The New Colossus

by Marshall Goldberg

  “Not when she sees the size of the rooms. And the presence of a guard on the street will put her at ease.”

  A guard? He had thought this through completely. She was overwhelmed at his desire to protect her.

  “But Dr. Kraepelin and your trip to Europe—”

  “I will contact him and delay my visit until this business is finished.”

  “Ingram, you can’t.”

  “I must. I have no choice. Just as you had a painful lesson that shaped your entire outlook, I had mine, as a doctor in the Indian Wars. I saw men lose their lives in an instant. I realized how fleeting life can be and that one must never put off what is truly important.”

  She stood there, not knowing what to say. She wanted to go to him and tell him how much she loved him and beg him not to leave her ever. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, but he understood, yet again, that she would have to make the first move.

  “That is extremely generous,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Then you will accept my offer?”

  “Yes.”

  Inside Nellie was a war between her desires and her fears. Her fears prevailed. “I should go home and see about mother.”

  He nodded. He had anticipated this. But the fact that she agreed to stay at his home was enough for now.

  “Should I send someone in the morning to help with your moving?”

  “That would be most helpful. Thank you.”

  “Not at all.”

  She turned and opened the door. “Good night, Doctor Ingram.”

  “Good night, Miss Bly.”

  Chapter Twenty

  New York Hotels, 1880s

  Charles DeKay strode into the Montagne Hotel, just down the street from the inn Nellie and Ingram used for their trysts. Though life was breaking his way and he had more than his usual swagger, he was wistful. His wedding was in less than two weeks, and he would not be having many more of these afternoon visits. Oh, he would still have some—marriage did not necessarily consign one to a monastic existence—but he would need to be discreet. He was about to become more prominent and would have much more to lose. Ah, the price one paid for moving up in the world.

  He stopped at the front desk where the clerk, a go-getter in his forties wearing a light green tweed suit, greeted him warmly.

  “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “Good afternoon, Simmons. My appointment is waiting for me?”

  “Yes, sir. One I suspect will please you immensely.”

  The two men smiled at their own private double-entendre as Simmons let Charles know he’d chosen well among the street women for that afternoon.

  “And you provided proper refreshments?”

  “Enough to last for a good while, sir. Depending on the appetite, of course.”

  Charles paid Simmons for the room and a little extra as usual for his trouble, then headed to his customary meeting place. He hoped this one would be especially good; today would most likely be his last dalliance before the wedding. Simmons had decent taste—a little more genteel than he preferred, but the girls always seemed to sense what he wanted and loosened up right away. A prostitute had to be pliable in more ways than one, he always said. Otherwise they wouldn’t last.

  As he approached Room 17 at the end of the corridor, his pulse quickened and his step lightened. This was his favorite part of the rendezvous: the anticipation and the mystery. He had no idea what awaited him on the other side of the door, just that he wanted it to be wonderful and take his breath away.

  He tapped on the door.

  “Are you decent?” he asked in an authoritative voice.

  “You’ll be the judge of that.”

  A witty one. And a flirt. He smiled and opened the door. But the smile soon froze.

  Standing there alone in the room, fully clothed, was Nellie Bly. “Good afternoon.”

  Charles glowered. For one of the rare times in his life, he was speechless.

  “You look disappointed.”

  “What are you doing here?” He was not amused.

  “I needed to speak with you.”

  “I have nothing to say to you—”

  “Oh, I think you do. Or else your fiancée will have a great deal to say to you. You have made quite a name for yourself among the prostitutes in this neighborhood. They don’t like that you may be taking your business elsewhere.”

  She watched DeKay try to regain the advantage. She could practically read his mind. The two of them were alone, after all. Simmons would cover if there was a disturbance. The man was practically on his payroll. DeKay closed the door.

  But Nellie tapped twice on the wall. From the room next door came two taps.

  “And someone is next to this room as well. I really do need you to answer some questions.”

  He was trapped. But he retained that confident air. He would dance nimbly around her questions, just as he had the previous time. He had been doing it all his life.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Why you poisoned Emma Lazarus.”

  “I didn’t poison her.”

  “Please. No more lies. I know she didn’t kill herself. We have proof of that.”

  “If you are convinced it wasn’t a suicide, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and publish your story.”

  “I will keep your name out of the story if you tell me why Hilton was so intent that Emma die right away. Why couldn’t he wait a few more months?”

  “I don’t know. He just approached me and asked me to do it. Told me to do it, I should say.”

  “And so you did. You poisoned her.”

  “No.”

  Nellie scoffed.

  “Right. I forgot. She poisoned herself. You may be oblique with me, Mr. DeKay, but I suspect that option will be unavailable to you with Miss Coffey. Her family will insist on direct answers.”

  There was no point in evasion. The woman was determined. But he still did not have to tell her everything. It was his nature to withhold information.

  “Barker had prescribed arsenic for her right after she returned from England. He thought it would help her with the cancer, but it only made her more ill, so he stopped. Neither he nor I gave her arsenic again.”

  “Someone did.”

