Murder between the Lines

by Radha Vatsal

  “They were.” Kitty recalled the acrid odor.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean,” she corrected herself, “were they?”

  “Oh yes. Enough to make extrication extremely challenging. Rescuers went in with oxygen masks but were still forced to operate electric fume blowers for several hours before they could remove the bodies, many of which were severely mangled.”

  Kitty covered her face with her hands. Had she and Dr. Bright been any closer to the boat, had they gone below as he had suggested…

  “What’s the matter, Capability? You look pale all of a sudden. Are your injuries from the accident still bothering you?”

  “I think I might need to lie down,” Kitty replied.

  “I think you should. The doctor prescribed rest, but you’ve been rushing around as though nothing happened. It was bound to catch up with you.” He put aside his paper. “Have you given any further thought to what you told me? That you might quit the Page?”

  “No!” Kitty sat up straight. “That was in the heat of the moment. Right after Elspeth died.”

  “You were concerned about your health.”

  “Dr. Stevens said I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Dr. Stevens also said you shouldn’t strain yourself.”

  Kitty pushed back her chair. “I may have overdone it a bit yesterday. I’m going to lie down now.”

  On her way to her rooms, Kitty whispered to Grace, “Please bring me a copy of the newspaper when my father isn’t looking.” She added, by way of explanation, “He thinks I need to take a nap.”

  As she lay in bed, Grace knocked on the door. “Here you go, Miss Kitty. Would you like me to close the curtains?”

  “No thanks, Grace. I’ll relax like this for a bit.”

  The papers blamed the Edison battery and ruled out sabotage, but Kitty wasn’t so sure. What had Dr. Bright’s assistant been doing there? He had seemed so shifty at first, and then he had smiled that self-satisfied smile, the memory of which still made her skin crawl.

  She scanned the stories, which examined the incident at the navy yard from various angles. One said that there had been over two hundred deaths due to collisions, explosions, and chlorine gas in submarines even before the vessels were first used in combat. Most of those casualties had been borne by the navies of France, Great Britain, and Russia. The United States Navy remained notably free of losses until the sinking of the F-4 due to a corroded battery lining the previous March.

  Still, the E-2 had the reputation of being an unlucky craft, and the lead-acid batteries that it normally used had caused problems, which the new batteries were supposed to solve. Once, the paper said, while practicing maneuvers, a crewman noticed chlorine gas gathering in the boat. It was hurried to the surface and the hatch opened to give the crew fresh air, but still, every crewman started bleeding from the nose and mouth, and one suffered irreparable damage to his lungs.

  Another article, BLOW TO EDISON BATTERY, reported that “upon the results of investigation into the cause of the E-2 explosion will depend on whether the Edison battery is used or discarded by the United States Navy…” It speculated that the accident had occurred under the battery deck most likely while the battery was being discharged, “that is, while the electrical energy that had been stored in the battery was being removed by means of a rheostat.” If subsequent investigation confirmed that the explosion occurred while the battery was being discharged rather than charged, it would mean the end of the battery as far as the navy was concerned.

  Previous tests of the Edison battery had shown only infinitesimal amounts of hydrogen being produced while the batteries were in use.

  So either those tests had been wrong, or this time, something different had occurred.

  Kitty looked away from the jungle of words printed on the page. She couldn’t see her way through it. She couldn’t begin to understand why Mr. Emerson had been at the navy yard, and whether his presence there had anything to do with Dr. Bright and what happened to Elspeth.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kitty reminded Mr. Weeks over breakfast that she would be attending Mrs. Belmont’s “charity event” that evening.

  “I have been meaning to ask. What is it?” he said. “One of those suffragist shindigs?”

  “Not exactly.” Kitty felt pretty certain that in his book, Mrs. Sanger would be worse than any suffragist shindig. “It’s just a cause she supports.”

  “A group for brow-beaten husbands?” He chuckled. “Will you be late?”

  “I should be back by ten.”

