Echo Van Helsing and Kate Warne spent the rest of the day fruitlessly going down the list supplied by Charles Tiffany, ticking off the possible dealers in gem-quality rubies one by one. They reached the last name, Mr. Solomon Morowitz, just as the sun was setting and the lamplighters with their long poles were beginning to move up both sides of Maiden Lane.
Solomon Morowitz’s address was listed as being 14 Maiden Lane, putting it in a five-story building with stores on the main floor and arched window offices above, directly on the bustling corner of Broadway. Even with dusk on the way, the corner was still filled with vendors and their carts selling everything from wedding rings to ladies’ hat pins and “gold” chains that would turn a neck green within a day.
Bright yellow omnibuses loaded with the inky-fingered clerks and writers from the exchange were making their plodding, squeaky way up the broad avenue, its lamps, each one a prescribed one hundred feet away from the one before, already lit, a twin row of glowing fireflies showing the way north to hearth and home and away from the whirlwind of daily commerce.
With the lighting of the lamps, the first ladies of the evening had appeared in their bright costumes, and so had the first flocks of dapper dandies who would eventually employ their services in the squalid rooms a few blocks away, above the taverns on Coenties Slip and the maze of narrow streets along the waterfront.
Echo Van Helsing could still feel the pulsing excitement of the strange city, but she was also exhausted as well as frustrated. Keeping up the pretense of being a man required a great deal more effort than she’d first imagined, and so far it didn’t seem to have done any good at all; there was no sign of her father’s murderer anywhere. It was as though he’d simply vanished into the enormous, frightening maw of the city without a trace.
Back in London, in the full fury and grief of her enormous loss, all she could think of was revenge, but now she was beginning to regret her decision. She was a woman in the world, alone and frightened, and even with the help of the remarkable Kate she doubted that she could ever manage to bring Draculiya to justice. With a sinking heart she followed Kate Warne through the narrow entrance to 14 Maiden Lane.
The building was a gloomy maze, larger suites of offices and small manufactories having long ago been subdivided into small rooms along dark corridors barely lit by narrow, grime-sealed, nailed and soot-covered windows that looked down into some sort of interior air shaft. The climb was a hot one as well, since there didn’t seem to be any proper ventilation, and Echo was becoming uncomfortably aware of her bladder, although she was much too embarrassed to mention her predicament.
They found Solomon Morowitz’s office on the fourth floor at the air-shaft end of a dismal passageway. The only sign was a small square of card attached to a plain wooden door with a black-headed mourning pin, the man’s name inscribed in a spidery hand and two words beneath as the sole indicator of his profession:
FINISHED GOODS
Above the sign, at eye level, was a peephole covered over with a piece of tin. Kate knocked firmly on the door. There was a faint sound as though a drawer had been opened, then shut again, and then a thin, almost reedy voice spoke out.
“Who is it?”
“Warne,” said Kate in her best smoke-rasped voice. “Pinkerton’s.”
“I don’t employ Pinkerton’s. Go away.”
“I’d like a moment of your time, Mr. Morowitz. It’s important.”
“How do I know you are who you say you are?”
Kate reached into the inside pocket of her suit jacket and took out a small leather folder. In it were several four-inch by two-inch “visiting cards” with a photograph on one side and PINKERTON’S IDENTIFICATION on the other. The card showed Kate in her man’s costume and the identification referred to her as Karl Warne. The cards, standard for all Pinkerton agents, were made by Alexander Gardner, a personal friend of Allan Pinkerton.
“I’m going to slip my card under the door,” said Kate.
“Go away. I don’t need Pinkerton’s. Leave me alone.”
Kate bent down and slipped the card under the door, then stood and waited. For a moment there was silence, and then they heard the shuffling sound of footsteps. She could almost see the old man, white haired, with a long gray beard and dark clothing, a wide-brimmed black hat on his head like the Sephardic Jews she used to see traveling to and from the Bourse in Amsterdam. She’d already seen a dozen or more just like that in the hours she’d spent in the diamond and jewelry markets of Maiden Lane. The sound of the footsteps stopped and a few seconds later the piece of tin over the peephole slid aside. Echo saw a dark, suspicious eye staring out. The man was obviously wearing spectacles.
“You don’t look like you’re a Pinkerton,” said Morowitz. The eye swiveled to take in Echo. “Who’s your friend?”
“A client. We’d like to speak to you about a stolen ruby.”
“Geh cocken offen yom; I don’t deal in stolen goods—understand me?”
“You’d have no way of knowing it was stolen,” said Kate, trying to soothe the old man’s irritation.
“Go away.”
