When Louisa returned to the hotel, it was well past six o’clock. The police had kept her in an office at the morgue to question her about her identification of Minnie Fitch. Louisa had never been examined by the police before, so she wasn’t prepared for what seemed to be their hostility. The hostility, she decided, was really a cynicism born of hearing a lot of lies for many years. Still, she felt more like a suspect than a witness. She became angry when the questioning was done all over again by a man who introduced himself as Detective Forcella from the Murder Squad.
“You knew it would be her, Mrs. Doyle?”
“I thought it might be. I didn’t say I knew.”
“Why’d you think it ‘might be’?”
“Because it was so unlike her not to have come to work.”
The detective looked at a policeman and squinched up his mouth and nose as if he’d smelled something bad. He was young and rather good looking in an Italian way. He said, “Where were you last night, Mrs. Doyle?”
She started to say angrily that that was none of his business, but she realized that she would only waste time if she did; she said, “In my room at the New Britannic Hotel.”
A look she didn’t understand passed between the two policemen, followed by some irrelevant-seeming questions about the New Britannic—how long had she been there, when had she left there today, where was her husband? Finally, they asked all the same questions again and then all three of them waited while her answers were written out in a fair copy by somebody else, and she was able to sign and leave.
“You stay where we can find you when we want you, please, Mrs. Doyle.”
There was no proper answer to that, so she gave none. McClurg, who had also been questioned, had waited for her. He was soberer, but he still was grieving. He said, “I couldn’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Why Minnie?”
“Because she wrote that article.”
“That’s about the cops. You think a cop did this?”
“It wasn’t just about the ‘cops.’ It was also about the murderer—and the hotel.”
“You knew before we went to the morgue, didn’t you.”
“That’s what the police asked. I didn’t know; you can’t know. But I was standing by the elevator, and I was thinking about her not coming in today and about what she was supposed to write next…”
McClurg shuddered. He took her arm. “Don’t you ever cry?”
“Often.”
“You ought to be in the newspaper business.” He had walked her to the street and got her a cab. “We’ll give her a big sendoff. The Express will want to make a big shindig out of it. Tell me you’ll come.”
She had smiled. She took the cab only to the elevated station at Chatham Square to save herself changing trains there, and then she climbed the now-painful stairs to the platform and waited for the train. It was already half dark, lights coming on in the tenement windows. There was no joy in the trip this time, nor any of its interest in the life within the buildings. All she saw was Minnie, Minnie with and without a face.
Then she was back at the hotel, puzzled by a cluster of sour-looking men and women on the pavement, and two boys coming out the bronze doors with loads of luggage. It seemed to her an odd time to be leaving a hotel, but perhaps they had found something they couldn’t bear about the New Britannic. She limped around them and was surprised to be stopped by a policeman. She tried to go around—she wanted a hot bath and her bed and a sleeping powder—and he held her arm.
“Only registered guests, lady.”
“I am a registered guest. What in the world is going on?”
“Name?”
She waited. She said, “What has that to do with my going into my hotel?”
“You got a name, you’re registered, you can go in.”
“I am Mrs. Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“Room number?”
“Really, this is…!” She understood from his face that he was serious. He was young, too, and probably new, thus more truculent than he needed to be. Another, older cop was standing where the doorman should have been. He, too, was waiting for her answer: he had a sheet of paper and a pencil.
She said, “Room 201, the annex.”
The older cop looked at his paper, drew a line, jerked his head. “Let her in.”
The young one let go of her arm. The older one, to her relief, opened the heavy bronze door for her. She thought that she couldn’t have done it herself, not with a weak ankle and the weight of Minnie.
The scene inside was astonishing. She saw at least five policemen. People she recognized as guests were seated in the front part of the lobby, cordoned off with brass standards and a velvet rope; other guests—she recognized Irving and Cody and a few others—were on the other side. They seemed more relaxed; several were smoking; one or two had drinks. Around the reception desk was a pile of luggage far too big to be for only one party; near it, three unhappy-looking souls were scowling at the world.
“What is going on?”
Another cop had appeared with another piece of paper. “Name and room number?”
“I just gave that outside.”
“Makes no diff to me, lady; I need your name and room number.”
She sighed to show how abused she felt and muttered, “Doyle, Annex 201.”
He made a mark on his paper and pulled one of the brass standards away from the wall. “Wait in there.”
“For what?”
“I don’t make the rules and I don’t answer questions. I got my orders. Take a chair.”
