Murder between the Lines

by Radha Vatsal

  “Ooh, the motion picture dinner.” Kitty turned to Mr. Weeks. “If you had tickets to that, you might have caught a glimpse of some of the popular actors.”

  “I wouldn’t recognize a motion picture actor if he came up to me and shook my hand,” Mr. Weeks replied.

  “Don’t let Grace hear you,” Kitty said. The maid was pouring Mr. Weeks’s morning coffee. “She might decide to stop working in this house.”

  Grace grinned.

  Even Mr. Weeks smiled. “It’s too early for jokes.”

  “I had to be up early,” Kitty said. “Today is not a day for me to be running behind.”

  The account of Mr. Wilson’s day concluded with a note that the Congressional Union meeting had been arranged in Washington, and a confirmation had been telegraphed to the New York members last night. Among those expected to be present were Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, chairman of the New York State Division. Kitty wondered whether Mrs. Bright would be there as well—she ought to tell Elspeth’s mother about her conversation with Mr. Emerson.

  Another division of the CU, led by Mrs. Harriet Stanton Blatch, would make for Albany to speak to the head of the Democratic Party state committee members.

  • • •

  Kitty reached the Waldorf Hotel on Thursday the twenty-seventh at twenty minutes past eight o’clock. She would have arrived sooner, but a crowd of tightly packed heads had formed outside the hotel, slowing her down.

  The president’s car pulled up at eight thirty, and the throng let out a roar. Kitty stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck for a partial view of the tall gentleman tipping his top hat.

  “There’s Mrs. Wilson,” someone yelled.

  “He looks so happy, talking to everyone in his party.”

  “Look at him laugh!”

  Clutching her hat with one hand and her purse with the other, Kitty elbowed her way toward the hotel’s main entrance, a massive, curving driveway cut into the building right off Fifth Avenue at Thirty-Fourth Street.

  A uniformed doorman stopped her. “Excuse me, madam. Only hotel guests are allowed inside today.”

  “I’m a guest of Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont.” Kitty adjusted her cloche, which had come dislodged in her push forward.

  “Is that so? Just a minute.” He whispered something to another man in uniform.

  “Mrs. Belmont is sick, madam. She won’t be coming today.”

  “I’m with the New York Sentinel.” Kitty put on her most professional manner to hide her surprise. “I’m here to report on the president’s meeting with the Women’s Congressional Union. They’re expecting me. I’ve been invited.”

  The second man said, “Let her in. The ladies are already here. They can decide.”

  “This way please, madam.” The guard pointed her inside.

  The president wasn’t the first dignitary to stay at the hotel; everyone from generals to visiting princes slept at the two-decades-old Waldorf when they came to town. The hotel was built on land owned by the Astors, and it was joined a few years later by the Astoria, constructed on an adjacent plot. The two behemoths combined to boast a staggering thousand rooms, impeccable service, “tea” as a meal, and forward-looking restaurants that were among the first to serve ladies without escorts at any hour.

  Kitty made her way upstairs to the East Room via the famed Peacock Alley, a three-hundred-foot hallway that, at certain hours, was filled with “swells” and was the best place to preen, to see and be seen in Manhattan. But before nine in the morning, on the day of the president’s visit, it was just a corridor furnished with silk carpets and ornate chinoiserie placed on pedestals at suitable intervals.

  At the entrance to the East Room, a woman took attendance from a list on her clipboard. “And you are?” she said to Kitty.

  “Capability Weeks.”

  She scanned her sheet. “I’m afraid I don’t have you here.”

  “Mrs. Belmont invited me.” Kitty glanced into the room, where several dozen women milled about.

  “You know Mrs. Belmont is ill?”

  “I was informed.”

  A bell rang inside the room. “Ladies! I have bad news,” a woman’s voice called. “It seems that the president will not see us.”

  “How can that be?” someone cried.

  “We had it all arranged!”

  “It’s a disgrace!”

