My sister put one arm around me for a quick hug, then said to Marta, “My name is Lydia Batternberg. Will you help us?”
Marta looked at the disappearing back of her brother as she asked, “How?”
I said, “I believe the only way to free Stefan is to discover who really killed Louise and the others. But I don’t know how the murderer could have met the victims, how their lives intersected.”
She looked at me, baffled.
Pressing on, I said, “Do you know how the Bowery might fit in?”
Marta answered, “Louise a dancer on the Bowery, at Henderson’s. But Katherine O’Malley was waitress at place not on Bowery. And other girl, Beatrice, I hear she work at Steeplechase and at stationery store on Surf Avenue.”
“She did both?” Lydia asked.
“In season, we do many jobs,” Marta said.
This was enlightening, but not particularly helpful. “What about Mabel Morgan’s?” I asked. “Do you know what it is?”
Marta pressed her lips. “Police ask me and my brother about that. I tell them, ‘Never!’ Stefan never go to such a place. I know him. He would not. Stefan a gentleman.”
A tingling of excitement raced through me. I sensed we were about to learn something crucial. “But what is it?”
Reluctantly, Marta said, “Mabel Morgan’s a brothel.”
Lydia said, “But were the women – the victims – prostitutes?”
Marta said vehemently, “Louise never do that. She was dancer in best club, had lot of money. She hate men who go to whores. The other two, I don’t know them. How would my brother or I know?”
For me, things were beginning to make sense. If the first two women worked at Mabel Morgan’s, that might have been where the murderer met them and lured them out of the place and to their deaths. As for whether the men I knew visited brothels, certainly Henry Taul and Ben did, and most likely Uncle David and Paul. Brothels were a fact of life in New York City. “Can you take me to Mabel Morgan’s?” I asked Marta.
“I know where it is,” she admitted. “But Mabel doesn’t know me. I can’t vouch.”
“I don’t need you to vouch for me, Marta,” I said patiently. “Just give me the address.”
My sister and Marta spoke at the same time, each imploring me not to attempt it. “Give the information to the police,” said Lydia. “You can’t set foot in there.”
“The police already know about Mabel Morgan’s – Lieutenant Pellegrino was the one who told me about it. But he was only looking for one man who might have been there: Stefan. I have some others to ask about.” I thought for a moment. “If necessary, I’ll pretend that I’m seeking a position there as an excuse to get in the door. I need the madame to tell me a few things – whether the first two girls indeed worked there, who their customers were. Then I will go to Lieutenant Pellegrino.”
Marta exclaimed, “You crazy woman! You can’t go there, a stranger, push way in, do pretend games, ask Mabel Morgan about her girls and her customers.”
Lydia agreed that it couldn’t possibly work, that I’d be shown the door.
“Show the door?” Marta said scornfully. “You will be hurt, she may have you raped.”
Lydia gasped. I too was shocked at a teenage girl’s being aware of such ugliness. No question, this possible reception to my asking questions was a deterrent. I asked Marta if there were anyone else who could “vouch” for me, so that I could ask questions without risk of harm.
Marta thought it over. “There’s one person: Countess Isabelle. Everyone on Coney Island respect her. She might help. She knows who you are.”
“I think I would have remembered meeting a countess.”
“She saw you with Stefan,” Marta insisted. When I still drew a blank, Marta stretched out her hand to a distance maybe four feet above the ground. She must mean the small woman wearing the Victorian dress who walked through Dreamland with the giant. So, she called herself a countess. Fine – I’d take help from someone who called himself the Holy Roman Emperor. “Can you take me to her now?” I asked. But Marta said this was the time of day for the Countess Isabelle’s afternoon show. I’d have to wait until four o’clock.
Lydia said, “That’s impossible. Peggy, we need to leave in a few minutes if we’re going to make it back to the hotel in time.”
Marta scowled. “Impossible? But you say you want to help Stefan.”
