A number of ladies had tried on the shadow and mascara they had received, creating paired circles of phosphorescence that turned the dark portal of the church into a kind of grotto from which nocturnal birds or beasts seemed to peer out. Mrs Meloney apologized to Brighton: she'd had no idea that his company had entered the cosmetics line; she would be sure to mention it in the next issue of The Delineator. She and Mr Brighton were so engrossed in their affable chat, and Colette so provoked by it, that they didn't notice the solitary figure ahead of them, kneeling among the shadowed pews, head down as if in prayer.
'Mrs Meloney — I left my elements by the lectern,' said Colette. 'I should go back for them.'
'Don't be rude, dear,' replied the older woman, pulling firmly on Brighton's arm, who in turn pulled Colette.
The kneeling figure began to stir as they approached. A hood covered its head.
'Yes, don't desert me, Miss Rousseau,' said Brighton. 'I'll have Samuels collect your things.'
Colette didn't answer. Her tongue had gone dry. The hooded figure had stepped into the aisle, blocking their advance. It was a woman. Wispy red hair emerged from the hood. One bony hand rested on a scarf around her neck — hiding something that seemed to bulge out from beneath it.
'Can we help you, dear?' asked Mrs Meloney.
Colette knew she ought to say something, to cry out in warning. But she found herself transfixed. The gaunt creature's eyes seemed to call out to her. They seemed to take in the connection between her and Mr Brighton and Mrs Meloney — the linking of their arms, their apparent unity — and to condemn it. A hand rose up toward Colette, beckoning her. Colette felt herself surrendering. For reasons opaque to her — perhaps it was simply that she was in a church; perhaps it was the accumulated effect of the harrowing incidents of the last two days, breaking down her resistance — Colette felt she had to meet the creature's outstretched hand with kindness, not horror. Whatever the reason, Colette reached out to the shrouded woman. Their fingers made contact.
The touch was repulsive, damp, communicating illness or contagion as if the creature had emerged from a fouled pool and would soon return there. The hooded figure clenched her fingers around Colette's and took a step backward, pulling Colette with her.
'Stop that at once,' said Mrs Meloney, as if addressing children with bad manners.
'Yes, stop that at once,' said Brighton. The hooded girl turned her eyes on him and pointed an outstretched hand at his face. He fell back, letting Colette go. 'Samuels?' said Brighton weakly.
The shrouded woman drew Colette another step back, always keeping one bony, blue-veined hand on the scarf around her neck. Colette didn't resist. It was the wristwatch — the gift from Brighton, now only a few inches from the hooded girl's face — that broke the spell.
In the greenish luminosity of the watch dial, Colette saw eyes that struck her momentarily as sweet, like a doe's. Then the eyes changed. They seemed to become aware of the glinting diamonds at Colette's wrist, and they filled with fire. With sharp nails, the creature began clawing at the watch and its diamond-studded band, scratching Colette's skin, drawing blood. Colette tried vainly to wrest her hand away.
'It's a thief cried Mrs Meloney.
In a fury, the red-haired woman scraped at Colette's flesh and spoke for the first time: 'Give me — give me Colette's breath caught in her throat: the woman's voice was guttural, like a man's, only lower in pitch than any man's voice Colette had ever heard. In her thrashing, the woman's scarf fell away from her chin. A pair of thin, colorless lips was the first thing to appear. Then the scarf fell farther down, and Mrs Meloney screamed at the sight, just as Betty Littlemore had.
'My God,' said Colette.
The hooded figure, fixated on the diamond watch, drew from her cloak a shaft of glinting metal — a knife. Colette was now pinioned. Mr Brighton had retreated, but the bold Mrs Meloney had taken his place, evidently believing that she could best render aid to Colette by seizing her free arm and refusing to let go. The redheaded woman, wild-eyed, raised her knife. Colette, with one wrist seized by her assailant, the other by her would-be protector, was helpless.
Mrs Meloney cried out: 'She's going to cut off her arm! Someone help!'
A shot rang out. A bullet ripped into the crucifix behind the pulpit, tearing a shoulder of carved wood off the savior. The hooded woman spun around, holding her knife high above her head. There came another shot, then another. The woman's flashing eyes went still. The knife slipped from her hand. An unnaturally deep groan came from her lips, and blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. Her body collapsed into Colette's arms.
The French girl felt a fleshy, sickening contact as the woman's throat pressed against her own. Shuddering, Colette let the body fall to the floor. In the church vestibule, Brighton's amanuensis, Samuels, stood with a smoking gun in his hand.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then, from behind Mrs Meloney,
Arnold Brighton poked his head out. 'Oh, well done, Samuels,' he said. 'Well done.'
'Mr Brighton,' said Mrs Meloney reprovingly.
'Yes, Mrs Meloney?'
'You hid behind me.'
'Oh, no, I wasn't hiding,' said Brighton. 'Everyone knew where I was. I was taking cover. Most satisfactory cover, I might add. Most ample cover.'
'You held me, Mr Brighton, when the shots were fired. I tried to run, but you held me fast.'
'You mean — oh, I see what you mean. I benefitted from you without compensating you. How can I repay you? Would a thousand dollars be appropriate? Five thousand?'
'My word,' said Mrs Meloney.
'Samuels, don't just stand there,' said Brighton. 'Clean up. One can't leave a dead body on the floor of a church. Could we pay the trash men to take her, do you suppose?'
'She's still alive,' said Colette, kneeling by the fallen woman.
'She is?' asked Brighton, looking as if he might need to take cover behind Mrs Meloney again.
'Police!' shouted Detective Littlemore, bursting through the front door of the church. 'Drop your weapons!'
The woman's body lay crumpled on the cold stone floor, a dark stain of blood spreading out below it. Younger and Littlemore had arrived just in time to hear cries of 'murder' from ladies fleeing the church. As Mrs Meloney explained to the detective how the mad woman had attacked Colette, and how Mr Samuels had saved them,' Younger sought a pulse in the fallen woman's wrist. He found one, very faint.
Colette knelt next to him. 'Look at her neck,' she said.
Matted, unhealthy red hair masked the woman's face. Grimly but gingerly, Younger pushed the hair away. He saw vacant eyes, a pretty nose and thin, parted lips. The fraying scarf had regained its place over her neck. Younger pulled it away.
The woman had no chin at all. Where a chin should have been, and where a throat should have been, there was instead an engorged bulbous mass, almost as large as the woman's own head, attached to her neck. It had wrinkles, dimples, lumps, indentations, and many, many veins.
'What in the love of Pete is that?' asked Littlemore.
Chapter Nine
A year before the attack on Wall Street, the President of the United States, sitting on his toilet in the White House, suffered a massive cerebral thrombosis — a clot in the artery feeding his brain. Within moments, the once-visionary Woodrow Wilson became a half-blind invalid, unable to move the left side of his body, including the left side of his mouth.
Wilson's stroke was kept from the public, from his Cabinet, even from his Vice President. It was difficult to say who was supposed to run the country after Wilson s collapse. Indeed it was difficult to say who was running the country. Was it Secretary of State Robert Lansing, who secretly convened the Cabinet in the President's absence? Or was it Wilson's wife, Edith, who counted among her ancestors both Plantagenets and Pocahontas, and who alone had access to the presidential sick room, emerging therefrom with orders that Wilson had supposedly dictated? Or perhaps it was Attorney General Palmer, who secured ever more funds for his Bureau of Investigation, and who imprisoned tens of thousands all over the country as suspected enemies of the nation.