An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  White-faced, she left the ballroom floor in the opposite direction and minutes later she left the house. She had known, of course, that by co-operating with Bennett she would only be making things worse between herself and Alexander, but she had made up her mind long ago always to follow her conscience where the question of the tenements was concerned, and it was a decision she couldn’t possibly have reneged on.

  The next morning there was another letter from Isabel.

  I’ve heard from Augusta Astor that you believe I behaved with great irresponsibility in allowing Alexander to take Felix aboard the Rosetta and in accompanying them. As you obviously feel so deeply about the incident I won’t cause either of us further embarrassment by returning to Fifth Avenue house. Bessie enjoys my company and has said that I am always welcome to stay with her, and when I return at the end of the week, that is what I will do.

  Isabel.

  Even though Isabel’s action was a reaction to the hurt and indignant letter that she herself had sent her, Maura could scarcely believe the enormity of what was happening between them. Not only was she estranged from Alexander. She was now also estranged from Isabel. Pain sliced through her. With Kieron hundreds of miles away in the west she had now lost everyone that she loved. And where Alexander was concerned, there was no hope of reconciliation, not now that Bennett’s second slum tenement article had appeared.

  ‘Who are these men who are bringing our great city into world-wide disrepute?’ Bennett had demanded in the same sensational manner of all his other scandal exposures. ‘Who are men whose greed forces small children to live amid filth and vermin? Who are the men whose tenement properties are so lacking in basic human necessities of light and air and sanitation that cholera and typhoid and smallpox still rage among our citizens?’

  He had then gone on to list them. Karolyis. Astor. Goelet. Rhinelander. Fish. Schermerhorn.

  When the promised list of each man’s estimated wealth was published, there wasn’t an unsold copy of the Herald to be had.

  As she had anticipated, Alexander’s name headed the list. ‘Sixty million dollars!’ the headline proclaimed. There were accounts of his one-hundred-roomed mansion at Newport, of solid gold fittings aboard the Jezebel, of priceless works of European art that no eyes were permitted to look upon but his own.

  Heavy-hearted, she had continued with her day as if Alexander’s name were not being scurrilously banded about in every bar and saloon in the city.

  She had visited Frederick Lansdowne and told him of her latest plans, for the Irish Children’s Aid programme.

  ‘The children need to be taken out of the city, at least for a couple of weeks a year. Mr Henry Schermerhorn has agreed to allow me to use his stud-farm in up-state New York as a holiday home. The only time that it wouldn’t be possible to take children there would be during foaling but he has no objections to children vacationing there at other times of the year. As long as they are properly supervised, of course.’

  ‘And can arrangements for supervision be left in your hands, Mrs Karolyis?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maura had said competently. ‘They can.’

  After parting from Frederick Lansdowne she had gone home and had almost immediately left it again, this time accompanied by Felix.

  ‘Delmonico’s,’ she said to the coachman, settling Felix warmly beneath a carriage-blanket.

  ‘Can I have an ice?’ Felix was saying eagerly. ‘Even though it’s the fall I still like ice-cream.’

  He was nearly three years old now and as bright and chirpy as a little lark.

  ‘Uncle Charlie came this morning and we played with my new toy railway. Uncle Charlie says it’s the finest railway he’s ever seen …’

  They were passing the end of a crowded busy street. Because of the October chill they were driving in a closed carriage and she was too busy listening attentively to Felix to see the two men and a woman break away from the crowd and sprint towards them.

  ‘Uncle Charlie had the green engine and I had the yellow one …’

  The carriage rocked violently as the horses’bridles were seized.

  ‘What on earth … ?’ Maura began, putting a hand out to prevent Felix from sliding from his seat.

  The carriage door was wrenched open by a man whom she had never seen before. Her first instantaneous thought was that she was being robbed and she pulled off her heavy pearl earrings terrified that if she didn’t swiftly co-operate Felix would be harmed.

  The man scrambled into the violently rocking carriage and with horror she saw a grimy pad in his hand and smelled ether.

  He lunged towards a terrified Felix, grabbing hold of him and Maura knew that it wasn’t robbery, that it was something far, far worse.

