by Radha Vatsal
“I have no guarantee that you won’t use what I tell you to hurt my father.”
“How should I put this?” He looked away for a second, thinking. “What we’re interested in is the phenol, Miss Weeks. Tell us about that, and I promise—unless Mr. Weeks has committed some monstrous crime, which I’m sure he hasn’t—I will personally make sure that any irregularities in his actions are treated with the utmost leniency.”
Kitty hesitated.
“I’ve already told you more than I should,” Agent Soames said, “so please believe me.”
Kitty continued on to the public library. Unless there was some other highly profitable use for the compound, her father could only be selling phenol to the Germans. There was only one hitch to that guess—one that Mr. Musser had pointed out when he and Kitty had discussed Hunter Cole and horses. Germany was finding it almost impossible to ship supplies across the Atlantic, so even if they bought the phenol, what would they do with it?
Kitty spoke to the librarian, Miss Evers, and asked for a book on the uses of various chemicals.
“Any chemical in particular that you’re interested in, Miss Weeks?” The librarian seemed curious.
Kitty cleared her throat. “Phenol.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “I see. Just a moment.”
She returned with a heavy volume. Kitty carried it away to a table. She opened Common Chemical Compounds and Their Applications and flipped through densely printed columns of text. The long strings of C’s and H’s and O’s with tiny numbers dangling below, as if from a laundry line, looked like symbols from a foreign language. The Misses Dancey saw no reason to teach their charges chemistry or physics. When one of Kitty’s classmates had pointed out Marie Curie’s accomplishments, the older Miss Dancey had replied, “That’s fine for her. She’s Polish.”
Kitty consulted the index at the back to find the chemical name for phenol—“C6H5OH, hydroxybenzene.” There was a page number listed beside it.
Kitty read the full entry to herself. “Also known as carbolic acid…derived from coal tar…crystalline compound at room temperature.” A list of uses followed. “Key ingredient in the manufacture of disinfectants and germicides. Also used in the manufacture of dyes, perfumes, carbolic soap, household cleaners, photographic chemicals, phonograph records, and in the production of salicylic acid…”
Although none of the uses seemed promising, Kitty copied down the list and returned the book to Miss Evers.
Who could she turn to for advice—Amanda? Mr. Musser? Kitty groaned. She must telephone the old man and let him know that, for the present, she no longer worked at the Sentinel. She had left in such a hurry that she forgot to say good-bye.
She headed down Broadway and passed the Majestic, which was playing Pearl White’s latest picture. Kitty wondered what Pearl would do in her shoes. How did the feisty heroines she portrayed respond to seemingly impossible situations?
She paid ten cents and bought herself a ticket. Since each episode of Miss White’s serials lasted only about twenty minutes, she might as well take a look. If nothing else, a short break would do her good.
She settled into a seat between two schoolgirls playing hooky and a mother with young children. Usually, Kitty took Grace with her to the movies, but the audience at matinee shows, especially for Pearl’s pictures, was mostly female. She need not worry about being molested in the darkness.
A colored slide advertising a new book appeared on the screen: “A Chicago Girl’s Harrowing Adventure…Drugged in a Restaurant, She Barely Escapes! THE GIRL WHO DISAPPEARED by Clifford G. Roe. Published by the Uplift Press. $1.00 only.” The Junior League House was next: “Absolutely fireproof hotel for unmarried women. Prices include three meals per day.”
The Romance of Elaine began a few minutes later, following the production company Pathé’s emblem, the proud French cockerel. Like all of Pearl’s wildly successful serials, it was an adventure. Kitty had missed prior episodes, but it didn’t take her too long to find her bearings. A title card introduced the audience to Elaine’s nemesis, German secret agent and saboteur Marcus del Mar.
It hit too close to home, Kitty thought, and she watched with growing unease as del Mar and his female accomplice drugged the unsuspecting Elaine and spirited her away to a secluded cabin in the woods. When Elaine regained consciousness, she found herself bound and gagged in an empty room. She struggled free from her bonds and snuck out, but del Mar discovered that she had escaped and chased her through the forest.
Fortunately, Elaine found an abandoned canoe, jumped in, and paddled away, but one of del Mar’s well-aimed bullets shattered her only paddle.
A steep waterfall thundered in the distance, the current pulling Elaine toward it.
What would the desperate girl do?
Kitty sat on the edge of her seat.
In the nick of time, Elaine’s admirer, Walter Jameson, who had been searching for her, tossed her a rope. Elaine caught hold of it and leaped to safety seconds before the canoe plunged into the abyss.
“To Be Continued…” A title card flashed on the screen while the audience, stunned for a moment, clapped and cheered.
Kitty rose and squeezed her way out of the theater; others remained to see the picture that followed.
She stepped out onto the street, blinking in the bright daylight. Unlike Elaine, she had no Walter Jameson to come to her rescue. She was on her own.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kitty knew she was killing time. She didn’t have a plan, and yet, she couldn’t stand idle. One of the Misses Dancey favorite mottoes was “When in doubt, do something. Activity pays dividends.”
With Amanda’s request in mind, she took a taxi to Mrs. Basshor’s apartment.
