Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

“Have you seen the drawings of the new wing?” Miss Howard asked the Doctor as we walked.

“Hmm?” he noised, his mind still fixed on other matters. “Oh. Yes, I saw the originals before old Hunt died. And I’ve seen his son’s latest editions, too-quite spectacular.”

“Yes,” Miss Howard said with a nod. “A friend of mine works in their office. It’ll really be something-a lot of statuary.”

“Statuary?”

“Decorating the façade.”

“Ah. Yes.”

“I know it sounds like a bit of a non sequitur,” Miss Howard said with a laugh, “but there is a connection to what we’ve been discussing and looking at, Doctor. All those symbolic statues designed for the façade-the four principal artistic disciplines, the four great ages of art-they’re all to be female. Did you notice that? Only the smaller stone medallions will be male-and they’ll be actual portraits of great artists.”

The Doctor drew closer to her. “I do sense a point, Sara.”

Miss Howard shrugged. “A tired point, I’m afraid. The symbols are all women-the people are all men. It’s the same with those statues in the hall back there. The occasional goddess or some nameless ideal of beauty and womanhood who generally sprang from a man’s head-those are the female forms. But the figures with names, the living humans of any historical note? Men. Tell me-what does that teach a young girl, as she grows up?”

“Nothing useful, I fear.” Slipping his hand affectionately around her elbow, the Doctor smiled, a bit apologetically. “And the cumulative effect of thousands of years of it only makes matters exponentially worse. Women on pedestals… Change is coming, however, Sara-though I grant you, it approaches with glacial speed. But it will come. You shan’t be idealized for ever.”

“But it’s perverse idealization!” Miss Howard said, kicking a leg out and holding her free hand up. “In fact, there’s as much denigration in it as worship. Listen, Doctor, I don’t mean this as a purely philosophical conversation. I’m trying to think of what brought the Hunter woman here. I mean, look at those statues in there. The Babylonians and Assyrians, with their Ishtar, mother of the earth-and, at the same time, she was the goddess of war, a cruel, punishing bitch.” She gave me a quick look. “Sorry, Stevie-”

I could only laugh. “Like I ain’t heard worse.”

Miss Howard grinned and ranted on: “And the Greeks and Romans, with their scheming, plotting goddesses. Or the Hindoo deity Kali, their ‘Divine Mother’ who dispenses death and viciousness. There seem eternally to be two faces.”

Dr. Kreizler’s eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking of the apparent contradictions in Elspeth Hunter’s behavior?”

Miss Howard nodded, but slowly. “I think so. Though I’m not precisely sure of the connection. But-Señora Linares said that when she saw the woman on the train she seemed to be genuinely caring for Ana. Yet she also said that the woman looked like a predatory animal. Now we find out that she was a nurse, working in one of the most difficult-and admirable-areas of her profession. The doctors think she was a heroine; the nurses believe she was a murderer.”

Cyrus came jogging back to us at that point, the other three men following at a walk. “Nothing of any interest here, Doctor. The detective sergeant wants to try to walk it through, though.”

“All right,” the Doctor said. “Tell him we’re at his service.” Then, to Miss Howard, he added, “Hold your thought, Sara. I, too, sense something in it, though it’s vague as yet.”

The Isaacsons and Mr. Moore joined us, and Lucius stood at the center of our little circle, still taking notes.

“Okay,” he began, pointing at the steps of the Metropolitan. “Señora Linares comes out of the museum with Ana at about five o’clock.” He next indicated the huge pit that was the construction site. “The workmen have left or are leaving. It’s Thursday, and they expect to be back in the morning-so they don’t take as much care cleaning up as they would for the weekend, and the site is a good deal more cluttered than we see it now.” He moved over toward a collection of plumbing materials that was partly hidden by a useless wooden fence. “Nurse Hunter already knows what she’s going to do-at least generally. She’s searching for a weapon and spots the pile of pipe through this fence. That takes her in the opposite direction from the señora, which explains why she is never noticed by her intended victim.” He started to move west, back toward the Egyptian obelisk. “She takes her time and lets the señora reach the obelisk.” We all followed him as he moved toward it. “It’s the only area around that has any sort of tree cover-the only chance she’s going to have to strike if she’s at all concerned about getting away. Now it’s just past five. In another fifteen minutes to half an hour people will start to cross the park on their way home from work or simply to take in the evening air-although it looks like rain, so the second of those possibilities is probably cut down a bit. But it’s spring and warm enough, and plenty of people-armed with umbrellas-will still go through the park on their way home. So she’s got to make her move fast.”

By now we’d near reached the octagonal group of benches around the seventy-foot obelisk. This was, in fact, the only spot in the vicinity that was at all secluded by trees, being as the red granite obelisk (or so Lucius told us) had been in place since 1881, when it’d been given to the United States by the head man of Egypt.

“The clouds are keeping people away from this spot,” Lucius continued. “It’s out of the way and purely recreational-you don’t pass by it to get across or uptown. You only come here to while away an idle hour.” Which was true-the obelisk sat up on a little hill, off the park’s main paths. “Nurse Hunter knows that this is her only shot. She comes at the señora from behind, as she’s getting ready to sit on a bench, and hits her once, straight across the back of the head. She grabs the child and goes-where?” The detective sergeant looked around curiously. “Back out to Fifth Avenue is quickest-but she may not want to be seen quickly. And to get back to Bethune Street, she’ll need to get over to the West Side, to either the Sixth or the Ninth Avenue El, presuming that the trains are her usual method of travel.”

“If she hasn’t got a job anymore,” Marcus added, “that argues for the trains as an economic necessity.”

“Yes, but the señora saw her on the Third Avenue line,” Mr. Moore tossed in. “That argues for her having moved from Bethune Street.”

“Perhaps, John,” the Doctor said slowly, staring up at the obelisk. “But Sara and I have just been discussing something which may-” The Doctor stopped, his eyes having reached the base of the obelisk. He walked slowly over to it, his eyes searching a crack at the bottom of the large block of stone. He stared into the deep crevice, lifting his hand as if he wanted to reach into it; then he pulled back and turned to Marcus and Lucius.

“Detective Sergeants?” he said, with the beginnings of excitement. “Would you come here, please? There seems to be something in there.”

Marcus and Lucius rushed over, Marcus producing a small pair of steel tongs. He gazed into the crevice, then slowly inserted the tongs, got hold of something, and withdrew it: a tiny bundle of light cotton fabric.

He placed the balled-up bundle on the walkway near the obelisk’s base, then quickly put on a pair of very light gloves. We all crowded around as he began to untangle the little ball, its yellow-and-white fabric soiled and damp. As he proceeded, the shape of the thing became identifiable.