Deadlier Than the Pen (3 page)

*Chapter Three*
The satisfied smirk on Damon Bathory's face as the elevator door closed was enough to spur Diana on. She returned to the hotel by another door within a minute after being escorted out the front. She had no difficulty eluding the elevator operator or any other hotel staff, but once she was back in the lobby she hesitated.
Still shaken by what had happened in Bathory's room, Diana curbed her impatience. That dreadful man obviously thought she was little better than a whore, and yet she'd responded to him. He was a menace in every sense of the word.
She had not yet steeled herself to return to the fourth floor when the object of her interest exited the elevator and passed not two feet in front of the spot where she stood, fortuitously concealed by a potted palm. Oblivious to her presence, he headed towards the nearest exit. From the intent look on his face, he was on important business.
Before she could think better of it, Diana followed him.
Damon Bathory did not deserve any consideration, she told herself. He had insulted her with his casual assumption that she'd crawl into his bed in order to get her story.
Spying on _any_one wasn't to her taste, but Diana rationalized that Bathory had only himself to blame. She'd given him two opportunities to contribute to what she meant to write about him. Now she was free to get the details for her story any way she could.
Horatio Foxe wanted scandal. Dark secrets. She couldn't be certain that Bathory was guarding anything more than his right to privacy, or that she would learn anything significant by dogging his footsteps for the rest of the day, but all of a sudden she was very tired of being told what to do. Although she could sympathize with Bathory's natural desire to keep his past, jaded or otherwise, from becoming public knowledge, her frustration over Foxe's demands fueled her irritation at the other man's behavior. She'd have liked to tell both of them to go to the devil.
Instead, when Bathory stepped off the curb outside the hotel and hailed a Hansom cab, Diana flagged down an olive-green Gurney.
"Where to, miss?" the driver asked in a raspy voice.
All Diana could see of his face over a bright plaid muffler were two bloodshot eyes. She hesitated only an instant. If she waited, she'd lose sight of her quarry.
"Follow that cab," she ordered, and was relieved when the driver sneezed, indicating that he was suffering from a head cold rather than keeping himself warm with drink.
Committed now to the chase, Diana unlatched the rear-facing door of the vehicle, scrambled onto one of the two lengthwise seats, and pulled the curtains across the side windows. She was left with a narrow opening through which she could see without being seen. If her luck was in, Bathory would never know she was behind him. She might just get her sensational story, after all.
The bubble of excitement that danced in her veins at the start of the chase popped only moments later. As the two cabs sped north and then east, Diana realized that she might not have enough money with her to pay for the ride.
A cab was the most expensive way to travel in Manhattan, fifty cents for the first mile and twenty-five cents for every mile thereafter. Although she did not often use it, it was Diana's custom to carry the necessary cab fare to get home when she ventured out at night. In the daytime, however, she went about on foot -- which cost nothing -- or at most paid her ten cents and took a horse car. She could not afford to chase Damon Bathory far if he insisted on this means of transportation.
Diana's Gurney stayed close behind the Hansom all the way to 1st Avenue, but she never even saw the speeding ambulance until it cut between them. There was no time to brace herself. The sudden stop jounced her right off the seat. Her elbow struck the door.
"Close one." The hackman cracked his whip to start the horse moving again.
Diana swallowed hard as she righted herself and rubbed her funny bone. Less than three weeks earlier, on the night of the fire at the Union Square Theater, another ambulance had taken the corner at 6th Avenue and 14th Street too sharply and overturned. The injured men in the back had been thrown into the street.
Such traffic accidents were far too common of late. She ought to write an article exposing the situation. A rueful smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Foxe would probably expect her to claim she'd been injured near to death before he'd approve the idea.
Moments later, the Gurney stopped again. An empty Hansom, heading the other way, clattered past. With a sinking sensation in her stomach, Diana recognized the yellow topcoat and shiny silk hat of Bathory's driver. "Where could he have gone?"
