Front Page Affair

by Radha Vatsal

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Weeks.” Anne Morgan shook Kitty’s hand with a firm grip.

  She wore her short hair swept away from her forehead. Dark eyebrows framed a no-nonsense gaze. She wore four strings of pearls around her neck. Only the wide Peter Pan collar of her blouse softened her appearance.

  “So, Miss Weeks.” She spoke in clipped, patrician tones. “What do you think of our little place?”

  “It’s wonderful,” Kitty replied breathlessly.

  Miss Morgan pulled up a chair around one of the pretty white-painted, wrought iron tables. “And my book, what do you think of that?”

  “I enjoyed it, but I do have questions.”

  “As it should be.” Miss Morgan laughed. “Fire away!”

  “Well.” Kitty wasn’t prepared to begin with such little preamble. “May I have a glass of water?”

  “Of course. Daisy.” She shot a glance at her secretary. Miss Rogers slipped away. Contrary to Miss Busby’s advice, Miss Morgan said nothing to fill in the silence and instead waited for Kitty to begin.

  Kitty forced herself to breathe. She smiled and dove in with one of the first questions on her list. “May I ask what prompted you to write this book?”

  “You may ask me anything. That’s why we’re here.” Miss Morgan launched into an answer about her interest in bettering working women’s lives.

  Miss Rogers arrived with two glasses of water on a tray. Kitty gulped hers down and moved on to a different question that she and Miss Busby had prepared. Miss Morgan’s reply sounded practiced, as though she had given a similar response many times before.

  This didn’t feel like the easy give-and-take of a conversation. Kitty found it difficult to focus; even Miss Morgan seemed slightly bored.

  She decided to shake things up a bit. “What are your views on suffrage, Miss Morgan?”

  The philanthropist’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not against suffrage,” she said after a moment. “I am simply not interested in the topic. I believe many things are more immediately necessary, such as the economic welfare of women. And once suffrage comes—and I believe it will—we must regard it not as a right but as a duty. With greater freedom comes greater responsibility—that I believe to my core.”

  Kitty nodded. Finally, they might be getting somewhere. “I think our readers would like to know,” she said, “why, when men are encouraged to do and see so much, you suggest that girls focus more narrowly on their domestic and local responsibilities?” Her question wasn’t one from the list that Miss Busby had vetted.

  Miss Morgan paused to think, and Kitty worried she might have spoken too boldly.

  “Excellent question,” Anne Morgan replied finally as she adjusted her pearls. “Men and women are fundamentally different creatures, with different abilities and different temperaments. To me, equality of the sexes in no sense means similarity. For women to move forward, we must embrace our difference from men. For most girls—working women who come from families struggling to make ends meet—the best way to improve their lot is by improving the condition of their communities.”

  “But what if a girl isn’t interested in public service?” Kitty persisted. “Must she give up her own ambitions in order to serve the greater good?”

  “Let’s make this more concrete,” Miss Morgan proposed. “I take it that you plan to be a journalist?”

  Kitty nodded.

  “My great friend Ida Tarbell writes for magazines and newspapers.”

  “I know of Miss Tarbell,” Kitty said.

  “Of course you do. Her investigation into the monopolistic activities of Mr. John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company opened the public’s eyes and resulted in the government taking decisive action. I bring up this example not to point fingers but to illustrate my conviction: any vocation, if pursued courageously and with a pure heart and honest motives, will bring about a betterment of one’s community. It’s just that it’s more realistic for most women to limit their scope of activities, whereas a smaller group benefits from having a freer rein.”

  Kitty liked Miss Morgan’s turn of phrase and hoped she’d be able to remember it.

  “My book has been written for girls who must work to make ends meet,” Miss Morgan continued, taking a sip of water. “They don’t have the luxury of choosing between professions. I have long been an advocate for a living wage for both men and women. Only when she can support her family can a woman realize her true potential.”

  She looked Kitty in the eye. “I have the same attitude toward suffrage. I want to prepare women so that they may be able to make proper use of suffrage when it comes.”

