“I make my living judging character, Miss Bly. Every investment I have ever made is based on an assessment of character. And I am wholly convinced that Miss Lazarus did not take her own life.”
“You think DeKay poisoned her?”
“You suspected him of involvement until this morning.”
“Yes. But why would he want to see Miss Lazarus dead? And why would he poison her when he knew she was only months from dying as it was?”
These were the questions that had plagued her the entire day. But Gould had no hesitation in answering.
“To curry favor with Henry Hilton.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Mr. DeKay is looking to elevate his status in New York society,” Gould said impatiently. “In your brief time around him, surely you have seen that. Nothing is more important to his ilk than social standing. Nothing.”
“I’m not sure I see the connection—”
“In his pursuit of respectability, DeKay has become the protégé of Henry Hilton.”
“The enemy of the woman he loved?!”
“As much as he is capable of love, yes.”
“But Charles DeKay and Henry Hilton … The two of them joining forces seems so out of the question.”
“Never underestimate the lust for social advantage, Miss Bly. People will do anything to achieve it: betray friends, spy on family, murder lovers—”
“You think DeKay poisoned Miss Lazarus at the behest of Judge Hilton?”
“I have no doubt of it.”
“But that would be monstrous. And then to claim it was a suicide—”
“You’ve spoken with him. Would you credit Charles DeKay for integrity?”
DeKay was a cad, that was beyond question. And he arranged for Barker to destroy the blood flasks. But he had seemed so sincere, even sorrowful, that morning. And to murder his companion of ten years?!
“What did Hilton offer him?”
“Sponsorship in a social club. Invitations to dinners and balls. A summer cottage in Newport. An ambassadorship to Germany—Hilton has spent a great deal of money to assure President Cleveland’s defeat this fall. With the business and social contacts acquired through such a position, DeKay would live comfortably for the rest of his life.”
“And in return Hilton would see the demise of the woman he despised?”
“Yes.”
It was a murderous trade with the devil, and yet Nellie had no trouble imagining Charles DeKay—the one she had seen at the opera—making it.
“You see, Miss Bly, these men are scoundrels. If you wrote a news article they found threatening in any way, I am certain harm would come to you. That is why I summoned you here. You need to know exactly what is in store should you continue. Though I would like nothing more than to see these men brought to justice, you must think long and hard before pursuing this matter and appreciate its gravity.”
She beheld him sitting there, the most notorious man in New York, perhaps in the entire country. A man who had destroyed thousands of lives in his financial maneuvers, and yet he was warning her. She wondered if he was just manipulating her like some railroad stock. There was certainly a good chance of it. But DeKay did strike her as craven enough to do all Gould had described. She had no idea what to do. If she wrote about DeKay and Hilton, they would try to destroy Emma’s reputation and, if Gould was to be believed, harm Nellie herself as well. But if she did nothing, two men who ended the life of a remarkable woman would get away with murder.
“There is no firm evidence as to how Miss Lazarus died,” she said, “let alone whether she was murdered. It is pure conjecture.”
“Most of life is conjecture, Miss Bly. That is one thing you understand at my age. The challenge is to reduce the conjecture to likelihood.”
“I don’t know whom or what to believe—”
“Then dig deeper. Sit down with Henry Hilton. Press him for answers. After speaking with him, you’ll know what to do.”
He wasn’t trying to sway her, Nellie thought; he was clever enough to simply leave it to her to decide. She found herself flattered by his vote of confidence. No doubt it was one of his ways of manipulating her.
“I have a few questions for you, Mr. Gould,” she said. “Please … How did you express your admiration to Miss Lazarus?”
“Excuse me?”
“You admired her for the boycott that vindicated your friend. I’m sure you expressed your gratitude in ways other than words.”
He was thrown by the question. That didn’t happen often with Jay Gould.
“I paid for food and shelter for dozens of immigrants and did what I could to find them work.”
“Miss Lazarus appreciated that?”
“Very much so.”
That made sense, she thought to herself. Emma would use the opportunity of Gould’s companionship to help her cause.
“And what did you ask in return?”
“In return? Nothing. She had vindicated my friend. I was glad to help her in some small way.” He sounded almost offended at the question.
“A man in your position does not get there by providing gifts, Mr. Gould. Life for you is bartering. What did you receive in return for your philanthropic gestures?”
Gould nodded wanly.
“She passed along information about her father’s sugar refineries, information I used in market purchases and in setting rates on my railroads.”
Nellie smiled ever so slightly, as did he. She stood up.
“No one can know about this conversation, I take it? Not even Mr. Pulitzer?”
“No one. That can only make your task more difficult. But like me, Hilton has sources in many places.”
He took her by the elbow and leaned close as he led her to the door. “She was an exceptional woman, Miss Bly. Please do her justice. I will assist you in any way I can. But know I am unable to protect you.”
