Incognito by Gregory Murphy

Author:Gregory Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2011-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

William and Arabella’s Christmas three days later was a perfunctory affair; they exchanged presents, neither extravagant nor personal, then called their five servants into the library and gave them their gifts from beneath the Christmas tree. In the afternoon they went to their friends the Chanlers’ for Christmas dinner as they did every year.

The next day, William worked in his library. After several hours, he went down to the breakfast room to eat the lunch that Agnes, their cook, had left out for him. He had just passed through the front hall toward the back of the house when the telephone rang in the drawing room. He went in and picked it up. There was no sound at first, then a voice speaking in such a low whisper that he could not be sure if it was a man or a woman:

“Ask Lydia Billings about Dr. Keating on Orchard Street.”

William stood with the phone pressed to his ear. He heard a click, then the phone went dead. He put it down, then pressed rapidly on the hook a number of times for an operator. “Operator, this is Lenox 831. I just received a call on this line. Can you tell me where it came from?” He heard the young woman speaking to someone. She got back on the line. “The call was made locally, sir. Other than that, we can’t say.”

William placed the receiver back on the hook. He stared at the maroon and blue pattern in the drawing room carpet, the name “Dr. Keating” vibrating in his ear, the desperate, whispered tone giving the words a ghastly spin.

He took a deep breath. Who could have made the call? Sybil? Albert? Lydia even? Perhaps Lydia wasn’t in Maine at all. How could he believe a word any of them said?

He opened the door to the cabinet beneath the telephone and looked through the directories there. There was no listing for a Dr. Keating on Orchard Street. He looked at the hall clock. It was quarter-to-three, Tuesday afternoon. Dr. Keating—if there were such a person—would probably have office hours now. He went to the hall closet and reached for his coat and hat.

He found a cab on Park Avenue. “Orchard Street,” he told the driver.

The cabman looked surprised. “Any cross street?”

“How long is Orchard Street?”

“About six blocks.”

“Drop me off somewhere in the middle.”

The cabman left William at the intersection of Delancey and Orchard Streets, and William headed north on Orchard. The Lower East Side streets and sidewalks were crowded with noise and people. He asked a man selling hot sweet potatoes if he knew a Dr. Keating. The man shook his head. William walked until he came to Houston Street, where Orchard ended. He asked passersby along the way about Dr. Keating, but no one seemed to have heard of him. He looked at door signs up and down the street, still nothing.

He walked back down Orchard. After crossing Delancey, he finally found an old man who knew Dr. Keating. The man directed William to an address just south of Grand Street.

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