by Allan Levine
“Victor, stop the shouting. I could hear you on the first floor.” Isaac Harrison stepped into the room. “Fox and St. Clair are right behind me.”
“I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what the hell’s going on,” Fowler roared. Droplets of sweat ran down the side of his face. “Flint, did you kill Lucy Maloney?”
“I’m not saying another word about this.” Flint stood up and backed toward the far wall. “Ask Mr. Harrison. I just do as I’m paid to do, like I’m doing right now.”
“Isaac, I want an explanation,” demanded Fowler.
“Yeah, Harrison, so do I,” said St. Clair. He and Fox were standing in the doorway, about two paces away. “It’s Mr. Flint, isn’t it?”
“That it is, Charlie. You don’t mind if I call you Charlie, do you?” Flint sneered.
“You can call me whatever you like. I figure by early next week, it’ll be you hanging from the gallows for murdering Lucy Maloney, not Madame Philippe. You did kill her, didn’t you?”
“What if I did? What the hell is it to you? Why do you care so much about that old lady? Aren’t you the one who’s called her Madame Killer? Yeah, what a surprise, I can read. That bitch has murdered hundreds of children.”
“Did you kill Miss Maloney, Flint? Did you stuff her in that trunk? Tell us.” Fowler lurched toward him.
“I haven’t got time for this shit.” Before anyone could say another word, Flint had jumped a chair, pushed Fox to the ground, and grabbed St. Clair by his arm. He twisted him around and positioned his razor sharp knife inches from St. Clair’s throat.
“I’m not answering any more questions about what I did or didn’t do. Fowler, I want the money you promised me for this job and I’m leaving. Do it now.”
“You paid him to kill us, Fowler?” Fox stared aghast. “Even for you, this is low.”
“Shut up. I admit to nothing.”
“Flint, put the knife down,” ordered Harrison. “I’ll see to it that you’ll get the rest of the money. Haven’t I taken care of you already?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like this shitbag, never have. I should’ve killed him and this old bugger when I had the chance.”
Flint tightened his grip around St. Clair’s neck and thrust the knife upward. At that moment, a gun fired and then again from behind them. The first bullet only grazed Flint’s left shoulder, but the second caught him in his right leg. He slumped to the ground in agony. St. Clair broke free of his grasp.
“Don’t move a muscle, Flint,” shouted Seth Murray, pointing his gun on the twitching figure.
“Thanks,” St. Clair gasped, turning to see his brother-in-law almost unrecognizable in a patrolman’s uniform and without his bushy black moustache. “But you could’ve shot about five minutes sooner for my liking.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
More patrolmen and a handful of guests, drawn by the gunshots, burst into the room, Ellen Fowler and Mildred Potter among them.
“Victor, what’s happened?” Ellen rushed toward her husband. “Is anyone hurt?”
“Everyone quiet,” shouted Murray.
And then, suddenly, Ruth Cardaso was at Flint’s side, pressing a gun to his right temple. Behind her St. Clair could see an open door and the glistening bottles of liquor in the storeroom.
“Miss, put that gun down now,” Murray ordered.
“Ruth, no, don’t pull the trigger,” pleaded St. Clair. “Don’t throw your life away now. What you told me, I believe you. I know that you didn’t kill Andrews. If you do this, you’ll hang . . . and for what? He isn’t worth it.”
“For Celeste. She deserved better than this bastard.” Ruth pressed the gun harder against Flint’s flesh.
“Ruth,” Mildred interjected softly, “whatever this man’s done to you or your friend, won’t change a thing. You’re not a murderer, honey. Don’t become one now. I know that Mr. St. Clair cares for you. I can see it.”
For a moment, Ruth appeared trapped in indecision, then a single tear coursed down her cheek. Her face crumpled. She stared pleadingly at St. Clair and at that second Flint saw his opportunity. He lunged for her pistol. Immediately another shot rang from Murray’s gun. This time the bullet hit Flint in his arm and he dropped back down.
St. Clair gently took Ruth’s weapon from her and handed it to Murray. Then he put his arms around her and held her tightly.
“My darling,” he murmured.
She pressed her face into his chest and wept.
