A Curtain Falls (6 page)

I was announced from the lobby, so even before we knocked on the door of Alistair’s eighth-floor apartment, his house keeper, Mrs. Mellown, stood ready to open the door. She greeted me with a perfunctory “Detective Ziele”— and if she remembered me from last fall, she gave no indication of it. She briskly took charge of our coats and muddy shoes before we stepped onto the plush Turkish and Indian carpets that lined the hallway to Alistair’s library. Then she ushered us into a space that might have resembled a small, intimate art museum, for Alistair had traveled widely and his home was filled with artifacts from his journeys.

She led us past rooms filled with Chinese vases, European paintings, carved wooden and marble statues, and even a tapestry depicting a unicorn and its hunter. But all this was nothing compared to the library itself, filled with bookshelves that ran the expanse of all four walls. Reaching from floor to ceiling, they held leather-bound tomes and stone artifacts and were interrupted only by a marble-and-tile fireplace on the southern wall
and an expansive window to the east. Today, that window offered a spectacular view of Central Park blanketed in snow. Mulvaney’s breath caught sharply the moment he saw it, though he was normally not one to be impressed by such things.

Alistair faced the fireplace as we entered, and while I’m certain he heard our footsteps, he did not turn until Mulvaney discreetly cleared his throat.

At the sound, Alistair walked over to Mulvaney with a broad smile. “I don’t think we’ve ever formally met, though I’ve heard much about you. I’m Alistair Sinclair.”

“Declan Mulvaney” was the curt response.

They shook hands vigorously. Then Alistair turned to me with a stiff, unreadable expression. From the deep lines that ran along his face, I suspected the past few months had not been easy for him. After the conclusion of our last case together, the press had ridiculed him mercilessly, with papers sporting headlines like R
ENOWNED
C
RIMINAL
L
AW
P
ROFESSOR
H
ARBORS
K
ILLER IN
O
WN
R
ESEARCH
L
AB
. The embarrassment had no doubt compounded the personal betrayal he had suffered.

“Ziele.” He clasped my hand in a firm shake, though, as always, he was careful enough not to jostle my injured right arm.

As I greeted him in return, his eyes met my own and I was struck anew by their color and clarity. They were not a typical blue but rather a bright azure— and while they glittered with alert intelligence, their startling color also suggested an absence of warmth.

After a few more pleasantries, he came to the point. “What brings you here today, gentlemen?”

He did not invite us to sit.

“We’re investigating a difficult case,” I said. “We hoped you
might be able to shed light on some challenging evidence we’ve encountered.”

As Mulvaney and I continued to stand, awkwardly, Alistair moved to a side table, picked up a decanter of water, and poured himself a glass. He did not offer any to us.

Mulvaney caught my eye and signaled he was ready to abandon this meeting.

But Alistair returned to us. His intellectual curiosity appeared to overpower his desire to hold a grudge.

“What sort of case?” he asked.

“An intriguing one,” I replied. “Just the sort you like best.”

Alistair was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed— and it was a full-throated chuckle. He could not help himself: his eyes brightened and his face flushed with excitement.

“Come and tell me about it.” With sudden enthusiasm, he motioned us to come sit with him by the roaring fire. He sprawled comfortably across a blue velvet sofa, while Mulvaney and I settled into the two paisley armchairs opposite.

I placed the two near-identical letters on the long coffee table between us. He looked at them for a moment without making any movement.

“Love letters?” He arched an eyebrow inquisitively.

“Something like that,” I said, my voice rough. “Care to read?” I cleared my throat. “Obviously from the handwriting and the choice of paper, we assume each was written by the same person.”

“You’ve sealed them.” He noted their protective covering. “I take it they’re evidence, not just incidental to your investigation?”

“We think so,” Mulvaney said. “What can you tell us about them?”

“First, you need to tell me about your case,” Alistair countered.

“Before we do, we’d like to hear your opinion about the letters,” I said, doing my best to sound as though my suggestion were uncalculated.

A dark expression of stubbornness crossed his face, and I thought for a moment that he might refuse. But at last he reached toward the coffee table and in a swooping, deliberate motion, he lifted up the eggshell-blue letter marked
EXHIBIT ONE
. It was the letter found near Miss Downs at the Empire Theater, where she had been killed three weeks earlier.

Alistair checked the watermark, but I was one step ahead of him.

I said, “It’s by Crane’s, which as you know is easily obtained at almost any fine stationery store in the city. I don’t think we’ll be successful in tracking the writer through his choice of paper.”

“The writing is more important anyhow,” he said indifferently before reading aloud. “ ‘I found a thing to do . . . and strangled her.’ ” He paused. “I take it this writing is regarding a person— a woman— who was strangled?”

I exchanged glances with Mulvaney. After he nodded almost imperceptibly, I said, “We think it’s possible, pending the coroner’s official report.”

“So there were no outward signs?” Alistair was becoming more visibly excited by the moment. “No bruising around the neck? Or, what about the eyes? If they aren’t visibly bulging, at least the red capillaries inside the lid may have burst from the pressure.”

I shook my head as I recalled Max Wilcox’s use of a buttonhole device to turn Miss Germaine’s lids inside out. He had
examined her capillaries yet had found nothing conclusive. I had previously heard of certain killers possessing the considerable skill required to strangle a victim and yet leave no sign of it. But such a feat could normally be accomplished only by an experienced killer— and I explained as much to Alistair.

