DIOGENES EXAMINED HIS CLOTHES. There were a few splatters of blood on his cassock, but they had missed the magenta piping and were easily rubbed into invisibility in the heavy black cloth.
“Royds!” he cried. “Great heavens! Come here!”
He glanced around rapidly, taking in the state of the office, then waited until he heard the step of Royds approaching down the hall before kneeling in front of the body.
Royds knocked.
“Come in, man, come in! Something terrible has happened!”
He came in and halted, seeing the body sprawled in a growing pool of blood, made a strange noise between a whimper and a warble, and shrank back, covering his mouth with his palm.
“God’s retribution works in mysterious ways,” Diogenes said. “The shock of the council’s decision unhinged her. I couldn’t stop her from the wicked deed.”
“She did this—?” Royds began, backing up farther.
Diogenes stepped fastidiously away from the body to avoid soiling his shoes on the spreading blood.
“Yes,” he said. “She preferred to end her own life rather than live in shame.” He shook his head. “It’s as I told you when I first introduced myself this morning: It would have been wiser for the General Council to give her some warning this might be coming. But they felt—especially Reverend Leeds—that were she given advance notice, her actions might be unpredictable.” He paused. “And so they have proven to be.” He sighed deeply. “This, alas, is precisely why I was called in. How I long to be back in Africa, delivering souls into the hands of the Lord. But it seems reforming church institutions that have strayed—a calling I never wished for—is my cross to bear.”
Royds nodded shakily. Earlier, Diogenes had thoroughly impressed him with the various papers he had brought, most quite real, with the exception of one excellent forgery allegedly from the English Council, which he had presented to the head of the Council of Greater New York the day before. How convenient it was, Diogenes thought, that transatlantic communications were so primitive in the year 1880. And now the Right Reverend Considine was in full charge of the House of Industry—at least until, if ever, the New York Council confirmed his appointment with the church back in England.
“She was a right cruel taskmistress, she was—begging your pardon, sir,” Royds said, looking down at the body.
“Indeed, Royds,” said Diogenes.
“As hard-hearted to human suffering as any person I ever met … but as pious as you please when it came to herself. So glad to see the Mission in better hands, Reverend.”
Diogenes was faintly repelled by this Uriah Heep already ingratiating himself with his new master—with the previous one still warm on the floor. “Her sadistic proclivities were known beyond these walls … And so were her vices—although ‘vices’ is too mild a term for her depraved peccadilloes.”
“‘Depraved,’ you say?” Royds’s shocked and frightened eyes took on a sheen of lurid curiosity.
“Some of the darkest, most vile acts a human could commit, even in this den of iniquity.” Diogenes spread his hands to include the entire Five Points. “The most distinct category of vice will have its own foul subclasses. So it was with Miss Crean, too. She was cruel, she was heartless; both labels are apt. But to her everlasting damnation, the evil lusts she hid beneath that hypocritical veil would make the most hardened sailor blanch.”
“It would?” Royds said. Then: “I always knowed it.”
“I can trust you, Royds. And I know you’re a man of character. Which is why I’m going to give you greater authority here than you enjoyed before, raising your salary to match—you’ve suffered under the lash long enough. But I also know of your sound moral qualities … which is why, if I mention to you just a few of the acts Miss Crean perpetrated on the helpless young women of this institution, you will be horrified—and understand why her replacement had to be undertaken in so swift a manner. You must be strong, Royds—with your new position comes new responsibility.”
“Yes, Reverend, sir,” said Royds.
Going back behind the desk and sitting down, Diogenes crooked a finger at Royds. The attendant came over eagerly—making a wide detour around the bloody form on the floor—and bent his head forward as Diogenes briefly whispered in his ear. Two or three horrors perpetrated by Crean upon the girls in her charge, hinted at without clarity, were sufficient to whet, but perhaps not fully satisfy, Royds’s unhealthy imagination.
“Your first responsibility, Royds, is to fetch a heavy blanket to wrap this body in for disposal. We mustn’t allow the church to be sullied by scandal.”
Royds returned, and Diogenes helped roll up the nurse’s body and place it in a handcart. He then gave Royds a generous advance on his new position, with extra funds, and sent him off with instructions on how to dispose of the corpse. Diogenes watched through the window as Royds disappeared down the street with the remains, heading for a certain private cartage he had identified not long after his arrival, known for handling unusual disposal problems.
Now was the time, Diogenes thought, to assert his role. He rang the bell for the head girl.
She arrived and halted in confusion, then gave a hasty curtsy.
“I am the master now,” said Considine. “Miss Crean has left.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get two other girls with mops and buckets and clean this mess up,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Scrub it down to the boards; leave no trace.”
“Yes, sir.” She stared at the bloodstain, eyes wide, but no questions asked. The brutal Miss Crean had cowed them well, thought Diogenes.
“And then, when you’re done,” he added, “gather the girls in the chapel. I should like to introduce myself as the new director of the Mission and House of Industry.”