The New York Herald-Times, June 15, 1922

TIT AND TATTLE, BY PATTY CAKE

Dear readers, for the past two decades I’ve brought you the latest from the world of the greatest, and today I have the privilege of outdoing even myself. Yes, my dears, your own Patty Cake has scooped them all in the Trial of the Century.

My sources tell me that the dramatic events of two days ago—the conviction of the Patent King on the charge of murder, to the great dismay of the pretty Patent Princesses, followed by the notorious shootout at the Pickwick Arms Hotel that sent both Mr. Faninal and his apparent rival, Mr. Lumley, to their final rewards—have proved a mere cover for the real story, the genuine article, which I now bring to you in all its horrifying certainty.

Far from being an injured party, it seems, Mr. Lumley is the mastermind of all. In a tear-streaked confession to the authorities, Mrs. Lumley revealed that she did not, in fact, first encounter her husband at the Bluebeard Restaurant in Scarsdale, two weeks after the murders, but that he had begun stepping out with her earlier that summer. It was he who conceived a plan by which the kitchen maid would seduce the master, who (Lumley learned from his comely partner) had been left brokenhearted by the easy behavior of his wife in the years following the birth of their second child. Blackmail would then ensue (over which liaison I can’t say for certain, since there are so many to choose from), enabling the Lumleys to start off married life on the right foot: that is to say, shod by the affluence of the Faninal family.

But plans went awry, as they so often do, and the soon-to-be-Lumleys were interrupted in a heated discussion one morning by none other than the lady of the house. The kitchen maid, it seems, was developing too great a tendresse for her victim, and wanted to make an honorable retreat. Mr. Lumley, I am sorry to say, was of a different mind, and in the course of the ensuing argument, Mrs. Faninal became unavoidably cognizant of their scheme. Hearing the victim’s gasp of outrage, Lumley took the nearest weapon—the famous kitchen knife—and made certain threats. The gallant lady defied him, and for this final act of courage paid the ultimate price, God rest her troubled soul.

In the immediate aftermath of this dreadful act, Mr. Lumley naturally swore his paramour to secrecy, and concocted a scheme by which she would make a false confession to Mr. Faninal, claiming that their guilty affection had been discovered by Mrs. Faninal; that during this violent confrontation the maid had been forced to strike her mistress in order to save herself, and the blow proved fatal. Mr. Faninal, racked with guilt that his lady love should have endured such a horrifying struggle because of his own passion for her, gave the girl sufficient money to start a new life, and then—as the world knows—disappeared with his two daughters, promising to take his kitchen maid’s secret to his grave.

And so, it seems, he tried to do.

No doubt you will be hungry for particulars, dear ones—heaven knows I am—and I feel confident that my colleagues in the newsroom will labor day and night to satisfy your appetites. For now, however, I mean to sit back and absorb what we have just learned, and to perhaps spare a prayer or two for the soul of the Patent King, whose character we have all misjudged so grievously.

And lastly, I offer up another prayer for his two surviving daughters, whose whereabouts at the moment are not publicly known. I don’t know about you, but I find I cannot blame them for their current seclusion, given this mauling they have both gracefully endured, and I wish them every possible happiness in the years to come.