Episodes Before Thirty/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI
It was with a singular young man, who claimed proudly to be the illegitimate son of a certain duke, that I found myself presently in the eau de Cologne business. A long difficult winter had passed; all my friends had disappeared; there had been periods of dried apples again, of posing in studios, of various odd jobs, and of half-starving, with black weeks in plenty. I had moved into yet cheaper quarters, where I occupied a room that had been formerly a butler's pantry, and was so small that when the folding-bed was down the entire space from wall to wall was occupied. The wash-hand stand was a sink in a recess let into the wall and supplied with a tap.
When Mr. Louis visited me, as he did frequently, we lowered the bed and used it as a divan. The door could not open then. I made tea in the sink. We talked. . . .
If Louis's atmosphere suggested choirs and places where they sing, that of Brodie, as I may call him here, was associated with bars and places where they drink. Not that he drank himself, for he was most abstemious, but that in certain superior saloons, all of them far above my means, he was usually to be found. A simple, yet complex, generous as well as mean creature, with all the canniness of the Scot, with his uncanniness as well, his education had been neglected, he read with difficulty, and only wrote well enough to sign his name laboriously to a cheque. He, too, like Louis, had his mystery; there was no one, indeed, in my circle of those days whose antecedents would bear too close a scrutiny.
I was first introduced to him by a burly Swede, with hands like beef-steaks, and the shoulders of a heavy-weight fighter, who was later arrested and sent to gaol for picking pockets. His notoriety as a sneak-thief none of us had guessed, and how those bulky hands could have accom plished anything neat and clever was a puzzle. In the Scotsman's pleasant quarters, somewhat outlandishly furnished by himself on a top floor, the Swede had made himself at home too long. Brodie, the prey of many who, invited for a day or two, stayed on for weeks, was glad to see his back. His weak good-nature, refusing to turn his guests out, was the cause of endless troubles with men who sponged upon his kindness and his purse. This and his eau de Cologne business, "me beezness" as he called it, were his sole topics of conversation. He had money to spend--was it an allowance? We never knew--and was always well dressed; many a square meal he stood me; there was something in his soft West of Scotland voice that drew me to this odd fish in the "perfumery line." It reminded me of happier days. And I have described his habits at some length, because it was owing to a small service I rendered him, and rendered myself at the same time, that I became a partner in "me beezness" of manufacturing and selling eau de Cologne made from the Johann Maria Farina recipe.
Brodie's social aspirations were very marked; to hear him talk one would have thought him heir to a dukedom; he had, too, a curious faculty for getting his name associated with people above him in the social world. How he managed it was a problem I never solved. His instinct for smelling out and using such folk was a gift from heaven. To see his name in the paper gave him supreme happiness. Real "Society" of course, Ward Macallister's Four Hundred, lay beyond the reach of what was actually a peasant type, but there were less select fields he worked assiduously with great success. There was matter for a play, a novel, a character study, at any rate, in Brodie, who himself, I learned much later, had come out to New York as valet to Clyde Fitch, the playwright, and whose recipe for the "genuine Johann Maria Farina," his successful "beezness," was stolen property. My father's son knew certainly queer bed-*fellows in that underworld in New York City.
Meeting him in one of his usual haunts one night, he complained bitterly of a young man he had invited for a week, but who had stayed a month, and stayed on still. The name, which need not be mentioned, was a well-known one. It was a bad case of imposition, by a man, too, who had ample means of his own. I offered to turn him out, much to Brodie's alarm. That is, he both desired the result and feared it. Next morning I arrived in the oddly-furnished rooms and found Brodie cooking breakfast for the undesirable young man who had imposed on his host too long, and who still lay in bed. It was a comic scene, no doubt, for Brodie, though frightened, bore out my accusations while he fried the eggs, and the other blustered noisily until he found out that bluster was of no avail; and then, threatening an action for assault, got suddenly out of bed and dressed himself. Half-an-hour later he was, bag and baggage, in the street, while I went down and sold the "story" to the New York Journal, who printed it next morning with big headlines, but also with a drawing showing the eviction scene. No action for assault followed, however; I received twenty dollars for my "story"; and Brodie, full of gratitude--his name was mentioned in flattering terms--offered to take me into partnership in "me beezness." I demurred at first. "You might help me with the correspondence," he suggested cautiously. I was to be his educated partner and his pen.
