The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel (4 page)

"I'm sure we all feel as Captain Hitchcock does," he said. "Don't we, gentlemen?"

"And it does the captain great credit for putting it in words," I said.

"Surely the point of all this," the superintendent added, "is to leave ourselves better positioned to find the perpetrator. Is that not so, Mr. Landor?"

"Of course, Colonel."

Not mollified, not really, Hitchcock sat himself down on one of the spare beds, stared out through a north-facing window. We all gave him a moment. I remember tolling off the seconds. One, two ...

"Doctor," I said, smiling. "Maybe you could tell us how long it would take someone to perform this kind of operation."

"Hard to say, Mr. Landor. It's been years, you know, since I've dissected any kind of body, and never quite to this--this extent. If I had to guess, given the difficult conditions, I'd say upward of an hour. An hour and a half, maybe."
"Most of it in the sawing."

"Yes."

"And what if there were two men?"

"Well, then, each man could take one side, and they'd be done in half the time. Now, three men, that'd be a crowd. A third man wouldn't add much, unless he was carrying a lantern."

A lantern, yes. That was the unaccountable thing about looking at Leroy Fry: I had the feeling that someone was holding a light to him. I would attribute this to the fact that his eyes were, in fact, angled toward mine, looking at me through their drooping lids, if looking you could call it. For the pupils had scrambled up like blinds, and there was only a sliver of whiteness left.

I drew closer to the bed and, with the tips of my thumbs, pulled the lids down. They paused there for the barest second before springing back up. I scarcely noticed, for now I was tracing the lacerations on Leroy Fry's neck. They didn't form a single band, as I had first thought, but a weave, a pattern of worry. Long before the noose had closed off this cadet's windpipe, the rope had been gouging and chafing--a full pound of flesh by the time it was finished.

"Captain Hitchcock," I said. "I know your men have mounted a search, but what exactly have they been looking for? A man? Or a heart?"

"All I can tell you is that we've canvassed the surrounding grounds and found nothing."

"I see."

He had strawberry-blond hair, this Leroy Fry. Long white eyelashes. Musket calluses on his right hand and bright blisters on the tips of his fingers. And a mole between two of his toes. The day before, he'd been alive.

"Would someone please remind me?" I said. "Where was the body found? After the heart was taken?"

"By the icehouse."

"Now, Dr. Marquis, I'm afraid I must call on your expertise one more time. If you were--if you were to go about preserving a heart, how would you do it?"

"Well, I'd probably find a container of some kind. Wouldn't need to be too big."

"Yes?"

"Then I'd wrap the heart in something. Muslin, maybe. Newspaper, if I was hard up."

"Go on."

"And then I'd--I'd surround it with--" He stopped. His fingers climbed to his throat. "Ice," he said.

Hitchcock raised himself from the bed.

"So it's come to this," he said. "The madman has not simply taken Leroy Fry's heart. He is actually keeping it on ice."

I shrugged. Showed him my palms. "It's possible, that's all."

"For what ungodly purpose?"

"Oh, well, that I couldn't tell you, Captain. I only just got here."

By now the poor matron had come back, chaffed with duty, eager for Dr. Marquis to attend to something, I have no memory of what. I only remember the look of regret on Dr. Marquis' face: he didn't want to go.

So that left just me and Thayer and Hitchcock. And Leroy Fry. And then came the drum, for now the cadets were being called to evening parade.

"Well, gentlemen," I said, "there's no getting round it. You've got yourselves a poser." My hands again, planing each other down. "I'm a bit stumped myself. One thing in particular I can't make out. Why haven't you called in the military authorities?"

A long silence then.

"Surely this is a matter for their attention," I said, "not mine."

"Mr. Landor," said Sylvanus Thayer, "I wonder if you wouldn't mind walking with me?"

We didn't go far. Just down the hallway and back. Repeat. Repeat again. It had the feeling of a military maneuver. Thayer was shorter than me by four inches, but straighter, too, with more conviction in his carriage.

"You find us in a delicate position, Mr. Landor."

"I don't doubt it."

