Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

by Brad Ricca

  When soldiers first arrived via the Long Island Railroad, passing through miles of evergreens and cleared-away brush, they were shown to their barracks and bunks. There, they were greeted by a gift: their own personal Bible, generously donated by the Scripture Gift Mission of Philadelphia. Each Bible contained a special foreword written just for the soldiers of Camp Upton. It read:

  The Bible is the word of life. I beg that you will read it and find this out for yourselves. You will not only find it full of real men and women, but also of things you have wondered about and been troubled about all your life, as men have been always, and the more you read the more it will become plain to you what things are worth while and what are not.

  It was signed “WOODROW WILSON.” New recruits, for they weren’t even soldiers yet, came from all the boroughs to read those black words.

  While at Upton, these men would train in “going over the top,” the practice of climbing out of an actual trench with a fixed bayonet attacking a prone dummy. “Bell’s Boys,” they called them. When they showed up, clean and shaved, under a big sky that men who had never left Brooklyn before could only stare at, Bell addressed them all, down to the very last man. Irving Berlin was somewhere down in that crowd. There were rumors that Henry L. Stimson himself, Grace’s old boss and the former secretary of war, was coming to Upton as a lieutenant colonel.

  “You have entered into this war wisely.” The general’s voice boomed across a field of men. “I have had experience in three wars. And I would be ashamed to look my fellow citizens in the face if I died before I took an honorable part in this war.

  “It doesn’t matter so much when a man dies as how he dies,” Bell said. “When he dies as a craven spirit he dies forever, but when he dies like a hero he lives forever.” Bell then invited all those in the audience who had sons or relatives in the service to meet him up on the stage. As people filed up the wooden riser and crowded forward, he shook their hands, sometimes two at a time.

  “The world was on fire,” these fighting men were told.

  * * *

  The sun was nearly set, and it was already past seven thirty. The man and the woman walked in ragged step toward the two-story wooden building. There were three white columns on the top with the letters A, M, and C on them, all topped by American flags, whipping in the wind. There was a patio up front, and they could smell food inside. The man was nervously eyeing the front door.

  The bell on the door jingled as the couple walked in the door of Acker, Merrall, and Condit’s, the combination diner, hotel, and department store that served the whole of Camp Upton. To their right, they could see a lunch counter, just like the ones in the city. Ahead of them was a more sophisticated, sit-down restaurant. They saw a waiter in dress clothes serve a few men in uniform. To the left was what looked like a department store, full of everything from cigars to cans of tomato soup. It felt as if they were smack-dab in the middle of Thirty-fourth Street, not out here in the middle of Long Island.

  The man saw a small desk located by a stairwell, signifying the part of the building that was the hotel.

  “Can we get a room here?” the man asked the clerk.

  “Yes, for man and wife,” the clerk replied.

  The girl had curls and looked down shyly. She was young. The man with her was considerably older, around forty. He took the book from the clerk and wrote down a name. The clerk said that their stay could not exceed forty-eight hours. The couple had no luggage. They started up the stairs to the room that had been assigned to them on the second floor. A few moments later, the man called down to the clerk and asked him to send a bellboy, to which the clerk replied that the place was a camp, not a hotel.

  On the second floor, the man looked up and down the hallway, nervously, before finally shutting the door. The man stepped into the room and looked out the window to see Camp Upton, buzzing with activity in the Long Island twilight. Men ran, flag squads curled, and birds could be heard in the underbrush of the dusk. As the light outside finally gave out, he turned back to the room. The girl was sitting on the bed.

  * * *

  The longer Grace was missing, the more the newspapers demanded to see the evidence behind her claim. Officials in the War Department said that her charges were absurd. They asked the Committee of Morals, headed by Raymond B. Fosdick, to begin a formal investigation.

  “There are a few unfortunate girls near every camp, and we can’t help that under the circumstances,” Fosdick said. “Mrs. Humiston’s story is damnable because it gives the impression that our boys in uniforms are wild animals, when, in fact, they are behaving themselves in splendid fashion.”

  There were rumors buzzing across Long Island that Grace was seen at Patchogue, sixteen miles away from Upton, and that her detective, Kron, was at Center Moriches, eight miles away. But neither called on General Bell. If they did go to the camp, they did not make known their true identities.

  After a long week of taking hits in the papers, Grace’s voice finally surfaced in a surprise, defiant response in the New York Times.

  “I have been informed of the death of two girls down there,” Grace said, in no uncertain terms. “By people who saw them assaulted. One of these little girls was found in the bushes near the camp, the other some distance away. Do you think that I would be foolish enough to say what I did if I didn’t have the facts to back it up with?” It was hard not to trust the woman in black. But she refused to present her evidence or eyewitnesses.

  “I am going down to Camp Upton shortly,” Grace said. “To get facts about the other five deaths. I don’t intend to advertise the day on which I shall visit the camp. I don’t investigate that way. When I am ready to do so, I’ll bring the proofs forward to the proper authorities.”

