Dear Miss Kopp

by Amy Stewart

  I look forward to your report, and to Miss Bradshaw’s. Please extend to her the Bureau’s congratulations on her first assignment.

  Yours very truly,

  A. Bruce Bielaski

  P.S. I know the overzealous League men all too well. Last week eighteen of them busted into a card room and rounded up five young men, all of whom were too young for the draft. These raids make a mess of my desk. The League men like to file a report on their every move and submit it in triplicate. I often get four or five reports on the same raid, as each of them enjoys having their secretaries type a letter to “Mr. Bielaski at the Bureau.”

  Miss Bradshaw to Bielaski

  September 21, 1918

  Dear Mr. Bielaski,

  Miss Kopp passed on your words of encouragement, which mean a great deal to me. Thank you for placing your trust—and the trust of our government—into my hands. I hope I won’t disappoint.

  At Miss Kopp’s request I’m writing the report this week. The first few days were unremarkable: From across the street and down a few doors, I observed the Wilmington residence and followed Mrs. Wilmington as she conducted the sort of ordinary business one would expect of any woman: a visit to the market, to the druggist, and so on.

  This morning, however, was different.

  She left the house promptly at 8:30, shortly after Mr. Wilmington departed for the print shop. She stopped first at a newsstand, bought a paper, and tucked it under her arm. From there she went on to the Hotel Manhattan on Market Street and sat in its lobby for about ten minutes, pretending to read the paper. I say that she pretended because she spent exactly a minute looking at each page—or, more precisely, she spent that amount of time with her head turned in the general direction of each page. I don’t think she read a word. She spent as much time on the front page as she did the ladies’ page and the sports page. She never once turned the page to finish a story. No one reads a paper like that.

  At the end of ten minutes—precisely ten minutes, by the standing clock in the lobby—she folded the paper, dropped it on the table next to her, and walked off.

  I didn’t like to let her go, but I suspected by then that I was following the paper, not the woman.

  I was seated across the lobby, behind a wallpapered column, where I had a clear view of the chair she’d vacated and the paper she left behind.

  Almost immediately a man arrived with his own paper—the Bergen County Record this time, while she’d left behind a copy of the New York Times—and he sat for another five minutes, reading first his own newspaper and then Mrs. Wilmington’s.

  I’ll give you as close a description as I can of the man: he was perhaps only five feet and six inches, and stout, with thick black hair that fell over his forehead and a mustache just as dark. He had the round red cheeks of a drinking man and smoked a cigarette while he sat there. He wore a red waistcoat under a gray worsted suit and black shoes shined to perfection. I saw no rings, pins, or even a watch, although I couldn’t see his watch-pocket from my vantage point. His eyes were brown or black, rather rounded, under heavy eyebrows, his lips fuller than average, his nose wide and flat. When he walked, his gait was unremarkable.

  At the conclusion of precisely five minutes he stood, with Mrs. Wilmington’s copy of the Times still in his hand. He tucked it under his arm and strolled out of the lobby, appearing to be in no particular hurry and looking neither to the right nor the left. He seemed in every way to be a man at his leisure. His copy of the Record remained in the chair he’d just left.

  I wasn’t sure at that moment which newspaper to follow. It was entirely a guess that I ought to stay with Mrs. Wilmington’s Times. I saw immediately that I’d made the right decision, for the man walked straight to the train station and repeated his performance: he took a bench on the platform, pretended to read the Times again, then walked off, leaving the paper behind. His departure coincided precisely with the announcement that the 9:02 to New York was arriving.

  By then, as you can imagine, I was looking breathlessly around, wondering who would snatch the paper up. It was a crowded platform and anyone might’ve taken it. Another man sat down almost immediately (the two must’ve seen one another, although I didn’t observe it), picked up the paper, glanced at it, tucked it under his arm, and boarded the train.

  As I had no ticket, I couldn’t follow. I can only assume that this performance has been repeated many times before and will be again.

  Let me tell you about the second man: he was perhaps five feet and eight inches, with fine blond hair parted on the right side and slicked down, a wide forehead, thin nose and lips, and wire-rimmed spectacles. He wore a brown and burgundy checkered overcoat, an ordinary brown suit, and had on his left hand a plain gold wedding band. He was a most ordinary-looking man, but I’d recognize him if I saw him again.

  I returned to the hotel and found the Record still sitting in the chair. There was nothing tucked inside and no evidence of markings or other codes made within the pages of the paper.

  Miss Kopp feels quite certain that Mrs. Wilmington was, in fact, using the newspaper ruse to send a message to someone. If it happens again, I’m to slip a coin to a newsboy and send him running over to Hudson Printing, where he’ll barge in and try to sell an extra to Sam Archer. That will be Miss Kopp’s signal to meet me at the train station. Next time, we plan to follow both men.

  Yours very truly,

  Anne Bradshaw

  Bielaski to Constance

  September 23, 1918

  Dear Miss Kopp,

  My thanks to Miss Bradshaw for a thorough report. It looks like you’re on to something. Now that we have three subjects to watch—Mrs. Wilmington, the first man, and the second man—I want you working with a team. I’ll put another agent at your disposal with the idea that Miss Bradshaw will continue to follow Mrs. Wilmington, and you and the other fellow can track the two men.

