With that, he sat down, obviously talked out.
Indeed, we were all tired. Thus, with Frevert’s charges still reverberating, Beveridge and I excused ourselves, bade good night to our hostess and her remaining guest, and left for the hotel.
So sleepy was I and inattentive to my surroundings that I scarcely appreciated the largesse of Mrs. Frevert, who had obviously spared no expense in securing rooms for Holmes and me. As my head hit the pillow, however, I was contemplating neither the immense room in which I was lodged nor the testered bed in which I was now ensconced, but rather the initial peculiarities I had discovered in a case containing much that was not as it appeared: a provocative woman who seemed so different at home, a youthful senator who seemed to possess the cynicism of older men, a quiet husband who had so much to say. What had Holmes once observed about the deadly souls who practised deception? They were like the purring cat when he sees prospective mice.
When I began contemplating the fluffed-up Ruffle so thin underneath his snow-white fur, I knew that I was in desperate need of rest.
Five
POLITICAL PERSONAGES
“As the world knows, the eternal verities are kept alive solely by the hypocrites who preach and profess them.”
—David Graham Phillips, Light-Fingered Gentry
When Mrs. Frevert said that she would take care of our accommodations, the Waldorf-Astoria, like the R.M.S. Majesty, was certainly more than I had anticipated.* Rubbing elbows with “nobs,” as the local aristocrats were known, was not beyond the purview of Holmes’s investigations. Indeed, on more than one occasion he had come to the aid of members of some royal family or another, but sharing their way of life was a different matter. With servants available at the touch of a button and marble pillars and satin wall-hangings providing the backdrop, one might envisage oneself residing at a palace instead of a hotel. Nonetheless, amidst all the splendour, I was able to locate and bolt down a simple breakfast of rashers and eggs in the Men’s Cafe. Not for me the posh Palm Garden restaurant, separated from the Cafe by only a glass wall, or the celebrated Peacock Alley, the lengthy corridor leading to the Garden, from whose cushioned chairs beneath whirling ceiling fans people could gawp at the affluent or renowned characters who frequented the sumptuous hostelry.
After hurrying down the tessellated walkway and through the grand doors swung wide by a commissionaire in a long burgundy coat and matching flat, short-billed military-style hat, I found Rollins and the Packard waiting on Fifth Avenue between Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth streets where the night before he had requested that I meet him. At the very least, he was dependable. Blocking a service entrance, the motor car was no doubt stationed illegally; but, as Rollins put it with the utmost grimness in those dark eyes, “When your boss used to be a U.S. senator, the coppers usually look the other way.” What other perquisites accompanied the role of legislator? I wondered.
I must confess, however, that the true wonderment percolating within me centred not on Beveridge’s activities or even on my upcoming interview with the former New York Senator Millard Pankhurst Buchanan but rather on my trip the following day to Sagamore Hill, a journey that at least for the next hour I had to put out of my mind. Despite the fact that tomorrow I would be travelling with Beveridge to visit a former president of the United States, I had to remind myself that my primary concern was still this morning’s stop in Columbus Circle at the New York American building.
Beveridge had secured an appointment for me with Buchanan, one of the men vilified by Phillips for the senator’s close ties with the railroad trust and his ruthless handling of those who opposed his financial dealings. After being denied re-nomination by the Democratic party, so Beveridge had explained, Buchanan had gone to work in offices at the American as a political adviser to William Randolph Hearst, its owner, who, despite some earlier electoral failures, still coveted the presidency. Since Hearst was responsible for hiring Phillips to write The Treason of the Senate in the first place, it was ironic—to say the least—to discover Buchanan employed by the architect of the latter’s own downfall. That peculiarity was but one of many questions Holmes would want me to ask the senator.
Bequeathing to Rollins the job of finding a place to leave the motor car, I entered a building very much like the newspaper establishments of Fleet Street. Surrounded by the insect-like chatter of countless typewriting machines, I made my way through a maze of corridors and lifts to the office of the senator’s secretary, a young man with receding dark hair, who, according to the sign in front of him, was named “Mr. Altamont.” Rising to great me, he revealed a commanding height and wiry physique that put me in mind of the young Sherlock Holmes.
