The Death Instinct

'Sorry to take your time, Mr Lamont,' said Littlemore. 'It can't be easy for you.'

'Not easy?' replied Lamont, whose normally bland countenance looked overburdened by responsibility. 'With Mr Morgan overseas, the duty of speaking to the families of the dead and wounded has fallen to me. I feel responsible for every one of them. Do you know that our dome very nearly fell? And the entire Exchange almost came down yesterday as well. We were a hair's breadth from complete catastrophe. Thousands would have died. Wall Street would have been ruined. I can't comprehend how this could have happened. If you could be brief, Captain, I'd appreciate it.'

'Okay,' said Littlemore. 'I'd like to know who your enemies are.'

'I'm sorry?'

'Not yours personally. The company's.'

'I don't think I understand,' said Lamont. 'Mr Flynn of the Bureau of Investigation assured me this morning that the explosion was not directed against the Morgan firm in particular.'

'They left the bomb right outside your door, Mr Lamont. They almost brought your building down.'

'That's not how Mr Flynn sees it.'

'Those are facts, sir,' said Littlemore.

'If I'm not mistaken, Captain, this whole tragedy might yet prove the result of an accident on a dynamite wagon. I will not be party to speculation that J. P. Morgan and Company is under attack.'

'When was the last time you heard of a dynamite wagon loaded with a half ton of shrapnel?'

'But who would attack a bank in such a way?' asked Lamont. 'Where is the profit in it? This firm comes to the assistance of people in need all over the world. Who would want to attack us?'

'Let me put it this way, Mr Lamont. My men deal with murders of loan sharks all the time. Your business isn't too different — just bigger. What I always ask is who the shark's been leaning on to pay up. Or whether there's another shark in the water that might want a piece of the action.'

'I see,' said Lamont.

'If you'll forgive the comparison,' said Littlemore.

'I don't,' said Lamont. 'This firm does not "lean on" its debtors, Captain.'

'Sure you don't. And you don't have any enemies either, right? Only friends?'

Lamont didn't answer.

'You hedge your bets for a living, sir,' said Littlemore. 'Every banker does. I'm offering you a hedge. There's a chance the bombers are after your company. Maybe they were sending you a message. Maybe they'll send you another. Do you want to take that chance?'

Lamont lowered his voice: 'No.'

'I might just catch them if you put in a little time helping me out. That'd be a pretty big return for a small investment, Mr Lamont.'

'It would indeed,' Lamont agreed. 'You are independent of Chief Flynn?'

'I'm with the New York Police Department,' said Littlemore. 'We don't take our orders from Mr Flynn.'

'Give the receptionist your card, Captain. You have a card?'

'I've got a card.'

'I'll consider what you've said.'

Dusk had fallen when Littlemore arrived at Younger's detention cell.

'Geez, Doc, you pulverized him,' said the detective, unlocking the barred door. 'He looks like a bulldozer ran over his face.'

Younger put on his jacket and came out of the cell.

'I bailed you,' said the detective. 'Smoke?'

'Thanks,' said Younger. His shirt collar was loose, knuckles bruised. 'Did he get away?'

'No,' replied Littlemore. 'I sent a couple of boys to the hospital as soon as I heard. When the doctors clear him, we'll put him behind bars. I've got him — for now.'

The detective handed a large brown paper envelope to Younger, from which the latter shook out his necktie, watch, wallet, and other personal effects. 'For now?' he asked.

'How do we prove he's Drobac? Even I can't identify the guy after what you did to his face. We're going to need a lot more before his trial rolls around. But that's okay. Trial won't be for another six months.'

'I can identify him,' said Younger, putting on his watch.

'Hate to tell you, but your say-so became a little less weighty when you got yourself charged with attempted murder.'

Younger eyed the detective.

'That's how the DA saw it,' said Littlemore. 'Assault with intent to kill. I was lucky to get you out. The judge wasn't going for it until I mentioned that you were a Harvard man. Harvard man and Harvard professor. And Roosevelt was your cousin. And you slept with Roosevelt's daughter. Okay, I didn't say that.'

'As a matter of fact,' said Younger, looping his tie around his neck, 'I did intend to kill him.'

'No, you didn't.'

'Who does he say he is?'

'Funny thing,' said Littlemore, 'but he's not talking. Seems his mouth is wired shut because somebody broke his jaw in three places. Boy, you better be right.'

'It's Drobac. He was limping. He had marks on his face.'

'Not proof.'

'Can't you take his fingerprints?'

'Did it,' said Littlemore. 'But they have to match something. We got no prints on the knives. No matching prints in the room downtown. No matching prints on the car. No prints at all on Colette's laboratory box. Nothing. He knew what he was doing.'

Neither spoke.

'Why would he come after us?' asked Younger.

'Maybe he wanted to get rid of the people who can finger him.'

'Where is she?' asked Younger, fastening his cufflinks.

'The Miss? Giving her lecture.'

'What?'

'She wouldn't take no for an answer,' said Littlemore. 'Made me get all her samples out of the evidence locker.'

That night A. Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General of the United States, arrived in Manhattan by special train from the nation's capital.

A long black-and-gold car — a Packard Twin Six Imperial, the kind of car only very rich men could afford — was waiting for him outside Pennsylvania Station. Inside was a dapper gentleman who wore a top hat, with the points of his shirt collar up.

The car took Palmer to the Treasury Building opposite the Morgan Bank on Wall Street. Soldiers, saluting, stepped aside as the two men ascended the marble stairs and passed through the massive portal. A half-hour later, Palmer and the well-dressed gentleman reappeared. The latter led the Attorney General around the colonnade to a narrow alleyway separating the Treasury from the adjacent Assay Building. The alleyway was barred by a tall wrought-iron gate, which had to be unlocked to let the Attorney General through.

The two men walked halfway down that alley, the top-hatted gentleman pointing up to the second floors of the not-quite-abutting buildings. There, one story above the street, what looked strangely like garage doors in midair faced each other across the alley. Attorney General Palmer shook his head grimly, then informed the gentleman that he would be quitting New York the next day. The investigation of the bombing would remain in the hands of Bureau Director Flynn. Palmer himself would travel on to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, to visit with family.

The Marie Curie Radium Fund held a special lecture presentation on September 17, 1920, in the Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue. The Fund was the brainchild of Mrs William B. Meloney, a well- upholstered lady of a certain age, well known in New York philanthropic and literary circles. Mrs Meloney was a working woman, a newspaper woman, who by virtue of her tireless reporting on Manhattan high society had eventually taken a place in it. Like many American women, Mrs Meloney had avidly followed — indeed she had reported on — the travails of the great Marie Curie of France.

'How outrageous it is,' declared the bow-tied Mrs Meloney from the opulent but somber church chancel, 'that Madame Curie, the world's most eminent scientist, the discoverer of radium, should for mere want of money be prohibited from continuing her investigations — investigations that have already led to the radium cure for our cancers, the radium face and hand creams that eliminate our unsightly blemishes' — Mrs Meloney was, in addition to her other pursuits, editor of a leading woman's magazine — 'and the radium-infused waters that restore conjugal vitality to our husbands.'