  “Keep Rao with you. I’ll be out at a meeting, but be sure that you give Mrs. Codd the order for my dinner.”

  To avoid being scolded for straining herself, Kitty brought the paper along with her to the car.

  The news of the explosion had taken a bizarre turn: A FOREIGN NAVY USES EDISON BATTERY TOO… HYDROGEN GAS NO DEFECT.

  In the course of defending the Edison battery tests on the E-2, Dr. Miller Reese Hutchison, Mr. Edison’s “personal representative and chief engineer,” had let slip that the Edison battery was already in use in the war in Europe. “Up to that moment,” the story said, “it had been supposed that the United States had an option on the exclusive use of the device if the tests to which it was to be subjected proved satisfactory.”

  Dr. Hutchison was quoted as saying, “The Edison cells have been in use on submarines for a long time, although this is not generally known. Mr. Edison is not in the munitions business, and he has not sold any since the war, but before that, three submarines of a certain European power were fitted with these batteries. They have not met with any accident.”

  A large number of visitors, including women and girls—all of whom were kept back by a squad of marines—had gathered to watch the hauling away of the E-2’s twisted interior. “Rumors that the explosion Saturday afternoon was deliberately caused were denounced as falsehoods yesterday by Commander Frank B. Upham, second in command of the navy yard,” the story went on.

  That would seem to exonerate Dr. Bright’s assistant, but the question of why he had been wandering about in the vicinity of the dry dock remained unanswered.

  Dry dock. Kitty had just learned the term, but it already felt like second nature.

  She turned to the following article. A Denver automobile manufacturer, working with Edison batteries similar to those used in the E-2, had said that they had caused “frequent and sometimes dangerous explosions.”

  “Only a few weeks ago,” the manufacturer told reporters, “a navy official and I were discussing these new batteries, and I then warned him of the danger I had discovered. The new Edison batteries constantly generate hydrogen and oxygen.”

  Kitty thought it strange that the navy had allowed the tests to proceed regardless.

  What with the event at the navy yard and her nervous anticipation about attending the Sanger talk that evening, Mrs. Belmont’s theatrical production had slipped Kitty’s mind, and she only recalled it when Miss Busby asked about the Melinda and Her Sisters rehearsals.

  “You are going tomorrow, aren’t you? Make sure you take down all the debutantes’ names. I want our readers to know who will be playing whom. And get them to tell you how they feel about acting in a play. Did Mrs. Belmont’s secretary give you a copy of the script?”

  “Yes,” Kitty replied.

  “Have you read it yet? Is it any good?”

  “I was planning to read it today, Miss Busby,” Kitty improvised.

  “Well, please do it now. There’s no time to lose.”

  Kitty turned to leave, but Helena Busby hadn’t finished. “I’d like to be able to include a summary of the piece, since most of our readers won’t be able to afford seats at the Waldorf. I hear they’ll be going for as much as one hundred and twenty-five dollars for a box. We must give them the feeling of what it would be like to be ther
e. The operetta on the one hand, the society scene on the other. Do you see what I’m aiming for?”

  “I do, Miss Busby.”

  “All right then. Why don’t you go somewhere quiet and begin? How about down to the morgue? Tell Mr. Musser I sent you.”

  Kitty stopped by her desk and picked up her copy of the theatrical.

  “Where are you going?” Jeannie asked.

  “Downstairs to read.”

  “Really?”

  “Miss Busby wants me in the morgue so I can concentrate.”

  “Is that so?” Jeannie grinned. “R-r-romance.” She rolled the r.

  “You think?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Kitty wrinkled her nose. “Those two? They’ve both been here forever.”

  “Exactly.” Jeannie looked at Kitty with meaning. “Rekindling old sparks.”

  “Where do they meet?” That question still baffled Kitty.

  Jeannie thought for a moment, then she laughed. “I don’t know.”