"Not much here but Bellevue," her cabman mumbled into his muffling scarf. "Ambulance came out of the hospital yard by the 26th Street gate."
Bellevue?
Diana stared up at the high, bleak walls. The facility was a respected medical school and hospital these days, but when it had first been built it had also housed a penitentiary. There were still bars across some of the windows.
It was a perfectly logical destination for someone in Damon Bathory's profession. Diana's imagination could conjure up any number of ghoulish reasons for him to pay the place a visit. Was he there to tour the operating theater? The morgue? The insane pavilion?
The cab driver cleared his throat, reminding Diana that she could not afford to have him wait until Bathory decided to leave. Getting out, she paid her fare. When she counted the change, she knew she'd not be taking any more cabs, not with only fifteen cents to her name.
A stiff breeze off the East River made Diana shiver, even though she knew the temperature was above freezing. The days had been mild for weeks now. Crocuses were already pushing their way out of the earth and a few trees had started to bud. That morning, she'd been tempted to trade her Ulster for a lighter-weight coat. Thank goodness she had not! The warmth of the heavy woolen garment was very welcome now. She wished she'd also thought to carry a muff.
And more money.
Most of all, she thought as she shivered again, she wished she'd never heard of Damon Bathory.
Propelled by the cold wind and her own curiosity, Diana entered the hospital. Once inside, she sought out those women wearing distinctive blue and white striped seersucker dresses and starched white caps, collars, cuffs, and aprons. Their costumes marked them as students at Bellevue's Training School for Nurses. Diana hoped they would prove the most approachable members of the hospital staff.
No one recognized the name Damon Bathory, but the fifth young woman Diana accosted remembered seeing a man who fit his description.
"He's a handsome devil," she confirmed. "Dark haired. I saw him walking with Dr. Braisted, head of the insane pavilion. He must be a physician himself if he's been allowed in there. That area is off-limits to visitors."
More likely he was impersonating a doctor, Diana thought. She'd seen for herself what a talented performer he was.
She also knew far more than she wanted to about what went on inside the insane pavilion. The previous fall a fellow journalist had made headlines by feigning madness in order to reveal the abuses at Bellevue and conditions in the madhouse on Blackwell's Island. Nellie Bly's story had appeared first in the New York _World_ and then, in December, in a book called _Ten Days in a Mad-House_.
According to Miss Bly, inmates were kept in cheerless surroundings, sleeping on iron cots furnished with straw-stuffed pillows and wool blankets, but the latter were worn thin by hundreds of washings and there was no heat. Cold air eddied into stark, dimly-lit rooms through windows which had bars but no glass, further adding to the torment of patients wearing hospital gowns made of cotton-flannel that barely reached their knees.
Most patients were classified as hysterics, Diana recalled, a catchall term applied indiscriminately to those who suffered from symptoms as varied as muscular twitching and loss of memory. The restless, the apathetic, the delusional, all might be labeled hysterics. Standard practice after that diagnosis was to do little more than keep the sufferer institutionalized.
Yes, Diana thought, she could imagine Damon Bathory in that setting. As a doctor ... or as a patient.
The relative warmth of the hospital no longer held any appeal for her. Retreating outside, she found a secluded spot from which to keep an eye on the entrance to the wing with the barred windows. For the best part of the next hour, she waited for Bathory to come out, unable to stop herself from wondering if the mind of a horror writer differed all that much from that of a madman.
By the time he reappeared -- head down and looking neither right nor left as he turned south down 1st Avenue -- Diana had recalled more than she wished to of the content of Nellie Bly's articles and had also revisited all the tales in both of Bathory's books. As she began to follow her quarry once more, myriad possibilities lingered in her mind, all of them dreadful to contemplate.
She trailed Bathory on foot, all the way back to his hotel. By the time they reached it, the only things she still worried about were the blisters rising on her feet. He was remarkably fit. She'd been hard put to keep pace with him. Although she was grateful he'd not taken another expensive cab, she was sadly footsore when she once more stood in Union Square.
