Doppelgänger

by Sean Munger

  “I will not be staying in the house while Mrs. Atherton is gone,” he explained coolly. “Therefore we have no need of a cook. Here are three weeks’ wages in advance. If we still need you when she returns, I’ll hire you back. If you happen to secure other arrangements in the meantime, that will be fine with me.” He tore the check out of the book and handed it to her.

  The cook seemed stunned. “You’re discharging me?”

  “That depends on the situation in three weeks,” Julian shrugged. “But I’m leaving right now and I’m closing up the house.”

  With an indignant look on her face Mrs. Hennessey folded the check and put it in her bodice. Then she said: “You are a vile man, sir,” turned, walked into the entryway and departed.

  Julian barely gave her a thought. In fact he was glad she was gone; he never liked her cooking and thought she was too partial to Anine. He quickly turned off the gas, grabbed his coat, hat and the portmanteau and locked up the house. You’ll have the place to yourself for a while, he told the doppelgänger silently. You’d better enjoy it—it will be over soon enough.

  From the Grand Hotel Julian wrote the letter to Lucius Minthorn with which he intended to set his plan in motion. Contrition was difficult for him and thus the letter came out stilted and awkward, but he knew that in order to lure Mrs. Quain to the city he had to create a genuine impression of sorrow. He hoped it was enough.

  I regret, sir, that relations between my family and yours have become so strained. Upon reflection and prayer, I realize my own actions were inexcusable. I am very sorry for the way I treated Mrs. Quain. Your wife communicated through my wife a very generous offer to purchase the house at 11 West 38th Street. If that offer remains open, let us come to terms at once.

  I also wish to apologize personally to Mrs. Quain. Only such a personal meeting could set my mind at ease. Again, I am very sorry for what happened. Let us, as gentlemen, make this situation right.

  Although the Minthorns lived on Fifth Avenue only a few blocks from West 38th Street and a short carriage ride from both the Grand Hotel and Julian’s law office, it took six days for any sort of reply to be received. Julian suspected that there was a great debate within the Minthorn family as to whether they should entertain the offer, reject it or simply ignore it entirely. The reply was very short and terse, but hopeful.

  As personal feelings, however strongly held, should not come between gentlemen with a common design, I hope you should be disposed to join me for supper at Henry Maillard’s restaurant, in the lower level of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, on Saturday November the 13th, at 6:30 o’clock.

  Lucius Minthorn

  Lucius Minthorn was a curiously swarthy man. With his short stature, dark hair, beady eyes and chiseled features there was hushed talk that he was secretly a Jew, but he certainly carried himself with the elegance and bearing of the most prominent of New York gentlemen. He presided over a successful shipping business and it was said that he owned vast tracts of land out West, with which he had gotten even wealthier by leasing to the railroads. He dressed far better than Julian, spoke with greater eloquence and precision and knew exactly the rhythms of small-talk, gossip and business with which to pad the course of an evening.

  Julian found the dinner conversation quite boring. There was not a word of their business, but instead aimless chatter over financial trends, politics (Minthorn was, surprisingly, a Democrat), the dreariness of New York’s climate in November and some of the places in London and Paris that they had visited in common. When the plates were cleared away and Minthorn said, “Would you care to retire to the smoking room for a cigar?” Julian knew, at last, that the business was at hand.

  In the mahogany-paneled room, lit mostly by the fireplace, Minthorn sat in a wing chair, lit a colossal fat cigar and sat silent for several moments. The only other gentlemen in the smoking room occupied a corner far from them and thus their conversation was reasonably private. Julian had been in the practice of law too short a time to have conducted many negotiations but he hoped his skill would be at least partially useful to the advancement of his plan.

  “I was pleased to see the contents of your letter, Mr. Atherton,” said Minthorn, who did not make eye contact. “Though I confess your sentiments would have been much more effective in softening the mood of my family had they come several months ago.”