“Delphy Vanderwell told me you’d come if her daughter asked.” The hostess’s lips twisted into a smile. She lay bundled in a shawl on her chaise longue, the windows to her pale-yellow morning room tightly closed. “My world is smaller without Hotchkiss. I relied on him completely, but I didn’t realize how much he meant to me until he was gone.”
“May I be of assistance?” Kitty fanned herself with a magazine. She hoped Amanda would return the favor one day if it became necessary.
“You can tell those damned police fellows to believe me for a start,” the hostess said. “Hotchkiss would never shoot anyone, let alone kill himself. He begged my forgiveness in his letter, but he knew I would have forgiven him for anything. What I can’t stand is his absence.”
“So Mr. Hotchkiss wasn’t stealing from you?”
“Of course he was. I knew it. And he knew that I knew.” Elizabeth Basshor pulled herself up from her recumbent position. “I told the police that we never discussed what he did with my money. I looked the other way. Did you read the letter he wrote to me before he took his life?”
“Only the parts that were printed in the paper.”
“That was garbage. And the police took away the original for evidence. But I remember it clearly, and nowhere did he confess to shooting Hunter. Nowhere.”
“Why commit suicide then? I mean, if you knew he was stealing—”
“Exactly!” Life flooded back into Mrs. Basshor’s face. “He begged my forgiveness, but as I say, there was nothing to forgive. So I have to conclude that he was trying to tell me something that all of us have missed.”
Kitty began to feel light-headed. It was either the heat or Mrs. Basshor’s wild guesses. She asked for some water.
The hostess tinkled a bell. “Do you keep a cook, Miss Weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Does she do the marketing or someone else?”
“She does.” Kitty wondered where Mrs. Basshor was going with this.
“Then you must know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Mrs. Basshor.”
“What do they teach you girls these days?�
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The maid brought in water on a tray, and Kitty gratefully took a sip.
“In my day,” the hostess said, “we had to draw, paint, play an instrument, sing, and dance, as well as run a house. Do you pay your cook well?”
“The going rate.” Kitty wondered whether Mrs. Basshor would come up with another of her personal ambushes. If so, this time she would be ready for it.
“There’s a going rate for cooks who do the marketing, and a higher rate for ones who don’t,” Elizabeth Basshor said. “You are familiar with that arrangement?” She looked at Kitty in dismay. “No, I can see that you aren’t. A cook who does the marketing charges less, because she takes a cut of whatever she buys for her mistress.” She explained it as though to an imbecile.
Fairly certain that Mrs. Codd did no such thing, Kitty replied with a touch of asperity, “I keep a running tab at the grocer’s and pay in full at the end of each month.”
“That’s what you think.” Mrs. Basshor laughed. “Speak to your grocer, my dear. Ask him whether he’s slipping your cook a couple of dollars each month. Not that he’ll tell you anything. But that’s the way things are done.
“I knew Hotchkiss was pocketing a portion of my expenses. That’s par for the course. And when it came to the party, of course he would expect a bonus. So you see, if Mr. Cole had threatened him about it, he wouldn’t have been concerned. And certainly not concerned enough to murder Hunter and then take his own life. If your cook was pinching a bit from you when she did the groceries and I accused her, would she shoot me and then kill herself? Really.”
“Put that way, it does make sense.” Kitty’s head spun. She had been lectured about phenol by Secret Service agents and now about how to pay one’s cook by a society hostess.
“Can you do something about it then?” Mrs. Basshor leaned forward eagerly. “I know what I said when you first came here, about your wanting to be a reporter and all. But you should ignore that. I was angry that you were doing what I had wanted to do and were getting away with it.”
“You wanted to be a journalist?”
“Not exactly. But I did want to do something daring and provocative. I still do.” Mrs. Basshor fluffed her hair. “Anyhow, that’s not the point. I’d like you to tell your readers my story.”
“I no longer work for the paper, Mrs. Basshor. They let me go,” Kitty said.
“Who did—the beanpole?”
“Miss Busby has been taken ill. It was her supervisor.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. You’re very good. I’ll have a word with Frieda Eichendorff, shall I?”
“Please, Mrs. Basshor, don’t say anything to anyone.”
“Well, who will help me with what I want to say about Hotchkiss?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”
Mrs. Basshor sighed. “The police, my lawyer, and even my friends think I’m a fool… What will you do now?”
“I haven’t formed a plan yet.”
Mrs. Basshor leaned back and placed an eye pillow over her face. “You shouldn’t let one individual’s actions stop you.”
“What about everything you said about my not being able to get married?”
“Didn’t I just tell you to forget it? When you’re ready to settle down, come see me. And in the meantime, please help me clear my secretary’s name.”
• • •
Kitty reached a decision on the taxi ride back home: if she couldn’t glean the information she needed from her father, she must try to extract it from one of his associates.
“Back so soon?” Mr. Weeks called from his study.
Kitty handed Grace her purse and gloves. “It’s one o’clock,” she said as she went in.
“I suppose I’ve grown accustomed to the longer hours you’ve been keeping recently.”
