Front Page Affair

by Radha Vatsal

  Kitty took a bite of toast and switched the conversation to her father’s favorite subject. “What’s the latest news on the Lusitania?”

  “It’s a stalemate, but it shouldn’t be.” Julian Weeks scratched his chin. His rugged features were weather-beaten from years spent outdoors in Malaya. Since May, he had been following the tense back-and-forth correspondence between Washington and Berlin regarding the sinking of the passenger liner.

  He tucked his napkin into his collar as Grace brought in his steak and eggs. “The Germans should be responding to the president’s second note any day now.”

  “What do you think they will say?”

  “I can’t tell for sure, but I understand why they’re angry. Frankly, I’m amazed that the president continues to insist on our right to travel unmolested as passengers on merchant vessels, of any nationality, even in a war zone.” The Lusitania, an English ship, had been struck just a few miles away from the coast of Ireland.

  “I find it all so confusing,” Kitty said. “Is the president trying to say that we deserve to be unharmed because we’re neutral?”

  “That’s correct.” Julian Weeks looked Kitty in the eye. “But there’s a war going on, Capability. And the simple fact of the matter is that even neutrals aren’t innocent.”

  • • •

  Rao drove Kitty to work in the Weekses’ touring car, a Packard, and dropped her off at the corner of Forty-Ninth Street and Broadway. She pushed her way through heavy brass revolving doors into the Sentinel’s towering office building. A three-faced clock in the center of the entry hall told the time in New York, London, and Tokyo, and a compass rose with the paper’s motto, Guarding the Truth, had been inlaid in mosaic tile on the marble floor below.

  The Sentinel had moved its offices uptown from Newspaper Row shortly after the Times had set up its headquarters at Broadway and Forty-Second Street, now known as Times Square, after its famous tenant. Before arriving in New York, Kitty had heard that the city was awash with crime, with dirt, foreigners, skyscrapers, and money, and all of which was true. But to her, more than anything else, New York was awash with news. Its citizens consumed staggering amounts of the stuff, and she had been amazed by the newsboys who stood at every street corner and shouted out headlines all morning, evening, and afternoon. New Yorkers devoured the Sentinel and the Times, the Herald, the Tribune, William Randolph Hearst’s Journal, Pulitzer’s World, the Wall Street Journal, the Sun, and the Post, not to mention dailies in Yiddish, Chinese, Croatian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Russian.

  Kitty came into work every day thrilled to be a part of such a vital enterprise. The paper’s archivist, Mr. Musser, had told Kitty that the Sentinel printed nearly 337,000 miles of paper each year. As the custodian of every article ever published by the Sentinel, grizzled Mr. Musser knew something about everything. He worked from a room in the basement, otherwise known as the morgue, and supervised a team of boys who cut, pasted, and filed away each story, carefully arranged by subject matter.

  Kitty thought she might visit him today as she waited in front of a bank of elevators, the only female among advertising men and mail clerks. When she stepped out on the third floor, she turned left, away from the smell of fried eggs and bacon wafting from the cafeteria and toward the cacophony of metallic clacks and clings resounding from the cavernous typists’ hall. She skirted past the rows of women in starched shirtwaists tirelessly pecking away at their machines—which gave the hall its name, the “hen coop”—and hung her purse from a seat at a desk in the front of the room.

  “We heard all about it, Miss Weeks!” From the table behind Kitty, Jeannie Williams’s pale round face shone with excitement. She wore her flaxen hair twisted around her head in braids like an Alpine milkmaid and was built sturdily like one too. “You were at the party, and you called in the story. Do you think the City Desk will allow you to assist with the reporting?”

  “I doubt it.” Kitty couldn’t permit herself to hope. Like other respectable papers, the Sentinel didn’t allow women into the newsroom. Even her guidebook, Careers for Girls, stated in no uncertain terms that the problem with women reporters was that they couldn’t be sent out at all hours and couldn’t stand the strain of working under deadlines like men. “Don’t look so disappointed, Jeannie. It will all change some day.”

  “You think so, Miss Weeks?”