Chapter Ten
Jay Gould
Nellie had Gould’s driver take her back to Harlem. She had barely seen her mother the past two days, and Nellie didn’t like to leave her alone too long. Mary Jane’s mind was slipping, and Nellie worried she would hurt herself or wander out on her own and get lost in this strange city. During the ten days Nellie had spent in Bellevue, she had paid the landlady to look after her mother, but she couldn’t afford that forever. One of her sisters could move to New York, but that would be one more mouth to feed, and the room they rented was too small as it was. Now that Nellie was getting busy on the Emma story, she would have to figure her way out of the conundrum.
It was a good thing she did go home because Mary Jane was in a tizzy over a telegram that had arrived from Nellie’s younger sister Alice. The court case they filed three years ago against the First Pennsylvania Bank was proceeding to trial in two days.
Nellie had waited her whole life for this moment. All the times she had lain awake at night vowing revenge, all the hardships she and her mother and sisters had been forced to endure … she remembered every single one. Her family’s life had been deeply damaged by the bank and its president, Colonel Thaddeus Jackson, who had embezzled all their money and then declared bankruptcy. The bank had refused to make amends and fought all attempts to compensate them, averring that a widow was not entitled to any inheritance and that the children were minors and unable to sue. After living in tenements as a child, Nellie had managed to make ends meet through odd jobs and eventually writing for newspapers, but she’d never lost her hatred for the First Pennsylvania Bank.
The day she turned 21 she filed a lawsuit against it for mismanaging the family funds.
The case had taken three years to make its way through the Armstrong County Court of Common Pleas, and now, finally, it was ready for trial.
Nellie had no illusions about the challenge she faced. Unable to afford a lawyer, she would have to represent herself and her sisters in court. The case would be before a judge who was a part-time lawyer and f
requently employed, in all probability, by the First Pennsylvania Bank. The jury would be composed of men who did business with the bank and depended on it for their livelihoods. Both judge and jurors would undoubtedly know Colonel Jackson and want to protect his reputation, as Jackson had commanded the Eleventh Pennsylvania Reserves in the Civil War. And even though he was its president at the time, state agency law would permit the bank to deny all financial responsibility for the actions of Colonel Jackson.
Nevertheless, Nellie was not about to back down. These people had cheated her family and made their lives difficult and cruel. She wanted justice. The cause was not totally hopeless, as she saw it. She had some weapons of her own. But she had to move quickly; two days was not much time. She would also have to put aside the Emma story for a week or two.
“Mother. We have to leave tomorrow.”
Mary Jane was confused. “For where, dear?”
“For home.”
“I don’t understand—”
“The lawsuit against the bank is going to trial.”
“What will they do to us, dear?” asked Mary Jane, cowering. “Will they throw us out of our house again?”
“No, Mother. They can’t hurt us anymore.”
“Are you sure? Perhaps we should just stay here.”
Mary Jane had been irreparably scarred from losing her husband and her home and then living in poverty while raising young children. It had been disruptive to move to New York, but it was also a blessing in that it helped Mary Jane begin to put the awful experience of the past fifteen years behind her. Now, though, she was frightened at the thought of facing those same vicious people again.
“Can you start packing without me?” asked Nellie. “And fix yourself dinner? I need to tell someone I’m leaving.”
“Will you be long?” Mary Jane asked anxiously. It was pitiful, thought Nellie, what life had done to her.
“An hour or two. I will come right back. I promise.”
“All right, dear. But do hurry.”
On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Ingram worked at the Bellevue Hospital, so Nellie rode the streetcar south to First Avenue and Twenty-Seventh Street, then took the ferry to Blackwell’s Island and the hospital.
Like her mother returning to Apollo, Nellie shuddered at the thought of setting foot in Bellevue. Even more than reliving bad memories, she half-worried the authorities would find a way to keep her there, only this time Pulitzer’s lawyer would not be able to get her out. She would have waited and chosen anywhere else in the city to meet Ingram, but she had to leave the next day and needed to see him before she departed.
The place was as dreary and dank as she remembered. The guard at the elevated front desk, a brutish man in his early forties named Jenkes, whom Nellie had described in her story as “a cold, heartless ogre, a most suitable public face for Bellevue,” snarled when he saw her.
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to see Dr. Ingram. He is expecting me.”
Jenkes grunted resentfully, got up from his chair, and unlocked the door. He didn’t bother to open it for her. She had to let herself in. He started to follow her.
“No need to take me back. I know my way.”
“I don’t trust you,” he said.
“And I don’t trust you.” The women inmates had warned her never to be alone with any of the male guards, especially Jenkes.
“Suit yourself.”
He locked the door and returned to his chair.
“Tell me, Jenkes. Did I spell your name right in the newspaper? The World wants me to do another story on Bellevue, to see if things have changed. I wouldn’t want to misspell it again.”
He got the point. He didn’t like it, but he got it. He trudged over and unlocked the door. After he walked back to his desk, she opened the door.
“One of these days someone’s going to get you alone on the street, missie,” he said. “And you’re going to get all you have coming to you. That’ll be a glorious day.”
“Perhaps so, Jenkes. It’s a pity that someone won’t be you.”