“I’ve got some questions for you, Mr. Fowler, Mr. Harrison, if you please,” Murray said when Flint had been removed on a stretcher and the room was cleared. “Take a seat over there” He pointed to two chairs.
“Victor, I must see to the guests.” Ellen moved to leave.
“Sorry, Ma’am, you too, beside your husband.”
“Victor, the guests.”
“Over here, Ellen, please.” Fowler turned to Murray, “Detective, ask your damn questions and be quick about it. Keep in mind that I speak with Inspector Stokes regularly.”
“Inspector Stokes has been arrested by order of a federal judge. For accepting bribes, for dereliction of duty, and for conspiring in the death of Lucy Maloney.” Murray’s smile blazed with satisfaction.
“What?” Fowler thundered. “Stokes had nothing to do with her death.”
“Oh, I think he did,” said St. Clair. “Stokes was paid to ensure that Madame Philippe was arrested and convicted of the murder, but she’s innocent. Isn’t she, Mr. Harrison?”
Isaac Harrison stared at the ground.
“Isaac, what’s he talking about?” asked Fowler.
“She’s innocent, yes,” mumbled Harrison.
“Flint killed Lucy Maloney,” said St. Clair. “Here’s what I think happened. That day, he watched her go into Madame Philippe’s Broome Street office. And then when she changed her mind about having an abortion, he caught her and killed her in the alley. He made it appear that she had suffered from a botched abortion. He then left her clothes and belongings in the alley for the police to find. He defiled her further by placing a newspaper advertisement inside of her, which helped convict Madame Philippe. And for good measure, he threw two rubies from a tiger badge at the bottom of the trunk. If Madame Philippe wasn’t blamed for the murder, then you, Mr. Fowler, might’ve been. These were all things he had been instructed to do.”
“My rubies were found at the bottom of the trunk?” Fowler’s mouth fell open. “I’ve been searching for them and the badge for more than a week.”
“Allow me to finish,” St. Clair continued. “Leaving the body in the Broome Street alley would’ve been the simplest thing to do, although Flint tried to think as Madame Philippe might have, had she truly been the murderer. So, in an ingenious scheme, he purchased a ticket to Chicago and arranged to have the body shipped to Hudson Depot, as a desperate person trying to get rid of a body might well have. The trunk was discovered and Madame Philippe was blamed, as Flint knew she would be. He sliced the throat of that young street Arab named Corkie for asking too many questions. And finally, he watched and ensured that everything went according to plan.”
“That’s an excellent yarn, St. Clair, but that’s all it is,” Fowler snapped. “Why would Flint have killed her? What had she done? And besides, Flint only works for money. Who was paying him? I sure as hell wasn’t.”
“Why don’t you tell us all, Mr. Harrison?” said St. Clair.
“I got nothing more to say,” Harrison declared.
“Isaac,” Fowler turned to him, “how do you know that Philippe is innocent? You assured me that she was guilty. That’s why I didn’t intervene on her behalf.”
“I think I may be able to shed some light on this, as well,” St. Clair interjected. “Yesterday, I spent many hours examining Madame Philippe’s record books. They go back decades. They’re stored in a hidden panel in her house, which is why the police never found them. Her servant showed me where they were. He also drew my attention to one abortion sh
e had done nearly ten years ago on November 2, 1862.”
“What the hell does this have to do with anything?” Fowler crossed his arms over his chest.
St. Clair ignored him. “A young woman came to see her. This person was well past quickening and in great pain. Her husband had convinced her to abort the child, apparently for health reasons and because he had his career to think of. He decided that a child would only complicate matters. I suppose he promised her they would have a child later and Madame Philippe assured her that all would be well. But it wasn’t. She tried various medicines to cause a miscarriage, yet nothing worked on this woman. She then aborted the fetus and there were complications. One of her instruments may have injured the patient, I don’t know for certain. The Madame maintained that she had done nothing wrong and a physician who examined this woman some weeks later more or less concurred. The worst of it was that this woman was told that she would never be able to conceive another child. And I suspect that it nearly drove her half mad. She blamed Madame Philippe for inflicting this tragedy on her. And she blamed her husband, whom she despised. Nothing made her feel any better. Nothing, except laudanum, which she has taken ever since. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Fowler?”