  Downstairs, Mr. Musser was busy with his boys at the back, so Kitty picked an empty seat and opened her typewritten copy of Melinda and Her Sisters by Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont and Elsa Maxwell, with music and lyrics by Elsa Maxwell.

  The play began at the villa of the nouveau riche couple, Mr. and Mrs. Pepper of “Oshkosh out West,” where preparations were underway for a coming-out party for seven of their daughters. Kitty had no idea what to expect but suspected she would be in for a good time.

  Two gossips, Mrs. Malaprop and Mrs. Grundy, set the scene. “Have they enough money to move east and buy a villa at Newport?” Mrs. Malaprop asked, regarding the Peppers.

  “It doesn’t take money to get a villa at Newport. It takes brains,” Mrs. Grundy replied.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pepper made their appearance. “Today is the day of which I have always dreamed,” Mrs. Pepper declared. Today, their beautiful girls would be coming home with new accomplishments that would be sure to get them all good husbands.

  “I am going to see to it that our girls get all the advertising that the morning paper can print,” Mrs. Pepper continued. “That will get them good husbands, if anything will. Publicity is the very keynote of life nowadays.”

  Kitty suspected that Mrs. Belmont had contributed that line. Alva Belmont understood the importance of publicity to the success of her endeavors, which was no doubt why she had invited Kitty to observe the rehearsals in the first place.

  Mrs. Pepper explained why she educated her daughters: “So far as knowledge goes, we don’t send our girls to school to learn anything, for a perfect lady should know absolutely nothing. It creates an atmosphere of mystery and elusive charm. That’s what men like in a woman. She should know nothing, think nothing, say nothing, but dress well, look well, and dance.”

  Kitty smiled. She could think of a couple of girls who fit that description. Later, the Peppers’ youngest daughter, Melinda, arrived onstage, “dressed very plainly but attractively and carrying a suffrage flag with children of the poor holding onto her skirt and men and women in every walk of life following her in the procession.”

  The town’s mayor, Mayor Dooless, took Melinda to task for her beliefs, and while Kitty agreed with most of Melinda’s arguments, one gave her pause: “But by denying women the political right to vote and by allowing old black Joe that same right, you place old black Joe mentally and economically in a position superior to that of the late Mrs. Dooless, your capable and very good wife.”

  Fortunately, Melinda had other tricks up her sleeve. “Mayor, what exactly constitutes a citizen of a country?”

  The mayor replied, “A man who pays his taxes.”

  “But women pay taxes just the same as men, and yet they have no rights.”

  The mayor pointed out that it was the idea of women holding office that men objected to. “What would happen to the country with a pack of women howling in the Senate and giving pink teas at the White House? Why, the whole country would go to the dogs!”

  And Melinda replied undaunted, “The country has been going to the dogs for quite a while now. Why not give it to the cats for a change? Statistics teach us the women make just as good surgeons, lawyers, architects, and in fact excel in all the practical arts… When a woman tightens the rein and puts the bit on intellect and instinct, she will be unconquerable.”

  The play ended abruptly, to Kitty’s dismay—she had been enjoying it thoroughly—with Mrs. Pepper convinced by her daughter and ordering her other children, “Girls, girls, put away your curls! If the men won’t be prepared, we’ll show them that the women are for preparedness anyhow!” The entire party then burst into a song called “Girls, Girls, Put Away Your Curls,” followed by another rousing number, “Carry On!”

  Kitty tried to think how best to summarize the play without giving away key lines, which she was sure Mrs. Belmont wouldn’t want, when she heard a voice say her name.

  “Is it Miss Weeks?”

  Kitty put down her pencil.

  “I’m Phineas Mills. You came to see me about the somnambulist who died.”

  “That’s right.” Kitty remembered the curly-haired reporter from the sixth floor.

  “They send Ladies’ Page girls down here?” He didn’t hide his surprise.

