It was a small office, with large windows looking out over Graham Street, and a gas heater set in a corner. This is where he was found dead. I’m not a philosophical type, but I felt a connection to William Huber. He was just a year younger than I was, and we were both in college at the same time, not a hundred miles apart. So I felt motivated to explain his death. Of course, the prospect of a bonus would have been a far better motivator.
The cop who had investigated Huber’s death was a sergeant at the Stagg Street station just a few blocks to the north. I never liked dealing with the police, but I particularly didn’t like dealing with the police in New York. And it wasn’t simply because they were all corrupt. It seemed as if the laws were purposely written just vaguely enough, and with just the right number of contradictions, to allow for the arbitrary enforcement that cops thrived on. And their badges gave them free rein to be as brutal as they liked. Add to that the fact that they were all corrupt and you have what one of their own number described as the largest gang in New York. The only thing that kept them in check was all the infighting over the spoils.
Things went pretty much as I expected. Sergeant Corwin was an older fellow with an unlighted cigar that never left his mouth. He treated me as if he had just learned I was the one who had defiled his daughter. I couldn’t blame him for not wanting someone poking his nose in his business, but he didn’t need to be so damn surly about it. The only real news I picked up was that the coroner had determined William definitely died of asphyxiation due to gas inhalation, and that his body was discovered by his brother John, who worked at a law firm in Manhattan.
From there, I went back to Broadway and took the L down to Palmetto Street, where the Hubers had a house, just past Bushwick Avenue. It was a respectable place, but nothing opulent. The old man’s prohibition didn’t extend to servants, so I rang the bell and when a girl answered I tried to question her some about William. No go. The only thing more annoying than a gossiping servant is a discreet one. She offered to call her mistress, but I decided it would probably be unwise to establish just how successful old Conrad could be at making my life a hell on earth. I tried some of the neighbors and found out nothing more than that William was a fine boy who treated his parents well.
By then it was almost five o’clock and I remembered I had told Emmie I’d pick up her mother at Grand Central. Of course, I thought I’d be working at William Street and meeting the 5:40 would be a piece of cake. Now I was on the far side of Brooklyn. I had to take the Lexington L downtown, transfer to cross the bridge, and then transfer again on the other side. I didn’t get to the station until after six. Emmie’s mother was nowhere to be found. I combed the station and had three people paging her. Then I phoned home to tell Emmie.
2
Emmie greeted the news that her mother was alone and at large on the streets of Manhattan with a strange gurgle, followed by a few choruses of “Oh, Harry, how could you?”
Then, having had her fun, she confessed that her mother was there with her. Emmie had met the train herself. It was past eight when I got home. Thankfully, Emmie’s mother had kept a plate warm for me. I know one is expected to dislike one’s mother-in-law, but I had always gotten on well with mine. She was completely conventional, but often in unconventional ways. For instance, she had been brought up in a traditional New England Congregationalist household and still attended church regularly—Catholic Mass, that is. And she converted not because she married a Catholic, but rather married him after her conversion because he was a Catholic. And it wasn’t the theology that drew her. It was the show. She viewed a High Mass the same way a sophisticate views grand opera. Her visit, quite intentionally, coincided with Holy Week. She hoped to attend four Masses in four days, culminating in Easter at Saint Patrick’s.
The next morning, Emmie and her mother were dressing for the morning show at Brooklyn’s own St. James Cathedral when I left for William Street. At the office, I made inquiries into the life policies William Huber had written with the two companies other than Sovereign. No claims had been made. After that, I telephoned his brother John, who agreed to meet me for lunch. Mrs. Barclay was next on my list. I reached her at home and she said I could stop by anytime that afternoon. There didn’t seem to be a telephone number for Mrs. Farrell, so I took the L up to 19th Street, hoping she hadn’t left town.
She was there, alright. And just getting up, from the looks of things. The apartment was in a third-class sort of building, and I got the impression housework wasn’t high on Mrs. Farrell’s list of priorities. Nor was personal hygiene. She looked like someone who had indulged to excess, and then had her supply cut off. Maybe drink, maybe something else.
I told her I was investigating Huber’s death, not her husband’s. But she was still plenty suspicious. She said she had never met Huber, that her husband must have signed the policy elsewhere. But she did remember the doctor’s visit. I asked her about her husband’s habits—did he go out with friends, play the horses, etc. She pled ignorance, but pointed out Farrell was a drummer with a three-state territory and was almost always on the road. Then I ran down the list of Huber’s fraternal organizations. She was sure her husband hadn’t belonged to any of them.
“His only clubhouse was the nearest saloon,” she said, then gave a sorry little laugh.
“Did he have one he visited regularly?”
“No, he wasn’t particular,” she said. “When will I get my money?”
I assured her it would be any day and then headed back downtown to meet John Huber at the old Delmonico’s on Beaver Street. He was a fairly short fellow, shorter than me anyway, about 30, smartly dressed, and looked just the way an up-and-coming Wall Street lawyer should look. I got through the condolences and then explained why I was looking into the case.
