by Evelyn Weiss
your service, Madam.”
“You sound English. I don’t suppose you’ve just come over to New York on the Olympic, by any chance? I hope you’ll stay, chat to us? I have a couple of things to talk to Agnes about, but we’d be delighted if you could join us...”
“No, I have to go now. Thank you anyway, Mrs Gilmour.”
“Such a pity. Nice to meet you, Mr Carver.” And he’s already stepping away. I see him retreating, he leaves the bar: his receding figure gets smaller and he’s at the hotel entrance now. One moment more and he’s gone, out into the street.
I breathe.
“Who was that dreadful man, Agnes? You’re as white as a sheet, darling!”
I’m shaking. The bartender looks over at us, but Gwyneth looks at him, and his glances stop. She holds my hand and looks into my eyes.
“Something’s not right, is it?”
And I can’t help it. Hell’s Kitchen, Chisholm’s revelations, that evil man... it’s just all too much for me. I simply ask her not to breathe a word to anyone: then, like a child, I tell her.
Everything.
It’s an hour later. As the evening approaches, the bar has filled up with people and chatter, and at last I see a well-built figure appear in the doorway, coming in from the room where you can use the telephone. I can see the disappointment in Chisholm’s face: he knows that I’ve told our story to Gwyneth Gilmour. But could he really expect me to keep it all secret? I hope he forgives me, I think, as he comes over. He speaks to Gwyneth.
“I see Agnes has been telling you about us. I don’t know how much she’s said, but I can’t overstate the importance of secrecy. But – I do trust you, Mrs Gilmour.”
“Call me Gwyneth. And yes, you can trust me. More, in fact, than you might imagine. But in the last hour there’s been a further development that you don’t know about. Right now, Chisholm, you are in extreme danger.” She looks round; everyone else is having their own conversations, no-one is overhearing us.
“Gwyneth – I’m a man who is used to – difficult situations.”
“Yes – Agnes has told me about you. And you may be used to dealing with Irish revolutionaries. You may even be able to sustain a cover story for a couple of hours in Hell’s Kitchen. But you don’t really understand New York City. Manhattan is, in fact, a war. The gangs and the police wrestle daily for control. Some gangs kill who they like, where they like. You’re not safe anywhere in this city. For example, do you know where the last major gangland shooting happened?”
Chisholm nods, but I say “I’ve no idea, Gwyneth.”
“There.” She points, and I follow the line of her index finger out to the lobby and onto the sidewalk beyond. “Right there, about ten yards from where we’re sitting. Harry Horowitz and his Lenox Avenue gang gunned a man down right there on the steps of this hotel, which as you know is one of the most exclusive in New York. And after what Agnes has told me, it seems to me that your enemies are just as ruthless.”
Chisholm looks at me. “So, Agnes. You told her about everything, including our visit to Hell’s Kitchen?”
“I told Gwyneth, because – that man was here. He came into this bar, spoke to me, threatened me. The man who calls himself Daniel Carver. He scares the life out of me. And whatever secrets you have, it was your choice, Chisholm, to share them with me. Unlike you, I’ve not signed any Official Secrets Act.”
I see the apology in Chisholm’s face. “You’re right, Agnes. This is my fault. As I said before – I suggest you use your ticket. Go home to Putnam, to your parents. Get out of here. Please.”
“Getting out of the Hotel Metropole may not be that easy, Chisholm.” Gwyneth, I can tell, is speaking sense. “From what Agnes has told me, we have to draw two conclusions. First of all, this man, this Daniel Carver, he must be connected to the Gophers gang, and to this Black Velvet plot, right?”
“Yes. He must be, although right now I’m not sure what the connection is.”
“Secondly, the fact that Carver comes in here, threatening Agnes, means that your cover is blown. In the time since your visit to Hell’s Kitchen this morning, Jimmy Nolan has found out that you’re no Black Velvet: you’re a British Secret Intelligence infiltrator.”
“Yes. He must have found out – how he did it, I have no idea.”
“At the moment, how he found out is not important. What is important is that the Gophers can call on pretty much limitless manpower. If they need to, they can watch every street corner in central Manhattan, all day. If they are able to send Daniel Carver straight into the hotel bar, and he can pick out Agnes from all the other guests, then the Gophers know you’re in here, and they know what you look like. The main entrance of the hotel will certainly be watched. If you leave the Metropole, either together or singly, you’ll be recognized. And followed. And probably killed.”