  Kitty took the bit between her teeth. Neither her questions nor Miss Busby’s questions would do. She had to treat Miss Morgan as a person in order to breathe some life into this interview and get behind the public persona.

  “May I ask how Mr. Morgan is faring?”

  “He has been released from his sickbed, thank you. He will spend the next month or so recuperating on the Corsair. That’s my father’s yacht.” Miss Morgan smiled to herself. “My father and I used to sail all over Europe together. We even hosted the kaiser on board once, if you can believe it.”

  That was exactly the kind of thing that would fascinate their readers.

  “You met the kaiser in person, Miss Morgan?”

  “Only for a short while, but yes, I did.”

  “May I ask what he was like?”

  Kitty had wondered about the man behind the pointy, upturned mustaches. The man who everyone said had single-handedly started the war.

  Anne Morgan thought for a moment, and Daisy Rogers stepped forward as though to intervene.

  “That’s all right, Daisy,” Miss Morgan told her secretary. “She means well, and after all, I have met Germany’s emperor.”

  Kitty realized that with Jack Morgan so firmly on Britain’s side, any comment, positive or negative, made by his sister might be misconstrued.

  “You see,” Miss Morgan said, “his Prussian stiffness might seem comical to us, but like anyone born into a position of great power, the kaiser has a difficult part to play. Men jump to his command. He must choose his words with care. But he is an impulsive individual.”

  Miss Rogers coughed discreetly in the background.

  “Daisy is worried that I might say something foolish”—Miss Morgan laughed—“so don’t quote me on this. I don’t believe that fellow who took a shot at Jack had anything to do with the kaiser or the German government. If Berlin had wanted to finish my brother off, they would have sent someone far more competent than that half-cracked professor.”

  Daisy Rogers tapped her watch.

  “I suppose it’s time for us to finish,” Miss Morgan said.

  “May I ask just one more question?” Kitty couldn’t leave without getting her answer. “In the first chapter of your book, you say that the qualities that make the American girl abroad unique are truly American qualities, but unless I missed it, you don’t specify what they are. Can you tell our readers now?”

  Miss Morgan threw her head back and laughed. “Very good.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You see, Miss Weeks.” She leaned forward in her chair, dark eyes flashing. “If you don’t find it in my writings, then your readers must look in the mirror and discover the truth for themselves.”

  • • •

  On the taxicab ride back to the office, Kitty scribbled a quick outline of her conversation so she wouldn’t forget. She walked into the Sentinel surprised to see it looking so much the same when she felt so altered. She couldn’t have said in what way; she just felt that spending three quarters of an hour in the company of a woman of Miss Morgan’s stature had somehow left its mark. She felt elevated, special, ready to leave her own mark perhaps.

  Jeannie Williams pounced on Kitty when she entered the hen coop. “How
did it go, Miss Weeks? I wish I could have been there.”

  Miss Busby materialized beside Jeannie’s desk before Kitty could reply. “What are you girls chattering on about? You should know better, Jeannie. You were supposed to send Miss Weeks in to me right away.”

  She caught Kitty by the elbow and steered her to her alcove, but not before Jeannie pointed furiously to a half-typed sheet in her machine and mouthed sotto voce, “You have to see this.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Miss Busby told Kitty, sitting her down. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”

  Kitty opened her mouth to speak and realized she wasn’t yet ready to describe the meeting. She needed a few moments of peace and quiet first. A few moments to digest it. “Would you mind if I get a bite to eat before we start, Miss Busby?” she asked.

  “Of course, of course.” The editor could afford to be magnanimous. “Interviews can make you ravenous. Go on to the cafeteria. I’ll be waiting.”

  Kitty thought she might take a moment in the basement but had to walk back through the hen coop to get there.

  “Miss Weeks.” Jeannie beckoned her over.

  “I’ll be back soon,” Kitty said. “We can talk after I finish with Miss Busby.”

