Winter at Death's Hotel (11 page)

“Yes, of course. I recognize my notepaper.”

The two men exchanged a look as if their worst fears had been confirmed.

“So you made this allegation about seeing a murder victim in this hotel?”

“I reported what I believed I saw, yes.”

The shorter man said in a growling voice, “Which may be libelous.”

“I hardly think so!”

The big one said, “Reflecting on the integrity of this hotel.” In the background, Carver nodded and wrung his hands. She understood why he was there, at any rate.

Louisa said, “I did nothing of the kind.” She tried to say that as politely as possible, although she was irritated.

“Commissioner Roosevelt was real unhappy to hear this kind of insinuation being talked around.”

Real
unhappy?
How in the world could he be? An important man could hardly be made unhappy by a
note.
She said, “I should like to know your names, if you please.”

The big one looked at her. He had dead eyes when he wanted to, she saw. He was used to frightening people, and he enjoyed doing it. She said, “Your
names
.”

“I'm Cleary, Lieutenant. He's Grady, Sergeant. Now about this here letter—”

“Don't you have badges or warrants or some sort of identification?”

Cleary's eyes narrowed. “You trying to give us trouble?”

“I am trying to find out who you are.”

The small one—Grady;
Good
heavens, both Irish
—said, “What d'you think you'll know if you know?”

“I shall know what names to write to Commissioner Roosevelt if you continue to be as rude as you have been so far.”

Cleary deadened his eyes some more, but she sat up straighter and stared right back at him. Cleary broke first; his eyes shot away and he gave a great, false explosion of laughter. “The little lady's scared of us, Grady! Well, well, my gosh, Mrs., um, Conan, let's see what we got…” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a gold badge, which he held up, then held out as he walked toward her, as if it were a crucifix and she an evil spirit.

Grady, without moving from where he was, flashed a badge and put it away as quickly. Louisa thought that they'd probably done as much as she could expect, so she thanked them and said that she supposed they could proceed.

Cleary looked as if he wanted to say “Where were we?” because he looked at Grady and rubbed a finger under his nose and glanced back at Carver before he said, “Now about this here letter.”

“It's a note, really.”

“About these here allegations.”

Grady raised his shoulders and let them drop and shook his shoulders like a bird having a dust bath. “You got a husband?” he said.

The question was so rude she was shocked. More loudly than she intended, she said, “Of course I have a husband!” She looked at Carver for support, for confirmation, but he was nodding at everything the policemen said and frowning at her.

“Where's he at?”

She was going to tell them, and then she thought that she was being abused, and she said, “What has that to do with my note to Commissioner Roosevelt?”

“We ask the questions!”

“Then ask them politely, if you please.”

Grady looked at her as if he had never heard of politely. He looked at Cleary. Cleary said, “Your husband isn't here, that it?”

“He is away, yes.”

“Deceased?”

“That is not what ‘away' means.” She remembered his name. “Officer
Cleary
.” She enunciated it to show she would remember it.

Grady thrust himself in again. He even pointed a finger. “You're being uncooperative! And it's
Lieutenant
Cleary!”

“And you are being offensive. Do not point your finger at me!”

Cleary put a hand in front of Grady as if he were afraid the man might attack her. “We understand if your husband's away, Mrs. Conan. Ladies get ideas if their husbands aren't around. Know what I mean? They get lonely, they see things. They misinterpret. Know what I mean?”

“If I thought I knew what you meant, Officer Cleary, I would be insulted.” She wanted to stand, but she didn't think she could make it in a dignified way. She needed Ethel.

“What Commissioner Roosevelt wants us to say to you, Mrs. Conan, is that we get reports from all over from ladies who think they see things, and it doesn't work for the police to go chasing around like chickens with their heads cut off to follow up hysterical inventions, you follow me?”

“Hysterical? You think what I saw was the product of
hysteria
?” Arthur, ever the physician, had explained to her that the word came from the Greek for womb: the Greeks had believed that the womb took over women's thinking from the brain. He had laughed when he had told her. She said it again—“
Hysteria?
”—picturing her womb moving somehow to her head. And then she added for good measure, “Inventions?”

“Mrs. Conan, where did this idea you saw the victim come from?”

“From my seeing her!” She saw, beyond Cleary, Carver shaking his head and frowning.

Grady crossed his arms and sneered. “You knew her, did you?”

“I recognized her. Later.”

“Oh,
later.
” He looked at Cleary and they chuckled. “Later—like after a little wine, maybe?”

“I recognized her from the sketch in a newspaper.”

“A sketch! That wasn't even a sketch of the victim! That was just a sketch they keep around to use!” He looked at Cleary. “She recognizes her from a sketch in a rag!”

She
must
stand. Cleary would tower over her, anyway, but she wanted to be on her feet, if only to show them she
could
stand on her own two feet. Or one foot, in this case. “Ethel!”

The bedroom door opened a crack. “Ethel! Now!” To her credit, Ethel came straight to her, and if she eyed the two men, she didn't quail. “Help me stand, Ethel.” What followed was neither elegant nor impressive, but it got her upright with her crutch under her right armpit. When Ethel started to withdraw, Louisa said, “Stay.” She drew herself up. “I think, gentlemen, that you have had sufficient fun at my expense. If you are done, the door is behind you.”

“We're the New York City police—we leave when we want to!” Cleary hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “Now I'm telling you, lady, don't you peddle this story of yours around no more. You're just gonna make yourself look bad. And your husband, too!”

“It is not a story, and I don't intend to ‘peddle' it. To the contrary, I have shared it only with Commissioner Roosevelt, who should be ashamed of his office that it produced the likes of you two in response! I shall now write to him to thank him for sending two such examples of his police, who have given me such
good
advice. And so politely, too!”

“Just you leave the Commissioner out of it, now.”