She wanted to make herself regal, but she felt crumpled; sagging, round shouldered. She limped into the enclosure and let herself down into a leather chair. She recognized several of the people near by. When she met their eyes, they shook their heads or made faces. She said to a tall man in good clothes whom she had seen in the dining room, “What in the world is going on?”
“Somebody’s dead.”
“Who?”
“They won’t tell us.”
She looked around, as if by elimination she might guess who it was; the fact was that in a hotel with two hundred rooms she could hardly know everyone by sight. She looked across to the other side of the lobby, met Irving’s eyes. He smiled and bowed, said something to Cody, who then did the same.
Another cop appeared and called a name, and a man and a woman got up from her group and went away with him.
“What are they doing?”
“Asking questions.”
Death, police, questions. She had just left those things at the morgue. She had a momentary, disorienting idea that this was all about Minnie, was the same questioning, the same police, but she came to and realized it had to be different. But not usual, not merely a death; the police didn’t appear by the dozen for a routine death.
Somebody was shouting at Reception. Carver was there, looking sweaty and harassed. The shouter and the others by the pile of luggage must be people who had reserved rooms and weren’t being allowed to go beyond the lobby. And the people marching off with their luggage must be people who refused to wait and were going to another hotel.
She sank back into the embrace of the chair. A minute later, she was asleep.
“Doyle!”
Somebody was calling her, somebody with a telegram. No, no; that was a dream. She struggled toward the surface, remembered where she was. A policeman was shouting, “Doyle! Doyle, you here?”
“Yes—over here—I’m so sorry…”
“Come on, come on!”
She followed the policeman out of the enclosure and past Reception and into a corridor below the mezzanine where there were offices. He opened a door, shouted “Doyle!” and all but pushed her in. Inside were a desk, several chairs, a plant that needed water, two men in suits.
“Sit down, please.”
“I wish to protest at the way I am being treated.”
“Write a letter to headquarters, 300 Mulberry Street, New York, New York.” His head was down, showing a balding spot. He was looking at more papers. The other man, sitting behind him, was stretching; he had papers, too. The balding one looked up. “Please sit down, Mrs. Doyle.”
“Why am I here?”
“We’re questioning the guests and the staff. There’s been a death in the hotel.”
“Who?”
“I’ll ask the questions, please.” He was middle aged and looked tired; he was probably bored, she thought, and irritated with all these well-off people, a lot of them foreigners, who thought they were better than he was. If he really thought all that, he was nonetheless polite. “I’m Detective Mercer of the Sixteenth Precinct, and behind me is Detective-Probationer Matthews. He’s going to take down your answers. We can make this quick and short if you’ll just answer what I ask.”
“Very well.” She was thinking that Minnie was dead; she had seen her corpse; she had mopped up vomit; why was she being questioned?
“Great. You just came into the hotel at…” He looked at a paper. “Six thirty-seven, that right?”
“It sounds right; I didn’t look at the time.”
“When did you leave the hotel?”
“About noon. A little after, I think.”
He made a notation. The other detective was writing. “That your first time out of the hotel today?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anything or anybody different from usual at any time you were in the hotel today?”
“No.” She wanted to say Of course not, but she was trying to be quick. She wanted to be alone; she wanted to grieve.
“Do you know a guest named Mr. Alexander Newcome?”
“Is it he who’s died?”
“Please let me ask the questions, Mrs. Doyle. Do you know him?”
“Yes. To speak to. I know his aunt, Mrs. Simmons, better. But we sit and chat sometimes.”
He looked at his papers. “You’ve been in the hotel a couple of weeks, is that right?”
“More or less.”
“In that time, have you ever seen Mr. Newcome with anybody who struck you in any way as…unusual? Maybe somebody who didn’t belong in this hotel, or somebody…maybe not a guest?”
Should I tell him about what I saw this morning? No, it’s trivial and it harms Newcome. But I should. It’s only fact. If Newcome’s dead, how can it harm him? She said, “I believe I saw Mr. Newcome with someone very early this morning. From my window.”
The detective seemed to quicken. “What kind of person?”
“I don’t know. A man, I think.”
“What time was this?”
“It was very early in the morning. About four? Perhaps some minutes before that.”
“In the hotel?”
“No—well, yes, in a way—my room is in the annex, you see.” She told him about the view from her window, the door, the figures she took for the breakfast cooks.
The detective seemed almost excited. “You’re sure it was Newcome?”
