Only in New England : the story of a gaslight crime (12 page)

The name immediately called to mind a backstreet theater in my old home town. The Casino. You could hardly see the stage for the cigar smoke. Gargling comedians in slapstick shoes, and a pony line of cavorting females who could never quite keep in step.

"Well," Fishbait narrated, "Peter Ross once had a bull named Sliding Billy Watson. Had the initials S. B.—for Sliding Billy-branded on its rump. One night just before the County Fair—this was a long time ago—some of the boys sneaked into Ross's pasture and changed the initials S. B. to L. B. Nobody noticed it until the animal went on show at the fairground. Didn't that raise Hail Columbia!"

I asked, "Did Abby Bridewell know about the bull?"

"She was one of the judges at the cattle show. Mad as a wet hen. Seems she bought the bull and had it slaughtered. Doc Hat-

field used to say she should have kept the bull and slaughtered Lionel."

"So Lionel continued to speculate in the Beef Trust."

Fishbait filled his glass reflectively. He took a long drink. Held it in his mouth. Puffed his cheeks, and sloshed the Scotch through his teeth as though it were a dental wash. Then he swallowed the drink and said, "I'd say Lionel just about cornered the market."

"Romance at the Surf and Sand," I ventured.

"That's right," Fishbait said with a grin. "You know how women are at summer resorts. Away from home for a couple of weeks. Sea air. The beach. A big round moon. Mash? Managing a resort hotel, you get it hot and steaming on a platter."

"Don't forget he could sing," Ed put in. "Or so they say, don't they, Fishbait?"

"Heard my father tell," Fishbait nodded. "They'd flock around Lionel at the piano there at the Surf and Sand. He'd put on a one-man concert. Songs like The Last Rose of Summer —that kind. Besides, they thought he owned the place. Anyway, he was in charge of the room keys."

"So if his throat couldn't find the right key, at least his hand could."

Fishbait laughed at my sally. "That's a good one. But of course he had a pass key. It was a standing joke around there—see, my father worked there for a couple of seasons—that a cutup who used a pass key as often as Lionel should have realized there's such a thing as a keyhole."

"Especially with a Fox in the house," Ed jibed.

"Well, the help doesn't miss much in a resort hotel," Fishbait admitted. "Say, Ed, do you remember the one they used to tell about Lionel and Sophie?"

"No," Ed said as Fishbait reached for the bottle. "Look," he turned to me. "I got just time to get to the liquor store before it closes. You tend the Scotch here with Fishbait. He's got a story on the line. . . . Tell it, Fishbait."

Ed hurried off to replenish the famine-threatened Scotch supply.

While Ed was gone, Fishbait Fred Fox, stretched full length in a chair, his rubber boots crossed on a footstool, regaled me with the story of Lionel and Sophie.

Sophie St. Clair. The "Pointers" thought her right name was Sowalski—something like that—and that she probably hailed from a mill town, perhaps Fall River. Anyway, she was Polish. Nothing against her. Nothing at all. Except she didn't quite mix with the New York and Boston types that patronized the Surf and Sand.

A haystack blonde with an I've-got-it figure and a come-and-get-it walk. She wore a French sailor tarn with a red pompom, a middy blouse with a notably daring "V" and a hobble skirt slit at the ankle. That was her seaside costume. For evening promenade she appeared in sailor straw with black ribbons, white blouse with even more expansive "V," shiny patent leather belt four inches wide, and black skirt slit half-way up the calf. Fishbait recalled her as the first woman he ever saw smoking a cigarette. Violet Milos. She wasn't a small woman, neither was she Juno-esque. Her build was just right. In the vernacular, a lulu.

She arrived fresh off the boat in the midsummer of 1904, and her advent at the Surf and Sand created a stir that animated the rocking chairs the entire length of the seaboard's longest hotel verandah. By day's end wives were counting their husbands, Yale boys were planning to stay another week, and spinsters were talking about "that woman."

We are a people fearfully and wonderfully made. Gentlemen, we wear our clothes as suits of armor (by day, at least) pretending we are a highly civilized, upright, courageous, down-to-brass-tacks group of officers, professionals and businessmen. We like our women, to be sure. But with a manly tolerance that thinks they don't know how to drive their cars, a patronization that mistrusts their bridge, a cunning avarice that underpays them in factory or office, and a conviction that no woman could ever be President.

