Death Shall Overcome

by Emma Lathen

  Featuring, as his baser self cravenly pointed out, placatory remarks by Bradford Withers, designed to dissipate the Simon Legree attitude he had foisted on the Sloan.

  “Geeze, I hope there ain’t no trouble,” the cabby remarked turning right on 50th Street behind a bus emblazoned: PASSAIC CASH JOINS MARCH ON WALL STREET. It was the last of a long string of buses. “I mean, just look!”

  Handing him a bill, Thatcher looked. The sidewalk, as far as he could see through the tangle of buses, cars and trucks, was thick with Blacks, well-dressed but determined-looking. Their placards also were determined:

  FREEDOM AND EQUALITY

  NO SECOND CLASS CITIZENS

  THE TIME HAS COME

  With difficulty, he began to struggle indoors. The lobby, too, was thronged. From the auditorium there thundered great organ crashes, with ringing voices uplifted in accompaniment:

  “There’s a little black train a-comin’,

  Get all your business right;

  There’s a little black train a-comin’,

  And it may be here tonight!”

  Thatcher stood aside to let a large family party pass him hurriedly. The father, anxiously surveying his brood, had a mischievous little girl perched on his shoulder. The mother, lips compressed with silent but firm control, was supervising two frankly rambunctious boys, perhaps 10 and 12. And, also in Sunday best, the grandparents forged ahead.

  It was not Richard Simpson’s labored exhortations that were propelling thousands upon thousands of Blacks into Madison Square Garden tonight, to listen to speeches and songs. The music within had moved on:

  “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,

  Jericho, Jericho!

  Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,

  And the walls came tumblin’ down!”

  Thatcher was, accordingly, deep in unrewarding thought, when he heard his name called.

  “John! There you are!”

  He looked up. A frowning Vin McCullough waved vigorously, then plunged cross-stream against the inflowing tide to join him.

  “Brad’s here,” he reported, suggesting that he, at least, had had some doubts about Withers’ appearance on the scene. “He’s down in one of the offices with some of the officials. We might as well get on down. . . .”

  If there was one thing Thatcher could have done without, at the moment, it was officials. Nevertheless he followed McCullough along battered, utilitarian halls, where hawkers were selling huge buttons: CASH MEANS RIGHTS, into a small bare room where he first saw Nat Schuyler, deep in converse with Dr. Matthew Ford, the noted sociologist. Well, he was getting plenty of grist for his mill. Nearby stood Bradford Withers.

  To do him justice, he did not look intimidated by the muted distant roar, transformed by some acoustical oddity from simple musical enthusiasm to the screams of Romans eager for Christians.

  “No,” he was saying, “I still don’t like it. . . .”

  “Please, Mr. Withers!” His vis-à-vis, a thin, balding young man, was a member of the Sloan’s legal staff, Thatcher recalled. For some reason, he seemed to be on the brink of tears.

  “Still think . . . oh, hello there, John.”

  Bradford Withers was sounding very like himself, Thatcher saw. That, of course, was both good and bad.

  “. . . I still think that I should just get up and explain, informally, don’t you know?”

  “Please,” the lawyer pleaded emotionally. “Please, Mr. Withers, just read the statement. I’m sure . . .”

  “Well, dammit, it isn’t fair . . . oh, hello there, Stan . . .”

  Hard on John Thatcher’s heels, the rest of the Committee of Three appeared. Stanton Carruthers, he was glad to see, though sorely tried, still felt that he must rally to the aid of a junior and outmanned member of his profession.

  “Hello, John. Now, Brad, what isn’t fair?” he asked in the heavily soothing voice common to lawyers and dentists. Outside, somebody was performing a stirring march with trumpet flourishes and great responsive shouts. Both Nat Schuyler and Dr. Ford were looking smug.

  “Dammit, nobody can claim that I’m anti-Black,” said Bradford Withers heatedly. “Oh, hello there, Parry. Listen, when this is over tonight, I’d like a word with you about that shipyard. . . .”

  Parry’s look of strain momentarily gave way to the flicker of incredulous amusement that Bradford Withers so often evoked. A tremendous thundering from the auditorium quickly erased the amusement. He looked troubled as he nodded his greetings and moved over to join Schuyler and Ford.