Sure. That was a hard absolute. Would she swear in a court that it had been Newcome? She thought of that face as it had looked up at her. “Yes.”
The detective swung around and said to the younger man, “Get that guy from the Murder Squad; tell him we got a break.” He turned back as the other man rushed out of the little room. “Would you like some tea or coffee, Mrs. Doyle? Happy to send for something…”
“I’d like to go to my room and lie down.”
“Ma’am, I’d love to be able to let you do that, and I promise we won’t keep you a minute longer than we got to. But what you’ve told me is important. A cup of tea might help pass the time.”
It wouldn’t pass the time. It would make it even longer until she could be alone. Minnie had laughed at her for wanting tea instead of coffee in the park. “Please. Tea.”
“You bet.” He went to the door and spoke to somebody there. When he was still standing there, closing the door, she said, “Has Mr. Newcome been killed?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Detective—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name, it’s very rude of me—”
“Mercer.”
“Detective Mercer, you wouldn’t be here asking me questions if it weren’t something bad. I don’t think you’d be here for heart failure or a fall.” And where were you when Minnie was being murdered?
He looked as if he wanted to tell her something, but he said only, “You’ll know as soon as everybody else does, I promise.”
Her tea came, and very welcome it turned out to be, but it took another good quarter of an hour before the door opened and the wide body of Detective-Sergeant Dunne pushed in, his unbuttoned suit jacket billowing around him like a cape, making him seem all the bigger. He said to Mercer, “Why don’t you get yourself a bite, lad, put your feet up. They’ve laid on a feed for us in the kitchen. You, too.” This to the second detective.
She didn’t like the idea of being alone with any man in a small room, but perhaps he didn’t like it either, because he went to the door and spoke and another, quite small man sidled in and sat in Matthews’s chair. Dunne was going through the scribbled pages that Matthews had left behind. He was frowning and moving his lips. He looked up at her and said, “We meet again, Mrs. Doyle. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
And that was about as much longer as he took. He sat in Mercer’s chair and shuffled the papers and made a neat stack of them and then looked at her as if he meant to memorize every detail about her. He leaned back, hooked an arm over the back of the chair. “You saw Newcome with another man at four this morning.”
“About four, yes.”
“Tell me the layout—where you were, where they were, where the light was coming from.”
She did it as well as she could, irritated that she was having to do it a second time, irritated with herself because she knew he had to do it this way. When she was done, he told it back to her in a shorter form that was accurate and crisp. He finished, “So all the light came from the door, correct? If the door was closed, there was no light. Yes?” He nodded. “How did Newcome and this other man behave?”
“They…giggled.”
He nodded as if that was something he heard all the time. “What else?”
“I think that Mr. Newcome had been drinking.” She tried to justify herself. “He staggered once. And he giggled, which wasn’t like him…other times.”
“Did you see the other man’s face?”
“No. Not well, I mean.”
“Did they seem friendly?”
“Well…they embraced.”
“Put their arms around each other? Or just an arm over the shoulders, like one of them helping the other one home? More like embracing when people kiss, would you say?”
“Yes, I think…in fact…I had the impression they were kissing.” As I kissed Minnie and she me.
That didn’t seem any more or less interesting to Dunne than anything else he’d heard. He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling and narrowed his eyes—was he seeing the scene?—and said, “The other man. The first one you saw, I mean. What was he like?”
“I thought he was a breakfast cook. But they were too early to be the cooks, as it turned out; the real cooks came in later.”
“What was he like—young, old, tall, short…?”
“I saw him only from above. He was wearing some sort of soft hat, but I couldn’t see his face. I could see his shadow on the pavement when he opened the door; his coat looked quite long. That doesn’t help much, does it.”
“He came along the alley first.”
“Well…I don’t believe I was aware of him until I heard his keys. I suppose he did come along the alley, yes, but he was really directly below me when I first became aware of him. I heard his keys, and then the key in the lock, sort of a grating sound—I thought of rats, I remember—and then he opened the door and the light came out of the open door. In a kind of fan, you know.”
“Had the other two appeared by then?”
She tried to remember. “I think…perhaps…”
“Could they see him?”
“I really don’t know. They embraced and…kissed, I think, and then Newcome pulled the door open wider, and that’s when he looked up and I recognized him. Oh, and then—I think it was then—he looked inside and…he might have said something, or…I remember thinking that maybe there was someone there he knew.”
Dunne sat back. He bit his lower lip and made small sucking noises. He studied her. “And they both had keys.”