Gentlemen, we are a pack of frauds. Not one general among us could outsmart a Sophie Sowalski if marooned with her three months on a desert island. Not a single judge in our Supreme Court could concentrate on law if locked in a closed chamber with such a female for one month. And any Venus who cares to break up a State of the Nation address to Congress could do so in an instant by sauntering down the center aisle in her altogether. You could resist her on that desert island? You wouldn't look? You'd go right on talking? Come now, General—Your Honor— Mr. President— You can fool some of the public none of the time. Her. She knows your little pretense, your petty secret. She has known it since the day of Adam.

As for you, Dear Lady, in your Mother Hubbard, your housewife's apron, your party smock or evening gown—you are quite content to let His Highness think he is Master of the Castle and King of the Sea. This small boy with his uniforms and paper hats and cap pistols, his toy trains and skyrockets—you've resigned the world to him because it keeps him happy and out of your hair, and he'd have a tantrum if you took his candy away. He wants the Moon with a Little Red Fence around it? Let him reach for it. Let him pretend. Let him alone and he'll come home, wagging his tail behind him.

But civilized? Not you, Dear Miss or Madam. Underneath the corset on all of you there is this Cave Woman. You are playing whist at a card table, or knitting at a get-together, or dining under a crystal chandelier, or chatting small talk on a hotel verandah. Along comes one of your kind in a tarn with a red pompom, a blouse with an expansive "V," and you reach for your stone-age club. The higher the cut of your formality, the thinner your veneer. Your pet Small Boy with his toy trains and big cigars must be protected from the Amazonian invader.

In the rocking-chair jungle of the Surf and Sand they hated Sophie (Mrs. St. Clair) Sowalski. The female primates in the jungle, that is. The males beat their cardboard shirtfronts and privately dreamed, or schemed, some sort of ambush.

The cynosure of all this primordial commotion and emotion strolled the scene at her leisure, coolly selecting her prey. Her

methods were not without sophistication. For her first few days on locale she struck a posture of studied indifference as she sauntered into the dining room or promenaded the verandah. When she paused to tap a cigarette on a manicured thumbnail, and an assortment of eager gallants would step forward with matches alight, she would smile wordless thanks, strike her own match, and walk on. Determinedly (and designingly) she walked alone.

Several of the older Jim Bradies—gentlemen posing as widowers and so on—maneuvered to intercept her on the staircase or to speak to her at tea. Their invitations were graciously declined by a husky-throated, "No, thank you," and a politely extended third finger exhibiting the diamond of a wedding ring.

Mrs. St. Clair dined by herself at a centrally located table. Walked by herself on the beach. Took her cocktail by herself in the sun parlor. Sat by herself at evening in a secluded corner of the verandah. A conspicuous display of decorum that fooled nobody—least of all the management in the person of Lionel Bridewell.

Searching his memory, my informant could not recall any witness accounts of the initial meeting between Lionel and Sophie. But the encounter was easily imagined. The after-dinner concert hour. Enter Lionel (who usually dined in his private office), his hair pomaded, his features slightly blooded, his jaw handsomely profiled—in his tailcoat, waistcoat and trousers composing a pen-and-ink sketch by Charles Dana Gibson. He smiles and bows to the right, smiles and bows to the left. Then, centerpiece in a bouquet of young ladies, he moves to the grand piano.

A twirl of the stool, and he is seated. He flips his tails and adjusts his cuffs. And he is just bursting into song, his lips forming pear-shaped tones, when Sophie appears in the rear doorway which frames an alcove of the sun room.

Eyes meet for an instant. Lionel's baritone skids a shade off-key. Smiling disinterestedly, Sophie advances, passes the group at the piano, and is gone. A whiff of Violet Milo lingers in her wake. Thus The Last Rose of Summer sheds its petals in the gusty breeze from Ta Ra Ra Boom-de-Yay.

"I'm not in voice tonight, ladies. I'm sorry."

And Lionel is off and gone as though drawn through the outer doors by suction.

If Sophie were as artful as she seems to have been, she must have fended off Lionel's opening advances with the skill of a lady matador evading a charging bull. No, thank you, there's nothing you can do for me, Mr. Bridewell. My room is very comfortable, thank you. Yes, the service is excellent. Thank you, no, I don't think I'll go down to the Center this evening. I've had rather a tiring day. Thank you, and good night.

