Front Page Affair (12 page)

Chapter Nineteen

“Excuse me, Amanda.” Kitty turned to her father. “Do you mind if I take this outside?”

He noticed her stunned expression. “What's wrong, Capability?”

“I'll tell you in a minute.” She went to the foyer, picked up the receiver, and heard him hang up his line. “Are you sure?” she said to her friend.

“Certain as the day I was born. He didn't come to work this morning. So of course Bessie Basshor was distressed.”

“He works seven days a week?”

“It seems so. Anyhow, she sent her chauffeur to his place in the Bronx. He had to break down the door and found Hotchkiss lying in the bathtub. The poor fellow was in his dress clothes, his shoes on and everything. He had slit his wrists. Apparently”—Amanda's voice shook—“the water was red with his blood.”

“Oh my goodness.” Kitty pulled up a chair and sat down. “Have the police been called? Do they know why he did it?”

“I think they have. I wanted to telephone you earlier, but I didn't get a chance. Bessie's fallen to pieces, so Mama has gone over, which is why I've been able to reach you. Do you think there could have been foul play?”

“Foul play?” Kitty struggled to make sense of things. What had Hotchkiss been so upset about when they spoke yesterday?

Amanda asked, “Maybe he knew who killed Hunter?”

“They're saying the stable hand shot Mr. Cole.”

“Well, that can't be it then.”

“Thank you for telling me, Amanda.” Kitty hung up the line.

Throughout the day, she recalled snippets of her interactions with the secretary: how flustered he had seemed at the party, the gossipy manner in which he filled her in on all the guests. Meeting him in the silver-papered foyer to Mrs. Basshor's apartment. His conversation with her at the
Sentinel
. And finally, their telephone conversation yesterday.

Why hadn't she paid more attention? She had been so preoccupied about preparing for her interview that she couldn't recall exactly what he'd said.

He had told her that he was finished. What did that mean? Was it significant that he whispered it just as Mrs. Basshor called his name?

She pictured him fully clothed and floating in the bathtub in his own blood and screwed her eyes shut to drive away the image.

Had he left a note? Did he suspect that Mrs. Basshor might fire him? What could be worse than that?

The first thing that popped into Kitty's mind was that Mrs. Basshor had killed Hunter Cole and that the secretary was trying to protect his mistress. But she dismissed the thought at once. Someone would have noticed if the hostess had gone missing.

Kitty stared distractedly into her closet and finally chose a white pleated dress paired with a bolero-style velvet jacket to wear the next morning. She wrote down her questions and memorized key paragraphs and phrases from Anne Morgan's book.

Tomorrow's interview had lost some of its luster.

She arrived at the
Sentinel
the following day less rested and more agitated than she ought to have been, but Miss Busby didn't seem notice.

“Turn around. One more time.” She put Kitty through her paces, scrutinizing her apprentice like a
maître de ballet
examining his prima ballerina.

“I like it.” She nodded in approval at Kitty's choice of outfit. “Attractive yet no-nonsense. Just the right balance.” She unscrewed her bottle and downed a spoonful of Rowland's.

They went over Kitty's notes, with Miss Busby muttering under her breath and making corrections. “I don't know about suffrage,” she said, pausing at one of Kitty's notes. “It's controversial.” Then she changed her mind. “Feel her out. If she's willing to reply, you can try asking.”

They spent half an hour practicing Kitty's entrance and delivery. How she must talk and present herself. What to do if she forgot a question—ask for a glass of water. “Don't panic. It will come back to you,” Miss Busby said. “And in the meantime, you will be surprised how much people talk to fill in the silence.”

The clock on the editor's desk showed it was half past nine. “Are you ready?”

“I am now.” Kitty felt like she was on the way to the gallows.

“Remember that you're from the
Sentinel
.” Miss Busby clapped her on the back. “Hold your head high.”

She accompanied Kitty downstairs and hailed her a cab. Just as Kitty was about to climb in, the editor reached into her purse and handed her a dollar for the fare.

“Thank you, Miss Busby,” Kitty said.

The cab merged into the traffic.

