CHAPTER 45

Spirits were very depressed around Mr. Picton’s house that night, all the more so because at the start of the day we’d figured that the afternoon’s events would put us pretty firmly in control of the case. Instead, the clever Mr. Darrow had battled us to what amounted to a draw, or maybe worse: he’d made Clara look unsure and confused, and he’d planted the idea that her confidence and maybe even her story had been the Doctor’s work, not her own. True, the facts as she’d recalled them worked to our favor; but as anybody who’s ever been involved with the law will tell you, facts aren’t always or even usually what decides a case. And so we didn’t talk much during dinner, the adults putting most of their energy into making another good-sized dent in Mr. Picton’s wine cellar. After the meal Marcus and Mr. Moore took the trolley on up to Saratoga to try to get an idea of what the general public’s reaction to Clara’s testimony’d been-though the answer to that question seemed pretty obvious.

As for me, I found that nightfall brought more worries about Kat. Ana Linares was still on my mind, too, as she was on everybody else’s; but the thought of what would happen if Libby got off, went back to New York, and found Kat trying to protect the baby tugged at my heart and my stomach in a way what I found I just couldn’t control. After dinner I went for a long walk, and when I came back I just sat out on the front porch of the house, still trying to think my way out of what I was feeling by telling myself that Kat should’ve already left New York, that she only had herself to blame for her new predicament. But it didn’t really work. The more I considered the problem, the more it brought me to a state of mind what was typical, when it came to my dealings with Kat: a kind of frustrated sadness, and underneath it a sense that somehow I was to blame for at least part of the situation.

Wrapped up in such cogitations and emotions, I barely noticed the sound of the screen door opening behind me. I knew it was the Doctor: he’d been able to read my worried face at dinner, and it would’ve been like him to want to make sure I was all right. I didn’t feel much like talking-as usual, the subject of Kat only made me feel stupid when I discussed it with other people-and so I was grateful when he just sat beside me and didn’t say a thing. We listened to the crickets for a time, and traded a few short comments about a swarm of fireflies what were giving a good imitation of the starry sky above us out on Mr. Picton’s front lawn. Other than that, though, we stayed wrapped up in our separate worries.

It was plain what the Doctor was thinking: the moment when Clara Hatch’d run past him and out the door of the courtroom had been a terrible one, and’d caused him to wonder whether he’d done right by the little girl, or if he hadn’t, in fact, been using her for his own purposes instead of helping her. There wasn’t anything I could tell him-I honestly didn’t know how I felt about it. Maybe silence and forgetting would’ve been better, part of me thought, for somebody like Clara Hatch; maybe facing the devils of your past, especially at such a young age, was just a painful waste; maybe the key to life, despite everything the Doctor believed and’d spent his life working on, was to just put the ugliness what you encounter-what every person encounters-behind you, and get on with things. Maybe memory was just a wicked curse, and the kind of mind what could wipe out painful recollections a blessing. Maybe…

We were still sitting there on the porch when Mr. Moore and Marcus came wandering up. Catching sight of them, the Doctor stood and called out, “Did you see White?”

Mr. Moore nodded, holding up a small envelope. “We saw him.” They reached the steps, and Mr. Moore handed the envelope to the Doctor. “He didn’t have much to say, though.”

“There’s more,” Marcus added, as the rest of our group, drawn by the returning men’s voices, came out onto the porch. “Several other guests arrived at the Grand Union today-courtesy of Mr. Vanderbilt.”

“Defense witnesses?” Miss Howard asked.

Marcus nodded, then looked to his brother. “They’re bringing in Hamilton, Lucius.”

The younger Isaacson’s eyes went wide. “Hamilton? You’re joking!”

Marcus shook his head as Mr. Picton asked, “And who is ‘Hamilton’?”

“Doctor Albert Hamilton, of Auburn, New York,” Marcus said. “Though there’s no proof that he actually has a doctorate of any kind. He used to sell patent medicine. Now he passes himself off as an expert in everything from ballistics to toxicology to anatomy. A complete charlatan-but he’s made quite a name for himself as a legal expert, and he’s fooled a lot of smart people. Sent a lot of innocent ones to the gallows, too.”

“And Darrow’s engaged him?” Mr. Picton asked.

Marcus nodded. “My guess is, you’ll get a request for the gun and the bullets first thing in the morning, so Hamilton can run his own ‘tests’ on them.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Lucius said. “Hamilton will say anything the people paying him want him to say!”

“Which is the easiest way to become a successful expert witness,” Mr. Picton grunted. “Anybody else?”

“Yes,” Mr. Moore answered. “And I do not like the possibilities involved with this one. Darrow wants somebody he can present as an expert on feminine psychology and character-someone fairly local, who the crowd’ll be familiar with and maybe even sympathetic to.” He turned to Miss Howard. “It’s your friend Mrs. Cady Stanton, Sara.”

“Mrs. Cady Stanton?”Miss Howard repeated.

“But she was there,”Cyrus commented, looking worried. “When we had the sketch made-she knows we’ve been after the woman.”

“Exactly why Darrow wants her, I suspect,” Marcus said. “He’ll try to paint this as a witch-hunt on the Doctor’s part.”

“He won’t get far,” Mr. Picton pledged firmly. “Your earlier meeting with Mrs. Cady Stanton relates to another case, an unproved case that has yet to be officially investigated, and I can use that to our advantage here. If Darrow even hints at what you were up to in New York, I’ll get Judge Brown to slap him down for going outside the merits of this case.”

“Yes,” Miss Howard said, “but the fact that she knows we’ve been after Libby for so long is likely to make Mrs. Cady Stanton hostile-and she can be very persuasive when her blood’s up.” Considering the possibility, Miss Howard kicked at one of the posts that held up the roof of the porch. “Damn it, that man’s clever.”

The Doctor had heard all of this, but hadn’t commented on it: he was too busy reading his note from Dr. White, which seemed to cause him much concern.

“More good news, Kreizler?” Mr. Moore asked, seeing the worried look on the Doctor’s face.

“It’s certainly not what I was hoping for,” the Doctor answered with a shrug. “White says that, given the circumstances, he doesn’t think it would be a good idea for us to meet before he’s given his testimony. It’s not the sort of attitude he would typically take.”

“Maybe not,” Mr. Picton said. “But it’s consistent-Darrow’s keeping a tight lid on everything and everyone connected to his case. I think he’s been a little surprised by how prepared we’ve been, and wants to make sure he can offer some surprises of his own in return. That’s certainly what we saw today.”

“Well, surprisingly enough, it seems that we don’t need to overreact to what happened today,” Marcus advised, heading inside. “At least, not according to the betting line at Canfield’s.”

“Where does it stand now?” Cyrus asked, following Marcus into the house.

“No change,” Mr. Moore called after them. “Still sixty to one against a conviction-and Canfield’s finding a lot of takers, even at those odds.”

Without moving his eyes from the note he’d received, the Doctor asked, “And how much did you lose while ascertaining that information, Moore?”