The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel

by William L. DeAndrea

  III.

  “My service,” Avery said.

  Cleo thought she must go mad from boredom. Ping! went the tiny celluloid ball as it hit the clumsy little wood-and-skin tambourine held by T. Avery Hand. Pong! it went off Cleo’s. It was easy to see where the Parker Brothers of Salem, Massachusetts, (whoever they were) had gotten the trade name of this new pastime. Table tennis, enthusiasts like Avery called it.

  It was all the go these days; it was reputed to be an exercise suitable for men and women to enjoy together. Cleo hated it. Her only consolation was the knowledge that Avery had decided against taking up lawn tennis, where one was actually expected to run around under a hot sun. Even ladies did it, regardless of the fact that it could make them perspire. And in public, too.

  Cleo would never run anywhere, ever again. She had done all her running last night, and that had taken her nowhere but into the unholy embrace of Peter Baxter. Cleo closed her eyes right to blot out the memory. The ball brushed her sleeve and went by her for Avery’s point.

  “Don’t be afraid of the ball,” he told her. “It can’t hurt you.”

  “Yes, Avery.” The monotony of sound resumed. Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong.

  Baxter had taken liberties, extreme liberties, and he had not been gentle. She had, at some time, been unconscious, but whether she fainted, or Baxter had in some way caused it, she had no way to tell. She could not breathe when she tried to imagine what might have happened while she was helpless.

  Baxter had ordered her to tell Avery her bruises were the result of a stumble down the stairs. Baxter said he would kill her, painfully, if Hand ever heard so much as a whisper about the inside of the carriage house or anything that had happened there. Cleo believed him. Baxter terrified her. She could feel his presence in the house, and she could feel the fear he carried with him.

  What could it mean? Did Avery not know about the red candles? About the twenty mill gals?

  She wanted to be alone, but Avery wouldn’t let her be. Almost a third of her life had been devoted to pleasing men, to making them feel the way they wanted to feel, and what had they ever done for her in return?

  The little ball clicked off the green surface of the table. Cleo swung wildly with her tambourine, and smashed it the length of the parlor.

  Hand smiled the first smile Cleo could remember seeing on his face in days. There was still worry behind it, but it was genuine nonetheless. He is smiling, Cleo thought angrily, because the ranks of men he must fear has been reduced by one. Rabbi or no, Avery is happy poor Muldoon is dead.

  When the ball came to her again, she smashed it harder than before.

  “Now you’re showing spirit, darling,” Hand told her, “but you’ve got to try to keep the ball on the table.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not skillful enough, Avery,” she said.

  “There, there,” he said. He laid his tambourine on the table. “I must go to the study and sign some papers—property closings and the like. Why don’t you practice with Baxter? Baxter!”

  “Oh, Avery, no!”

  “Yes, Mr. Hand?” Baxter had already appeared in the doorway.

  Hand indicated the table. “Keep the young lady occupied while I attend to some papers, won’t you?”

  Cleo was fervent in her protests that it wasn’t necessary. But Baxter smirked at her and told Hand it would be a pleasure.

  He picked up the ball and tossed it to her. “Your service, Miss Cleo,” he said.

  IV.

  The news of Muldoon’s “death” made its way along his beat even faster than the news of his “dismissal” had. A tearful Mrs. Sturdevant relayed the news to Hiram Listerdale early in the afternoon. Listerdale shook his head sadly, gently pushed Mrs. Sturdevant from the Emporium, locked up, climbed to his rooms above the store to get his hat and a few other things, and went calling on the survivors.

  It was much easier, this time, for Listerdale to gain admittance to the Muldoon flat. He simply knocked, identified himself, and was admitted as if he were a family friend of a generation’s standing. He found that gratifying. He hoped someday that would precisely state the case.

  “Mr. Listerdale,” Kathleen said as she admitted him. “How kind of you to be comin’ to see us.”

  “I—I felt it my duty.” Listerdale stood playing nervously with his hat, while he searched for the proper words. “I cannot tell you how sorrowful I am to learn of your brother’s passing ...”