  “It has to, doesn’t it?” Kitty said in order to buck her up. Usually it was the other way around—buoyant Jeannie, a shopgirl who had studied nights and weekends in order to land her job as a typist at the paper, encouraged Kitty while she labored with her assignments.

  Kitty picked up her pad and pencil and made her way to Miss Busby’s office, which was in an alcove connected to the hen coop via a narrow corridor.

  Gray-haired Helena Busby stopped sifting through her papers when Kitty knocked at the entryway. “Come in and sit down, Miss Weeks,” she squawked. “I have a bone to pick with you.”

  “Have I done something wrong, Miss Busby?” Kitty pulled up a chair.

  Miss Busby wagged a scrawny finger at her. “I sent you out to cover a party, and you called in a murder?” The bracelets on the editor’s wrist jingled, her dangling earrings swinging as she shook her head. From his portrait behind the editor’s desk, even President Wilson seemed to disapprove. “The Ladies’ Page has no connection to crime of any sort. It all belongs to News. And now, Mr. Hewitt wants to speak to both of us.” She rummaged in a drawer for her medicine bottle.

  “What for?” Kitty asked, taken off guard. Mr. Hewitt was Miss Busby’s supervisor.

  “I have no idea, Miss Weeks.” Miss Busby gulped down a spoonful of Rowland’s Remedy. “All I will say is that I will do the talking and you will remain silent. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Miss Busby.”

  “I hope I won’t have to regret sending you to the party yesterday.” Miss Busby rose from her seat, and Kitty followed the lanky figure down the hall toward Mr. Hewitt’s office.

  They knocked on the door and found a florid man with a full head of pomaded hair, picking his teeth with an ivory toothpick while Mr. Hewitt rocked back in his chair.

  “Good morning, ladies.” Mr. Hewitt sat up straight, and the stranger leisurely slipped the toothpick into his breast pocket.

  “Miss Busby,” Mr. Hewitt said. “Meet Mr. Flanagan from the newsroom.”

  Miss Busby nodded, while Kitty remained silent as directed.

  “Should we sit?” Miss Busby said.

  “Please do. I have a favor to ask of you,” Mr. Hewitt began. He was the only rooster among hens on this side of the floor. A balding, unintimidating man, he wore spectacles and supervised the weekend section of the paper, which included the Ladies’ Page, photography, cartoons, and theater, motion picture, and book reviews.

  Kitty sensed Miss Busby’s back stiffen—Mr. Flanagan’s presence didn’t bode well for the Ladies’ Page editor. She wished she could sit on her hands; instead, she twined her fingers loosely in her lap and tried to appear unaffected by the conversation.

  “The City Desk has its men camped outside Mr. Morgan’s hospital room,” Mr. Hewitt said. “The rest are at the Morgan estate or down at police headquarters—it seems that a bomb went off there today, and the Anarchists are up to their old tricks.”

  “What does this have to do with me, Mr. Hewitt?” Miss Busby sounded as sweet as the syrup she drank by the bottle.

  “We need to borrow your girl for a couple of days. Or rather, Mr. Flanagan does. He’s out of reporters.”

  Kitty thought she had misheard him.

  “Miss Weeks attended the party,” Mr. Hewitt said. “She saw what went on. She can assist him.”

  “Impossible.” The tendons on Miss Busby’s stringy neck tightened. “I have one girl working for me. One. And City has how many men? Over a dozen? And still, they want to steal my one apprentice?”
>
  “No one is stealing anyone, madam.” Mild-mannered Mr. Hewitt wouldn’t allow the situation to escalate. He polished his glasses and put them back on. “It’s just for a few days. And since I don’t get the chance very often, I’d like to be able to oblige my colleague in News.”

  Mr. Flanagan spoke up. “All I need is some assistance with background material. We wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t for the fact that your girl was present when the shooting took place.”

  Kitty observed the proceedings with the nervous tension of a spectator at a tennis match. The only difference was that it was her fate being smacked back and forth across the net.

  “With all due respect, sir,” Miss Busby addressed Mr. Hewitt, “when I agreed to take on help, we both agreed that my apprentice would work solely for me.”