All that spring and summer I received ten dollars a week which, in addition to free-lance newspaper work, enabled me to live in comparative luxury. In a dark little back-office on Broadway and 8th Street, the eau de Cologne was made. It might have been the secret headquarters of an anarchist fraternity, or the laboratory of some mediæval alchemist, such was the atmosphere of secrecy, of caution and of mystery. It never occurred to me that anything was wrong. Our only assistant was a young Polish girl named Paola, a beautiful, dark-haired Jewess. The precious recipe I was never allowed to see. Great flagons in wicker coverings stood in rows upon long shelves; the mixing of the ingredients was a delicate operation lasting an hour; the room smelt rich and sweet of spices that made me think of Araby and the East. It was a curious and picturesque scene--the rather darkened room, the perfume-laden air, the hush no traffic could disturb, the great, mysterious flagons, which might almost have concealed forty thieves, the canny Scot of doubtful origin, the beautiful Jewess, the air of caution and suspicion that reigned over all. The filling of the bottles in two sizes, affixing the labels, flavouring the soap--we made eau-de-Cologne soap too--answering the letters, writing flowery advertisements, and so forth, occupied the entire day. Brodie, a born salesman, would take a cab and visit the big stores with samples--Macy's, Siegel and Cooper, and others whose names I have forgotten. He never came back without an order. The business flourished.
I made no secret of being in the perfumery trade. I had moved into a larger room at my boarding-house. I had bought boots, some new linen, and most of my things were out of pawn. Then, presently, here and there, I began to notice things I did not like. Rumours reached me. Hints were dropped, sometimes more than hints, that made me wonder and look over my shoulder a little. No member of my immediate circle at this time was of too sweet origin nor of too stainless habits, yet from these came the rumours and the hints. I had better "keep my eyes peeled," and the rest...! One man in particular who warned me was an elderly, shrewd German, friend of Brodie's, and himself a mystery. His occupation was unknown, however, even to Brodie; he hid it carefully away; he led a double life, protecting himself with the utmost skill and caution behind a screen of detail none of us ever pierced. "Von" Schmidt, as he styled himself, was educated; also he had a heart; for once, when I was in a state of collapse from hunger, he brought oysters for me at great trouble to himself, having to go out on a rainy night and bring them some distance along the street; from which moment, though the unpleasant mystery about him intrigued and cautioned me, I became his friend. We talked German together. His one desire, he confided to me, was to marry a rich woman, and once he clumsily proposed to arrange a rich marriage for myself if I would give him a--commission on results!
His personality is worth this brief description, perhaps, since it sheds light, incidentally, upon the world I lived in. Always most carefully dressed, he occupied a single room in a well-appointed house in East 22nd Street, talking airily of a bedroom on the floor above, of a bathroom I was sure he never used, and complaining apologetically of "this awful house I'm in for the moment." His pose was that of an aristocrat, proud and resigned among untoward circumstances, and it was through no mistake of his own that this humbug did not impose on me. I just knew it was all bunkum. His actual business, I felt sure, was unsavoury, though Brodie, having once discovered artificial flowers in his coat pocket, thought he was a floor-walker in some big store. Various suspicious details confirmed me later in the belief that his real occupation was blackmailing.
In his single room, at any rate, where a piece of furniture against the wall covered with framed photographs of German notabilities was in reality a folding-bed--I never once, since the oysters, betrayed that I knew this--he lived "like a gentleman." Every night, from nine o'clock onwards, he was "at home"; a box of cigars, various liqueurs, he offered without fail, and "with an air" if you please, although the former never held more than three or four cigars, the bottles never more than enough to fill two glasses, because "my servant, confound him, has forgotten again to fill them." He had no servant, of course, and the minimum of replenishing was done by himself every evening before nine o'clock. "Then you are a Baron really?" I said once, referring to the "von" before his name. He looked at me with the disdainful smile a prince in difficulties might have worn: "In this city of snobs and scoundrels," he said lightly, "I have dropped my title. The 'von' alone I find more dignified." He left the house, I found, every morning sharp at eight, and this was in favour of Brodie's theory that he had some regular job. He was an experienced, much-lived old bird, a touch of something sinister about him always, about most of his friends as well. Some very disagreeable types I surprised more than once in his well-furnished room. He "knew the ropes," knew men and women too, his counsel was always sound in worldly matters. A lack of humour was his chief failing, it seemed to me, while his snobbery was another weakness that probably led many of his schemes to failure. Every summer, for instance, he would go for two weeks to Newport, where the rank and fashion went. "When I was at Newport," or "I am going to Newport next week," were phrases his tongue loved to mouth and taste like fine wine. But his brief days there were spent actually in a cheap boarding-house, although the letters he wrote to all and sundry, to myself included, bore one word only as address: "Newport," made from a die, at the head of his coloured paper.
