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THE MORNING SUN, FILTEREDthrough a veil of dust and smoke, fell feebly upon the intersection where Broadway crossed Seventh Avenue. The thoroughfare was made of dirt, its potholed surface packed so hard from an infinitude of horses and wagons it seemed as impermeable as cement, except in the muddy areas surrounding the grooves of the cable car tracks and the hitching posts, sunk in manure.
The intersection was called Longacre. It was the center of the carriage trade, an outlying district of the rapidly growing city where horses were stabled and buggy makers toiled.
On this particular chilly morning, Longacre and the avenues and streets leading from it were quiet save for the occasional pedestrian or horse cart passing by, and nobody paid much attention to the young woman with short dark hair, dressed in a purple gown of an unusual cut and fabric, who stepped out from an alleyway and looked around, squinting and wrinkling her nose.
Constance Greene paused, letting the initial flood of sensations sink in, careful not to betray any sign of the upswell of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. The sights, noises, and odors unexpectedly brought back a thousand memories of her childhood, memories so distant that she scarcely knew she still retained them. The smell of the city hit her first and most viscerally: a mixture of earth, sweat, horse dung, coal smoke, urine, leather, fried meat, and the ammoniac tang of lye. Next were sights she’d once taken for granted but now looked strange—the telegraph poles, invariably listing; the gaslights on various corners; the numerous carriages, parked upon or next to sidewalks; the ubiquitous shabbiness. Everything spoke of a city growing so fast it could scarcely keep up with itself. Most strangely, the white-noise susurrus of modern Manhattan was missing: the growl of car traffic; the honking of taxis; the hum of compressors, turbines, HVAC systems; the underground rumble of subway trains. In its place was a relative quiet: hoofbeats of horses, shouts, calls, and laughter; the occasional crack of a whip; and, from a nearby saloon, the tinny, off-key strains of an upright piano. She had grown so used to seeing the boulevards of Manhattan as vertical steel canyons it was hard to process this scene, where the tallest buildings, as far as the eye could see, were no greater than three or four stories.
After a few minutes, Constance took a deep breath. Then she turned south.
She walked past a frowzy restaurant offering a choice of oxtail goulash, potted veal chop, or pigs’ feet with kraut for five cents. Outside stood a busy newsboy with an armful of papers, his clear piping voice announcing the headlines of the day. She passed slowly, staring, as he held one out hopefully. She shook her head and walked on, but not before noting the date: Tuesday, November 27, 1880.
November 1880.Her sister, Mary, nineteen years old, was currently being worked half to death in the Five Points House of Industry. And her brother, Joseph, twelve, would be completing his sentence on Blackwell’s Island.
And a certain doctor had recently begun his ghastly, murderous experiments.
She felt her heart quicken at the thought of them still alive. She might yet be in time.
Reaching into the smock of her dress, she felt the reassuring heft of her antique stiletto, along with eight hundred and fifty dollars in period money. She went on at a brisker pace, heading in the direction of Herald Square and a better part of town.
A dozen blocks to the south, she found a couturier that, in addition to tailored dresses, also sold prêt-à-porter outfits. An hour later she emerged, with a shop’s assistant holding a hatbox and two large bags in tow. Instead of the purple gown, Constance was now wearing an elegant bustle dress of peacock-blue silk and white ruffles, with a matching bonnet and heavy Eton jacket. As she walked briskly to the curb, the gazes she attracted were admiring rather than curious. Constance waited while the assistant flagged a hansom cab.
The driver began to get down from his seat, but Constance opened the door herself and—putting a high-buttoned shoe on the running board—sprang up easily into the compartment.
The driver raised his eyebrows, then mounted his seat as the shop assistant put the bags and the hatbox inside the cab. “Where to, ma’am?” he asked as he drew in the reins.
“The Fifth Avenue Hotel,” Constance said, proffering a dollar bill.
“Yes,ma’am,” the driver said as he pocketed it. Without another word, he urged his horse forward, and in moments the cab had merged smoothly into the ebb and flow of the noonday traffic.
It was another dozen blocks to her destination: the opulent palace of marble and brick, six stories high, that occupied the entire block of Fifth Avenue across from Madison Square. The cab came to a stop at the hotel’s entrance portico. “Whoa, Rascal,” the driver said.
Constance opened the small trap door in the rear of the roof. “Would you wait for me, please?” she asked.
He glanced down from his sprung seat behind and above the compartment. “Certainly, mum.” He released the door lever and she stepped out. Immediately, two doormen rushed forward to take possession of the bags and hatbox. Not pausing to wait, Constance walked swiftly beneath the rows of Corinthian columns and across the white-and-crimson marble flooring of the entrance hall.
Past a barber shop, telegraph office, and restaurant, she found the large front desk of carved wood, polished to a brilliant hue. Behind the desk were several men, dressed in similar livery. One of them approached her.
“Are you looking for the ladies’ reception room, madam?” he asked deferentially. “You will find it one flight up.”
Constance shook her head. “I would like to take a room, please.”
The man raised his eyebrows. “For you and your husband?”
“I’m traveling alone.”
The eyebrows went back down discreetly. “I see. I’m afraid, madam, that almost all of our standard rooms are taken—”
“A suite, then,” Constance said.
The central lobby of the hotel was a large space with a high, vaulted ceiling, and the constant procession of chattering guests, their footfalls echoing on the diamond-patterned marble, made it difficult for her to hear.
“Very good, madam.” The man turned to a row of niches built into the wall behind him, withdrew a leatherbound book from one, and opened it. “We have two suites available on the fourth floor, and several on the second, if you are not inclined to use the perpendicular railway.”
“The what?”
“The perpendicular railway. It has intersections on each story of the hotel.”