“Dr. Watson,” he said rather coolly after I had introduced myself, “the senator is waiting for you, but he asked me to warn you in advance that he is on a very limited schedule. He sails this afternoon for England and is only in the office at all to conclude a few final matters before he leaves. In short, he doesn’t have a great deal of time.”
I nodded and followed. Passing through an imposing oak doorway above which hung a single, rather weatherbeaten horseshoe, curved toe downward, we entered a large, dark, wood-panelled chamber with fixtures of brass and furniture of leather. One wall of the room from floor to ceiling was devoted to shelves full of uniformly bound, blond-leather law books. So high did these shelves climb that to the left of the wall’s centre stood a ladder attached to a brass rail just below the ceiling. The senator occupied a massive red-leather chair behind a partner’s desk with ormolu fittings. He was a tall, bulky man with a leonine head of white hair. That the white mane curled so dramatically upward at the nape of his neck put me in mind once again of Ruffle the cat and his interrogative tail. Happily, however, the senator was much more communicative. Indeed, if the instructions for Altamont had been to act abrupt with me, there was nothing in his own attitude to suggest it.
“Dr. Watson,” he said warmly, offering me a firm hand to shake and an unfaltering gaze to regard. Were I more of a cynic, I would surmise that he had mastered that strong greeting at a school of acting. Let it suffice to say that his studied sincerity put me in mind of the great Henry Irving. Holmes used to compliment my insights into people’s characters. Cutting through the layers of Buchanan’s political posturing was going to present a challenge.
The senator motioned for me to sit, and I took the place opposite him at the partner’s desk. Clasping my hands together in the same way he did, I felt very much like his mirror image.
“You see, Doctor,” he said, trying to establish the perimeters of the conversation without losing his friendly touch, “as I trust Mr. Altamont has explained, my wife and I are leaving for England this afternoon, so I don’t have much time to dally here at the office. In fact, the only reason I agreed to your little visit when I heard what you wanted was to see this matter laid to rest once and for all. That damned Phillips cost me my senate seat! His scurrilous lies depicted me as some dupe of the exploiters of the people. Anarchist drivel! Why, I come from the people! I used to be a farm boy upstate myself. I get angry all over again thinking about the hell Phillips caused me.”
It was clear that the longer Senator Buchanan talked about Phillips, the more emotional he became. His face had begun to take on a florid hue when Altamont knocked gently on the door. This interruption allowed Buchanan the opportunity to collect his thoughts.
“Come in,” he said, and Altamont entered, followed by a tall but unimposing man with brown hair, close-set blue-grey eyes, and wearing a green-chequered suit. Until the secretary mentioned the man’s name, I never would have taken him for the authoritative monarch he was.
“Senator Buchanan,” Altamont said, “Mr. Hearst asked if he might be allowed to attend your meeting with Dr. Watson.”
“Why, Bill, come on in,” Buchanan said, introducing me to the famous publisher. Hearst seated himself in the chair by my side and neatly folded his hands in his lap.
“Dr. Watson,” he said, “it�
��s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve read every word you’ve written about Sherlock Holmes. Your plots are so clever that some people don’t even believe he’s real and ascribe his genius to you. That’s quite a compliment to your writing. If you ever want to work for an American newspaper, you can count on getting a job right here. You could help sell a lot of copy.”
I thanked him for his generosity and for one brief moment—the briefest of moments—wondered how it might be to live in New York. To be sure, Hearst had distracted me, but his presence had also lightened the atmosphere in the office. Even the senator seemed to feel more jovial.
“Have a cigar,” Buchanan offered. Obviously, the appearance of his employer, despite their Christian-name relationship, slowed the senator’s plans for an early departure. In fact, he was the only taker of his own offer. After cutting the end with a brass clipper that was hanging from a fob at his waistcoat, he lit a panatella. Hearst pocketed his, and I refused altogether.
“You’re not a cigarette smoker, are you, Doctor?” Buchanan asked between deep draws of the tobacco.
