Front Page Affair (15 page)

His color was high, and Kitty thanked him for his frankness. “It was not my intention to cause you any distress,” she added in German.

“That's quite all right.” He gave a short bow. “I'm happy to explain and to have found a sympathetic listener.”

“May I ask one final question? Do you recall what sort of business proposal Mr. Cole made to you?”

Dr. Albert seemed distracted. “It might have been about bandages. You can go back to the office with Hiliken and check. I really don't remember.”

“That won't be necessary. Thank you for your time.”

“Very well, Fraulein.” He bowed again. “Good luck to you.” He went to attend to his business, while Hiliken, who had reappeared toward the end of their conversation, escorted Kitty to the gate.

“Would you like me to find you a taxi?” he asked when they reached the street.

“No, thank you.” Something about the man made Kitty's skin crawl. “I'm sure I'll find one on Broadway.” She took her leave of him and hurried off down the lonely side street back toward the bustle near the Hamburg-American Line offices.

How strange of the diplomat to confide in her, she thought. He did have a point though—even if he had met innocently with Mr. Cole, that meeting was liable to be misconstrued. Had they only met once? That seemed to be the key question. Didn't Hunter Cole tell Poppy Clements that he met Dr. Albert regularly? Could he have been exaggerating? Kitty could imagine Mr. Cole overstating his connection to the German diplomat to make himself seem important. He had seemed like a man full of bluff and bluster.

A tap on her shoulder made her heart jump from her skin. She swung around to face a stocky fellow.

“Are you Capability Weeks?”

“I beg your pardon?” She assumed her most haughty demeanor.

“I'm Agent Booth from the United States Secret Service.” He flashed a badge. “This is my colleague, Agent Soames.” He nodded toward the young man at his shoulder.

What a coincidence, Kitty thought. He was the same young man who bumped into her at Carnegie Hall.

“What is this about?” she asked.

“You will come with us, please.” It wasn't a request.

“Is something the matter?”

The stocky agent replied, “We have to ask you some questions about Mr. Julian Weeks, your father.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“I'm expected back at the
New York Sentinel
in fifteen minutes,” Kitty said, fear gripping her. “They'll be waiting for me.”

The agents didn't respond and instead led Kitty to a nearby dive, a greasy joint that reeked of boiled mutton and beer. They headed for a table behind a group of sailors telling bawdy jokes to a couple of women.

The older, stocky agent, Booth, ordered three glasses of water from a passing waitress.

“That's all?” the waitress said with annoyance.

“We won't be long.” He showed her his badge.

“Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir.” She disappeared.

“All right then.” The agent turned to Kitty. “Let's start with first things first. What were you doing at the Hamburg-American?”

Kitty gasped. “How did you know I was there?” The laughter from the next table made it hard to concentrate. “Have you been following me?”

“We ask the questions, Miss Weeks,” Booth replied.

Kitty's mind raced. How could they know where she'd been? Had they seen her with Dr. Albert? Surely it wasn't a crime to converse with a diplomat from a foreign country. Could Hiliken have telephoned to report her? But no—it was her father they were interested in.

Kitty explained about Mrs. Basshor's party, the shooting, and Hunter Cole's mention of a Dr. Albert. Throughout, Agent Booth listened impassively, his arms folded across his barrel chest, while Agent Soames didn't look at her once. He had his pad open and took notes as she spoke.

“I don't know where I'm going with this,” Kitty finished sheepishly. “Mrs. Basshor's secretary confessed to the crime, so that's that. I suppose there were just a few loose ends nagging at me.”

“And what did Dr. Albert have to say to your question about whether or not he knew Mr. Cole?” Booth and Soames exchanged glances.

Kitty felt she had implicitly given the diplomat her word not to repeat what he had told her, but she couldn't lie to the representatives of the Treasury Department.

“He said he might have, but if he did, it didn't lead to anything,” she replied. “He said I could check his daybook at the office to confirm, but I believe him.”

Agent Soames kept scribbling. If their positions had been reversed, she would have had to memorize all this information rather than writing it down, Kitty thought.

“Why,” Booth went on, “did you drop off Mr. Julian Weeks at the Edelweiss Café? Who was he meeting and for what purpose?”

Kitty's hands flew to her mouth. “You've been spying on us! How long has this been going on?”

Silence. Or, at least, silence from the agents. The diner resounded with joke-telling and raucous laughter. The disgruntled waitress thumped three glasses of water onto the table so hard that some of it spilled.

