by Radha Vatsal
“The girl can turn herself in, you know. She has free will.”
Kitty pictured Miss Howe-Jones against the imposing walls of Westfield Hall. “I’m not so sure.”
• • •
At work on Monday, January 31, Miss Busby took a bite of a truffle from a box of bonbons. “Would you like to try one?”
“Thanks, I just had breakfast.” Kitty pulled up a seat. She had come to a decision that something must change. If she wouldn’t bend, then perhaps finally, her boss might.
“I enjoy our human interest stories, Miss Busby. But if we really are to do something new for the new year, then I’d like to propose this. That every now and then, we—I mean, I—take a stab at reporting crime.”
Helena Busby’s jaw dropped. “On the Ladies’ Page?”
“Yes.” Kitty could see no other way to keep working for the Sentinel and give rein to her investigative instincts.
The editor nervously unwrapped a fresh bonbon, the colored paper crackling. “That is most risqué. What did you have in mind: kidnapping, missing persons…arson?”
“Any or all of the above.”
“Oh my.” Miss Busby popped the chocolate into her mouth. “Oh my.”
“I know you disapprove, but before you dismiss it, or me, will you think about it first?”
The editor exhaled loudly. “Do I have a choice? Only the other day, I told Herman, ‘The world is moving too fast,’ I said. Next year, you will see me in a skirt up to my knees, and the year after that, with my hair cut short.”
Kitty grinned. The editor had a penchant for drama. But Herman was Mr. Musser, so Jeannie Williams had been right.
“You will think about it?” Kitty said as she left, carrying her assignments.
“I suppose I must. I don’t promise anything though.” Miss Busby raised her voice so that Kitty could hear her halfway down the hall.
“The Secret Service arrested a zealot in Cleveland,” Jeannie announced from her seat in the hen coop. “He was close to the president’s automobile and had a razor blade in his pocket. He told them that he had no idea that Mr. Wilson was even in town.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Kitty said. “The hubbub Mr. Wilson’s trips cause is difficult to miss.”
“I love Secret Service men.” Jeannie idly drew and then erased a heart by the side of a typewritten article. “They’re so dashing and handsome.”
Kitty laughed. “That they are.”
“I suppose Mr. Wilson has gone to the Middle West to convince the German-Americans there to support him if war becomes necessary. He’s stopping in Milwaukee next.” Jeannie turned to face her. “Aren’t you scared of what the future holds, Miss Weeks?”
“I am a bit,” Kitty replied. “But I intend to keep writing, keep asking questions. And beyond that, all we can do is wait and see what happens.”
Author’s Note
Murder Between the Lines chronicles Kitty Weeks’s adventures during the period from December 1915 to the end of January 1916. The events that occur in the novel are closely based on historical fact. As Kitty lives these events, she doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. She experiences them as they unfold, and as they are reported by the main source of news in the 1910s—newspapers. As a result, newspaper accounts of the Edison batteries, the president’s visit to New York, and more are woven through the text as Kitty would have encountered them. (I’ve provided a list at the end of the book in the References section.)
Where possible, I’ve also used period sources, whether it’s yearbooks or math problems, to give readers a sense of what girls were learning, reading, and doing at the time. And when historical characters such as President Wilson, Mrs. Belmont, or Mrs. Sanger appear, I try to rely on their own words—from speeches, articles, or other sources—as much as I can. So, for instance, the account of President Wilson’s meeting with the members of the Congressional Union that appears in the novel is almost identical to the account that was reported in the New York Times. I do this because, time and time again, I’ve discovered that what I learn about the 1910s from its own sources is far more fantastical, thought-provoking, and in some sense, “fictional” than anything I could make up.
Further Reading
For readers who would like to know more about the Edison batteries and Miller Reese Hutchison, I would recommend Patrick Coffey’s book American Arsenal: A Century of Waging War, which traces America’s transformation from an isolationist state to a world superpower.
As a parent navigating the school system, I was fascinated to learn about the ups and downs of girls’ education in the early part of the twentieth century in The Science Education of American Girls: A Historical Perspective by Kim Tolley.