It was von Schmidt, then, who warned me about Brodie and his eau-de-Cologne business: "He is a fool, a peasant. There will be trouble there. Do not identify yourself with him or his business. It is not worth while...." And his manner conveyed that he could tell something more definite if he liked, which I verily believe was the case. Brodie, I was convinced later, paid him tribute.
I began to feel uncomfortable. One day I asked Brodie, point blank, what his recipe was and how he came by it? "That's me own beezness," he replied. "There's nothing to be nairvous about." I consulted "old Louis." "If you feel the faintest doubt," was his answer, "you should leave at once." I decided to get out. Brodie asked me to wait the current month. I agreed.
Before the end of the month, however, when I left the eau-de-Cologne business, a most unpleasant and alarming incident occurred. The terrible thing, long dreaded in a vague kind of way, had overtaken me at last. I was to be convicted of a crime I had not committed. I might even be sent to gaol....
Brodie's outlandish furnishing of his rooms has been mentioned purposely; they were filled with an assortment of showy trash that could not have deceived a charwoman; fifty dollars would have covered everything. He was proud of his curtains, rugs and faked draperies, however; showed them off with the air of a connoisseur; hinted at their great value. He had insured them, it always pleased him to mention. The New York Journal, describing the eviction scene, had referred to his fine apartment "furnished with exotic taste and regardless of cost," adding this touch of colour which was certainly not my own. Brodie, thus encouraged in print, promptly took out another fire policy in a second company. And one day, while toying with his flagons, he mentioned casually that he was having "me place done up a bit," new paint, new paper were to be put on, and--might he bring his clothes to my room until this was finished, as his own cupboard space was limited?
He brought the suits himself, carrying them one by one concealed inside a folded overcoat upon his arm. He did this always after dusk. No suspicion stirred in me. My own cupboards were, of course, empty. Brodie's fine wardrobe now filled them. It all seemed natural enough; certainly it roused no doubt or query in me; neither did the party to which I was invited a few days later, which included a "distinguished" member, of course, a famous dress-designer from Europe, with whose publicity campaign in the Press, Brodie had contrived to get his name associated.
We were a party of five men, and we met at our host's rooms before going out to dine, the rooms that had just been done up; and attention, I recall, was drawn particularly to the beauty, rarity and value of his variegated trash. The electric light was shaded, a big coal fire burned in the grate, at a cursory glance the apartment might possibly have produced a favourable impression of expense and richness. But our host did not allow us to linger; there was a hurried cocktail, and we were gone. I remember that I was last but one in the procession down the stairs from this top floor; Brodie, who had held the door open for us to pass, came last. Also I remembered later, that as we reached the next flight, he said he had forgotten something, and dashed upstairs again to fetch it. A moment later he rejoined us in the street, and we all went on to dinner. "It was a kind of house-warming party," he explained.
The evening passed pleasantly. We went on to Koster and Biel's music hall, and after that, to supper in some Tenderloin joint or other. And it was here I first noticed a change in our host. Something about him was different. His behavour [**typo?] was not what was normal to him. His face was pale, his manner nervous and excited; though there was no drink in him to account for it, he was overwrought, unusually voluble, unable to keep still for a single moment. I had never seen him like this before, and the strangeness of his behaviour arrested me. Once or twice, à propos of nothing, he referred to the money he had spent on his apartment; and more than once in asides to me, he spoke of the value of his rugs and curtains, engaging my endorsement, as it were. The other men, who knew him less intimately, probably noticed nothing, or, if they did, attributed it to the excitement of alcohol.... But it made me more and more uneasy. I didn't like it; I watched him attentively. I came to the strange conclusion, long before the evening was over, that he was frightened. And when he met suggestions that it was time for bed with obstinate refusals, anxious and nervous at the same time, I knew that he was more than frightened, he was terrified.