  With the attendance-taker distracted by the wave of indignation that had ensued, Kitty slipped inside. She worked her way to the back so she would be harder to spot.

  “Ladies, ladies. Quiet please.” The announcer waited until the chatter died down. “It appears that the president believes that an appointment hasn’t been made, but it has. We have the confirmatory telegram.”

  “Well, we’ll wait here all day,” the women shouted.

  Just as the situation seemed as though it would get out of hand, a man with slicked-back hair entered, checking the time on his gold pocket watch.

  “Oscar,” someone murmured, referring to the maître d’hôtel, Oscar Tschirky, who was such a fixture that he was known simply by his first name or as “Oscar of the Waldorf.”

  Oscar approached the woman who had made the initial announcement and whispered something.

  “Who is he speaking to?” Kitty whispered to the lady beside her.

  “Mrs. E. Tiffany Dyer, our Union’s secretary. Haven’t you met her?”

  “I’m afraid not.” She smiled, took a step back, and melted away before her ignorance aroused any further suspicions.

  “Friends,” Mrs. Dyer said, after she and the maître d’ had finished their discussion. “In order to help us move beyond this impasse, Mr. Oscar has kindly agreed to convey a note from us to the president’s secretary.”

  Kitty hoped they would be able to work out something if for no other reason than she would hate to miss her chance to see Mr. Wilson in person and forfeit her assignment. Besides, even the papers said the meeting had been confirmed.

  The note was composed, and Mrs. Dyer read it out: “More than one hundred women in the East Room desire an audience in regard to the national suffrage amendment. They ask for ten minutes of your time.”

  “Written with all the care as if it had to deal with the sinking of a neutral ship,” one of the few men present observed with a smirk to another. Their disheveled suits and cynical air marked them as reporters.

  Kitty caught sight of Mrs. Bright speaking with a group of friends, and Mrs. Marquand, the Brights’ neighbor, nearby.

  She walked across. “How nice to see you here, Mrs. Marquand. I wasn’t aware that you are also a supporter of constitutional reform.”

  “I’m not.” She looked down her ski-slope nose. “I’m here to support Ephigenia. It’s the first time she’s really been out since Elspeth died.”

  Mrs. Bright noticed Kitty and peeled away from her group. “Miss Weeks. Are you here on business?”

  “Yes, I am. Mrs. Belmont invited me.”

  Oscar returned. “I have here a reply from Mr. Tumulty, the president’s secretary.” He handed a note to Mrs. Dyer.

  “‘I very much regret that the president’s engagements this morning make it impossible to arrange this matter as you have generously suggested,’” she read aloud.

  “Shame! Shame!”

  Mrs. Dyer waited for silence. “‘When the representative of your committee called at the White House yesterday,’” she continued, “‘the president informed her of the crowded condition of his calendar today.’”

  “We will have a response,” a shrill voice cried. “But first, all reporters must leave!”

  “Ladies,” the handful of men in the room protested.

  “This is private business.”

  The men left, dragging their feet, and the door to the East Room closed behind them.

  “Reporter here!” The attendance-take
r had noticed Kitty and shouted, accusatory finger pointing.

  Kitty wished she could disappear as a hundred pairs of eyes swiveled to stare at her.

  “Miss Weeks works for the Sentinel,” Mrs. Bright said. “I can vouch for her. She’s all right.”

  “She can stay. Let’s get back to work.” Mrs. Dyer decided the matter.

  The note-writing resumed.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bright. May I speak to you for a moment in private?”

  “Excuse me, Jeanette.” Mrs. Bright moved away from Mrs. Marquand. “What is it, my dear?” Her expression was open, honest, without a trace of guile.

  “I thought you might like to know that I met Mr. Emerson,” Kitty said in a low voice. “I’d like to tell you more about it. Perhaps, after this—if you have some time—”

  The ruddy cheeks turned pale.

  “Would you like to sit, Mrs. Bright?”