“This makes no sense.” Kitty's eyes filled with angry tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. “You must have the wrong person.”

“Did you or did you not drop off Mr. Weeks at around ten a.m. on Friday, July 9?” Booth said.

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Our chauffeur had to bring the other car to the mechanic's for an inspection. My father doesn't drive and didn't want to ride in a taxi.” She took some satisfaction from her answer.

Booth continued, unperturbed. “Who was Mr. Weeks meeting there and for what purpose?”

“I have no idea.”

“I see.” The big man didn't sound convinced. “You're sure?”

She shrugged. “He said it was someone from out of town.”

“And that's it?”

“That's it.” The disbelief showed on his face, so she added, “If you met my father, you would know. He doesn't tell me anything.” She waited a moment. “May I ask you something?”

Booth gave a grudging nod.

“Has he broken the law?”

Soames finally spoke. “You can help us prove that he hasn't.”

Kitty wanted to ask whether Soames had bumped into her on purpose. “How can I do that?”

Booth said, “Tell us whom Mr. Weeks met at the café and why.”

“I just told you I don't know.”

“You're his daughter,” Booth replied, unmoved. “I'm sure you can cajole it out of him.”

“You'd be helping your father and us, Miss Weeks,” Soames added. “Your actions would count in his favor.”

Kitty began to feel cornered.

“We're from the Secret Service.” Booth leaned in, his beefy face just inches from hers. “We'll get what we need whether or not you help, but unlike you, we won't have a light touch.” Pockmarks scarred his cheeks. “The stain of being under government investigation doesn't wash away easily. Once we start asking questions, everyone will find out.”

“I see—”

“So give us what we need, and we'll leave you in peace. Just remember, you can't breathe a word to anyone. This is strictly government business.”

• • •

It was too late to go back to work at this point, and Kitty was in no mood to face Miss Busby. All she wanted was to speak to her father. She would find out the information somehow, and then the two Secret Service men would leave them alone. There was something about the agents that frightened Kitty: the older one seemed like a bully; the younger one—he spoke well and he was nice-looking, she had to give him that. But he was too reserved: his smile didn't reach his eyes.

She found it odd that they didn't want anyone to know about their conversation, but for the moment, at least, she had to trust them. She wished she had someone to whom she could turn for advice, but she had no one, and even if she did, what could she say when she had been forbidden to breathe a word about it to anyone?

She returned home shaken from the encounter, hoping to find her father in his study sipping a whiskey so she could engage him in a nice little chat. Instead, he had left her a note saying he would be out to dinner with Maitland.

Kitty handed Grace her hat and purse.

“I have to check something,” she said to the maid before opening the door to the study.

A pair of milky white eyes stared at her from the darkness. Kitty took a deep breath and turned on the lamp. How she hated that infernal sculpture.

She wasn't betraying her father, she told herself. She was helping him. If she found any information that was even the slightest bit incriminating, she wouldn't hesitate to warn him.

She found his leather-bound notebook in the second drawer of his desk and leafed through the thick cotton pages, smiling fondly at the sight of his spidery handwriting. In contrast to Julian Weeks's imposing physical presence—the sculpted head, the strong arms, which caught her when she jumped off trees in her childhood—his script resembled that of an elderly man's.

Kitty traced the shaky letters with her finger. From the authors on his shelves—Adam Smith, Rousseau, Gibbons—one would never guess that he had taught himself to read and write. He'd mastered the former with no apparent difficulty. The writing, well… As the Misses Danceys said, that required practice, practice, and more practice. Julian Weeks came from humble beginnings and, unlike Kitty, hadn't had years of leisure to perfect his penmanship.

What he didn't have himself, he had given her: a good education and every conceivable luxury.

Kitty began to read, ignoring her twinges of guilt. She would tell the men from the Treasury Department what they needed to know, and then they would vanish without her father or any of their acquaintances being the wiser.

Most of the diary was blank. On weekdays, he simply wrote
club
,
home
, or sometimes
mtg
followed by a brief note.

He recorded details about his Sunday outings with Kitty, however. Kitty was touched to see the entries, which ranged from
Botanic Gdns
to
F.T. Park
to
Chinatown
with an exclamation mark. He'd even noted the items that they'd ordered from the restaurant on Mott Street:
Duck soup; fried squid in cracker dust, 7
9
¢
; Chinese noodles, 5
0
¢
.