She waited there, watching the Palace, until he reappeared a short time later. Diana followed him to an art gallery near 34th Street, her reward for diligence a new blister on one heel.
Through the display window she saw two men, Bathory and a dapper little gentleman who appeared to be the gallery manager. A sign on the door indicated there had been an auction on the premises the previous evening -- landscape paintings by an assortment of contemporary artists -- but today the place was quiet. Too quiet for her to enter and eavesdrop on their conversation without being noticed.
Bathory made no purchases. After a few minutes, he cut short the little man's chatter, exited the gallery, and returned to his hotel. Trailing after him, tired and discouraged, she considered her situation. Should she have remained at the art gallery to ask questions of the proprietor? If she had, she'd have lost sight of Bathory. She could go back. But what if he went out again?
As if in answer to her prayers, she spotted one of the street arabs Horatio Foxe employed to run errands. She felt sorry for the urchin, one of so many homeless lads who ran wild in the city. They earned a pittance by selling newspapers on the street corners and lived in whatever shelter they could find. The "newsboys' lodging house" was Printing House Square, in the open. She'd seen dozens of them there late at night, fighting for the warm spots around the grated vent holes that let out heat and steam from the underground press rooms.
"You, lad," she called to the lanky, sullen-faced boy. "What's your name?"
"Poke, missus." He pulled off a filthy cap and looked hopefully up at her.
"Did you see the man who just went into the hotel?"
"De bloke wit no hat?"
"Er, yes. I want to hire you to watch for him to come out again and follow him if he does."
"On de level?"
She produced a few pennies, nearly all the money she had left, to persuade young Poke to take over surveillance of Bathory's hotel.
"My eyes, ain't it nice!" The pennies disappeared into a grubby hand.
After giving the boy further instructions, Diana left him lurking in front of the Palace Hotel.
* * * *
What was she up to now? Ben watched from the small balcony attached to his hotel room as Mrs. Spaulding carried on an intense conversation with a rough-looking lad with unkempt hair and clothes that hung loosely on his thin frame.
Posting a guard, Ben decided when he saw money change hands. His nemesis went back the way she had come, limping slightly. The lad remained behind.
She'd return to the art gallery, he had no doubt. Ben had caught sight of her there, peering at him through the huge plate glass windows that fronted the place, and had abruptly taken his leave.
Mentally damning the woman to perdition, Ben had to admire her tenacity. He doubted she would learn much from the manager. The authorization Ben had shown him in order to collect Aaron's bank draft had not borne his name and he did not think the fellow would give out any information about Aaron, either, not when Ben had taken the precaution of warning him he'd lose future commissions if he did so.
Because he was thinking about his brother, Ben did not at first credit his identification of the man standing in the shadow of the iron fence surrounding Union Square Park. Then the figure moved and there was no mistaking that habitual slump. Instead of being almost five hundred miles away, Aaron Northcote was here in New York City.
Cursing even more creatively than he had when he'd noticed Mrs. Spaulding on his trail, Ben headed back towards the lobby at a run. He ignored the elevator and took the stairs. He didn't worry about being seen by the young watchdog Mrs. Spaulding had posted. He'd deal with the boy later. He exited the hotel at top speed and snagged Aaron's arm just as his brother was about to set out in the same direction Mrs. Spaulding had taken. All but dragging the younger man back into the three-acre park, he held his temper until he was sure they were out of earshot of the urchin.
"What are you doing here?" Ben demanded.

To his relief, Aaron did not try to get away. "Following you."
It did no good to get angry with Aaron. Taking a deep breath, Ben willed himself to calm down. He shoved his brother onto a bench and sat beside him. With luck, and the aid of a healthy bribe, the boy watching them would not report any of what he saw to Mrs. Spaulding.
"You went to the art gallery," Aaron said. "I could have done that."
