Page 4 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

And then—as the cab turned down Center toward Worth—came another change, for the worse. Constance felt as if she had just parted the forbidden veil of Isis and passed into the unnatural world beyond. The air now grew thick with greasy fumes from the illegal tanneries that infested the area. The singing of children, the cries of merchants, vanished. As a premature dusk descended from the thickening atmosphere, Constance began to make out new sounds: whimpers of despair and pain; grunts and curses; the cackling and screeching of streetwalkers; the sickening sound of brickbats hitting flesh. These, too, came back as memories, but memories she had long suppressed.

The carriage turned a corner, then came to a lurching stop. Two raps, and the trap door opened slightly. “Let me just put the blinders on Rascal, mum,” said Murphy, his voice tight.

Constance readied herself, sliding one hand into the pocket that contained both money and stiletto. A moment later, there was a rattling sound, then the door to the carriage opened and Murphy extended one hand to help her out. In the other hand he held a long wooden cudgel, with a spine of metal, that he had partially drawn out of one coat pocket.

“No fears, mum,” he said. “It’s just me ugly stick.” But his attempt at a lighthearted tone failed, and his eyes were constantly in motion. Constance noted his posture was that of a man ready to repel a threat at a moment’s notice. No doubt he was wishing he’d stayed uptown. But it was just as obvious that, having escorted a lady to such a place, he would not abandon her.

With this thought, Constance moved forward one step, another—and then, raising her eyes to look ahead, stopped with an involuntary gasp.

3

THEY HAD STEPPED OUTat a corner. Ahead, at the far end of the block, lay a confusing intersection of muddy streets. Four of its five approaches were dense with buildings of decaying brick, their upper stories leaning perilously over the sidewalks below. The fifth held a small square, with nothing more than a well handle for public water, surrounded by a fetid pig wallow into which all manner of garbage and filth had been tossed. A few ancient wooden structures from the previous century were visible here and there—squat and in ruinous condition. Chickens and pigs wandered unchecked, pecking and rooting. Windows everywhere were broken; some mended with waxed paper, others boarded over, still others open to the elements. No signage protruded above the blackened shopfronts: what commerce had once been eked out here had long since been given over to grogshops, tippling houses, and dens of prostitution. Men lolled in doorways, drinking, expectorating gobs of phlegm or yellow ropes of chewing tobacco; women, too, were on the street, sprawled drunken and senseless or calling out to potential customers, lifting a skirt or exposing a breast to advertise their wares. A group of young boys played in the gutter with a paper boat folded from a piece of newspaper.

This was the Five Points—the worst crossroads in the worst slum in all of New York. To Constance the spectacle was doubly traumatizing, because she recognized it in the most personal of ways. Nearly a century and a half before, she herself had scurried along these same streets and seen these same sights as a little girl, hungry, freezing, dressed in rags.

“Mum,” she heard the coachman say, while giving her elbow the slightest pressure. “We’d best be about it.” He turned to the boys nearby, took a silver dollar from his pocket and flipped it, then slipped it back in, leaving them staring with longing. “That’s for you if me horse and carriage are here when we get back.”

Once again, Constance pushed down hard on the whirlwind of memories this sight stirred so violently. She had to be strong, for Mary’s sake—later, in safety, she could deal with the emotional aftermath.

Murphy guided her forward. She went along, ignoring the muck and filth that spilled over the curbside and onto the sidewalk, eyes fixed ahead, shutting out the hoots and lecherous catcalls, along with the curses of other women who—seeing the fine cut of her clothes and the clear complexion of her skin—took her for unfair competition. She refused to glance down the dark and narrow lanes that led back from the street—crooked alleyways calf-deep in mud, sky obscured by clotheslines, lined by men in bowler hats guarding the hidden entrances to underground dens. These alleys exhaled smells of their own, much harder to shut out because of their vileness: sepsis; rotting meat; sewage.

She stumbled on a cobble and felt the steadying hand of Murphy on her elbow. They were halfway down the block now, and the ancient structure of the House of Industry rose up on their left, its soot-streaked façade cracked, its windows barred.

Mary was inside.Mary. Constance began to say the name over and over to herself, like a mantra.

She glanced across the street at another large structure in better condition than its neighbors. This had once been the site of the Old Brewery, the most notorious tenement building in New York, so large and airless that most of its interior spaces had no windows. Its entrances had been given nicknames—the Den of Thieves, Murderers’ Alley, Sudden Death. But a ladies’ missionary society had it torn down and replaced it with the Five Points Mission, dedicated to helping indigent women and children. Constance knew the building well; many times, as a young orphan, she had begged bread from its kitchen entrance off Baxter Street. Mary was supposed to be quartered and fed in the Mission. But corrupt interests had transferred her and so many others across the street to the House of Industry instead, to get the benefit of cheap labor. She spent all her time locked within the House of Industry, working sixteen-hour days in crowded, lice-infested quarters.

Steeling herself with this thought, she glanced over at Murphy, who nodded in readiness. Raising his hand to the worn brass doorknob, he turned it to no avail.

“Oi!” he said. “Locked.” He started to knock, but Constance stayed his hand.

She pulled a hairpin from her bonnet, bent toward the lock, and inserted it. Within a few moments, a click sounded. She stepped back again from the scuffed and dented knob.

“Lord blind me!” the coachman said.

“Surprise is important. Would you agree?”

Murphy nodded.

“In that case: after you.”

The coachman grasped the knob again, holding his cudgel firm in the other hand. Then in one swift move he opened the door, stepped inside, and Constance followed. He closed it behind her.

Constance glanced around quickly. The entry room was bisected by a hinged wooden counter, which could be lifted for passage through, much in the manner of a bank. Doors to the left and right led into other, larger rooms, with high ceilings of pressed tin. She could smell the tang of urine and lye in the air. Chicken feathers and oyster shells were piled in the corners.

A man sat behind the divider, visible only from his chest up. He wore a worn coat and a white shirt with a filthy collar, unbuttoned at his neck. A pair of crepe armbands adorned his arms just above the elbows, and his fingernails were black with accumulated grime.

He pushed an ink-stained cap back from his forehead and looked from one to the other. “What’s this? Who are you lot, then?”

“We’re here for Mary Greene,” Constance said, stepping forward.

“Are you now?” said the man, seemingly unfazed by her prosperous appearance and ability to bypass the lock. “And what might your business be with her?”

“My business is no concern of yours. I wish to see her—now.”

“Oh, indeed? You ‘wish to see her.’ What do you think this is—a zoo?”

“It smells like one,” said Murphy.

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