Dreamland

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Dawn finally arrived, and with it Madame Kschessinska, bearing a long white dress and a straw hat in her arms. “You can’t show up at the hotel in an evening dress,” she pointed out, quite correctly. “I think I have your size right.”

  As I changed from my kimono-style dress to the surprisingly maidenish white dress, I thought about how this revelation would not only embarrass and pain the Batternberg family but also cause upheaval to Madame Kschessinska. I’d not be able to take these findings to Lieutenant Pellegrino without telling him that Louise entertained Jim, Henry’s driver, under this roof.

  My hostess had already reached similar conclusions. As she walked me down the staircase she said, “Do not worry about these revelations’ effect on my business. We Russians believe in omens, signs, and portents. Your coming here confirms what I’ve known for several months. It’s time for me to move on.”

  Although her speech was flavored with an accent hinting of Russia, her sentences were constructed perfectly. A teacher of English composition would labor in her shadow. I wondered anew what her true origins were, while knowing there was no chance whatsoever of learning them.

  The butler, now wearing a summer suit and hat, stood ready to drive me back. I turned to shake her hand and caught a wistfulness in Madame’s eyes before she resumed her sophisticated stance. “I hope we shall meet again,” she said, but guardedly, as if prepared for a rebuff.

  “I hope so too,” I said, and meant it. I had the fleeting thought that in her intelligence, her sophistication, and her sexual rebelliousness, she was a more fit companion for my father than my mother ever could be. What would have happened if he hadn’t died in Long Island Sound?

  The butler helped me into the large motor car that would convey me back to the Oriental, my evening dress in a light borrowed satchel. After a sleepless night I felt faintly ill, and the belching fumes of the automobile quickly soured my stomach. At this early hour, workers shuffled about with brooms and buckets and carts to clean the Coney Island streets of the litter, their faces grim. What a Herculean task – empty liquor bottles and food wrappers and plenty of other trash formed mountains on the borders of the amusement park.

  It couldn’t have been more different at the Oriental Hotel. As I walked up the path, morning dew glistened on the manicured lawn. Smiling people ventured out on the veranda, and impatient children raced for the beach and boardwalk. With a smile pasted on my face, I made my way into the parlor lobby, feeling safe to use the elevator. No one stirred on our hallway – none of us woke before eight in the morning – and I let myself in my room. Before I faced Lydia, I needed to bathe. This would be a long, difficult day. I must gird myself.

  I ran my own bath and slipped into the warm water. Although I could not condemn Madame Kschessinska, I had spent the night in a brothel, and was now consumed with desire to clean myself. Afterward, I rested my head on the back of the tub. Just a few minutes of rest, and then I’ll prepare to talk to Lydia, I thought as I slipped into a doze.

  A loud banging on the door made my eyes fly open. I didn’t know how long I’d slept. In thick-headed confusion, I staggered out of the soapy bath and flung on my robe. It must be Lydia, impatient to hear what I’d learned. But the banging grew ever more fierce, louder than I thought her capable of.

  It was not my younger sister at the door but David Batternberg, and in a rare state.

  “Something terrible has happened, Peggy,” my uncle said. “Lydia is missing, and there’s a note in her room. A ransom note. We fear she was kidnapped.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Within the hour, there were so many people in my mother’s room that I found it difficult to count them. Mother herself was not present. She was under sedation in the hotel’s medical suite, Aunt Helen and Lawrence by her side. It had been suggested, more than once, that I join them. But I needed to be here, listening and watching. The more officious the men who crowded the room and the wilder their theories, the more determined I was to figure out what really happened to my sister.

  Lydia was gone – how could I not accept this fact? However, I didn’t believe she’d been kidnapped. I was not positive about what happened to my sister, but my eyes rarely left Henry Taul, pacing the room, ranting to all who came near him, berating the police for not doing more.

  Mother’s room was chosen for all to convene in because the note Alice found on Lydia’s bureau said a phone call listing the kidnapper’s demands would be put through to “Mrs. Jonathan Batternberg.” Hearing Father’s name hours after it was spoken at Madame Kschessinska’s was disconcerting, but far from the strangest thing I faced right now.