  “I regret my behavior, sir,” Julian replied, and this was difficult for him to say. “I’ve handled the entire affair quite poorly, I admit. I thought that finding the house was a great stroke of luck. It seems now to have been one of misfortune.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  Julian had an answer rehearsed for this, but it too was galling to say. “My wife. She convinced me I was being stubborn and bull-headed. I should have listened to her earlier. I should have embraced her efforts to find a solution together with your wife instead of spurning them.”

  Minthorn blew a cloud of smoke toward the fireplace. “The offer of $125,000 for the house is now closed. That should be understood first of anything. I authorized my wife to offer it only on the condition that it be accepted immediately, so we could put this matter behind us as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, something could be arranged…”

  Come on. Get on with it. Julian cared little about the financial details, which he expected would have only momentary effect anyway. Minthorn batted about certain possibilities, such as trading properties—there was a charming little house on West 26th Street that he had purchased with the intention of giving it to his eldest son, soon to be married—but over the course of three cigars and several glasses of port a clear solution began to take shape. It was evident to Julian that Minthorn himself cared little about the 38th Street house. He wanted to rid himself of Mrs. Quain as well as the distraction of the scandals surrounding the whole matter. I don’t blame him, Julian thought. Who would want to be saddled with the presence of that vile woman for the rest of her life?

  “So, then it’s agreed,” said Minthorn, stubbing out his cigar in a silver tray. “You will keep ownership of the house, but grant a life estate to Mrs. Quain to return to live there. In exchange I will pay you fifty thousand dollars for the life estate plus five hundred a year, which increases to a thousand if Mrs. Quain should live longer than five years. I will also offer you and your wife greatly reduced rent on the West 26th Street house for as long as you wish to remain there. When Mrs. Quain dies all rights to the 38th Street house vest in you, and your tenancy on West 26th Street, should it still be in existence, will come to an end.”

  “Yes. That sounds equitable. Do you want me to draw up the legal papers?”

  “Oh, you needn’t concern yourself with that. My lawyer will take care of it. Expect the papers no later than Monday afternoon.”

  He doesn’t trust me. Julian nodded in agreement. “Very well. I’ll take a look at the West 26th Street property tomorrow.”

  “What date shall we set to put this all in motion? Say, January the first? Moving before the Christmas holidays is so uncivilized.”

  Julian felt a twinge of nerves. Anine was due to return from St. Augustine on the first of December. I can put her off, but not a full month. He had no choice but to speed things up. “Sir, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get this taken care of as quickly as possible. I’m sure Mrs. Quain is eager to return to the house and there’s no sense in waiting. Assuming we get the legal papers signed, she could move back into the house in, say, two weeks’ time.”

  Minthorn looked surprised. “Two weeks?” He chuckled. “My dear Mr. Atherton, I can hardly believe that you could have all of your belongings crated, stored and shipped within so short a time. And your wife—surely she will want time to plan and decorate the new house. You know how women are.”

  “My wife is in Florida, and she does what I say. Two weeks.”

  A skeptical look crossed Minthorn’s face. “Three weeks,” he countered.


  “All right.” I’ll just tell Anine not to come back so soon. What choice will she have? He extended his hand. “I’m very glad we could come to terms.”

  Julian made sure he didn’t raise his next and most important point until the two of them were getting up from their chairs, with the expectation that the meeting was concluded. He’d wanted it to seem like an afterthought. “Oh, when you have Mrs. Quain’s affairs arranged, would you please let me know ahead of time when she will actually be arriving at the house? It’s important to me—and to my wife—that I apologize to her face to face.”

  Minthorn’s skeptical look returned. “I’m not sure that will do you much good, Mr. Atherton. Mrs. Quain is quite insensible. She barely acknowledges anyone. There is no need in any event. Now that we have the business straightened out—”

  “No, sir,” Julian replied firmly. “I insist on apologizing personally.”

  “I’ll see what can be done. Good evening, Mr. Atherton.”

  Julian wasn’t sure that I’ll see what can be done was as firm a commitment as he needed, but there was no further chance to press Minthorn on the matter. As he returned to the Grand Hotel he thought that he’d made rather a good deal: fifty thousand dollars for a life estate that Mrs. Quain would never live to enjoy was an excellent windfall, and the cost of hiring the assassin could come from this fund instead of being drawn from Julian’s usual accounts. That might come in handy if, as he expected, there would be an investigation. But the investigation would turn up nothing if Mrs. Quain died before she reached 11 West 38th Street. On that the whole plot depended.

