by Amy Stewart
I sat on a bench with my ankles crossed and my handbag in my lap. A few solitary men approached the bench, but each walked right past it. The clock in the station had just struck five. I tried not to watch it as I didn’t want to look nervous. My feet bounced against the brick and I willed them to stay still.
I was staring at the ties on the tracks when a hand gripped my shoulder roughly from behind.
“Not here, Miss Kopp,” a man muttered in my ear, his tobacco-stained breath on my neck. I jerked my shoulder away and rose to face him, but just as I did, a station agent blew his whistle and yelled.
“Leave the lady alone!”
I barely got a glimpse of him before he ran down the platform and out of the station, a tall, skinny figure in a baggy gray overcoat who propelled himself along with a distinctive off-center gait. It was Kaufman’s friend, the one with the wooden leg.
Sheriff Heath and his deputies materialized from their posts inside the station, around the corner, and on the platform opposite. All of them ran after Ewing, leaving the station in utter silence. I was left to play the part of the astonished lady victim.
The girl running the sandwich stand rushed over with a cup of tea and a hot bun, which I saw no reason to refuse. An older gentleman came to sit with me and offered to call a doctor if I needed one. I declined, explaining that I was just taking the train to Ridgewood and would have family waiting for me there.
I finished my tea and rode the train back, then hired a cab to take me home. By the time I stood in my own drive again, it was eight o’clock. A single light burned in the kitchen. There would be a plate set aside for me, and Norma and Fleurette would be standing around anxiously. I wished I could tell them with certainty that Ewing was under arrest. I already knew what Norma would say: If Sheriff Heath couldn’t catch up with a one-legged man, we were in worse trouble than we’d imagined.
44
THE NEXT MORNING I was helping Norma dust the chickens for mites and keeping a wary eye on the road when the sheriff’s wagon pulled into our drive. It was Deputy Morris.
“I’m sorry we ran out on you last night, Miss Kopp,” he said.
“Don’t worry about me. Did you catch him?”
A wide smile emerged under his beard. “Of course we did. Although he goes awfully fast on that club of his. Anyway, the sheriff wants me to bring you in to view the evidence.”
When we arrived, Sheriff Heath was standing over a table looking at some papers. There was the letter I had written to George Ewing to request a meeting, along with other letters addressed to him I didn’t recognize. There was also a notebook with a page of scribbles, a handkerchief, and a bottle that looked like it came from a druggist.
“What’s this?” I said, pointing to the bottle.
“Chloroform.”
Everything went still for a minute. I took a half-step back from the bottle as if it could reach out and poison me. Sheriff Heath pulled a chair out for me and then sat down next to me. He spoke quietly and carefully. “We believe he intended to take you to a hotel and drug you.”
“A hotel? By what means would he have persuaded me to visit a hotel with him?”
He smiled. “I don’t think Mr. Ewing considered who he was dealing with. But this is the way these men work. It takes nothing more than a little chloroform on a handkerchief to overpower a lady. We’ve seen it before.”
I shook my head. “Well, he’s not very bright if he thought that would work on me.”
“Have a look at this.” Sheriff Heath pushed the notebook toward me with the end of a pencil. I could barely make out the writing.
“What is it?”
“It appears to be his plan to kidnap Fleurette and sell her to white slavers.”
“This is his plan? All written down on notepaper for anyone to read?”
“He makes it easy for us. I’m about to go interview him. That’s another thing. He’s claiming responsibility for all of the threats against the three of you.”
“All the letters from last year? Everything Henry Kaufman did?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so. He says he acted alone. Says he never heard of a Henry Kaufman.”
“But that was him!” I protested. “With the wooden leg! I told you I’ve seen him with Mr. Kaufman!”
“And you’re certain of that? It was the same man?”
“Of course. I told you about his front teeth, didn’t I? And the leg. How many men with wooden legs do we have running around this town?”