  She sprang to her feet, throwing herself at him, raking at his eyes with her nails.

  ‘Run, Felix!’ she screamed. ‘Run! Run!’

  Felix ran, jettisoning from the carriage and hurtling away from it, his sturdy little legs going like pistons.

  Maura had not the slightest chance of being able to follow him. The stinking pad was slammed hard over her nose and mouth and her only thought was that they wanted Felix. They wanted to kidnap Felix.

  It was James Gordon Bennett who received the ransom note addressed to Alexander. It was hand-delivered to the Herald’s offices inside a larger envelope with the handwritten enclosure: Urgent. Deliver to Mr Karolyis. We have kidnapped his son. The word ‘son’had been crossed through and the word ‘wife’substituted.

  Bennett had dropped everything and run from the building. He didn’t believe even for a second that he was being hoaxed. He had been a newspaperman too long not to be able to sniff a hoax at fifty paces and there was no smell of hoax about the letter in his hand.

  ‘Get me Mr Karolyis!’ he demanded breathlessly of the receptionist at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. ‘Fast!’

  Bennett’s reputation for trouble-making when crossed was such that the receptionist didn’t hesitate to despatch a bell-boy to the Karolyis suite.

  It was Teal who answered the door to them.

  ‘A gentleman for Mr Karolyis …’ the bell-boy began.

  ‘Karolyis!’ Bennett roared, striding past a stupefied Teal. ‘Your wife’s been kidnapped!’

  It was a moment Alexander knew he would never forget. One minute he had been contemplating a trip to Europe in the spring, accompanied by Stasha. The next minute he was looking into the jaws of hell.

  Bennett slammed the note he had received and the slight bulky envelope addressed to Alexander down on a table.

  ‘It came less than a half-hour ago. Open it, for Christ’s sake!’

  Alexander snatched the envelope from his arch-enemy’s hand, ripping it open. Inside was a pearl earring that Alexander recognized instantly, and an unnervingly legible note.

  We want ten million dollars in used notes. The money to be taken in a plain trunk to the baggage-room at the Grand Central Depot where a further letter of instruction is waiting for collection. The date and time when you can complete the transaction to be published on the back page of the Herald. If any communication is made to the authorities then your son’s life will be forfeit.

  Again the word ‘son’had been crossed through and ‘wife’inserted.

  ‘Is that Mrs Karolyis’s earring?’ Bennett demanded. ‘Can you check with your home to see if she is missing?’

  ‘It’s her earring.’ Alexander’s face was ashen. He looked as if he were about to faint. ‘If it had been lost and found no-one would return it with a hoax letter.’

  Bennett didn’t need further convincing. ‘You need Allan Pinkerton,’ he said decisively. ‘His detectives are your only chance.’

  ‘I can’t do that!’ The stunned shock Alexander had first felt was ebbing and monumental horror was taking its place. ‘If Maura’s kidnappers know I’ve gone to Pinkerton they’ll murder her!’

  ‘When they don’t get their money they’re going to murder her anyway!’

  ‘Christ! They’re going to g
et their money! They’re going to get every damned dollar!’

  Bennett stared at him. ‘You can’t mean it. It’s the craziest ransom demand I’ve ever seen and, believe me, as a newspaperman I’ve seen plenty. Not even the kidnappers think you’re going to stump up ten million. They’ll be quite happy to engage in a bit of bartering and while they’re bartering Pinkerton can be tracking them down.’

  Alexander ran a hand frenziedly through his hair. ‘And meanwhile what of Maura? Where is Maura while all this bartering is going on? She only recovered from smallpox a few months ago, for Chrissakes! She isn’t strong enough to cope with ill treatment …’

  ‘That little lady is strong as they come,’ Bennett said, wishing to hell he’d never given Alexander so much exposure in the Herald, wishing to hell he’d never trumpeted his financial worth to every black-hearted criminal in the city.

  ‘What you need to do now is to contact the mayor, the authorities, Pinkerton …’

  ‘What I need is tomorrow’s date and a time on the back page of your next edition. I need you to keep your mouth shut. I need my wife returned alive.’

