The Alienist

Kreizler and Moore take a train to Washington, DC, leaving Sara and a visibly saddened Mary behind in New York City. Along the way, Kreizler and Moore discuss an upcoming benefit concert at the Metropolitan Opera, scheduled for June 21. Moore meets his old friend at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Hobart Weaver. At St. Elizabeth’s, Kreizler uses Roosevelt’s influence to circumvent a hostile superintendent and gain access to patient records. Moore spends the next two days reviewing files on frontier violence involving the Sioux. Several cases of mutilation catch his eye, but nothing fits the present murder case.

Hobart shows Moore a report of an 1880 double murder in the upstate town of New Paltz, New York. The victims, Reverend Victor Dury and his wife, had spent time in South Dakota, where Dury was a missionary. According to the report, their bodies were badly mutilated, and a note left at the scene indicated that Indians had traveled east to exact vengeance against Dury, who had slighted them in some way, and to take Dury’s teenaged son to live with them out west. That night at dinner, “Kreizler’s eyes suddenly [go] very wide” when he reads the report of the 1880 Dury murders (317). Kreizler shows Moore a separate file from St. Elizabeth’s hospital regarding a discharged soldier with a facial tic and a birthplace of New Paltz, New York.

The St. Elizabeth’s Hospital record identifies the discharged soldier as Corporal John Beecham, dispatched to Chicago in 1886 to help quell the Haymarket riots, and deemed mentally unfit for service after his lieutenant discovered him “stabbing the corpse of one dead striker” (320). The report on the Dury murders indicates that the elder of the victims’ two sons, Adam Dury, lived in Newton, Massachusetts, at the time of the killings. Moore telephones Clark Wissler, who assures Moore that the tale of Sioux Indians traveling east to commit a revenge murder and take a teenaged boy captive sounds like an obvious lie. Kreizler wires the Isaacsons in South Dakota and asks them to speak with Beecham’s former commanding officer, Lieutenant Frederick Miller, at Fort Yates in North Dakota.

An excited Sara telephones to report that she has discovered a New York Times story on the Dury murders, which describes Victor Dury as an evangelical missionary with Swiss roots who emigrated to America and found his way to Minnesota, where his harsh doctrines alienated the Sioux. During the brutal Minnesota Sioux War of 1862, Dury photographed the mutilated bodies of massacred white Minnesotans and then, after returning east, showed the photographs to the horrified citizens of New Paltz, who thereafter treated Dury as an outcast. Sara’s further research revealed that many residents of New Paltz enjoyed rock climbing at the nearby Shawangunk Mountains. After the bodies of Reverend Dury and his wife were discovered, the murdered couple’s younger son, Japheth, disappeared. Kreizler notes that Japheth and John Beecham are the same age.

On the train ride back to New York City, Kreizler notes that Reverend Dury’s photographs would have had a disturbing effect on a young boy with a morbid imagination. Roosevelt learns of several “Beecham” references in New Paltz town records, so Kreizler, back at 808 Broadway, dispatches Sara to upstate New York to learn more. Kreizler and Moore take the train to Boston and then a carriage to Newton. The next morning, they travel north to the Dury farm. Near the barn, Moore spots a man with thinning hair.

Moore announces himself as a New York Times reporter assigned to a story on unsolved killings and police conduct throughout the state. At first, Adam Dury is reluctant to talk about his parents’ 1880 murders, but Moore offers the poor and struggling farmer $100. Though suspicious of Kreizler’s presence, Adam nonetheless accepts the bribe, leads the men into the barn, and begins answering their questions.

Adam grows increasingly emotional as he shares details of life with his parents and younger brother. In a lengthy conversation, Kreizler and Moore learn that the elder Dury son became estranged from his parents, whose marriage still puzzles him, for his mother, a cold and bitter woman, showed no affection toward his father and “could scarcely abide his slightest touch, much less his—his attempts to build a family” (341). One night in February 1865, Reverend Dury forced himself on his wife, who thereafter seemed to regard Japheth as a wretched reminder of the night she was raped. Adam’s simmering anger toward his long-dead mother—“The cruel bitch!”—finally boils over as he relates the terrible things she used to say to Japheth (344).