  “Yes. Without our knowledge. The symptoms persisted, and she became weaker and weaker. He analyzed her blood, and there was much more arsenic than he had given her. Barker was afraid someone would blame him for the death.”

  “That’s why he destroyed the blood samples when we saw him at the opera?”

  He nodded. “The protocol at the hospital required him to keep flasks of her blood. He wasn’t worried about it until you began asking questions. At that point he feared a scandal.”

  “How did the additional poison get into her system?

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t.” He stumbled over the word “honestly,” as if it was unfamiliar to him. Nellie didn’t know whether to believe him.

  “But you were happy to take credit for it with Judge Hilton.”

  “Yes.”

  He made no attempt to defend or excuse himself. There was no need. This was how the world worked in New York.

  “Why did Hilton want Emma dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They both knew he was lying.

  “You want the prostitutes to visit your fiancée? And her family?”

  “I swear. I don’t know.”

  She had worried he would protect Hilton no matter what, even at the cost of his marriage. She knew she wouldn’t be getting any more from him. She sighed, grabbed her coat, and headed for the door.

  “I don’t suppose you would care for some wine,” said DeKay. “It seems a pity to let all this go to waste.”

  “Perhaps you can serve it at your wedding.” She walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘Helena DeK
ay Gilder’ by Winslow Homer

  The offices of Scribner’s Monthly were just off Union Square on Fifteenth Street. Along with Harper’s and The Atlantic, Scribner’s was the most admired magazine in America. In 1880, it had officially changed its name to The Century, after the club of its new publishers and editor in chief, Richard Gilder. Before the arrival of Gilder and his wife, Helena DeKay Gilder, Scribner’s had been considered a third-tier publication among the nation’s intellectual magazines. The Gilders, however, managed to attract the great writers and illustrators of the day, from Mark Twain, Henry James, and Edith Wharton to James Whistler, Edward Penfield, and Winslow Homer. Helena had more of the artistic eye, at a time where the public valued illustrations as much as text, and Richard more of the literary and business eye. They were, in the competitive world of publishing, a formidable team.

  Helena DeKay Gilder was by all accounts Emma Lazarus’s closest friend. With a shadow cast over Emma’s death, it was only natural that Nellie would meet with Helena, and ordinarily a woman would have cooperated fully to bring the killer of her best friend to justice. The problem, of course, was that the person who may well have carried out that murder was Helena’s brother, Charles. Helena’s efforts in landing Charles a position at the Times made clear where her loyalties would fall if forced to choose between her family and justice for a friend.

  Nevertheless Nellie thought Helena could be helpful. Nellie needed to know more about Charles and Emma, Helena’s brother and best friend. As an editor, it would go against Helena’s nature to refuse to speak with Nellie altogether. She would be coy and oblique rather than flatly uncooperative. In fact, from what Nellie had heard of Helena’s pride of wit, and from what she had seen of Helena’s brother, Charles, Helena would enjoy sparring with Nellie and tying her up in verbal knots.

  To prepare for her meeting, Nellie had scoured the numerous biographical accounts of Helena that had circulated when she joined Scribner’s and, of course, that had accompanied her marriage to Richard Gilder. Both were seminal events in the literary world. Helena, like Charles, had spent her early years in Germany, then attended a girls’ boarding school in Connecticut where the class notes described her as “strong-willed” and “independent.” She studied for four years at Cooper Union, where she became an accomplished artist, then settled in New York City, where she shared a studio with her close friend from college, the western illustrator and author Mary Hallock Foote. In 1872, she married Richard and started a family of her own, raising a boy and a girl. Richard was the son of a clergyman and the only male student at his father’s female academy outside of Flushing. He had fought at the Battle of Gettysburg and following the Civil War had entered the literary world, moving easily among the salons and editorial rooms. Well-known writers trusted him with their work, and yet he could speak as easily to businessmen and held positions on numerous civic and social organizations. Where Helena was artistic but flighty, Richard was grounded, a man of the business world. Friday nights at their New York apartment, nicknamed the Studio, were the most sought-after invitations in literary New York.

  The one thing that struck Nellie in all the news articles was that both men and women seemed to fall hopelessly in love with Helena DeKay Gilder. Winslow Homer used her likeness in a dozen paintings, including “Waiting for an Answer” (depicting a young man awaiting a romantic decision from a young woman), and was said to have been devastated when Helena declined his offer of marriage. Charles Dudley Warner, Mark Twain’s co-author of The Gilded Age, said to Helena, “I’m not going to Egypt! I think you are the finest girl I ever saw.” Mary Hallock Foote had serialized a rhapsodic portrayal of Helena as a fictionalized main character in what would eventually become the novel Edith Bonham. Richard Gilder had won her favor with sonnets published in Scribner’s before they were married. Flirtatious charm must run in the family, thought Nellie.

  The Century offices were not particularly large. The printing warehouse was located in Queens, and the editorial side of the enterprise was a medium-sized brownstone just off Union Square. The reception area was the foyer, with lush European area rugs and stained oak shelves holding first editions from the magazine’s many authors. On the walls hung past covers of Century and Scribner’s. Nellie almost stopped in her tracks wide-eyed when she saw a drawing by Winslow Homer on a magazine cover, trumpeting the latest story by Mark Twain.