“I just want to be sure,” he said. “Mr. Ewing was arrested in Somerset County for stripping the lighting wires from their poles with a gang of thieves, all of whom got away. I don’t know if they were Kaufman’s friends or not. But Mr. Ewing served his sentence in the state prison and was released right before your collision with Henry Kaufman last summer.”
Just then the guard opened the door and said that the prisoner was ready to be interviewed. Sheriff Heath stood to leave. “Just be careful,” he said. “Stay home and keep quiet for a while. You have your guns. We’ll drive by when we can.”
I didn’t tell him I’d found Lucy. If she was right—if Henry Kaufman really would come after her if she ever went to the police—I didn’t want to be the one who brought that down on her. She’d gotten away, even though she hadn’t gone far. She could stay hidden a while longer.
SAYS HE WAS KOPP BLACK HAND “GANG”
Confession by Convict Clears
Jersey Blackmail Mystery Case
HACKENSACK, N.J. JAN. 23—“I am alone responsible for the writing of Black Hand letters to Miss Constance Kopp, of Wyckoff, threatening to abduct her pretty sister, Florette. I had learned that the Kopp family were wealthy and I thought this was an easy way to make a bunch of coin.”
This was the confession made to-day by George Ewing, an ex-convict, who was captured in the Neshanic Mountains a few days ago by Sheriff Heath, of Hackensack. A bottle of chloroform found in his pocket has led to the discovery, it is believed, of an additional plot to kidnap Florette Kopp and turn her over to “white slavers” in Chicago.
The confession ends a reign of terror that had prevailed in the Kopp home since last July, when Miss Constance Kopp started suit against Henry Kaufman, owner of a silk dyeing establishment in Paterson, to recover damages for being run down by Kaufman’s auto. Black Hand letters began to reach the Kopp home, and prowling men appeared after dark, shooting at the house.
“He’s claiming responsibility for all of it?” said Fleurette, grabbing the newspaper out of my hand before I could finish. “Why would he do that?”
“To keep Henry Kaufman out of trouble, I suppose,” I said. “Can I have my paper back?”
But Fleurette held on to it, reading bits of it aloud but mostly mumbling to herself. “It says here that Ewing planned to entice you to a hotel and use chloroform on you,” she said. “I thought I was the one being kidnapped. What does he want with you?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Norma said. “The fact that you’ve received the most threats does not make you the most popular.”
“What does it make me?”
“The smallest. They are threatening you because you are the smallest and the youngest, and somehow they have the idea that we, therefore, value you the most and would pay more to get you back.”
“Well, of course you would.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“And why would anyone write out the plan for the crime they intend to commit and carry it around in their pocket like that?”
“You heard what Constance said. This is not the smartest criminal we’ve ever met.”
“We haven’t met many criminals. Although if this keeps up, we’ll soon know every con man and Black Hander in New Jersey.”
“That’s enough from both of you,” I said, having recovered my newspaper and finished reading the story. “All that matters now is that we caught him.”
“Does this mean Henry Kaufman gets away with everything?” Norma asked.
&nbs
p; “I don’t know.”
“Then it’s a good thing we went to the papers so all the criminals could learn our particulars,” Norma declared. “I don’t know why you ever took that man’s advice.”
“Sheriff Heath? You didn’t mind so much when he was issuing you a revolver. You didn’t turn down his help then.”
“I don’t know what choice I had. Now what is he going to do about Mr. Ewing?”
“He’ll be sent to jail for the kidnapping attempt,” I said. “I have to give a statement to the prosecutor tomorrow, and then I’m going to go take care of a few other things in town.” I was going to see Lucy, but I didn’t want to say it.
“I’m coming with you!” Fleurette said, scrambling to her feet. “I’ll wear my black crepe. I have a very serious sort of hat that would give the impression—”
I stood and took her face in my hands, forcing her to look up at me. Her cheeks were pink with excitement and her eyes were flashing. She had the face of a small, sleek animal, a mink or a fox.
