“Beg your pardon, Chief Inspector Byrnes.” Falconer and the rest of the men looked over at Penwill, who was walking closer to the middle of the room.
“Yes, inspector?” Byrnes asked.
“First, do we really have enough to arrest this fancy gentleman over at the hotel?” Penwill asked, standing near Byrnes and the prisoner. “All we have is the word of Mister Spotsky here, a known petty thief and congenital liar who doesn’t even know the man’s name. Further, if this man at the Hoffman House has been sending the letters to Detective Falconer, it is most probable that he knows what the detective looks like and has even gotten close up to him at some point.”
“Close up to him?” Byrnes asked. “Why do you say that?”
“This man has taken a certain liking to Detective Falconer, sir,” Penwill replied. “And from all the information we have, I believe that he is the type of man who would want to get up close and personal with the person with whom he is communicating—to see who he is dealing with almost face to face, if you will.”
“I see. And your point is, inspector?” Byrnes asked.
“My point is,” Penwill replied, “that it wouldn’t be beneficial to have Detective Falconer repair over to the Hoffman House to scout out this man because the gentleman probably knows the detective and would know that something is up. But he probably doesn’t know me, so I should do it.”
Byrnes stood for a moment and then went back to his desk and took a drag of his cigar. Placing it back in the ashtray, he then looked over at Falconer. “Well, Falconer, what about it?” he asked. “Do you think this makes sense?”
“I suppose it does, chief inspector,” Falconer replied. “I don’t have a problem with the inspector going over there to check things out.”
Byrnes nodded slightly. “Very well, then,” he said. “Inspector Penwill will do us a favor and see if he can spot this man over at the hotel. And if he does, what then?”
“Then our good friend Mister Spotsky here will join us for a little game where he goes by the place and tries to grab another letter from the gentleman,” Falconer said, walking closely up to the prisoner and staring down at him from just a few inches away. “And if he doesn’t play along, then he’ll go to Sing Sing and get the chair for being an accomplice to murder.”
Byrnes turned to face Spotsky, who appeared to shift uncomfortably as all eyes fell upon him. “Yes, yes, he will help us now, won’t you, Mister Spotsky?” Byrnes asked, smiling at the man.
Spotsky looked at the sturdy policeman standing in front of him but said nothing, and Byrnes reached back, grabbed his cigar, and puffed mightily on it, blowing smoke back into the downcast thief’s eyes.
64
Ten hours after Jack Spotsky’s brief encounter with Chief Inspector Byrnes’ leathery gloves at the Mulberry Street headquarters, Inspector Charles Penwill hopped aboard a cable car headed up Broadway toward the lush grounds of Madison Square Park. To better fit in with the wealthy clientele of the men-only saloon at the Hoffman House, he had changed into a fancy outfit provided by the police department, including a dark, satin-lined suit, black top hat, black Prince Albert coat, and a black cane with shiny gold ornamental handle in the shape of an alligator. Penwill wasn’t quite sure how the men at headquarters had procured such an outstanding costume for him in such a short time, but it seemed to fit well enough and, standing amidst the crowd of riders on the cable car, he could almost feel people looking at him differently now as the car chugged slowly up the boulevard and dusk settled across the city.
As the car finally came to a halt at the busy intersection of 23d and Broadway, he eased between several persons standing near its rear and jumped out onto the street. The car then moved off towards its next stop and Penwill, dodging several horse-drawn carriages rushing by, quickly made his way across the street towards the imposing Fifth Avenue Hotel looming six stories high on the corner. There were many people out on the streets and sidewalks at this hour, he noted, and it seemed like perhaps the dinner rush had just been let out all at once.
Strolling up the block past the multiple Greco-Roman columns that supported the front entrance of the grand Fifth Avenue Hotel, he looked ahead to the Hoffman House that stood at the end of the next block. To his right, he could see some sort of tall, obelisk-like monument jutting up out of the triangular little island of land that existed between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and he wondered what—or whom—the large edifice was devoted to.