Kate sighed. “Mr. Morowitz, the Second District Station House is just a few blocks away on Beekman Street. I can go and get a constable and tell him my story, and I can make him walk back here in all this heat, and then I can get him to climb all those stairs to your office here, but I assure you, Mr. Morowitz, if I make him do that, he’s not going to pay much heed to you telling him to go away. He’s more likely to put his shoulder to the door and his billy club to the back of your skull, and believe me, Mr. Morowitz, I wouldn’t want that to happen. No, sir, indeed I would not.”
The eye continued to peer out at them, flickering back and forth between Kate and Echo. Finally the man spoke again.
“I’m going to unbar the door. Wait for a count of ten, and then come in when I call upon you. When you enter you will bar the door behind you. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” said Kate.
“You will do as I ask?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
They heard the scraping sound of a heavy metal bar being lifted away from the door and then the shuffling sound of footsteps. They waited for the full count of ten and almost to the second they heard the man call out again.
“Enter.”
Kate opened the door and stepped inside, Echo directly behind her. Kate shut the door and busied herself with barring it again while Echo stared into the room. The office was small, twelve feet by twelve at the very most, the floors wood, painted black and very scuffed.
There was a large carved pedestal desk under a narrow window. The window had been whitewashed and barred heavily, even though they were four floors up. A small wooden shelf under the window held a delicate-looking set of jeweler’s scales. In front of the desk sat two plain wooden chairs without arms. Behind the desk was a wooden office chair. Sitting in the office chair was a perfectly ordinary-looking man in his late thirties or early forties with a thick black mustache and black hair parted in the middle.
He was wearing a perfectly ordinary dark frock coat with a white shirt, high collar and black ribbon tie. In his right hand, which lay on the desk, was a very large Colt Navy revolver. Directly in front of him was Kate’s carte de visite. The man looked at them from behind gold, wire-framed, circular spectacles. He looked nothing at all as Echo had expected.
“I’m busy,” said Morowitz. “What do you want?”
“May we sit?” Kate asked, indicating the chairs in front of the desk.
“If you must.”
Kate Warne and Echo sat down.
“A ruby,” began Kate.
“What size, what cut, what clarity? How do you know it is a ruby and not so much cut glass? How do you know anything? Did you know that a ruby is nothing more than a variety of the mineral corundum? Perhaps this ruby you speak of is nothing more than a cheap spinel.”
“Which would have no value,” said Kate.
“Which would have no value at all,” repeated Morowitz.
“In which case you would not buy it,” said Kate.
“Just so.”
“We’re looking for the ruby you would buy,” said Kate. “A large one.”
“How large?”
“Very,” said Echo.
“Very large tells me nothing,” said Morowitz. He opened a drawer on the left pedestal of the desk and took out a sheet of paper and a graphite pencil. “Draw it,” he said.
Echo leaned forward and picked up the pencil. She quickly sketched the stone she remembered in Draculiya’s signet ring. Morowitz leaned forward and looked at her drawing upside down.
“Triple cut,” he murmured. “Perhaps ten carats. In a ring, as you have drawn it?”
“Gold,” said Echo. “A signet ring.”
“And you say it is stolen?”
“We don’t care about the ring, Mr. Morowitz; we just want to know who sold it to you.”
“If I went about disclosing who my clients were, I would be out of business by tomorrow,” scoffed the gem dealer.
“So you did buy the ring.”
“I didn’t say that.” The man shrugged. “But if I had purchased such an object, it would be gone by now. Such items move quickly through people’s hands.”
“You can’t tell us anything at all?” Echo pleaded.
Morowitz frowned. “I can tell you that a man who owned the Laubespin Ruby set into a signet ring would not think twice about taking the life of a simple gem dealer on Maiden Lane.” He paused. “Do you know what a dybbuk is?”
“No,” said Echo.
“A dybbuk is a thing out of Gehenna, out of Tartarus, what you would call Hell. A dybbuk is a dead soul occupying a living body. To divulge the secrets of such a creature would risk becoming such a creature yourself.” The man shivered as though a sudden cold wind had run through him.
“You do know him, then,” whispered Echo.
“I can say nothing,” answered Morowitz. He paused again. “But if such a creature had asked me where I banked the proceeds of my trade, I might well tell him.”
“And where would that be?” Kate Warne asked quickly.
“The Irving Bank in Washington Market,” said Morowitz hastily. “I will say nothing more.” He slid Kate’s Pinkerton card across the desk. She picked it up and slid it back into its leather folder.
“This creature has done something to you?” Morowitz asked as Kate and Echo stood to leave.
“He murdered my father,” said Echo, her voice breaking and tears coming to her eyes. She turned away so the gem dealer would not see.
“Zol er krenken un gedenken,” murmured Morowitz. “Let him suffer and remember.”
They left the office silently.
“I’m terribly sorry,” whispered Echo, the tears still hot on her cheeks. “I’m also afraid I must make water, very badly.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kate with a smile, “and don’t be sorry. I know just the place.”
They made their way quickly down the stairs and stepped out onto Maiden Lane once more. Kate whistled shrilly, hailing a hackney carriage.