  “Sometimes. We all need to look into things. Speaking of which”—Kitty realized he might have further information she could use—“did you happen to meet a man by the name of Emerson when you went to the Brights’? You couldn’t miss him; he’s a handsome fellow.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Kitty blushed. “No real reason.”

  “You’re still bothered by her death.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Well.” He scratched his head with the back of his pencil. “I’d need to check my notes. I’d be happy to…if you like.”

  “I would, thank you.”

  “Let me finish here first, and then I’ll see what I can find.”

  Kitty wrote her summary and handed it to Miss Busby.

  The editor read through it quickly. “Nicely done, Miss Weeks. I’ll look forward to seeing what you have to report on tomorrow’s rehearsal.” She paused. “I must say, I’m rather glad I pushed us down this course.”

  • • •

  Rao drove Kitty to the Hotel Brevoort on Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street in Greenwich Village that evening. Since her favorite no-nonsense brown suit had been sent to be mended after its outing to the navy yard, she wore a plain navy-blue one without any jewelry or trimmings so as not to attract attention. She arrived late in the hope that she would be seated in the back and would be able to leave early if necessary. A woman beneath a suffrage banner took her ticket, and another seated her at a table in the hotel’s spacious ballroom, which was already crowded with at least a hundred diners. More than half were women in smart attire. Later, Kitty would learn that people of influence, like the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Walter Lippmann, the youthful editor of the New Republic, had been present, but since she didn’t move in their circles, even had she known, it wouldn’t have mattered. She had gone out on a limb by being there. She would turn twenty soon, marriage and motherhood would be in the cards someday, and bit by bit, she had to understand the choices that other women faced, whether or not her father or anyone else approved.

  Mrs. Sanger came to the podium. She had a sweet, pretty face and kindly eyes with a downward cast. She didn’t appear in the least threatening to Kitty, more like someone who one might meet for tea or at a millinery shop than a powerful women’s advocate. Mrs. Sanger thanked her friends for supporting her on the eve of her trial and acknowledged that her pamphlets might have been too hysterical or too radical for some. But, she declared, they were the only way she could get attention for the subject of family limitation.

  Kitty looked around her. No one seemed shocked by the subject. Mrs. Sange
r held her audience rapt. For the poor, she said, “birth control does not mean what it does to us. To them, it has meant the most barbaric methods. It has meant the killing of babies—infanticide, abortions—in one crude way or another.”

  Kitty dreaded to imagine what Miss Busby or Mrs. Vanderwell would say if they knew she was listening to this. The Danceys would have fainted—but not before they pulled her from the hall first. Mrs. Sanger went on to discuss “the tribe of professional abortionists” who profited from others’ misfortunes, and she spoke feelingly of foundling asylums.

  “How,” she asked, “could I awaken public opinion to this terrible problem?” She could have taken a more conservative path, but would anyone have listened? This very gathering, she concluded, was proof that her words had been heard, and she exhorted the social workers present to gather the interest that had been roused and direct it.

  The crowd rose to its feet in applause, and as it died down, Kitty slipped away. Family limitation, abortion, infanticide… It was both fascinating and gruesome, but she had heard enough for the present. The next time she decided to attend such a talk, she would inform her father and have it out with him in advance.

  She had been lucky not to bump into anyone she knew, Kitty thought as she handed her token to the coat-check girl.

  “Miss Weeks!”

  Kitty dropped her purse.

  Sylvia Lane smiled and picked it up for her. “What brings you to the Brevoort this evening? Is Julian here as well?”

  “I came by myself.” Kitty could barely trust herself to speak. “And you?”

  “Mr. Lane and I are staying here.”

  Kitty could have kicked herself. Her father had mentioned it, but she hadn’t been paying attention.

  “Did you attend the Sanger dinner?” Miss Lane’s smile didn’t budge an inch, while Kitty’s face, already hot, felt like it would burst into flames.

  “I’m sorry, I’m running late.” She grabbed her coat from the attendant. “If you will excuse me, Miss Lane.” Of all people, how could she have run into that woman?