Kat slapped Mimi across the cheek. “Look what you’ve done to your face, you stupid girl!” Mimi cowered in front of the dormitory supervisor, clutching and turning the pearl ring on her finger. If she had expected sympathy for the violence she had endured at the hands of her first “client” she was mistaken. Kat, who had accompanied Mimi and two of the other girls to the party, had waited until they were dropped back into the factory compound by the Boss Man’s hired driver before she had turned on her charge.
Back at The Lodge she had found the Jewish girl hiding in a bathroom and heard that the “lady from the library” had gone to get help. Kat knew time was of the essence and had grabbed Mimi and dragged her downstairs before the do-gooder could get back. Fortunately the driver was on time; otherwise she would have had to hide Mimi in the stables – something she’d done before with another new girl – until their lift arrived.
She was pathetic, this Jewish slut. What the Boss Man saw in her she had no idea. Now the stupid girl had angered the client and made him hit her. With a face like that she wouldn’t be able to work for another week. And there she was snivelling and crying in that ridiculous green coat. She’d left her new clothes in the bedroom. There hadn’t been time to get them. That’s something else she would have to explain to the Boss Man. And who would get the blame? Not the Jewish tart, but her, Katerina Kruchkow. She only had three months left of her contract and she would be free. Free to follow the film career the Boss Man had said she could easily get. But she had to keep him sweet, or she’d be out on the street and on the run from Immigration like the other wenches who’d served their time, unable to get a proper job, and selling the only thing they actually owned.
Kat threw a towel at Mimi. “Clean yourself up.”
The Jewish girl, her shoulders slumped, turned towards the communal bathroom. But before she reached the door the imbecile – the feebleminded sister – came out of the dormitory, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Mimi! What wrong, Mimi!” She ran to her sister and threw her arms around her.
“Pathetic!” spat Kat. “You’re both pathetic.”
It was nearly lunchtime when Poppy finally crossed the threshold at Rollo’s place. Back at The Lodge she had to wait for the cab, then be waved off by a guilty-looking Delilah and a polite-but-cool Toby (from whom she’d had to borrow money for the journey). Then there was a nearly three-hour train ride from Ronkonkoma Station to Manhattan, stopping, painfully, at every little platform between the lake and Queens, before eventually chugging into Pennsylvania Station. Then, after asking for further directions, she’d found her way to the 34th Street subway and taken the train uptown to 57th Street with a short, but confusing, connection to Fifth Avenue (after first getting on the wrong train and heading a couple of stops in the wrong direction), until finally emerging at the south end of Central Park and catching a trolley to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exhausted, Poppy walked the final block to the Rolandsons’ 82nd Street townhouse, by which time all she wanted to do was have a bath and catch up on some sleep. But there was far too much to do.
Mr Morrison, the butler, let her in with a “Good afternoon, ma’am”. He looked nearly as exhausted as Poppy. The empty crate of champagne bottles waiting to be taken out to the trash suggested the reason. Poor Morrison, thought Poppy, having a last-minute party thrust on him like that.
But Rollo, descending the stairs on the stair-lift like a god in a Greek play, looked as bright as a button as he declared: “Welcome home, Miz Denby! I thought you were never going to get here! Get yourself a bite to eat – Morrison, help her, will ya? – then come into the study. I’ve got lots to tell you!”
Then he alighted from the lift and all but skipped down the hall, whistling “Yanky Doodle Dandy”. Despite herself, Poppy smiled. “Good party?” she asked Morrison.
“Mr Rolandson seemed to enjoy himself,” came the circumspect reply as the butler helped Poppy out of her borrowed coat.
“Is my aunt in?”
“She isn’t, ma’am. She and Miz King are having luncheon at the Algonquin, I believe. Apparently she’s been invited as a guest at the Round Table.”
“The Round Table?” asked Poppy. “What’s that?”
The butler sniffed as he hung up the coat. “Your guess is as good as mine, ma’am.”
“Ah,” said Poppy. “No doubt we’ll find out soon enough.”
Half an hour later and Poppy was washed and changed and eating a crab sandwich provided by Morrison. Once she’d finished the last delicious morsel she found her way to the study where Rollo was sitting in a winged leather armchair, smoking a cigar and reading the Saturday edition of The New York Times.
“Well, that’s good to know,” he said, indicating that Poppy should take a seat next to him.
“What’s that?” she asked, shifting a pile of un-shelved books from the nearest chair.
“Australia won’t be going to war with us after all.”
“Oh,” said Poppy. “I didn’t know they were planning to.”
