On the street Jack found Anna and Oscar waiting, Anna looking very grim and Oscar irritated.
Anna said, “I have to get back to the New Amsterdam. If you come with me we can talk in the cab.”
? ? ?
TRAFFIC WAS JUST as congested as Jack expected it to be, but for once it would work to their advantage. It took ten minutes to get to the corner of West Ninth, just enough time to share the bad news.
Oscar said, “Two steps forward, ten back.”
Cameron had left the city only days before, on his way to Philadelphia, where he would be living with a nephew and his family. His offices had been vacated before Mamie Winthrop’s operation and death.
“No surgical instruments in Cameron’s office?” Anna asked Jack.
“Cleaned out, every bit of it. I looked into the closets and the water closet, no luck. What did Mrs. Sparrow have to tell you?”
“Cameron was the one who forced Amelie out of the city. He went to Comstock with stories of a mad abortionist who was killing women, and he named Amelie. There wasn’t any evidence because”—she looked at both of them intently—“there wasn’t any crime, but Comstock made her life impossible and Nora Smithson started spreading rumors. Kate thinks that Cameron was mean to the bone, but not murderous. And not capable of operating. His hands are palsied.”
“That’s what his granddaughter said, that he hadn’t had a patient in years. Kept the office out of stubbornness and pride.” Oscar didn’t seem to be frustrated, but then he had been pursuing cases like this for years, and had learned patience.
“Does she have any medical training, the granddaughter?” Jack asked.
Anna said, “No schooling, but she was his nurse for years until she got married and moved over to the apothecary.”
They looked at each other for a few moments while the cab jerked to a stop and drivers let their displeasure be heard.
“Now what?” Anna said, finally.
“We go back to sorting through records and interviewing people,” Jack said.
“And if there’s another victim this week?” she asked.
“Then we’ll know for sure that Cameron wasn’t involved,” Oscar said. “Or that he’s still here, set up someplace else in the city and in hiding.”
“Or that the responsible party has been tipped off,” Jack added.
Anna asked, “He might just stop?”
“No,” Oscar and Jack said in one voice.
“He’s got an urge,” Oscar said. “Whoever he is. He may go quiet for weeks or months, but he won’t give up. Maybe he’ll go away and start over, in Boston or Chicago. There’s no way to know, but we do have another lead.”
“You’re still thinking of Neill Graham as a suspect,” Anna said.
“Hard not to,” Oscar said. “You’d think so too, if you heard him talking about operating on women.”
“Things never tie up as neat as you’d like,” Jack said, touching her arm. “Or as fast. Nothing like surgery.”
She gave him a lopsided grin. “So I’m learning. Why don’t you just take Graham in for questioning?”
“Because we haven’t got any proof at all, and if we tip him off he’ll disappear.”
“That wouldn’t do at all,” Anna said. “Not at all.”
“No reason to give up now,” Oscar told her. “Not when it’s just getting interesting.”
? ? ?
IN THE LATE evening Jack forced himself to put aside thinking about the case so he could give in to the inevitable. He turned his mind to packing for the short trip to Greenwood. Anna’s valise was already packed and she had stretched out on the bed with one of her endless medical journals.
Rumbling through the closet, he muttered to himself about the number of coats and vests and pairs of trousers he had accumulated. His sisters meant well but had gotten into the habit of treating him like a mannequin, something that would hopefully stop now. Right at this moment the problem was that he was not just going home tomorrow, but he was taking Anna home with him for the first time. That seemed to require something more than the casual clothes he normally put on to go to Greenwood.
Anna had hung out a summer gown of many thin layers, overlapping in some places and pinned up in others. It was cut loose, like all her clothes, with a square neck that would show a great deal of bosom and her long neck. He was pulling a suit out of the wardrobe when there was a knock at the door.
“Sorry to bother you so late,” Ned called. “But there’s something you will want to hear.”
Jack might have sent him away, but Anna pulled on her robe and tied it while she opened the door.
“Is there something wrong?”
“No. But I talked to somebody who recognized Tonino from my description.”
? ? ?
THE STORY WAS quickly told: Ned had run into an old friend with the improbable name of Moby Dick.
“He apprenticed to a cobbler in Harlem five years ago or more. Hadn’t seen him since he moved. He was down here to show his bride his old haunts.”