  The phone to Mother’s room never rang that long day, nor did any other notes materialize.

  It seemed the last person to see Lydia from our party was Alice, in the hallway at just after eleven o’clock. Henry kept saying he brought Lydia back to the hotel following the fireworks. They said goodnight in the lobby. She took the elevator up to the Batternberg corridor, stopping Alice outside her room to say she didn’t need any help in getting ready for bed.

  By my calculations, Lydia had walked out of the elevator and toward her room a few moments after I had made it to the door to the stairs on that same floor and disappeared down it, on my way out of the Oriental Hotel. Of course, I couldn’t tell the police that. I said the same as Mother and Lawrence had, as well as Uncle David and Aunt Helen: No unusual sights or sounds last night.

  Most of the police officers and other city officials crowded in Mother’s room talked about which criminal gang had abducted my sister. I heard the phrase “Black Hand” dozens of times. It seemed to be an Italian crime group with a presence in New York. How they managed to break into Lydia’s room and whisk her out of the hotel was attributed to their nefarious boldness.

  “If one of them touches Lydia, I swear to God…” Henry Taul’s voice was hoarse.

  Mr. Lancet assured him no one would dare. He looked as terrible as my uncle, and with good reason. A guest being abducted from his hotel could deal his business a fatal blow.

  Henry shook off the hotel owner and announced, “My mother has need of me, she is quite upset,” before stomping out of the room. Mr. Lancet watched him leave, his eyes brimming with terror.

  It was Lieutenant Pellegrino, up to now one of the room’s quieter presences, who said, “I’m wondering why she didn’t ask for her maid’s help, why she made a point of saying she didn’t need it.”

  Uncle David, who overheard him, said, “They don’t need a maid for everything, the girls are not completely helpless.”

  “But our inventory of the things in her room showed she didn’t change out of her dress and into her nightclothes,” said the Lieutenant. “So either she was kidnapped as soon as she stepped in her room or she sat up for a period of time, fully dressed, or she may have decided to go out again.”

  “Go out? Alone and after midnight? A Batternberg girl?” With each question, Mr. Lancet’s voice turned shriller, attracting the attention of everyone on this side of the room. “Keep your tawdry opinion to yourself – and concentrate on finding out which of your Italian countrymen are holding Lydia Batternberg hostage.”

  Lieutenant Pellegrino did not flare in anger, merely turned away from the hotel owner, but not before I felt his speculative glance rest on me. He knew well that a Batternberg girl was capable of a great deal of independent movement.

  Ben returned to the room and made his way to my side. “I saw Henry down the hallway, I thought he was going to throttle me or anyone else in his path.” He lowered his voice. “If I were him, I would not use narcotics in front of half of New York City’s police brass.”

  “Narcotics?” I whispered. “What do you mean?”

  Ben said, “I’ve thought for a while now that Henry’s moods, his periods of strangeness, might have to do with illicit drugs. I can’t be positive, but in the last few days I’ve felt sure he is taking cocaine, either inhaling it or injecting it.”

  I knew nothing of
illicit drugs. But it was another piece to the puzzle. And with that, I decided to speak up. Henry had something to do with Lydia’s absence. Their relationship had been under increasing strain over the last few days, and last night he either lured her out of her room or she decided to talk to him again after returning to her room. Perhaps she tried to break off the engagement last night. I warned Lydia to be careful of Henry, but I hadn’t told her how he once locked me in a room and scared the hell out of me. Why didn’t I tell her that?

  “Ben, there are things I have to tell you about Henry,” I said.

  “About him and Lydia and all not being well?” he asked, quickly taking my point. His mind could be running on the same track.

  “Yes – and other things about Henry,” I said, thinking of the two brothels and his servant Jim. “I’ve learned something very disturbing.”