  “Ah,” Kathleen said quietly, “I can imagine. Come in, sit with us, won’t you please? Take a cup of tea with us?”

  So Listerdale was escorted to the parlor, where he was introduced to Maureen and Brigid. He found them perfectly charming, and as courageous as their sister. Not many women, he thought, could have withstood such a loss with such quiet dignity. Simple people like this—well, all he could do was make a silent vow to continue to do what it was in his power to do for the Muldoons and everyone like them. They were the true Royalty.

  Katie Muldoon, bustling about the kitchen making tea, had a decidedly lower opinion of herself. She felt like a liar, and a fraud. So much so, in fact, that her mourning dress seemed to itch her like a hair shirt.

  For a moment, she tried to tell herself that it might have been better if Mr. Theodore Roosevelt (and Lord, how Katie was beginning to hate the sight of that man) hadn’t come around this morning with his astounding news of Dennis’s near-drowning; and with his intimations of great doings in progress; and especially with his warnings of secrecy. It wasn’t fair to put an honest, God-fearing woman through this sort of play-acting. Why-Katie brought herself up short, made the sign of the Cross, and asked herself how she could ever have been so foolish. If, for one measly second, she had believed her Dennis was lying dead at the bottom of the Hudson, her heart would have broken, and she would have died herself.

  Dennis was alive, that was the important thing. And if subtlety was the coin required to pay for that comforting knowledge, then subtle she would be. If she could.

  Katie put the tea things on a tray and carried them off to the parlor.

  “... And,” Listerdale was saying to the little ones, “while I only knew your brother these few weeks my Emporium has been open, I count myself his friend. I shall always treasure our talks. We shared a love of literature, particularly Shakespeare, so, if I am not presuming, Miss Maureen ... I mean, I know I can never replace ... What I’m trying to say is this: If I can be of any assistance in your studies, of Shakespeare or anything else, I would be honored if you would allow me to do so.”

  “You used to be a schoolmaster, didn’t you, Mr. Listerdale?” Katie asked.

  “Why, yes, I was. But it was decided—that is, I decided I could achieve greater good for greater numbers here in the big city.”

  Maureen smiled uneasily. Brigid said, “That’s very interestin’, Mr. Listerdale,” and announced she had to leave for work. Katie could see the girls didn’t like play-acting any better than she did.

  Maureen assured the bookseller that she would come to him if she needed assistance.

  “Thank you,” Listerdale said. “I never never tell you how—how deeply I regret your brother’s passing.” And Katie could see his eyes beginning to mist over.

  Listerdale rose to go. “But I have intruded on your grief long enough.

  “Before I go, I would like you to have this.” He reached into a coat pocket. Katie thought he was going to try to give her money, and sought desperately for a way to turn him down without wounding his feelings.

  She was relieved to see it wasn’t money.

  “This,” he said as he handed it to Katie, “is a vial of water from the Sea of Galilee. I extracted it myself, when I visited the Holy Land.”

  Katie breathed a big, round, Oh. This was even more precious than money. Brigid and Maureen stood breathless, as though they expected the none-too-clean liquid in the vial to glow.

  “I hope you all may find comfort in it. It—it has helped me. If, as chemists have it, matter can never
truly be destroyed, it may be possible that some molecules of this water knew the touch of Christ; it is possible that some of this water may be the very water He walked on.”

  Katie started to cry.

  Listerdale looked bewildered. “If I have offended you in some way ...”

  Katie took his hands in hers. “No, of course you haven’t been offendin’ us, you silly man.” She sniffed. “How could you be offendin’ the likes of me? I’m not worthy to touch this vial, let alone be trusted with the keepin’ of it. You take it back now.”

  Listerdale wouldn’t hear of it. “I am the one who is unworthy,” he said. Katie just cried all the harder and insisted he take it back.

  “I don’t understand,” Listerdale said at last.

  Brigid Muldoon has not figured largely in these pages; as a young woman soon to be off on a life of her own, she was occupied during these August days with other concerns. And, being the calm, quiet girl she was, her very nature would isolate her from intrigue and adventure.