Adam appears visibly distraught but not surprised when he learns that Kreizler believes Japheth killed their parents. Adam recalls that he once saw Japheth, 9 or 10 at the time, repeatedly stabbing and mutilating a live possum. Japheth began to cry after Adam yelled at him to stop, but the same thing happened again several times in the future, always with small animals. Then, when Japheth was 11, Adam found his younger brother crying and bleeding after being sexually assaulted by a farmhand named George Beecham. In response to Kreizler’s final questions, Adam explains that his father always made a special time out of church holidays, and that Japheth’s facial tic only went away while he was hunting and trapping in the mountains. Satisfied that they have everything they need, Kreizler and Moore bid farewell. On the carriage ride back to Boston, a shot rings out, striking one of the horses, as well as Kreizler’s right arm.

More gunshots strike the carriage. Unable to spot their assailant, Kreizler and Moore escape through the woods toward the nearby town of Brookline, where a passing ice-van driver gives them a ride to the Boston train station. Moore suspects that Comstock and Burnes’s men might be waiting for them at the station, so Moore and Kreizler conceal themselves behind pine trees and wait for the next train to arrive.

While they wait, their conversation turns to women. Moore believes that Kreizler intends to marry Sara, which prompts raucous laughter from the alienist, who assures his befuddled friend that Sara has no interest in marrying him or anyone else while she pursues her police career. Moore then realizes that Kreizler is in love with Mary, and she with him. Kreizler does not laugh at this realization but instead describes the situation as “complicated,” a product of professional trust-building that “planted the seeds of an unusual sort of intimacy” (356).

Aboard the train, Moore recognizes the two thugs from the Santorellis’ tenement. Before they can spot him, Moore quietly steals an elderly passenger’s walking stick and uses it to surprise the two thugs, knocking them from the now-moving train. When Kreizler asks what happened, Moore explains that the two thugs worked for Connor.

Back home at his grandmother’s house, Moore learns from Harriet, his grandmother’s maid, that on the previous evening a frantic Sara had called repeatedly from Kreizler’s house, prompting Harriet to conclude that “something terrible’s happened” (362). Moore races to Kreizler’s. Sara opens the door and introduces Dr. Osborne, a friend of Kreizler’s, who has been tending to an injured Stevie. After the doctor leaves, Sara explains that Kreizler is at the morgue.

On Saturday night, Connor and two of his men forced their way into the house, shut Mary in the kitchen, and began beating Stevie in an effort to learn where Kreizler and Moore had gone. Mary escaped the kitchen with a knife and stabbed Connor in his side. Connor knocked Mary down the stairs, breaking her neck. Roosevelt has detectives out searching for Connor.

As Moore leaves for the morgue, Sara urges him to give the grieving alienist a good deal of space. When he arrives at the morgue, Moore finds Kreizler “leaning against the building,” his eyes “wide, vacant, and black” (366). A grieving and guilt-ridden Kreizler declares that he is no longer interested in the investigation. Moore tries to persuade Kreizler to reconsider and not to feel sorry for himself, at which point Kreizler uses his damaged left arm to take a violent yet futile swing at his friend. Kreizler promises to remove his belongings from 808 Broadway, asks to be left alone, and disappears into the building.

Hopeless and exhausted, Moore returns to 808 Broadway. A telegram from the Isaacsons reveals that, according to Lieutenant Miller, Corporal John Beecham enjoyed mountaineering, carried a knife, and had a facial tic. Moore replies with instructions that the Isaacsons should return home. Sara arrives at headquarters. She convinces a despondent, stubborn, and reluctant Moore that even without Kreizler, the remaining team members can and must finish the investigation, if for no other reason than to allow them all to sleep at night. Moore slowly begins to share details from the interview with Adam Dury. Sara writes them on the chalkboard. A rejuvenated Moore joins her, adding thoughts about Japheth’s transformation into Beecham. Sara speculates that when Japheth took his rapist’s name, he “became the tormentor” and then chose the first name “John” because of John the Baptist, the “purifier” by water (374). They realize that they can proceed without Kreizler, though in the ensuing weeks Moore often thinks of his grieving friend, who now suffers not only a shattered heart but a loss of confidence.