  “Nobody claims that you are anti-Black,” said Stanton Carruthers with care and no accuracy. “It is merely that your remarks lent themselves to misinterpretation. . . .”

  “Well, then, if I just explained . . .”

  “Which is precisely what the statement does,” said Carruthers, plucking it from the young lawyer’s nerveless fingers and quickly scanning it. “Yes, perfectly clear . . .”

  It was true, John Thatcher knew—and suspected that Edward Parry knew, if nobody else in the room did. Bradford Withers simply divided the world into two groups: Witherses and non-Witherses. The appalling misfortune of being born a non-Withers overshadowed such minor disabilities as race, creed or color.

  Thatcher settled back to let Stanton Carruthers continue his good work. He discovered that he was sharing a battered desk with Napoleon after Waterloo.

  Or possibly Robert E. Lee, bidding farewell to the Army of Northern Virginia.

  “After our long efforts,” said Hugh Waymark, gazing bleakly into the jaws of defeat.

  “And, God knows, we strained every sinew. Yet we haven’t been able to save the day.”

  Ford and Schuyler were deep in a conversation that Thatcher had no desire to join. Vin McCullough and Edward Parry stood exchanging desultory remarks, both of them flinching at each full-throated roar that reached their ears.

  “It sounds like another one of those damned sonic booms,” Thatcher heard McCullough say in a strained voice.

  Parry nodded absently.

  “Just a few friendly words,” Bradford Withers was saying earnestly. Stanton Carruthers allowed himself a slight frown.

  “Perhaps the statement might be more prudent . . .”

  “How,” Thatcher asked Waymark, “how have we strained our sinews in vain, Hugh?”

  Waymark shook his head sadly.

  “We’ve played our last card. I don’t think that there’s any doubt about it. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow there’s going to be a March on Wall Street!”

  In view of the fact that 19,000 people had assembled to listen to speeches, songs, and organizational details concerning tomorrow’s March on Wall Street, Thatcher was tempted to make an acid retort. Then, casting his mind forward to the horrors yet to come, he decided to hold his fire.

  “. . . sad for our comrades-in-arms,” said Waymark. Clearly he was ready to organize a Veterans of the March chapter.

  “Oh, John!” called Stanton Carruthers, as Thatcher had known that he would. “Perhaps we could have your opinion . . .”

  In the end, it took the united efforts of Thatcher, Stanton Carruthers, Hugh Waymark, Vin McCullough, and Nat Schuyler to convince Bradford Withers that he should not depart from the script prepared by the Sloan’s legal and PR departments. And there, thought Thatcher, was a collaboration that made the blood run cold. They were just in time.

  “I think,” said Dr. Ford, consulting his watch with a deprecating smile, “I think we should be getting up to the platform.”

  One thing can be said for the financial world. It teaches discipline. To a man, they rose.

  “Can we trust that damned fool?” Nat Schuyler did not bother to lower his voice as he joined Thatcher.

  “You don’t really care, do you, Nat?” Thatcher replied with acerbity.

  Schuyler took this as a high compliment. He was still wheezingly chuckling as they filed out of the office and began the long walk down the aisle to the bunting-draped platform in the center of the Garden fl
oor.

  “Oh my God!” Thatcher heard Edward Parry say again. He could well understand it.

  Noise, like a hammer blow, smote their ears: the blare of horns, the explosion of flashbulbs, the monotonous incitement of drums, and the abandon of thousands of human beings, roaring in defiance, in enthusiasm or in sheer exultation. Completing the grotesque distortions were the wild careening of spotlights, stabbing the darkness with blinding gleams of light. As they moved into the auditorium, the world narrowed to a tangle of arms and hands, waving or pointing at them, in one instance grasping at Parry’s jacket. The party proceeded into the pandemonium through a weird human arch.

  Bradford Withers, who was leading the way with Dr. Ford and Nat Schuyler, simply sailed on, superbly untouched by this tumult, as by the rest of life. Both Vin McCullough and Edward Parry, however, lacked his natural insulation. Both of them were visibly shaken.