“No,” I replied, “it’s just a bit early in the morning for me.”
He nodded, apparently approving of my answer. “Phillips smoked cigarettes, you know. Never could get him to smoke like a man.”
“Now, Millard,” Hearst said, “times are changing. You can’t keep holding on to your old-fashioned ideas. Phillips may have had some peculiar habits, but there’s nothing unmanly about smoking cigarettes.”
“Which raises an interesting question, gentlemen,” I interjected, having found an opportunity to ask one of the queries that troubled me. “If you feel so strongly about Phillips, Senator Buchanan, why work for Mr. Hearst? In fact, shouldn’t your quarrel really be with him and not with Phillips, who was just carrying out Mr. Hearst’s request in attacking the Senate?”
Buchanan coughed, a loose, ropey cough which warned me, as a physician, that cigars were probably not his best medicine. “Why, I don’t hold the chief responsible,” he said. “Bill was just doin’ what was necessary to try to get elected governor. I know that. Why, you might accuse somebody of wantin’ to kill Bill Hearst here instead of just stoppin’ with Phillips.”
It was obvious that the nearer the senator came to talking about Phillips’s death, the more his language lapsed into its familiar roots. Dropping his g’s was emblematic of how Buchanan’s formal speech began to revert to the drawl of the impoverished background that Phillips had highlighted in illuminating the senator’s rise from rural poverty to political power. According to Phillips, it was not a noble climb, and it included an expedient marriage.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “I didn’t intend to accuse anyone of anything.”
A silence ensued during which I watched the smoke of Buchanan’s cigar hang in the thick air. Suddenly, the long ash at the end fell on to his desk, landing on a piece of paper. A moment later, a lick of yellow flame shot upward.
“Quick, Doctor!” the senator barked, as he tried to pat out the fire with his naked palm. “Water! On the shelf behind you.”
I turned to see a jug of drinking water on a shelf just beyond the ladder to my left. I sprang to get it, leaning under the ladder to do so.
“Stop!” Buchanan bellowed. “Are you mad? Walking under a ladder?”
I sidestepped the ladder in question, fetched the water, and poured enough on the offending flame to extinguish it. Only then did I notice that Hearst had been sitting calmly during the entire episode. Indeed, he had not even unclasped his hands.
Buchanan was extinguishing the cigar as Hearst explained, “Mill may know his politics, Doctor, but like Phillips he has his oddities. The man is a superstitious rube.”
“The horseshoe above the door?” I recalled.
“Exactly,” Buchanan said, “open end up to prevent the luck from pouring out.”
“Would you believe,” Hearst said, “that he made me cancel a political speech two weeks ago just because it was scheduled to be given on Friday the thirteenth?”
Buchanan laid several sheets of blank paper over the puddle of water forming on his desk. Hearst chuckled, despite the smell of burnt paper lingering in the room. Then, becoming more serious, he returned to the subject at hand. “Phillips didn’t want the Treason assignment to begin with. That’s what’s so funny about all this. He wanted someone else for the job. Said he was a novelist, not a journalist any more, when I asked him to take it on. If you want my opinion, it was his sister talking. Phillips said he couldn’t be bothered. ‘Get William Allen White to do it,’ he said. I said, ‘Name your price.’ Phillips was that good. He said, ‘You couldn’t afford to pay me what I want.’ ‘Try me,’ I said. And he did—although I think he was bluffing just to avoid the assignment. Still, I met his offer, and the rest is history. But, you know, I think that for the remainder of his life, he couldn’t rid himself of the idea that he had written those articles to make a small fortune.”
“Wrote lies, you mean,” added Buchanan.
“Oh, he exaggerated a bit,” Hearst agreed, “but name me one good newspaperman who doesn’t.”
I was well aware of Mr. Hearst’s views on what constituted responsible journalism. The sensationalist “yellow” press, which many people have come to regard as the true cause of America’s war in Cuba with Spain, was generally believed to have been sired by the man sitting next to me. Indeed, by some he was known as “The Yellow Kid.”
