Francis held up the open notebook and set it in front of Hickey. “Read that.”

Hickey glanced at the page. “‘Hellgate.’” He looked up. “What is this?”

“Go to the beginning,” Francis urged him. He turned to acknowledge Dr. Phipps, a melancholy, reedlike man with a wispy mustache, black hair parted neatly in the middle, and small keen eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses.

Dr. Phipps nodded in response. “I remember you from the city force. We met after that row at the Shamrock when the Irishman took a knife to his brother’s throat. You were a detective then—Bacon, right?”

“That would be correct,” said Francis.

Hickey started thumbing through the book. His expression grew even more grim. “Shut that door,” he ordered Francis. “And lock it.”

Francis pulled a chair up alongside Phipps and watched as Hickey continued to flip through the notebook’s pages. The room was unpleasantly warm, air and furniture alike permeated by the smoke from Hickey’s cigars, one of which smoldered in the large marble ashtray on the captain’s desk. It was not until Francis removed his derby and ran a finger beneath his collar, loosening it, that he noticed the small form, now covered with a white sheet, still laid out in the back of the room.

“Francis.” Hickey held the notebook at arm’s length, as though it were on fire. “Where did you find this? What is it?”

“The Gypsy fortune-teller on the Pike. One of her customers left it yesterday.”

“How did you come by it?”

“I dropped by her booth this afternoon to ask her out to dinner. I noticed it and said I’d bring it by here, to be kept with the lost items.”

“And you waited till now to do that?”

“I didn’t read it until a few minutes ago. I returned to question her, then came here straightaway.”

Hickey scanned the pages again. “Who is this woman? How do you know it’s not hers?”

“Her name’s Gina Maffucci. She never looked inside it.”

“How do you know that?”

Francis’s jaw tightened in irritation. “Because she would have told me if she had.”

Hickey stared at the notebook. “Maffucci. She’s the mother of the boy who found the body?”

“The boy had nothing to do with it. She said the man who left it was white, thirty-five or thereabouts. Boater hat and seersucker suit, clean shaven. He sounds like the same man her son described going into Hell Gate with the Walewski girl.”

“May I?” broke in Dr. Phipps. At Hickey’s nod, he leaned across the table, picked up the notebook, and slowly read through it. Francis sank back in his chair, regretting that he’d mentioned Gina at all.

“He’s describing various murders.” Dr. Phipps looked at Francis, then Hickey. “But the man who wrote these—he sounds quite calm. Businesslike. There’s no frenzy.”

Hickey frowned. “Meaning?”