An Embarrassment of Riches (66 page)

Henry came hurrying round to his hotel suite the minute they received his message.

‘What the devil happened?' he demanded, his aged face ravaged. ‘Why was Maura unaccompanied? Why wasn't help at hand?'

‘She was taking Felix for an ice-cream at Delmonico's. You know how she hates postilions and footmen. There was only the coachman with her. He was left unconscious in the street and only staggered back to the house an hour after the incident occurred. Apparently two men and a woman rushed towards them at a busy intersection. The woman leapt at the reins, pulling the horses to a halt. One man leapt on the box and slammed an ether-soaked pad across the coachman's face. The other entered the carriage.'

He stopped and passed a hand across his eyes unable to continue.

‘But if the street was busy, why did no-one come to their aid?' Henry asked bewilderedly. ‘Why was it an hour before the coachman was able to raise the alarm?'

‘It was Felix who gave the alarm, sir,' Lyall Kingston said helpfully. ‘The carriage was on its way again within seconds and it would seem that the public thought the unconscious coachman a drunk.'

‘And what is Pinkerton going to do?' Henry demanded. ‘How does he plan to track the kidnappers down?'

‘Pinkerton men will be at the depot,' Alexander said, dropping his hand to reveal tortured eyes. ‘There will be Pinkerton men on all trains departing from six o'clock onwards.'

‘Officials at the depot are co-operating fully,' the mayor interjected. ‘The kidnappers don't stand a chance of getting away with their scheme. They've been too greedy, asked for too much. Ten million dollars can't be handed over discreetly. It will need two strong men to carry the trunk, a wagon at the very least to transport it any distance.'

Charlie was holding the latest edition of the
Herald
in his hands. He stared down at the glaring headline:
‘World record ransom demanded for safe return of Mrs Alexander Karolyis!'
and said, baffled, ‘How did they imagine you could lay your hands on so much money in cash? If the kidnappers are intelligent enough to write a literate ransom demand how can they not be intelligent enough to realize that ninety per cent of your wealth is tied up in property and shares and isn't liquid?'

‘Christ knows,' Alexander said, his voice on the edge of breaking completely. ‘My bankers have seen to it that the demand is met. Pinkerton has an army of women in the adjoining suite marking each and every note.' Beneath his close-fitting jacket his shoulders lifted in despair. ‘I don't
care
about the goddamned money, Charlie. I don't care whether it's traced or not. I just want Maura back.' He turned away, striding towards the windows before the entire room should see the tears blinding his eyes. ‘I just want her to know that I love her,' he said thickly, staring sightlessly down at the traffic plunging up and down the avenue. ‘I just want to be able to tell her that I know now what a cretinous fool I've been, and that I'm never going to be a fool again.'

Both Henry and Charlie, as well as an army of Pinkerton men, accompanied him to the Grand Central Depot at six o'clock. The trunk was wheeled on a trolley. James Gordon Bennett had promised not to have any reporters in attendance as long as the story of the transfer could be covered in the
Herald
in full the next day.

Alexander entered the baggage-room and asked if there was a letter waiting for him. A disinterested clerk handed it over. The message was brief.

‘Board the 6.10 for Albany alone taking the trunk with you. Seat 106 has been reserved for you.'

‘Don't worry, sir,' Allan Pinkerton said, taking the note from his hand. ‘I have men already aboard the train. I'll telegraph Albany and make sure there are more men there. Whoever picks up that trunk, they're going to be followed.'

‘Not apprehended,' Alexander said fiercely. ‘Dear God, don't apprehend them before they lead us to my wife!'

‘Don't worry, sir. Our only concern on this operation is for Mrs Karolyis's safety.'

‘We'll await news at your hotel suite,' Henry said, leaning heavily on his silver-topped walking-cane. ‘Good luck, dear boy. Goodbye.'

In last-minute haste porters wheeled the trunk aboard the train. Alexander took his seat, aware that nearly every other passenger was employed by Allan Pinkerton. Doors slammed, whistles blew.