“Listen to me. Under no circumstances will you ever be in the same room with George Ewing or any of his gang. Ever.”
She squirmed and got away from me. “It doesn’t seem like I’ll ever be in the same room with anyone except the two of you,” she said, pouting as only a girl of her age could do.
“I’d like that just fine.”
45
THE HOUSE WAS BETTER CARED FOR than most on the block. It had recently been given a fresh coat of white paint, and it sat behind a tidy front garden fringed in a cast-iron fence. Although the garden was covered in gray slush, there were twigs and stalks standing up through the snow, suggesting the possibility of hydrangeas under the windows later on in the year, and a border of daylilies along the walk.
I gave the bell a hard twist. The smoke from some nearby chimney drifted past. The smell of wood burning made me hungry and I realized it had been a long time since breakfast.
After a while I heard a cough and the shuffling of feet. The door opened and the tiniest woman I’d ever seen stood before me. She was as frail as a bird, her small head fringed in white cottony wisps. She wore a gray dress with a collar that buttoned right under her chin, and from under her skirts appeared petite patent leather shoes that could have belonged to a schoolgirl.
She looked me up and down through china-blue eyes. “How do you do?” she said at last.
“I’m here to see Lucy Blake,” I said. “I’m a friend of hers. I saw her in the market recently and she invited me to stop in.”
She swept her eyes over me again, weighing the likelihood of that. “Lucy’s working right now. She’s helping my sister.”
“I’m so sorry to bother you, Mrs.—”
“Miss Eldridge,” she said. “I am the younger Miss Eldridge, by ten minutes.”
I smiled. “I won’t be but a minute, Miss Eldridge. I simply must ask her about an important matter. May I come inside and wait?”
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs made Miss Eldridge turn around. Soon Lucy appeared behind her. Her eyes widened when she saw me.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Lucy said. “Just a friend of mine here to see me on a personal matter.”
Before her employer could object, Lucy was out on the porch, pulling me by the wrist down the stairs to the entrance to a basement apartment.
“We can talk here,” she said quietly, opening the door to a small room that appeared to have been furnished with the Eldridge sisters’ cast-offs. There was a tufted red velvet settee so worn that the bare weave of the fabric showed through, and four mahogany dining chairs with embroidered cushions that looked like they could have been completed when the sisters were first learning to sew. A battered wardrobe and trunk must have contained her clothing, and a shelf above a small sink held washing powders and toiletries. A doorway at the back of the room revealed an alcove just large enough for a daybed.
There was a wood stove in one corner, but Lucy made no move to light it. She was probably given only a small quantity of fuel for the winter. With both of us crowded inside, it would soon be warm enough.
Once she closed the door, she grabbed my hands. “I’ve been waiting for you. Did you bring them?”
“Yes, and I want you to look at them very carefully,” I said, pulling the envelope out of my pocketbook. “I hope you might recognize someone.”
She turned the envelope over, holding it by the edge as if it might burn her. “What does this say?” she said, squinting at the faint writing on the outside. “Ward?”
“That must be the man who hired them to take the pictures. He never came back to pay for them, so Mr. LaMotte—that’s the photographer—he offered them to me.”
She slid the photographs out and looked through them, studying each face before going on to the next one. There were businessmen in suits, delivery boys, and little girls playing on the stoop. She paused for an especially long time over a picture of a woman with a bundle over her shoulder. Even if it was a baby, there was no way to know if it was hers.
After she looked at each one of them twice, she passed them back to me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t recognize anyone.”
“Are you sure? I thought you might have seen one of them come into the factory. Some associate of Henry Kaufman’s, maybe.” I realized I had no idea what to do next. If the pictures were useless, then I had nothing else to offer her.
She picked at a thread coming loose from the settee. “No. But thank you for bringing them, Miss Kopp.”
“I do wish you would come and talk to Sheriff Heath. I wanted to bring him here today, but now that I see your situation, I wouldn’t want to raise suspicion among your employers.”