He had jotted down the ferry timings for the day they drove to Jersey City. Kitty recalled how surprised she had been to discover that they could cross the Hudson by train or take their car across on a boat, but that no bridge connected New Jersey to Manhattan.

Here and there, Kitty saw his lawyer mentioned, and in late June, Mr. Maitland's name popped up. For Friday, July 9, the morning Mr. Weeks went to the Edelweiss Café, he had written the address and
H.S.
+
1
.

Kitty replaced the diary in his drawer, switched off the lamp, and closed the door to the study behind her.
H.S.

She didn't know of anyone by those initials. In fact, save for his lawyer, doctor, and a handful of other business colleagues, she didn't know the names of any of her father's friends. He so rarely mentioned them. And who was the plus one?

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kitty arrived at the hen coop the next morning steeled for the worst. An uneasy night's sleep only intensified her sense of dread at facing her boss.

“How is Miss Busby?” she asked Jeannie as she passed by the typist's desk.

“Not pleased,” Jeannie replied, her round face pinched with concern. “She sent me out three times to look for you. Why didn't you tell anyone you were leaving?”

“I hardly know myself.” Kitty put down her things and began the long march to the editor's office. She found Miss Busby buried behind ominous headlines:

PRESIDENT MAY DELAY REPLY TO BERLIN BY A WEEK. PRESENT ATTITUDE IS ONE OF DELIBERATION.

“I'm so sorry about yesterday.” Kitty came in and sat down.

Helena Busby lowered her paper. She didn't respond for a moment. Then a single tear trickled down her withered cheek and splashed onto the news. Her hand trembled as she unscrewed her bottle of Rowland's.

Miss Busby looked worn out. The older woman had no personal photographs on her desk, no family or friends that Kitty had heard her speak of. Beneath the president's portrait hung a faded clipping from the '90s, which Kitty had once read. It described the new type of “bachelorette girl.” “She paddles her own canoe, works for a living, and
chooses
to make her own way in the world.”

Kitty had assumed that the piece referred to the kind of life Miss Busby lead or, at least, to the life that she dreamed of.

She tried to imagine her editor young and carefree, with stars in her eyes. Had Miss Busby wanted to write breaking news or travel the world like Nellie Bly? Then twenty, thirty, maybe even forty years later, the once-fresh girl reporter finds herself chained to her desk, stuck in an airless alcove, and all for what?

Miss Busby tilted the bottle over her spoon, but only a drop came out. She rummaged in her drawer for another but found it was empty too.

“Hundreds of girls would kill to be in your shoes.” She tossed both bottles into the waste bin.

“I'm so sorry, Miss Busby,” Kitty repeated. She meant every word. She would give anything for a second chance.

“Do you know what Mr. Bennett says about female journalists?” Miss Busby asked.

Mr. Bennett wasn't a colleague—he was the English author Arnold Bennett, and Miss Busby considered his
Journalism for Women
her bible.

“He says we are unreliable as a class. He says that it is not surprising that the young woman who is accustomed to remark gaily, ‘Only five minutes late this morning, Father,' confident that a frown or a hard word will end the affair, should carry into business the laxities so long permitted to her around the hearth,” the editor went on. “I've coddled you. That's the problem. You don't know what it's like to have to start from nothing. To have to scratch and fight for every inch of opportunity.”

Kitty stared at the papers on the editor's desk, contrite.

“I've met all kinds of girls in the course of my work.” Helena Busby rose to her feet and continued, like an orator addressing crowds. “There's the sprightly type who martyrs herself because she must work with other women whose dullness and primness jar on her vivacities; the girl who feels insulted because men don't accord her the deference to which she is accustomed; the woman who says, ‘I forgot to do so and so, I'm so sorry,' and stands like a spoiled child expectant of forgiveness…”

The beanpole frame thrummed with emotion. “In men destined for business or a profession, carelessness is harshly discouraged at an early age. In women, who usually are not destined for
anything whatever
, it enjoys a merry life.”

Kitty wondered whether she should call for help, but what would she say was the matter? That Miss Busby was quoting Mr. Bennett almost word for word?

“In journalism, as perhaps in no other profession, success depends wholly upon the loyal cooperation, the perfect reliability of a number of people,” the editor said. “Some are great, and some are small, but none are
irresponsible
.”

“Won't you sit down, Miss Busby?” Kitty suggested. “Let me get you something to drink.”