How could I possibly explain to her how hemmed in I was, the restrictions on my movements? In an agony of frustration, I said, “What about late tonight? I can get away after eleven. Everyone will assume I’m asleep.”
“Peggy, that’s madness,” my sister said.
Over Lydia’s protests, I fixed it with Marta to send word to me if Countess Isabelle would meet with me later and, if so, exactly where. I told her that the message needed to be sent to me at the Oriental Hotel. “You know someone who can send me a note?” I asked.
“On Coney Island, you can always find someone to do anything,” Marta said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
In the time it took Lydia and I to rush back to the Manhattan Beach Hotel, she informed me in no uncertain terms that my sneaking away to Coney Island late at night was a terrible plan. I’d be exposed to huge risks. But with four days left until our forced departure, I had to act quickly.
“This is such a wild idea, for me to be running around Coney Island at night, that no one will expect it,” I added. “Its audacity will work in my favor.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Lydia, I have to obtain this ‘vouch.’ It’s the only way.”
We covered ground as fast as two ladies could while wearing long skirts. As we neared the sprawling hotel, the sound of tuba and trombone rolled down the lawn. The minute that Lydia led me in through the side door, those instruments’ sounds died, and applause exploded. We managed to reach the enormous hall while the audience still cheered. It was difficult to find Jason and Susannah among hundreds of exalted Sousa celebrants, but eventually we succeeded, and made a point of talking to brother and sister for a while.
As we were saying goodbye, Jason edged closer to Lydia and bent down, his face nearing hers. He seemed about to kiss her, right in front of his sister and hers. I admit I was startled. But then he slipped a folded sheet of paper into her hand and merely smiled. She smiled back at him, as if enjoying a private joke.
As soon as we left the Manhattan Beach Hotel, Lydia opened the paper right in front of me and read it as she walked – and then handed it over. “Are you sure you want me to read it?” I sputtered.
“Jason wrote down the names of the songs the band played in order,” she said. “You should memorize them, too, just in case one of Henry’s henchmen saw us leave and we’re questioned.”
“Is that what they are – ‘henchmen’?” I asked.
“What would be a better word?” she asked. “‘Procurers’? Where would Henry be without his?” She began to laugh, a hard, bitter laugh. What he did in Paris hurt her deeply. She may not have told me yet that she was canceling the engagement. But Lydia would not marry Henry, I was certain of it. She hated him.
But something else had occurred to me, a new fear.
“Be careful with Henry,” I said. “I don’t know what you’ve decided on the engagement, but as long as we’re in the hotel, and you’re thrown together with him, you should be careful.”
“Now why do you say that?” she asked.
I was on the verge of finally telling her of Henry’s jealous, demanding questions three years ago, of his locking me in the room in Saratoga Springs, when my mother and Aunt Helen appeared on the veranda to ask if we enjoyed the concert.
Lydia played the part to perfection, praising songs she hadn’t heard with such passion that my chiming in wasn’t necessary. She was a valuable partner indeed.
Between tea and dinner, a hotel employee came up to my room with a sealed envelope, bearing the words “Miss Batternberg” in elegant Spencerian script. I tipped him an
d opened it eagerly. The paper was of the thickest cream-colored stock. It bore one sentence, without salutation, date, or signature:
We shall meet with you at the hour of midnight in Lilliput to decide if your request warrants our assistance.
I ran my finger across the formal sentence, feeling the tiny bubbles of raised ink for the letters “i.” This could not be coming from Marta, whom I had seen leafing through comics. The Spencerian style of script, looping and feathery, had largely been replaced by the Palmer method – that was the only handwriting anyone had used at Moonrise. The person who wrote this note was of an earlier, more elegant age. I suspected it was the woman who called herself Countess Isabelle. Wasn’t Lilliput her domain? I wondered if she used the word “we” in the royal sense, or if she was including Marta in the decision.