  I forgot, however, that Ben wasn’t the only Batternberg in the room. A hand closed around my upper arm. Uncle David said, “Peggy, no one wants to hear your wild thoughts at this particular juncture. Do you realize you are the only woman in this room? Your place is with your mother.” He turned to Ben. “Bernard and the others will be here any minute.”

  The entire Batternberg clan was descending on the Oriental Hotel, but if I knew one thing for certain, it was that not one of them would listen to me – and I was the only person possessing the truth: this wasn’t the work of a criminal gang but could only be Lydia’s fiancé.

  I turned and left, but not to report to the medical suite. No one would listen to me without some sort of proof; I knew I was too discredited to expect otherwise. I’d obtain evidence of Henry’s involvement, one way or another. I would start with confronting Henry himself. What could he do to me with his mother present, and servants besides?

  I made my way to the Taul rooms on the other side of the Oriental. I knocked on the door for a long time before an older maid, one I didn’t recognize, opened the door.

  “I need to speak to Mr. Taul. My name is Peggy Batternberg.”

  “Mr. Taul is not here,” she said.

  “When did he leave?”

  The maid hesitated, and at that instant I knew. He’d lied about intending to see his mother, and it was a lie he’d used many times before. I pushed open the heavy door. “I must speak to Mrs. Taul immediately.”

  In the darkened bedroom, Henry’s mother sat, propped up in her bed, in the same spot I’d last seen her. But she didn’t exude arrogance today. Her eyes tracked me, behind those spectacles, her lips working as if she were preparing words. Why was she afraid? There could only be one reason.

  “You know about Henry, don’t you?” I said. “You’ve always known everything about him.”

  She said in a rush, “Your sister is fine, I know she is fine. It’s all a mistake. There’s a doctor coming from Connecticut, we’ve used him before in times of crisis, he’s very discreet. He’ll take the situation in hand with Henry and reason with him, help him get rest. His name is Dr. Schepard. It will all be made right.”

  “This is past time for doctors!” I shouted. “The hotel is crawling with police. Where is my sister? Where’s he hiding her?”

  “It will all be made right,” she babbled. “The doctor is very discreet. He will know how to handle Henry and the police too.”

  “Where is Henry right now?” I demanded, gripping her bedpost. She shook her head.

  “Do you have any idea where Lydia could be?” I repeated.

  She clamped her mouth shut, sticking out her lower lip like a child in defiance. It could be she was as mad as her son.

  I heard a rustling of skirts in the doorway. It was the other maid, Victoria, the one who’d passed out bon-bons with a badly bruised wrist. I looked at her, my face a plea.

  “He’s at the stables,” the maid told me.

  “Shut your mouth!” screamed Mrs. Taul. “Disloyal bitch. I dismiss you. I’ll have you whipped for this!”

  I turned and picked up my skirts to run out of this room. I had to make it to Ben. If I told him what I’d just learned, on top of everything else, I knew he’d believe me. He was forming his suspicions already; he was no idiot. But I couldn’t see Ben or Uncle David in Mother’s suite. As I stood in the doorway, searching frantically, it was Lieutenant Pellegrino who walked over to me. “They went to be with other members of your family. Your uncles, some lawyers and some bankers too, to discuss the expected ransom.”

  “There isn’t going to be a ransom,” I said flatly.

  Something flickered in Lieutenant Pellegrino’s eyes. But he didn’t say anything. The police officer who always had a quick retort, a plan of action, waited.

  “I have to talk to someone, and it seems that person is you,” I said. “Please come to my room at the end of the hall in five minutes.”

  I told Lieutenant Pellegrino the entire story, beginning with meeting Countess Isabelle and the others in Lilliput, continuing to Mabel Morgan’s and Madame Kschessinska’s, and her identifying Henry’s driver, Jim, as a client. I finished with my forcing my way into Mrs. Taul’s suite and her insisting that this doctor from Connecticut could fix the disaster, as, it was implied, he had others before. The lieutenant no longer scoffed about my being a deluded victim of a murderous anarchist. His expression turned grimmer. Suspicions had apparently grown within him while he heard the speculations in the hotel suite. Now he knew that Henry might have not only abducted my sister and staged the scene as a kidnapping, but he could be involved in the murders of three women.