Before I began writing this book, I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know much about the woman suffrage movement. Aileen S. Kraditor’s The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 provided an easy-to-read and thought-provoking introduction.
And I still haven’t wrapped my head around the multifaceted Alva Belmont. Sylvia D. Hoffert’s Alva Vanderbilt Belmont: Unlikely Champion of Women’s Rights and Amanda Mackenzie Stuart’s Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age gave me a start.
For more on New York in the early 1910s, see the further reading section of the first novel in the Kitty Weeks series, A Front Page Affair. Also take a look at www.radhavatsal.com.
Reading Group Guide
1. What are the first three words that come to mind when you think of Kitty Weeks? How do those words fit her?
2. What draws Kitty to Elspeth Bright and keeps her going when everyone else says that Elspeth’s death wasn’t a crime?
3. If you have read A Front Page Affair, how do you think Kitty has changed since the first book, and how does that influence how she handles situations in Murder Between the Lines?
4. What obstacles and choices does Kitty face in terms of her work? In what ways have things dramatically changed for women in the past hundred years, and in what ways have they not?
5. Describe Julian Weeks as a father and his relationship to Kitty. Does Sylvia Lane fit the bill as a potential spouse for him and good mother for her? Is Kitty right to be nervous about her father’s relationship with Miss Lane and its effects on her?
6. What would you think of a president marrying in office today? What does Miss Busby’s response to President Wilson’s remarriage tell you about her?
7. Miss Busby is described as running the Ladies’ Page with an “iron fist.” Elspeth Bright says Miss Howe-Jones runs Westfield Hall like her “fiefdom.” What parallels do you see between the two women? In what ways are they different?
8. What sense do you get of the life of a working woman in the newspaper business based on Kitty, Jeannie, and what we know of Miss Busby’s experiences? Is Kitty wrong to advise Georgina Howell to be cautious? If not, how should she have advised her?
9. How would you characterize Dr. Clarke’s theory about women’s health and how it affects their education? Do you see any vestiges of that kind of thinking today? Are there similar theories today that you think might be debunked in the future?
10. What do you think motivates Mrs. Howe-Jones to shield Prudence Marquand from the law? What arguments does she use? Do you think she was correct? Should Kitty have taken matters into her own hands and gone to the authorities herself? Why do you think she didn’t?
11. What are the reasons that President Wilson gives to put off promoting an amendment to the Constitution that would give women the right to vote? What arguments do the women at the meeting at the Waldorf use to counter his stance? Do you think their points are effective?
Selected References and Resources
Newspaper articles
“Energy and Mr. Edison,” New York Times, October 23, 1906.
“New Batteries Powerful,” New York Times, Au
gust 10, 1907.
“Edison Lessens Submarine Peril,” New York Times magazine section, April 18, 1915.
“Wilson Indorses Woman Suffrage,” New York Times, October 7, 1915.
“President Weds Mrs. Galt in Her Home in Simple Ceremony; to Spend Honeymoon at Hot Springs,” New York Times, December 19, 1915.
“Modified Conscription for Britain,” New York Times, December 29, 1915.
“Our Relations with Austria Acute,” New York Times, December 29, 1915.
“Girl Somnambulist Is Frozen to Death,” New York Times, December 30, 1915.
“Lusitania Settlement Now Likely, Following Austria’s Compliance on All Our Demands,” New York Times, January 1, 1916.
“New Year Revelers Crowd the Hotels,” New York Times, January 1, 1916.
“Liner Persia Torpedoed; Hundreds Perish. Three Americans, One a Consul on Board. Washington Sees a New Crisis Threatened,” New York Times, January 2, 1916.
“Blow to Edison Battery,” New York Times, January 16, 1916.
“Gas Explosion in Submarine Kills 4, Injures 10, at Brooklyn Navy Yard; Edison’s New Safety Battery Blamed,” New York Times, January 16, 1916.
“Many Submarine Deaths,” New York Times, January 16, 1916.
“A Foreign Navy Uses Edison Battery Too,” New York Times, January 17, 1916.
“Warned of Battery Danger,” New York Times, January 17, 1916.
“E-2 Court of Inquiry Is Named by Daniels,” New York Times, January 18, 1916.
“Admits Cooke’s Warning; Navy Department Says No Hydrogen Detector Could Be Found,” New York Times, January 21, 1916.
“Roosevelt Defense Plan,” New York Times, January 22, 1916.
“Wilson Comes Here to Face a Busy Day,” New York Times, January 26, 1916.
“All Cheer the President,” New York Times, January 28, 1916.
“‘Prepare,’ President Wilson Pleads; ‘No Man Can Be Sure of the Morrow,’” New York Times, January 28, 1916.
“President Tells of ‘Humbugs at Large,’” New York Times, January 28, 1916.
Books and other sources
1915 Yearbook, Reading High School for Girls. Reading, Pennsylvania.
Belmont, Mrs. O. H. P. “Women of Today Are Making Their Mark as Modern World Builders,” New York Times magazine section, November 22, 1914.
Belmont, Mrs. O. H. P, and Elsa Maxell. Melinda and Her Sisters. New York: Robert J. Shores, Publisher, 1916. https://archive.org/details/melindahersister00belmrich.
Bennett, E. A. Journalism for Women: A Practical Guide. New York: John Lane, 1898.
Clarke, Edward H. Sex in Education; or A Fair Chance for the Girls. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1873.
Collaw, John M., and J. K. Ellwood. School Arithmetic, Advanced Book. Johnson series. 1900.
Crane, Laura Dent. Automobile Girls Along the Hudson or, Fighting Fire in Sleepy Hollow. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company, 1910.
Lunardini, Christine A., and Thomas J. Knock. “Woodrow Wilson and Woman Suffrage: A New Look.” Political Science Quarterly 95, no. 4 (Winter 1980–81): 655–71.
Marcet, Mrs. Conversations on Chemistry; in Which the Elements of That Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. 1853.
Morton, Eliza H. Morton’s Elementary Geography. Chicago: American Book Company,1900.
Sanger, Margaret. Speech given at the Hotel Brevoort, January 17, 1916. Part of Margaret Sanger Papers collection, Library of Congress. http://wyatt.elasticbeanstalk.com/mep/MS/xml/b128167h.html#b128167h.
Stuart, Amanda Mackenzie. Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.
Thoday, D. Botany, A Textbook for Senior Students. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1915.
Young, Joe. “When the Grown Up Ladies Act Like Babies (I’ve Got to Love ’Em That’s All).” Edgar Leslie and Maurice Abrahams, composers. Johns Hopkins University Levy Sheet Music Collection, 1914. http://jhir.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/10133.
Read on for an excerpt from the first book
in the Kitty Weeks Mystery series
Available now from Sourcebooks Landmark
“This is whom they’ve sent to cover my party?” Mrs. Elizabeth Basshor was in her forties, plump, and well-preserved. As befitting a queen bee, she was dressed in crisp yellow silk, and the plunging neckline of her gown revealed an ample, bejeweled bosom.
“Hotchkiss?” She turned to her secretary, a boyishly handsome fellow who coughed into his palm by way of reply. Behind them, workers put final touches on the dais for the band, and waiters scurried about, pushing chairs into place and arranging floral centerpieces on tables dotted across the lush lawns of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club.
Mrs. Basshor trained her gaze on Capability Weeks. “Are you sure you are up to this?”
Nineteen-year-old Kitty squared her shoulders. Today’s Independence Day gala—held on Monday, July 5, since the Fourth fell on a Sunday—would be her first solo outing as a reporter. In a simple tea dress, her glossy chestnut hair pinned away from her heart-shaped face, her brown eyes sparkling, Kitty felt ready. “Miss Busby wanted to attend, but she sent me because she’s indisposed. I’ve been working for her for the past sixth months.”
