The Case of the Threatened King

by Robert Newman

“I’m having lunch downtown with a friend.”

  Verna nodded. “You’ll be able to take care of yourselves, won’t you?” she said to Sara and Andrew. “You can have your lunch outside at the café.”

  “I thought I’d take them with me to meet my friend,” said Wyatt.

  “Oh? Well, I’m sure they’ll enjoy that. See you this evening,” she said and left.

  “Was that what the note in your box was?” asked Sara. “An invitation to lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your friend won’t mind if we come along?” said Andrew.

  “I don’t think so, but I don’t care if he does.”

  “That’s a funny thing to say,” said Sara. “Just who is your friend anyway?”

  “Inspector Sam Decker of the New York Police Department.”

  2

  The Accident That Wasn’t

  When Sara and Andrew discovered that they were meeting Inspector Decker way downtown on Mulberry Street, they urged Wyatt to go by El rather than take a cab as he usually did when in London. They themselves had fallen in love with the El when they had first arrived in New York. Running high above the street on iron trestles and going for miles, from the Battery on the south to the open country of the Bronx on the north, the El—short for Elevated Railway—offered some of the best, most interesting and most varied views of New York that it was possible to get. In places where there were houses, the cars were so close to them that, while you could not exactly reach out and touch them, you could look into the windows and see how the people there lived—what their kitchens and even their bedrooms were like. And since the nationality of the neighborhoods changed every few blocks—the Jews, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans, the Chinese all living in their own areas—a trip on the El was like a journey around the world.

  It turned out that Wyatt liked the El as much as they did, so they walked over to Third Avenue, climbed the long flight of stairs to the El station, which looked like a transplanted Swiss chalet, and bought their tickets at an enclosed booth with a small wicket. The tickets were five cents each—which Sara and Andrew had learned to call a nickel. The ticket agent tore them off a large roll and pushed them out through the small opening. Wyatt took them and dropped them in the box as they went out on the long wooden platform. The train, three coaches drawn by the small, puffing steam locomotive, was already in sight up the tracks. It drew up at the station, the conductor opened the doors, they boarded it and were on their way downtown.

  As they travelled south, the children told Wyatt about their schools. Though Verna had been anxious to have them come with her, she had been concerned about their missing even a few weeks of school. She had discovered, however, that she could place them at two separate schools: Andrew at a boys’ preparatory school, and Sara at a so-called girls’ finishing school. They were both closed now for the summer vacation, but during the time they had gone, both children had found them interesting, even though they were quite different from their schools in England.

  “Different how?” asked Wyatt.

  “Well, they don’t do very much about European history,” said Andrew. “Most of the boys in my class barely knew who the Stuarts were. On the other hand, I learned a great many things I never knew about, like the Sons of Liberty and the Boston Tea Party and the French and Indian War.”

  “And baseball,” said Sara. “He’s been playing baseball instead of cricket.”

  “And liking it?” said Wyatt.

  “Yes,” said Andrew. “It’s a lot faster than cricket and great fun.”

  “What about your school?” Wyatt asked Sara.

  “Very much the same as Andrew’s. Except that we have a lot of elocution.”

  “You mean making speeches?”

  “Either speaking or reciting.”

  “But why? Do they expect you to go into politics?”

  “Of course not. It’s not even for the theatre—which I’d like. It’s all for society—which is what American girls go to school to be finished for. The teachers are always giving us Shakespeare on how,”—eyelids drooping, her tone became consciously dulcet,—“‘her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.’”

  “Excellent indeed,” said Wyatt gravely.

  They got off at Grand Street and walked west to Mulberry. Police Headquarters was a four-story stone building with a green lamp on either side of the steps that led to to the large doors. They weren’t going there, however. They were meeting Inspector Decker at an Italian restaurant diagonally across the street.

  The restaurant was fairly crowded, but when they came in, a broad-shouldered man at a corner table got up and waved when he saw Wyatt, then looked startled when he saw Sara and Andrew.

  “Hello, Sam,” said Wyatt, going over to the table.

  “It’s been a long time, Peter,” said the man shaking his hand and looking again at Sara and Andrew.

  “Yes, it has,” said Wyatt. “These are two young English friends of mine, Sara Wiggins and Andrew Tillett. Inspector Decker of the New York Police Department.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” said Decker with somewhat strained politeness. “I probably didn’t make it clear in my note,” he said to Wyatt, “that I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You made it very clear.”

  “But then I don’t understand …” Again he glanced at Sara and Andrew, then looked more closely at Wyatt. “Are you annoyed about something?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “About what?”

  “We’ll go into it later. Right now I’m starving. I had breakfast at six o’clock.”

  “I’m sorry. Please sit down.” He pulled out and held a chair for Sara, called over a plump, smiling man with a large mustachio, who was apparently the restaurant’s owner, and had an animated exchange with him, partly in English and partly in Italian.

  “Guido tells me that today’s specialty is osso buco,” he said. “I don’t know if you know what that is.…”

  “I know,” said Wyatt. “We’ll all have it.”