A hush fell over the room. All eyes turned to Ellen Fowler, whose face wore a mask of defiance.
“Ellen, it was you? Why? You paid Flint to kill Miss Maloney? What had she done to you? Tell me, woman.”
“Shut up, Victor, please shut up.” Ellen regarded her husband with barely disguised contempt. “I can’t bear to hear one more word from your mouth.” She turned to St. Clair. “Your version of what transpired with Flint is more or less correct. You are to be commended. And you’re right about my feelings toward my husband. I do despise him. I despise everything about him, everything he stands for. But I’m married to him. And if I can’t have his child, then nobody else can either. I wasn’t about to let that little whore have his baby. To have a child that would make a claim on Victor’s name and inheritance. And yes, I did want to punish the great Madame for what she did to me and punish Victor as well for making me go through it. I only ever wanted a child. Nothing more.”
Her voice quivered. “When I learned Miss Maloney was pregnant, I sent Flint to speak with her. I thought he’d convinced her to have the abortion. He even gave her the money. And she did go meet with Philippe as she agreed to. Then that foolish, stupid girl became frightened and fled. Flint had followed her from the hotel and when he determined that she had not had the abortion, killed her. As I had told him, and paid him, to do.”
“My God, woman, what have you done?” Fowler leapt from his chair. “I wasn’t the father of her child. I didn’t run after her, nor take her to bed.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she screamed. “She was one of your whores, I saw you talking to her at Hill’s saloon one evening.”
“At Hill’s saloon?”
“Yes, I follow you occasionally, Victor. God knows why. I suppose to see which whore you’ll fuck. And one night I saw you with her.”
Fowler reeled as it he had been slapped. “I was speaking with her, but that’s all. She was with Frank King, for Christ’s sakes. She was his woman. He was paying for her room at the Fifth Avenue. King must’ve been the father of her child, not me.” He glanced at St. Clair, a look of sudden enlightenment on his face. “King’s still alive, isn’t he? His death in Harlem Square was a trick. He was your informant all along. All of those magazine stories with personal information about me. He provided you with the account records for the courthouse?”
St. Clair nodded. “That’s about the size of it, yes.”
“And you, Harrison, what’s your role in all of this?” Fowler turned to his colleague.
“Ellen came to me and told me what she’d done.”
“And you believed her? You believed that I’d made Lucy Maloney pregnant? That I was the father of her unborn child?”
Harrison crossed his arms defiantly. “Yes, I believed her. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve watched you at the saloons for years parading with a steady stream of whores all fussing around you. You’re an astute leader, the finest Grand Sachem Tammany’s ever had. But morally you’re weak and it’s sinful, Victor, that’s what it is. Reverend Ingersoll assures me that there’s hope with faith, but I’m not certain. You’re beyond redemption. At the same time, too much was at stake with Crédit Mobilier. I couldn’t let Ellen’s actions stop our plans in Washington. We’re too close. If you weren’t going to protect yourself I had to do it for you. I spoke with Flint and told him to do whatever was required to ensure Madame Philippe was convicted of the crime. You nicely took care of Ingersoll and the riot at the Tombs was helpful. And I paid off Stokes, District Attorney Richard Cady, and the Recorder at the trial, Benjamin Beatty, and that was that. They all thought the money was coming from you and, really, why would they have thought otherwise?”
Fowler’s face had engorged with blood. He turned and slapped Harrison hard across the face, tipping him to the floor. “You wanted to protect our plan? Is that it? Instead you’ve destroyed everything I’ve worked for. Everything! And if you must know, Reverend Patrick Simpson Ingersoll is a regular customer at a whorehouse on Water Street where he enjoys the company of fifteen year old girls. And he goes to Miss Kate’s parlor house where he watches naked women cavort on stage. You’ve put your blessed faith in a fornicator, Isaac.”
Ellen Fowler dropped to her knees in tears. “Victor, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say.” She wailed with grief.
“You sicken me. I want nothing more to do with you.” He turned to Murray. “Detective, do with her as you will.”