He looked around him, wondering which of his fellow passengers were Pinkerton men, which were the kidnappers. The trunk was in the luggage compartment near the door, a mere three feet away from him.

The suburbs of New York began to slide by. His hands were clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed white. He began to mentally pray, making every bargain with God that he could think of.

‘Let her be safe,' he reiterated to himself like a mantra. ‘Dear God, please let Maura be safe!'

The train approached the northern outskirts of the city running parallel with the Hudson. Rocky precipices began to appear on the western bank. Still no-one approached him. Still no-one made any attempt to appropriate the trunk.

He was agonized by his imagination, wondering where Maura was being held, what conditions she was being held under, if she was tied, gagged. The palisades continued, the train sped past Tarrytown and past Sing Sing prison.

If only he hadn't reacted so violently over her cooperation with Bennett on Bennett's first slum-landlord exposé. They could so easily have become reunited that night. He had been almost senseless with relief at discovering that she hadn't spent the summer in Kansas; at her stunned mystification when he had said that was where he thought she'd been. But the article had been in that day's
Herald
and he had been so furious about it that he had allowed his fury to destroy everything they could so easily have recaptured.

The train whistled past Peekskill. They were entering the Highlands now. The scenery was stunning. The river looped and turned. Mountains soared. Dunderberg; Anthony's Nose; Sugar Loaf.

Alexander was oblivious. He knew why he had been so angry at the Beekman ball. It was because everything that Bennett had printed about him had been the truth, and because he had felt guilty and ashamed.

The train sped past West Point and approached Cro'Nest and Storm King. The most important thing in the world was that he had his children's respect and Maura's respect and he would never have that respect while men like Bennett could publicly proclaim him to be the prime source of so much human suffering. The improvements to his properties that he had already set in motion were not enough. Entire blocks of tenements needed razing to the ground and purpose-built housing for the poor erected in their place. He would embark on the most ambitious housing project that the city had ever seen. He would transform his properties and he would make sure that Astor and his other fellow landlords transformed theirs.

Poughkeepsie came and went. The trunk remained untouched. On the west-hand side the Catskill Mountains rose blue-green, blue-grey, blue-brown. He thought of Tarna and nearly drowned in the pain that engulfed him. If only his father hadn't died when he had; if only they had never left Tarna; if only he hadn't hurt Maura so deeply by bequeathing Tarna to Stasha.

The conductor approached him, a letter in his hand.

‘Excuse me, sir. Before we left New York a gentleman asked me if I would deliver this to you just after Poughkeepsie …'

Alexander snatched it from him.

In approximately five minutes'time the train crosses the river by a bridge. You are to push the trunk out of the train so that it falls on land on the Albany side. You are not to speak to anyone after reading this. You are being watched and if you do the arrangement is off. And your wife will be killed.

Alexander didn't hesitate. He crammed the note in his pocket. A man opposite him raised his eyebrows towards him enquiringly and rose to his feet. Alexander pushed past him. He wasn't going to speak to anyone. Not even God Himself.

‘Excuse me, sir.' The Pinkerton man was at his elbow as he heaved the trunk from the luggage compartment. ‘If you could tell me what was in the letter, sir.'

Alexander ignored him and with strength born of desperation manhandled the trunk towards the car door.

‘If you're going to do what I think you're going to do, sir, I strongly advise against it! Mr Pinkerton said that …'

They were on the bridge. Alexander braced himself and flung the door open. In the meadow next to the river was a horse-drawn cart and two waiting figures. The door rocked on its heavy hinges, the wind tugged at his hair.

‘I'll get the conductor to stop the train!' the Pinkerton man was yelling at him. ‘We can be after them within minutes!'

With superhuman strength Alexander heaved the trunk from the train, grasping on to the door-frame and watching as it fell and bounced down the embankment. The two waiting men raced towards it. Then he turned round and before the Pinkerton man could carry out his intention, he slammed his clenched fist into the side of his jaw.