“A vast number of women engaged in journalism secretly regard it as a delightful game.” Spittle collected at the corner of the thin lips. “On no other assumption can the attitude of many women journalists toward their work be explained. My final words as I leave you on the threshold of an office are these”—she gasped—“journalism is not a game, and in journalism there are no excuses.”

And like a tree hacked at exactly the right angle, Miss Busby toppled forward.

• • •

Mr. Hewitt addressed the stunned typists an hour after the doctor came to take the Ladies' Page editor away, summarizing the medical diagnosis. “The female constitution cannot withstand the pressure of working at a newspaper year after year for eight- to ten-hour days. I hope for your own sakes that you will all someday marry.”

He nodded at Kitty. “Come with me, Miss Weeks.”

Kitty followed him down the hall to his office. She couldn't bring herself to look Miss Busby's superior in the eye.

“This is why we insisted that she take on an apprentice,” he said, settling into his seat behind his desk. “Still, she didn't exactly keep you busy, did she? No. She held on to the reins too tightly.”

He rummaged through his papers. “You needn't worry though. Mr. Eichendorff will make sure that she's sent to a sanitarium. She went to one upstate a couple of years ago. Came back in fine fettle. But enough talk; we have a Ladies' Page to publish.”

He cleaned his glasses with his kerchief. “Did you bring me her proofs?”

Kitty handed them over. She had overheard whispers between Mr. Hewitt and the doctor. The physician had said something about displaced ovaries and a collapsed uterus, the effects of working too hard and not having borne children. The strain on Miss Busby's system had also been exacerbated by neurasthenia, a complete depletion of the nerves, the doctor had added.

Mr. Hewitt wrinkled his nose while he scanned the pages that Kitty had given him. “In the words of the late, great Horace Greeley, the only way to succeed in this business is to eat ink and sleep on newsprint. Miss Busby certainly did that. No one could accuse her of shirking. Yes, it seems we have a head start on this week, and there are more than enough advertisements and announcements to fill in any blank spaces. What matters most”—he glanced at Kitty over his glasses—“is that the Morgan interview be top-notch. It's to be the centerpiece of Saturday's edition. Get a draft done by this afternoon, and we'll review it.”

“Yes, Mr. Hewitt.”

“Call the compositor,” Mr. Hewitt continued, “and let him know that I'll speak to him at five. I expect you to be present to take notes. Now that Miss Busby is gone, you will take over some of her responsibilities. Who knows? This might even lead to a promotion for you… That will be all.”

Kitty turned to leave. She couldn't believe that she hadn't been reprimanded, and that moreover, she might benefit from Miss Busby's collapse. “Yes, Mr. Hewitt.”

She returned to her desk. All the typists were back at work as though nothing had happened. Kitty retrieved her notes from the Anne Morgan interview. Somehow, the sight of her scribbles reminded her of Agent Soames and his note-taking. She pushed away the attendant anxiety that the thought brought up and focused on the task at hand.

In no time at all, Kitty found herself immersed in the world of the Colony Club. She could see the ballroom, the underground swimming pool, and the loggia with its mural of pink flamingos. She recalled Miss Morgan's flashing dark eyes, her clipped speech, and the string of pearls—and Kitty's writing flowed, as though Miss Busby herself guided her hand.

She reviewed the draft when she finished, corrected the grammar, and removed any trace of unnecessary gush or shrillness—Mr. Arnold Bennett disapproved of superlatives, overpunctuation, trite expressions, and wordiness. She prepared a fresh copy and brought it to the Weekend Supplement editor in his office.

“You called the compositor?”

“Yes, Mr. Hewitt.”

“All right, come back and see me at five. I'll have read this by then.”

And then Kitty remembered—she had to meet the agents first thing tomorrow and so couldn't stay late today. “I'm afraid I can't, Mr. Hewitt.”

“Can't what, Miss Weeks?”

“Stay past five.” She needed time to speak to her father.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I have to be home for dinner this evening.”

The editor held up his hand. “Don't give me any excuses. I have no interest in your domestic affairs. As far as I'm concerned, the choice is simple: either you give your work one hundred percent, or you don't.”

Kitty remained silent.

“All right, send that girl”—he snapped his fingers—“Janie Williams to see me.”

“You mean Jeannie Williams, Mr. Hewitt?”

“That's correct.”

“Will that be all, Mr. Hewitt?”

He nodded. “You're free to leave.”

Kitty told herself she couldn't expect anything else under the circumstances. Hopefully, he would feel better once he had read her interview.