“The first man and Mr. Newcome, yes.”
Dunne wiped his mouth, shifted his legs, and looked at the ceiling again. “You’ve made a number of things clearer, Mrs. Doyle. Much clearer. I think I’ll let you go now, but I’m going to have a couple of fellas out in that alley below your window, so don’t be surprised if you see them. And I’d like to come by in a bit to have a look from that window of yours myself. I’ll bring you your statement to sign and save you waiting around.”
“I’d hoped to lie down.”
“And so you can, for at least a bit of time. Once I’ve seen what I need to see, I’ll be out of your hair.” He stood and, to her surprise, held out his hand. “You’re a good witness.” He held on to her hand when she offered it. “I think there are one or two other things I’d like to talk to you about. Tomorrow? Not tonight, but certainly tomorrow. You’re not leaving, I hope.”
“No. No. But I shall have things to do.” She didn’t know why she said what she said next, but she did, responding, perhaps, to something warm in Dunne. “I lost a very dear friend today.”
He looked solemn, then severe. “So I heard. That’s one of the things I want to talk about.” He went to the door. “Thank you, Mrs. Doyle. I’ll see you in an hour.”
She was taken to her room in the annex by a policeman. When she closed her door, she saw a telegram on the floor. It would be from Arthur, of course. Had he relented?
YOU MUST LEARN ADULT RESTRAINT STOP NOT ANOTHER PENNY STOP OBEDIENCE YOUR DUTY STOP ARRIVE NEW YORK NOON DAY AFTER TOMORROW STOP DO NOTHING UNTIL ARRIVAL STOP ARTHUR
She threw it in the wastebasket.
Then she went into the WC and vomited.
She lay down on her bed and tried to sleep, thought instead of Minnie and now was able to cry. The terrible finality of death, the terrible chasm of loss. But in a way, weren’t they really about oneself? Minnie no longer cared; Minnie didn’t feel the horror or the finality. And although Louisa was revolted by the means of Minnie’s death, that revulsion wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was the complete loss of her. That Minnie had suffered pained her; she actually writhed on the bed, thinking of the wounds. But that was an essentially animal sympathy, woman for woman, creature for creature. No, what was worst was the hollow that had appeared in herself: the loss. “The pity of it, oh, the pity!” But wasn’t it really self-pity?
Detective-Sergeant Dunne came back as he had said he would, but a good deal more than an hour later; she was asleep by then, red eyed, frowzy. He seemed hardly to look at her, but gave her two typewritten pages to read while he looked down from her window, then sat by it as she had sat before, then opened the window and gave some instructions to somebody out there. It was dark. Cold air flowed in the open window; he seemed not to notice. He was, she thought, restaging the scene. She even heard him say, “Laugh,” then, “A little closer in.” Light came on and went out in the alley—the opening and closing of the door? After ten minutes of this sort of what she had heard Irving call stage management, he closed the window and accepted the signed statement from her.
“I’ll let you sleep now. But I do need to see you tomorrow.”
She said, “It is Mr. Newcome, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“How did he die?”
He shrugged. “It’ll be in the late papers anyway. He was beaten to death.”
She closed her eyes. “In his room?”
“The housemaid found him about three this afternoon.”
Her eyes were still closed. Tears trickled down from beneath her eyelids. As if another voice were speaking through her, she said, “This place is cursed.”
“That’s the other thing I want to talk to you about tomorrow.” He had brought an overcoat that seemed to be made of many yards of hairy fabric. As he struggled into it, he said, “And about you, Mrs. Doyle. I’m a little worried about how you keep turning up in these matters.”
***
Roosevelt lived on Madison Avenue. Dunne was tired out and wanted to go home, but he’d had a message from the commissioner that said he wasn’t to leave duty without reporting to him. The death of Newcome, Dunne thought, was somewhat like the death of Harding’s wife—Roosevelt’s kind of people. They mattered. He wondered if the deaths of people like this poor newspaper bitch who was the latest victim mattered to Roosevelt. Mattered in the way that a death of one of his own mattered.
He was shown in by a uniformed maid and led to a paneled, book-lined room that he supposed was called the study rather than the office. He’d kept his hat and coat, although the maid had wanted to take them; it would be more time lost, waiting for them, once Roosevelt was through with him.
“Aha, yes, well! Good of you to come.” Roosevelt was wearing short evening dress, a jacket instead of tails. His buttocks stuck out more than the tailor had meant them to. He rubbed his hands. “Is it colder out?”