  I’ve no choice but to send you a League man, but he’d be under your command and you can dismiss him if he isn’t up to standards.

  As usual, we’re looking for names, addresses, known associates, and so on. As soon as you can supply me with the men’s home addresses, we’ll intercept mail.

  Yours very truly,

  A. Bruce Bielaski

  Constance to Bielaski

  September 25, 1918

  Dear Mr. Bielaski,

  By some stroke of luck, I happened to be working the counter yesterday while Sam Archer made a delivery. Another package arrived for Mrs. Wilmington—not from England this time, but from a hosiery shop in New York.

  As no one saw me receive the package, I tucked it into my bag and took it home last night.

  The package was (disappointingly, at first) filled with stockings, not contraband. But there was something unusual about them. They were of a slightly darker shade than the stockings most commonly on offer around Paterson, but there was also something to the texture that struck me as odd—something that might only be noticed by a woman who wears a pair of stockings all day.

  I dipped the toe into a basin of water and—you guessed it—the water ran brown.

  I recognized a secret ink as soon as I saw it. I called Miss Bradshaw over at once and told her to keep an eye on Mrs. Wilmington’s clothing when she follows her, and to try to spot any other small article of clothing that might be impregnated with ink—scarves, socks, handkerchiefs, and the like. She was thrilled to be let in on this bit of spy-work and said it sounded like the sort of thing one might find in Berlin, but never here in Paterson. I explained that we’d seen quite a bit of it before our country went into the war, as the Germans started with lemon juice and worked their way up to more sophisticated methods.

  But what type of ink is it? The British are miles ahead of us on working out the type of ink and the chemicals required to make it reappear. I hoped this was one the Bureau had seen before.

  Sure enough, I took the stocking to our man on Lexington and was relieved to find that he recognized the ink at once and was able
to supply me with a small quantity of the reagent. Miss Bradshaw and I have had a fine time writing “secret messages” in the ink, watching it disappear into the paper as it dried, and then seeing it reappear when the reagent was applied. But enough fun and games—our task now is to take hold of one of these newspapers she’s passing along, and to scour it for a hidden message.

  I did go into New York to make inquiries at the hosiery shop whose label appeared on the package, but they claimed to know nothing about it and don’t appear to be in the mail-order business. The address is enclosed nonetheless if you’d like to investigate.

  Yours very truly,

  Constance Kopp

  P.S. In reply to your offer of help, Miss Bradshaw and I will manage on our own. As soon as we decide we can’t function without a League man, we’ll send for one—but don’t hold your breath. Did you hear about the League’s latest raid in Hackensack? They interrupted a play during the second act—brought the whole thing to a halt—and dragged out twenty-five men they suspected of avoiding the draft. Most were too old or too young. A few simply weren’t carrying their papers. All were hauled to the police station, leaving the ladies without escorts home.

  The play was entirely disrupted, of course, and the players felt they couldn’t go on. The theater was forced to refund tickets to anyone who demanded it.

  Surely the League could’ve handled it quietly, during intermission or after the performance. I strongly suspect they enjoy barging in, waving their badges around, and hollering to the ushers to bring up the lights. My brother swears he wasn’t a part of it, but I have a hunch he was and doesn’t like to admit it.

  My younger sister, Fleurette, has witnessed all too closely the overzealous matrons at the Army camps, locking up girls on the flimsiest of charges. These all-volunteer efforts have a way of veering off-course. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, but for now—no, thank you, we’ll do without the League men.

  Bielaski to Constance

  September 27, 1918

  Dear Miss Kopp,

  We looked into the hosiery shop and found nothing amiss. The stockings might’ve been purchased there, but we don’t believe the shop had anything to do with impregnating them with ink and shipping them to Paterson. The shop girls have no recollection of suspicious purchases, customers with German accents, etc.

  I can send in the police to search the Wilmingtons’ place as soon as you’re ready. I expect you’ll find messages written in secret ink in the newspaper, but look for a message done in pinpricks as well. Did I tell you about the new fellow we hired here in Washington to work in our cryptography department? We handed him the corpse of a German messenger pigeon, which we’d saved because the quills and feathers were riddled with holes and we suspected some sort of code. It didn’t look like anything he’d seen before, but he decided to collect some feathers around town and try puncturing them with his own code, just to see how it might work. He put the feathers he’d gathered in a drawer with the German bird, and a few days later all the feathers had holes in them. Turned out the dead bird had mites.

  Yours very truly,

  A. Bruce Bielaski

  Constance to Bielaski

  September 29, 1918

  Dear Mr. Bielaski,

  Pigeon mites? You really could use Norma in the code room.

  Yours very truly,

  Constance Kopp

  Norma

  Langres, France

  Aggie to Constance

  September 7, 1918

  Dear Constance,

  Your sister has done something extraordinary. She’ll never wear a medal for it, but she deserves one. I can’t tell you what happened, but you must demand the whole story when you see her après la guerre. All I can say is that she helped to secure a victory for our troops, and she has proven at last what she can do. Her commanders recognize it. She’s having an easier time now, and working harder than ever. You’ll be so terribly proud of her when you find out why.