  “I think you’ll want to see this.” Jeannie turned the wheel on the carriage and pulled out a typewritten page, which she handed to Kitty.

  Kitty took a look. “In a letter written before he killed himself,” it began, “Mr. Lucian Hotchkiss, secretary to Mrs. Elizabeth Basshor of Park Avenue, confessed to murdering Mr. Hunter Cole, a guest at his employer’s annual Fourth of July gala.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Kitty tore up the stairs to the City Desk. As usual, the men were huddled behind their glass barricade. She tapped on the glass and mouthed Mr. Flanagan’s name. The door wasn’t locked. What, she wondered, would they do if she barged in? Call for help? Scream and jump on their chairs as though they’d seen a rat? The thought of the reporters panicking like ladies diverted her as she waited for Mr. Flanagan to make an appearance.

  “Back again, Miss Weeks?” His thick black mane gleamed under the overhead light bulbs.

  “I read about Mr. Hotchkiss’s confession.”

  “Ah, did Miss Williams show it to you? Last I heard, her job consisted of typing up stories, not broadcasting them to whomever she chooses.”

  Kitty ignored his comment; she had no interest in arguing over Jeannie’s actions. “The story said that not only had Mr. Hotchkiss confessed to killing Mr. Cole, but that he also had been stealing from Mrs. Basshor at the party and Mr. Cole caught him in the act.”

  “That sounds about correct.”

  “It just sounds correct, Mr. Flanagan?”

  The reporter took a step toward her. “I think you’re forgetting who you are, Miss Weeks.”

  “Hotchkiss wouldn’t have stolen from her,” Kitty said. “He was devoted to Mrs. Basshor.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “But did they, in this case?”

  “Look here, Miss Weeks. The secretary told his employer that she would be paying one sum for the fireworks, and then he paid those Chinamen quite a bit less so that he could pocket the difference.”

  Kitty recalled those gold cuff links. She wouldn’t have expected Hotchkiss’s salary to pay for them. “The men were Japanese,” she said. “From Yokohama.”

  “That hardly changes the fact that the secretary would have gotten away with his trickery if Mr. Cole hadn’t overheard their conversation.”

  “Is that what he wrote in his suicide letter?”

  “That’s what the police gathered from it.”

  “Do they know what happened?”

  “Mr. Cole arranged to meet the secretary in the stables, and there’s no doubt about what happened after that.”

  “But Mr. Lupone told me—” Kitty stopped herself.

  “Yes. What did Mr. Lupone tell you?” Flanagan flipped open his penknife. “I was wondering when you would get to that.”

  Kitty stood stock-still; she had no reply.

  “You think I didn’t know you went to the prison?” He leisurely cleaned under his nails with the blade. “You signed your name in the ledger, Miss Weeks.”

  Kitty’s cheeks flamed. “Mr. Lupone told me that Mr. Cole arranged with him a few days beforehand to make sure the stables were clear.”

  “Does he have any witnesses, any evidence to prove it?”

  She shook her head.

  “And still, you believed him.” The penknife closed with a click. “The good or bad news, depending on how you view it, is that Mr. Lupone will be released this afternoon. And Mr. Hotchkiss, who went on in his letter to beg Mrs. Basshor’s forgiveness for who he was and what he had done, will officially be listed as Mr. Cole’s killer. Since he’s dead, he can’t be prosecuted for the crime, but at least justice will have been done.”

  “Did Mr. Hotchkiss explicitly confess to shooting Hunter Cole?” Kitty couldn’t picture him pulling the trigger.

  “Men,” Flanagan said, his voice rising, “do not commit suicide because they’ve stolen a few hundred dollars, but they might kill themselves over a more serious crime, even if it happened by accident.”

  “I see,” Kitty said. “Well, thank you for explaining it to me.” She turned to leave.

  “One question, Miss Weeks. How did you manage to get into the Tombs?”

  “I asked,” Kitty said.

  “That’s it?”

  “Just about.”