"Yes, but you agreed after what happened in Philadelphia that I'd take care of business matters for you. Remember?"
Aaron didn't answer.
"I have the bank draft. Do you want it?"
"No. You know I lose things like that."
"That's why I collected it, Aaron. You do what you do best and I do what I do best."
"There was a woman following you," Aaron said with one of the abrupt changes of subject for which he was notorious. "She's trouble, Ben."
"Why do you think that?"
He tapped his forehead. "I just know."
"Do me a favor? Stay away from her. There's no need for you to speak to her." The thought of Mrs. Spaulding interviewing Aaron chilled Ben's blood.
"I know where she lives."
For a moment Ben felt as if he'd been struck. He had to breathe deeply before he could ask the next question. "How do you know that, Aaron?"
"I followed her last night after the reading. She was the last one to leave the theater."
"Why didn't you stay and talk to me, Aaron?" And just how long had his brother been in New York?
But when Aaron only shrugged his shoulders, Ben knew it was no use asking him more questions. Aaron never remembered details.
"You let me deal with her, Aaron."
"You'll take care of her?"
"I'll take care of her."
He gave a nod. "Good. Can't let people follow you, you know."
He seemed unaware of the irony of that statement.
"I want you to go home," Ben said. "Will you do that for me? Today?"
"Are you coming, too?"
"I need to stay a little longer. I wish I could leave now. My business in New York is finished. I'd planned to head home first thing tomorrow morning. But there is that woman."
His eyes bright, Aaron listened closely to Ben's suggestion that he travel in a private compartment.
"I'll follow along just as soon as I can. Believe me, I don't want to spend any more time than I have to in the city."
"You've been gone a long time."
"Yes. I have."
Aaron nodded sagely. "Mother's fault."
Silently, Ben had to agree with his assessment. Much of this _was_ Maggie Northcote's fault, but it was pointless to assign blame.
"I'm hungry," Aaron complained.
Most likely, he'd forgotten to eat. Ben thought a moment, then hailed a horse-drawn jitney, instructing the driver to take Aaron to the Park Avenue Oyster House. It had the advantage of being located just past the entrance to the Murray Hill Tunnel, on the south side of Grand Central Station. "I'll meet you there in an hour," he told his brother, and gave Aaron sufficient money to buy a hot meal.
As soon as Aaron's cab was out of sight, Ben turned to the scruffy lad leaning against a nearby lamppost. "I'll double what the lady pays you," he said.
* * * *
On her arrival back at the art gallery, Diana immediately approached the manager, a nattily dressed little man with thinning hair that smelled of too much oil.
"I do not know his name," she said disingenuously after she'd described Damon Bathory.
"I cannot give you any information about the gentleman, madam."
"Can you tell me why he came here? What interested him?"
"That's privileged information. I do not discuss my clients' tastes."
"If he is a client, then you must know his name."
"No, madam, I do not. He did not give it." Looking down his nose at her, he inquired, "Is there something you would like to buy?"
"I'll look around," she told him, and she did so, hoping for inspiration. If she only asked the right question, she felt certain she could learn something. The manager must have more information than he'd volunteered.
Most of the landscapes on display were well executed, but none compelled her complete attention until she came upon a canvas towards the back of the gallery. It was a large seascape, featuring ships, brightly colored birds, and scantily clad maidens. The artist had signed it with the initials A. N.
"Excellent work, is it not?" Inexplicably, the manager sounded nervous.
"Interesting work. How has it been received by the critics?"
"Oh, them!" He waved a dismissive hand.
"Fit only to line a parrot's cage?" she guessed.
"Madam!"
"Perhaps a reference to Section 317 of the Penal Code."
He drew himself up to his full height -- which made him only an inch taller than Diana -- and huffed out a breath. "I assure you, madam, that neither this painting nor any of Mr. North -- " He broke off, annoyed with himself for giving away the artist's name. "That is to say, I can assure you that none of the work painted by this artist and handled by this gallery violates any city statute."