  “May I help you?” asked a young woman Nellie’s age, whose accent and dress clearly reflected her privileged class.

  “I am here to see Mrs. Gilder.”

  “Your name, please?”

  “Miss Nellie Bly. She is expecting me.”

  “One moment,” the young woman said with condescension, eyeing with distaste the mud on Nellie’s skirt hem. “Please remain here.”

  Nellie felt like an applicant for a custodial job. She was used to similar dismissal from men in such situations, but haughtiness from a woman her own age made her bristle. As she reviewed the supercilious people she kept encountering in this investigation—Hilton, DeKay, Barker—her temper started roiling, but she forced herself to suppress it. She had worked too hard to get to this point to allow snubs or pettiness to interfere. She could take it out on all of them later, in the story that would expose just how vacuous and vile they all were.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Bly.”

  Nellie turned to behold one of the most beautiful women she had ever laid eyes on. Helena DeKay Gilder was in her early forties but possessed the kind of beauty age would never touch. Her emerald green eyes, shimmering and alive, took in everything. Her auburn hair, piled atop her head, made those heavenly eyes all the more pronounced. The sharpness and excitement of the eyes was offset by a soft mouth and a ready smile that was perfectly symmetrical and brightened the entire house. Lustrous. That’s what she was, thought Nellie. Radiant and lustrous. Helena’s beauty went far beyond anything Nellie could capture in writing. It was a task best left to artists. And, Nellie realized, Helena had only said hello.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Gilder,” said Nellie. She wished she had come up with something more winning, but “Good afternoon” was the best she could muster.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Do you mind if I have some? We’ll make enough in case you change your mind. Martha, some tea for myself and Miss Bly.”

  “Right away, Mrs. Gilder.”

  Helena beckoned to Nellie. “Please.”

  Helena turned away from the reception area and, with a walk befitting royalty, led Nellie into what was originally a parlor room but now served as Helena’s office. By the window was an oak desk with manuscripts piled high. Near the fireplace was a chartreuse couch with tassels on the bottom, a royal blue wing chair, and a finely polished table for tea or coffee. On the walls were paintings of museum quality, including one of Helena done by Homer himself.

  “I was pleased to receive your telegram,” said Helena. “I had been thinking of approaching you to write something for our magazine.”

  “I’m well below your literary level, Mrs. Gilder. I write only for newspapers.”

  “You have set New York journalism on fire. Your modesty suggests you are not a good judge of literary talent.”

  Nellie saw a framed magazine cover on the wall. She walked over and peered at it closely.

  “Edward Penfield?”

  “Yes. Are you an admirer?”

  “Very much so.”

  The etching showed ladies on a train, with ruffled bonnets, reading books. It was early Penfield; the artist would not achieve real fame for several more years. But to those fortunate enough to be exposed to him, his ability was undeniable.

  “He submitted a drawing to a newspaper where I worked,” Nellie said, studying it closely. “I urged the editors to buy it, but they refused—”

  She turned around and caught Helena staring at her. Not at her face but at her waist and hips, the way men eyed her. Helena was not th
e least bit embarrassed. She made no attempt to avert her eyes, as if perusing Nellie’s body was the most natural thing in the world. As if she were entitled to do it.

  “Refused what, my dear?” asked Helena.

  “Refused to go along,” said Nellie, recovering her train of thought. She walked back to the couch. Helena continued to appraise her physically, and with approval. Nellie wondered if Helena was simply trying to make her uncomfortable. If so, she was succeeding. Yet Nellie had to admit a certain pleasure that such a beautiful woman would look at her admiringly.

  “I gather you are here to talk about Emma.”

  “Yes.”

  “Charles told me your theory that she was murdered.”

  “It is more than a theory. We have a scientist who can prove it.”

  “Dr. Ingram.”

  “Yes.” Nellie regretted that Ingram had been dragged into this. Another mark against Charles, she thought, for telling Helena all about Ingram.

  “I am not surprised,” Helena nodded unexpectedly, as if her worst suspicions were confirmed.

  “Oh?”

  “When someone so young and vital as Emma passes away suddenly, one naturally thinks the worst.”

  “Then you suspected someone of taking her life?”

  “I did. But certainly not Charles.”

  “Why ‘certainly not’?”

  “Charles was devoted to Emma. He admired her and protected her. He would never have harmed her.”

  “Judge Hilton is under the impression that Charles is responsible for her death and has even rewarded him for it.”

  “Yes, I am aware of that,” said Helena without skipping a beat. Her aplomb in the face of disquieting facts was disarming. “Charles has a great deal to gain from his association with Judge Hilton. If the judge believes he is in Charles’ debt, I see no reason for Charles to disabuse him.”

  “In that case, you won’t mind showing me Emma’s manuscript.”

  “Her manuscript?”

  “The one that she gave you before her last trip to England.”

  For the first time, uncertainty crept into in Helena’s manner. “There was no such manuscript.”