  Never in his life had Bennett seen any man age with the rapidity with which Alexander was ageing. He no longer looked a devil-may-care twenty-four year old. He looked like a man ten years older. A man who would never be young again.

  ‘It’s your money,’ he said to him tersely, wondering how long it was going to be before Alexander recovered enough from the shock of the kidnapping to realize where the ultimate blame for it lay. ‘But no member of a law enforcement agency would advise you to pay without an attempt being made to trap the bastards first.’

  Alexander wasn’t listening to him. He was remembering all the times when his idiocy and pride had ruined his happiness with Maura. All he had ever had to do was to do what his conscience had been telling him to do all along. Join the Citizens’Association, improve his properties, ensure that sub-landlords on Karolyis land improved theirs. Nothing else had been necessary. He had never had any need to be ashamed of her, to lie about the legality of their marriage, to make wounding remarks about her nationality. Nor had he needed to bequeath Tarna to Stasha. There were plenty of other things that could be bequeathed to him. He had been blind; dumb; criminally stupid. He had had a lifetime’s happiness within his grasp time and time again and his insufferable pride had ensured that he had spurned it. And now, if Maura died, there would never be any happiness for him. Not ever.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, Bennett!’ he shouted. ‘Get back to your paper! Get that information into the next edition fast!’

  As Bennett hurried towards the door it burst open and Charlie rushed into the room.

  ‘Alexander! Thank God you’re here! Lottie Rhinelander has found Felix on the street, alone and distressed. He says that a man has ridden off with Maura …’

  ‘Let Pinkerton talk to your son,’ Bennett said urgently to Alexander. ‘He’ll be able to describe the kidnappers. If you don’t get Pinkerton’s help you may find paying the ransom isn’t enough. They may kill Mrs Karolyis anyway.’

  At this confirmation of Felix’s hysterical and incoherent story the blood fled from Charlie’s face.

  ‘I’ll do as you say. Have 6 p. m. printed after the date in the next edition.’

  Bennett had nodded and broken into another run. His paper was going to be first again with a big, big story. He wondered which of the Rosetta race photographs showed Felix the most clearly. He wondered how many copies he was going to sell when the story broke.

  Alexander spent the next few hours in a fever of activity. He contacted his bankers and had ten million dollars delivered, suitably packed in an innocuous-looking trunk. He summoned Allan Pinkerton to his hotel suite, he summoned Lyall Kingston, he summoned the mayor. He sent word to Haines, telling him what had occurred, and he sent word to Henry.

  ‘We can pack dummy money into the trunk,’ Allan Pinkerton said to him.

  ‘No. Christ. I don’t give a damn about the money, Pinkerton. I want my wife returned and I want her returned alive, is that understood?’

  He had taken his wallet out of his inside jacket pocket and opened it. Inside was a pressed blue flower. Pinkerton wasn’t sure, but it looked like a cornflower.

  ‘If that’s what you want, sir,’ he said with a shrug. It wasn’t his fortune that was going to be handed over.

  Alexander was still staring down at the pressed flower.

  ‘We’ll mark the bills,’ Pinkerton said to him. ‘The marks are invisible for several days and so the kidnappers won’t know what we’ve done. By the time the marks begin to take on colour the bills will be in circulation and we can track the bastards down. However, marking ten million is going to take time. You’ll have to alter the date and time you gave Bennett and make it the end of the week at the earliest.’

  Alexander looked up, dragged back from memories of a magical morning by the Hudson, of Maura lying lovingly beneath him, of the moment when it seemed nothing could go wrong between them.

  ‘No,’ he said swiftly. ‘God only knows what conditions Maura is being kept in! I’ll hire as many people as you think necessary to mark the bills, an army if need be, but I’m not changing the time of the rendezvous at the depot.’

  Pinkerton hadn’t argued, but he was intrigued. It was common gossip in the society columns that Mr and Mrs Alexander Karolyis were estranged. He’d seen quite a few husbands coming to terms with having a wife held to ransom, but never one more heedless of the money being demanded. And the two of them didn’t even live together any more.

  Henry came hurrying round to his hotel suite the minute they received his message.