Stepping across 24th street, he walked up the last block and came upon the decorous exterior of his target hotel, with its equally fancy Roman columns standing on either side of the front entrance. He looked up and saw an enormous vertical sign that hung down seemingly over the entire eleven-story height of the building, announcing its elaborate presence to the world: “HOFFMAN HOUSE.”
He straightened his top hat, adjusted his coat, and stepped lightly into the front entrance of the place. Nodding his head at the young doorman who held the door for him, he removed his hat and coat and gave them to another waiting valet, and, receiving his coat-check ticket, headed in toward the saloon. Walking past numerous men, all similarly attired in excellent finery and, it seemed, the most expensive fashion of the age, he stepped inside the barroom and beheld one of New York’s most exclusive retreats for the highest echelons of male New York society.
The floor was made of polished tile with an intricate design, and as he slowly trod upon it in his recently shined wing-tip shoes with snow-white spats, he saw that the inner bar area was suffused with a soft light emanating from a series of low-slung and impressive looking crystal chandeliers. Men clad in all manner of elegant get-ups and smoking long cigars and sipping exotic drinks were standing by the shiny, oaken bar lined with gold, or were sitting at various tables spread throughout the room, easing back in their plush, red leather chairs and speaking in hearty voices or laughing uproariously over their card games.
He decided to order a drink from the glittering bar, and as he approached it, he was stunned by the presence of a three-foot stuffed black bear standing up and holding onto a short, ornamental gas lamp that jutted up out of the corner of the bar.
And what’s this? he mused. Strange place for a stuffed animal. Truly bizarre little habits, these fancy gorgers have. Probably never even worked a day in their lives.
He stood up at the end of the bar and looked up at the stuffed bear, now looming just inches away from him, and then he glanced around the large room. The elaborate wood ceilings seemed to have been etched and carved by a hundred artisans, and the artwork on the walls was colorful and imposing. Directly in front of him was a mural that must have been eight feet high, depicting some sort of medieval scene outside of a castle. Next to it, farther down the wall to his left and hanging beneath a thick, red velvet canopy, he saw a stunning painting of a man, or at least a man who was half-human, half-horse, being pulled energetically into a pond or stream by a quartet of nude and vivacious young women.
Now there’s something for you…by Jove, how would you like to have that in your front parlor?
“Yes, sir, may I please get you something?”
Penwill turned around and saw the bartender standing before him with a polite and cheerful look about his face.
“Ah, yes,” Penwill answered. “I’d like a pint of your best British stout, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly, sir,” the bartender said. “Would a Barclay and Perkins be to your satisfaction?”
“Yes, fine, fine, thank you,” Penwill replied. “That would do it.”
The bartender moved down the bar and removed a glass to fill up, and Penwill returned his attention to the men relaxing in the room around him. Some were quite old; some very young. All seemed extremely wealthy and happy about it, he felt, and he shifted nervously as if he were about to be exposed as a simple policeman who had never earned more than a few hundred pounds in a year and didn’t really belong in this grand watering hole.
“Here you are, sir,” the barte
nder said, returning with a large glass of dark stout. “I’ll keep a bill for you.”
“Very well,” Penwill responded, taking the glass in his hand. “That’ll be fine, thank you.”
He took a full sip of the stout, which tasted as if an expert brewer had mixed it all up and brewed it to order for him personally just moments earlier.
Well, that’s right fine…might as well get the best if I’m pulling this duty tonight in this place. Tremendous pint of stout.
He placed the glass down on the bar and looked around again, feeling invisible and seemingly lost to all the dozens of well-heeled men socializing around him. Moving from patron to patron with his eyes, he noted whether each man in turn could possibly be the man described by Spotsky back in Chief Inspector Byrnes’ office.
No…no…no…possibly…no…no…could be? Yes, if he has a mustache…no, no, yes…no…no…possibly…no…no…no…
And so it went for several moments as the inspector scanned the room surreptitiously with the eyes of a hawk determined to spot its prey far below as it flew through the wind, hungry for a meal and for satisfaction. The few men who matched the description were all in groups, heavily involved in card games, or political discussions, or business dealings, or prurient jokes that convulsed everyone in manly laughter.
