Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

“May I present Mr. Cyrus Montrose,” the Doctor said, at which Mr. Picton shook Cyrus’s big hand. “As well as Master Stevie Taggert. Both associates of mine.”

Mr. Picton turned his hand in my direction, and I stuck my own out to receive his jolting shake. “Master Taggert! Good to meet you! Well-” He stood back and put his hands to his hips, taking us in. “So this is the group that has actually put fear into that murderess’s heart, eh? I admire you for it, I must say! Libby Hatch certainly never had anything to be nervous about in this county, I can tell you. Let’s get your bags onto my rig, and get over to my place. We need to get to business as soon as we can! Porter-follow me!”

“Your place?” Mr. Moore said. “But Rupert, I made reservations at the Eagle Hotel-”

“And I canceled them,” Mr. Picton answered. “I’ve got a house big enough for a regiment, John, with just me and the housekeeper. I won’t hear of you staying anywhere else!”

“But,” Mr. Moore said carefully, as we made for an old surrey what was standing outside the station, “are you sure you’re up to it, Rupert? I mean, I heard you weren’t well-”

“Not well?!” Mr. Picton thundered back. “Why, I’m as sound as a dollar-in fact, I’m even sounder , given the current strength of our currency. Oh, I know what they said in New York before I left, John, and I’ll admit that I needed a rest at the time. You know my disposition-high-strung I am, certainly, you’ll get no argument from me. But those rumors about my suffering a breakdown were just further attempts to discredit what I was saying.”

“Mmm, yes, I’m acquainted with that phenomenon,” the Doctor said, as Mr. Picton began to lob our luggage from the porter’s truck into his surrey, smoking furiously all the while.

“Yes, I understand you are, Dr. Kreizler!” our host answered. “I understand you are! And so you probably know the weariness it breeds-trying to stop what was going on in the district attorney’s office fairly well exhausted me, as I say, and wore my nerves positively raw. But that’s a far cry from madness, don’t you think?”

“Well-” the Doctor answered slowly; too slowly, it turned out, for Mr. Picton.

“Exactly my point!” he said. “It’s a funny world we’re living in, Dr. Kreizler-and I don’t mean funny in the amusing sense-where a man can be labeled mad simply for trying to expose egregious corruption! Ah, well, no matter…” Tossing the last of our bags into the surrey, Mr. Picton made for the driver’s bench. “Climb aboard, everyone. Mr. Montrose, perhaps you and Master Taggert might not mind riding on the steps, there. You can get a grip on the canopy, and we’re not going far.”

“Fine with me!” I said happily, finding that I was starting to enjoy Mr. Picton’s slightly crazy way of saying and doing things.

“Of course, sir,” Cyrus said, also taking an outside perch after the others had climbed aboard.

“Good men!” Mr. Picton said with a grin, saluting us with his pipe. “Hang on, now-here we go!” The surrey began to roll, but we hadn’t even gotten out of the station yard before Mr. Picton had started in again. “As I say, Doctor, it doesn’t matter, really, all that business in New York, and what those people may have said about me-doesn’t matter at all, not in the long term. The world is going to Hell in a hack, and New York will be one of the first places to arrive, if it hasn’t already, and I could make a case for it having done so. That’s one of the reasons I came back to Ballston-it’s actually possible to do an occasional bit of good here without having to worry about the magnates and the bosses.” He let out a few more smokestack blasts with his pipe as he steered his horse along a street that ran west below the steepled hill. “But don’t let’s get drawn too far into this sort of talk-we have other matters that are pressing.” He took out his watch and checked it again. “Pressing, indeed! You must all get settled in and fed-Mrs. Hastings will see to that. My housekeeper.” He shook his head as we rattled our way toward the western edge of town. “Terrible case. She and her husband ran a dry-goods store together for most of their lives. Then, a couple of years ago, three local toughs-not all that much older than you, Master Taggert-robbed the place while she was out. Beat her husband to death with a shovel. I prosecuted the case, and afterwards she came to work for me-as much out of gratitude as anything else, I think.”

“Gratitude?” Miss Howard asked. “Because you helped her through a difficult time?”

“Because I made sure those three boys went to the electrical chair!” Mr. Picton answered. “Ah! There’s my house now-at the end of the street.”

Mr. Picton had a mansion-sized place at the juncture of Charlton and High Streets, not too far from the court house and close to the old Aldridge Spa (currently a boardinghouse) and the Iron Railing Spring, the pair of which were the last real remains of the town’s salad days as a health resort. To judge by the four big turrets what formed the corners of Mr. Picton’s house, along with the wide porch what was wrapped around the whole structure, it wasn’t as old as many of the residences we’d seen and passed. But the size alone was enough to give it kind of an eerie quality, and I wondered why a man would choose to live alone with his housekeeper in such a building. The front and rear gardens were full of climbing roses and ivy that’d gone a little berserk, along with a couple of elm trees what must’ve been considerably older than the house itself-all of which only added to the feeling that this was a very ghostly dwelling indeed.

“My father built it for my mother,” Mr. Picton explained as we neared the house. “And thirty-five years ago it was considered the height of Victorian Gothic style. Nowadays, well-fashion has never mattered much to me, so I’ve left it more or less as it was. Mrs. Hastings is constantly after me to redecorate, but-oh, there she is now!” A round, kindly-looking woman of about sixty or so, wearing a blue dress with a white apron, came out the front door of the house just as we pulled into the yard. Mr. Picton drew the surrey to a stop and then smiled as he waved to his housekeeper. “Mrs. Hastings! You see, I managed to find them without any trouble. I trust the turret rooms are all ready?”

“Oh, yes, your honor,” Mrs. Hastings answered, wiping her flour- and food-coated hands on her apron and smiling warmly. “And lunch is waiting for you all. Welcome, welcome, it’ll be a real breath of fresh air, it will, having guests!”

Mr. Picton made the introductions, and then the others started toward the house while Cyrus and I hung back to unload the bags.

“Well?” I said quietly to my big friend. “What do you think?”

Cyrus shook his head once. “He’s a character, all right. Mr. Moore sure wasn’t exaggerating about that talking business.”

“I like him,” I said, starting toward the front door with a batch of suitcases. Looking up at the high walls and dark turrets before me, I paused for a minute. “The house looks like it might have a ghost or two, though,” I whispered over my shoulder.

Cyrus smiled and shook his head again. “You always like the odd ones,” he said. Then his face went straight. “But I don’t want to hear any more about ghosts .”

The ground floor of Mr. Picton’s house had a reception room what might’ve served as a convention hall. Stocked to overflowing with heavy, velvet-upholstered furniture that was centered around a carved stone fireplace you could’ve walked right into, it also contained the usual recreational items, like a piano and a big card table. At the center of the house was a staircase made out of heavy, polished oak, and then, mirroring the reception room on the other side of the stairs, there was an enormous dining room crammed full of chairs, sideboards, and a table what were all in the same style as the things in the living room. The bedrooms on the upper floors-located, as Mr. Picton’d said, in the four corner turrets-were of similarly huge dimensions, each with its own big fireplace and most with their own baths. By the time I got upstairs, the others were roaming around shopping for rooms, and I could hear Mr. Picton saying: