The Seventh Bullet

by Daniel D Victor

  Although the afternoon sun was fading quickly, I turned to study his face. “You doubt the official story too, then, Senator?” I asked. Somehow I could not call him “Bev.” In fact, we were a funny pair: I could not utter his sobriquet; he, for some reason, would not speak my surname.

  “I may have been defeated back in 1910, Doctor,” he said, “but I’m still a politician. And, therefore, I’m always a bit sensitive about being too definitive too quickly. I’m used to keeping an open mind until all of the evidence is in.” It wasn’t so dark that I could not detect his broad smile or see his expression quickly turn serious again. “But Graham was my friend, you see, and I’d love to put my hands on the rats who had him killed. If there are any rats to catch, that is.”

  Street lamps framed our pathway as we travelled down a large thoroughfare. Night had fallen, but this city was anything but ready for sleep. “A beautiful sight,” I murmured, and Beveridge nodded silently.

  “Graham and I attended Asbury together,” he said at last.

  “Asbury University?” I asked, recalling the details in Holmes’s biography of Phillips.

  “In Greencastle, Indiana,” Beveridge went on. “We’re Hoosiers.”

  “Hoosiers?”

  “People from Indiana,” Beveridge explained. Then he told how Graham and he had befriended each other, how they used to philosophise about the strengths and weaknesses of man. As he talked, I continued staring at him: the handsome profile, the penetrating eyes, a man of strong opinions and quick responses, the political leader out to defend the weak. How had Phillips himself put it?—that “magnetic something which we try to fix— and fail—when we say ‘charm.’“ The “shrewd, easy-going good humor.” It was, of course, Hampden Scarborough, the hero of Phillips’s fiction, I was observing, and the mutual admiration that Beveridge described in their relationship merely underscored the point. Phillips had immortalised his friend in print, but Scarborough had gone on to become President while only Dame Fortune knew what was in store for the man sitting next to me.

  At that moment the motor car made a turning into a smaller road.

  “We’re almost at Carolyn’s apartment, Doctor,” Beveridge said, “but before we get there, take a look out the window to your left.”

  I turned in the direction he had indicated; but because of the darkness and in spite of a few street lamps, all I could distinguish was some solitary trees and what looked like the railing of a long, high fence.

  “Gramercy Park,” Beveridge announced. “Where Graham was killed. The scene of the crime.”

  ________

  * Author’s note: In 1931 Susan Lenox was made into a movie starring Greta Garbo and Clark Gable.

  Four

  DINNER WITH THE FREVERTS

  “The first principle of a successful defense is complete frankness. Innocence that strives to conceal cannot loudly complain if it creates the impression of guilt.”

  —David Graham Phillips, The Assassination of a Governor

  Although in her lodgings at 119 East Nineteenth Street, Mrs. Frevert looked much as she had in London, she seemed quite a different person; and despite my own fatigue following a week’s travel, I knew my perceptions were not based simply on her cat. Still attired in her customary mourning, she had replaced her black lace fan with a white, long-haired feline. He was a large animal that must have weighed close to a stone, although to give him his due, much of his bulk was deceptive. The thick, rich coat with its collar-like mane contributed to his imposing image; but, in truth, if the cat had got drenched and his hair matted, I believe he would have looked a great deal more like a timid kitten than the leonine lord he appeared. Ruffle, for so he was named, spent much of his time in Mrs. Frevert’s lap, and just as she had so animatedly waved her fan, she now stroked the cat. She began at the bridge of his nose and worked her way in one sinuous motion up between his eyes and then his ears, down his neck, over his back, and along the feathery tail that frequently curled like a question mark. Ruffle played no favourites, however. Walking slowly into whichever room people were inhabiting, he allowed himself to be picked up and stroked by anyone, eventually emitting a low purr which seemed to say that all was right with the world when all was not.