Fifteen minutes later, it pulled up at the corner of Park Avenue and Sixty-Second Street beside a five-story marble-and-brick building with a mansard roof and pillared facade still partially covered by scaffolding. The Colony Club was a ladies-only establishment, of which Miss Morgan was a founding member. Kitty had heard that in order to join, one had to be either fabulously wealthy or fabulously accomplished.

“Are you Miss Weeks?” A businesslike woman hurried down the stairs. “I'm Daisy Rogers, Miss Morgan's secretary. Unfortunately, Miss Morgan has been detained, but I can give you a tour of our new premises while you wait.”

Kitty eagerly accepted the offer.

“Mind your step,” Miss Rogers said as they entered a vast circular entrance hall. She gestured to a door to the right and smiled. “A kennel purpose-built for our members' dogs. They will be cared for here while their mistresses are within.”

Four arches opened onto different sections of the facility. One was a members-only sitting room paneled with wood flown in from London.

“We're a bit of an experiment,” Miss Rogers said. “This is the first clubhouse in America—in the world perhaps—built especially for ladies. There are those who wonder why we need so much more space, but we had no choice, really. The old location on Madison just wasn't large enough to accommodate everyone. All thirteen floors here—”

Kitty couldn't hide her surprise. From the outside, it seemed there were just five or six.

“I know.” The secretary seemed pleased. “Appearances can be deceiving. We have thirteen levels inside—each catering to our members' needs and desires.”

Wide-eyed, Kitty followed the secretary into a one-and-a-half-story ballroom, complete with a retractable stage on one end and a balcony for the orchestra on the other. Above it was a seventy-foot lounge, a suite of card rooms, public and private dining rooms, and private dressing rooms for members who didn't wish to stay overnight.

“Do you happen to know how the club was founded?”

“No.” Kitty shook her head, overwhelmed not solely by the opulence—that was commonplace—but by the fact that all this had been built as a female-only enclave.

“About ten years ago,” Miss Rogers told her, taking the stairs up, “Mrs. J. Borden Harriman wanted to come to the city for a few days to run errands. The problem was that she had nowhere to stay. The Harrimans were renting in Newport while their town house was being renovated, and Mr. Harriman didn't approve of ladies taking a room at a hotel by themselves. Mrs. Harriman realized then and there that what was required was a woman's club, a place where ladies could spend the night, have parcels delivered, make telephone calls, and receive guests. She applied to Miss Morgan, and Mr. Pierpont Morgan put up the first ten thousand dollars on the condition that they find nine others to contribute equal sums. That bought the place on Madison Avenue. And now, ten years later, we've grown to need a million-dollar building.”

They passed two floors of sleeping and sitting rooms en route to a gymnasium equipped with the latest equipment. Members could book private rooms for manicures, hairdressing, or individual sessions with fitness instructors; they could play a game of squash at the squash courts, then step into the express elevator—which Kitty and Miss Rogers did—and drop down six floors to arrive at the edge of a sparkling underground marble swimming pool. It was the deepest indoor pool in the city, Miss Rogers said, at sixty feet long and twenty feet wide. Another section was devoted to special treatments usually found only in the best health spas in Europe.

The door to the elevator opened, and a messenger looked in to tell them that Miss Morgan had arrived. Kitty and Miss Rogers went back upstairs to wait for her on the third floor loggia, where a flock of pink flamingos, painted by the muralist Robert Chanler, soared across a vaulted ceiling. Live macaws and a marble fountain designed by Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney would complete the scenery closer to opening day, Miss Rogers whispered.

“Do you know what one of the members said to me the other day?” The secretary stood at attention. Sensing her anticipation, Kitty began to feel nervous once again.

“She told me,” Miss Rogers went on, “that it wasn't the facilities that mattered to her. What she liked best about the club was being able to telephone her husband at the eleventh hour and tell him that
she
wouldn't be coming home for dinner.”

A set of double doors swung open, and a crisp voice called, “I'll see you later, Elsie.” Moments later, a surprisingly tall, broad-shouldered woman strode forward to greet Kitty.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Weeks.” Anne Morgan shook Kitty's hand with a firm grip.

