“But you haven’t told me about the other developments-”
“Later,” he answered.
The line clicked dead, leaving me with no choice but to wait until that evening to find out what in the world Mr. Moore could’ve been talking about.
CHAPTER 7
Dr. Kreizler managed to sleep until midafternoon, after which he called Cyrus into his study. I popped my head in, too, to let the Doctor know that Mr. Moore, Miss Howard, and the Isaacsons intended on coming by for cocktails, a prospect what seemed to give him some consolation. Then he and Cyrus started to sort through all the mail the Doctor hadn’t attended to in recent days. While they were closeted away with this work, I tried to get a few hours of study in, though my effort wasn’t exactly wholehearted. Excusing myself with the thought that most kids weren’t required to do schoolwork in the summertime, I headed down to the carriage house to have a secret smoke and give Frederick some more oats and another brushdown. Then it was Gwendolyn’s turn, which she waited for with her usual patience. She was a good horse, as strong as Frederick but without his spunk, and spending time with her helped to ease some of my anxiousness.
Our guests showed up at near 6:30. The sun was still bright behind the two square, squat towers of St. George’s Church on the west side of Stuyvesant Park, what with it being the longest day of the year, and all reports said that the weather would hold through most of the week. Mr. Moore and the others trotted up the stairs to the parlor, where the Doctor was reading a letter and listening to Cyrus play and sing a sad, lonely operatic number that most likely had something to do with people falling in love and then dying (such being the general concern of operas, from what little I’ve ever been able to make out about that particular musical form). I watched the scene that followed, as was my habit, from a shadowy corner at the top of the next flight of stairs.
The Doctor rose and shook each person’s hand warmly, while Mr. Moore smacked a palm against the Doctor’s back.
“Laszlo-you look like hell,” he announced, immediately making for a silver box of cigarettes that contained a nice blend of Virginia and Russian black tobaccos.
“It’s good of you to notice, Moore,” the Doctor answered with a sigh, indicating the easy chair across from his to Miss Howard. “Sara, please.”
“As ever, John is the soul of tact,” Miss Howard said as she sat down. “All things considered, Doctor, I think you look remarkably well.”
“Hmm, yes,” the Doctor noised doubtfully. “All things considered…” Miss Howard smiled again as she realized how backhanded her compliment had been, but the Doctor smiled back, letting her off the hook and telling her he appreciated the thought. “And the detective sergeants are here as well,” he went on. “This is indeed a welcome surprise. I’ve had a letter from Roosevelt today-I’ve just been reading it.”
“Really?” Lucius said, moving closer to the Doctor’s chair with his brother. “What’s he say?”
“I bet he’s not terrorizing the sailors the way he did our beat cops,” Marcus added.
“I hate to interrupt,” Mr. Moore said from across the room, “but we did come for cocktails. Are we free to fix them ourselves, Kreizler?” He indicated a nearby glass-and-mahogany cart what was loaded down with bottles. “I trust that battle-axe downstairs isn’t going to do it. What is she, anyway, some kind of refugee or something?”
“Mrs. Leshko?” As he spoke, the Doctor nodded toward the liquor cart, and Mr. Moore ran for it like a dying man in the desert. “No, I fear she actually is our current housekeeper. And, to my everlasting regret, our cook. I have Cyrus trying to find her another position-I’d rather not let her go before she has something else.”
“You don’t mean to say you actually eat her food?” Mr. Moore said, setting out six glasses and filling each of them with gin, a little vermouth, and a dash of bitters: martinis, he called them, though I’ve heard bartenders label the drink a martinez, too. “Laszlo, you know what Russian cuisine is like,” he went on, handing the drinks around. “I mean, they only eat it over there because they have to.”
“I’m painfully aware of that, Moore, believe me.”
“What about the letter, Doctor?” Miss Howard asked as she sipped her drink. “What does our esteemed assistant secretary have to say?”
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” the Doctor answered. “When I last heard from Roosevelt, he told me that he and Cabot Lodge had been spending rather a lot of time at Henry Adams’s house. Henry himself is in Europe at the moment, but that absurd brother of his seems to be holding court in his dining room while he’s away.”
“Brooks?” Miss Howard said. “You find that troubling, Doctor?”
“Surely you don’t think anyone actually listens to him,” Marcus added.
“I’m not entirely certain,” the Doctor replied. “I wrote to Roosevelt to tell him that I consider Brooks Adams to be delusional, perhaps pathologically. In this letter he says that he’s inclined to agree with me but that he still finds merit in many of the man’s ideas.”
Lucius’s eyes went round. “That’s a frightening thought. All that talk about ‘martial spirit’ and ‘warlike blood’-”
“Contemptible nonsense, that’s what it is,” the Doctor pronounced. “When men like Brooks Adams call for a war to reinvigorate our countrymen, they only reveal their own degeneracy. Why, if that fellow ever found himself near a battlefield-”
“Laszlo,” Mr. Moore said, “relax. Brooks is the fashion of the moment, that’s all. Nobody takes him seriously.”
“No, but men like Roosevelt and Lodge are taking his ideas seriously.” The Doctor stood and walked over to stand next to a large potted palm by one of the open French windows, shaking his head all the while. “They’re down there in Washington now, scheming like schoolboys to get us into a war with Spain -and I tell you all, such a war will change this country. Profoundly. And not for the better.”
Mr. Moore smiled as he drank. “You sound like Professor James. He’s been saying the same things. You haven’t been in touch with him, have you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Doctor said, slightly embarrassed at the mention of his old teacher, who in fact he hadn’t spoken to for many years.
“Well,” Lucius said, trying to be evenhanded, “the Spaniards do have some reason to be resentful-we’ve called them everything from swine to butchers for their treatment of the Cuban rebels.”
Miss Howard displayed a puzzled smile. “How is it that a person can be a swine and a butcher?”
“I don’t know, but they’ve managed it,” Mr. Moore answered. “They’ve acted like sadistic savages, trying to suppress the rebellion-concentration camps, mass executions-”
“Yes, but the rebels have been vicious in return, John,” Marcus countered. “Captured soldiers massacred-civilians, too, if they won’t support ‘the cause.’ ”
“Marcus is right, Moore,” the Doctor threw in impatiently. “This rebellion is not about freedom or democracy. It’s about power. One side has it, the other side wants it. That’s all.”
“True,” Mr. Moore conceded with a shrug.
“And we appear to want some sort of an American empire,” Lucius added.
“Yes. God help us.” The Doctor wandered back over to his chair, then picked up the letter from Mr. Roosevelt and scanned it one more time. Folding it up as he sat back down, he put the thing aside with another noise of disgust. “But-enough of that.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “All right, then, suppose you all tell me what brings you here.”
“What brings us?” Mr. Moore made a show of innocence and shock that would’ve done any Bowery variety star proud. “Why, what should bring us? Concern. Moral support. All of that.”