  Mrs. Frevert still lived in the same flat she had shared with her brother in the wood-panelled, sky-lighted block known as the National Arts Club. The building, I learned later, is situated on part of the former estate of Samuel Tilden, the celebrated candidate for president in 1876 who received more votes than his opponent but, owing to some idiosyncrasy of the American political system, did not gain victory. Greeted by Mrs. Frevert and Ruffle at the door, Beveridge and I were directed immediately into a well-lit dining room where, already seated at one end of the long damask-covered table, was a fourth guest whom I correctly assumed to be Mrs. Frevert’s husband. A quiet, retiring sort, incongruously dressed in a bright-green suit, he spoke very little at first, his drooping eyelids giving him an air of sadness that seemed to permeate his very being. Although he was balding, he directed whatever hair he could across his shining crown; and, as if to compensate for the bareness of his head, he sported a well-trimmed goatee on his chin.

  “Dr. Watson, allow me to introduce you to my husband, Mr. Henry Frevert,” our hostess said.

  He was about to speak, but Mrs. Frevert continued, “Legally, we’re still married even though Henry moved out some five years ago.”

  When Mr. Frevert rose, I could see that he was short. I extended my hand, which he shook meekly.

  Mrs. Frevert let Ruffle leap to the floor, and we three joined her husband. The Freverts sat opposite each other, as did Beveridge and I. Hoping for morsels from our plates, Ruffle would slowly pad round the table, generally stopping and gazing up at whoever was talking. He liked the attention, electing to sit next to whichever of us was the cynosure at the moment.

  We began our late-night repast with Norwegian anchovies and champagne, and that heady drink accompanied all of the courses. As the meal progressed, I continued noting the change in Mrs. Frevert. Where was the charming lady I had so admired in England? The dignified mourner I had met in my surgery seemed supplanted by a kind of harridan. What in Sussex had passed for commanding self-control, here in America—at least, in the presence of her husband—resulted in mere command. She directed him, spoke for him, even tried conducting his dinner for him.

  “Finish your appetizer, Henry, so we can move on,” she said.

  “If you please, Carolyn,” he said at last, “I’ve had enough. The anchovies are too salty.”

  “Oh, Henry, then why not have spoken up instead of accepting more? Honestly, Dr. Watson, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: It’s a good thing Henry wears loud clothes; otherwise, he’d never be heard.” And at the joy in her well-worn pun, she allowed herself a girlish giggle.

  Seeking to change the subject, I asked Mr. Frevert his occupation.

  “Machines,” his wife answered for him. “He does things with machines—selling them and the like.”

  A silence descended, the men perhaps embarrassed by Mrs. Frevert’s usurpation of her husband’s authority. For some moments only the ring of silver on china could be heard as we ate our galantine of turkey. Then, as if drawing courage from Bacchus himself, Frevert drained his glass and cleared his throat. The white cat, who had been sitting next to his mistress with his paws tucked under his body, stood up, stretched to his full length, and ambled over to Frevert. As though this were his signal to speak, the little man said boldly, “So, Dr. Watson, you and Sherlock Holmes have come to believe in Carolyn’s obsession!”

  Uncertain if this last utterance was a declaration or a question that deserved an answer, I responded with a question of my own: “You, sir, I gather from the tone of your remark, do not?”

  “Oh, Henry disagrees with me all the time, Dr. Watson,” Mrs. Frevert explained. “He’s not to be taken seriously.”

  Beveridge, who had remained quiet throughout the meal, exchan
ged glances with me. Ruffle looked at us both.

  “Please, madam,” Frevert said. “Permit me to speak for myself— at least on a matter so grave as this.” Then, patting his lips with the white linen from his lap, he said succinctly, “Carolyn loved her brother so much that fuelling a conspiracy hypothesis is her personal way of keeping him alive.”

  I waited for more, but as he picked up his knife and fork and proceeded with his meal, I realised he had concluded his thoughts on the subject.

  Beveridge, however, had not. With the arrival of a refreshingly American dessert of ice cream, apple pie, and coffee, he resumed the dubiety he had revealed earlier on the drive from the docks. The cat, noting the change in speaker, strolled silently round the table to the senator’s side and sat down next to him.