Before the Isaacsons return, Moore and Sara visit Roosevelt at home, hoping to convince the police commissioner to allow them to continue without Kreizler. Inside the front door of the Roosevelts’ rented townhouse on Madison Avenue, the Roosevelt children appear one by one: Kermit, Ethel, Ted, and Alice. Edith Roosevelt, the future president’s second wife, welcomes Sara and Moore, neither of whom is a stranger to the Roosevelt family or home. Roosevelt emerges from his study and, after being mobbed by his adoring children, invites Sara and Moore to speak in private. Roosevelt expresses sympathy for Kreizler and allows the investigation to continue as long as the remaining investigators inform him of everything they know in advance so he can try to prevent another attack, which Sara and Moore believe will occur on June 21, the next feast day on the Christian calendar. Back at 808 Broadway, the Isaacsons finally return from the Dakotas. Marcus declares that Beecham is “our man—he’s got to be” (388).

The remaining investigators begin to wonder about the source of Beecham’s confidence in navigating the city’s rooftops. After reviewing a list of occupations that require moving along rooftops in the tenement district, they decide to explore the possibility that Beecham used his intense religious upbringing to infiltrate church and charity groups. Weeks of arduous footwork among the “fatuous hypocrites who made up New York’s charity community,” however, leave Moore feeling disillusioned and Sara convinced that they are “on the wrong track” (397). The charity workers, she notes, do not seem to know anything about the people who live in the tenements, the impoverished and vice-ridden objects of their presumptive charity. Moore has a sudden realization about the kind of workers who do learn personal details about the people whose tenements they visit. He grabs Sara, and together they race to 135 Eighth Street, the building that houses the US Census Bureau.

Charles Murray, the superintendent of the Census Bureau’s New York City office, appears overly defensive when Moore begins asking questions but eventually reveals that he did indeed hire John Beecham as an enumerator for the 1890 census. Beecham’s application lists his address as 23 Bank Street. Murray also indicates that he later promoted Beecham to office clerk but then fired him in December 1895. After leaving the building, Moore explains to Sara that Murray probably chafed at the presence of a newspaper reporter because the 1890 census was marred by a notorious scandal involving urban political bosses who got their operatives hired at the Census Bureau in order to inflate the actual population counts in their districts. Moore and Sara decide to send the Isaacsons to the Census Bureau the next day to find out exactly why Murray fired Beecham.

Moore and Sara head to 23 Bank Street, where they see a “Room to Let” sign and meet an elderly woman, Mrs. Piedmont, surrounded by eight of her cats. Mrs. Piedmont asks if Moore and Sara are interested in the room for rent, and Sara replies that they want to know about the room’s former occupant, Mr. Beecham. Mrs. Piedmont describes Beecham as “very polite,” “very prompt,” but “not much of a man for animals” (407). Pleasant but chatty, Mrs. Piedmont repeatedly notes how cats will simply run off and disappear, which is exactly what happened to one of her cats last December, just before Mr. Beecham left. Sara asks if they can see the room, and Mrs. Piedmont agrees. After entering Beecham’s old room, Moore notes that “the cats didn’t follow us in” and detects “the smell of decay” (409). While Sara accompanies Mrs. Piedmont back downstairs, Moore lifts the mattress to find the source of the stench: a small, furry, rotting carcass.

Back at 808 Broadway, Moore and Sara lament the fact that they still cannot trace Beecham’s whereabouts since December, but the Isaacsons appear optimistic, believing that they can still “follow his confident, aggressive side” (413). Having ruled out charity work and anything associated with a religious organization, Sara and Moore decide to focus on bill collection as an occupation that might attract Beecham. Days pass without results. Finally, Sara telephones Moore and tells him to meet her at 967 Broadway, exclaiming, “We’ve been stupid about this. It should’ve been obvious. Now get moving!” (417).