  Fosdick responded again, short and direct, in the very next edition of the paper.

  “The American armies are clean,” he said.

  “Let Secretary of War Baker ask me to investigate the conditions about our camps,” Grace responded. “Let him guarantee me a free hand in the investigation, giving me time, money, and a pass to all the camps and I will show him that what I said was true. But there must be no attempt at whitewashing the matter if I prove my statements.” Grace was still adamant about her evidence. “I will not divulge a fact until I am ready,” she said.

  A day later, Grace planned a trip to Washington, D.C. “I will take enough facts and proofs with me,” she said, “to convince Secretary Baker that I ought to conduct an investigation for the Government. If my offers to investigate are declined, I’ll bring prosecutions upon my own authority. If I am not backed up, I’ll give the facts I have to the public, and let them judge what conditions are.

  “I have the facts in black and white,” said Grace. “I have the names of the girls who are dying at Camp Upton. I have witnesses to verify what I say. But I shall disclose nothing to any one, save, the secretary of war, if he will listen sympathetically. The information which I have received has been given to me in confidence. As a lawyer I cannot violate that confidence unless it is for some good purpose. I shall not try to refute what my critics say. I think the facts which I can produce will be sufficient to refute them.”

  A few days later, an aide walked into Bell’s office and informed him that their internal investigation had uncovered something he needed to see. About ten weeks ago, there had indeed been a rumor that the dead bodies of two girls had been found near the edge of the camp. Bell listened quietly. The aide reported that the story was investigated at the time and a number of correspondents for New York papers—who also heard it—endeavored to run it down to a fine point of certainty. But so far, no one had been able to find any foundation for the rumor or to ascertain how it originated. The only fact the army could determine was that the rumor had its birth before any of the drafted men had even arrived at camp.

  There was always gossip. On any given weekend, New Yorkers read stories of Upton soldiers taking Long Island brides in nearby Patchogue. And though enlisted men wer
e not allowed to have wives or girlfriends stay at camp, the officers had more leeway. Major O. K. Meyers’s wife was pregnant when she came to camp and gave birth to the first official child born there. News reporters used a little poetic license and named the baby “Uptonia.”

  But there were, like the story of the two girls, darker rumors, too. Though soldiers had not reported until September, the workers who were actually building the camp had been there since July. There were rumors of suicides, sunrise shootings, and attempts at poisoning wells. Upton officials insisted that there were no violent murders, though there were plenty of drunk workmen causing trouble in the neighboring towns. The men were “raw recruits: mentally and physically.”

  From the beginning, the army insisted that Camp Upton would not be located near any places where vice might thrive. At the same time, J. M. Power, a U.S. marshal, made a round of the surrounding towns, where it was rumored that houses of ill repute were preparing to establish business just as soon as the camp reached full swing. Traffickers in dope were said to be ready to devote all their time and energy to a new customer in uniform. After all, most of these men were from places like Brooklyn and Hell’s Kitchen. They were not all bank tellers and tailors. There were many brass knucklers, bootleggers, and gunfighters in their lot. They were regular fellers. The infamous Gas House Gang even had an Upton chapter within the camp itself.

  That is what gave General Bell pause: the origin of this particular rumor’s blooming just before the soldiers arrived. The workers were a shady lot, and not just because they weren’t military. Greater Long Island was so worried about these Camp Upton builders that a local judge, Joseph Morschauser, and a sheriff, Amza W. Biggs, met to hold a public forum on morals at Upton before the soldiers even arrived. The justice said he thought that these conditions of vice existed; the sheriff said that he knew positively they existed.

  “That is no Sunday school crowd out there,” he added. “If that isn’t the worst bunch of crooks that ever landed in one spot I’m no judge of human nature. They even take the tires off of your car while gasoline is being put into it.” The outlying counties threatened jail and physical punishment. “Give a few of these fellows the limit,” he said. “We’ve got a little room left in our jail.” Local officials’ only consolation was that Upton’s military police was largely made up of former members of New York’s finest. They would have to count on the police keeping the crooks in line.

  * * *

  Back at the hotel, after the Camp Upton room door closed on the young couple, a knock came. There were two men, one who identified himself as a Secret Service agent. They entered and saw the young girl look up at them. She was writing down a list of the items in the room. The man she was with stood near the bed, staring at them in disbelief. The agent asked if they were married.

  The couple was arrested and separated. The men led the girl through the narrow spaces between the wooden buildings to the military police. The girl with the curls listened as she was arraigned. She did not say anything.

  The officers did the same to the man, though they took him to a different room. When they asked how he knew the girl, the man said he’d been introduced to her at a party by another woman.

  A woman dressed in black.

  19

  Army of One

  “What is your name?” the Secret Service agent asked the man they had taken from the hotel.

  “James C. Adkins,” he replied.

  “When were you employed at Camp Upton?”

  “Some time about the middle of August, as a carpenter.”

  “What had you heard?”