  He made a rumbling sound in his throat. “Why is it that, preposterous as it sounds, I believe you?”

  Kitty passed Jeannie’s desk on her way back to Miss Busby.

  “What did he say, Miss Weeks? Was he angry that I showed you the article?”

  “You probably shouldn’t do that again, but it’s all right, I think.”

  “So the secretary did it?”

  “That’s how it appears.”

  Kitty returned to the alcove and began reviewing her notes with Miss Busby. The editor didn’t seem too concerned that the interview had veered away from the prewritten questions. About twenty minutes into their discussion, she told Kitty to go down to the morgue and bring the file on Miss Morgan so that they could add some background information to the write-up.

  “Where were you on Friday?” Mr. Musser asked Kitty when she requested the file.

  “I took the day off to prepare for my interview with Miss Morgan. That’s why we need the extra material.”

  “Finally, a subject worthy of your talents. Did you know that she received an award this year from the National Institute of Social Sciences for making public service her private vocation?”

  “I did not.”

  “See, you should come to me first.” He smiled beneath his mustache. “Besides, I was looking for you.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  He called to one of his boys, who went off to the back to unearth the file. “I think I know your Dr. Albert.”

  She took a step back. “You do?”

  He stroked his chin, clearly enjoying the effect he had produced. “Well, it’s as though you had asked me about a Mr. Wilson, and I say, sure, I know someone by that name: he lives in a big white house in Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

  “Go on, Mr. Musser. Please don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “He’s a diplomat,” Musser said.

  “Really?”

  “He’s Germany’s commercial attaché to the United States, as a matter of fact. His full name is Dr. Heinrich Friedrich Albert.”

  “That’s a nice coincidence, Mr. Musser.” The old man’s filing-cabinet brain produced little marvels. “But I’m not looking for a diplomat. Dr. Albert is a physician. Mrs. Clements told me so.”

  “Ach.” The archivist shrugged his should
ers. “I tried.”

  “You did. Thank you.” She took the file on Miss Morgan and walked toward the elevators, sifting through the stories, many of which had to do with Miss Morgan’s years in France and the well-known guests that she, Miss Marbury, and Miss de Wolfe entertained.

  She pressed the button and waited for the elevator, but when the door opened, she realized that she was missing something.

  “Go ahead without me,” she told the operator. She dashed back to Mr. Musser’s counter. “People keep jumping to conclusions based on incomplete information,” Kitty said to the baffled archivist. “The police think Hotchkiss shot Mr. Cole because he begged Mrs. Basshor’s forgiveness and then killed himself; Mrs. Clements assumed Dr. Albert must be a physician because of the word doctor and Mr. Cole’s remark that he had been seeing him regularly and never felt better.”

  “That is generally how it works with physicians,” Mr. Musser said.

  “On the other hand,” Kitty went on, “he didn’t tell Mrs. Clements what illness he suffered from, and when she questioned him later, he denied being sick. His wife also told me he was fit as a fiddle…” Kitty’s thoughts began to race. “The Coles needed money. What does a commercial attaché do?”

  “Dr. Albert, you mean? Well, during peacetime, his responsibilities would include promoting trade between Germany and America. But now that his country is at war, his main duty must be to purchase all necessary war materials and ship them home.”

  “Does Germany need horses?”

  “I’m sure they do. They need everything.”

  “Well, could Mr. Cole have been buying them for him?” That might shed light on his visit to the stables.

  “He could have been.” Mr. Musser considered the idea. “Yes, Britain has contracted with the Morgan bank to handle all their American purchases. As far as I know, Germany has no such counterpart here. Maybe they rely on individual contractors.”

  From the little she knew of Hunter Cole, Kitty could imagine that he might have liked to hobnob with diplomats and have a hand in wartime business, whether for the Allies or the Germans. It might have fed his sense of self-importance, and Berlin no doubt paid well for any assistance. Could that be why Hunter Cole told Mrs. Clements that he “never felt better”?