Weary now, Dunne was tempted to say, “Colder than what?” but he nodded and said it was cold. “I’ve just come from the New Britannic.”
“Yes, this chap Newcome. I think I went to school with one of his brothers. Well?”
“It looks like he was one of ‘those.’ A witness saw him bring another man into the hotel by a back door in the small hours. Saw them kissing, in fact.”
“Awh!” Roosevelt smacked a fist into a palm and turned away. “How could he?”
“We think it’s the usual story—he brings somebody back to his room, the other one beats him up and robs him.”
“Beats him to death?”
“It happens. If it’s the usual type, some tough kid, they can carry a load of hate for what they have to do. It happens.”
“Will the family have to know?”
“The papers already got it. They’ll be on the sex angle like flies on a mince pie.” Dunne picked up his hat as a sign that he was ready to leave. “I’ve got people out looking for the suspect. There’s a fairy saloon, the Golden Pit, down in the Village.” He didn’t whitewash it. He was tired, and tired of Roosevelt. “Barman there saw the dead man with a kid named Philly Nugent. We should have him by morning.”
Roosevelt put his hands behind him. “This city is a sinkhole.”
“Most cities are.” Dunne got into his overcoat and started away. “By the way, the woman who saw Newcome and this kid, Nugent, at the New Britannic was the same woman who wrote you the letter about seeing Mrs. Harding in the hotel with her gigolo.” He waited for a response, got only Roosevelt’s frown. “She seems to get around.” He went to the door, said, “She’s also the woman that identified the Butcher’s third victim.”
***
Far uptown on the west side, in fact on the northern fringe of Yorktown, a closed carriage came slowly along a modest street, the driver slowing and peering at the houses to find a number. At last, he pulled to the curb and said something to two men inside. One got out and went up the neat walk, the white-painted bricks on each side now smudges in the darkness. He rang, and eventually a light appeared in an upper window. After still more time, the front door opened; there was a murmur of voices, then another delay.
At last the first man came down the walk with Sergeant Grady, now under suspension from the Murder Squad. The first man opened the carriage door for him. Grady climbed in. The man called the driver down from the box and walked away with him up the street.
There was no light inside the carriage except for the dim glow from a street lamp a few yards away. Nonetheless, the man in the carriage said in a rich Irish voice, “I guess you know who I am, Grady.”
“Yes, sir.” He’d have been a poor cop who didn’t know Deputy Chief Francis Xavier Halloran, even in the dark. The rich voice, dripping sincerity and truth like slobber, filled the carriage.
“Well then, Grady, you can guess why I’m here. For the good of the department, man!”
“Yes, sir?” Grady was frightened, but he was thinking, Here comes the shit.
“Now, Grady, you’re a man of sense and a man of great experience in the police. I’m sure you understand the seriousness of having a crooked cop in our midst. I’m referring to Lieutenant Cleary, your former boss, you know. It’s a sad fact, Grady, but he’s a dishonest man.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I know you see as clear as I do that something must be done. Now, I’ve just come from a meeting of some of the senior fellas—I won’t mention any names, but you know who I mean—and we all agreed that it’s unfortunate that your name has been dragged into the mud with Cleary’s. Now, you may know or you may not, that Cleary has offered to give evidence that you were the one behind the corruption that has so upset Commissioner Roosevelt. Did you know that, Grady?”
“No, sir! Nor will I believe it of him!”
“That’s loyal of you, Grady; that’s to your credit. Unfortunately, nonetheless, it’s true. What Cleary is, besides being a skunk and a snitch, is a loose cannon. He’d tell anybody anything to save his own skin. I suppose he’d even tell Roosevelt it was me put him up to his shenanigans. He’s a bad actor, Grady. You agree, don’t you, Grady?”
After a second or two, Grady muttered, “Yes, sir.”
“And so something has to be done about him, d’ye see that too, Grady?”
“I suppose so, sir.”
“And we think that you’re the man to do it, Grady. And if you do, what we see is you being promoted, as you would have been years ago but for Cleary; and we believe we can see the way to improve your manner of living by putting you on to some fine investments, too. I guess your wife would like that, Grady?”
“I…suppose she would.”
“Everything can come clear once we’ve dealt with this villain in our midst. We’ll have cleaned the barrel of the bad apple, and we’ll be able to make a new life for you—promotion and a decent bit of money. D’you follow me, Grady? Are you with us? That’s fine; that’s excellent! Now, Grady, here’s what you must to do…”