But then he turned around and looked the other way, towards the side of the barroom that was to the left as one entered, away from all the hijinks and conversations occurring near the bar. Several men sat at tables in this area—some in pairs, some alone, reading the evening newspaper or indulging in a quiet meal off to the side. There, sitting alone at a table near a window with an enormous mounted head of a moose staring over him was a man dressed in black evening wear and smoking a cigar. Penwill could not see how old the man was, or if sported a mustache, but from the back, he certainly appeared to match the subject whom Spotsky described to all the detectives that morning.
Penwill grabbed his glass and moved quietly over to the area in which the man sat. Trying to seem as unobtrusive as possible, he wandered over to the man and walked by him, looking down as he did. The man looked to be about fifty-five, with dark hair streaked with gray, and sported a very full mustache that enveloped his upper lip now as he took a large drag from the thick cigar held between his fingers. The man looked up at Penwill just as the inspector glanced down at him, and Penwill offered a friendly smile to break through the brief awkwardness of the moment. The man nodded slightly and returned his gaze out through the window to the busy street outside. Penwill stopped and looked back at the man.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to him, “but have we not met on another occasion? You look vaguely familiar to me.”
The man looked up at Penwill and dabbed his cigar in a large, crystal ashtray sitting on the table. “No, I’m sorry,” he said in an accent that Penwill immediately identified as Germanic in origin, “but I don’t believe we have, sir.”
“Really? That’s quite odd,” Penwill instantly responded, “because I feel for certain that we have crossed paths at some point in the past. Have you ever been to London perhaps?”
“London? Yes, yes, I have been there,” the man replied. “Several times, in fact.”
“May I ask when the last time was?” Penwill said. “I’ll bet it was then.”
“Why, just last year, sir,” the man said. “I was there for a medical conference in October with the Imperial Royal Society of Physicians. Yes, just about a year ago.”
“A medical conference,” Penwill repeated. “I see…so you are a surgeon, then?”
“I am, indeed,” the man stated. “Trained in clinical surgery at the University of Zurich under the great Professor Billroth, and then followed him to the University of Vienna, where I practiced for twenty years. Now, I still get to practice somewhat but I have expanded into the marketing of certain surgical devices that I have created in recent years. So, you see, I have become a businessman in my middle-age and I do have to travel quite often.”
“Yes, I see,” Penwill said. “Well, that is very fascinating, indeed.”
“And you?” the man asked. “Are you in business, too?”
“Yes, I am, in fact,” Penwill replied. “Armaments. I was in the British army for a number of years, and somehow I managed to move over into the manufacturing end of all the guns and bullets, so it has been very good to me.”
“Well, I imagine that there will always be a market for guns and bullets,” the man noted, “but I am not sure if that is so good for humanity.”
“That is a good point, sir,” Penwill said. “Sometimes I wonder whether I am profiting from the misery of others, but of course, if civil nations did not have any armaments with which to defend themselves, then we would all surely be overrun by the barbarians, much like the Romans were, don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes, I believe you are right, Mister…”
“Penwill. Charlie Penwill. Very nice to meet you, doctor. And you are?”
“Johannes Seidler,” the man said, reaching up to shake Penwill’s hand. “Originally from Vienna, and now of the whole world, it seems.”
“Yes, well, are you in town here for another conference, I suppose?” Penwill asked.
“Actually, I am just investigating new markets, if you know what I mean,” Seidler responded with a slight grin. “And I’m sorry, but you must forgive me: I would have asked you to join me, but I’m just about to head up and go to bed.”
“No, no, that’s quite all right,” Penwill said. “I’ve already disturbed you enough, and I’m on my way out, actually. Well, it was very nice to make your acquaintance this evening if I was mistaken about meeting you earlier. I hope you have a pleasant stay in the city, Doctor Seidler.”
“Thank you, Mister Penwill, and very nice to meet you, as well.”
