Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

“Perhaps,” the Doctor said, sitting down and putting his glass aside.

“And may I remind everyone again-” Miss Howard said. But she got only that far before Mr. Moore let out another big groan.

“Yes, yes, we know, Sara, it’s not over yet! My God, don’t you ever get tired of that saw?”

“If you mean don’t I wish it would end so I’d have a good excuse to sink to the bottom of a glass and live there, John, then no,” Miss Howard snapped. “It’s true that we may not have gotten very much information today-but the mother must know more, and she returns tomorrow. So will we.” She looked to the Doctor. “Will you come with us? I’m not sure I’ll know all the right questions to ask.”

From somewhere deep, the Doctor managed to stir the final traces of what passed for encouragement. “Of course,” he said, putting his hands on his legs and then standing up. “But now, if you all don’t mind, I think I’ll retire before dinner. I’m not particularly hungry. We don’t need to be at the Franklins’ until the afternoon, you say, Sara?”

“That’s right.”

“Then there’s no reason to rise early, at least.” He looked around the room a little awkwardly. “Good night.”

We all mumbled replies, and then grew silent as the Doctor slowly climbed the stairs.

Once she’d heard his bedroom door close, Miss Howard took a piece of chalk from the board and flung it at Mr. Moore’s head, catching him very nicely between the eyes and making him yelp.

“You know, John,” she said, “if the Times won’t take you back, you could always open a new business kicking injured dogs or knocking the crutches out from under cripples.”

“Someday,” Mr. Moore moaned, rubbing the chalk mark on his head, “you’re going to do me some serious physical injury, Sara-and I promise you, I’ll sue! Look, I’m sorry if you all think I’m being a defeatist, but I just don’t see what you’re going to find out from Libby Hatch’s mother that’s going to change things.”

“Maybe nothing!” Miss Howard shot back. “But you’ve seen what the Doctor’s been through this week-and remember, we drew him into this case, to help him forget his troubles in New York. Now it looks like we’ve only made things worse. You might at least try to be encouraging.”

Mr. Moore glanced over at the stairway, looking a little ashamed of himself. “Well-I suppose that’s true…” He poured himself another drink and then turned to Miss Howard. “Do you want me to come along tomorrow?” He did his best to sound sincere. “I promise you, I will try to keep things hopeful.”

Miss Howard sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think you could be hopeful right now if your life depended on it. No, it’ll be better if just Stevie and I go-the fewer people, the less awkward the silence will be.” She looked up at the ceiling. “And I’ve a feeling there’s going to be a lot of silence…”

It was a sound prediction. The Doctor didn’t come down from his room ’til close to noon on Sunday, and he still didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. He did his level best to take an interest in the job what lay ahead of us, but it was a pretty hopeless cause: he seemed to know just how unlikely it would be that we’d discover anything so crucial at the Franklins’ farm that it would swing our fate in court. By the time we climbed aboard the surrey, he’d dropped any effort at conversation and grown very quiet and thoughtful again, and he stayed that way through all of the long drive over to Schaghticoke.

The Franklin house was just as peaceful as it’d been the day before; but this time, in addition to Eli Franklin working around the barnyard, there was an elderly woman-fleshy but not fat-weeding one of the flower patches by the house. Her white-haired head was shielded from the sun by a wide-brimmed straw hat, and her gingham dress was covered by a slightly soiled apron. Even from halfway up the drive we could hear her singing to herself, and a small dog was happily prancing around, letting out a little yap occasionally to get the woman’s attention and receiving a pat on the head and a few kindly words in return.

As the Doctor took in the scene before him, his black eyes began to glow with a light what I hadn’t seen in evidence for a couple of days. “So…” he said, as I drew the surrey to a stop beside the gate in the white picket fence; and when he got down to the ground, he smiled just a little.

“Not precisely what you expected?” Miss Howard asked, joining him.

“Tragedy and horror do not always come with the appropriate trappings, Sara,” the Doctor answered softly. “If they did, mine would be a useless profession.”

As I tied off our horse’s reins, I saw that Eli Franklin had caught sight of us and was running out to the gate. He seemed to be moving with real purpose.

“Hello, Miss Howard,” he said, his face full of worry.

“Mr. Franklin,” she answered with a nod. “This is Dr. Kreizler, who’s also working on the case. And I don’t think you met our young associate Stevie Taggert yesterday-”

Eli Franklin just shook our hands quickly without saying anything, then turned to Miss Howard again. “My mother-when I told her-”

But by then the woman who was tending the flowers had turned and seen us. Her little dog was yapping louder and faster as he, too, registered the presence of strangers. “Oh!” the woman called, in a voice what was both very loud and sort of melodious. “Oh, are these Elspeth’s friends, Eli, dear?”

She started toward us, and Eli Franklin spoke even faster and with more urgency: “I couldn’t tell her that Libby was actually in trouble-it would set her nerves off, and her heart’s not so strong anymore. Is there any way that you can find out what you need to know without-”

“We shall try, Mr. Franklin,” the Doctor answered good-naturedly. “It may be that your mother can tell us all we need to know without our revealing our true purpose.”

Eli Franklin’s face filled with relief, and he just had time to say, “Thank you, Doctor, I do appreciate-” before his mother arrived at the gate.

The little dog was yapping louder than ever, and as Mrs. Franklin held her hat in place on her head she looked down to scold him gently: “Leopold, stop that, these are visitors!” The dog tried to calm down, but it was an effort. “I’m sorry,” the woman said to us, her singsong voice growing a little addled. “He’s very protective! Well! So you’re all friends of my daughter’s? And trying to find her, my son says?” Back behind her amber-colored eyes you could see that Mrs. Franklin-who must have been very handsome in her day-didn’t quite believe the story, but that it was easier for her to accept it than to contemplate other, less pleasant possibilities. “I’m afraid we can’t help you,” she went on, before the Doctor or Miss Howard could answer. “As Eli told you yesterday, we haven’t heard from Libby in several years. Not that I’m surprised! So careless, that girl! She never could take care of the simplest little-”

“Yes, Mother,” Eli Franklin said, touching her elbow to quiet her down. “This is Miss Howard and Dr.-Kreizler, was it? And the boy is called-”

“Just Stevie’ll do,” I said, looking at the woman and getting a big smile in return.

“Oh, just Stevie, eh?” she said, reaching out to touch my cheek. “Well, that’s good enough-you’re a fine-looking boy!”

“They think maybe something we know about her past will help them locate Libby,” Eli Franklin went on.

Miss Howard nodded. “You see, she hasn’t contacted us in quite some time, either. Perhaps if we knew a little more of what her usual habits were-”