  “And she does.” Mr. Hewitt kept his voice low. “This won’t be for long.”

  “We’re busy, Mr. Hewitt.”

  “With what, may I ask? Articles about hats, hemlines, holidays?” Flanagan smirked.

  “Laugh away, young man,” Miss Busby retorted. “My stories bring in more advertising revenue than yours do.”

  “So you won’t reconsider?” Mr. Hewitt pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Have you thought that I might be stretched to my limits, Mr. Hewitt? Isn’t that why you wanted me to hire an apprentice in the first place? So that I’d have help if things went”—Miss Busby hunted for the word—“south.”

  Kitty had no idea what her boss was referring to.

  “All I need is a day or two at most,” Mr. Flanagan said. “If you can’t give me that”—he shrugged—“well, I’m sure I’ll manage.”

  Kitty felt her chance slipping away. Miss Busby had outplayed the gents.

  “Let’s do this.” Mr. Hewitt adjusted the notepad on his desk. “Since your girl only works until lunchtime at present, she can stay later and work for both of you until this case is closed.” He turned to Kitty. “Does that suit you?”

  Kitty hadn’t realized he knew she worked there, let alone that she worked only in the mornings. “Me?” Three sets of eyes stared at her.

  “Well?” Mr. Flanagan said.

  Kitty turned to Miss Busby for guidance.

  “I can’t prevent you from taking on longer hours, Miss Weeks. Clearly what I want doesn’t matter,” her boss snapped.

  “Then I’ll do it,” Kitty replied without missing a beat.

  “Good, that’s settled then.” Mr. Hewitt pulled a pile of papers toward him.

  “Just to check, Mr. Hewitt. You’d like me to report to Miss Busby in the morning and Mr. Flanagan in the afternoon?”

  “Manage it however you like, Miss Weeks. You’re free to go now.”

  “I’ll speak to you in five minutes,” Mr. Flanagan called to Kitty as Miss Busby closed the door behind them.

  The editor’s face twisted in disappointment once they were alone in the hallway. “I didn’t think you would be so treacherous, Miss Weeks. City must be really desperate to have poached from me. And if you think this is going to end well, you are sadly mistaken.”

  Sorry it had come to this, Kitty watched Miss Busby head off to her alcove. But, rebuke or no, she could no longer contain her delight at finally being allowed to assist on a news story.

  Chapter Five

  Kitty met Mr. Flanagan in the cafeteria, one of the few spots at the paper where employees from different divisions could mingle. Generally, staff from unrelated departments didn’t cross paths: the Circulation and Administration departments were on the lowest floors, followed by the Weekend Supplement on third, and other, less time-sensitive—and therefore less prestigious—divisions on the fourth and fifth. The City Desk occupied the sixth floor, along with International News, while Business, Advertising, and Management were right at the top of the hierarchy.

  “Do the police have any leads, Mr. Flanagan?” Kitty leaned across the metal table. She had spent hours the night before running through the events at the party, trying to come up with potential leads to the murder.

  “They have some ideas, yes.”

  “Everyone was so excited to see the fireworks, and I’ve been wondering what prompted Mr. Cole to leave the lawn,” Kitty went on. She hadn’t been able to wipe away the grim memory of Hunter Cole’s body between the rows of stalls. “Do you think he went to the stables to meet someone in secret?”

  “That’s not for you to worry about.” Flanagan rubbed the fleshy pads of his fingers together. “What I need from you is texture. Details about the evening: who came, what was said, emotional reactions and such. How did the guests respond when they heard the news? How did the police handle matters? The feminine viewpoint on things.”

  “Ah, yes, I see. The woman’s angle.” Kitty swallowed her disappointment. “Well—”

  “Don’t tell me—write it down. Write it down,” he repeated. “And then, I need you to speak to a few of the key players—let’s say the widow, the hostess, and another guest at the party—and get some reactions. If you’ve already spoken to the first two, well, now’s your chance to pay them a personal visit. Call on them, sit down, show some interest, and get them to talk. You’d be amazed at the things people say.”

  “Yes, Mr. Flanagan.”