She wore her short hair swept away from her forehead. Dark eyebrows framed a no-nonsense gaze. She wore four strings of pearls around her neck. Only the wide Peter Pan collar of her blouse softened her appearance.

“So, Miss Weeks.” She spoke in clipped, patrician tones. “What do you think of our little place?”

“It's wonderful,” Kitty replied breathlessly.

Miss Morgan pulled up a chair around one of the pretty white-painted, wrought iron tables. “And my book, what do you think of that?”

“I enjoyed it, but I do have questions.”

“As it should be.” Miss Morgan laughed. “Fire away!”

“Well.” Kitty wasn't prepared to begin with such little preamble. “May I have a glass of water?”

“Of course. Daisy.” She shot a glance at her secretary. Miss Rogers slipped away. Contrary to Miss Busby's advice, Miss Morgan said nothing to fill in the silence and instead waited for Kitty to begin.

Kitty forced herself to breathe. She smiled and dove in with one of the first questions on her list. “May I ask what prompted you to write this book?”

“You may ask me anything. That's why we're here.” Miss Morgan launched into an answer about her interest in bettering working women's lives.

Miss Rogers arrived with two glasses of water on a tray. Kitty gulped hers down and moved on to a different question that she and Miss Busby had prepared. Miss Morgan's reply sounded practiced, as though she had given a similar response many times before.

This didn't feel like the easy give-and-take of a conversation. Kitty found it difficult to focus; even Miss Morgan seemed slightly bored.

She decided to shake things up a bit. “What are your views on suffrage, Miss Morgan?”

The philanthropist's eyes narrowed. “I'm not against suffrage,” she said after a moment. “I am simply not interested in the topic. I believe many things are more immediately necessary, such as the economic welfare of women. And once suffrage comes—and I believe it will—we must regard it not as a right but as a duty. With greater freedom comes greater responsibility—that I believe to my core.”

Kitty nodded. Finally, they might be getting somewhere. “I think our readers would like to know,” she said, “why, when men are encouraged to do and see so much, you suggest that girls focus more narrowly on their domestic and local responsibilities?” Her question wasn't one from the list that Miss Busby had vetted.

Miss Morgan paused to think, and Kitty worried she might have spoken too boldly.

“Excellent question,” Anne Morgan replied finally as she adjusted her pearls. “Men and women are fundamentally different creatures, with different abilities and different temperaments. To me, equality of the sexes in no sense means similarity. For women to move forward, we must embrace our difference from men. For most girls—working women who come from families struggling to make ends meet—the best way to improve their lot is by improving the condition of their communities.”

“But what if a girl isn't interested in public service?” Kitty persisted. “Must she give up her own ambitions in order to serve the greater good?”

“Let's make this more concrete,” Miss Morgan proposed. “I take it that you plan to be a journalist?”

Kitty nodded.

“My great friend Ida Tarbell writes for magazines and newspapers.”

“I know of Miss Tarbell,” Kitty said.

“Of course you do. Her investigation into the monopolistic activities of Mr. John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company opened the public's eyes and resulted in the government taking decisive action. I bring up this example not to point fingers but to illustrate my conviction: any vocation, if pursued courageously and with a pure heart and honest motives, will bring about a betterment of one's community. It's just that it's more realistic for most women to limit their scope of activities, whereas a smaller group benefits from having a freer rein.”

Kitty liked Miss Morgan's turn of phrase and hoped she'd be able to remember it.

“My book has been written for girls who must work to make ends meet,” Miss Morgan continued, taking a sip of water. “They don't have the luxury of choosing between professions. I have long been an advocate for a living wage for both men and women. Only when she can support her family can a woman realize her true potential.”

She looked Kitty in the eye. “I have the same attitude toward suffrage. I want to prepare women so that they may be able to make proper use of suffrage when it comes.”

Kitty took the bit between her teeth. Neither her questions nor Miss Busby's questions would do. She had to treat Miss Morgan as a person in order to breathe some life into this interview and get behind the public persona.