“If she was indeed strangled, then I’ll expect Wilcox to tell us her killer probably used a soft material. And to that I’ll add the fact that he likely has developed some practice or expertise in the matter.”

Alistair’s mouth opened slightly. “Well, then. This is indeed interesting, Ziele.” With renewed energy, he reached for the second letter and read it quickly. “ ‘Yet I’ll not shed her blood, Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster.’ Your writer does have a way with words, though I don’t think they are his own. In the first, he mentions a ‘wise poet,’ and here he talks of ‘one of our greatest poets.’ And something about the lines is familiar. . . .”

He tapped his foot as he thought, but when he came up with nothing, he rang the bell for Mrs. Mellown, his unflappable house keeper. She soon appeared, bearing a large silver tray filled with tea and an assortment of almond butter cookies. She must have prepared it after showing us in. As we helped ourselves, Alistair asked her to check whether Isabella was at home.

“I assume you want her to come over?” Mrs. Mellown asked as she busied herself removing some dishes Alistair had left on his desk.

“Please.” Alistair mumbled the word as he finished swallowing a cookie. “Of course you remember Isabella, Ziele.”

How could I not?

“She loves poetry and will be familiar with these verses. I’m sure of it,” Alistair said.

I took a gulp of tea to wash down the crumbs that had gone dry in my mouth. Facing Alistair again had been difficult enough. I had not expected to see Isabella as well. When we had last seen each other, she had been recovering from a gunshot wound sustained in the final moments of that murder case. I had felt it best to disentangle myself from everything associated with Alistair’s world— including his widowed daughter-in-law, for whom I had developed an attraction that was as uncomfortable as it was inconvenient.

It seemed mere seconds passed before I looked up— and saw her there.

She looked thinner than in November and I could sense her reserve around us. Though her eyes still sparkled warmly, she greeted me and Mulvaney with a perfunctory smile. She had not wanted to come, I realized with disappointment.

If Alistair registered any awkwardness, however, he disregarded it. For him, any lingering resentment had disappeared. The letters had sparked his insatiable curiosity, and when he was intrigued by something, all else was irrelevant.

“Look at this,” he said to Isabella, making room for her on the sofa beside him. “I’ve read this poem before, but I expect you will know exactly where it is from.”

Smoothing her dark brown skirt as she sat, she took both letters from him; her eyes darted rapidly across the page as she read. I watched her brow crinkle as she registered their contents. “How did you come by these?” she asked.

“Each was placed near a young woman found dead, most likely strangled,” I answered.

She thought for a moment. “Well, the poetry is quite simple. In your first letter, the writer is quoting from Robert Browning. His
Porphyria’s Lover
contains this whole stanza.”

She placed the letter on the coffee table, turning it so we might read the stanza again.

. . . I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

“But the killer didn’t do any of that,” Mulvaney said. “She wore a wig, and she certainly wasn’t strangled with her hair.”

Isabella smiled. “I’ll explain more in a moment. But first, look at what he did in his second letter, which is taken from Shakespeare’s
Othello
.”

Isabella rose from the sofa and walked to the bookshelves half a wall’s distance from the fireplace. Using a small stepladder, she climbed to a midlevel shelf and pulled out a large, leather-bound volume. Returning to the coffee table, she put it down and flipped through page after page.

“Here it is,” she said triumphantly. “Act five. Scene two. Line three. ‘Yet I’ll not shed her blood. Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow . . . smooth as monumental alabaster.’ ”

“Browning and Shakespeare.” Alistair mulled it over. “I’d say your writer is an educated man. That is also supported by his general writing: he uses precise diction; his words are correctly spelled; there are no errors of usage or punctuation.”

“So you think he’s an upper-class gent?” Mulvaney asked.

“Not necessarily.” Alistair was cautious as he explained. “Look at the handwriting: it’s neat and legible. He has bought quality paper. And he has quoted from two great writers of the English language. But what that tells me is not necessarily that our man
is
of the upper class— but rather that he has put a great deal of effort into making us
think
he is.”

We took a moment to consider what he had said.

“What else can you tell us about this writer, specifically from these letters?” I urged.

Alistair responded archly, “Ziele, you delight me. Am I to surmise you have come round to my way of thinking about criminal behavior?”

“No need to get carried away,” I said with good humor. “I’m no convert to your theories. But in a case like this, where we’ve so little to go on, there’s no harm in exploring all avenues of thought.”

“Especially in a case like this, where your killer is actually communicating with you,” Alistair said, and his voice had assumed a note of warning. “Ziele, you know I don’t believe criminals are born. I’ve never adhered to that particular fiction perpetuated by Lombroso and his followers that locates the reason for criminal behavior in biological makeup. Biology may play a role, to be sure. But it is not
the
role. The criminal is formed through some circumstance or set of circumstances in his life. So our question becomes, what formed him? You, Ziele,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “will like it better if I frame the question this way: what forms his motive? Why does he behave as he does? Why—”

“Why does he kill as he does?” I cut him off before he could finish.

“Exactly.” His voice was low and grave.

We regarded each other in silent understanding.

Alistair spread the letters on the table at an angle, allowing each of us to see them. Then he continued to talk.

“First, I ask you: what do these two pieces have in common?”

And he waited. He could have told us, of course. But it was clear he wanted us to see it for ourselves.

“Uh . . . each letter talks about a dead woman,” Mulvaney responded gamely.

“Exactly!” Alistair’s enthusiasm was as great as if we’d just discovered something very important.

Mulvaney was dubious. “But if he didn’t write the poetry, why does it matter?”