“Not for a moment! I think he deserves to know how his officers behave. I say again, the door is behind you.” She looked at Grady, then at Carver. “
All
of you.”

Grady said, “It won't look good in the papers if we say you're nuts.”

What had Arthur said? Something about “Sherlock Holmes's wife”? Surely they wouldn't put it in the newspapers! But they were crude enough to say anything.

But now they were going. Ethel ran ahead of them to the door and showed the policemen out; Carver had already oozed across the door sill. When Ethel came back, she said, “Oh, madame! They were so unkind to you!”

Louisa wasn't looking at her, but at the door. “What does ‘nuts' mean?” Her hands, which she had been holding in fists, were shaking.

“I think, madame—‘mental.'”

She absorbed that, considered it, put it away. They had frightened her. As if she were a child and they adults—like her father when she'd done something wrong, punishing her with his voice, his size, his presence.
She
couldn't let them do that to
her
!
She put her head up, stood very straight despite her ankle, and said, “I shall dine downstairs tonight, Ethel.”

“Your poor foot!”

“We mustn't give in to physical discomfort, Ethel. Come help me dress.” Then she remembered that even if she mastered the crutches, she would need help getting about. She said, “And you, too, Ethel, of course. You will need a dress.”

“Oh, no, madame!”

Personal servants of people staying at the hotel had their own dining room, undoubtedly with somewhat inferior food, but of course they preferred it that way (or so everybody said), so it was natural that Ethel preferred to be with people of her own sort. Nonetheless, Louisa would need her. She said, “We'll fit you into that old blue one of mine with the flounces. It will be lovely.”

It wasn't, but with a good deal of pinning and a letting down of the hem, it more or less fit, although it took four rolled-up stockings to fill out the bodice. Ethel was unenthusiastic but obedient.

When they entered the dining room, there was a moment's silence and then applause. Men stood. A few ladies waved their serviettes. Embarrassed, pleased, Louisa thought how she would describe it to Arthur in her next letter.
But
of
course
the
applause
was
really
for
you, my darling. I was only the—what do they call it in the theater?—the understudy. Had it been you yourself, how much greater the applause would have been!

If, of course, he had sprained his ankle.

She ate mostly in silence. Ethel was all but flattened by eating in the dining room. It was the sort of place, after all, where men wore tailcoats and white ties and ladies evening gowns, although there were a few of the new, shorter black coats on more daring men here and there. Ethel was not a practiced conversationalist at best; here, she was monosyllabic and looked around her after each word to see who might have heard. On the other hand, she had impeccable table manners and knew more about the finer points of table silver than Louisa did: she had, after all, been a serving maid for part of her life.

Toward the end of dinner, a tall man with a pointed beard and quite long, graying hair came to their table and bowed. His evening clothes were impeccable, but the first words out of his mouth told her who he was. “Ma'am,” he said in a nasal American voice, “I do salute you.”

“Colonel Cody, is it not?”

“Ma'am, it is, and I know that in your country to come to your table this way without an introduction is thought
oo-tray
and then some, but I wanted to tell you what a gallant little lady I think you are. Trying to get about on those toothpicks can't be easy.”

“Colonel Cody, your kindness is your introduction. I'm delighted to meet you. I remember when you first came to London some years ago.”

“Nine years ago, to be exact, ma'am, and many times since.” Cody took a calling card from a pocket and put it down next to her hand. “If you and your friend would be good enough to present this card—when you're up and about, when you're up and about!—at the box-office window at Madison Square Garden, you may lay claim to the best seats in that house of entertainment to see my Wild West. Knowing you were in the audience, ma'am, would gladden my heart and lift my spirits.”

Louisa thanked him, glanced at Ethel and saw her blushing—the “your friend,” probably—and lifted a hand to return his wave as he left the dining room. A little later, Henry Irving stopped, chatted, and left two tickets to his play at the Lyceum. Louisa sat on; enjoying the feel of life in the busy room, the change from what had been, after all, a day both boring and painful. Ethel said once that maybe they should go up, but Louisa shook her head. She ordered coffee for them both after a perfectly splendid dessert that involved both ice cream and meringue. She considered liqueurs.

When she was at last readying herself to leave, Arthur Newcome appeared.

“It's a relief to see you up and about, Mrs. Doyle. I feared you were seriously hurt.”

Louisa gestured at the crutches. “Seriously enough, though not seriously at all, of course.”

“I hope that one afternoon soon you will be able to go out for a drive. I have the use of a friend's carriage.”

“How good of you, Mr. Newcome.”

“I thought perhaps Central Park. The hotel could pack us a picnic.” He smiled at Ethel. “And you'd of course be most welcome, too.”

“And necessary,” Louisa said. “I can't move without Ethel.”

“
Any
time, Mrs. Doyle, that you have need of a carriage, I am ready to take you—anywhere. Consider me your personal driver.”

They chatted about her ankle, about Arthur, about two new novels they had both read. He had only just come into the dining room and hadn't dined; she said she would release him and gathered her things. They all rose together; Ethel maneuvered her into the crutches as if they were a difficult costume, and Louisa launched herself forward. A path opened in front of her, smiling, well-dressed people on either side. It was all very flattering and very pleasant. Until she accidentally hit her ankle on a chair.

Back in her rooms, she said, “We must buy you a proper dress, Ethel. I shall have to dine down there every evening until I'm quite well, I suppose.” As she said it, she wondered where she'd get the money for a dress for Ethel. Perhaps put it on the hotel bill, if she could find something on the mezzanine?

Ethel said, “I'd rather you didn't buy me anything, madame, if I may put it that way. I think that if you'd buy me a length of silk for a sash, and a bit of lace for a collar and cuffs, I could do very well in my good black dress. If you wouldn't mind, I mean.”