I decided it was prudent to join my family for dinner. I needed to be as visible as possible during the early evening. With the heat spell thankfully a thing of the past, we took our dinner in the main room. It was not even half full. I would have thought with weather turned more palatable, the hotel would fill up, not empty. But it turned out we were all wrong about the financial soundness of the hotels of the east end. Ben brought news that, even with my preoccupation with secret plans, I found startling. After forty years of prominence, the Manhattan Beach Hotel was set to close at the end of the 1911 season, which meant this September.
“Shall it reopen with a new owner?” asked Lydia.
“No,” said Ben, spearing a slice of duck with his silver fork. “I believe it’s to be torn down. Probably the Oriental will follow within the next few years. The time for the grand old hotels is passing. It’s the amusement park that’s breaking attendance records.”
“You got it wrong,” said Henry. “The hotel won’t close. You shouldn’t listen to housemaids’ gossip.”
Ben finished chewing his duck, then wiped his mouth. I could tell he was offended by Henry’s words and was delaying a response through these deliberate movements until he was completely calm. “I didn’t hear it from a housemaid,” he said finally. “It’s true.”
“But that’s terrible – it’s wrong, wrong, wrong,” exclaimed Henry, so agitated that he knocked over a water glass with his right hand. Lydia, sitting next to him, flinched but said nothing. Water poured in a stream headed for Lawrence’s plate, who watched the approach with interest. Waiters flocked to our table, to repair the damage while acting as if no one at the table had done anything wrong.
After dinner, I offered to organize a euchre game for the foursome of myself, Mother, Lydia, and Aunt Helen. We played in silence. For all of us, the game was a useful distraction from difficult thoughts. The men had broken away, as usual, to wander off for brandy, cigars… or something else. If only there were a way to have any of them followed.
Lydia pulled me to the side of Mother’s suite at the end of the game. “I should go with you,” she whispered.
“Definitely not,” I said. “Don’t worry, I know my way around Dreamland.”
Lydia said, “And when you return without an escort well after midnight? You don’t think the hotel staff will notice, or the Pinkertons?”
“I’ll manage them,” I said, although I didn’t know how at that moment.
Lydia gave me a stern look, then made me promise that, when I returned, I’d knock loudly three times on her door before going to my room – “I won’t sleep a wink until you do.”
For my night’s mission, I chose my most inconspicuous clothes, the skirt and blouse I’d worn the last day that I worked at Moonrise Bookstore. It felt exhilarating to put them on again. I pinned up all my hair under a plain hat. I took two emerald earrings from my jewelry box and slipped them in the side compartment of my handbag.
Peeking out, I saw no one in the hallway. I didn’t want the elevator operator to see me going down alone after eleven, so I took the stairs to the lobby. Whether the door to the stairs would be unlocked when I returned, I didn’t know. I couldn’t worry about that now. That was something I hadn’t anticipated. I hoped I hadn’t neglected to anticipate anything else.
My biggest problem was always going to be the lobby. Henry could very well be on the loose. But I didn’t see or hear him or anyone else I knew as I crossed it, walking briskly, the eyes of framed Teddy Roosevelt upon me. I made my way to the automobiles and horse-and-buggies lingering in the lot. I couldn’t help but smile when, by the light of the street lamp, I spotted the same bristly handlebar mustache of the buggy driver who took me over to Dreamland.
“Remember me?” I asked. He grunted in reply.
Once he helped me into the buggy, I showed him the earrings. “I need you to take me to Surf Avenue, find a place for your horse as close to Dreamland as you can get, and then wait for me to return to you, no matter how late it gets,” I said. “I’ll give you one earring once you find a place to wait, the other when I return. You must wait for me if you want both earrings.”
“Yes, Miss, I’ll be glad to, Miss,” he said, gloating under the moustache.
He no doubt thought I was a fool to part with this expensive gem for an hour to two of waiting. I didn’t care. After my meeting was finished, I couldn’t stumble around alone in the dark looking for a way back to the hotel. This was well worth the earrings – I had many, many more.
