The Formula for Murder (5 page)

Even before I enter, I know that behind the good-natured bonhomie newspeople maintain publicly toward each other, the true atmosphere of the place will be cutthroat and secretive—whoever has a door, locks it when they leave, those only with a desk lock that, too.

The International News Building houses correspondents from just about everywhere that can be reached by the world’s undersea cables and overland telegraph networks. It even has its own cable office, humming with messages sent off across the Channel to Paris, Berlin, and Rome, to New York on the other side of the Atlantic, and as far away as Bombay, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.

It is truly a miracle of modern science that a reporter can send a story that will travel several thousand miles under the sea by cable and then race more thousands of miles on telegraph lines strung on poles across the continent to a newspaper in San Francisco.

Sadly my presence at this building is not to send exciting reports of wars and the rise and fall of empires, but to dispose of any confidential information on the news stories Hailey might have left behind.

The
World
’s regular correspondent will be back in a few days to keep the news moving. In the meantime, Mr. Pulitzer has arranged for a correspondent from another of his newspapers, the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, to also cover for
The World
.

I hesitate, hating to go in and rummage through Hailey’s office. I feel like a child who’s been dropped off at school and doesn’t want to enter. A little rain has begun to fall, more of a mist than drops. I wish it would pour so no one would know I’ve been crying.

First I had to see Hailey’s body and say “good-bye” to her, then I read her suicide note, and now I have to leaf through her work. Sometimes I hate life.

“Let’s get this over with,” I mumble to myself as I reluctantly enter the building.

The newsroom before me is a familiar one, not unlike the large bay where reporters hug desks at
The World
—there is also the same cloud of pipe and cigar smoke hovering and the sharp reek of tobacco smoke, along with spittoons that need a good cleaning. Like most males of the species, reporters—almost all of whom are men—believe they have a God-given right to foul the air and spit disgusting juices at brass spittoons, missing often.

A few cubicles along the wall offer some privacy and for the biggest newspapers, a category in which
The World
falls, a stairway to the right leads up to a balcony lined with doors to small offices. I already know that Hailey’s office will be on the second floor.

Another common feature of the newsroom is a railing keeping people out and a person I call the “gatekeeper” posted next to the swinging gate to bar entry to all but the privileged.

To get my first reporting job, I had to make a mad dash past the newsroom’s guardian and through
The World
’s gate rushing into the office where I confronted Mr. Pulitzer and Mr. Cockerill with my plan to prove I could be a reporter by spending ten days in the madhouse for women on Blackwell’s Island.

I will never forget that day in New York.

I was penniless and desperate for work. For four months, since arriving from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I went to every newspaper on Park Row and was rejected by them all. And to make matters worse, the night before seeing Mr. Pulitzer, my purse was stolen in Central Park while walking home, leaving me without a cent. That morning, I not only borrowed a coat from my landlady, but cab fare.

Determined to get an audience with Mr. Pulitzer, who had just returned to New York from abroad, filled with pride and persistence I hurried through the newsroom. I was not about to go back home defeated. Instead, I plowed through like a steadfast ship, its bow breaking water, keeping my chin high and carefully lifting my skirt off the floor at least an inch to keep the bottom from being fouled by tobacco juice that didn’t reach the spittoons.

My heart had been pounding and I was thrilled to have stepped into a realm where stories of life and death, the stock market running amuck, fame and disgrace came to life as reporters yelled back and forth at their editors and a boy ran up and down the aisle grabbing copies from the reporters so they could rush them to the copy editors.

Nothing has changed.

Now, over three years later and having earned my salt with stories written down the street and around the world, I still must face the stares of several dozen men as I, a woman, dare to invade their territory.

Once again I put my chin up an extra inch, but I can’t help wonder how Hailey took the animosity and joking here in London. I had already broken in the newsmen in New York to a feminine presence, so she didn’t face as much prejudice as she would have had to experience here.