"This Academy," he began. But the key was too high; he lowered it a step or two. "This Academy, as you may know, has been in existence for less than thirty years. I have been superintendent for nearly half that time. I think it's safe to say that neither the Academy nor I have earned the distinction of permanence."

"Only a matter of time, I'd guess."

"Well, like any young institution, we have acquired some estimable friends. And some formidable detractors."

Looking at the floor, I ventured, "President Jackson falls in the second camp, does he?"

A quick sidelong glance from Thayer. "I don't pretend to know who falls out in which camp," he said. "I know only that we have been placed under a unique burden here. No matter how many officers we turn out, no matter how much honor we do our country, we are always, I fear, in the position of defending ourselves."
"Against what, Colonel Thayer?"

"Oh." He scanned the ceiling. "Elitism, that's a common theme. Our critics say we favor the scions of rich families. If they only knew how many of our cadets came from farms, how many are the sons of mechanics, manufacturers. This is America writ small, Mr. Landor."

It rang nicely in that hallway. America writ small.

"What else do your critics say, Colonel?"

"That we spend too much time making engineers and not enough time making soldiers. That our cadets take up the Army commissions that should go to men in the ranks."

Lieutenant Meadows, I thought.

Thayer kept advancing, matching his step to the drumbeat outside. "And I don't need to tell you," he said, "about our last group of critics. The ones who want no standing army of any kind in this country."

"What would they put in its place, I wonder?"

"The militias of old, apparently. Ragtag boys on the village common. Make-believe soldiers," he said, with no trace of bitterness.

"It wasn't militias won us our last war," I said. "It was men like--General Jackson."

"How nice to know we're in agreement, Mr. Landor. The fact remains there are still a goodly number of Americans who recoil at the sight of a man in uniform."

"That's why we don't wear any," I said, softly.

" "We'?"

"I'm sorry, constables. Look where you like, you won't find a constable-- come to think of it, any New York City law officer--wearing something to announce himself. Uniforms do put folks off, don't they?"

Funny, I hadn't planned on volunteering that, but it did touch off a fraternal spark between us. Which is not to say I saw Sylvanus Thayer smile--I've never in my life seen him do that-- but his edges could be honed down.

"I'd be remiss, Mr. Landor, if I didn't tell you that I myself have come in for the lion's share of attacks. I've been called a tyrant. A despot. Barbarian, that's a favored term."

With this, he stopped. Let the word settle over him.

"Well, now, it's a bad fix, isn't it, Colonel?" I said. "Looking at it from your side, I mean. If word got out cadets were actually breaking down under this--this brutal regime of yours, going so far as to take their own lives..."
"The word about Leroy Fry has got out," he said, icy as a star. (Gone was the fellow feeling.) "I can't prevent that, nor can I prevent people from construing it how they may. My only concern at present is to keep this investigation out of the hands of certain parties."

I looked at him.

"Certain parties in Washington," I offered.

"Just so," he replied.

"Parties who might be hostile to the Academy's very existence. Looking for a reason to raze it to the ground."

"Just so."

"But if you could show them you had things in hand--somebody on the job--then maybe you could hold off the hounds awhile longer."

" A little while, yes," he said.

"And what if I find nothing, Colonel?"

"Then I shall make my report to the chief of engineers, who will in turn consult with General Eaton. We shall then await their collective judgment."

We had stopped now by the door to Ward B-3. From downstairs, we could hear the fretting sound of the matron and the slow sliding sound of the surgeon. From outside, the piercing lines of a fife. And from inside Ward B-3, nothing at all.

"Who would have guessed?" I said. "One man's death could leave so much in the balance. Your career, even."

"If I can persuade you of nothing else, Mr. Landor, let me persuade you of this. My career is nothing. If I could be sure the Academy would survive, I would leave here tomorrow and never look back."

Giving me his most genial nod, he added, "You have a gift for inspiring confidences, Mr. Landor. I don't doubt it comes in handy."

"Well, that depends, Colonel. Tell me now. Do you honestly think I'm your man?"

" We wouldn't be speaking if I didn't."

"And you're bound to follow this out? To the very end?"

"And beyond," said Sylvanus Thayer, "if need be."

