by Radha Vatsal
For the moment, however, domestic matters beckoned. Mrs. Codd wanted to sit down and tabulate grocery bills, which they did every two weeks, and the linens had been returned from the laundry. Kitty and Grace checked the delivery, counting every pillowcase and napkin and marking each off in the household ledger. Then Kitty went through the cabinets and put together the list of staples that needed to be ordered: flour, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, and so on.
The Misses Dancey had been all for creating lists, and Kitty had adopted the habit with gusto. She wrote everything in her cloth-bound ledger and found that it helped her to keep track of expenses and also not forget anything, which she was apt to do when the Page was foremost in her mind.
She performed exercises in her room, jumping jacks and stretches, then tired, she lay in bed and skimmed through Arnold Bennett’s chapters on writing. She particularly appreciated his observation that “we may no more choose our styles than our character” and his advice never to pass judgment on one’s own writing until it was a week old, because “until a reasonable interval has elapsed, it is impossible for you to distinguish between what you had in your mind and what is actually on the paper.”
She had dozed off in the midst of his suggestions on how to avoid trite expressions when Grace knocked on the door.
“Miss Kitty.” Her face shone. “Mrs. Tate has arrived.”
Kitty hurriedly closed her book. “Really?”
“She’s waiting in the hall. She has your dresses.”
Kitty stood up at once. “Don’t make her wait, Grace. Bring her right in.”
Mrs. Tate was Kitty’s seamstress and one of the most in-demand women in the city. She would take her clients’ orders, promise left and right to be back at a certain time, and then miss the given date. Instead, she would breeze back at a moment of her choosing. If Kitty was out, Mrs. Tate would leave the clothes, and Kitty would have to telephone and try to set a time to meet for any necessary alterations. If she was home, well, she would drop whatever she happened to be doing. Everyone understood that that was the price of doing business with the seamstress.
“Ah, Miss Weeks.” Mrs. Tate bustled into Kitty’s sitting room, her canvas bag bursting. “I have your skirts.” She opened the bag and removed one of tartan wool and another that was dark green. “Do try them on.”
Kitty and Grace hurried off behind the changing screen.
“Sorry I’m late.” She always apologized, but her apologies didn’t mean anything. “Just recovering from the new year’s rush.”
Kitty had selected the materials and decided on the patterns way back in November.
“Some of these ladies, not you of course, but some others insisted that I come back for two or three fittings.”
Kitty came out wearing the tartan. Grace offered Mrs. Tate tea, which she accepted.
“Please turn, Miss Weeks.” She inspected the skirt. “I think it may need to be pinned right here.” She tugged excess fabric near the hips.
“Can you do it while I wait?” Kitty asked.
“You and so many others. Why don’t you let me take it home? I’ll have it back to you in a few days.”
She’d have it back by next season, Kitty thought, by which time it would be too late. “It’s just a few stitches. Please, Mrs. Tate.”
The seamstress conceded, and Kitty joined her father for dinner later that evening in a cheerful mood with two more items to wear in her closet.
“What are your plans for the weekend?” Julian Weeks wanted to know.
“I may help Mrs. Vanderwell prepare Amanda’s room for her tomorrow.” Kitty had never lied outright to her father before.
He held up his wine glass so that it caught the light from the electric chandelier. The cut-glass facets scattered the ray into dazzling patterns on the white tablecloth.
“Do you feel you would have benefitted from a woman’s touch these past few years, Capability?”
“No. I have Amanda, Mrs. Vanderwell, Miss Busby. I think I’m quite well looked after. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I’m just curious.”
Kitty changed the subject, hating having deceived her father but equally angry that she didn’t feel like she had another choice. A confrontation with him over her true whereabouts on Saturday would lead to a conflagration. He’d told her quite clearly that he didn’t want her looking into Elspeth’s death, even though he gave her plenty of leeway in other matters. At some point, they would have to have it out. But not at the moment.
“Terrible business in Mexico,” she said. The papers had reported the death of nineteen Americans, murdered by Pancho Villa’s marauding bandits.
“It is indeed,” Mr. Weeks said. They lapsed into silence.
“Are you busy on Monday?” Kitty asked after a while. She hadn’t decided what to do about the Margaret Sanger dinner.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Mrs. Belmont gave me a ticket to an event that I might like to attend—”
“Would you go by yourself?”
“Yes.”
He seemed distracted. “Capability, there are some things we should talk about.”
“What kind of things?” The question hung between them.
He wiped his forehead with a napkin. “Let’s leave it for a different evening.”
Kitty needed time to wrap up her investigation into Elspeth’s death, so she didn’t argue.
• • •
Kitty left the apartment giddy with excitement but also flush with a sense of disbelief. It didn’t seem possible that she, Ladies’ Page reporter Capability Weeks, was on her way to the United States Navy Yard, where she would observe tests that would transform the American fleet. In terms of the work she wanted to do, the kind of stories she wanted to write, she was finally headed in the right direction.