Before Moore can leave headquarters to meet Sara, the phone rings again. This time the caller is Joseph, who tells Moore than one of his friends had an encounter with a man who promised to take him away to live in a castle, but Joseph’s young friend said nothing about a facial tic. Joseph asks to meet Moore later that evening and then hangs up in a rush.

Moore meets Sara at 967 Broadway, the second floor of which houses a collection agency hired by a tenement landlord to try to collect months’ worth of back rent from Mr. Ghazi, father of Ali ibn-Ghazi, one of the murdered boys. Bribed with the false promise of potential monetary reward, one of the agency’s owners, Mr. Harper, indicates that he did indeed hire Beecham and that Beecham, when he is not working, frequents a stale-beer dive on Mulberry Bend.

Moore, Sara, and the Isaacsons take a streetcar into the dangerous Five Points neighborhood, the city’s most notorious tenement district, where the “surprisingly low level of outward activity” meant only that “[d]eath and despair did their work without fanfare” (422). While Lucius and Sara wait outside, Moore and Marcus enter the dive at 119 Baxter Street. Moore describes the depressing scene, in which all but a handful of patrons appear passed out. Moore pays the bartender for information about a large man with a facial tic. The bartender gives an address—155 Baxter Street—and warns Moore and Marcus to watch out because the man they seek carries a big knife.

At the front door to the tenement at 155 Baxter Street, the investigators are stopped by a man who smells of liquor and claims to be watching the building for the landlord, so Moore pays another bribe, and the man guides them to Beecham’s flat on the top floor. Inside the dark and sparsely furnished single room, they find evidence: a map of Manhattan and the city water supply, a Civil War–era photograph of a scalped and mutilated body shot full of arrows, jars filled with the formaldehyde-preserved eyes of more than 20 victims, and a small box containing what Lucius identifies as the very old remains of a human heart. Lucius and Marcus remain at the gruesome scene while Sara and Moore walk to police headquarters to inform Roosevelt, who springs into action and begins “barking orders throughout the second-floor hallway” (430). Back at 808 Broadway, Moore finds a large sack with a tag indicating it is meant to be delivered to the sixth floor. When Moore opens the sack, Joseph’s dead body falls onto the floor.

After learning the coroner’s verdict of murder by way of a sharp object to the back of the skull and racked with guilt at having brought young Joseph to such an end, Moore exits the morgue to find Kreizler sitting in his carriage and waiting for his friend. Kreizler offers a carriage ride and then breakfast in a private room at Delmonico’s. When Moore wonders aloud how Joseph could have missed his warnings about the man with the facial tic, Kreizler reminds Moore that Beecham’s facial tic disappears when he is stalking prey, causing Moore to bury his face in his hands at having forgotten this. At breakfast, Kreizler and Moore discuss the case, including the discoveries at Beecham’s flat. Kreizler explains that he cannot yet return to the investigation and reminds Moore of the benefit concert at the Metropolitan Opera scheduled for Sunday, June 21. Kreizler asks Moore to accompany him to the opera that night, at which point Kreizler promises to rejoin the investigation, though Kreizler asks Moore to keep this promised return secret from Roosevelt and the rest of the team. Though confused, Moore trusts his friend and agrees to the arrangement.

Moore returns to 808 Broadway. For the first time, Roosevelt joins the team at headquarters. Watching the investigators in action, Roosevelt reacts with enthusiastic approval of their “modern methods” (438). Focusing on the map of the city’s water supply, they settle on the High Bridge Aqueduct and Tower as the most likely site for Beecham’s next kill, which they believe will occur on June 21, the Feast of St. John the Baptist, and the same night as the opera. Sara and the Isaacsons are stunned when Moore reveals his plan to join Kreizler at the opera that night, but Roosevelt, already contemplating the deployment of his police officers, agrees that Moore’s presence with Kreizler at the opera, coupled with Roosevelt’s own personal attendance, should give the appearance of business-as-usual. Sara remains suspicious and privately asks Moore to alert her if Kreizler is up to something.