  “No, no. I’m fine. What did he say?” Elspeth’s mother grabbed Kitty’s arm.

  Kitty regretted her decision to bring up the topic. “I was hoping we could discuss it later.”

  Mrs. Bright anxiously eyed her up and down. “You’re keeping something from me, Miss Weeks!”

  Kitty stalled. She didn’t want to cause a scene.

  “Tell me, Miss Weeks.”

  “Mr. Emerson said that he had arranged to meet Miss Bright in the park the night she died.”

  Mrs. Bright went weak at the knees. “I think I’ll take that chair now.”

  At that very moment, a baby-faced man with thinning hair walked in.

  “Mr. Tumulty, the president’s secretary!” someone said with a gasp.

  “Please be patient, ladies. The president of the United States is on his way,” Mr. Tumulty announced.

  Chapter Thirty

  Before Kitty knew what was happening, Woodrow Wilson strode in. Sixty years old and almost six feet tall, the slender president wore a dark suit, stiff-collared shirt, tie, and tie pin. His narrow, ascetic face with high cheekbones, the rimless glasses perched on his nose, and his watchful demeanor gave the former Princetonian the stern, cold look she had read about.

  The president clasped his hands behind his back and addressed the assembly in a measured, careful manner. “I ought to say, in the first place, that the apologies I think should come from me, because I had not understood that an appointment had been made. On the contrary, I supposed none had been made and therefore had filled my morning with work from which it did not seem possible to escape.”

  Kitty thought she must be in a dream. She hoped Miss Busby would allow her to write about the brouhaha over the scheduling—the misunderstanding and Mr. Wilson’s apology.

  “It may be, ladies, that my mind works slowly,” he continued. “I have always felt that those things that were most solidly built were built piece by piece, and I felt that the genius of our political development in this country lay in the processes of our states and in the very clear definition of the difference of sphere between the state and federal governments.”

  While he spoke, Kitty had heard a rustle behind her. Now, she looked back—Mrs. Bright’s chair stood empty. Kitty scanned the crowd to see Elspeth’s mother quietly wending her way to the door. For a moment, she considered following her, since Ephigenia Bright didn’t look well. Kitty weighed her options. The president of the United States won.

  “When I last had the pleasure of receiving some ladies urging the amendment to our constitution,” he was saying, “I told them that my own mind was unchanged, but I hoped open, and that I would take pleasure in conferring with the leaders of my party and the leaders of Congress with regard to this matter. I have not fulfilled that promise, and I hope you will understand why I have not fulfilled it, because there seemed to be questions of legislation so pressing in their necessity that they ought to take precedence over everything else.”

  He was putting the women off, Kitty realized with mounting fury. He believed that other matters were more important.

  “The business of government is a business from day to day, ladies,” the president continued, “and there are things that cannot wait.”

  Like votes for half the population? If only Alva Belmont were here to challenge him. She would never let Mr. Wilson get away with such a feeble explanation.

  “I have not forgotten the promise that I made, and I certainly shall not forget the fulfillment of it, but I want always to be absolutely frank. My own mind is still convinced that we ought to work this thing out state by state.”

  Kitty glanced around her. Many of the women were shaking their heads with disappointment. She spotted Mrs. Marquand listening intently; Mrs. Bright must have left without informing her friend.

  “I did what I could to work it out in my own state in New Jersey,” Mr. Wilson continued, “and I am willing to act there whenever it comes up; but that is so far my conviction as to the best and solidest way to build changes of this kind, and I for my own part see no reason for discouragement on the part of the women of the country in the progress that this movement has been making.”

  No reason for discouragement. No reason for discouragement? How long did they have to wait—until the war with Europe was over? Then some new “pressing” matter would rear its ugly head. The change to the constitution could be put off indefinitely.

  “It may move like a glacier, but when it does move, its effects are permanent. I had not expected to have this pleasure this morning and therefore am simply speaking offhand and without consideration of my phrases, but I hope in entire frankness. I thank you sincerely for this opportunity.” The president bowed.