She pushed her chin up defiantly. “They already know. The Misses Eldridge have lived very long lives and have seen quite a bit in their time. A girl with a baby hardly comes as a shock to them.”
A little silver bell rang above Lucy’s door and she stood up.
“Wait,” I said, as I followed her out. “Won’t you please think about going to see the sheriff? Surely he could help. Now he’s arrested one of Mr. Kaufman’s friends, and he’s working on—”
She turned around and said, “If he puts Henry Kaufman in jail, I’ll go talk to him. Not before.”
“But—”
There was a hard, defeated look about her. “He set fire to his own boarding house. What would he do to this place?”
At the second ring of the bell, Lucy turned and ran up the stairs, leaving me to latch the door. The diminutive Miss Eldridge stood on the porch and watched me go.
46
“CAN’T YOU FIND SOMETHING TO DO?” Norma said crossly after I’d fumbled the third leg band and annoyed yet another pigeon. “I don’t need your help. You’re just making them nervous.”
I was attempting to crowd inside the pigeon loft with her. I had to bend down to avoid tangling my hair in the chicken wire above. All twenty pigeons had retreated to a row of nesting boxes situated as far away from me as they could get. They were climbing over themselves and pecking at one another and making an agitated ruckus. Norma was giving the younger ones their first leg bands and tying on messages. “Wild Geese Never Divorce” was soon to arrive back at the loft, as was “Citizens Asked Not to Tempt Soldiers by Offering Strong Drink.”
Norma reached around me and opened the door to the loft. “Go. Go and see what Fleurette’s doing. Maybe she needs some help.”
“She’s practicing her ballet,” I said, backing out of the loft as ordered.
“Then polish the doorknobs. Or go start dinner. You can do that, can’t you?”
Yes. I could do that.
I pulled some carrots out of a box of sand we kept in the root cellar and took them inside. I was standing at the kitchen sink, scrubbing them and looking out the window at the barn and the barren vegetable patch we’d soon have to replant, when the crunch of wheels on gravel announced that someone was in our drive. I leaned around and saw Francis’s wagon pulling up to t
he door, a load of baskets under an oilcloth in the back.
He jumped down and went to talk to Norma. I scrubbed my carrots a little longer than I needed to. When they were skinned bare and bright orange, I dropped them in the sink and looked around the kitchen. There was the battered old table that had survived decades of dough being pounded on it, noodles being rolled out and sliced, coffee spills, dribbles of jam and preserves, and the arguments of three girls who rarely agreed on anything but sat down together nonetheless. The black iron wood-burning stove had no place in a modern kitchen, but when we moved in, there was no source of gas or electricity, and we learned to live without it. Mother’s old scalloped dishes with their pattern of moss roses sat in the cupboard, as familiar as the backs of our hands. There was nothing new in this kitchen but Fleurette’s pale blue curtains, stitched all the way around in yellow piping.
I had very little love for kitchens, but I couldn’t see us giving this one up.
Francis waved at me through the window as he came up to the door. He had a newspaper in his hand. He’d grown a beard over the winter and there were little flecks of gray in it. Our father used to wear a beard like that. I realized with a start that Francis was almost the same age our father was the last time I saw him.
He pounded his feet on the threshold as he came through the door. “Kopp Black Hand Gang?” he said, tossing the newspaper on the table. “What happened?”
He set his hat on the table and dropped into a chair in front of it. “I thought this was all taken care of. What’s been going on out here?”
I dried my hands and sat down across from him. “I told you they were getting ready to arrest Henry Kaufman, and they did.”
“Oh, I know. I read about that one in the papers, too. It’s how I keep up with my sisters these days. Why didn’t you tell me another man was threatening you?”
I leaned back in my chair to get a look out the window. Norma was staying very busy with her pigeons. I wasn’t going to get any help from her. Fleurette had put on a recording of a Parisian ballet and I could hear her heel hit the ground each time she made a pirouette.
