The Devil's Gentleman (16 page)

Under the circumstances, it was only a matter of time before the press sniffed out the truth. Pulitzer’s men were the first to get hold of the story. On the morning of January 1, 1899, the public awoke to find a sensational headline blaring from the front page of the
World
:

EVIDENCE GROWS THAT DEGENERATE WAS POISONER

THOUGHT CORNISH WAS HIS ENEMY

Had Been a Prominent Member of the Knickerbocker Club
But Was Expelled for Serious Cause

Capt. McCluskey Asserts He Will Arrest the Poisoner by or Before 9 o’Clock This Morning, and That He Cannot Escape

The article that followed was wrong on a number of counts. It described the suspect as a man who worked in a “large Broadway mercantile concern,” had married the “daughter of a well-known Wall Street operator,” was “not fond of any other form of athletics than bicycling,” and had been “ignominiously expelled” from the club because of his “immoral behavior.”

For the most part, however, anyone privy to the goings-on inside the Knickerbocker would have had no trouble recognizing the person portrayed in the article: a former member who despite his “high social standing” was “unpopular” inside the club and who, following his departure, harbored “bitter resentment” toward certain other members, particularly Harry Cornish.
¹²

The
World
also made another explosive announcement, drawing an explicit connection between the deadly Kutnow’s Powder sent to Henry Barnet and the poisoned bromo-seltzer mailed to Harry Cornish: “Further investigation by
The World
has established that whereas this man had at one time been a warm friend of Henry C. Barnet, the relations between him and Mr. Barnet were so strained that Mr. Barnet did not speak to him. This was the more marked from the fact that both he and Mr. Barnet lived in the club house…. Thus two persons who were at enmity with this expelled club member received in the same manner poison which had fatal results.”
¹³

Most sensational of all, however, was the characterization of the suspect as a “degenerate.” The term itself had been popularized in the late 1800s by Cesare Lombroso, the foremost criminologist of his time (though nowadays regarded as a hopeless crackpot). In his enormously influential 1876 book
L’Uomo delinquente
(
Criminal Man
), Lombroso argued that violent criminals were not merely barbaric in their behavior but were literal atavisms: savage, apelike beings born, by some hereditary glitch, into the modern world. With their jutting brows, big jaws, thick necks, and other supposedly telltale features, violent criminals were evolutionary throwbacks: specimens of humanity in its most degenerate state.
¹⁴

It was not, however, this sort of being that the
World
had in mind when it ran its attention-grabbing headline. Citing an unnamed police official, the paper quickly made it clear that the suspect who had sent the poison to Cornish “was not a degenerate of the Lombroso type.” Rather, he was a “moral degenerate”
¹⁵
—a man of “evil habits and evil associations,” “immorality of character,” with a taste for lavish decor that seemed highly suspicious. While at the club, he was rumored to have “luxuriously furnished” his room with “many fine bits of bric-a-brac, pictures, and all that sort of thing.”
¹⁶

In short, the
World
was employing the term “degenerate” in a way that would become increasingly common in the coming century: as a code word for homosexual.
¹⁷

Though proclaiming that “the name of the suspected murderer is known to
The World,
” the paper declared that—for the sake of civic duty—it was being “withheld from publication.” Even at that moment, “the energies of the police are being devoted to completing the chain of evidence against the suspect.” To release the suspect’s name prematurely might jeopardize the case—“defeat the ends of justice.”
¹⁸

It was an uncharacteristic display of self-control on the part of Pulitzer. His rival, William Randolph Hearst, would show no such restraint.