She drummed her fingers on the back of his sofa. “Would you mind telephoning Mr. Maitland? I think it’s a good day for an outing to the Cloisters. If he’s free, I’d like to go.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you went with a friend your own age?” Julian Weeks sounded baffled. “Maitland is entertaining but hardly a spring chicken.”
“It’s only a trip to a museum, Papa.” The comparison amused Kitty, but she couldn’t help resenting him for putting her in this position. If she knew more about his life, she wouldn’t have to resort to such tricks.
“Should I accompany you?” Julian Weeks said. He seemed unsure about how to proceed.
“Please don’t,” Kitty replied at once, then added, “You’ve told me time and time again that you don’t care for religious art.”
• • •
Mr. Maitland arrived in a chauffeur-driven limousine at three. Kitty and her father exchanged a glance before she climbed in.
“Are you sure you won’t join us, Julian?” Mr. Maitland asked.
To Kitty’s relief, Mr. Weeks waved them off.
The buildings on West End Avenue flashed past Kitty’s window as the motorcar raced uptown. Kitty began to have misgivings. The Misses Dancey had warned their charges not to drive in automobiles with strange men after a discussion on how chauffeurs not only ignited motors, but also passions. The word chauffeur, after all, came from the French chauffer—to heat.
“Apparently, George Gray Barnard, the man behind the Cloisters’ collection, bought many of his pieces from French peasants,” Maitland said. “He paid as little as thirty francs for some.”
“I had no idea. And this was recently?”
“Oh yes, within the last decade. He found farmers allowing their chickens to lay eggs on medieval platforms and supporting their vines on ancient columns. To my mind, that makes him not just a great collector but one of the best.”
“Because he bought things cheaply?”
“Because”—Maitland turned to face her—“he saw beauty where others didn’t.”
Kitty shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“He also acquired an arcade from the Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa.” Maitland resumed speaking like a lecturer. “No one thought much of it at first, but then the French government made quite a fuss about the arcade leaving the country. In hindsight, it’s fortunate that it didn’t remain on-site. If it had, it’s quite likely that it might have been blown to smithereens by now. France isn’t just losing thousands of men each day; she’s also bleeding away her history.”
Kitty struggled to find a way to broach the subject on her mind. Should she start with general questions? And if that weren’t enough, Mr. Maitland’s talkativeness made it hard to get a word in edgewise.
“I’d like to create a museum in Canada someday,” he told her. “One that will have my name on it.” He chuckled. “I’m afraid I’m not self-effacing like Mr. Barnard.”
They arrived at a barnlike building overlooking the Harlem River at 699 Fort Washington Avenue. Maitland’s chauffeur opened the door, and Kitty stepped out onto the street and, a few paces later, into a world of pious saints, demure Virgins, and gargoyles sticking out their tongues from cornices and capitals.
She followed Mr. Maitland beneath ancient arches, between fluted stone pillars, and past entire walls that had been transplanted from their original faraway sites to create a magical experience that resembled neither wandering through a museum nor a church, but something altogether different.
Mythical beasts leaped out from friezes, tenacious flora curled up columns, fantastical creatures—some human and some animal, some a combination of both—mocked Kitty’s astonishment.
Maitland paused to examine a six-hundred-year-old Madonna and Child. Kitty stared at a frieze in which the devil, burning with glee, prodded a row of protesting sinners into the flames of hell.
They walked on to the main attraction—the cloisters, a tranquil courtyard bordered on all four sides by a covered walkway with a fountain at its center.
�
�Mr. Maitland?”
“Yes?” His voice was hushed. “Did you know that hundreds of years ago, this is where monks prayed?”
“May I ask what kind of business you’re doing with my father?”
Maitland turned away, but not before she noticed his look of distaste. “This is hardly an appropriate moment.”
Kitty could have kicked herself. How could she have waited so long only to put the question so baldly?
He headed back inside. “I’m no fool,” he said under his breath. “I had an inkling that you might not be interested in me personally, but I thought you might enjoy my company. I can see that I’m mistaken.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Maitland.” She would love to start again. “I only asked—”
He raised a hand to silence her. “Because you think I’m leading your father astray? Julian warned me that might be the case and he said not to say anything to you for that very reason. But I’m not a Rasputin—I’m a businessman—and whatever decision Julian has made, he’s made of his own free will. I don’t lead anyone anywhere. He came to me with the proposal.”
“What proposal, Mr. Maitland?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No.”
“I see. You must speak to Julian then.”
He gestured toward a section of the museum they hadn’t visited. “I’m going to take a look over there. I’ll meet you in a quarter of an hour.”
Kitty took a seat on a bench beside a mother and daughter pair. All roads led to her father. She would have to find a way to broach the question with him.
The child tugged at her mother’s skirt. “I want to go home! I don’t like it here!”
“None of this is real. There’s no need to be afraid,” the mother said.
If only that were true, Kitty thought. The clock was ticking, and she hadn’t made any progress.
Maitland returned, and he and Kitty climbed into the car in silence.
“Your father and I are going into the pharmaceutical business,” he said after a while. “But it’s complicated. That’s the part that Julian doesn’t like.”