  A smattering of applause went through the room.

  Mrs. Dyer thanked Mr. Wilson for his time. “We had hoped,” she added, “that you would include the woman suffrage question in your address in the Middle West when you take up the campaign for preparedness. Yes, Mrs. Bruere?” She pointed to a woman who had raised her hand.

  “You are urging a federal movement, sir,” Mrs. Bruere said, “not a movement as separate states for preparedness. We believe and insist upon the necessity for an amendment to the federal constitution, because we feel that it is logical. We have the country behind us.”

  Mrs. Charles Beard spoke next. “No mobilization can be complete without the mobilization of women. Was the Clayton antitrust law gained state by state, sir?”

  “I do not care to discuss that.” Mr. Wilson responded with obvious annoyance.

  Kitty stood there, taking it all in, and she finally understood what she had just witnessed. When it came to matters he cared about, the president didn’t hesitate for a moment to campaign around the country to sway hearts and change minds. But when it came to woman suffrage, he took refuge behind states’ rights. Somehow, war warranted the exercise of his powers of persuasion, while campaigning for half his citizens’ rights did not.

  No wonder so many women were enraged. No wonder so many felt they must browbeat and threaten, take matters into their own hands.

  Mrs. Dyer stepped forward to thank the president once again, and he left as swiftly as he had arrived.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Kitty pushed her way through the hubbub outside the hotel. Even though it was freezing, the president’s admirers remained, stomping their feet and blowing into their hands to keep warm. This time, it was easier getting past the elbows and chests, the annoyed comments and stares, because she was one of the few who wanted to leave the vicinity of the Waldorf.

  A woman in a mink coat argued with a policeman, telling him that she had dropped her ticket to tonight’s dinner and demanding that he help her find it or allow her to enter without one. A gaily outfitted marching band had begun to tune up. Kitty passed a familiar face—Mr. Emerson’s bespectacled comrade. Seeing him there made her uneasy—he couldn’t possibly admire the cause that Mr. Wilson had come to New York to promote. She glanced his
way, but either he didn’t notice or preferred not to acknowledge her. Kitty didn’t give him another thought. She felt guilty about springing her news on Elspeth’s mother and then leaving her to fend for herself. All her energies were focused on reaching Mrs. Bright.

  Finally, the crowd thinned. Kitty quickened her pace until she came to a block where the traffic seemed to be moving freely and jumped into a cab. Fifteen minutes later, the taxi pulled to a stop and she paid the fare. She walked up to the Brights’ house and rang the bell.

  The butler opened the door.

  “Is Mrs. Bright in?” Kitty said. “I just need to speak to her for a minute.”

  “She is resting, Miss Weeks, and asked not to be disturbed.”

  A photograph of Elspeth stared out at Kitty from the étagère in the hall. A grandfather clock chimed once; it was half past eleven o’clock.

  No one rested before noon. Mrs. Bright must be very upset. Understandably so. “Could you please knock and ask her if she will see me? She knows what this is about.”

  The butler sent a maid upstairs to check. There was no sign of Dr. Bright or the twin boys.

  The maid came hurriedly back, looking worried. “She won’t answer,” she told the butler. “And the door is locked.”

  “Is that usual?” Kitty asked.

  The maid turned to the butler, then back to Kitty. “No, miss.”

  “Is someone else at home who can check on her?” Kitty had a dreadful sense that something might be wrong.

  “I think we should wait for Dr. Bright to come home,” the butler said.

  “By then, it might be too late. Excuse me.” Before either servant could protest, Kitty rushed past and took the stairs two at a time. She would never forgive herself if something had happened to Elspeth’s mother.

  “I beg your pardon, madam!” The butler followed.

  “She may be ill,” Kitty said. “She left a meeting with the president before it was done.” Kitty looked about on the landing. “Which door is it?”