  Several days later, wearing a threadbare coat and a second-hand hat he borrowed from Bryan Shoop, Julian walked a considerable way down the length of Manhattan Island in an icy drizzle to its most notorious—and dangerous—neighborhood. When he was younger he had driven by the Five Points in a carriage and even stopped on its outskirts to gaze in curiosity at the mean unwashed poor who came and went along the streets near Paradise Square, but until tonight he’d never actually gone into the heart of it. He was searching for a dive called the Morgue, so named supposedly because the liquor sold by its proprietor was so strong it could double as embalming fluid. He found it, as promised, on Mulberry Bend, in the blackened doorway of a sagging brick building that looked on the verge of collapse.

  The interior of the place was so dark Julian almost couldn’t navigate. Its plank walls were painted black and the foul-smelling air was obscured by thick clouds of smoke. The patrons were mostly shady-looking men in black clothes and weathered hats, though he passed a congregation of “ladies” with flashy dresses and chalky make-up, one of whom he thought was probably a man. He found the bar only by following the feeble orange blazes of what he guessed must have been lamps or candles.

  A rough old fellow with stringy gray hair and a lazy eye stood behind the bar. He reeked heavily of body odor. “Whiskey,” Julian said, flipping a coin onto the bar. The stinking old man gave him a dirty glass of some greasy fluid that smelled like lamp oil. When Julian tasted it he was certain it was lamp oil, or at least had been cut with it. It left a burning trail down the back of his throat.

  “I’m looking for a man called Piker Ryan,” said Julian, just as the bartender was about to turn away from him. He looked annoyed at the interruption. “I’m told he frequents this place.”

  “Corner table,” the bartender grunted, pointing off into the darkness.

  Julian did not thank the man, but he left an extra coin. Bringing his drink he again braved the smoky blackness, inadvertently running into someone—“You want a shank in your throat? Watch where the fuck you’re going!”—and at last stood in front of a table whose surface was littered with spilled drinks and tobacco ashes. Behind it sat a perfectly odious specimen of humanity.

  Piker Ryan was said to be one of the leaders of a vicious gang called the Whyos. They made their trade, so Julian had heard, rolling drunks, robbing the johns of prostitutes, raiding gambling games and doing occasional other dirty-work for hire. “Worse than the Dead Rabbits back before the war,” Roman Chenowerth had told him. “They’ve killed something like ten policemen.” Looking at Ryan in the flesh Julian didn’t doubt he was capable of it. The Irishman had a bullet-shaped head crowned with a dirty tuft of thinning hair, ridiculous protruding ears and a rough bearded visage set in an eternal scowl. His mouth was crooked, canting down his face to the left. He wore a wood-stained wool overcoat and was, at the moment, playing faro with a companion several years younger but equally vicious-looking.

  “What do you want?” Ryan grunted, noticing Julian standing above the table. A dirty cigarette hung from his lips.

  “I understand you do jobs,” said Julian. He chose his words and the lilt of his speech carefully, trying not to sound like a gentleman. “I got somebody I need a job done on. Can you do it?”

  Ryan threw down his cards, took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at his companion. The two of them broke into laughter that sounded like the cackling of crows. “I do jobs!” Ryan laughed, mocking Julian’s tone of voice.

  “You do jobs, Paddy?” said the companion.

  “Yeah, Clops, I do jobs! How many jobs I do last week?”

  Julian had hoped not to have to resort to flashing money at first, but he knew the men would pay him no attention otherwise. From his dirty jacket pocket he withdrew a ten-dollar gold piece and slapped it on the table. Ryan and Clops—what sort of a name is that?—immediately went silent. After barely two seconds had elapsed Ryan cupped his hand over the coin and pulled it toward him, dropping it into a pocket of his overcoat.

  “Clops, go get me another drink,” said Ryan.

