’ She nodded. ‘I didn’t expect it to be.’ Laszlo studied her reactions carefully.

I turned when I felt a presence at my side and found Kreizler carefully moving closer. He indicated silence to me as Sara spoke on:

I was suddenly aware of some very odd chemistry at work among Laszlo, Mary, and Sara.

and I knew I’d better get her away from Kreizler, who was exhausting enough even on a full night’s sleep.

‘He never seems to stop,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s almost as if – as if he has a personal stake in it.’ ‘Well,’ I answered, yawning broadly, ‘a lot of his professional ideas could be validated by the result.’ ‘No,’ Sara said, still quietly. ‘Something else – something more …’ Following

Right after I got out of Harvard, my younger brother – whose passage into adulthood had been even more troubled than my own – had fallen off a Boston boat and drowned. A lengthy autopsy revealed what I could have told anyone if they’d asked: that my brother had been a habitual user of alcohol and morphine.

Both Mary and I braced for trouble as we entered the small front yard; and we were both surprised when a very genuine smile came into Kreizler’s face. He took out his silver watch, checked the time, and spoke in a cheerful

‘Joseph,’ the boy murmured.

had no desire to reveal how much young Joseph’s eyes and smile had reminded me of my own dead brother’s at the same age.

remembered Sara’s statement that Kreizler seemed to have some sort of personal stake in the work we were doing; and though I wanted to ask her for elaboration, I feared that such a conversation would only revive my tendency to speculate about their personal relationship.

‘He’s always been that way,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘Even when we were boys, he was always at something, and always so deadly serious. It was somewhat amusing, in those days.’ ‘Well, he’s not a child now, and he ought to learn to take care of himself.’

‘It’s more than just his reputation, and more than just scientific curiosity. It’s something old and deep. He’s a very deep man, your friend Dr. Kreizler.’

Then, too, he genuinely liked such outings with Lucius, which allowed him to trade bits of his unique medical knowledge for invaluable lessons in criminal science.

‘The word he uses is “shit,”’ Sara said bluntly, and everyone in the room, including Kreizler, seemed to spring a few inches off the floor for a second or two. ‘Honestly, gentlemen,’ Sara commented with some disdain. ‘If I’d known you were all so modest I’d have stuck to secretarial work.’

Laszlo paused and then nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, you have a point, Sara.’ That brought a small but satisfied smile to her face.

‘You seem to think,’ Laszlo replied, a bit snappishly, ‘that I suffer from blinkered vision. I remind you that I do have some experience with these things.’ Sara studied him for a moment, and then quietly asked, ‘Why do you resist so strongly the notion of a woman’s active involvement in the formation?’ Laszlo suddenly rose, slammed a hand down on his desk, and shouted, ‘Because her role cannot have been active, damn it!’

As has hopefully become clear by now, Sara Howard was not the kind of woman to take such talk from any man, even one she admired and perhaps (in my opinion, at any rate) had still deeper feelings for. Her eyes went very thin at this last shot from Laszlo,

But this sharp exchange between Kreizler and Sara did have repercussions: illuminating repercussions that not only revealed much that was unknown, even to me, about Kreizler’s past, but also lit our way toward a face-to-face encounter with one of the most disturbing criminals in the recent history of the United States.

The fact that I hadn’t had much contact with Laszlo for a number of days hadn’t kept me from worrying about him, and this sudden, secretive announcement that we were going to board a train didn’t ease my mind.

One of these experts was a very young Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, who, along with several other alienists, found Pomeroy quite sane.

‘That he found Sara’s points concerning the role of a woman in the formation quite sound,’ Kreizler answered, still a bit contrite. ‘I suddenly found myself arguing with him as I’d argued with Sara.’

Her manner with Kreizler, even before he offered her the promised set of apologies, was quite pleasant, and therefore odd: I wouldn’t say that Sara was the sort of person to hold a grudge, exactly, but once stung she was usually very wary of the guilty party. I tried hard, however, to ignore the strange chemistry between them, and kept my attention on the business before us.

‘John, how much do you actually know about Dr. Kreizler’s past? His family, I mean.’ I was surprised by the topic. ‘His family? As much as anyone, I suppose. I visited them quite a bit when I was a boy.’ ‘Were they – were they, well, happy?’

‘I’ve been trying all week to understand why he was sticking so stubbornly to the idea that a violent father and passive mother raised our killer. I developed a theory, and went through the records of the Fifteenth Precinct to test it. This is what I found.’

Laszlo’s father, apparently drunk, spending the night in the precinct house under a charge of assault (the charge was later dropped), and then of a local surgeon being brought to the Kreizler home to treat a young boy whose left arm had been badly shattered.

already decided the same thing.’ We watched the burning pieces of paper turn into flakes of smoking ash, both of us silently hoping that this would be the last we’d ever need to speak of the matter, that Laszlo’s behavior would never again warrant investigation into his past.

I remembered that our first interaction had involved a similar cleaning of Joseph’s face; and I was struck by the thought that he hadn’t wanted me to see him all made up this time, either.

‘Because St. Elizabeth’s is the receiving hospital for soldiers and sailors who’ve been judged unfit for military duty. Unfit – because of mental illness.’ The slow, drifting way in which Sara, Marcus, and I had been approaching Lucius and Kreizler now became something of a stampede.

‘He is the famous alienist who destroys families – who steals children from their homes!’ Professions of shock sprang from all sides. ‘I demand to know what part you have in this matter, Herr Doctor! Did you snatch the Lohmann boy from his parents, just as you snatched my daughter from me?’

In his brown eyes was that same fire of the crusader that marked Kreizler’s gaze; and the two men shook hands with a warmth and vigor that is only shared by truly kindred spirits.

And then Laszlo got that look in his eyes, the one that said we had to get out, get into a cab, and get back to our headquarters.

‘Kidnapped?’ Kreizler said, maintaining that irritatingly detached tone that he assumed at times of danger. ‘Is this someone’s very bizarre idea of humor?’

‘I have never seen you among the congregation, Doctor.’ ‘My religious opinions are a private matter, Mr. Morgan,’ Laszlo replied.

I looked up to catch sight of Mary Palmer standing on the small balcony outside Kreizler’s parlor. She was watching us anxiously, and what looked from a distance like tearstains were glistening on her cheeks. Turning to Laszlo, I saw that he was also looking back at her; and when he turned forward again, a smile came into his face.

‘Poor John,’ she said, giving me a warm hug. ‘Still trying to sort things out. Don’t worry – it’ll all be clear, someday.

‘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.’

while no trace of the younger Dury boy, Japheth, had ever been found,

‘While the younger boy, Japheth, would have been the same age as Beecham.

Now, if he committed the murders, then fabricated the note, disappeared, and took a different name—’ ‘But he’s not the one who witnessed the massacres and mutilations,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t even born yet.’