Section 317 prohibited the showing or selling of prints, figures, or images that were "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent, or disgusting." The mere mention in her column of a painting that skirted the bounds of decency would no doubt lead to its immediate sale. Damon Bathory was right about that. The scandalous always had appeal for the masses.
Diana's amusement faded when she realized she was no closer to learning anything about Damon Bathory. Whoever "A.N." was, he did not seem likely to have any connection to her assignment. There was, it appeared, no clue here to explain Bathory's visit.
"The gentleman you spoke with earlier calls himself Damon Bathory. He's prominent in his field," she said. "He is a writer and lecturer."
"Never heard of him."
"Perhaps he'll come back and buy something."
"Perhaps he will, madam, but many people simply stop in to have a look around." The gallery manager gave her a pointed look.
* * * *
By the time Diana retraced her steps to Union Square, she felt as if her feet were on fire. Nearly an hour had passed since she'd left Poke on watch. He bounded towards her the moment he saw her coming, all but dancing up and down with excitement.
"He come right out again after you went," Poke said.
"Did you follow him?"
"No need, missus." Poke launched into a colorfully worded account of how Damon Bathory had rushed out of the hotel, entered Union Square Park, and accosted a man. "Caught right ahold of him and give him a shake. My eyes, I thought he'd sock it to him."
Diana blinked. It took her a moment to translate the slang. "You thought he meant to rob the man and beat him up?"
Poke nodded. "On de level."
"This other man -- what did he look like?"
"One of doze guys wot gits lost in a crowd."
Diana persisted, eliciting a bit more description. Like Bathory himself, the mystery man had been dark-haired, but he'd been clean-shaven save for a mustache.
"Taller or shorter than Mr. Bathory?"
"Hard to tell, missus. De bloke, he slumped."
Puzzled, Diana urged Poke to go on with his tale, but there was not much more to it. The two men had argued a bit, although Poke had not been close enough to hear what they said to each other. Then Bathory had given the other fellow some money and hailed a cab for him. He'd watched it drive away, then gone back into his hotel.
Had the mysterious stranger been following Bathory, too? A creditor? A blackmailer? Whoever he was, it was too late to catch up with him now and Diana was glad of it. She'd had enough confrontations for one day.
"Are you certain Mr. Bathory didn't come out again?"
Poke assured her he had not.
Thoroughly confused by what she'd just heard, exhausted by the long hours she'd spent in a futile effort to learn something useful about the personal life of this man who wrote horror stories, Diana was reluctant to risk coming face to face with Bathory again. When Poke volunteered himself and two of his friends to keep an eye on the hotel for the rest of the night, she accepted with gratitude.
"Mr. Horatio Foxe from the _Independent Intelligencer_ will pay you," she told him.
Poke's eyes lit up at that. The street arabs knew Foxe was good for the money.
"If anything interesting happens," Diana continued, "send word to me at Mrs. Curran's boarding house on 10th Street."
She hoped the boy would not have reason to contact her. In dire need of a hot bath and a good night's sleep, she didn't even want to think about Damon Bathory again until tomorrow.
* * * *
Seated at the breakfast table the next morning, Diana looked up as her landlady pushed aside a lace curtain to peer into the areaway used as a servants' entrance. "And who would that be, knocking at my door at such an hour?" she said
Abandoning her breakfast, Diana joined Mrs. Curran at the small window. They were the only occupants of the house who were up this early. The others, who kept late hours, were accustomed to sleep in. Diana blinked in surprise when she recognized a familiar face. "Why, it's Horatio Foxe. My editor."
"Whatever is he doing here?" Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Curran threw open the door and invited him in.
Diana wondered the same thing. Foxe had never visited her at home before. Somehow, she did not think he'd come in person to deliver the expense money she'd requested.