  “Tell me, Doctor,” Beveridge said after tasting his coffee, “just what does make you and Holmes believe in Carolyn’s conspiracy theory?”

  “Why, the seventh bullet, of course,” I said. “Doesn’t that fact trouble you?”

  “Yes, Doctor, it does. But it can be explained away so obviously. Inaccurate witnesses, for example. After all, the police do have the ten-chambered murder weapon.”

  “The putative murder weapon,” I corrected him.

  “To be sure, Doctor, to be sure. But now that Graham is dead and buried—I’m sorry, Carolyn—we can never be certain about the precise number of bullets fired at him.”

  Was the senator backing away, I asked myself, from his earlier resolve to find out more about the mystery surrounding Phillips’s death? Aloud, I enquired of him, “Then what makes you believe in Mrs. Frevert’s story?”

  “Doctor, I was a United States senator. I’m used to seeing powerful men at odds with one another. When I was younger, I worked on a farm. I had little money and had to make my own way. I guess you could call me a self-made man. I’m familiar with struggle, Doctor, and I believe that those who achieve success deserve to. The Law of the Jungle is also the law of the business world. Perhaps more surprising to those who are unfamiliar with it, the political arena is much the same. In politics, however, ‘kill or be killed’ is supposed to be figurative. But I tell you, Doctor, mention the name of David Graham Phillips on the Senate floor, and you will see murderous looks that are anything but figurative.”

  Not even Beveridge’s boyish visage could contradict the Machiavellian menace he was ascribing to the brethren of his own institution.

  “The Treason of the Senate destroyed people, Doctor. Graham attacked over twenty members of our club, and for one reason or another some two-thirds of them are no longer in the Congress. There’s even talk now of a Constitutional Amendment to allow the people at large to vote for their Senators rather than continuing to have our friendly state legislatures perform the honour. What’s more, as much as I loved Graham, I realise he was working for Bill Hearst, who had his own eyes set on the New York State House and ultimately the presidency. Still does, for that matter. And as much as Graham liked to talk of patriotism and democracy, those Treason pieces were part of a cleverly constructed plan to provide a political platform for Hearst and to take out some of his rivals on the way. Oh, no, Doctor, one doesn’t need an extra bullet to smell foul play; one need only look at the ugly faces of vengeful senators to comprehend that Graham’s death could have been arranged by others. Your famous Shakespeare readily understood the compulsion to commit murder—if not for one’s own survival, then for the benefit of the state. Remember Brutus.”

  Yet another reference to the murdered Caesar, I thought. Beveridge raised his coffee cup again as if to signal the end of his explanation. When he finished speaking, he narrowed his eyes, but I wasn’t sure if this last had been caused by steam from the hot coffee or whether it was more like the focusing glare of the predator on the hunt. I had read enough of Phillips’s fiction to know that, although he had written about political heroes like Hampden Scarborough, he had written about political killers as well; and both characterisations were sculpted from the people he had met in reality—people like Albert Beveridge and his theories about the Survival of the Fittest.

  Once we had all finished our coffees, Mrs. Frevert rose, invited us to remain seated for postprandial cigars and port, swooped up Ruffle, and left the room. As much as I longed for the friendliness of a bed—even a hotel-room bed—I recognised that I had promised Holmes to find out as much as I could about these people. Thus, I postponed my departure a trifle longer. With the strong-willed Mrs. Frevert out of our presence, I could at least expect to learn more from her husband. I was well aware that the man whose tongue might be silenced by a domineering woman might have it loosened quickly with the help of a seductive liquor.

  We each clipped a cigar that Mrs. Frevert had kindly provided and partook of the port. I wanted to keep my wits clear but knew that I would have to appear a willing drinking partner to create the camaraderie that would encourage revelation.