“I know your Miss Busby.” Mrs. Basshor sniffed at the mention of Kitty’s editor at the Ladies’ Page of the New York Sentinel. “She gives me a nice write-up.” Her gaze drifted to the workmen on the lawns. “Too close, too close,” she called, frowning and pointing to a string of lanterns, patterned in red, white, and blue. Her attention returned to Kitty. “Did Miss Busby tell you we’re having a display of Japanese daylight fireworks this afternoon? You must observe them carefully and be sure to give them their due. They’re quite spectacular, not at all flashy like the nighttime ones.
“Hotchkiss.” She swung around to him. “See to it that Miss Meeks receives a copy of the guest list and the program. If you need further help, Miss Meeks, my secretary will be happy to assist you.”
“It’s ‘Weeks,’ actually,” Kitty corrected, but Elizabeth Basshor had already stepped off the terrace and was busy making sure that the lanterns were being hung to her satisfaction.
“You mustn’t take it personally.” Hotchkiss tried to smooth things over as soon as his employer was out of earshot. “Names aren’t her strong point—I’ll leave you to imagine what she called me when I first started working for her.” He shuddered at the ghastly memory and handed Kitty a page from his clipboard.
She glanced at the notes: Guests to arrive at three. Japanese fireworks from four to five. Illumination of the clubhouse terrace and Italian gardens at six. Dinner and dancing to follow.
“Have you been with Mrs. Basshor for long, Mr. Hotchkiss?”
“About five years, Miss Weeks.” He took a deep breath. “I must point out that we’ve had some cancellations because of Saturday’s incident on Long Island.”
Kitty nodded. He was referring to the shooting of Mr. J. P. Morgan, the nation’s foremost financier, who had been attacked by an intruder who barged his way into the Morgan mansion. The story had made front-page headlines and pushed aside news of the war in Europe.
“Fortunately, Mr. Morgan seems to be recovering well.” Hotchkiss pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “Otherwise—who knows—we might have had to call off the party.” He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “Do you know how much work it took to get to today, Miss Weeks? Months of agonizing. Menus changed and changed again. The guest list vetted, entertainment fixed—and we have the impossible task of ensuring that each year everything is the same, and, at the same time, utterly different.”
“It sounds extremely demanding, Mr. Hotchkiss.” Kitty looked around her. “But this is a beautiful location.” The patio ga
ve way to green lawns, which sloped toward formal gardens and the Hudson River, and backed up against the majestic brick-and-stone clubhouse, which had once been home to a Vanderbilt granddaughter.
“It is much more pleasant than trying to do something in Manhattan.”
“Hotchkiss!” Mrs. Basshor trilled just as a long-haired Oriental beckoned to her secretary from the far side of the terrace.
“If you will excuse me”—he sounded flustered—“I should go take care of business.”
Kitty left him to negotiate the competing demands for his attention and wandered off to explore the grounds before the party began. She made her way past trimmed topiaries, through a vine-covered pergola, and down neatly graveled paths that led to a fountain burbling at the center of a peaceful Italian garden.
In the distance, ships steamed up and down the broad expanse of the Hudson. Kitty watched the water surge in their wake for a few quiet moments. Just a year and a half ago, in the spring of 1914, she had been nothing more than a recent boarding-school graduate arriving by sea to set foot on home soil for the first time. She had been born abroad and, as a child, had followed her businessman father on his travels through the Indies and the Orient; then, for almost a decade, she boarded at the Misses Dancey’s school in Switzerland until he sent for her to join him in New York.
She had applied for the position at the Ladies’ Page after she had settled in and grown accustomed to her new town. Without any practical experience, she had been certain she wouldn’t be selected. But somehow, Miss Busby had hired Kitty as her apprentice—and then set her to opening mail, reading proofs, judging cookery contests, and, every now and then, writing a piece about domestic matters.
The Morgan shooting, which reawakened Kitty’s urge to write a real news story, seemed like just the latest instance of how the world could turn on a dime. Last summer, an assassin’s bullet in far-off Sarajevo had launched the entire continent into war. This May, a torpedo from a German U-boat had struck the majestic ocean liner Lusitania, which sank in a mere eighteen minutes, killing nearly twelve hundred passengers—128 of them Americans—and it felt as though the United States might be sucked into Europe’s madness.