  But she had wisdom, and a good heart, both of which she used to deal with the situation before her. She embraced her older sister and comforted her. At the same time, she took the vial from Katie’s hand and spoke to Listerdale.

  “Sir, I can see how much you want Katie to be havin’ this water at the moment. And you can see how reluctant she is to be takin’ it.”

  “I do want her to have it. I want all of you to have it.”

  “I understand. But there are things, that, if you were to know them, might be keepin’ you from feelin’ that way.”

  Katie wailed.

  “So with your permission, I’ll take the vial with me, and on me way to the telephone company, I’ll be leavin’ it with Father Dominic at the Italian church nearby. Then, when all the circumstances are known to all of us, either Katie or yourself can be retrievin’ it from him.”

  “Bless you, Brigid,” Katie sobbed.

  “That will be fine with me, Miss Muldoon,” Listerdale said. “Thank you.” He turned to go. “I just don’t understand,” he muttered.

  His tone was so forlorn, Katie simply couldn’t help herself. “Hiram!” she called. “Wait!”

  Listerdale stopped halfway down the stairs. “Yes, Miss ... Kathleen?”

  “You deserve to be knowin’ the truth, but I’ve given me word not to tell you, so I can’t. But try not to be hatin’ me when you do find out.”

  Listerdale looked at her. Katie thought no man ever seemed more miserable, more tormented than Listerdale did. Look what I’ve done to him, she thought.

  Finally, Listerdale’s lips moved. “I could never hate you,” he whispered.

  V.

  Muldoon hated Maine, especially after the misery he had to go through to get there in the first place. It seemed the only train leaving reasonably soon from New York to Ellsworth was a “special” that had been booked up long ago. Muldoon had to use a goodly portion of the expense money Mr. Roosevelt had given him to bribe a young man out of his seat.

  He was sorry he’d succeeded as soon as the train started. Sea breezes or not, the train was hotter than the inside of Satan’s kerosene stove.

  And once they’d made it halfway through Connecticut, it had been like entering a big outdoor asylum. The people didn’t speak English—at least not as Muldoon knew it, but they kept making remarks about his “accent.”

  He couldn’t get anything to eat but fish, or so it seemed. Once the sun came up (and Muldoon was awake to watch it—tired as he was, he could never sleep well on a train), every time the train stopped, someone was there waving a lobster under his nose. He might as well have been back in Mackerelville.

  Bar Harbor was a town on a small bay on the east side of something called Mount Desert Island. “Desert” was pronounced like running away from the Army, instead of like sandy places in Arabia.

  He had to take a ferry from Ellsworth to get there. The place looked like a wilderness, covered with trees, except for some scaly-looking pink patches on Mount Desert itself.

  The town of Bar Harbor, though, was nice, as far as the look of the place went. There were gingerbready little shops running up a hill from the bay.

  But the place was rich folles through and through. It seemed nobody in that town could make a living for two weeks if the rich folks were to stop coming there in the summer and spending money.

  Why, Muldoon saw five auto mobiles within a half hour of the time he stepped off the ferry—only the Lord himself knew what kept them from crashing into each other. There hardly seemed to be room for them all.

  Muldoon had some questions to ask, but he didn’t much like stopping rich folks on the street, even the ones that weren’t chugging by in auto mobiles. Unfortunately, the natives would hardly give him the wiggle of a lip. He’d ask someone in a plaid shirt where “Chatwold” was, and they’d always tell him he meant “the old Bowleh place.” Muldoon had learned enough of the language to know that “Bowleh” was supposed to be “Bowler,” but knowing who had owned the place before Pulitzer didn’t help him any. He’d try to say so, politely, but they just went back to doing whatever people in plaid shirts did. It made Muldoon angry.

  Chatwold was the name of Mr. Joseph Pultizer’s “cottage.” Muldoon snorted every time he heard the word. All the nobs had cottages south of town, fronting the ocean for the breeze. Any one of those cottages would have sheltered a hundred and thirteen families from Muldoon’s old neighborhood.

  Muldoon finally hitched a ride to Chatwold—in a wagon, not an auto mobile. He had convinced some natives that he was leaving town. Like in most summer resorts, people in Bar Harbor thought you were just taking up space if you didn’t have money to spend.