  “I had heard there was two girls found dead.”

  “Where did you say they were found dead?”

  “It was when I was working on the ice plant that I heard it. They didn’t say where they were found dead, only they said on the edge of camp.”

  “Whom did you hear that from?”

  “Some of the carpenters that I was working with.”

  “Had they seen these two girls?”

  “No: they didn’t say that they had seen them. They asked me if I had heard about the girls being found here. I said I did not hear about it.”

  “And you told this to Mrs. Humiston?”

  “And I told this to Mrs. Humiston that I had heard this from them, and she asked me what was said, and I told her what the boy had told me. I have his name: his name is Constable, as well as I remember.”

  “About when was it that carpenter told you this?”

  “As well as I remember it was about four or five days before he was laid off, or before he quit, rather.”

  “You told Mrs. Humiston what you had heard from them about these two girls being found dead in the vicinity of the camp?”

  “I told you I was working in the camp on the ice plant and one Sunday I did see some girls lying down on the ground and some soldiers sitting by them talking.”

  “Where was that?”

  “On the furtherside of the ice plant, where the trains come in.”

  “What time of day was that?”

  “About 2 o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “That was the first day you saw Mrs. Humiston?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you saw her again?”

  “I think it was two days later.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I told her I had been trying to find out about the crimes being done.”

  “Where did you see her again?”

  “Wednesday evening at the dance, at Terrace Garden.”

  “What did Mrs. Humiston say then?”

  “She said she had heard about the girls and who had taken their bodies away when she was going to investigate.”

  “Did she say who took their bodies away?”

  “No, she didn’t say that. I had met the civilians and I told her I had heard of men coming out here and registering at this hotel as brother and sister and also as man and wife.”

  “When was the next time after that you were there?”

  “I think yesterday at noon.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I think she said something about the boys going out and registering as brother and sisters and also as husband and wife.”

  “What was the sense?”

  “What I understood was that any one could come down here and register and stay overnight and go back the next morning to the city, and I think from that they come out here under the pretense of seeing friends. And I told her what I had heard. When I told her that she said something about my coming out.”

  “And when you told her you would come out what did she say?”

  “She said she had a girl she could trust.”

  “To do what?”

  “To come out to camp and ____.”

  “Did Mrs. Humiston ask you if you would be willing to come out here at the camp and investigate what would happen if you called at the hotel for a room with a young woman and registered as man and wife?”

  “Not in those words. She said that she would like to know the true conditions of this camp and as a citizen I was willing.”

  “Was she to pay your expenses?”

  “No, sir, I pay my own expenses. I done this as a citizen of the country to find out if the things here was true. That is what I want to know.”

  “Let us resume with the question of providing the girl. Now, then, when you told her you would come out, what was it she said?”

  “She said that she would get the girl. I didn’t know who the girl was to be only this afternoon. I met her at the Penn station.”

  “At what time?”

  “About 4 o’clock.”

  “When you met them at the station what did Mrs. Humiston say?”

  “She told me to find out about the conditions at the camp. First she introduced the girl.”

  “What name did she give her?”

  “The name she gave was Miss Francis.”

  “Then did you make your plans w
ith the girl on the way out here?”

  “We was to come out and register and catch the next train out to the city.”

  “What time did you go to the hotel?”

  “It was a little after 8 o’clock when we went to the hotel. A little after 8 o’clock. We didn’t get there in time to register and catch the train back to the city.”

  “As soon as you did that did you start for the station?”

  “We saw there was two single beds, and then we came out and I tried to get a taxicab back to the station. I couldn’t get a taxicab so I tried to get back to Patchogue.”

  “I am trying to get out how you earned your $5. What would you have established by what you did?”

  “What I intended to do was to leave the young lady in the room to-night, and I told her I’d stay out and if I saw we registered as man and wife.”

  “You’d stay out in the morning and go back to town? You wouldn’t tarnish her reputation?”

  “No, sir, I’d no intention of doing that.”

  “How would you do that and go back by the next train?”

  “I would not have stayed if I could have got this train.”

  “No, you said you planned to stay in the room for the night.”

  “That was after we missed the train. We made the plan when we missed the train.”

  “What did you tell the hotel people when you came in?”

  “I just registered as Mr. Pendleton from Kansas City.”

  “And did you tell the clerk the occasion of your being there?”

  “Not a word that.”

  After Adkins answered their questions, the agents also questioned Miss Francis. She looked down at her shoes and refused to answer any questions. Except that her first name was Adeline and that she lived with Mrs. Humiston. After Adkins and Miss Francis were examined, they were sent back to the hotel, where they were required to register under their own names and were assigned to separate rooms, the young girl being placed in the charge of the matron of the hotel.

  The next morning, Adkins left on the first train. Miss Francis followed on the ten o’clock. General Bell told reporters that Grace had not given him any of the names of the supposed “dead girls” or of any eyewitnesses who saw them. Bell said she was “peddling gossip.”