Once when I asked him whether he felt unwell, there was startled terror in his cunning eyes as he whispered: "I dreamed of rats last night. Something bad will be coming." His face was white as chalk. To dream of rats, with him, always meant an enemy in the offing; a dozen times he had given me instances of this strange superstition; to dream of an acquaintance in connexion with these unpleasant rodents meant that this particular acquaintance was false, an enemy, someone who meant him harm. I, therefore, understood the allusion in his mind, but this time, for some reason, I did not believe it. He was lying. The terror of a guilty conscience was in those startled eyes and in that sheet-white skin. I felt still more uneasy. I was glad I had put my resignation from the "beezness" in writing. There was trouble coming in connexion with that recipe, and Brodie already knew it.
It was after two in the morning when we reached home. My rooms were a couple of streets before his own, but he begged me to see him to his door. His nervous state had grown, meanwhile, worse and worse; his legs failed him several times, seeming to sink under his weight; he took my arm; more than once he reeled. There was something about it all, about himself particularly, that made my skin crawl. The awful feeling that I, too, was to be involved increased in me.
As we turned out of Fourth Avenue into his street, a loud noise met us: a prolonged, hoarse sound, a clank of machinery in it somewhere, another sound as well that pulsed and throbbed. A dense crowd blocked the way. There was smoke. A fire engine was pumping water into a burning building--the one that Brodie lived in. These details I noticed in the first few seconds, but even before I had registered them Brodie uttered a queer cry and half-collapsed against me. He was speechless with terror, and at first something of his terror he communicated to me, too. My heart sank into my boots. The "rats" I understood instantly, had nothing to do with his eau de Cologne recipe. This was a far more serious matter.
Fires were no new thing to me, and this evidently was only a small one, but, none the less, people might have been burned to death. Telling my companion to wait for me, and to keep his mouth shut whatever happened, I produced some paper and pushed my way through the crowd to the police cordon, saying I was from the Evening Sun. Though I had no fire-badge, the bluff worked. I ran up the steps of the familiar house. "Which floor is it? How did it start? Is it insured? Is anybody burned?" I asked a fireman. The answer came and I jotted it down; it was the top floor, how it started was unknown, nobody was hurt--it was heavily insured.
It had been burning for four hours, the worst was over, the fire was out; only steam and smoke now filled the staircase and corridors. The street was covered with a litter of ruined furniture. The occupants of the lower floors stood about in various attire; I caught unpleasant remarks as I dashed upstairs to Brodie's floor. Hoses, I found, were still at work; the room we had left six hours before was gutted; a gaping hole permitted a view of the room on the floor below, and this hole began immediately in front of the grate. A black woolly mat with long hair, I remembered, had lain on the floor just there. The unpleasant remarks, as I ran up, had reference to insurance; phrases such as "over-insured," "too well insured" were audible. They were the usual phrases uttered at the scene of a New York fire, where arson was as common as picking pockets; I had heard them a hundred times; they had furnished clues for my newspaper stories. On this occasion they held a new significance.
Brodie shared my folding-bed that night, but he did not sleep. He cried a good deal. He said very little. He referred neither to the loss of his stuff, nor to the fact of its being covered by insurance, nor to how and why the fire started. He was frightened to the bone.
Next day, when we visited the burned apartment to secure what fire and water had spared, Brodie was abused and scarified by the inmates as he went upstairs.... Weeks of keen anxiety followed, of worse than anxiety. The insurance companies refused to pay the claims, which Brodie, after much hesitation, had sent in. They decided to fight them. The lawyer--a scheister, meaning a low, unprincipled type of attorney who would take any case for the money it might contain--bled my friend effectively by preying on his obvious fear. He was summoned to give witness before a hearing in the offices of the company, and I shall never forget his face when he met me that night with the significant words: "They know everything about me, everything about you too. They even know that I took all my clothes to your room before it happened. They are going to summon you to give evidence too."