“Occasionally,” Hearst added, “even I had to step in and tone down some of Phillips’s charges. But in the main, they were accurate; our lawyers were always looking over his shoulder. And if the body politic forced Mr. Buchanan here to step down, why then, who am I to disagree? At the same time, I recognise his talents and political acumen. ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison,’ I believe the saying goes. He might be through in the Senate, but that doesn’t mean if I want to be president I still can’t profit from the services of a good Democrat. Hell, I pay him enough. Every man has his price. In that way, I guess Millard here is just like Phillips.” The explosion was the clamour of Buchanan’s large chair falling over as he jumped to his feet.
“You’ve gone too far, Bill!” he shouted. “Don’t go comparin’ me to that good-for-nothin’ nance!”
“Offer Dr. Watson a drink, Mill,” Hearst said calmly. “And have one yourself.” Buchanan righted his chair and then, opening a drawer on his side of the desk, produced a silver flask and three small cut-crystal glasses. Without saying a word, he poured an inch of the brown-coloured spirits into each glass; nodded at both Hearst and me; and then, tossing his head back, drank the entire contents of his glass in a single gulp.
Hearst imitated his example although I must confess that I was considerably more restrained.
When we had finished our potation, Buchanan said, “Bill, with your permission, although I’d like to continue this discussion, I do have to go. That ship won’t wait.”
“I know,” Hearst said. “You’ve got to go to England to buy some more books.”
“First editions,” Buchanan corrected. “In Charing Cross Road,” he explained to me as if his employer were beyond such knowledge.
Hearst chuckled. “I go to Europe and buy roomfuls of antiques; I guess you have more self-control.”
“Pay me your income and see how much self-control I have,” Buchanan replied, and both men broke into laughter.
As the interview had obviously reached its conclusion, I stood up and shook hands with both of them. Mr. Altamont directed me out of the building, and I soon emerged in the city’s traffic to see where Rollins had moored the Packard. As I ambled, I thought again of Hearst’s offer of employment. I looked at the mammoth edifices surrounding me, listened to the roar of afternoon motor cars that were so much noisier than their horse-drawn relatives. Would I really want to live here, I wondered, a stranger in a foreign land? Americans might think we shared a common language, but those of us who enjoy the precision of accurate expression can quite
justifiably disagree. Besides, although I was indeed closing down my surgery, I was still a doctor. Could I find a home in American medicine? Could I enjoy my retirement in a place of so much bustle? And most importantly, could my ever-tolerant wife adjust to the fast pace of living that was so different from the domestic tranquillity of our red-brick home in Queen Anne Street? To all of my questions, I found myself happily responding in the negative.
As it was never too soon to begin preparing the notes I would give to Holmes upon his arrival, I asked Rollins to recommend a quiet locale where I might review the information I had so far acquired. His choice, a small white bench not far from a reflecting pond in Central Park, was ideal. Just the opposite of the busy thoroughfares, the vast sprawl of lawn offered a serenity I would not have thought possible to find but a few minutes before. Like Londoners, New Yorkers seem to enjoy their parks, and it was refreshing to view children of all ages playing gaily in the distance.
I told Rollins to return for me in two hours’ time and, after taking out notebook and pencil, sat down to begin my contemplations. The chauffeur, however, hadn’t moved.
“In two hours’ time,” I repeated, but his surly expression indicated he was not about to leave.
“Senator Beveridge wants me to watch out for you,” he said. “To be sure nothing happens to you.”
“My man,” I said, “what can possibly happen in the middle of these delightful grounds?”
Still he remained stoic.
Finally, we compromised. Rollins agreed to stand off in the distance to my right, close enough to keep watch, but far enough away not to disturb my thoughts or—for that matter—to oversee my notations. In fact, I was interrupted only once. A curious Alsatian lumbered up to sniff my bench, but I quickly sent him on his way.
Although I had detected nothing of a criminal nature after a day in New York, I had certainly found it evident that there was an abundance of persons who didn’t much care for Mr. David Graham Phillips; but did distaste lead to murder, I wondered, and if so, how did such a plan involve the now-deceased assassin, Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough?
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