  “Your young friends too? Are you sure they’ll like it?”

  “Yes. They eat and like everything.”

  “Well, good for them,” said Decker. He gave the order to Guido then, apparently trying to make amends and be a good host, he said to Andrew, “Tillett. Any relation to Verna Tillett?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “Oh, well,” said Decker, his face lighting up. “I saw her the last time she played in New York. It was a comedy at the Lyceum and it was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “It was probably one of Pinero’s plays,” said Andrew.

  “It was. But the new one she’s doing is a melodrama, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. A dramatization of Jane Eyre, opening in Boston in about two weeks.”

  “In Boston?”

  “It will play there a week before it opens here.”

  “Well, I’ve got to see it when it comes here, wouldn’t miss it for anything,” said Decker. It turned out that he was not just an admirer of Andrew’s mother, but a thoroughgoing theatre buff, and they talked about that—the theatre in London and New York—until their food arrived.

  When Sara and Andrew tasted the osso buco—veal shanks cooked with wine and herbs—they nodded to one another, agreeing silently that once again Wyatt had introduced them to something delicious. Wyatt and Decker shared a bottle of wine. Then they all had zabaglione, a rich, custardy dessert, the two men had espresso, strong, black Italian coffee, and Sara and Andrew had cappuchini, coffee made with milk and topped with whipped cream.

  “All right,” said Decker, putting down his cup. “Now tell me what you’re annoyed about.”

  “I’d like you to answer some questions first,” said Wyatt. “Did you tell anyone I was coming here?”

  “Well, yes,” said Decker, a bit awkwardly. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “A reporter on t
he World.”

  “Did he do anything about it, say anything about it?”

  “Yes,” said Decker, even more awkwardly. “He wrote a column about it.”

  “Exactly what did he say?”

  “He said … well, it’s not going to make any sense unless I give you some background.”

  “Then pray do,” said Wyatt coldly.

  “Mark Twain once said, ‘This is a great country. It has some of the longest rivers in the world. And the rivers have more boats on them that travel faster and blow up more often and kill more people than anywhere else.’”

  They all smiled politely.

  “Well, there’s something else that we’ve got, especially here in New York City. We’ve got more graft, bribery and general corruption than anywhere else since Sodom and Gomorrah. You’ve heard of Boss Tweed?”

  They nodded.

  “Well, he’s gone, went to jail and died. And Dick Croker, another of the great political crooks, is gone, too. But the good work of robbing the public still goes on. The reason we know about it is that, besides having some good and honest men and some good and honest newspapers, New York City is usually run by the Democrats while the state legislature in Albany is usually Republican. And one of the ways the Republicans try to beat the Democrats is by launching investigations that will show just how crooked the Democrats are. Clear so far?”

  “Yes,” said Andrew who knew something about this and was following Decker with great interest.

  “Well, about a year ago the state senate initiated an investigation to end all investigations. It was going to cover everything—the Police Department, the Water, Sanitation and Highway Departments—everything. The investigators opened an office just up the street here, almost opposite Police Headquarters, and from all reports they were really doing a job, coming up with things that no one had ever gotten before. Then, a few months ago, there was a fire and the office was gutted and all the material that had been collected was destroyed.”

  “Obviously an accidental fire,” said Wyatt dryly.

  “What a cynic you are,” said Decker, smiling faintly. “And of course you’re right. There wasn’t much doubt but that it was arson; but there was no way of proving it or finding out who had done it. So the investigation was back to square one, and Albany had to decide whether to extend the life of the committee and start all over again or what. While they were arguing about it, something very odd happened. After the fire, quite a few of the men—not just politicians, but businessmen too—who had left the country supposedly for their ‘health,’ came back. And immediately after they did, some strange rumors started spreading—rumors that some of the targets of the investigation had been approached and told just how much it would cost them to keep their name clean and stay out of jail.”

  “In other words, someone had gotten hold of some of the material that the investigators had collected and was blackmailing them,” said Wyatt.

  “Exactly. What seems most likely is that before someone tossed in the torch, they stole one of the file cabinets, the one that had the most important evidence in it.”

  “But what’s that got to do with me and what you told the reporter from the World?”

  “Well, as you probably guessed, they handed the whole mess to me. Though I’m a good Democrat, I don’t like the way this city’s being run and I haven’t been afraid to say so. And so I’ve got this strange reputation of being an honest cop.”

  “Strange but deserved?”

  “I’m afraid so. I wasn’t brought up properly for the times in which we live and, as a result, I’ll probably always be poor.”

  “Like many others.”

  “Too many others. Well, I started on the case right after the fire, almost four months ago. And while I have some strong suspicions, I haven’t really gotten anything concrete. Everyone’s been stonewalling me, refusing to tell me things I want to know, and I don’t have the authority to make them talk. Then, a day or so after I got your letter saying you were coming, the reporter from the World came to see me as he’d been doing fairly regularly. He wanted to know how I was doing, whether I was getting anywhere. Of course I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to say so. Instead I told him that while there weren’t any really new developments at the moment, there would be very very soon. When he asked why I expected them, I told him I couldn’t say. But a minute or two later I said that you, a friend of mine from Scotland Yard, were coming over. He immediately put two and two together and asked if that was the new development I’d been talking about. I pretended to be upset and asked him why it should be, how that could have anything to do with the case. And he said what I thought he would.”