I venture a suggestion. “Suppose we called a cab to come to the hotel entrance right now, and asked the hotel staff to accompany us out to the cab. The Gophers wouldn’t dare, if other people were around, to shoot us right outside the door.”
Gwyneth looks at me. “That’s precisely what Mr Rosenthal thought. He was the man that the Lenox Avenue gang shot on the hotel steps. So Agnes, you’re wrong: the Gophers would dare to kill you right here at the Metropole. Trust me on this: your only chance of safety is to find a different way out of this hotel.”
“She’s right, Agnes. Somehow we must get away from here secretly, and take a train out of New York. If we go to Ohio – Mr Gilmour has agreed to talk to us again, we can talk to him there, at the Cuyahoga Steelworks offices in Cleveland.”
Gwyneth speaks again. “Even if you do manage to take a cab safely, they are bound to trail you to the station and follow any train journey that you make. They will follow you and choose their moment. They will come upon you when there is no-one around to help you.”
“So, how do you propose we get out of this?”
“I’ll drive you to Cleveland.”
Gwyneth Gilmour is speaking, but I’m not believing her. I find my own voice.
“Thank you. That’s an incredibly kind offer. But how on earth can an automobile be driven half way across the continent?”
“The world is changing fast, Agnes. There are already good roads almost all the way across between here and Ohio. Red paint markers show the way; an Auto Trail, they call it. We’ll simply use the car that Gilmour and I keep here in New York.”
Chisholm shakes his head. “You can’t involve yourself in danger, Gwyneth. This is our problem – nothing to do with you.”
“You’re not in a position for gallant gestures, Chisholm. And you must have already set those fine English scruples aside, when you involved this young woman here. As for myself, I choose to help you. So what I suggest is this...”
16.Night in New York
After our conversation, Gwyneth left the hotel, and Chisholm went to make further telephone calls to update Inspector Trench and the New York police. I tried to sleep in my room, unsuccessfully. It’s now nine o’clock in the evening: Chisholm and I have finished dining in the Metropole’s restaurant, and I’m back in my room. For the second time today, I’m changing from my own clothes into the plain skirt and shawl.
Just as I’m finishing, there’s a knock at the door: it’s a porter. “Madam, I understand you have a case for me?” I pack the last of my own clothes into my suitcase, and the porter takes it away. Somehow, I feel that the old Agnes, myself, has been taken away in that suitcase along with all my clothes. She’s leaving, being taken away from me. Who knows when I will see her again?
There’s a second knock on my door. Chisholm appears, dressed as before in working clothes, and without a word I go out into the corridor and follow him. We go along the corridor, turn a corner, and Chisholm pushes open a door. Suddenly we’re out of the grandness of the hotel’s public spaces and into a shabbier world: a narrow passageway lined with brooms, mops, buckets and cleaning kit. Ahead of us is something that look
s like a small, doorless cupboard. It’s the shaft for the laundry service elevator. This is what the hotel staff use to ensure pressed, crisp sheets appear on every bed in the hotel. The elevator entrance has no safety grille: nothing to stop you falling right down the shaft. Chisholm presses the button to call the elevator. The rickety contraption slides up towards us, and stops in line with the floor.
We get in and it descends, rattling and clanking. A minute later we’re down on the ground floor. The elevator opens into a large room like a factory: above us, belts and wheels spin manically. Metal levers, shunting like steam engines, connect the wheels to churning metal drums that line the floor: the noise is deafening, and the air is fiercely hot. The far end of the room is stacked high with piles of bedsheets and tablecloths. We’re looking into twenty pairs of tired eyes, twenty downcast female faces.
Chisholm speaks in a loud, Irish voice.
“This is the hotel laundry, yes? The hotel manager – he sent us here, he said that there might be a job for my colleen.”
Two minutes later the laundry manager, still shouting abuse at us, pushes us roughly out of the back entrance of the hotel, into a vacant lot. We’re surrounded by tall buildings, all of them turning their backs on this empty space. In the brightly-lit city, this blank square is dark and deserted. We walk amid piles of rubbish towards the black slot of an alley. We’re near Times Square, and