Moore fumes as he fights his way through the mass of privileged humanity crowding the opera-house staircase on his way up to Kreizler’s reserved box, where he finds his friend sitting in one of the back seats, a spot from which he can observe the proceedings below while preserving a measure of privacy. Kreizler is pleased to learn that Moore has maintained secrecy and that the investigators have selected the High Bridge, which Kreizler applauds as “the only other intelligent choice” (445). He does not explain. In the middle of the performance, Kreizler stands up and urges Moore to follow him while Stevie and Cyrus suddenly appear as tuxedo-clad decoys to take their places in the box.

Kreizler and Moore quickly exit the building. Kreizler tells a confused Moore that they are going to intercept Beecham and catch him in the act, for Beecham, according to Kreizler, will not be at High Bridge but instead will take his next victim to Croton Reservoir, a “castle-like fortress” with a “man-made lake” that serves as the “heart of the city’s water system” (451). Outside the fortress, Kreizler hands Moore a revolver but makes it clear that he needs Beecham alive. As they ascend the winding staircase, Moore spots a black carriage that resembles the one belonging to Paul Kelly.

Atop the fortress-reservoir’s six-story-high walls, Moore notes to himself that they have entered Beecham’s lair, the urban-rooftop world where the killer shows most confidence. Within moments they hear muffled sobbing and then see a naked boy, bound and gagged, his body bent over so that his painted face rests on the fortress's stone walkway. On the roof of the nearby control house, Moore spots a balding head, which then quickly vanishes from sight. Speculating that Beecham might have fled after being surprised by their appearance, Kreizler and Moore slowly approach the boy. Suddenly, a dark figure vaults the fence and knocks out Moore with a vicious punch to the jaw.

Moore awakens to find that he and Kreizler are tied to an iron fence. Kreizler is awake and appears surprisingly at ease. Beecham moves behind the boy and strips naked, revealing a chiseled and powerful frame. His face appears ordinary, and Moore finds this unsettling. Beecham reacts angrily when Kreizler addresses him as “Japheth.” Beecham taunts Kreizler and Moore by reminding them that he has been watching them all along, and now it is their turn to watch. Beecham fondles himself but fails to make himself erect. Kreizler explains to a horrified and perplexed Moore that this is a “complex moment” because Beecham “doesn’t, in fact, want to” rape his victims. He “feels an obsessive force pushing him toward it, as toward the killing—but it isn’t desire” (459). A frustrated Beecham moves to the front of the boy and begins choking his victim.

Connor appears on the rooftops, accompanied by his two thugs, and trains his revolver on Beecham. Connor orders his thugs to cut Kreizler and Moore loose. Beecham’s entire demeanor changes, and he cowers in fear as his face begins its violent spasms. Connor orders Kreizler and Moore to leave so he can finish off Beecham, but Kreizler refuses. Beecham crawls toward Kreizler’s feet. Connor mocks Beecham as a “poor excuse for a man” and a mere “thing” (461). Connor and his thugs continue to laugh. Kreizler yells “Now!” (461).

At Kreizler’s signal, Eat-’Em-Up Jack McManus leaps over the iron fence, knocks the revolver from Connor’s hand with a lead pipe, and uses the same lead pipe to bludgeon the two thugs into unconsciousness. McManus tips his cap to Kreizler and then ties up Connor and the two thugs. Kreizler unties the boy and puts him safely inside the control room. Moore takes Connor’s handcuffs and tells Beecham to put them on, and the murderer tamely complies. Kreizler emerges from the control room. Moore demands an explanation.

Kreizler tells Moore that there is not yet time for an explanation because Roosevelt is surely on his way from the High Bridge by now. Kreizler squats down to question Beecham, addressing him as “Japheth” and insisting on complete honesty. Beecham quietly submits and answers all Kreizler’s questions, as if “a still strong part of the murderer’s mind had indeed craved this moment” (465).