I smiled and looked down the hall, to the oculus window, where the light was calling up a floating chain of dust.

Thayer's eyes narrowed. "May I interpret your silence as a yes or a no, Mr. Landor?" "Neither, Colonel."

"If it's a question of money..."

"I have enough money."

"Some other concern, perhaps."

"None you can help me with," I said, as kindly as I could.

Thayer cleared his throat--a small rasping, was all, but I had the clear impression of something stacked in him.

"Mr. Landor, for a cadet to die so young, and by his own hand, that is a hard thing to bear. But that he should have such an offense committed against his defenseless body is beyond sufferance. It is a crime against nature, and I consider it also a strike at the heart--" He stopped himself, but the word was already out. "--at the heart of this institution. If it is the work of some passing fanatic, so be it, that is in God's hands. If it is the work of one of our own, I will not rest until the offender has been bodily removed from the Point. In leg irons or walking free, it makes no difference, he must be sent away on the next steam packet. For the good of the Academy."

Having rid himself of this, he exhaled softly and bowed his head.

"That is your charge, Mr. Landor, if you accept it. To discover the person who did this. And to help us ensure it never happens again."

I watched him a good while longer. Then I drew my watch from my pocket and tapped once on its glass casing. "Ten minutes to five," I said. "What would you say to meeting back here at six? Would that inconvenience you too much?"

"Not at all."

"Good. I promise you'll have my answer then."

** *

I had some idea in mind of strolling off on my own--it was my usual way--but the Academy could not countenance such a plan. No, I would have an escort, if you please. And for this work, Lieutenant Meadows was once again detailed. If the prospect had made his face fall, someone must have rearranged it for him: he was brighter in spirits than during our last goround. I took this to mean he had not been granted a sight of Leroy Fry.

"Where do you wish to go, Mr. Landor?"

I swept my hand in the direction of the river. "East," I said. "East would do nicely."

To get there, of course, we had to cross round the Plain, which was no longer empty, no, not at all. The evening parade had come. The cadets of the United States Military Academy were fanned out in companies--four seething formations. The band, led by a man with a tasseled cane and a red pudding-bag hanging from his head, was playing the final strains, and the evening gun was firing, and the Stars and Stripes was fluttering to the ground like a pretty girl's handkerchief.

"Sent harms!" cried the adjutant. At once came the clash of two hundred guns, and in less than a second, each cadet was staring into his gun barrel. The officer in charge drew his blade and slammed his heels together and cried, "Cree hump! " Followed by (or so it sounded to me) "Charge peanuts! " At the conclusion of which, every cadet was turned half to the right, ready to stave off the enemy.

Oh, it was quite a show: the divots kicking up from the pale green turf, the last rays of the sun snagged on the bayonets. And the young men in their tight collars and tapering uniforms, plumes sprouting mighty from their heads.

"Cree hump!... Der hump!"

The news about Leroy Fry--part fact, part rumor--had by now become common currency among these cadets. And it was a measure of Thayer's system that it could bear such a blow with no sign of strain. The space normally occupied by Leroy Fry was now taken by another--the gap had been bridged--and anyone looking on would never have known there was one fewer in the ranks. Oh, a more trained watcher might have picked out the lost step here, the half shuffle there. A stumble, even. But that could easily be put down to the twenty or so plebes who filled each company. Boy-men only a few months free of their ploughs, still finding their rhythm... and all the same, swept up in the larger music.

"Front your section, mister!"

Yes, a fascinating sight, Reader, in the last hours of an October day, with the sun dropping, and the hills somehow twinning the blue and gray of the uniforms, and somewhere a mockingbird grouching... a fellow could do worse. There were others, too, passing time in much the same way. A raftload of tourists, down by the quartermaster's office. Ladies in legof-mutton sleeves and men in blue frock coats and beige waistcoats... a holiday lightness about them. They'd come up that morning from Manhattan, probably, on the day boat, or maybe they were Britishers working their way through the Northern Tour. As much a part of the spectacle as anything else.

"Snied States Milita' 'Cademy, "S Point, "en York, "tober twe'six, "and thirty! "Shal 'lorders 'umber TWO!!!"