Miss Howard nodded, but slowly. “I think so. Though I’m not precisely sure of the connection. But-Señora Linares said that when she saw the woman on the train she seemed to be genuinely caring for Ana. Yet she also said that the woman looked like a predatory animal. Now we find out that she was a nurse, working in one of the most difficult-and admirable-areas of her profession. The doctors think she was a heroine; the nurses believe she was a murderer.”
Cyrus came jogging back to us at that point, the other three men following at a walk. “Nothing of any interest here, Doctor. The detective sergeant wants to try to walk it through, though.”
“All right,” the Doctor said. “Tell him we’re at his service.” Then, to Miss Howard, he added, “Hold your thought, Sara. I, too, sense something in it, though it’s vague as yet.”
The Isaacsons and Mr. Moore joined us, and Lucius stood at the center of our little circle, still taking notes.
“Okay,” he began, pointing at the steps of the Metropolitan. “Señora Linares comes out of the museum with Ana at about five o’clock.” He next indicated the huge pit that was the construction site. “The workmen have left or are leaving. It’s Thursday, and they expect to be back in the morning-so they don’t take as much care cleaning up as they would for the weekend, and the site is a good deal more cluttered than we see it now.” He moved over toward a collection of plumbing materials that was partly hidden by a useless wooden fence. “Nurse Hunter already knows what she’s going to do-at least generally. She’s searching for a weapon and spots the pile of pipe through this fence. That takes her in the opposite direction from the señora, which explains why she is never noticed by her intended victim.” He started to move west, back toward the Egyptian obelisk. “She takes her time and lets the señora reach the obelisk.” We all followed him as he moved toward it. “It’s the only area around that has any sort of tree cover-the only chance she’s going to have to strike if she’s at all concerned about getting away. Now it’s just past five. In another fifteen minutes to half an hour people will start to cross the park on their way home from work or simply to take in the evening air-although it looks like rain, so the second of those possibilities is probably cut down a bit. But it’s spring and warm enough, and plenty of people-armed with umbrellas-will still go through the park on their way home. So she’s got to make her move fast.”
By now we’d near reached the octagonal group of benches around the seventy-foot obelisk. This was, in fact, the only spot in the vicinity that was at all secluded by trees, being as the red granite obelisk (or so Lucius told us) had been in place since 1881, when it’d been given to the United States by the head man of Egypt.
“The clouds are keeping people away from this spot,” Lucius continued. “It’s out of the way and purely recreational-you don’t pass by it to get across or uptown. You only come here to while away an idle hour.” Which was true-the obelisk sat up on a little hill, off the park’s main paths. “Nurse Hunter knows that this is her only shot. She comes at the señora from behind, as she’s getting ready to sit on a bench, and hits her once, straight across the back of the head. She grabs the child and goes-where?” The detective sergeant looked around curiously. “Back out to Fifth Avenue is quickest-but she may not want to be seen quickly. And to get back to Bethune Street, she’ll need to get over to the West Side, to either the Sixth or the Ninth Avenue El, presuming that the trains are her usual method of travel.”
“If she hasn’t got a job anymore,” Marcus added, “that argues for the trains as an economic necessity.”
“Yes, but the señora saw her on the Third Avenue line,” Mr. Moore tossed in. “That argues for her having moved from Bethune Street.”
“Perhaps, John,” the Doctor said slowly, staring up at the obelisk. “But Sara and I have just been discussing something which may-” The Doctor stopped, his eyes having reached the base of the obelisk. He walked slowly over to it, his eyes searching a crack at the bottom of the large block of stone. He stared into the deep crevice, lifting his hand as if he wanted to reach into it; then he pulled back and turned to Marcus and Lucius.
“Detective Sergeants?” he said, with the beginnings of excitement. “Would you come here, please? There seems to be something in there.”
Marcus and Lucius rushed over, Marcus producing a small pair of steel tongs. He gazed into the crevice, then slowly inserted the tongs, got hold of something, and withdrew it: a tiny bundle of light cotton fabric.
He placed the balled-up bundle on the walkway near the obelisk’s base, then quickly put on a pair of very light gloves. We all crowded around as he began to untangle the little ball, its yellow-and-white fabric soiled and damp. As he proceeded, the shape of the thing became identifiable.
“Looks like a-a tiny hat,” Mr. Moore said.
“A baby’s hat,” Miss Howard said, indicating two little strands of delicate, braided cotton string what were used to tie the thing at the chin and a trim of white lace around its front.
“There’s something else,” Marcus said, still flattening out the fabric. He unfolded the back of the cap to reveal fine golden embroidery at its rear border: “ ‘A-N-A,’ ” he read out. The rest of us just stared at the thing as the detective sergeant looked up and out at the park. “Well… looks like west it was. She got rid of the hat in case somebody stopped her-probably the only identifying article on the girl.”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions, Marcus,” Lucius said. “She could have stuffed the hat in here and then gone the other direction.”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Moore said, standing between the obelisk and the benches. “It’s a good thirty or forty feet out of her way-that’s time she’s wasting, stuffing it in there. Plenty of other spots to hide it if she went east-starting with the construction site.”
“True, Moore,” Dr. Kreizler said, staring up at the obelisk. “But in addition, there is the question of where she chose to hide it-where precisely …”
“What do you mean, Doctor?” Marcus asked.
But the Doctor only turned to Miss Howard. “The Egyptian obelisk. It’s one of a pair. The other stands in London. Do you know what they are known as, Sara?” Miss Howard just shook her head. “ ‘Cleopatra’s Needles,’ ” the Doctor went on, looking back up. “An ominous title-she was quite a deadly woman, Cleopatra.”
“And yet,” Miss Howard continued, getting it, “the ‘Mother of Egypt,’ in her day. Not to mention the lover of Caesar and Antony -she even bore Caesar’s child.”
“Caesarion,” the Doctor said with a nod.
“What the hell are you two on about?” Mr. Moore demanded.
But the Doctor just kept talking to Miss Howard. “Suppose, Sara,” he asked, moving toward her, “that the apparent paradox is not a question, but the answer? Something connects the two sides of the character, the two faces of the coin. We don’t know what that connecting element is yet, but the connection exists. So that what we are faced with is not an inconsistency so much as a troubled unity. Aspects of a condition-related stages in a single process.”
Miss Howard’s face darkened. “Then I’d say we’re running out of time.”
The Doctor gave her a quick look of agreement, then called out, “Marcus! The children Nurse Hunter attended-how long did you say the average interval between their births and their deaths was?”
“Not more than a few weeks,” Marcus answered.
“Laszlo,” Mr. Moore insisted, in that way he did when he felt like the mental pack was pulling away from him. “Come on, what are you two talking about?”
The Doctor continued to ignore him and counted on his fingers. “She took the child on a Thursday-that was ten days ago.” He glanced at Miss Howard again. “You’re right, Sara-the woman may be entering a critical phase. Stevie!” I hopped it up to him. “Can we carry everyone in the calash?”