“Some rags down under thought they might declare war on the United States because of the Anglo–Japanese trade agreement. But apparently not.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Poppy grinned and settled down on the chair. “Anything else of interest?”
Rollo flicked to page three. “A fur factory has burned down just over the river in Newark. I remember attending the opening of it. Five storeys. $300,000 damage, and hundreds of workers out on the street. Oh, and a dead dog.”
“A dead dog?”
“Yes, apparently it raised the alarm but couldn’t get out.”
Poppy sighed. “That’s sad.”
“Yes it is,” said Rollo, “but what’s even more sad are the conditions these people were working under. I’m surprised the place didn’t go up in flames earlier. And the blighters were darned lucky they weren’t locked in.”
“Good heavens! Do they do that?”
“At some of these places, yes. That’s why there’s so much industrial action at the moment in the garment industry. Like these women in Boston.” He pointed to a smaller article further down the page headlined “Women Strikers in Fight”.
“Is it happening in New York too?” asked Poppy.
“Oh yes,” said Rollo. “The city’s health and safety executive is trying to put pressure on the owners to clean up their act; but you know what it’s like – better conditions cut into profits…”
Poppy knew exactly what it was like. It was one of the things the miners in England were striking against. She wondered for a moment how Ike Garfield was getting on covering it all for the Globe and, with a tinge of guilt, how her parents were managing running the soup kitchen up at Ashington Colliery.
“Do you think there might be a nationwide strike here too?” she asked.
Rollo shook his head. “No, it’s different here. It’s not a national industry. And it mainly employs poor women. And no offence, Miz Denby, but not many people care about them.”
Poppy sighed again. She knew Rollo did not share those views of women. But there were too many men – and women – who did.
“Besides,” he added, “most of them are immigrants, a few of them illegal. And not many people care if they live or die. And if they die, well…” he splayed his large hands, “there was no record of them in the first place.”
Poppy’s ears had pricked at the phrase “illegal immigrants”. “Funny you should mention that,” she said and went on to tell him everything that had happened at the Spencer lodge.
“Jake, Mary, and Jehoshaphat!” declared Rollo. “You telling me that a girl was raped at a US senator’s holiday home and his son denied that it ever happened?”
“That’s what it looks like, yes.”
“What a story!” said Rollo, his eyes twinkling.
Poppy frowned. “Rollo…”
He raised his hands. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. It’s terrible what’s happened to her – and we must try to help her if we can – but I’m not sorry that you might have stumbled onto a cracking news story. Miz Denby, I think your days on the Death Beat and mine in copy tasting might be numbered.” He rubbed his hands together.
Poppy folded her hands in her lap. “That’s all well and good, Rollo, but I don’t really know what happened. I just have my suspicions. And unless I can find the girl and get her to tell me the details, I’m not sure we have a story.”
Rollo chewed on his lip. “True, true. We’ll need a bit more before we can go to editor Quinn with this. Do you have any ideas how you might follow it up?”
Poppy unfolded her hands and smoothed down her skirt. “I’m thinking of going to the Carter offices on Monday. The girl came over on the same ship as us. Perhaps they can tell me what happened to her when she arrived. If she was turned away – she and her sister – there should be some record of them returning to Southampton. Don’t they have to go back on the same ship?”
Rollo nodded. “I think that’s how it works, yes. Good thinking, Miz Denby. And I’ll see if I can probe some of my old sources on Ellis Island. Back in the day I covered some stories on the White Slavery scare that turned out to be more urban legend than fact, but if I recall there were a few ‘unaccounted for’ immigrants that did slip through and end up in less than salubrious circumstances.”
Poppy made a mental note to find out more about the White Slavery story.
“But as you say, Miz Denby, that will all have to wait until Monday when office hours resume. What we can do now is go look at a body in a mortuary.”
Poppy blinked in shock. “I beg your pardon!”
Rollo laughed. “Oh, your face is a peach, Miz Denby, an absolute peach. I’ve managed to – how do I put this? – influence someone down at the city morgue, to let us have a look at old Prince von Hassler. And…” he paused dramatically “… I’ve also managed to get the key to his apartment.”
Poppy blinked in double time. “How did you –”
Rollo raised his hands again. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” Then he grinned. “But best of all, today we’ll be travelling in a cab, m’lady.”
“I thought you couldn’t afford it,” said Poppy.
“I can’t,” said Rollo, looking like the Cheshire Cat, “but The New York Times can. And I’ll be slapping them with the bill as soon as this becomes front page news.”