“My personal opinion,” added the Inspector, “has been all along that he’s a Manhattanite. To me this Cat smells local.”
“Besides, Jack,” said the Commissioner with a certain dryness, “our jurisdiction ends at the City limits. After that we’ve got a tin cup in our hands and take what the saints provide.”
The Mayor set his glass down with a little bang and went over to the fireplace. Ellery was nuzzling his Scotch with a faraway look, the Commissioner was back at his cigar examination, Dr. Cazalis and Inspector Queen were blinking at each other across the room to keep awake, and Mrs. Cazalis sat like a grenadier.
The Mayor turned suddenly. “Dr. Cazalis, what are the chances of extending your psychiatric investigation to include the entire metropolitan area?”
“Manhattan, is the concentration point.”
“But there are other psychiatrists outside?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What about them?”
“Well... it would take months, and then you wouldn’t get anything like satisfactory coverage. Even here, in the heart of things, where I exert a pretty direct professional influence, I haven’t been able to get better than 65 to 70 per cent of the men in the field to co-operate. If the survey were extended to Westchester, Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey...” Dr. Cazalis shook his head. “As far as I personally am concerned, Mr. Mayor, it would be pretty much out of the question. I haven’t either the strength or the time to tackle such a project.”
Mrs. Cazalis’s lips parted.
“Won’t you at least continue covering Manhattan, then, Dr. Cazalis? The answer may well lie in the files of one of the 30 or 35 per cent you say refused to play along. Won’t you keep after those people?”
Dr. Cazalis’s fingers pumped rapidly. “Well, I’ve been hoping...”
“Edward, you’re not giving up. You’re not!”
“Et tu, darling? I thought I had no more sense than an infant.”
“I mean for going at it the way you have. Ed, how can you stop altogether? Now?”
“Why, dear, simply by doing so. I was paranoid to attempt it.”
She said something in such a low tone that Dr. Cazalis said, “What, dear?”
“I said what about Lenore!”
She was on her feet.
“Darling.” Dr. Cazalis scrambled off the divan. “All this tonight’s upset you—”
“Tonight? Did you think I wasn’t upset yesterday? And the day before?” She sobbed into her hands. “If Lenore had been your sister’s child... had meant as much to you as she did to me...”
“I think, gentlemen,” said the Mayor quickly, “we’ve imposed on Mrs. Cazalis’s hospitality long enough.”
“I’m sorry!” She was really trying to stop. “I’m so sorry. Edward, let me go. Please. I want to... get something.”
“Tell you what, darling. Give me twenty-four hours’ sleep, a two-inch T-bone when I wake up, and I’ll tackle it where I left off. Good enough?”
She kissed him suddenly. Then, murmuring something, she hurried out.
“I submit, gentlemen,” said the Mayor, “that we owe Mrs. Cazalis a few dozen roses.”
“My only weakness,” laughed the psychiatrist. “I never could resist the diffusion of the female lachrymal glands.”
“Then, Doctor,” said Ellery, “you may be in for a bad time.”
“How’s that, Mr. Queen?”
“If you’ll run over the ages of the seven victims, you’ll find that each victim had been younger than the one preceding.”
The Commissioner’s cigar almost fell out of his mouth.
The Mayor went brick-red.
“The seventh victim, Doctor — your wife’s niece-was 25 years old. If any prediction is possible in this case, it’s that Victim Number 8 will be under 25. Unless you’re successful, or we are, we may soon be investigating the strangulation of children.” Ellery set his glass down. “Would you say good night to Mrs. Cazalis for me?”
7
The so-called “Cat Riots” of September 22–23 marked the dread appearance in New York City of mobile vulgus for the first time since the Harlem disorders of almost fifteen years before. But in this case the mob was predominantly white; as a wry vindication of the Mayor’s dawn press conference of the previous month, there was no “race angle.” The only racial fears involved were the primitive ones of all mankind.
Students of mob psychology found the Cat Riots interesting. If in one sense the woman whose hysterical outburst set off the panic in Metropol Hall exerted the function of the inevitable meneur — the leader each mob tends to throw up, who starts the cheering or the running away — if the hysterical woman represented the fuse which sparked the explosion, she in her turn had been ignited by the inflammatory Citizens’ Action Teams which had sprung up all over the Greater City during the immediately preceding Four Days and whose activities were responsible for her presence in the Hall. And no one could say with certainty who originally inspired those groups; at least no individual responsibility was ever determined.
The shortlived movement which came to be known as the Four Days (although from inception to culminating riot it spanned six days) was first publicly taken note of early on Monday, September 19, in the late morning editions of the newspapers.
An “association of neighbors” had been formed over the past weekend on the Lower East Side under the name of “The Division Street Vigilantes.” At an organizing meeting held Saturday night a series of resolutions had been drawn up in the form of a “Declaration” which was ratified “in full convention assembled” on the following afternoon. Its “Preamble” asserted “the rights of lawabiding American citizens, in the failure of regular law enforcement,” to band together “for common security.” Anyone in the prescribed neighborhood was eligible to join. World War II veterans were especially solicited. Various patrols were to be set up: a Streets Patrol, a Roofs Patrol, an Alleys Patrol. There was a separate Unit Patrol for each dwelling or other building in the area. The function of the patrols was “to stand guard against the marauder who has been terrorizing the City of New York.” (There was some intra-organizational protest against the use of “fancy language,” but the language stood when the Resolutions Committee pointed out that “on Division Street and around here we’re supposed to be a bunch of pigs.”) Discipline was to be military. Patrolmen were to be equipped with flashlights, armbands, “and available weapons of defense.” A 9 P.M. curfew for children was to be enforced. Street level lighting was to be maintained until daybreak; special arrangements were being made with landlords of dwellings and stores.
In the same news story was noted the simultaneous formation of three similar organizations, apparently unconnected with one another or with the Division Street Vigilantes. One was in the Murray Hill section and called itself “The Murray Hill Committee of Safety.” Another took in the area between West 72nd Street and West 79th Street and was named “The West End Minutemen.” The third centered in Washington Square, “The Village Home Guard.”
Considering the differences among the three groups culturally, socially, and economically, their avowed purposes and operating methods were astonishingly similar to those of the Division Street Vigilantes.
Editorials that morning commented on “the coincidence of four widely separated communities setting the same idea over the same weekend” and wondered “if it is so much of a coincidence as it appears.” The anti-Administration papers blamed the Mayor and the Police Commissioner and used phrases like “the traditional American way” and “the right to defend the American home.” The more responsible journals deplored the movement and one of them was “confident that the traditional good humor of New York will laugh these well-meaning but overexcited people back to their senses.” Max Stone, editorial writer of the leading liberal paper, wrote: “This is fascism on the sidewalks of New York.”