“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:
“Oh, good choice, Miss Howard—that’s really the best room in the house! You get a splendid view of the garden and the stream.”
On the third floor I could hear the detective sergeants arguing over another bedroom, but I couldn’t make out what’d become of the Doctor and Mr. Moore, whose suitcases I was carrying. Then the sound of low conversation came from down one long hall, and I followed it to find the two of them in yet another bedroom.
“Kreizler, I swear to you, I don’t know,” Mr. Moore was saying as I reached the door. “And I don’t think he does either, or at least he’s never told me—”
“There are several manias that could account for it,” the Doctor said carefully. “And some of them are degenerative.” He gave Mr. Moore what you might call an uncertain look. “We’re risking a great deal on this man, John.”
“Laszlo, listen to me. It has never impaired his work. It used to be a bit of a joke in social situations, but in the courtroom it’s a genuine boon. He can absolutely overwhelm defense lawyers when he gets going—” Mr. Moore stopped as he caught sight of me at the door; then he smiled, thankful for away, I think, to end his conversation with the Doctor. “Hello, Stevie. Got my things, by any chance?”
Ignoring the question, I just shrugged, looked to the Doctor, and repeated what I’d said to Cyrus: “I like him.”
“There you are,” Mr. Moore announced, taking two of the suitcases from me. “What is it they say about children and dogs being the best judges of character, Kreizler? I don’t remember alienists elbowing their way onto the list anytime recently.”
“I assure you both, my concern in no way reflects on the man’s character,” the Doctor said. “He seems entirely straightforward and likable—and that’s not a bad bit of work for a lawyer. Nor am I saying that his difficulty is without doubt mental or emotional in origin—there are several physical pathologies that could easily be responsible.”
Mr. Moore nodded once. “All right, then. Let’s drop this business for now.”
“For now,” the Doctor agreed, taking his suitcases from me and then examining my neck and hands. “Good Lord, Stevie,” he said, with a combination of a scowl and a laugh. “What have you been doing? Make certain you find a washroom before lunch, young man.”
Once Cyrus and I had all the bags inside, I took a bedroom up on the third floor with the detective sergeants and went into the bathroom to wash up before lunch. The noise of the running water bounced off the marble and tiles of the big chamber, to the point where it sounded as though I might be standing by a waterfall: everything in that house, it seemed, was unusually large—cavernous, even—and as I dried my face, neck, and hands I began to wonder who would’ve built such a place, and what had become of them. But, funnily enough, there was no longer any fear in the wondering: huge and mysterious as the house might be, I found that Mr. Picton filled it with a feverish but friendly kind of activity, and that I’d stopped feeling like I might be in a dangerous spot.
Starting back down toward the ground floor and the dining room, where the others were already collected, I ran my hand along the fat banister of the staircase and suddenly realized that it would be just the thing for sliding. I didn’t know why the thought should’ve occurred to me, I only knew that it was the first really amusing idea that I’d had in days. So I looked down, scouted the ground-floor hallway, and, not seeing anyone, decided to give the banister a try. Feeling ever more playful and relaxed, I climbed aboard on the second-floor landing and gave myself a little push-off—
And in about a second and a half found myself sprawled on the floor in the front hall. The banister had been even more suitable—which is to say slippery—than I’d figured, and after flying off of it I’d hit the hallway carpet at high speed, sliding across the polished floor and into the front door with a crash. That brought the others out of the dining room, and produced a look of shock on the Doctor’s face.
“Stevie!” he said. “What in the world—”
“Ha!” Mr. Picton bellowed, snatching his pipe out of his mouth and leaning back to have a good laugh. Then he came over to help me up. “More slippery than it looks, eh, Master Taggert? Don’t be embarrassed—the same thing happened to me the first time I tried it, and that was just a few years ago! Nothing broken, I hope?” I shook my head, feeling my face go red; but Mr. Picton’s open confession of similar foolery made me feel much better about it. “Good!” he went on. “Then come in and have some lunch. Afterwards, I’ll show you a few tricks that’ll keep your speed down—and your backside intact!”
I followed the others into the dining room, getting another perplexed look from the Doctor as I went.
Mr. Picton insisted on escorting each of us to our seats and further insisted that the Doctor take the head of the table. “I’m perfectly happy at the foot,” he said, when the Doctor protested, “and this is your investigation, Doctor—I don’t want you to think for a minute that I don’t understand that. We’ll have a great deal to discuss at this table, and I want you to consider me simply your latest ally—and pupil.”
“That is gracious indeed, Mr. Picton,” the Doctor said in an even tone, as he carefully and curiously studied our host.