  Muldoon walked up a private road to the cottage. The place was enormous, built of stone and plaster and timber, every bit as much a mansion as those that clustered around Fifth Avenue back in New York.

  Muldoon strode up to the heavy front door and grabbed the gold knocker, then thought better of it. He took out his handkerchief, wiped his neck above his new celluloid collar. He straightened his tie, and made sure the crease in his trousers was sharp. He mopped the sweat from his face, and combed his hair and moustache.

  Muldoon was still worried about how he was to gain access to the publisher. His first idea was to pose as a reporter looking for work, but that was hardly an inspiration, what with Pulitzer’s newspaper three hundred miles away. His next couple of ideas were even sillier.

  His best course he decided, would be to assert himself. He would simply announce himself as an investigator, giving the impression (without actually saying so, if he could help it) that he was still with the Force.

  That was his best course; he didn’t try to deceive himself into thinking it was a very good one. Pulitzer was not known for allowing himself to be pushed around. What he was known for was sending telegrams, and it would be the work of a moment for him to wire New York to find out about Muldoon and get the reply—Sweet Jesus, Muldoon thought, he’ll get the reply that I’m dead.

  He grinned. If I’m dead, they can’t jail me for impersonating an officer, he thought. He squared his big shoulders, and grabbed the knocker.

  A butler opened the door. He dressed like a penguin-bird, and he was built like one. And despite the weather, he looked as cool as a penguin floating to the Pole on a cake of ice.

  “Afternoon,” Muldoon said. He tipped his new skimmer—the old one hadn’t survived Eagle Jack and the boys. “I—”

  “You are the young man from New York, I presume,” the butler said.

  Muldoon was somewhat taken aback. It always bothered him when he went to all the trouble of steeling himself to lie, then found out he didn’t have to. Because, somehow or other, they were expecting him.

  “I am that,” Muldoon said.

  “You are late.”

  “Sorry. The train moved as though it was burnin’ ice shavin’s for coal.” The butler nearly smiled, Muldoon would swear it. “Say, how did you know I was comin’? Did Mr
. Roosevelt wire you after all?” They had discussed wiring Pulitzer in advance, but had decided against it, so as to take him by surprise if something really were amiss. Or so Muldoon had thought.

  “Wire?” the butler intoned. He waved a hand. “Well, no matter, Mr. Pulitzer and his staff are in the Tower. You are to see his secretary, Mr. Smithers.

  The door closed. Muldoon got one last look at the carved lions and the huge staircase and the expensive rugs before it swung shut. Muldoon was tempted to knock again, to get another look at the opulence, and to ask directions. He didn’t, because he didn’t want to take a chance of saying or doing something wrong. He wanted to get inside that Tower. He had read about it, but not in any of Mr. Pulitzer’s publications.

  The Tower of Silence—a square structure, four stories high, was sound-proofed from top to bottom. And most astounding of all, the basement of the building was a bathing pool. Muldoon could hardly believe it—a whole man-made pond for the old geezer to go swimming in.

  The Tower of Silence was attached to Chatwold itself on the sea side. Muldoon decided it was more impressive to read about than to see. It looked like it had been plopped down next to the mansion by mistake. It was just a few feet too tall to be a perfect cube, and it was so plain as to be practically featureless. After all the elaborate architecture he’d seen in New England, Mr. Pulitzer’s retreat reminded him of a nun in the middle of the Fifth Avenue Ladies’ Cotillion.

  It took a while for anyone to answer Muldoon’s knock. He worried for a second that the door might be sound-proofed; that he’d be standing there and knocking all night.

  Eventually, though, they let him in, and showed him to Mr. Smithers. Smithers was a pleasant young man, not much older than Muldoon himself.

  “How do you do?” he said, extending a hand. His voice was very soft.

  “Me own pleasure, entirely,” Muldoon told him. “I’m Dennis Muldoon, I understand you’ve been expectin’ me.”

  Smithers raised an eyebrow. “Why, er, yes—that is, we were given to understand your name was Moulton. Is something funny?”