“What would satisfy the people at Sovereign is an explanation of why your brother killed himself,” I said. “I assume you’re convinced it was suicide.”
“I suppose you know I’m the one who found him. It certainly looked like suicide. He was on the floor. It looked as if he’d been just sitting at the desk, then fell out of the chair when he became unconscious. I turned the gas off, opened a window, and dragged him to it, but it was too late.”
“The gas was on all the way?”
“Yes, the heater had three jets and they were all on.”
“So it wasn’t an accident.”
“No.”
“Why did you think he’d been sitting in the chair?”
“There was a bruise on his head. The doctor said it must have occurred when he fell out of the chair.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“Oh, yes. Didn’t Father tell you?”
“Your father didn’t confide much of anything.”
“There was a slip on the desk that just said, ‘Tell Mother I’m sorry.’”
“Was it odd he didn’t mention your father?”
“No, I don’t think so. He knew how much it would hurt Mother. And he was right.”
“And there’s no question it was in his hand?”
“It was his scribble, alright.”
“So it was suicide,” I agreed. “But why?”
“That I haven’t been able to explain. He was doing well with the agency. Father bragged about him. He seemed to be enjoying himself, too. Of course, William always seemed to be enjoying himself.”
“If money isn’t a problem, love usually heads the list.”
“Yes, I thought of that,” he said. “You see, I’ve been looking into it myself. He was always seeing several different girls, off and on. I’ve talked with them, and they all seemed to see the relationships as he did. Sally Koestler, she’s a childhood friend of mine and William’s, said she would have known. They travel in the same crowd.”
“But he wasn’t intimate with her?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say he’d never been intimate with her. But if she had any idea why he killed himself, she’d tell me. And she was probably William’s closest friend.”
“Did he have any conflicts with other men?”
“You mean jealous lovers?”
“That, or maybe business conflicts.”
“No, William charmed everyone. He was impossible to pick a fight with.”
“So, he was successful in business, content with his love life, got on with his parents, and I assume was the picture of health. Did he have any faults?”
“Sure, he had faults. You visited the office?”
“Yes, but I didn’t learn much.”
“But you saw the diploma from Hamilton on the wall?”
“Is it a forgery?”
“No, not a forgery. William graduated, alright. But then some evidence of cheating came up. They called him in and he confessed. So they rescinded his degree. The sad thing is, he could have easily avoided it.”
“You mean by not cheating?”
“Well, that, of course. But I mean when they called him back. Were you in college?”
“Yes. And yes, I know pretty much everyone cheated on something at one time or another.”
“Exactly. All he had to do was say, ‘Look, you caught me. But I can give you the names of half the members of the graduating class who also cheated.’”
“Inform on his fellows?”
“But he wouldn’t have had to. They couldn’t afford a scandal like that. They never would have called his bluff.”
“You must make a good lawyer,” I smiled. “Do you still live at your father’s, too?”
“No, I have a place on this side of the river.”
“Then how is it you were the one to find your brother at the office?”
“The day before was my birthday. I went home to celebrate it with the family. Sally was there. But William didn’t show up.”
“And that was out of character?”
“Yes, at least not to have telephoned. We ate, had the cake. But Mother was becoming increasingly nervous. So Sally telephoned some friends. Then she and I went out looking for him. We went to all his usual haunts, stopped by friends’, anything we could think of. Finally, around one in the morning, I took Sally home in a cab, then went back to my parents’. Mother and Father were both up. I didn’t want to just sit there waiting, so I offered to go check the office. Father had called there repeatedly, but agreed I should check it. He gave me his keys and I walked up to Graham Street.”
“You didn’t take the L?”
“They run so infrequently at that time and I didn’t want to wait. I suppose the walking eased the anxiety some,” he said. “I smelled the gas as soon as I reached the second floor. The rest you know.”
“What time was it when you found him?”
“About four that morning.”
“Have the police found out anything?”
“No. Father basically told them to end the matter and they did.”
“And no one had noticed a change in your brother? One day he’s happy-go-lucky, next day he kills himself?”
“I only saw him once or twice a week. Sally said he had seemed a little down recently, but he told her it was some minor business setback. Mother worried over him constantly, and Father probably isn’t sensitive enough to have noticed. And William wasn’t one to burden people with his worries.”
As we were leaving, I asked him about Farrell and Barclay, but he hadn’t heard of them. Nor could he explain how his brother might have met them. Then, as we were walking along William Street, he stopped and invited me to join him that evening.
“I’m going to meet Sally later. There’s a place we haven’t visited yet, the Hotel Le Roy. Apparently, William spent some time there. I don’t think anything will come of it, but you could meet Sally.”
“My mother-in-law’s in town, but I might be able to get away later.”
He suggested I meet them first at one of the German dance halls in Williamsburg. I asked him if he could bring a photograph of his brother, then went off to the Bureau. There was a message from George Tibbitts, a Manhattan police detective who had looked into the deaths of Farrell and Barclay. I telephoned him, but he was out. Then I headed uptown to meet Mrs. Barclay.