Moore suddenly snaps, angered over the fact that Beecham would dare to “exhibit any pitiable human qualities” after torturing and mutilating children (466). While Kreizler tries to calm his now unhinged friend, Moore places the revolver to Beecham’s throat and threatens to pull the trigger. Moore hears a gunshot. Connor has freed himself, grabbed his gun, and shot Beecham in the chest. As Connor turns his weapon on Kreizler and Moore, another gunshot strikes Connor, who falls to the ground. Sara emerges from the shadows, holding her revolver.

Sara explains that she figured out the real location after Roosevelt told her that Kreizler and Moore had left the opera. Kreizler tries to question Beecham one last time, but the dying man’s response is unintelligible (468). Beecham closes his eyes for the final time. Kreizler, tears in his eyes, asks the Isaacsons to help him move the body before Roosevelt arrives, for Kreizler believes there is only one question remaining. Kreizler acknowledges that Sara has good reason to be upset with him over the secrecy and thanks her for everything. Shortly after Kreizler and the Isaacsons disappear with Beecham’s body, Roosevelt arrives with several of his men. Sara and Moore concoct a story, telling Roosevelt that the killer never showed up and that Connor in fact had set a trap in hopes of killing Stevie, the only witness to the death of Mary Palmer. After seeing the terrified boy in the control room, Roosevelt smells a rat. Roosevelt orders his men to arrest Moore and Sara for conspiracy and take them to police headquarters.

Roosevelt’s bluster results in nothing more than a stern lecture inside his office, and the police commissioner’s anger turns to “effusive praise” when Moore and Sara tell him the truth about everything, including Beecham’s death (473). As Moore and Sara head down the stairs and out the building, a suddenly buoyant Roosevelt stands in his office doorway and yells that when he goes to Washington, DC, after the election, perhaps as Secretary of the Navy, he might need their help in figuring out the best way to give the Spanish Empire a good thrashing. Walking along the city streets, Moore and Sara try to come to grips with all that has happened, especially the fact that their investigation is now over. Sara takes a carriage home to Gramercy Park. Moore, now walking alone, decides that he still needs answers.

Moore walks to New Brighton Dance Hall, Paul Kelly’s establishment. By chance, he spots Kelly at the door, paying off a police sergeant, who walks off laughing. Moore and Kelly strike up a conversation. The cocaine-snorting Kelly feigns ignorance, but Moore presses him on Jack McManus’s sudden appearance at the Croton Reservoir and suggests that Kelly struck a deal with Kreizler. Kelly never acknowledges making such a deal, but he asks Moore, “[O]f all the people who were up there tonight, who do you think is really the most dangerous to the boys uptown” (478)? Moore understands Kelly’s meaning.

Moore takes a carriage to the Kreizler Institute. He learns that the autopsy on Beecham’s brain revealed nothing unusual. Kreizler drives Moore home to Washington Square. Along the way, Kreizler explains that the tears in his eyes earlier this evening were not for Beecham’s death but for the horror of his life; that he wanted to keep Beecham alive for as long as possible because there was much to learn from a tormented soul who was willing to talk about his crimes; and that Beecham’s activities always were destined to intensify to a crisis point, for Beecham “craved the chance to show people what their ‘society’ had done to him” (483).

The next morning, as Moore walks home following a very late dinner with the team at Delmonico’s, he reads a New York Times story about the murderer’s body showing up at the morgue. Commissioner Roosevelt confirmed the story for the Times, explaining that the man’s identity could not be revealed but that police detectives had indeed stopped the killer before he could commit another murder.

Returning to 1919, in the aftermath of Roosevelt’s funeral, Moore reflects on these events and the changes that have occurred in the past 23 years. Moore has remained in close contact with Sara and the Isaacsons, who have enjoyed long and successful careers in law enforcement. Cyrus married. Stevie came of age and opened a tobacco shop. The Croton Reservoir was demolished and replaced by the New York Public Library.