Page 28 of Angel of Vengeance

“Gracious me.”

Hockelmann waited, face red.

He straightened. “This is a bearing wall, is it not, my good man?”

An exasperated sigh. “It’s the outer wall of the building, yes.”

“Just as I thought. Substandard. Unstable. Shoddy construction. It could collapse at any moment.”

“Wh—?” Hockelmann began to splutter. “This is preposterous!”

They continued on, Pendergast pausing now and then to tap on the walls, his frown deepening. At one point, two rats broke away from a heap of construction trash.

“Vermin,” Pendergast observed. “Uncontained trash. Dangerous storage of paint and oils, leading to possible spontaneous combustion. Extraordinary to think that people live in this environment.”

“But I keep telling you, the building is unoccupied—!”

“Violations are violations, whether there are presently tenants or not.”

It was almost comical how Hockelmann huffed in his attempts to keep up with Pendergast, while simultaneously trying to vent his surprise and indignation.

“What is behind this door?” Pendergast suddenly cried in a suspicious voice, turning a knob and finding it locked.

“An empty apartment,” said Hockelmann. “Like all the others.”

The door suddenly opened as Pendergast pushed against it, and he fell into the darkened space beyond, the door slamming behind him: a bit of business so well executed that a vaudevillian actor would have admired it. Hockelmann tried to follow, but the door had somehow locked itself.

“Let me out!” came Pendergast’s muffled voice. He banged on the door. “This is intolerable!” He rattled the knob and, a moment later, flung the door open, looking alarmed and disheveled. “This door is dangerous and requires immediate attention!”

He slammed it behind him and, tugging his jacket straight, continued on. In a matter of minutes he had made a complete circuit of the ground-floor hallways of the tenement building that fronted Forty-Second Street, and they were back at the door they had initially passed through. Pendergast stepped once again into the brewery, Hockelmann at his heels.

“These are immigrant tenements that I acquired as is,” Hockelmann said, gasping for breath. “You know perfectly well, sir, no tenement landlord ever follows building regulations!”

“Never follows building regulations? I don’t see how that could hold up in court, sir.”

“Court?” Hockelmann’s eyes briefly went glassy as he considered a potential chain of future events.

“The city is up to its neck in lax and irresponsible landlords. Do you think I’m out here, at this time of night, conducting inspections for my health?”

With a mighty effort, Hockelmann held his temper in check. “No, sir, I don’t.”

“Or that I enjoy performing them with the owners at my heels, complaining and insulting me from start to finish?”

Hockelmann said nothing.

“Recall that I have examined only one of the tenement buildings that overlook Smee’s Alley—the other, fronting Forty-First Street, has yet to be examined. Need we conduct this same exercise again?”

Hockelmann took a deep breath, shook his head. “What—what is your recommendation?”

“That you see to it these grossly negligent violations are attended to—and posthaste.”

“I shall do so immediately, Mr. Billington.”

“In that case, having given you this warning—I shall take my leave.” And with a supercilious little bow, he turned away, walked out of the brewery into the courtyard, and approached the gate leading to Smee’s Alley—but not before hearing the words “Bloody scoundrel!” shouted in a voice so loud that it echoed even over the noise of horseshoes and the shoveling of coal.

20

DAISY WOKE UP AND for a moment was in a panic, uncertain where she was. She sat bolt upright as her memory came flooding back. The doctor had taken her to his grand mansion, given her a bath, fresh clothes, and a dinner of beef and potatoes, just as promised. There had been no demand for sexual favors as she’d expected—the man had not so much as put a hand on her. Instead, weary beyond all measure, it seemed she’d been allowed to fall asleep right there at the dinner table—only to wake up in this unfamiliar place.