31

I
n certain respects, Blanche’s honeymoon had been everything she could have wished for. Roland had spared no expense, taking a suite in the Waldorf, squiring her to concerts and the theater, treating her to lavish gifts in the exclusive shops along Fifth Avenue. They dined at Delmonico’s, attended a holiday party at the Opera Club, and traveled to Brooklyn for a celebratory meal with Roland’s elderly aunts, Anne and Emma—the General’s surviving sisters—who exuded a “highbred and aristocratic” air that Blanche, with her social pretensions, found deeply impressive.
¹

If she had hoped, however, that marriage would unleash the latent virility in Roland, she was gravely disappointed. On their wedding night, he had displayed none of that “brute masculine force” she so desperately craved. Though he had managed to consummate their union, Roland had proved to be a tentative, if not halfhearted, lover, and the entire experience left her baffled and dismayed.
²

Under the circumstances, it was only natural that her thoughts kept returning to Henry Barnet, who unlike Roland had been so ardent, so
masterful.
It was still hard to believe that her former lover, with his irrepressible joie de vivre, was gone. The remembrance of Barney, Blanche would write in her memoirs, cast a deep pall over her honeymoon. Though she struggled to conceal her feelings, “secretly I grieved…. I thought of the times when we had laughed and been gay, had touched the rims of our champagne glasses, holding them high while he gave a little toast; and then our drinking to the now, and to the future days. There were persistent thoughts of him, sad and tender—full of grief.”
³

She did not, of course, expect Roland to share in these feelings. There had been too much “bad blood between the two men.” Even so, she was taken aback by the ill will he continued to harbor.

“You are so strange and indifferent about Barney,” she remarked at one point. “You knew him so well, and for so long a time. I think, when one dies, any little difference should be forgotten.”

Roland gave a bitter laugh. “You think that? Well, let us talk about something else—anything else in the world.”

It was clear to Blanche that “Roland’s feelings were implacable. They had not changed, even though Barney had died.”

As the days went by, Blanche’s mood grew increasingly gloomy. “Married! But somehow, all glamour seemed gone.” It was as though “something vivid, of splendid hue and intensity,” had vanished from her life. Her new husband, so attentive during their courtship, now seemed distracted and remote. During the second week of December, he would disappear each afternoon on some unspecified errand, leaving her alone in the Waldorf, in the grip of a “feverish restlessness.”

Her only consolation was that, “through this marriage, there would no longer be any monetary problems to face. All the anxieties relative to ways and means were in the past. Economic worries could be dismissed.” Her dream of going abroad to study in Paris—“Paris! That fascinating city of the Seine with its charm and witchery and allurement!”—would finally come true.

And then, with the coming of Christmas, a change seemed to come over Roland, as if a great burden had been lifted from his mind:

The Yuletide came and there were gifts and flowers galore. I was like a small child finding that Santa Claus was a reality beyond all imagining! In a spirit of merriment, Roland had added to the more beautiful things a pile of foolish and childish little gifts. These he had wrapped about in many folds of tissue, to give added zest and piquancy to my curiosity, as I delved for the hidden contents. There was frolic, and merrymaking and fun! We jested and played, and Roland’s gay wit flashed as it always did when, as now, the mood was upon him.

Two days later, their monthlong honeymoon at an end, Blanche and Roland moved back into her rooms in Alice Bellinger’s home on West End Avenue. Within forty-eight hours, the Great Poison Mystery would burst into the headlines and Henry Barnet’s name would be all over the papers.

In her memoirs, however, Blanche makes no mention of these early developments. Evidently, in the days immediately following the death of Katherine Adams, Blanche remained oblivious of the case. There is a perfectly plausible explanation for this. She lived, after all, in an era before 24/7 cable news—indeed, before the advent of television or even radio. To be sure, the “media,” as it existed back then, had pounced on the Adams poisoning with all the prurient zeal of today’s tabloid journalism. But in 1899, the media consisted entirely of newspapers, and it appears that—absorbed, as always, in the ever-fascinating drama of her own life—Blanche simply never bothered to glance at a paper during that time.

New Year’s Day brought the predictable “restless round of gaieties.” By then, Blanche—anticipating the time, not far off, when she would finally travel to Paris and immerse herself in the “life and atmosphere of the glamorous and enchanting Latin Quarter”—was feeling happier than at any point since her wedding day.

Her happiness, however, was to be exceptionally short-lived—“as ephemeral as mist before the sun, as the bubbles in a goblet of wine. How could I know,” she writes in her most histrionic style, “that there would be drum-fire of another kind, when my dreams would end, and I would be driven like a dead leaf before the wind?”