I consulted with "old Louis," telling him the full story, but making no accusations. "Few people are worthy to live with," was his comment, "fewer still to share one's confidence. You must tell the truth as you know it. You have nothing to fear." I was searchingly examined by the company's lawyer and my evidence made, I saw, a good impression. No awkward leading questions were put. Brodie had been kind to me; I knew nothing definite against him; in his ignorance, which I described, he might well have thought his possessions were of value. It had nothing to do with me, at any rate, and there was a perfectly good explanation for his clothes being in my cupboard. None the less, it was a trying ordeal. Worse, however, was to follow. The fire marshal, recently appointed, a proverbial new broom, was out to put down the far too frequent arson in the city. Fire Marshal Mitchell--I see his face before me still--intended to prosecute.
This was a bombshell. My imaginative temperament then became, indeed, my curse. Waiting for the summons was like waiting for the verdict of a hostile jury. I waited many days, hope alternating with fear. I felt sure I was being watched the whole time. Brodie and I never met once. I changed my room about this time, though for reasons entirely disconnected with this unpleasant business (I had obtained a violin pupil in another house), and I wrote to the fire marshal informing him of my new address, in case, as I understood was probable, he might want my evidence.
But what really alarmed me most was my inside knowledge of New York justice. I had seen too many innocent men sent up; I had heard faked evidence in too many police cases; I knew that, without a "pull," I stood but little chance of escaping a conviction as an accessory to what they would call a wanton case of arson. I was not even on the staff of a newspaper at the time. I had no influence of any sort behind me. Nor were my means of support too "visible," a Britisher, a highly-connected Britisher into the bargain, it was just what the new-broom fire marshal was looking for. It would make a big case for the Press. The agony of mind I endured was ghastly, and the slow delay of long waiting intensified it.... One evening, on coming home about dusk, I saw a strange man in the little hall-way of my house. He asked me my name. I told him. He handed me a blue paper and went out. It was the long-expected subpœna from the fire marshal. I was summoned to attend at eight o'clock two mornings later in his office.
My emotions that night and the next day were new experiences to me; I heard the judge sentence me, saw myself in prison for a term of years with hard labour. I began to feel guilty. I knew I should say the wrong thing to the fire marshal. I should convict myself. The truth was the truth, but everything pointed against me; I knew Brodie as a friend, I was his business associate, was frequently in his rooms, had accepted kindnesses from him, I needed money badly, I had hidden his good clothes in my cupboards a few days before the fire. I had been with him on that particular night, I had left the room with him--last of the party. I should be looked upon as guilty, it was for me to clear myself. Prejudice against me, too, as an Englishman would be strong. The Boyde episode would be revived, and twisted to show that I consorted with law-breakers. I should stammer and hesitate and appear to be hiding the truth, to be lying, and I should most certainly look guilty. The thing I dreaded had come upon me. I thought of my home and family.
It all made me realize with a fresh sharpness the kind of world poverty had dragged me down to, with the contrast between what I had been born to and what I now lived in.... I needed every scrap of strength and comfort my books could give me. That I was exaggerating like a schoolboy never occurred to me. I suffered the tortures of the damned, of the already condemned, at any rate. That I was innocent of wrong-doing was, for some reason, no consolation: I had got myself into an awful mess and should have to pay the price.
The wildest ideas filled my brain; I would call and enlist the influence of McCloy, of various officials, of headquarters detectives, of D. L. Moody the Revivalist, who was then preaching in New York and who had been a guest in my father's house, of the Exchange Place banker, even of von Schmidt, though fear of blackmail stopped me here. But reflection told me how useless such a proceeding would be. The Republicans, besides, were in power at the time, and Tammany had no "pull." I even thought of Roosevelt, whom, as President of the Police Board, I had often interviewed. The fire marshal would rejoice in the case, of course, for, as with the Boyde story, the newspapers would print it at great length. There lay much kudos for him in it. I had no sleep that night, as I had no friend or counsellor either. I thought of spending it in Bronx Park with the trees, but it occurred to me that, if I were being watched, the act might be interpreted as an attempt to escape--for what would a New York fire marshal make of my love of nature?
The following day, as the dreaded examination grew closer, was a day of acute misery--until the late afternoon, when I met by chance the man who saved me. I shall always believe, at least, that "saved" is the right word to use.