  “Have you conducted an interview before?”

  “Ah…” Kitty wasn’t about to draw attention to the fact that the first time she actually spoke to anyone on official Sentinel business had been yesterday, at the party.

  “Tell me, how does one go about it?” Flanagan didn’t notice her hesitation.

  “An interview,” Kitty began, “is a journalistic form first attempted on this side of the Atlantic.”

  “I’m not asking what, Miss Weeks. I am asking how. Please, answer the question precisely.”

  “Yes, Mr. Flanagan.” Kitty quoted from Shuman’s Practical Journalism. “The reporter meets his man, has a talk with him on the subjects desired, and instead of taking a faithful record of every word, watches to catch the spirit of what is said and the manner in which it is uttered. He jots down the speaker’s exact words only on vital or technical points.”

  “Exactly,” Flanagan murmured.

  “With his materials mostly in his head, he goes to his desk and writes the interview. Half of the words credited to the speaker may not in fact have been uttered by him, yet if the work is well done, it will be more just and infinitely more readable than any dialogue reproduced verbatim.”

  “That’s correct.” Flanagan ran a hand through his leonine mane.

  “The most difficult part of the task is getting the subject to talk,” Kitty continued. “You must remember what he has said while keeping up your side of the conversation and keeping in mind the questions that remain.”

  “All right, Miss Weeks, you know your stuff. Now all that remains is for us to see if you can do as you say.”

  “Yes, Mr. Flanagan.” Kitty’s heart raced. “You’d like me to speak to Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Basshor and one guest”—her thoughts immediately flew to the turbaned Mrs. Clements—“and have my report for you by—”

  “This afternoon.”

  Her eyes opened wide.

  Flanagan groaned. “This is real news, Miss Weeks. Not your Ladies’ Page stuff. We have hard deadlines.” He relented. “All right. Since you’re new to it, you can give me the third report tomorrow. Hand in your notes on the other two by three o’clock today.” He pushed back the bench. “You’re familiar with the term ‘Sob Sisters’?”

  “Yes, Mr. Flanagan.”

  “They’re the four lady reporters who covered the trial of Harry Thaw for murdering Stanford White back in ’07.”

  “Yes, Mr. Flanagan.” Kitty knew their names: Miss Greeley-Smith, Miss Dix, Miss Patterson, and Miss Black. “Isn’t Mr. Thaw to have another trial soon?”

  “I believe
so, but that isn’t my point. What I want to bring to your attention is the type of writing that those females produced. They did your kind a great disservice by splashing their personal opinions on every line. They churned out page after page of purple prose that made me sick to my stomach. Not that you will be writing anything other than notes, but you cannot forget”—he slowed down—“the Sentinel does not tolerate that kind of…garbage. While you’re working for me, you keep it simple, keep it dignified, and you keep to the facts. Can you manage that?”

  Kitty had no intention of doing anything else. “Absolutely, Mr. Flanagan.”

  • • •

  Kitty decided it might be easier to speak to the hostess first, since she felt uneasy about conducting an interview with Mrs. Cole at a time when what she really ought to be doing was paying a condolence visit. It seemed that the freedom from social niceties that came with being a reporter might also have its drawbacks. How did one bring oneself to question a widow the day after her husband had been murdered?

  She took a cab to Mrs. Basshor’s apartment house on Park Avenue.

  “Lovely, ain’t it?” the cab driver observed as they motored down the broad boulevard, which was flanked on either side by gracious apartment buildings and bisected down the middle by a tree-lined pedestrian path.

  Kitty agreed. This avenue and nearby Fifth were the most desirable residential stretches in Manhattan.

  “You wouldn’t know that twenty years ago, trains belched smoke and soot right here,” the driver said. “They chugged along tracks dug into the ground where the trees are planted now. And these apartment houses?” He gestured out the window. “They only came up once the rails were buried underground and the street was paved over. There used to be tenements here before.”

  “So we’re driving over hidden railway tracks?” Kitty liked the idea.

  “Oh yes, miss.” He pointed to the imposing terminus behind them. “The trains going in and out of Grand Central Station are clattering along beneath us.”