  “No doin,’ Paddy. I got to hear what this dandy have to say.”

  “Clops, go get me a fucking drink!” the assassin shouted. The younger man immediately vacated the chair across from Piker and Julian sat down.

  Ryan leaned back in his creaky chair and smoked. “Well?” he said impatiently. “What’s the job?”

  Figuring the ten-dollar piece had already disclosed that he was an uptown gentleman, Julian saw no further need to disguise his speech. “A lady. A society lady. She’ll be coming downtown in a carriage in two weeks—I don’t know the exact day yet. She must be attacked in her carriage between the railway station and Fifth Avenue. There will be a man with her. He’s not to be harmed. But the woman must be killed. Make it look like a robbery, but I don’t care about the money—they’ll have some on them, jewelry too probably. The woman must die before Fifth Avenue. That’s the most important thing.”

  Ryan’s cold eyes registered little reaction. Then, oddly, he bandied his head about, rolling it first to the right side, then the other. After puffing on his cigarette the killer said, “That’s a big job. Ain’t my usual thing. Cost extra.”

  “You kill women before?”

  “Yeah, I done killed women. Whores, mostly. That ain’t the problem. You’re talking about rich folks. There’ll be police. Roll a carriage in the street on Fifth Avenue? That’s a big job. Dangerous.”

  “It doesn’t have to be on Fifth Avenue. It has to be before Fifth Avenue. I’ll pay anything you want.”

  “Three hundred dollars,” Ryan replied coldly.

  “Five hundred dollars. I want a guarantee that she’ll be dead and that it will be done exactly as I say.”

  Ryan chuckled. “For five hundred dollars you can have whatever you want.” His cigarette had gone out. Striking a match to re-light it, he said, “I want it in gold. No paper. You bring it the day of the job.”

  “I’ll bring half. The other half you’ll get after she’s dead.”

  “You got a picture of this lady?”

  “I might be able to get one.”

  The Whyo smoked. He looked quite at peace with the transaction, and indeed quite satisfied. “We meet here when you know the exact day. You bring a picture and a map.�
��

  Julian nodded. “All right.”

  “How you want it done?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Knife or gun? Seemings you’re so partic’lar about things.”

  “I don’t care about that. Just kill the bitch.”

  Matter-of-factly Piker Ryan reached forward to pick up his cards. “Nice doin’ business with you,” he said, and the interview was over.

  Outside the Morgue on the rainy street Julian was positively relieved to be out of the den of horrors, but as he pulled Bryan Shoop’s hat down over his eyes and started northward he was seized by the terrible feeling that he would be knifed and left for dead right here on the street. That would be a supreme irony, he thought. Nevertheless, he managed to make it north of Canal Street without incident. Though he was bitterly cold and soaked to the bone he walked all the way back up to the Grand Hotel and even made several random roundabout detours through extraneous streets to confuse anyone who might have observed him, though of course no one had. Only now after the meeting with the Whyo assassin did he begin to entertain second thoughts.

  If it goes off, I’m going to have to live with it forever. And if it doesn’t go off, it may well come back to bite me. As guilty as he felt about the Indian on the train four years ago—and he had only witnessed that crime, not committed it—he wasn’t sure how he was going to live with murder on his conscience. But he would have to find a way. The doppelgänger left him with no alternative. It had to be destroyed, and this was the only way to destroy it. In future years he hoped the regret, if he ended up having any, would fade, as the memories of Mrs. Quain herself were bound to.

  Obtaining a picture of Mrs. Quain proved tricky. Julian had never actually seen her in the flesh, and the only picture of her that he knew of was the portrait that had been hanging in the Green Parlor when they moved in. During the stay in Newport when Julian had Roman Chenowerth empty out the house, all of the Quains’ belongings, including the portrait, had been hastily crated and moved to the Western Manhattan Warehouse. Julian told Chenowerth to sell them off as best he could. He did not even want to know about the sales. The day after his journey to the Five Points he called Chenowerth into his office at the law firm. “Remember the junk from the house I had you send to that warehouse?” he said. “You manage to sell any of it yet?”