  Beveridge leaned back in his chair and, forming his mouth into a tiny O, puffed a circular cloud of white cigar smoke over the table. Then, like a satisfied author completing a well-wrought sentence with a flourishing exclamation mark, he punctuated his effort by driving a remaining blast of smoke through the centre of the evanescent ring. From the casual manner in which he enjoyed his tobacco, it was clear that Beveridge had said all that he cared to for that evening on the subject of Phillips’s demise. It was equally clear from the way Frevert would stare into his crystal snifter and then glance in my direction that he had not.

  “Mr. Frevert,” I encouraged, “I sense that you wish to say more than you have.”

  He looked up at me and then at Beveridge. “It’s not easy for me to talk in front of Carolyn,” he said. “Bev knows. She simply overpowers me. That’s why I couldn’t speak out against her brother’s coming to live with us—first back in Cincinnati and then here in New York. Twelve years on and off the three of us were living together. Then finally I couldn’t take it any more.” Here he slapped the open palm of his hand down onto the table; a moment later he was carefully straightening the resultant ripple in the white cloth. “I never did know just what was going on between the two of them—if you know what I mean—but I had my suspicions.”

  Sherlock Holmes might have pretended not to be shocked by Mr. Frevert’s innuendo, but I was not so competent an actor. I could not—would not—allow him to utter such an insinuation uncontested. I put down my glass and demanded an instant apology. “Mr. Frevert, how can you impugn the reputation of your gracious wife? Not to mention a dead man who can no longer defend his honour! And in front of Senator Beveridge!”

  Frevert’s droopy eyes opened wide at my outburst, but almost immediately they resumed their previous attitude. “I had no intention of shocking you, Dr. Watson, but you must understand that my wife and her brother were very, very close. Bev knows. Ask their sister Eva. She thought that Carolyn was keeping Graham from the rest of the family on purpose. They seldom made it to family gatherings, and till the day he died they were hardly ever apart. Even when they were separated, they corresponded daily. Why, they dressed up for dinner every night!”

  “There’s nothing outrageous about dressing for dinner,” I maintained.

  Frevert took another sip of his port as if to fortify himself. “Maybe not,” he said, “but when brother and sister are drinking champagne every evening and then remaining together all the night, I think there’s something terribly wrong.”

  During Frevert’s and my entire exchange, Beveridge sat smoking his cigar. No doubt he had heard it all before.

  “Oh, come, sir,” I said, “I’m sure there’s a plausible explanation.”

  “Of course. Of course. He was writing all night, they said, and she was sorting and arranging his files. Perfectly natural, they said.”

  “You disagree?”

  “All I can tell you, Dr. Watson, is that I finally had to leave. We hadn’t been living together as man and wife for quite a while anyway.”

  But a few hour
s ago I didn’t know this man, and now I was learning his most intimate secrets.

  “You’d never see Graham with a girl. Oh, he’d escort some pretty young lady to a fashionable soirée every so often—or take along his sister. But he was never really interested in the fairer sex. You’re a doctor; you know what I mean.”

  Although neither homosexuality nor incest have ever elicited the tiniest intellectual curiosity on my part, I confess in these pages that I did know exactly what he meant.

  “When they were young,” he resumed, “Carolyn’s mother didn’t let Graham play with any other children for the longest time—and then finally she would only let him play with girls. Dr. Watson,” he said, looking me in the eye, “we’re men of the world. We understand such things.”

  “Maybe so, Mr. Frevert,” I said rising from my seat, “but whatever one may understand does not require one to draw the sordid conclusions that you are suggesting.”

  I turned to Beveridge, who was in the act of putting out his cigar. It was obvious to him, as I hoped it was obvious to Mr. Frevert, that our interview had ended and that I was quite ready to go to my hotel.

  Frevert, however, would not be denied. He rose and caught my arm. Positioning himself very close to me, he said with a hushed voice, “Perhaps, as you say, Doctor, we don’t know anything for sure. But I’ll tell you this, as Beveridge there is my witness, that woman so loved her brother that if he ever seriously looked at another woman, why, I think Carolyn might have committed murder herself to prevent someone else—anyone else—from possessing him.”