  “That detectives from Scotland Yard are the greatest in the world,” said Wyatt ironically. “All geniuses.”

  “You’re being sarcastic, but he did say something like that. But he said something else that was even more important. He said the reason I hadn’t gotten anywhere and never would was that too many big men were involved. If I did come up with anything, I could be busted—either fired from the force or transferred out to the sticks. But no one could do anything, use any leverage, on an outsider like you.”

  “But why did you do it, put things in such a way that he’d come up with a ridiculous idea like that?”

  Shamefaced, Decker shrugged. “I told you, I hadn’t gotten anywhere, so I thought I’d stir things up a little.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I lived in upstate New York until I was sixteen. We were pretty poor and I used to do a lot of hunting—not for fun, but for food. Sometimes, when I was out without a dog, I’d walk through a field and I’d know there was game around even though I couldn’t see any. So I’d throw a stick or stone into the bushes, and all of a sudden all sorts of things would break from cover.”

  “I see. And did your friend run the story in the World?”

  “Yes. He said I’d gotten very angry when he’d suggested that you were coming over here to help me out on the case and that I’d denied it absolutely. But the way he wrote it left the impression that that’s why you were coming.”

  Andrew realized now why he hadn’t known anything about what Decker had told them. Verna got the Times, and though they knew that the World was a very good paper, they almost never saw it.

  “And did anything happen as a result of the story?” asked Wyatt.

  “No. I’m sorry to say, nothing did.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say you’re wrong,” said Wyatt coldly. “Tell him what happened at the dock,” he said to Andrew.

  “The dock?”

  “Yes. When you and Sara were coming to meet me.”

  “But that was an accident.”

  “Tell him!” repeated Wyatt firmly.

  Andrew looked at him for a moment, puzzled, then recounted the incident, describing how the loaded cargo net had crashed down between them and Wyatt.

  “But that’s terrible!” said Decker. “No wonder you’re upset. But after all, as Andrew said, it was an accident and—” Then, reacting to the grim expression on Wyatt’s face. “Are you saying it wasn’t an accident?”

  Wyatt took a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to him.

  “I found this in my cabin when I went down to get my hat and coat, just before we docked.”

  Decker unfolded the note, read it and lost some of his color.

  “What does it say?” said Andrew. “Can we see it?”

  Decker glanced at Wyatt and, when he nodded, gave the note to Andrew. He and Sara read it together. It was written in a strong, decisive handwriting on good note-paper.

  “We’re warning you to keep your nose out of things that are none of your business,” it said. “We mean this and we’ll prove it.” There was no signature.

  “What you mean is, dropping that load of cargo was supposed to prove it,” said Sara. “Prove that whoever wrote the note did mean business.”

  “So it would seem,” said Wyatt.

  “I’m s
ure that whoever did it didn’t mean to hurt them,” said Decker. “He probably didn’t even see them, but … is that why you brought them along with you?”

  “Since they had been endangered, I thought that was the least I could do. And since you were the one who, unintentionally, I know, put them in jeopardy, I thought you should meet them.”

  “Of course,” said Decker. “And I’m sorry, very sorry. I apologize to you and to them.”

  “And will you be careful what you say about me in the future?” said Wyatt. “Make sure I’m not linked in any way with the case you just told us about or any other you’re involved in?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What I can’t understand,” said Sara, “is who put the note in your cabin. Was it one of the crew?”

  “No,” said Wyatt. “Probably someone who came aboard with the pilot. Right?” he asked Decker, who nodded.

  “But if that’s so, couldn’t you find out who it was?” asked Andrew.

  “Probably,” said Wyatt. “But I don’t see the point. After all, I never was involved in this case of friend Decker’s, and I’m sure that whoever sent me that warning note will soon realize it.”

  “I hope so,” said Decker. He took out his watch and glanced at it. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to get back to headquarters,” he said. He signalled to Guido and asked for the bill.

  “No bill, Inspector,” said Guido.

  “Now wait a minute,” said Decker. “You know I’m not that kind of cop. I don’t accept free meals, don’t accept any kind of gift.”

  “This not gift from me,” said Guido. “Someone want you to be his guest, you and your friends.”

  “Who?”

  Guido nodded toward a corner of the crowded restaurant. Looking that way, Sara and Andrew saw Dandy Dan Cady, the large and imposing man they had last seen at the dock. Sitting at the table with him was the thin man in the dark grey suit who had gotten off the ship just behind Wyatt. Decker, who had to turn to see who Guido meant, whistled softly.

  “It’s Dandy Dan Cady,” he said.

  “Who’s that?” asked Wyatt.

  “The big man in the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Wards, probably the most important political boss in New York.”