She would have been similarly cool toward the offerings of table flowers, pressed duck and free champagne that soon followed. Would have stared in dismayed surprise when he pressed her hand as he paused to speak to her on the verandah—"Is everything all right, Mrs. St. Clair?" And if she played her gambit with the wiliness attributed to her type, she would have insinuated once or twice that his attentions were unwelcome, and would have resisted his first upper hall embrace with the reminder, "Please, Mr. Bridewell; I'm married."

By that stage her victim's surface suavity must have peeled away to reveal the buffalo underneath. Another week, and she would have the ring in his nose and the rope in her hand.

"My friends call me Soph. You know. For sophisticated."

"Call me Lion."

"Lion!"

"Soph!"

So the age-old traps were baited; the age-old game was played. But this time with the difference that the age-old question of which was hunter, which was victim (who can say when Nimrod and Diana are the principals?)—this time the question was definitely answered. There could be no doubt concerning who caught whom.

I think Lionel Bridewell was one of those putty sportsmen who fancied himself a big-game hunter and never bagged a trophy larger than quail. Mrs. St. Clair was his first tigress, so to speak, and she ate him alive just as he thought he had her in the bag.

•

It was an evening late in August. Warm. With the transoms open. Sophie had vanished from the verandah. Lionel had disappeared from the lobby desk.

Sophie's room was on the second floor—a corner room with windows giving view on moon-silvered sea. The room was dark, and had been so for some time. Then suddenly a flash of radiant light burst blindingly at the transom. Ensued shouting, loud banging at the door. "Open up! We know you're in there! We've got the picture!"

Sophie, her hair down, opens the door. In rushes the irate man in the straw skimmer, followed by the leering photographer with the Graflex.

"Come on, you!" orders the irate man. "We know you're in the wardrobe!"

Out of the tall wardrobe, his features as sickly as those of Dr. Caligari, steps Lionel.

Hearing about it, I asked Fishbait Fred, "Was he wearing Dr. Sanden's Electric Belt?"

He snorted. "If he was, he must've blown a fuse. He swore he'd never even had his necktie off. He said Mrs. St. Clair had rung for ice water, the bellboys were all busy, so he'd taken her some. Trouble was, the pitcher in the room was lukewarm, and the lights had been out. Lionel was caught cold."

Sophie weeping. "My reputation! My good name!"

The man in the straw hat cursing. "You'll answer for this, you scoundrel. I'm her husband!"

Lionel—a stag at bay. "Please! We can settle this!"

In New England? Where the seduction of a married woman is high crime—a serious felony termed "criminal conversations" in most of the statutes; a capital crime in one of the Puritan States!

"I'll have your head for this, mister! Hotel manager preying on innocent female guests! You'll pay for this!"

"Wait! Can't we talk it over?"

"What's there to talk about?"

"How much—? I mean—if a hundred dollars!"

"Hundred dollars? Aren't you the geezer! Look, Bridewell, if you really want to stay out of jail . . ."

A ridiculous burlesque, surely. Played in skit after skit in the Broadway musicals of the Roaring Twenties. But not so comic in its gaslight heyday. The "Old Army" routine. The badger game. If the story were true, Sophie (Mrs. St. Clair) Sowalski took Lionel Bridewell with a swindle as characteristic of the period American scene as the Police Gazette.

Indeed, the old Gazette contained many an account of the badger game as popularly played in that button-hook decade. It struck me as indicative of a low intelligence quotient that an avid reader of the barbershop journal could have been trapped by so stale a contrivance. Humpty Dumpties are usually simple souls like brigadier generals and mid-West industrialists.

"I suppose it cost Lionel—or, rather, his mother—a lot of money," I said.

Fishbait chuckled. "You can wager it was an expensive squeeze."'

Naturally. Old Abby would have had to pay through the nose. Not only to rescue Lionel, but to save the Surf and Sand. Easy to imagine how polite society would have eschewed the hotel had that transom photograph been published.

"Oh, well," Fishbait said, limbering to his feet. "The Bridewells could afford it. They were richer than fertilizer."

Scratching the growth on his cheek, he eyed the empty bottle on the tabouret by his chair. Abruptly he extended his hand to me. "My dear sir. Please convey to our host my apologies for not awaiting his return. And thank you for listening. Who was it said a friend is an ear?"