  ‘What the devil happened?’ he demanded, his aged face ravaged. ‘Why was Maura unaccompanied? Why wasn’t help at hand?’

  ‘She was taking Felix for an ice-cream at Delmonico’s. You know how she hates postilions and footmen. There was only the coachman with her. He was left unconscious in the street and only staggered back to the house an hour after the incident occurred. Apparently two men and a woman rushed towards them at a busy intersection. The woman leapt at the reins, pulling the horses to a halt. One man leapt on the box and slammed an ether-soaked pad across the coachman’s face. The other entered the carriage.’

  He stopped and passed a hand across his eyes unable to continue.

  ‘But if the street was busy, why did no-one come to their aid?’ Henry asked bewilderedly. ‘Why was it an hour before the coachman was able to raise the alarm?’

  ‘It was Felix who gave the alarm, sir,’ Lyall Kingston said helpfully. ‘The carriage was on its way again within seconds and it would seem that the public thought the unconscious coachman a drunk.’

  ‘And what is Pinkerton going to do?’ Henry demanded. ‘How does he plan to track the kidnappers down?’

  ‘Pinkerton men will be at the depot,’ Alexander said, dropping his hand to reveal tortured eyes. ‘There will be Pinkerton men on all trains departing from six o’clock onwards.’

  ‘Officials at the depot are co-operating fully,’ the mayor interjected. ‘The kidnappers don’t stand a chance of getting away with their scheme. They’ve been too greedy, asked for too much. Ten million dollars can’t be handed over discreetly. It will need two strong men to carry the trunk, a wagon at the very least to transport it any distance.’

  Charlie was holding the latest edition of the Herald in his hands. He stared down at the glaring headline: ‘World record ransom demanded for safe return of Mrs Alexander Karolyis!’ and said, baffled, ‘How did they imagine you could lay your hands on so much money in cash? If the kidnappers are intelligent enough to write a literate ransom demand how can they not be intelligent enough to realize that ninety per cent of your wealth is tied up in property and shares and isn’t liquid?’

  ‘Christ knows,’ Alexander said, his voice on the edge of breaking completely. ‘My bankers have seen to it that the demand is met. Pinkerton has an army of women in the adjoining suite marking each an
d every note.’ Beneath his close-fitting jacket his shoulders lifted in despair. ‘I don’t care about the goddamned money, Charlie. I don’t care whether it’s traced or not. I just want Maura back.’ He turned away, striding towards the windows before the entire room should see the tears blinding his eyes. ‘I just want her to know that I love her,’ he said thickly, staring sightlessly down at the traffic plunging up and down the avenue. ‘I just want to be able to tell her that I know now what a cretinous fool I’ve been, and that I’m never going to be a fool again.’

  Both Henry and Charlie, as well as an army of Pinkerton men, accompanied him to the Grand Central Depot at six o’clock. The trunk was wheeled on a trolley. James Gordon Bennett had promised not to have any reporters in attendance as long as the story of the transfer could be covered in the Herald in full the next day.

  Alexander entered the baggage-room and asked if there was a letter waiting for him. A disinterested clerk handed it over. The message was brief.

  ‘Board the 6.10 for Albany alone taking the trunk with you. Seat 106 has been reserved for you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir,’ Allan Pinkerton said, taking the note from his hand. ‘I have men already aboard the train. I’ll telegraph Albany and make sure there are more men there. Whoever picks up that trunk, they’re going to be followed.’

  ‘Not apprehended,’ Alexander said fiercely. ‘Dear God, don’t apprehend them before they lead us to my wife!’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. Our only concern on this operation is for Mrs Karolyis’s safety.’

  ‘We’ll await news at your hotel suite,’ Henry said, leaning heavily on his silver-topped walking-cane. ‘Good luck, dear boy. Goodbye.’

  In last-minute haste porters wheeled the trunk aboard the train. Alexander took his seat, aware that nearly every other passenger was employed by Allan Pinkerton. Doors slammed, whistles blew.

  He looked around him, wondering which of his fellow passengers were Pinkerton men, which were the kidnappers. The trunk was in the luggage compartment near the door, a mere three feet away from him.