As she stepped inside to a poorly lit brick corridor at least fifty feet long, she shivered involuntarily from her confrontation with Jenkes. She had expected him to be fired after her story, but his sister was the wife of John Kelly, the current head of Tammany Hall, and Kelly was notoriously ruthless—he had betrayed Boss Tweed and arranged for him to be sent to prison fifteen years earlier. The City Council might be outraged by what they saw of Bellevue, but no one thought it worth the trouble to take action against John Kelly’s brother-in-law.
Ingram was in his office at the end of the corridor. Through the small window she could see him poring over a file. She tapped on the window. He looked up, surprised to see her, and unlocked the door.
“Miss Bly.”
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
She walked inside and sat down by his desk. He closed the door behind her.
Although they were almost magnetically drawn to one another, there was no embrace. They had to be careful in the hospital, as a scandal could ruin them both. He joined her at the desk. Even though the door was closed, they spoke in quiet tones.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I must go away tomorrow, to tend to some matters at home.” She didn’t tell him what they were, and he didn’t ask. She kept her past to herself. Whenever Ingram asked even innocent questions about life before they met, she ignored them. He had stopped asking altogether.
“When will you return?”
“I’m not sure. Within ten days, I suspect.”
She started to reach for his hand, but he shook his head. Physical contact between them was out of the question.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t see you.”
He nodded. It took enormous willpower on both their parts to restrain themselves.
“What happened with the story?” he asked. “It was not in the afternoon paper.”
“Mr. Cockerill declined to run it.”
She told him about the meetings with Cockerill, and then DeKay, and then Gould.
“DeKay insists it was a suicide, and Gould is just as insistent it was a murder.”
“Which one do you believe?”
“Gould.”
“Why?”
“He believed Emma was incapable of taking her own life, and I agree.”
Ingram was skeptical. “There is no scientific connection between character and suicide. Lincoln was a brooder given to dark moments, yet it was his effervescent wife who repeatedly tried to take her own life.”
“Then I really am wasting my time,” she said in frustration. “There is no way of telling how she died.”
“Not necessarily.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “Assuming we could actually show she died of arsenic poisoning and not cancer, how could anyone prove it was a murder and not a suicide?”
“Arsenic is a very unpleasant poison. One looking to kill herself would want to do it quickly to shorten the suffering. One wanting to commit a murder, on the other hand, and have it appear as a cancer would administer it over a much longer period of time.”
“But how could I show which of the two it was?” she asked.
“If you could get me any clothes she wore during the last several months of her life, I could tell you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The body expels arsenic any way it can—through the hair, through the skin, through sweat glands. That, plus the fact that arsenic can be detected after months, even years, means that we could tell how much arsenic was in her system even a year after her death.”
“Simply by examining a dress?”
“We live in an age of science, my dear. Our microscopes can detect almost anything.”
“So,” she said excitedly, “if a nightshirt she wore three months before her death had no arsenic, and one she wore right before her death had a large amo
unt, that would suggest suicide.”
“Exactly. And if the shirt she wore three months before dying had a small amount, and the one before her death had the same or a slightly larger amount, that would suggest a murder.”
She grasped the possibilities.
“Then I have to get my hands on her nightclothes.”
“Or a bed sheet. Or a blanket. Or a chair she sat in, a napkin she used. Anything she touched would reveal the level of arsenic in her system. Remember, however, that she died a year ago. You would have to find items that were not washed or given away.”
“But if I found them, you would be able to tell?”
“Yes.”
“Once again, Dr. Ingram, you have given me hope.” She wanted to add “and more,” but lost her nerve.
“That is how doctors like to think of ourselves, Miss Bly. As purveyors of hope.”
She stood up. “Thank you.”
“Glad I was able to help.”
He opened the door for her. She brushed against him on the way out and looked into his eyes. It was almost too much to ask, to keep their hands off one another.
“Good day, Miss Bly.”
“Good day, Dr. Ingram.”
She gave him a warm smile and passed closely enough to graze against his thigh. Her heart leapt, and she paused to look at his face when a patient’s frightened scream cut through the asylum. He nodded and started to reach for her arm but held back.
She left, to the sounds of the woman screaming.
Chapter Eleven
Nellie and Mary Jane took the sixteen-hour train ride from New York to Pittsburg. The sight of snow still piled high from the Great Blizzard was replaced by soot and gouges of hundreds of mine shafts probing for coal in central and western Pennsylvania. Because soft coal was the nation’s primary source of energy for locomotives and steam engines and the giant steel-producing furnaces around Pittsburg, it was sought after like gold. No matter that it was so dirty that train passengers and residents living near railroad tracks found themselves covered with soot, even with all the windows closed and curtains drawn. Or that coal miners and nearby residents inhaled poisonous dust that shortened their lifespans by fifteen to twenty years. The country’s energy demands were simply too great to accommodate such trivialities. And with no unions to jack up wages or prevent companies from charging workers for equipment or making them buy all their food and necessities in company-owned stores, coal producers made phenomenal profits. The richest man in the country was Henry Clay Frick, who controlled the coal industry, and the second-richest was Andrew Carnegie, who controlled the steel industry.
The New Colossus Page 10
