“The department doesn’t want to get involved,” the Doctor said, “because no one that they view as being of any importance has yet been killed. You know as well as I do that such has always been the rule in this city, Marcus-we had a brief respite under Roosevelt, but none of the reforms really took hold.”
“Then what’s our answer?” Lucius asked, looking around the room.
I knew what I was thinking, and I knew that Mr. Moore and Marcus probably felt the same way. if nobody else was going to take care of the job, it was up to us to go down there, bust into that hell house on Bethune Street, and do what had to be done. But none of the three of us was going to give voice to this opinion while the Doctor was in the room, knowing, as we did, that he placed such a high value on our taking Libby Hatch alive.
Which was why his next line of thought came as kind of a surprise: “The navy,” he said quietly, his black eyes lighting up.
“The what?”Mr. Moore responded, looking dumbfounded.
“The navy,”the Doctor repeated, turning to Marcus. “Detective Sergeant-we know that the Hudson Dusters relish conflict with the New York City Police Department. How would they feel, do you suppose, about an encounter with the United States Navy?”
“Kreizler,” Mr. Moore said, “you have obviously gone around some bend-”
Ignoring Mr. Moore, Marcus began to nod. “Offhand, I’d say they’d back off-navy men are, as you know, pretty renowned brawlers. And they carry the authority of the federal government, not just the city-political connections and local rivalries wouldn’t get into the thing.”
The Doctor began to bounce the knuckles of his right hand against his mouth. “Yes,” he said quietly. Then another thought seemed to flash in his head. “The White Star Line’s pier is, I believe, just a few blocks around the corner from Libby Hatch’s house on Bethune Street, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, it is,” Miss Howard said, looking puzzled. “At Tenth Street. Why, Doctor?”
Seeing a copy of the morning edition of the Times tucked into Marcus’s jacket pocket, the Doctor stood up and snatched it away. Quickly ruffling its pages, he searched for what seemed like some small but important piece of information. “No White Star ships currently in port,” he eventually said with a nod. “Then he could have a vessel land there, and we could approach the house from the rear-taking the gang by relative surprise.”
“Who could?” Mr. Moore near shouted. “Laszlo, what in hell-” All of a sudden, his jaw dropped as he got it. “Oh, no. Oh, no, Kreizler, that is insane, you can’t-not Roosevelt!”
“Yes,” the Doctor answered, looking up from the paper with a smile. “Roosevelt.”
Mr. Moore scrambled to his feet. “Get Theodore involved in this case? Once he finds out what’s going on, he’ll start his damned war against Spain right here in this city!”
“Precisely why,” the Doctor replied, “he must not be told all the details. Ana Linares’s name and lineage need not concern him. The fact that we are attempting to solve a string of murders and a kidnapping and can get no satisfaction from the New York police will be more than enough to rouse Theodore’s interest.”
“But,” said Miss Howard, who, like Mr. Moore and the Doctor, had known Mr. Roosevelt for most of her life, “what can even Theodore possibly do? He’s assistant secretary of the navy, yes, but-”
“And just now he’s treating the entire fleet as if it were his own,” the Doctor replied, holding up an envelope. “A letter from him came during our absence. It seems that Secretary Long is on vacation for the month of August, and Theodore has been making bold moves. He’s becoming known as ‘the warm-weather secretary’ around Washington, a fact of which he is inordinately-and typically-proud. I’m certain there are one or two serviceable vessels and crews out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard-perhaps even closer. More than enough men to meet our purposes. An order from Roosevelt is all the thing would require.”
Mr. Moore was gently slapping his own face, trying to come to grips with the notion. “Let me get this straight: You’re proposing that Roosevelt order the United States Navy to invade Greenwich Village and engage the Hudson Dusters?”
The Doctor’s mouth curled up gently again. “Essentially, yes.”
Marcus stepped in quickly. “It may sound outlandish, John,” he said, looking encouraged by the idea. “But it won’t play that way in reports. If any violence should occur, it’ll just read like a typical brawl between sailors and gangsters. And while it goes on, we’ll be able to do what we need to.”
Tucking his letter from Mr. Roosevelt into his jacket, the Doctor dashed for the stairs. “I’m going to telephone him in Washington straightway,” he said, heading down toward the kitchen. “There’s no time to be lost-the woman must even now be planning her flight from the city!”
Suddenly there was a new feeling of life in the house, one brought on, I knew, by the bare possibility of even indirect involvement in the case on the part of Mr. Roosevelt. He had that effect on people, did the former police commissioner: of all the Doctor’s close friends there wasn’t one with a purer love of life, of action-and most especially of a good fight, whether boxing or politics or war. But he was a kind man, too, was Mr. Roosevelt, as kind as anyone what ever came to the Doctor’s house in all the years I lived there; and I found that even I, in my saddened state, took a lot of heart from the thought that he might give us a hand in bringing Libby Hatch to justice. Oh, the idea was a crazy one, Mr. Moore was right about that much; but practically every undertaking Mr. Roosevelt got involved with seemed crazy, at the start-yet most of them ended up being not only important but happy achievements. So as we waited for the Doctor to return from the pantry, we began to talk over the details of the plan with an interest what bordered on enthusiasm-enthusiasm what was very surprising, considering all we’d been through.
When the Doctor came back upstairs, he was, if not out-and-out excited, at least very satisfied. “He’ll do it. He wants us to wait here-he’ll have someone from the navy yard inform us of what vessel will be available and when. But he promises action tonight.”
Mr. Moore let out another moan of disbelief, but even he was smiling a bit by that point. “May God help us…”
So began more long hours of waiting. During the first couple of these our quiet anticipation grew, fed by more of Cyrus’s coffee, into a strange sort of hopeful fidgeting; but as the afternoon wore on this feeling started to ebb, mostly because the telephone and the doorbell remained notably silent. Mr. Roosevelt was not a man to waste time; and the fact that we weren’t getting word from any of his people, in Brooklyn or anywhere else, seemed what you might call mystifying. The rain didn’t let up, and eventually its steady rhythm helped exhaustion take hold of each of us: eager we might’ve been, but that didn’t change the fact that nobody’d really slept for more than an hour or so since Saturday night. One by one members of our group began to drift off to bedrooms for catnaps, and each, including me, woke from these fitful spells of slumber to the disappointing news that there’d still been no message from either Washington or Brooklyn.
Finally, as five o’clock drew near, the Doctor went back downstairs to call Mr. Roosevelt again; and when he returned this time his mood was very different from what it’d been earlier. He hadn’t gotten through to his friend, but he had come away from a conversation with Mr. Roosevelt’s secretary with the distinct impression that the man was in his office and avoiding the Doctor’s call specifically. No one could make any sense out of this at alclass="underline" Mr. Roosevelt was not a man to avoid a straight, nose-to-nose jawing with anybody, especially someone he cared about and respected. If he’d found he couldn’t deliver on his earlier pledge to the Doctor, he would certainly have gotten on the telephone to say so. What, then, could be the explanation? Had he discovered the Spanish connection to the case of Libby Hatch somehow, and decided to pursue a separate course on his own?