  “Taul’s at the stable now, the one where he keeps his horses?” asked Lieutenant Pellegrino.

  “Yes, though I’ve never been there,” I said.

  “I don’t need you to take me there,” he said. “I just need to know which racetrack. There are three of them.”

  “It’s Sheepshead Bay Race Track, but I am going with you,” I said. “I’m ready to leave now. No one will miss me. I’m just an annoyance to everyone here.”

  “I’m not worried about being annoyed,” he said, in a tone of voice that sounded extremely annoyed. “I’m worried about your safety, if this man is all worked up and crazy. It’s best that I go in alone, tell him there’s a development and he needs to be briefed. Once I have him in a room, I should be able to crack him if his brain is scrambled with narcotics.”

  He turned to leave, but I jumped in his path. “I know who the servants are by sight: Jim and Francois. You don’t. I can point them out to you.”

  He gave a heavy sigh. “And you’ll remain in the motor car at all times?”

  I promised I would, and minutes later, Lieutenant Pellegrino and I had left the Oriental Hotel in search of Henry Taul.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Lieutenant Pellegrino had a look on his face I’d not seen before: deep worry. I was certain that he alone had disbelieved the note, the story of a kidnapping, from the beginning. “People up in that room should be listening to you,” I said. “Doesn’t their bigotry concern you?”

  He shot me a sideways glance. “Doesn’t the bigotry at the Oriental Hotel concern you? The first owner, Austin Corbin, used to have a rule, and he advertised it: no Jewish guests allowed. Corbin died fifteen years ago, and Lancet changed the rule, but still, this was a well-known anti-Semitic hotel for years.”

  What an ugly, ugly revelation. So this is why we heard odd comments about staying there at the beginning: “It’s so big of you to stay here.” Just another awful thing my family was subjected to, at the instigation of Henry and his mother. But it wouldn’t have happened if the Batternbergs weren’t so eager for the marriage to Lydia.

  Lieutenant Pellegrino drove his motor car with more speed than I was used to. I had to grip the door handle tightly to avoid being flung up and down on the upholstered seat. He gunned the engine as he headed off the island, taking a bridge over the creek. He banged on his horn impatiently when a small car puttered in front of us.

  Within minutes, I spotted the weathered sign “Sheepshead Bay Race Track.” Cl
osest to us was the clubhouse, beyond it the huge grandstand overlooking the long oval track, with the stables on the far side of the track.

  The afternoon had shifted to evening as Lieutenant Pellegrino down-shifted the gears of the motor car. A grove of thick-branched trees as well as the clubhouse itself cast long shadows across the patchy grass and drive. The lieutenant gripped the steering wheel as he drove past the clubhouse, looking this way and that. The sound of the gravel under the slow-moving wheels was like the rat-a-tat of a gun.

  There was no sign of life in the clubhouse. The doors were shut and padlocked; windows were not boarded up but streaked with dirt and grime. Frayed beige shades were drawn to the bottom of each window from within. I couldn’t believe this was the club for the praised racetrack that not only Henry but others at the hotel talked about. The place exuded a sad defeat, a shame that was perhaps inevitable when a closing was pushed through as a supposed vortex of vice.

  Lieutenant Pellegrino turned the motor car around to get a closer look at the track. Here, too, I saw signs of desertion: crabgrass everywhere, and broken wooden rails. The grandstand was absolutely enormous, like everything in Coney Island. It had been constructed for thousands. Now it was as empty as the Colosseum of Rome.

  The police lieutenant stopped the car, peering across the track and toward the stables. The wheels still, I could hear the hum of the amusement park a few miles away: band music and the screams of those on the rides. A snatch of piano even drifted on the evening breeze from the ocean, and I remembered the jaunty ragtime tune in Mabel Morgan’s parlor.

  “What’s that?” said Lieutenant Pellegrino, scowling at the stables. “Something moved in a second-floor window.” My pulse racing, I studied each of the five windows, but saw nothing.