“Fair enough. Thank you, Dr. Graham.”
Anna said, “Stop by and see me at the New Amsterdam, if you are interested in observing my surgeries. I think we can arrange something.”
She wondered if that would be enough to soothe the sting and if he would be brave enough to take her up on her offer. Many of his colleagues at Bellevue would disapprove.
? ? ?
IN THE CAB she said, “Really, was that necessary?”
The men looked at her silently.
“All right,” Anna said. “Maybe it was. But I didn’t like it.”
“Neither did I, believe it or not,” said Oscar.
Anna hummed under her breath. After a moment she asked, “Did you get anything useful out of that?”
“A purse,” Jack said. “That’s something no one mentioned before. We’ll go talk to Mrs. Stone. Should we drop you off at home first?”
“I think she wants to come along,” said Oscar. “Don’t you, Anna?”
It was the first time he had called her by her familiar name. It was cheeky, but it was also a compliment.
“You are right. I’d like to see what comes of this purse business. Do I understand correctly that you don’t really suspect anyone of taking the money? This is more a way of getting your foot in the door.”
Oscar elbowed Jack, who elbowed him back. Jack said, “You don’t have to prove to me that she’s got a brain. I knew that the first time I saw her.”
Anna leaned back to watch the sky out of the cab’s small window. Still full light at seven. She should be tired after such a long day, but there was a humming in her, a sense of the unanticipated. She was in the company of two good men who saw things she did not, and valued the things she saw.
? ? ?
THE CAMPBELL HOUSE was on one of the small, crooked lanes that seemed designed to confuse strangers. A few small houses, a couple of ancient cottages that had probably been built when the whole area was pasture or farmland, one newer tenement. Archer Campbell’s house was one of the newer houses but locked up tight, no sign of life despite Oscar’s hammering at doors both front and rear.
Anna sat on the edge of the porch while the men consulted. She was a little relieved about this sudden halt to their plans, and wondered at herself that she had been so eager to come along. Now that she was here, even the thought of the man was a challenge to her professional demeanor.
The truth was, Campbell wasn’t going to be any different today or tomorrow or ten years down the road than he had been on the stand, full of righteous indignation, convinced that he was the best of husbands and fathers. No doubt he would marry again, and probably soon. Certainly he’d have no trouble finding a wife; there were hundreds of women in the city who would give anything for a home of their own. This modest house would look like paradise to an unmarried daughter in a poor household. As it had once looked to Janine, no doubt.
She caught movement from the corner of her eye and saw a woman peeking out from behind the curtains across the way.
“Is Mrs. Stone in the house across the street?”
Jack turned. “She is.”
“I ask because somebody is watching you from the parlor windows.”
She got up to follow Jack, with Oscar trailing behind. A shawl would have been a good idea; her prettiest summer dress was not quite the thing for a call like this one. Maybe she should have gone home, after all. With that thought she realized that she was dreading this conversation. What she remembered of Mrs. Stone on the stand was her willingness to speak her mind and what seemed like real sorrow about Janine Campbell’s death, and they had nothing new to offer her, no information that might relieve her mind.
Then the door opened to Jack’s knock and a man stood there, rotund, his face as pink as a ham, a great shock of white hair and white eyebrows so long that they fell over his eyes like curtains. He had a sweet but vacant smile, a little confused but welcoming.
Veterans of the last war were so common on the city streets that their scars and missing limbs were almost invisible, but this man’s injuries could not be overlooked. His left arm had been amputated near the shoulder and the left side of his head was distorted, with a round indentation over the ear that Anna estimated to be an inch deep at its center.
“Mr. Stone?” Oscar’s tone was friendly, unremarkable, respectful, perfectly gauged.
The smile widened to show shiny pink gums with no teeth at all on the left.
“Guten Abend,” he said. “Ich bin Heinrich Steinmauer. Wer seid Ihr?”
Then Mrs. Stone was there, her hand on his shoulder to guide him back into the house. She murmured to the old man in German, and he nodded, smiling at her with great affection.
“Mrs. Stone,” Jack said. “We have a few questions regarding Janine Campbell’s death. May we impose on you for a short while?”
She glanced over her shoulder, unsettled, and then back at them.