A coincidence, as singular as the coincidence of catching Boyde, was involved. Fate, anyhow, brought me across the path of Mullins, the one man who could help, just at the time and place, too, where that help could be most effectively given. The word coincidence, therefore, seems justified.
Mullins, the Irishman, was an editorial writer on the Evening Sun when I was a reporter there; he disliked the paper as heartily as I did, and his ambition was to join the staff of the New York Times, where Muldoon, another Irishman, a boon companion, was City Editor. He had proved a real friend to me in my days of gross inexperience. "If ever I get on the Times," he used to say, "I'll try and get a place for you, too. It's a fine, clean paper, and they treat a man decently." He had realized his ambition just about the time I went into the eau-de-Cologne business, but had said there was no vacancy for me. There might be one later. He would let me know. For months, however, we had not met, and the matter had really left my mind. And it was now, when I was casting about in a state of semi-panic for someone who might help me, that I suddenly thought of Mullins. As a last hope, rather, I thought of him, for it seemed a very off-chance indeed.
For various reasons I did not act upon the idea, but Mullins was in my mind, so much, so persistently, so often, that I kept seeing him in passers-by. I mistook several strangers for Mullins, until close enough to see my mistake. Then, suddenly, in Union Square, towards evening, I did see him. I was sitting on a bench. He walked past me. He was on his way to an assignment. I told him the whole story, making no accusations, but omitting no vital detail. He listened attentively, his face very grave. He shared my own misgivings. "It's just the kind of case Mitchell's looking for," he said. "He wants to make a splash with it. But I think I can fix it for you. Guess what my assignment is at this moment?"
And then he told me. His job that evening was a special interview with Mitchell, a descriptive story of the newly-appointed fire marshal, his personality and character, his plans for suppressing arson, and it was to be a front-page article. Mullins could make him or mar him; he had a free hand in the matter; the Times was a Republican organ. It would mean a great deal to Mitchell. "He comes from my part of Ireland," said Mullins with a grin and a wink. And then he added that he had spoken to Muldoon about me only the day before, and that Muldoon had promised me a place on the paper the moment it was possible--in a few weeks probably. "I shall just mention to Mitchell that you're going on the Times," was his significant parting word to me, as he hurried off to keep his appointment.
My examination next morning was robbed of much of its terror. The fire marshal was evidently not quite sure of himself, for, if manner, voice and questions were severe, I detected an attitude that suggested wavering. A shorthand writer behind me took down every word I uttered, and the searching examination about the clothes, my social and business relations with Brodie, my knowledge, if any, concerning the value of his rugs and curtains, especially concerning the night of the fire and the details of how we left the room, gave me moments of acute discomfort. Although Mitchell rarely once looked straight at me, I knew he was observing my every word and gesture, the slightest change in facial expression, too. He confined himself entirely to questions, allowing no hint of his own opinion to escape him, and yet, to my very strung-up attention, he betrayed the uncertainty already mentioned. I, of course, confined myself entirely to answers, brief, but without hesitation.
My instinct, right or wrong, was to protect Brodie, a man who had shown me real kindness. I remembered the meals, for one thing. In any case, it was not for me to express opinions, much less to bring an accusation. And, towards the end of a gruelling half-hour, I began to feel a shade more comfortable. When, with a slightly different manner, the fire marshal began to ask personal questions about my own career, I felt the day was almost won. I gave a quick outline of my recent history, though I never once mentioned the name of Mullins; let fall the detail, too, that I was an Irishman, and, a little later, seizing an opening with an audacity that surprised myself even while I said the words, I congratulated Mr. Mitchell upon his campaign to crush out the far too frequent arson in the city. "As a newspaper man," I gave this blessing, and the shot, I instantly saw, went home. If I could be of any use to him on the Times, if any suspicious case came my way, I added that I should always be glad to serve him. For the first time the fire marshal smiled. I shot in a swift last stroke for Brodie, though an indirect one. "But you don't want any misfires," I ventured, inwardly delighted that the play on the word amused him. "A big case that failed of a conviction would be damaging."
We shook hands as I left soon after, though the final comfort he denied me. For when I mentioned that my present address would always find me "if you need me again," he merely bowed and thanked me. He did not say, as I hoped he would, "your presence will not be required any more."