A few minutes later, his ever-present cigar clamped firmly between his teeth, he sat across from Diana at the recently scrubbed pine table. She resumed eating her usual morning fare, slicing a bite out of a tender beefsteak and chewing slowly as he watched her. In the quiet kitchen of Mrs. Curran's small house on 10th Street, with the cast iron cookstove warming the chill out of the morning air and the pleasant, familiar scent of yeast enveloping them, Foxe seemed as out of place as mourning dress at a wedding.
"You've seen the column?" He gestured at the pile of newspapers she'd been reading as she ate. She'd set aside the previous day's _Evening Telegram_ and that morning's _Times, Tribune_, and _World_ in favor of the latest _Independent Intelligencer_.
She nodded and dug into a mound of fried potatoes. As he'd warned, Foxe had tinkered with her text.
"What did he do this time?" Mrs. Curran asked, turning from the stove with the coffee pot in her hand.
She was a small, birdlike woman, her exact age anybody's guess. When she'd given up the stage, she'd bought this house and announced she had bedrooms to let to other women of a theatrical bent. At present, two actresses, a dresser, and a seamstress lived under her roof. And Diana. Because her late husband had been an actor, she had been welcomed into the fold. She'd come close to being evicted over Monday's column and been obliged to explain herself to her landlady.
"Mr. Foxe has committed me, in print, to getting a story on Damon Bathory," Diana said.
"And is that bad?" Mrs. Curran had already brought a plate overflowing with fresh rolls to the table. She refilled Diana's cup with strong black coffee, poured out cups for herself and for Foxe, and sat down with them.
Foxe shifted uneasily in his chair. It was obvious his hostess did not intend to be driven out of her own kitchen. If he'd hoped for privacy to speak with Diana, he was doomed to disappointment.
Hiding her amusement at Foxe's frustration, Diana answered Mrs. Curran's question. "It is impossible!"
She gave a brief account of the previous day's adventures for the benefit of her landlady and her editor.
"In other words, you learned nothing." Foxe glowered at her.
"Why are you here?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look. "Have _you_ discovered something new?"
He glanced at Mrs. Curran. The older woman beamed back at him and did not budge.
"Mrs. Curran is unlikely to leak our secrets to a rival newspaper."
Diana's curiosity had been aroused by Foxe's unprecedented visit, but she was not yet fully awake and felt out of sorts besides. If he wanted to speak with her alone, he could wait until she'd finished her breakfast. She lifted her cup, inhaled the rising steam with something akin to bliss, and took a long, satisfying swallow of the reviving brew.
Foxe buttered a roll and ate it in three bites. He drank some coffee. Then the need to gloat got the better of him. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew two telegrams.
"Take a gander at these, Diana. The Bathory story is bigger than I thought."
Intrigued, she reached for them. One came from Philadelphia, the other from San Francisco, but both said the same thing -- a woman had been stabbed to death in the city's theater district.
Foxe looked grimly pleased with himself. "On a hunch, I sent requests for information to a major newspaper in each city Damon Bathory visited on his current tour. Just gave the dates and asked if any newsworthy events had taken place about the same time. You see the result -- replies from the Philadelphia _Inquirer_ and the San Francisco _Chronicle_."
"These women died while Bathory was in town?"
"At the end of his stint in each of those cities, late on a Saturday night or early on a Sunday morning, when he'd be on his way out of town and likely to avoid being questioned."
Foxe's logic was easy to follow. And alarming. Could Damon Bathory really have blood on his hands? She had been trying very hard to convince herself that he was nothing more than a talented writer and performer. Perhaps that had been a mistake. He did have an interest in some rather unpleasant subjects. And he claimed descent from an ancestor who had killed young women for their blood.
Diana shivered.
Mrs. Curran picked up each of the telegrams in turn. "Oh, my," she murmured, fixing a wide-eyed look on Foxe. "You think Damon Bathory killed these two women?"
"I think it will make a damned fine story if we can link him to the murders."