On the second day of the New Year, 1899, Blanche was awakened by a commotion from below stairs. She opened her eyes and looked groggily about her. The room was so dark that she thought it must be midnight. Straining to hear, she could discern muffled voices speaking in an urgent tone. Then the tread of footsteps on the stairs, followed by a knock on the bedroom door.

Still only half awake, Blanche turned to her husband beside her. “What is it?” she mumbled.

“I’ll see,” he said. Rising from the bed, he crossed the room and threw open the door. The housemaid stood there, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Roland stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.

Again, Blanche could only hear a low murmur of voices. An instant later, Roland came back inside, hastily donned his robe and slippers, and—without saying a word—left the room again.

By now, Blanche was fully awake. Lighting the lamp at her bedside, she looked at the clock on the night table and was startled to see that the hands pointed to the hour of six. Six in the morning! What in the world could have happened? Who could have come to their home at that ungodly hour, before daylight, to rouse her husband from their bed?

Throwing back the satin coverlet, she sat up, wrapped herself in her robe, and turned an ear to the door. She could make out several male voices talking rapidly. Suddenly, with a start, she recognized the voice of Roland’s father, General Molineux.

Instantly, she was seized with alarm. Something dreadful must have happened. Perhaps Roland’s mother had taken ill—or even died! Blanche sat on the edge of the bed, biting her lower lip nervously.

When, after what felt like forever, Roland finally reentered the room, Blanche sprang from the bed and cried, “Tell me, has anything—”

“Yes,” he said before she could finish her sentence. “Something has happened.” There was a tautness and anxiety in his voice that filled her with dread.

“Tell me, tell me quickly,” she cried.

Roland’s answer was so unexpected that, for a moment, Blanche could only stare at him in silence.

“You believe in me, don’t you?” he said.

“That’s a strange question—a strange thing to say,” she stammered. “Why do you ask me that?”

Only then did she notice that he was clutching something in one hand—a newspaper. Now he held it up so that she could see the front page.

It was the
New York Journal
—Hearst’s paper. Running across the top of the page was the headline
POLICE WANT ROLAND BURNHAM MOLINEUX IN THE POISONING CASE
.

Blanche stared at it, uncomprehending. She opened her mouth but was unable to speak—her throat had gone completely dry. She looked up again at Roland and saw that his forehead was beaded with sweat. He was saying something to her, but she could not understand the words.

“Tell me again, Roland,” she finally managed to say. “What did you say?”

“My father and a reporter from the
World
are downstairs, waiting for me,” he said. “We are going to see McCluskey.”

“McCluskey?” she said. “Who’s McCluskey?”

But Roland didn’t answer. Handing her the newspaper, he quickly got dressed.

Blanche sank back onto the bed, scanning the paper, trying to make sense of it. It was something about a murder, a woman named Mrs. Adams who had taken poison sent to someone else—to Harry Cornish, Roland’s old enemy at the Knickerbocker Club!

All at once, as she continued to read, Blanche’s gaze fell upon a subhead, halfway down the page:
MOLINEUX’S MARRIAGE TALKED OF
.

She made a little whimpering sound. The story quoted unnamed members of the Knickerbocker Club who had been discussing the sudden death of Henry Barnet. “After Mr. Barnet died,” read the article, “Molineux married a lady who had been exceedingly friendly with Barnet.”
⁴
Blanche began to tremble violently. A nightmare had overtaken her. All at once, she became aware that Roland was standing over her, saying something. She willed herself to focus on his words.

“Everything will be all right,” he was saying. “Don’t worry. Go back to bed and try not to think about it.”

In another moment, he turned and was gone.

Still frozen on the edge of the bed, Blanche tried to get hold of herself, but her thoughts were in chaos. Her husband of only one month—implicated in a poison murder!

Suddenly, the whole situation struck her as a hideous joke. She slid from the bed and began to laugh wildly.

When, a few moments later, Alice Bellinger burst into the room with the maid, they found Blanche on the floor, still in the grip of hysteria.