“Taylor’s,” she ordered as they climbed up into their seats. “Quick as you can!”
The hackney rapidly took them up Broadway to Franklin Street and dropped them off in front of a large Italianate building with ornate curved windows. Taylor’s Saloon occupied the entire main floor. Echo had never seen anything like it, even in cosmopolitan London.
It combined an exotic Eastern magnificence with the taste of a Parisian pleasure garden of the most opulent sort. The single room was at least a hundred feet long, the ceilings more than twenty feet high, with gilt pillars and cornices and walls made up of large mirrors separated by white marble panels.
The floor was also marble, with a row of fluted and polished marble columns running down each side. A large alcove at the far end of the room was divided by a low marble wall and filled with blossoming orange trees and a fountain of sparkling crystal water that kept the air refreshingly sweet and cool. More than a hundred marble-topped tables were arranged across the floor, each covered in a bright white linen tablecloth set with fresh flowers and brilliantly lit from above by a long series of candelabras that made the interior as bright as day. It also had water closets available free of charge to the patrons of the lavish restaurant and attended by crisply uniformed Negro servants.
After using the facilities, Echo, with Kate’s guidance, they returned to their table in the restaurant and were quickly handed enormous printed bills of fare in large leather folders. Around them most of the other tables were filled with ladies in beautiful formal gowns and men in less ornate formal attire of their own. There were a number of men dining alone in small groups wearing business attire like Kate and Echo, and Echo was astonished to see women at tables dining without male escorts of any kind. She expressed her surprise to Kate.
“Taylor’s and Delmonico’s are just about the only places you’re likely to see it,” said the Pinkerton detective. “Emily Astor started the trend a while back, and where the Astors go, the rest of society is likely to follow.” She looked around the enormous room. “We were lucky to find a table; the place is filling up.”
“It’s all so…genteel,” said an awestruck Echo, trying to find the right word.
“You wouldn’t think so if you knew who had their meeting hall on the third floor above the buffalo-skin warehouse.”
“Who?” Echo asked.
“The New York Free Love League. Two bits’ admission, dancing about, fairy lights and all the rest.” Echo looked up at the ceiling and found herself blushing. Kate laughed. “Don’t trouble yourself, then, Mr. Van Helsing. Let’s eat, shall we?”
Echo was astonished by the variety on the menu. There were nine different soups on offer, from consommé Adelinna to shrimp bisque and cream of artichoke. There were side dishes from chutney to caviar, entrées from pigeon with peas to lamb cutlets and a seemingly endless number of on-hand dishes, roasts, cold cuts and salads.
There were entremets to clean the palate between all these dishes, including Charlotte Russe, Madeira Jelly and Cabinet Pudding Maraschino. There were at least forty desserts, from Bar-le-Duc, a sort of white currant jam usually eaten with squares of toasted bread, to ordinary stewed prunes. All of this could be followed by a cheese plate if you had any room, and several different types of tea or coffee.
“Good Lord,” was all Echo could say.
“Keep it simple,” said Kate, laughing, “or we’ll be here all night.”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
“It’s been a long day. You must be famished. What would you say to a dozen oysters, the sirloin of beef with potatoes, some string beans and we’ll think about dessert later?”
They both ordered exactly that, and an hour later, after thinking about the dessert and having enjoyed a fine, icy Nesselrode chestnut pudding and a frighteningly sweet, honey-dipped Persian Lala Rokh, they finished with a pot of French coffee shared between them while Kate savored one of her cheroots. The restaurant was completely full now, and the air was filled with laughter, the clink and ring of cutlery and crystal and a pleasant buzzing roar of conversation.
“Well, at least we made some progress,” said Kate. She drew out a billfold and stared at the paper slip their waiter had brought them. She laid a crisp five-dollar bill on the little wooden tray.
“How so?” Echo said.
“We know where the enemy keeps his money,” answered Kate. “It’s not far from that to knowing where he lives.”
“We can’t simply loiter outside his bank all day,” said Echo plaintively.
“We won’t have to. We’ll just ask the right questions to the right people.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kate explained. “Pinkerton’s is employed by every bank in the state of New York as well as almost every bank in Boston. If I can’t discover the Count’s roosting place in the city, I’ll be very surprised.” Kate pushed back her chair. “Come on,” she said, rising from the table. “We’ve still got work to do. There’s someone I want you to meet.” She paused. “You’re not the squeamish type, are you?”
“No,” said Echo. “My father was a scientist, remember?”
“Good,” said Kate grimly.
They left the restaurant, stepping out on the sidewalk, the noise and filth of Broadway assailing their eyes and ears once again. Dusk had gone. It was fully dark, and night had fallen.
“Where are we going?” Echo asked as Kate hailed a hackney, one of half dozen waiting at the curb.
“The morgue,” replied the Pinkerton detective.