Rao drove her in the Packard to the East Side. As she requested, he dropped her off at the Vanderwells. Kitty pretended to look for something in her purse and waited until he turned the corner before she made her way by foot to the Brights’ home. She rang the bell to their door a few minutes before noon. The butler opened it and asked her to wait just as Dr. Bright, buttoning his gloves, came down the front stairs.
“You’re here,” he said without preamble. He sounded as though he hoped she might not come.
“I’m looking forward to the excursion, Dr. Bright.”
“And your father knows your whereabouts?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Kitty thought as she answered, “Yes.”
The butler helped Dr. Bright with his coat, and they climbed into his waiting motor car.
Kitty glanced over at Dr. Bright as the car turned toward Fifth Avenue and then veered southward. Like her father, he rode sitting upright and stared straight ahead. She distracted herself with the view from the window as the car made its way toward Brooklyn. On its own, Manhattan was a tiny island, but with its boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, it formed a vast metropolis surrounded on all sides by water. Piers and bridges sprouted everywhere like grass.
Smaller islands dotted the waterways around Manhattan: Blackwell’s Island with its Home for the Aged and Infirm; Randall’s Island with a School for the Feeble Minded and a Custodial Asylum for Idiots; Governors Island, now a military prison; Ellis Island, where millions of immigrants had arrived in the United States; and Bedloe’s Island, with the Statue of Liberty, holding her torch over three hundred feet into the air.
Dr. Bright’s chauffeur drove down Canal Street toward the triumphal arch and colonnade laid out in a horseshoe shape that formed the entryway to the double-decker Manhattan Bridge, which King’s Views said had the greatest traffic-carrying capacity in the world. As they motored up the incline leading to the bridge and crossed the East River, barges and ferries puffing along beneath it, Kitty could make out the elegant Brooklyn Bridge suspended li
ke a necklace above the waters to the south and the utilitarian Williamsburg Bridge through Dr. Bright’s window. Beyond it stretched another testament to the city’s progress, the Queensboro Bridge, resting on six enormous masonry piers.
The navy yard was located in the Wallabout Bay on the Brooklyn side of the East River, between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Kitty had looked it up in King’s, which described it as the most important and best-equipped of the nine navy yards in the country. It had two and a half miles of waterfront and four dry docks. Machine, boiler, and plumbing shops; painting, blacksmithing, and cooperage works; and storehouses, foundries, and marine barracks occupied its 144 acres, nineteen of which were reclaimed from the sea.
A uniformed guard stopped the car as it approached the entrance gate. “Visitors only allowed on weekdays, and you will need a pass from the captain of the yard.”
Dr. Bright’s chauffeur showed him some papers, which he checked. He peered into the vehicle.
“We’re going to the E-2, dry dock 2,” Dr. Bright said.
The guard waved them on.
They drove through the complex, past stately buildings and long, low sheds. Everywhere, men were busy at work, some in naval uniforms and others wearing grease-stained overalls.
“You should feel honored,” Dr. Bright said as they climbed out of the car. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness a historic breakthrough, one that will strike the fear of God into the naval world and preserve our sailors’ lives.”
“How exactly, sir?” Kitty picked up her skirts and followed him toward the ships and the activity near the water. “Would you be able to explain it to me in laymen’s terms?”
“Our navy is everything, Miss Weeks. It’s our best source of defense, and the submarines are its most sophisticated weapon. Great sums of money have been spent to come up with a solution to make them safer to inhabit, and Mr. Edison’s new battery will both prevent asphyxiation of the crew in the event of a prolonged submersion and will extend the underwater cruising range of the craft from less than one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles. That may not sound like much to you, but the craft’s increasing range makes it twice as lethal.”
“Thank you for putting it so clearly, Dr. Bright.” Kitty looked around her. There were fewer people here and no sign of any submarine. “It’s pretty quiet, isn’t it?”
“Lunchtime on a Saturday,” Dr. Bright said. “And we aren’t advertising the tests.” He walked on.
“Where is the vessel, Dr. Bright?”
“Not far. Come along… Elspeth never wanted to leave when she came to this place.” His mustachioed face didn’t give anything away.
“Is that so?” Fear curled tightly in Kitty’s stomach. There was no evidence of life in the vicinity. No sailors strolling by. No sound of people working. She was alone in a strange place with a strange man whose motives she didn’t fully comprehend. If she called for help now, no one would be able to hear her. “Where are we going?”
“Dry dock number 2.” He pointed.
Kitty saw nothing. Just some sheds and the masts of ships in the distance. “What is a dry dock?” She must keep him talking.
“It’s a dock that can be filled with water so a vessel floats in, and then drained, in order for repairs to be made on the hull. You remind me of Elspeth… She was always curious, ever since she was little. Always asking questions.”
Kitty felt sick. Curiosity killed the cat. The next life on the line might be hers.
“She would have gone far if she had been a boy,” Dr. Bright said.
“I think she intended to go far as a girl.”
“Here we are.” He stopped suddenly.
About fifty yards away, a gigantic U-shaped depression had been carved deep into the ground. Steps on the side allowed visitors to climb down, like in a steeply inclined amphitheater. A chain-link railing bordered the edge to prevent accidental falls.