Their stares and jabs would probably make someone as sensitive as Hailey feel like she was walking onto the battlefield with bullets flying all around her—a reflection that hits me again with my editor’s assertion that she hadn’t been ready for a newspaper reporting job, especially in London, the hub of the newspaper world for all of Europe.

Having to walk past these men every day without having proven herself capable of doing the job, as I did with a sensational story, would chip away at any person’s soul no matter how strong they are, and Hailey was innocent in a beautiful, soft way.

“May I help you, madam?” a young man sitting behind the desk asks.

“Yes, I’m from
The World
in New York. I’m going to our office here.”

“You must be Nellie Bly.”

“Yes, I am. How did you—”

“Recognize you? From a newspaper clipping Hailey—Miss McGuire had. She spoke of you often. I’m very sorry about—about what happened.” The young man stammers and blushes, then gets up to hold open the gate for me. “It’s a pleasure meeting you.”

“Thank you.”

“If I can assist you in any way, please let me know.”

A thought hangs with me as I go up the stairs. Hailey was a bright and attractive young woman and pregnant. Knowing Hailey, the young man doesn’t appear to be a candidate for her lover … but, he might have gotten close to her or even simply went out of his way to observe her. I must stop and chat some more with him on my way out because he might be a wealth of information.

With a key I brought from New York, I unlock the door and enter.

The room is a cubbyhole, big enough for a rolltop desk against the wall to my right, three wooden filing cabinets against the wall to the left, and a dirty window allowing a bit of dull gray light in between.

Beside the office door is a metal umbrella stand that has one large black umbrella in it; above it is an empty wooden coatrack with a man’s hat and a rain slicker.

A chair on rollers is in front of the desk. A bookcase and stacks and stacks of faded newspapers and newspaper clippings occupy every space something else isn’t taking up. Even the filing cabinets are piled high with newspapers. Cobwebs make up the rest of the furnishings. I just pray no spider rears his ugly head while I’m here. I hate spiders.

On top of the desk is a soft blue vase filled with pink roses, Hailey’s way to add cheer and femininity to this cluttered, messy, male office that is laden with the heavy smell of tobacco smoke imbedded in the wood.

The roses are wilted. I wish I had new ones to replace them. I hate looking at the dead roses—they speak of Hailey’s death. But, they were Hailey’s and I am not prepared to trash them.

I roll up the top of the desk. Shoved into the back right corner is a pipe rack holding four pipes; next to it is a closed, round-metal tin that contains tobacco. The desk has coffee mug marks, cigarette burns, and ink stains, all the signature of the correspondent who regularly occupies the office.

The desktop is cleared of most paperwork, which surprises me because there’s only a small space to lay items and Hailey wasn’t better than any other newspaper person, myself included, in keeping manageable the notes, pictures, and other items we gather for stories.

Either Hailey wasn’t working on any stories for sometime leading up to her death or she came to the office and cleaned up her desk before killing herself.

She was an orderly person and it isn’t beyond the realm of reasonableness to conclude that she would straighten up her desk before ending her life. I’ve heard of people who washed their laundry before killing themselves.

Going through the desk drawers, I find her “hot news” folder—a slim red leather envelope purse. Hailey had admired the one I have that I keep my current work in. As a surprise going away gift, I gave her one.

There’s very little in it, some notes about a society wedding, a minor incident at sea between a British freighter and German warship, the failure of a medium-size London bank. Not the sort of news interesting to Americans that she was expected to dig up. I recognized the articles as “fillers” that reporters on deadlines keep to fill in on those days when all the good stories are hiding from you.

She must have been so depressed she wasn’t working on anything of importance in the days before her death.

As I pick up a pencil to tap the eraser against my teeth, an old habit of mine, I notice the eraser is blackened. It’s been burnt.

Why would an eraser head be burnt?

I look under the desk for a wastepaper basket.
Voilà!
Someone had burned paper in the metal basket and stirred the ashes with the pencil.

