“I think she was doped, and Maria Walewski as well. I noted the same purple hue in her lips, but I mistakenly attributed it to the fact that she’d been in the water. Maria’s parents have already taken possession of her body, so there’s no way for me to be certain now. But I think the killer did the same thing with both children—gave them candy treated with some kind of opiate elixir.”

“Were they both—” Francis looked away from the girl’s body. “Were they interfered with?”

Phipps nodded. “He kept their dresses. Perhaps he feared they could be used as evidence. He may not have intended to kill them—he might have panicked. I’ve seen that before. Women killed by their husbands, what starts out as one thing ends as something else.”

“He’s not panicked.” Francis turned to Hickey. “Haven’t you told him about the other? The girl in Boston?”

Hickey shook his head. “He’s only just finished his examination. And it still seems too odd a coincidence.”

“You need to tell him now.”

Phipps tugged the sheet back over Gilda’s face, pulled out a chair, and sat. “You tell me, Mr. Bacon.”

Francis did. When he finished, Dr. Phipps tapped a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. He smoked thoughtfully, at last said, “Two young girls murdered at the same attraction at two different amusement parks, hundreds of miles apart. You’re right, Mr. Bacon. This certainly doesn’t sound like someone operating out of panic. And the notebook doesn’t suggest that, either. Is Captain Cabell aware of this other killing? The commissioner?”

“I informed Cabell,” said Hickey. “I have no idea whether he told the commissioner yet. I doubt it. He sure will tell him now that there’s been another murder. But you know they’ll do whatever they can to keep the parks open. Not just Riverview, all the parks—White City, Bismarck Garden. They don’t want a panic.”

“Amusement parks.” Dr. Phipps made a face. “I can’t stand them. All that noise! And they’re the perfect vectors for disease, especially for children.”

“The streets aren’t safer,” said Hickey. “In summertime, with two hundred thousand kids out of school? Vagrants everywhere, and half those kids’ parents don’t know what they get up to. Look at the Paroubek girl. And that other one last year—the Gypsy girl. And there was another girl the year before that.”

“Perhaps this would be a good time to reopen those investigations,” suggested Phipps.

“There’s nothing to investigate. Gyppo girls run away, and I don’t blame them. What’s waiting for them if they stay?”

“One of those girls was Italian, not a Gypsy,” said Francis.

“Does it matter?” Hickey ground out his cigar in the ashtray. “Here at least the children have some supervision. And a twenty-man police force.”