Penwill moved to walk away but then turned back suddenly. “May I just ask you, doctor, before I take my leave, are those very impressive cufflinks that you’re wearing from Asprey and Company in London by any chance? I’ve got a very similar pair at home and they’re from Asprey—I should very much like to purchase a new pair with a design of the sort that you’re wearing. Coiled serpents, are they?”
Seidler looked down on his sleeve and paused. Then he looked back at Penwill. “Why, I don’t know where they are from, to be honest, Mister Penwill,” he finally said. “But thank you for the compliment.”
“You know, doctor,” Penwill said, “you can tell if they’re made by Asprey merely by looking at the underside of one of them—the company places its official engraving on all of its products. Can you imagine?”
“No, I did not know that, Mister Penwill,” Seidler said calmly. He turned his wrist over and grabbed one of the cufflinks in his fingers, twisting it gently so that he could examine its bottom. “Yes, I do see it now, actually,” he said. “The little engraving that must stand for ‘Asprey and Company,’ I suppose. So, you were right. You would make a fine detective, Mister Penwill.”
Penwill smiled down at Seidler. “Well, doctor,” he said, “I don’t know about that, but thank you, nonetheless. It appears that we have similar tastes in cufflinks and hotels. Good evening to you.”
“And good evening to you, Mister Penwill.”
Penwill then walked away, smiling ever so slightly as he left the doctor from Vienna sitting alone beneath the great moose head mounted on the wall.
65
Nellie Bly stood across the street from the large Mulberry Street police headquarters building the morning after she had read about Spotsky’s arrest on the runaway Third Avenue train. In the past twenty-four hours she had tried to gather from her old crime beat sources any information on the arrest and investigation, but none of her old scribe friends could give her much, as the police were being even more insufferably silent than usual. Thus, frustrated by the mysteriousness of it all, she decided to go down to headquarters herself and corner a certain well-placed officer who might be willing to let her in on the secrets.
Hiding her identity once again with her hair pulled up inside a bonnet, eyeglasses, a decidedly matronly-like skirt, and a drab shawl pulled over her shoulders, she waited outside patiently until she spied Patrol Officer First Class Jimmy Halloran finally step down the stairs of the headquarters with a few other young officers. Rushing across the busy street, she raised her voice in Halloran’s direction: “Officer Halloran? Officer Halloran? May I speak with you again about that robbery of our laundry the other day?”
The officers stopped in their tracks on the sidewalk and Halloran looked over at Bly. “I’m sorry, ma’am?” he said. “What’s that?”
“You took a report from us some time ago about a theft from our laundry over on Mott Street, and I’d like to give you some additional information, if possible.”
Halloran looked flummoxed, but apparently not wanting to appear delinquent in his duties in front of his peers, he moved over to where Bly stood. “Sure, ma’am, I can hear you out,” he said to her. “I don’t quite recall this matter, but we get so many every week, I’m sure it’ll come back to me if you just repeat to me what happened. Shall we go inside?”
“Certainly, thank you,” Bly replied, carrying on with her ruse in front of the other officers. Halloran led her towards the entrance to the headquarters as the others moved off down the street, and then Bly grabbed his arm with her hand and whispered close to his ear: “Jimmy, it’s me, Nellie. I need to speak with you in private.”
Halloran stepped back, mouth agape. “Miss Bly?”
“Shhhh,” she said to him, determined not to cause a scene in front of the big headquarters.
“I’m sorry,” he said more quietly as he stepped closer to her again. “Why are you here in costume?”
“Jimmy, let’s find somewhere quiet off the street,” she said quickly, grabbing his arm again. “Here, is there an alley down the block?”
“Sure,” he answered, “right down this way.”
The two then walked briskly down the block and turned left abruptly into an alley that extended back about thirty yards or so. Bly looked around to make sure that no interlopers were eavesdropping and then turned to him. “Look, I’m sorry to pull that on you in front of your fellow officers,” she said, “but I’m not getting anywhere, and I need help.”
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