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Though brief, it was unhesitating in tone: THE LEAD IS SOLID. FOLLOW IT.
it was not her intention to take advice from someone who found it appropriate to commit social suicide in not one but two cities by being seen in public with ‘that Dr. Kreizler.’
And in such fashion was Stevie Taggert set loose to ransack our headquarters for cigarettes.
Goodbyes were, as they had been on Monday, brief and unrevealing of any connection between Sara and Kreizler; I was beginning to think I was as wrong about them as I’d been about a rogue priest being responsible for the murders.
‘My father was German,’ Kreizler answered. ‘But I was raised in this country.’
Kreizler stared at me for a few more seconds, then leaned back, opened his mouth, and let out a deeper laugh than any I’d ever heard from him; deep, and irritatingly long.
but because, on the one hand, it soothed my nerves, and, on the other, it disarmed Kreizler so thoroughly and refreshingly. All the dangers we’d faced that day, indeed all the grimness of our investigation generally, somehow shrank in significance as Laszlo very tenuously revealed his personal hopes for the future.
but never had I seen the man look or sound so completely human as he did on that train ride. And never would I see him so again.
‘Dr. Kreizler’s at the morgue,’
‘You know,’ she murmured, ‘from the very first time I walked into this house, Mary was afraid that something would happen to take him away from her. I tried to help her understand that that something wouldn’t be me.
When I reached the morgue I found Laszlo outside the large iron door in the back that we’d used to enter the building when we’d examined Ernst Lohmann’s body. He was leaning against the building, his eyes as wide, vacant, and black as the gaping holes our killer had left in the heads of his victims.
‘That—’ The voice was still scraping terribly, as if it were a labor to produce it, but the words began to come faster. ‘That I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. That I thought I knew how people should behave, that I thought I was a better person than he was. But one day – one day, he said, I would know that I wasn’t. Until then, I’d be nothing more than an – imposter …’
We’ve been hunting a killer, John, but the killer isn’t the real danger – I am!’
But more than that, I think it was the shattering of his confidence that prevented him from coming back to the hunt.
Every human being must find his own way to cope with such severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses.
And so Japheth Dury had become John Beecham, who, according to the assessments of his doctors at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, was highly sensitive to scrutiny of any kind, and also harbored at least strong feelings (if not outright delusions) of persecution.
‘No. He’s full of doubts about his own judgment and abilities. I never really understood before how much he’s tortured by that – self-doubt. It’s hidden most of the time, but it goes back …’ ‘Yes,’ Roosevelt said, nodding and rocking. ‘His father.’
His aspect changed – drastically. I’ll never forget it. He glanced away, and for the first time he seemed afraid to look me in the face – and then he grabbed at that bad arm of his. There was something so instinctive in the way he did it, at the merest mention of his father’s name, that I began to suspect the truth.
How does the world look, I often found myself wondering, to a young man whose father is his enemy?’
There was little of the usual edgy intensity in her manner, though her mind was quite focused and her thoughts were consistently sharp and relevant.
Sara was, for the moment, her own woman, a professional detective
We couldn’t be certain, of course, but the logical explanation seemed to be that our enemies simply didn’t believe we could succeed without Kreizler.
In this place lived the being who had once been Japheth Dury and was now the murderer John Beecham;
all through the night my mind had been pulled back to what Kreizler had said after Mary Palmer’s murder: that in our dash to defeat evil, we had only given it a wider field in which to run its own wretched course.
‘Well done, Sara!’ he said. ‘I don’t know what your family would say if they could hear such talk, but by thunder, I’m proud of you!’ So full of genuine affection and admiration were Theodore’s words that Sara forgave their slightly patronizing air and turned away with a satisfied smile.
‘Still,’ Sara went on, ‘after three weeks without a word it seems odd that he’d choose tomorrow night to reappear.’
He put his program aside and rubbed his hands together, continuing to look much happier and healthier than he had during our last several encounters.
that Sara, the Isaacsons, and I, along with the investigation itself, had been in his thoughts throughout the time we’d spent apart, all gave me a great deal of joy and relief.
There was something about the blank way in which he looked back at me that was deeply unsettling: like a man who has divined his fate and has no intention of trying to avoid it.
It was Sara, pearl-gripped revolver in hand.
‘You haven’t been honest with us about this part of it, Doctor,’ she said. Her hard look softened. ‘But if it hadn’t been for you we never would have had the chance in the first place. I’m prepared to call it even.’ Laszlo pulled her close and embraced her. ‘Thank you for that,’
‘Somehow, I get the feeling you’re done with people allowing you to do things. Not that you were ever very good at it, to start with.’