  But that’s as much as I’m allowed to divulge. Norma says I ought to stop going on about a story I’m not allowed to tell, and instead to say something about what’s happened at the hospital. You know all about crimes and investigations. I’m sorry to say that we have one of those on our hands now—and it concerns me.

  Fortunately, I can tell about it, as there are no military secrets to conceal. It’s just a terrible misunderstanding that I don’t know how to set right.

  As you know, I’m a nurse at the American hospital here, where I have charge of all the medical supplies. It’s my responsibility to catalog every pill and vial when it arrives, to make sure it’s all stored properly, and to mark down everything that’s dispensed to the wards. Once a month, I reconcile my inventory and hand a report to my supervisor, Mrs. Clayton.

  The system works quite well and was, in fact, designed by your sister, who took one look at the French method that we were on the verge of adopting, and announced that it was “as if a committee of poets and painters had been convened to design a record-keeping system.” We American nurses found that quite funny, but it didn’t seem to translate very well to the French. Regardless, Norma invented a much better system, which managed to reconcile American hospital practices with Army protocol and the Red Cross management style, and we are thoroughly satisfied with it.

  Imagine my horror, then, when Mrs. Clayton told me this morning that supplies were going missing and I was the one to blame! There isn’t so much as a drop of iodine that can walk out of my supply closet without my knowing it, and I told her so.

  “I give you my report every month,” I said. “It reconciles perfectly.”

  “This goes beyond your report,” she said. “You’ll have an easier time if you confess now.”

  “But I have nothing to confess! And I’ve no use for anything in the supply room. If I were ill, I’d need only go to one of the doctors and he’d fix me up. That’s how it is for all the nurses.”

  “I never said you were stealing it for yourself,” Mrs. Clayton said. She was so vague about it! I think she hoped that if she said very little, I would stutter and stammer and confess my guilt. But I was more confused than ever.

  “We have three hospitals in this village,” I said, “a French one, a British one, and ours. We’re practically awash in pills, powders, and ointments! What’s the point of stealing them?”

  “That’s for you to tell me,” she said, maddeningly.

  Can you imagine how frustrated I was to be accused of a crime—a pointless crime at that, truly—and to be given no specific charges against which I might defend myself?

  Regardless, Mrs. Clayton refused to say a word in answer to my questions. In the end I was sent home—in tears. I wasn’t courageous about it at all. I ran up to our little room in the attic, burrowed under the blankets, and simply dissolved. Constance, I’ve never been accused of any wrongdoing in my life! You can’t imagine how ashamed I felt. To be charged with stealing the very medicines that we so desperately need for our soldiers—who would do a thing like that? It’s a horrible thought. I feel—well—stained by the mere accusation. Haven’t I done everything in my power to earn Mrs. Clayton’s trust?

  Norma came home after a long day at the fort and found me sniffling and feeling sorry for myself. She didn’t say a word, but turned right around on her heel and went down the street to the Patisserie Confiserie.

  The shop was closed at that time of night and, as always, sugar and butter are so dear that only the officers living at the Cheval Blanc can afford a cake, but somehow Norma roused Madame Bertrand from her apartment upstairs and talked her out of a slice of the most astonishing frangipane cake, with brandied cherries sunk to the bottom. The cherries must come from an ever-dwindling supply of Madame Bertrand’s preserves, inherited from her brother, the former proprietor of Patisserie Confiserie who, as you know, died last year, poor man, and how she comes by the almonds these days is anyone’s guess.

  Regardless, a bit of cake, along with Norma’s wise co
unsel, helped enormously. I intend to go back to Mrs. Clayton in the morning to demand that she furnish proof. Norma has said that she will come with me. She says that she does not entertain baseless accusations at her post, and neither must I. Do you see what a great deal of good your sister does for me?

  Tendrement—

  Aggie

  Norma to Constance (enclosed)

  September 8, 1918

  Dear Constance,

  I thought I would wait to mail Aggie’s letter in the hopes that we’d clear the matter up first thing this morning and I could tell you to forget all about it. Quite the opposite has happened, and Aggie finds herself in a real mess.

  I went with her to the hospital at the beginning of her shift. She thought it better to make an appointment with Mrs. Clayton, but there’s a war on and I haven’t the time for appointments. I went straight to the woman’s office, stood in the doorway, and said, “You and I must sit down and put to rest this business with Agnes Bell. She’s never stolen anything in her life.”

  Would you believe that Mrs. Clayton refused to hear it? She said, “Any testimony coming from Nurse Bell’s bosom friend can have no bearing anyway, being obviously biased.”

  “Bosom friend, what nonsense!” I told her. “As if any of us are given a choice in bunk-mate. We’re put into rooms in the order in which we arrive.”

  She started to wave me off, but before she could, I informed her that I’m biased only in favor of defeating the Kaiser and returning home, and that if I saw any evidence of theft or wrongdoing, I would hand Aggie over to the authorities immediately. Aggie, standing right behind me, nodded vigorously at this.