As Murray fished in his pocket for his handcuffs, St. Clair opened the door of the study, seeking fresh air for the claustrophobic room. The strains of the orchestra below filtered up the stairs, followed by the voice of the conductor. “A round of applause for our hosts tonight, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Fowler.”
But even the thunder of the cheers could not subdue the metallic snap of shackles closing over Ellen Fowler’s dainty wrists.
Epilogue
EVIL OF THE AGE
Madame Philippe was released from the Tombs on August 23, 1871. Her trusted servant, Hector, was waiting for her outside the gates with her carriage. She refused to speak to the reporters who were present. All she wanted to do, she said, was return to her home and take a hot bath. She did, however, send a personal note of thanks to St. Clair inviting him to tea that evening.
Two days later in Washington, before a joint committee of Congress, Martin Kent, aide to Congressman Stanley Todd, testified that Oakes Ames had offered Mr. Todd $100,000 to vote against any further inquiry into the affairs of Crédit Mobilier. When pressed by his colleagues, Todd confirmed Kent’s version of his discussions with Ames.
Ordered to appear before the committee, as well, was Stephenson Kirkland, who, under threat of imprisonment for perjury, finally admitted that he worked for Victor Fowler and his New York Ring. His instructions were to buy up as many shares of Crédit Mobilier as possible so that Fowler could eventually gain control of the company from Ames and his cohorts. According to Kirkland’s understanding—as had been explained to him by Isaac Harrison—Fowler had intended to secretly award Crédit Mobilier the contract to build his elevated street railway. Then he planned to utilize the substantial proceeds to further discredit President Grant and Vice-President Colfax, in addition to using the profits to install Governor Krupp and Mayor Emery in the White House in the next federal election under the Democratic Party banner.
A full-scale Congressional inquiry was soon launched, exposing Ames’s crooked scheme and the enormous corruption involved in Crédit Mobilier’s building of the Union Pacific Railway. The company was immediately disbanded, although for the betterment of the Union no criminal charges were laid against Ames, his chief accomplice Thomas Durant, or Vice-President Schuyler Colfax, who was publicly criticized for showing poor judgment in this matter.
In New York,
meanwhile, under tremendous pressure to act, Mayor Emery appointed a committee of concerned citizens led by Rupert Potter to conduct a full-scale investigation of Victor Fowler’s business operations and, in particular, the construction of the new courthouse. The group’s official title was the Executive Committee of Citizens and Taxpayers for Financial Reform of the City, but everyone referred to it as Potter’s Committee of Forty. One of Potter’s first acts, cheered in some quarters and criticized in others, was to hire his capable daughter, Mildred, as the committee’s secretary. When St. Clair bumped into her on Broadway soon after the announcement, she assured him that her days visiting Hashisdom at Miss Kate’s were over.
Fowler, despite his preoccupation with the trials of his wife Ellen and Flint for the murder of Lucy Maloney, did not relinquish his power easily. Yet Potter, also an able faro player, outsmarted him. First, he organized a tax boycott—citizens refused to pay their municipal taxes and convinced several banks not to loan Fowler any money. The workmen at the courthouse construction site were not paid and protested daily in front of Fowler’s home.
On September 15, Homer Flint, who was so irascible in court that the judge ordered that he be kept in leg irons and wrist shackles for the duration of the proceedings, was convicted of the murders of Lucy Maloney and Corkie Smith. He refused to testify on his own behalf and would not respond to questions about whether or not Fowler had paid him to hurt or kill Fox and St. Clair.
The jury only required twenty minutes. Flint was sentenced to be hanged at the end of September. St. Clair, among others, was there that day to watch him take his final walk across the Bridge of the Sighs at the Tombs. He remained silent as the noose was placed around his neck and the trapdoor was released.
Ellen Fowler had agreed to testify against Flint, in exchange for a sentence of mercy. She was also found guilty of plotting the murder of Lucy Maloney and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.
Asked if she had any final words, she said, “I am truly sorry for the death of Miss Maloney. Upon reflection, I understand now that it was the actions of a desperate woman caused by an addiction to laudanum. That is no excuse, I know, but it is the truth, so help me God.”