Once we reached Surf Avenue, he shook the reins to direct his horse to an open place. “I’ll look for you here,” I said emphatically. He leaned back, pulling his cap low on his head, as if it were time for a nap.
People were pouring out of Dreamland. It must be approaching closing time, and I had to be insistent with the girl working the entrance before she would take my dime. “Don’t come back and complain that everything’s shut down,” she said sullenly.
I approached Lilliput, one of the largest attractions on the west promenade, with a burst of confidence. I should be able to persuade the Countess Isabelle to make the necessary introductions to this madame called Mabel Morgan.
The first hour I ever spent in Dreamland, when I wandered unhappily in the thickest of crowds after arguing with Ben, I’d glimpsed the long building called Lilliput, or, as defined by a second sign posted out front, “Midget Village.” I got a fuller view of it tonight. It rose on the park promenade like a thirteenth-century German castle, with circular towers and steep sloping roofs and a hint of a battlement, though who would fire weapons? I felt like I was stepping onto a page from Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Peering down, I saw the castle front interlocked with other types of architecture: a half-timbered Tudor manor, followed by a nineteenth-century-era plaza. A dozen people filtered out through the main doors, the last show having obviously ended. I was the only one who would be seeking entrance. I girded myself for another struggle with the person in charge of admissions.
“This way, Miss,” called a man standing just inside the front doors, beckoning to me. As I drew closer, I realized that with a height reaching less than four feet, he was part of the Lilliput community.
“Miss Batternberg?” he asked courteously.
I was surprised and grateful to be expected – and impressed by the Countess’ influence.
He was not a young man. His rather large forehead was creased with wrinkles, and gray strands showed in the hair pushed behind his ears. He wore a checkered shirt and suspenders and trousers, all of which fit perfectly. I wondered if they employed their own tailor and seamstress here.
“My name is Peter,” he said, extending a hand to shake.
I followed him through another set of doors into an enormous hall. On one side were rows of seats for the audience. On the other, the European village thrived, displaying a similar castle to the one seen outside, but here, part of the castle was opened up so the audience could see what happened within: a dining chamber and a parlor, a kitchen quarters. Outside the castle a fair was erected with blacksmith and grocer and apothecary stalls. Every wall, every stall, every table and chair were constructed to a certain size. It was all scaled to the c
onvenient use of the residents of Lilliput. None of them were acting out anything right now; I spotted only a few workmen cleaning and sweeping.
Peter beckoned to follow him through to the next hall. Now I passed more conventional spheres of entertainment: a theatre, followed by an opera house, followed by a fire department.
“This is so elaborate,” I said admiringly.
Peter said, “Mr. Samuel Gompertz scoured the four corners of the Earth to find the best of the best. He went to every World’s Fair, every successful burlesque show, every traveling circus of repute, to find us, all three hundred of us, and bring us to Coney Island. We are the preeminent Lilliputians.”
“Three hundred?” I exclaimed.
He nodded gravely and said, “Each one of us well paid, too.” He was leading me to what looked like the last structure to be displayed in Lilliput. What was left to see? I wondered. My excitement dimmed as the words “Court House” stared back. In its brick walls and double doors and narrow windows, it looked eerily like the Coney Island Court House adjoining the police precinct, only smaller.
My guide stood next to its doors, his hand on the right doorknob, waiting to usher me inside. I could hear voices – definitely more than one, and male – on the other side. I tensed, studying Peter’s expression. Could his courtesy, his proud tour of Lilliput, be a ruse? He was, after all, a performer.
I pushed down my fears. Why would anyone lure me here for unpleasant purposes? That made no sense. If there were still a chance of finding a way to clear Stefan of suspicion, I had to take it. I stepped forward with a nod, and Peter pulled open the door.
I expected a facsimile of a courtroom, such as the castle rooms I’d seen in the beginning, but there was no jury box or judge’s platform. Despite all the careful effort that went into creating a perfectly reproduced courthouse front, behind the wall, out of view of the audience, was only a dirty floor covered by a few benches, boxes, and some chairs.
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