Mr. Picton took his seat at the foot of the table and rang a small bell, at which Mrs. Hastings appeared through a swinging door what led through to the kitchen. She was carrying the first of many platters of food. “All from the farms and streams of our own county,” Mr. Picton explained. “And, though simply prepared, no less appetizing for its humility. John, there’s some decent claret on the side table there, if you wouldn’t mind pouring.” As Mr. Moore eagerly moved to follow the order, Mr. Picton looked my way. “And we have a full case of root beer in the kitchen for you, Master Taggert—Mrs. Hastings will bring you a bottle. John tells me you are a devotee, and I confess, I have a weakness for the stuff myself.” Glancing around the table as the rest of us started heaping chicken, brook trout, sweet peas, baby carrots, and mashed potatoes onto our plates, Mr. Picton held up his glass. “And so—welcome, all of you!” He took a deep drink, and then his silvery eyes opened wide. “Now, then—let me tell you what I know abo
ut Libby Hatch …”
CHAPTER 29
She arrived here,” Mr. Picton began, as he put some food onto his own plate, “just over ten years ago, as near as I can tell. From Stillwater.”
“Yes,” Miss Howard said. “She listed it as her place of birth on one of the hospital forms we saw.”
“Did she?” Mr. Picton answered. “Well, that was just another lie, I’m afraid. I’ve checked the birth records of every town in this county. There’s no listing for an ‘Elspeth Fraser,’ which was her name back then. She did, however, live in Stillwater for a time—though just how long, I don’t know.”
“And you never ascertained where she actually was born during your investigation?” the Doctor asked, a little surprised.
“You proceed from the assumption that I was allowed to conduct an investigation, Doctor. The case of Libby Hatch, her assaulted children, and the phantom Negro never got past a coroner’s inquest—my superior at the time could find no justification for either the effort or the expense of a formal investigation, and neither could the sheriff.”
“There’s nothing unusual in that, unfortunately,” Marcus said. “I doubt if there’s one case in twenty involving dead children that gets past a coroner’s inquest. The crimes are too private—it’s just too damned difficult to figure out who did what.”
Mr. Picton looked up with some interest. “I get the feeling you’ve had some legal training, Detective.”
Marcus had just filled his mouth with some of the sweet, buttery peas, so it was Lucius who answered: “Marcus was on his way to becoming a lawyer, when we got involved in police work instead. I was slated for medicine.”
“I see,” Mr. Picton said, smiling and looking very interested. “Well, your analysis is correct, though I’d say your numbers are a little low. I’d be surprised if one child’s death in a hundred is really investigated. And when a white woman claims that a colored man is responsible—I’m sure Mr. Montrose is aware that racial bias is very much alive in the North.” Cyrus just bent his head a little, as if to say he was only too aware of that fact. “So I wasn’t really surprised that the district attorney and the sheriff were so willing to accept Libby’s version of events. As for me, I confess I wasn’t yet aware of what bearing the woman’s background might’ve had on the matter. You see, Dr. Kreizler, I hadn’t yet encountered your writings—your theory of ‘context’—and I was fairly focused on the circumstantial evidence.”
The Doctor gave a polite little shrug to that. “Circumstantial and forensic evidence are invaluable, Mr. Picton—that is why we depend so much on the detective sergeants. But there are crimes that offer few such clues, and that cannot be solved if the personal lives of the participants are not studied in depth.”
“Oh, I completely agree with you now,” Mr. Picton answered, eating his food in quick little movements, like an animal or a bird. “But then, as I say, I hadn’t really been exposed to the concept. The only thing I thought might prove or disprove Mrs. Hatch’s claim was the apprehension of the mysterious Negro, and I unofficially pressed that search as hard and for as long as I could. But after a time, the district attorney ordered me to give up the hunt, and forget the affair. Now, however, I can see that the few facts I did assemble about Mrs. Hatch during that brief time may be relevant, somehow.”
“Very much so,” the Doctor answered. “Detective Sergeant?”
Lucius already had his small pad out. “Yes, sir. I’m on it.”
“Oh. And Mr. Picton”—the Doctor paused to take a sip of his wine—“is there a store in town where we might purchase a chalkboard?”
“A chalkboard?” Mr. Picton repeated. “How large?”
“As large as possible. And as soon as possible.”
Mr. Picton thought the matter over. “No … I can’t think …” Then his face brightened. “Wait a minute. Mrs. Hastings!” The housekeeper appeared almost immediately. “Mrs. Hastings, would you mind telephoning over to the high school? Tell Mr. Quinn that I’d like to borrow one of his largest chalkboards.”
“A chalkboard?” Mrs. Hastings repeated, moving around the table to refill the wineglasses. “What in heaven’s name would your honor want with a chalkboard? And where would we put such a thing?”
“Mrs. Hastings, please, the matter is very urgent,” Mr. Picton said. “And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I’m an assistant district attorney at home, not a judge in a courtroom—you really don’t need to address me as ‘your honor.’”
“Hmm!” Mrs. Hastings grunted, turning and making for the kitchen again. “As if that fool jury would’ve convicted those boys without your driving them to it!” She pounded her way back through the swinging door.