The Barclays lived on East 58th Street. The doorman directed me to a fourth-floor apartment. The name on the door was Edward Howell, but the woman who answered the door identified herself as Mrs. Barclay and led me into a little study.
Before I met Mrs. Farrell, one theory that had crossed my mind was that William had had some romantic interest in the two men’s wives, set up the policies, and then killed their husbands. I didn’t get very far with it, and on meeting Mrs. Farrell I laid it permanently to rest. But Mrs. Barclay was another matter entirely. She was in her late twenties, blonde, and looked like one of Mr. Gibson’s models. I’m not saying I’d kill over her. I probably wouldn’t get anywhere with her even if I did. But if a fellow had a predilection to murder strangers—and received a little encouragement—she would be the one he’d kill for.
I fed her the whole condolence business and she thanked me. Then I told her about Huber and how I was trying to find some connection between him and her husband. I went through my list. She said she thought her husband was an Elk, but wasn’t altogether sure. She did remember meeting Huber, and the doctor coming by, but she couldn’t remember when either had occurred. She had no idea where her husband had been the evening of his accident, as she had been out of town. But she did provide a short list of his friends. When she had to go into another room to find the name of her husband’s firm, I realized that while Mrs. Barclay may have had the looks of a Gibson creation, she was unlikely to be caught spouting one of the clever lines the girls are noted for.
I remarked on the name on the door and she said Howell was her sister’s husband, and that they’d been sharing the apartment for the last several months. Then I tried to delicately inquire about her husband’s vices. He drank some, she said, and sometimes too much. Then I brought up gambling and for the first time she got a little nervous.
“Lots of men gamble, Mrs. Barclay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” My phony comforting seemed to work.
“Oh, well, yes. Rob did gamble some. He played cards, poker.”
“Did he go to poolrooms? Or visit the race tracks?”
“He went to the race tracks,” she said emphatically. Which I took to mean he spent a lot of time in poolrooms. Then she started crying and suggested I had better leave. Her tears seemed genuine, but whether she was crying over her husband’s death or just my questioning her about it wasn’t clear.
I went back to the office and tried Detective Sergeant Tibbitts again. He said he’d stop by the Bureau around ten the next morning. I gave Keegan a brief update and then left for the King’s County Court House over in Brooklyn. There I was able to see a copy of the coroner’s report on William Huber.
There wasn’t much to it. Death was due to asphyxiation by gas. He’d been dead about four hours when the doctor arrived at the office, which was about 4:30 that morning. There was a bruise on the forehead that had occurred sometime before death. As John Huber had mentioned, the conclusion was that he had lost consciousness while sitting in the chair, fell forward, hitting his head on the edge of the desk, then slid out of the chair. From the courthouse I took a car home.
It was early, but I thought if I was going to try to get away later in the evening, I had better put some time in as attentive husband and son-in-law. When I arrived at the apartment, Emmie was out and her mother was explaining to Dorothy how much dust could accumulate under a carpet. I was immediately put to work moving furniture and rolling up rugs—a just punishment for my good intentions. When Emmie came home we reassembled the living room and got dressed for dinner. We had tickets for the Montauk, where E. H. Sothern was playing Hamlet. I still hadn’t quite decided if I was going to abandon Emmie and her mother at the theatre. But I wasn’t anxious to see Mr. Sothern’s interpretation of the brooding Dane.
I had recognized the name of the place John had mentioned. It was a Raine’s Law hotel th
at had attained a certain notoriety. There were hundreds of so-called hotels in Brooklyn, but only a few dozen were legitimate hotels. The Raine’s Law was a liquor law passed by the state that restricted the sale of alcohol in all sorts of ways. Hotels, however, were allowed a number of exemptions. Within a few years of the law’s enactment, the number of hotels shot up dramatically. But nearly all were faux “hotels”—as closets, storerooms, and even stables were said to be for the use of guests.
Then stricter definitions were written on what constituted a hotel. Most of the new hotels complied, in one way or another. So now there were thousands of modest hotel rooms without any real guests. American ingenuity being what it is, it wasn’t long before uses for these rooms were found. This gust of creativity may not have increased the disreputable activities of the citizenry, but it did bring more of them into public view. Which, in turn, provided an opportunity for the scolds to crack down.
In the fall of 1900, the Committee of Fifteen—a group of very proper, mostly wealthy, prudes—came into being. Then the newspapers got into the act. It was around this time that the Brooklyn Eagle ran a story about how vice was flourishing in the Eastern District. It recounted all sorts of goings-on: sexes and races mixing freely, women of suspect character singing badly and dancing the can-can, etc. To the ill-trained eye, these activities might be mistaken for signs that the clientele was innocently enjoying itself. But to the scolds, they were signs of society’s descent into a state of animalistic behavior.
Crossings (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 2) Page 2