By the time the alarm was given the train was nearly at Albany.

‘You've ruined everything, sir!' a Pinkerton man said despairingly after several of his colleagues had leapt from the now stationary train and were haring back in the direction of the bridge. ‘We'll never be able to catch them, never be able to follow them …'

‘I had no choice.' Alexander was grey. ‘If men had leapt from the train in pursuit of them their accomplices would have killed Maura.'

‘They can still do that, sir,' the Pinkerton man said brutally, anticipating Allan Pinkerton's wrath at a botched job. ‘And we've no chance of finding her now before they do so.'

A spasm crossed Alexander's face. He had known as he had heaved the trunk from the train what he was risking. The men now had the money that they had demanded. If they now released Maura as they had promised, it was quite possible that Maura would be able to give information about them that would lead to their eventual arrest. There was nothing to stop them from killing her. It would be the safest thing that they could do.

‘Jesus,' he whispered to himself brokenly. ‘Jesus Jesus
Jesus!'

Maura returned to partial consciousness several times. Each time it was to the dim awareness that her legs and arms were painfully confined and that she was being transported, for she was being rocked and jolted. And then there was nothing again, only a sea of blackness.

Even when full consciousness returned, the blackness remained. There was fabric around her eyes, rope at her wrists and ankles.

‘Have a drink,' a male voice said to her, not unkindly. ‘It will make you feel better.'

She fought against the dulling effects of the ether. ‘I can't. Not with my hands tied.'

Terror rose up in her throat like bile. Where was she? What was going to happen to her? How, in God's name, was she going to get away?

‘Don't untie her,' another male voice said sharply. ‘Not yet.'

She sensed someone approaching her and every nerve and muscle she possessed tensed against a sudden assault. None came. A metal cup was pressed against her lips. Clumsily and gratefully she drank not very pure tasting water.

As the fogs of ether receded she forced her brain into a frantic assessment of her situation.

She was sitting on a linoleum-covered floor. There was a faint smell of manure and every now and then she thought she could hear the sound of hens. She wasn't in the city any longer. She was on a farm or smallholding. And her only chance of survival lay in not asking to have her blindfold removed. As long as she couldn't see her captors, she couldn't identify them.

She said with a calmness she was far from feelings ‘Where am I? What are you going to do with me?'

The men were moving restlessly around the room. She could sense another person's presence; hear the swish of a skirt. She felt a shaft of optimism. It was quite possible that a woman would be sympathetic towards her.

No-one answered her and she said persistently: ‘I can't sit in this position any longer. I've got cramp in my legs. Will you untie me so that I can move a little?'

What she had said was true. She felt dizzy with pain.

There was hesitation. She could imagine her captors looking enquiringly at each other. The voice she was beginning to equate with leadership said: ‘Only her ankles. Not her wrists.'

It was a start. At least she would be able to stand. She would be able to keep her blood moving.

When the cords around her ankles had been cut and she had been able to shift into a more comfortable position, she said acerbically: ‘Is this how you would have treated my son if your plans hadn't gone awry? Would you have kept a small boy like this? Tied and blindfolded?'

‘Tell her to shut up,' the woman said unemotionally.

‘Shut up,' said the man who had initially advised against untying her.

As the blood began to move once more along her veins and as she thought of how terrified Felix would have been, she felt a roar of anger. He would have been absolutely petrified, and he would have been unable to make any attempt at escape. She wondered when and how she would be able to make her own escape-attempt. If they were on a farm it was unlikely there were other buildings and people near by. Running with her hands tied would be excessively difficult, and she certainly couldn't run blindfolded.

‘Tell her what her husband's going to have to pay for her,' the woman suddenly said. ‘Tell her how it's going to go down in the history books as the biggest ransom ever paid.'

‘Ten million dollars,' their self-appointed spokesman said to her. ‘And for a man worth sixty million that's a very reasonable demand.'

‘Ten million dollars?' Maura was seized with an hysterical desire to laugh.
‘Ten million dollars?'