Our host smiled in his nervous, quick way, tugging at his beard and then his hair. “I think we can find something that will suit your needs, Doctor…. And so! We return to the facts of Libby Hatch’s background. Or at least, to what bits and pieces I eventually assembled. Libby Fraser, as I say, was her name when she arrived here. She tried to get all sorts of employment in town, but nothing worked out—she was too headstrong to follow the rules of conduct at the telephone exchange, expressed too many opinions about customers’ tastes to hold a sales position in the ladies’ clothing department of Mosher’s store, and had no real education of any kind, which narrowed her remaining choices down to various domestic positions. Yet she seemed to find that work more objectionable than anything else—she took and lost three positions as a maid in as many months.”
“And yet Vanderbilt had only high praise for her,” Mr. Moore said.
“Yes, I noted that in your last telegram, John,” Mr. Picton replied. “It’s curious. She may have been putting on an act, or she may simply have let the less aggressive side of her nature take over, for a time. After all, most people who knew the woman in her early Ballston days didn’t think she was a wicked person, really—just entirely too determined to do and have things her own way. Everyone expected that those qualities would be knocked out of her, though, when she accepted a post as housekeeper to old Daniel Hatch. He was the local miser—most of these villages have a character like him. Lived in a big, ramshackle house outside town, alone, except for his servants. Dressed in rags, never bathed—and was rumored to have cash stuffed and sewn into every wall and cushion in his place. As mean as a snake, too, and went through housekeepers as if he were keeping score. But Libby took him on—and the shocks just kept coming, for the next several years.”
“Shocks?” the Doctor asked.
“Indeed, Dr. Kreizler. Shocks! Within a few months the old miser and his housekeeper were engaged to be married. The wedding followed a few weeks later. That in itself should not, perhaps, have come as such a surprise—even though she had just turned thirty, Libby Fraser was a youthful, handsome woman. Lovely, in some ways, despite her impulsive manner. And Hatch, though a shriveled old goat, did have a great deal of money. But when a child followed, just nine months after the marriage…. Well, Hatch was seventy-three at the time. And when that first daughter was followed within thirty months by two sons—as you can imagine, it set tongues wagging all over town. Some saw the hand of God in it, and some the work of the Devil. And then there were those few of us who chose to look a little closer to home in trying to determine if Libby Hatch had evil intentions.”
“Evil intentions?” the Doctor repeated, his eyebrows arching a bit.
Mr. Picton laughed and then pushed away from the table, having eaten only half the food what was on his plate. “Oh, dear,” he said, getting up and checking his watch again as he took his pipe out of his jacket pocket. “That’s right, you object to that word, don’t you, Dr. Kreizler?”
The Doctor shrugged. “I don’t know that I object to it,” he said. “I simply find it an ambiguous concept—one that I’ve never had a great deal of use for.”
“Because you feel it contradicts your theory of context,” Mr. Picton answered with a nod, as he began to pace around the table, chewing on his pipe. “B
ut it may surprise you to learn that I disagree with you on that score, Doctor.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed! I accept your proposition that a human being’s actions cannot be fully understood until one has studied the context of his or her entire life. But what if that context has produced a person who is, quite simply, evil? Wicked, pernicious, threatening—to use just a few of Mr. Webster’s definitions.”
“Well,” the Doctor answered, “I’m not at all sure that—”
“I’m not making a mere academic point, Dr. Kreizler—believe me, it will be crucial, if we ever get our day in court!” Stopping to study each of our plates, his head snapping around on his neck like a scared rodent’s, Mr. Picton asked, “Everyone finished eating? Mind if I smoke? No? Good!” He lit a match against his pants and then drew on his pipe in that quick, violent sort of way. “As I was saying—I know that what you seek are explanations for criminal behavior, Doctor, and not excuses for it. And as I say, I admire your quest. But in a case such as this, and a town such as this, we must be especially careful to frame our explanations so that they do not cause either the populace or the jury to view her sympathetically. Because believe me, they will already be inclined to do so, given what will surely be their reluctance to accept our charges against her. Any psychological explanations must only underline the idea that her nature is evil.”
“You seem quite certain that evil does exist, Mr. Picton,” the Doctor said.
“In this case? I have no doubt of it! And when I show you certain things—well, I think that you will believe it, too.” Taking out his watch and checking the time yet again, even though no more than a few minutes had passed since the last time he had, Mr. Picton nodded in satisfaction. “Well! We’ll need to hurry! No time for dessert, I fear—sweets for you later, Master Taggert, along with a lesson on the banister!” In a quick move, he pulled my chair out from the table, and then went around to do the same thing—though more gently—for Miss Howard. Holding one arm toward the door, he looked to the others. “We’ll walk up to the court house, and after that drive out to the eastern outskirts of town.” His eyes came to rest on the head of the table. “And there, Dr. Kreizler, you will see and hear some surprising things. About how a lone woman can cast first a sinister and then a sympathetic spell over an entire town. And when you’ve heard and seen the details—not to mention the effects—of her technique and her actions, I daresay you may change your opinions concerning the existence of evil.”