  Bringing up the rear was the Committee of Three. Stanton Carruthers, mindful of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was weighty and dignified. Hugh Waymark, that gallant officer-gentleman, smiled bravely in defeat.

  Thatcher was last to clamber up the wooden steps to the platform. It was already crowded with Richard Simpson, Mrs. Mary Crane, two ministers, two rabbis, a quartet of spiritual singers, the deputy mayor, three technicians and Miss Feathers.

  In subsequent days, Thatcher was to maintain that this exceeded all of the nightmares to which he had been party. As they took their seats, rickety folding chairs, the noise did not abate. Nor did it abate thereafter. Thatcher looked out on an endless sea of faces, shuddered inwardly, and tried to withdraw into his own thoughts. The kaleidoscope of sound and light made this easier than might have been expected: the official program, to those seated on the platform, was nothing more than unintelligible electronic booms, followed by frenetic responses.

  “. . .March on Wall Street!” shouted Richard Simpson into the microphones, flapping a telegram in the air.

  A tidal wave of noise broke over their heads.

  Thatcher felt Vin McCullough stir beside him.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” said Thatcher.

  “Terrifying.”

  But it was Edward Parry, on his other side, who had replied.

  “. . . and education!” screamed Mrs. Mary Crane, who had succeeded Simpson. From nowhere, four drum majorettes appeared bearing a huge banner:

  READING, ‘RITING—AND RIGHTS!!!

  In the upper level there was an explosion.

  “Just a balloon,” Hugh Waymark said, in effect dismissing anything less than a howitzer.

  With some apprehension, Thatcher glanced toward Bradford Withers, sitting near the lectern. Once again he was pleasurably surprised; Withers had managed to reduce this holocaust to a social occasion. He was deep in conversation with a bishop of the African Methodist Church. Unless the cleric was a sailor, it was hard to conceive what they might be discussing, but they seemed to be getting on famously.

  “. . . housing!” bellowed the latest speaker.

  The roar that greeted this made McCullough stir again.

  “Well, I’ve done my bit,” he said. “Sold the house today, to a Black doctor.”

  Thatcher was not sure that he approved of small talk under the circumstances. On the other hand, sitting there and being yelled at was very difficult.

  “Did Nat approve?” he asked.

  “Happened too fast,” McCullough said as somebody in the balcony hurled tons of confetti into the air, further confusing the whole scene. “I haven’t had a chance to mention it to him yet.”

  Edward Parry, forcing himself to speak lightly, leaned forward. “You can give the doctor my name as a reference,” he said. “I may have some tips for him.”

  But McCullough and Edward Parry could not sustain casual conversation. The spectacle of the emotion-packed auditorium, veritably pulsing with life, and hope, was palpably daunting.

  “. . . Sloan Guaranty Trust!” shouted somebody.

  Thatcher refused to betray tension. He knew that, while the audience was raptly watching Bradford Withers, who was ponderously taking his adieu from the bishop and moving with statement in hand to the improvised lectern, eyes on the platform, particularly those of Richard Simpson and Mrs. Crane, were fixed on him.

  He had no trouble masking his reaction to Withers’ speech. This was because he had none. The words were totally inaudible. Despite his heavy responsibilities to the Sloan, Thatcher was profoundly grateful.

  Withers spoke at length. Whatever he said provoked an outburst. For one terrible moment, Thatcher feared that the president had cast prudence to the winds and had indeed just spoken a few words from his heart; in which case he was to have the rare opportunity of seeing a president of the Sloan torn to pieces by a howling mob.

  But, watching Withers punctiliously shake hands with Simpson and Dr. Ford, he concluded that the mea culpa had been, if not effective, at least inoffensive. Stanton Carruthers, he noted, while not moving a muscle, managed to exude vast relief.

  “. . . Caldwell,” said Edward Parry.

  “What was that?” Thatcher was forced to ask over the combined voices of two hundred choristers from Howard University.

  “He came into the office today to clean out his desk,” said Parry. “I’m a little worried about what he’s likely to do tomorrow, during the March.”

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Richard Simpson. “About the March!”