Kitty quickened her pace and looked over. At the base of the amphitheater, sitting on what looked like wooden railway tracks, with ladders reaching up to it and ropes lashed to its sides, was an ominous, windowless, metal beast, narrow and streamlined so that it could prowl unseen through the depths and destroy ships sailing above it. A bridge had been constructed over the vessel, and a couple of workmen stood there casually talking.
Dr. Bright came up to Kitty. “The E-2 submerges several hundred feet and carries a crew of twenty-five. The batteries are being tested inside this very minute.”
Kitty’s heart beat faster.
“When they’re not underwater, the submarine comes to the surface, and the men can stand on top to get some fresh air.”
Kitty clutched the flimsy chain rail, nervous about toppling over. She was frightened by heights and tight spaces. Not for a thousand dollars would she have entered that metal tube, and not for ten thousand would she stand on top of it as it bobbed around in the Atlantic.
“Would you like to take a closer look? No one will mind if we descend.”
“I’m all right here,” Kitty said, watching the men beneath her.
Out of nowhere, a boom like a thunderclap ripped through the air. Kitty found herself stumbling backward. A plume of smoke shot from the submarine’s hatch. Something dark landed with a thump on the hull. All was quiet for a minute, then men emerged from the shadows, yelling and looking around in wild confusion.
“Get back to the car.” Dr. Bright stood in front of Kitty, blocking her view. “Now!”
Kitty hesitated. She had no idea what was going on, what had caused the blast.
“Now,” he repeated. There was no mistaking his commanding tone. He stayed in place, making sure Kitty obeyed, while sailors and workmen raced toward the vessel. An acrid smell began to make her feel ill, and Kitty pulled a handkerchief from her purse to cover her nose and mouth.
Several paces ahead, a man in a suit strode along. Kitty couldn’t tell why she thought he looked suspicious, and then she realized—he was the only person other than her walking away from the scene of the incident.
“Hey, you,” Kitty called.
He turned for an instant, just long enough for her to see his face.
“Stop,” she yelled, but he broke into a run. Kitty followed. Dr. Bright’s former assistant was too fast for her until, in the distance, he must have seen the guard at the gate barring the way, because he slowed down and she was able to catch up with him.
“Mr. Emerson.” She gasped for breath.
“How do you know my name?”
“We met in passing at the Brights’ home. I’m Capability Weeks, a friend of Elspeth’s.”
“Oh yes?” His eyes darted around. There was no way out except past the watchman.
“I believe you used to work for Dr. Bright? What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? I might ask you the same question.”
“I came to observe the tests.”
His lips parted into a smug smile that unnerved her.
“Were you invited?” Kitty said.
“None of your business.” He lifted his hat, smoothed down his hair, and, cool as could be, strolled over to the guard. “There’s been an explosion at the E-2. They need your help.”
The guard rushed off. Emerson tipped his hat to Kitty. Her hands clenched into fists, furious that she couldn’t clock him one. She could only watch as he sauntered away.
• • •
Dr. Bright returned to the car about half an hour later, muttering and shaking his head.
“Is everything all right?” Kitty asked.
“No, it’s not,” he said tightly.
“Is anyone injured?”
“I’m sure you’ll read all about it in the papers tomorrow, Miss Weeks. It goes without saying that this is not for you to report.” He tapped the glass partition between them and the driver. “Let’s go.�
��
The chauffeur started the engine.
Kitty’s head throbbed as the vehicle lurched forward. “Mr. Emerson was here. He seemed in a hurry to make himself scarce after the blast.”
Dr. Bright turned to her. “Phillip Emerson—who used to work for me?”
“I don’t know his first name, but yes.”
Dr. Bright didn’t ask how Kitty was acquainted with him.
“Should we tell someone?”
His jaw clenched. “That won’t be necessary.”
She waited a moment and then broached a question that had crossed her mind from the moment she laid eyes on his former assistant. “Dr. Bright, do you think the explosion might have been deliberately caused?”
“You mean sabotage?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
Dr. Bright started to reply, then thought better of it. He didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive back to Manhattan.
Chapter Eighteen
“Well, well, well.” Julian Weeks picked up his copy of Sunday’s paper. “There seems to have been an incident at the navy yard in Brooklyn.”
Kitty’s face burned as she hunched over her bowl of Kellogg’s cornflakes. She had woken early and scoured the entire article.
Her father dropped into his chair and started to read, shaking his head in amazement from time to time. “Four men were killed, and ten were injured while tests were underway on a new battery. They’re blaming Thomas Edison and his engineers.”
“Is that so?” Kitty hoped her words didn’t sound too forced.
“This submarine, the E-2, was the only one on which the new battery was being tested, and if it passed, it would have been used across the fleet.”
“Um-hmm.” She kept her voice neutral.
“Apparently, a great column of smoke shot out of the hatch. It had something to do with the hydrogen the batteries produced. Combined with the oxygen in the air, it formed steam, and the force of the explosion was so great,” he went on, scanning the page, “that it wrecked the entire interior of the craft. And pushed out the body of the chief engineer, which fell onto the hull. The fumes were dense and pungent enough—”