Another “why?” pops into my head. Why would Hailey do this? Reporting isn’t
that
competitive. What was so important to Hailey that she not only had to burn it, but destroy it completely?

Or … did the man who ruined Hailey’s life pay a visit to the office to destroy evidence of their relationship? Or her murder?

Here I go again. Am I barking up the wrong tree or have I discovered something? My problem is I don’t want to face what I have been told. I want to find another truth.

It’s time to speak to the gatekeeper.

9

My instinct about the young man at the gate is that he is or was infatuated with Hailey. The pale, thin young man with gold-rimmed glasses strikes me as rather shy and perhaps even a little timid. Hailey had a more outgoing personality. I can’t see them as a match.

Exuberant, excited by life, and even rather adventurous, Hailey was more likely to fall into a swoon over a knight in shining armor than a mild-mannered clerk. But that doesn’t mean they hadn’t become friends or that he didn’t quietly observe Hailey and know more about her than she even suspected.

“Did you find everything satisfactory?” he asks as I come out the gate and he rises to speak to me.

“Somewhat. Mr.…?”

“James Anderson. Please, call me James.”

“James, do you know what trolley I can take to Hailey’s boardinghouse from here? With the rain, if it’s much the same as in New York, there is little possibility of me catching a taxi.” I didn’t give him the address because I am curious as to whether he knows where she lived.

“You’re so right.” He chuckles and his face brightens up, “Hailey and I used to laugh about how the cabs mysteriously disappeared off the streets the minute it just starts to sprinkle.”

“You shared taxis?”

“No, neither of us could afford getting to and from in a hansom. We rode the same trolley, number eighty-seven. Her boardinghouse is just a couple of blocks from mine and the trolley stopped in between. Go to your left when you leave the building; the trolley stop is three blocks up the street. I see you are already outfitted with an umbrella. A must in London.”

I hold up the black umbrella that was in the basket. “I requisitioned the one from our office. James, I need to know the stories Hailey was working on, but I found very little in her office. Did she by chance mention anything to you?”

“No, she wouldn’t have spoken openly, not with them being able to hear.” A jerk of his head tells me that “them” are the reporters in the newsroom.

“She never mentioned anything at all?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Do you know who she might have been dating?”

He shook his head. “No idea. I suspected she was seeing someone because she was so happy and excited.”

“She spoke about the person?”

“No, not really. It wasn’t anything she said, but how she acted. And there were the flowers.”

“Flowers? She received flowers from a man?”

“Yes. I don’t know who sent them, but I can tell you the man was wealthy.”

“How do you know this?”

“The flowers were exotic. Not your normal roses or daises.”

“Any chance you remember the name of the florist?”

“That won’t do you any good.”

“Excuse me? Why would you say that?”

Instead of responding, he instantly blushes and looks down at his shoes.

I gently touch his arm. “You were fond of Hailey, weren’t you?”

“Ya—yes,” he stammers.

“You wanted to make sure no one would take advantage of her, so you asked the deliveryman who had sent the flowers?”

He nods. “Yes, but he didn’t know. A messenger always came with instructions and payment.”

I bit my lip as I think about that. It sounds very much like the actions of a married man.

“Miss Bly, did—did Hailey ever mention me in her letters to you?”

“Yes, she did,” I lie. “She was very fond of you.”

“I was very fond of her, too.”

“I appreciate your help, James. If you remember anything, please contact me. I will be at the Langham Hotel for the next few days.”

I turn to leave and stop as he says, “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“That she killed herself.”

I take a sharp intake of breath, trying not to expose my feelings. “Why don’t you believe it? People kill themselves every day.”

“Aren’t people supposed to get depressed over a period of time, slowly getting worse, and then finally ending it?”

I almost blurt out, “Not if they’re pregnant!” but hold my tongue because I don’t want to damage his memory of Hailey. Instead I ask, “What do you mean?”