  Despite Hugh Waymark, Thatcher regarded the worst was over. It was not humanly possible to follow the rest of the proceedings, although they consumed another hour.

  So, in the midst of emotional whirlwinds, benumbed by the eloquence of speaker after speaker, Thatcher did, at last, withdraw into private communings.

  About Arthur Foote.

  About Edward Parry.

  About Dean Caldwell.

  And murder.

  “Of course,” he murmured softly to himself, waking to virtual silence.

  The bishop, an immense figure, had his arms outstretched. In a deep beautiful voice, he was praying.

  With sadness, Thatcher listened to him.

  “. . . and forgive our enemies. Let us seek peace and understanding. And let our needs and hopes teach us to understand the needs and hopes of others. Thy will be done. Amen.”

  “Amen,” said thousands of voices.

  “Amen,” said John Putnam Thatcher.

  Then, as the platform came to life, he moved swiftly to intercept the man he needed, Nathaniel Schuyler.

  “Great evening.”

  Thatcher looked at him.

  “No clowning, Nat. Listen . . .”

  As he spoke in a low urgent voice amidst the satisfied hubbub surrounding them, he saw the color drain from Schuyler’s face.

  “No!” Schuyler protested when Thatcher had finished.

  Thatcher said nothing.

  Schuyler bowed his head for a moment. Then, straightening with an effort, he said:

  “Do you want to go now?”

  “I do,” said Thatcher grimly.

  They were going to the offices of Schuyler & Schuyler.

  Chapter 19

  The Day of March Has Come

  IT WAS VERY LATE. The usually bustling office lay in shadowed silence. Nat Schuyler closed the last folder.

  “Another one,” he said harshly, handing it to Thatcher.

  Thatcher took it and ran his eye over the neatly typed contents memo, then tossed it onto the large pile of similar folders on the desk.

  “You were right. No escaping it,” Schuyler said. There was no remnant of his original shock at Thatcher’s revelations; hour after hour of proof had forced him into bitter acceptance of the identity of the murderer.

  “Question is, what do we do now?”

  Thatcher, himself a little tired, raised an eyebrow. Nat Schuyler was old enough to take a philosophical view of life and death, having seen too much of both to respond emotionally to any single incidence of man’s inevita
ble end. Was he extending this same tolerance to murder and to a murderer?

  Schuyler answered the question for him.

  “Too late to call the police now,” he muttered, rising stiffly. He gathered the pile of documents on his desk. “I’m going to put these in the safe. He’ll know, but by that time he’ll know anyway.”

  Thatcher watched him suit action to word, then turn to add: “I propose to meet you first thing tomorrow morning. Eight-thirty will do. Might as well get this cleaned up before business tomorrow.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Thatcher doubtfully, also rising. Delay did not seem desirable but it was already past three o’clock. Alerting the police now would serve only to take horror into an innocent home. Better let the arrest take place in the impersonality of Wall Street.

  It was, after all, a peculiarly Wall Street murder.

  “All right, eight-thirty,” John said, stifling a yawn. “Shall I meet you here?”

  Nat Schuyler drew his spare frame upright. “No,” he declared. “Not here. At the Centre Street police headquarters!”

  This was not precisely how John Thatcher would have chosen to proceed, but he did not protest. In a manner of speaking, this was Nathaniel Schuyler’s show. It was only courteous to let him, temporarily, retain the illusion that he was still calling the shots.

  Unfortunately, it had slipped his mind that eight-thirty tomorrow morning was going to be a very busy hour.

  Indeed, by seven o’clock, the quiet suburbs and the somnolent exurbs were already humming with preparations for the day.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go in today,” said Gloria Parry.

  Edward Parry looked at her, but she did not give him a chance to reply.

  “I know,” she said. “You think it’s your duty! You think this whole noble March is because of you, so you’re going to go in. But, Ed . . .”

  Gloria Parry rarely let herself get upset, and never let herself sound upset. Parry reached across the breakfast table to grasp her hand reassuringly.

  “Now, Gloria,” he said, “I promise to be very careful. I promise not to take any risks. And I’m sure the police will be watching me like a hawk!”

  “That doesn’t comfort me!” she flashed back.