Time Out of Mind (57 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
I'm sure I have no idea, Tilden,” she replied inno
cently. “Do you think, by the way, that my figure is be
ginning to resemble a toad's?”
“
Madam, I will not be diverted.” He tried to be firm.
' ‘Nor will I be manipulated into telling you that you are all
the lovelier in your condition, nor will I allow you to fluster
me by inviting me to feel the child's movements as we sup
in a public place. Did you write this item?’'
”
I thought you would never ask.”
How is it that Margaret Barrie, piano teacher, book
keeper, and tutor of French, is now revealed to be a news
paper correspondent?”
“
Well, Tilden,” she reminded him, “we did discuss my need to earn my own way. In the short time that I was
employed by Mr. Pulitzer's newspaper, I became quite ex
cited by all the bold new things he was doing. I had never
realized what a telling instrument a newspaper could be in the cause of social justice, as Mr. Pulitzer put it, or of the
many worthwhile issues that needed to be faced and
fought.”
Such as John L. Sullivan's capacity to lose his
paunch.”
“
Tilden!”
“
Forgive me.”
“
And Mr. Pulitzer,” she went on, “was also the first
publisher in New York to hire a female correspondent. She is only the smallest slip of a girl named Elizabeth Cochrane
and yet she quickly became his star reporter. I went to see
her. Elizabeth writes under the name of Nelly Bly, you
know, and she is a marvelous young woman of enormous
pluck. Just this year she had herself committed to the lu
natic asylum at Blackwell's Island for ten whole days and
then wrote an expose of conditions there which—”
”
I read it, dearest.” Tilden touched her hand. “Pray do
not tell me that you intend being convicted of a capital
crime so that you may write firsthand of Sing Sing's new
electric chair.”
Margaret closed one eye. “Elizabeth told me I should
expect to be patronized by men.”
“
Again, I apologize.” Tilden raised his hands. “What is
it you intend doing in this new career, and how will it be
possible from the Claremont Inn?”
“
Stories are everywhere”—Margaret made a gesture
embracing the world around her—“and you seem to know
everyone. All I need do is be attentive as with Mr. Sullivan,
compose a little story, and send it in to Elizabeth by tele
gram.”
Hmmm.” Tilden took a bite of his bluefish. ”I do applaud your resourcefulness, Margaret.''
“
But you're about to ask me to curtail it.”
Tilden shook his head. “Not at all, my dear. The Sullivan
story is harmless enough, but you did meet him through
me. Now you speak of my knowing a great many other
people. In future, if you intend submitting an item in which
I am in any way involved, might I ask that you show it to
me first?”
Done.” She clapped her hands. “Oh, Tiíden, I'm so
pleased that you don't mind.”
You're going to do it anyway, so I might as well get credit for supporting the proposition.”
'I have so many exciting ideas. Would you like to hear
them?”
”
I am breathless.”
“
What if I were the first woman to report firsthand on a
championship fight?”
lum, he could imagine no worse assemblage of human
dross. After an hour in that company, she'll want to burn
her clothing.
Exciting, yes.” He tried not to stammer. “That is an
exciting one.” But not while I have a breath in my body.
My other thought,” she enthused, “one that you could
assist with, Tilden, was that I could write some wonderful
inside scoops based upon the stories you've told me about
Jay Gould.”
Tilden choked. A bit of bluefish sprayed from his lips.
“
Are you all right, Tilden?”
Yes.” He touched his napkin to his mouth and held it
there. “Yes. A bit of bone in the fillet.”
“
You don't like that idea, do you?”
“
It's just, umm, I can't imagine what good it would do. There's hardly a newspaper in the country, including the
World,
which Gould, in fact, used to own before Pulitzer
bought it, which has not attacked Gould at one time or
another. The man is absolutely impervious to criticism or
rejection. When the Academy of Music refused to sell him
a box, he simply gathered some other rich outcasts and
founded the Metropolitan Opera. When the New York
Yacht Club rejected his membership application, he founded the AmericanYacht Club up in Rye. Here is a
man who publicly said that he could hire any half of a
striking work force to kill the other half. Do you understand
what I'm saying, Margaret?”
“
You're telling me, I think, that you find this proposal
even more appalling than the first.”
“
The first was better.” He shook his head. “Not by a
great deal, but better.”
And where Mr. Gould is concerned, you're saying
you'd prefer to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“
Exactly so. Yes.”
As always, Tilden”—Margaret lowered her eyes de
murely—“it shall be as you wish.”
Looking back upon that conversation over the next sev
eral weeks, Tilden could not escape the suspicion that he
had been shamelessly manipulated by Margaret and, fur
ther, that Margaret had been coached by Miss Elizabeth Cochrane in the technique of getting a man to agree to the
lesser of two evils. That business about exposing Jay Gould
was a stratagem, he was sure. He could only hope that the
one of watching two men pound each other's faces into
liver was a tactic as well. In any case, he had already given
Margaret his blessing to write as she pleased within rea
sonable limits, and he resolved to give Jay Gould as little
thought as he could manage.
kept. In late September,Tiíden went with Margaret to the
first four games of the 1888 World Series against the St.
Louis Browns. A week later,after the series had moved on to St. Louis,where the Giants sewed up the championship
by winning six out of the first eight games of the ten-game series, that first dismaying item appeared in
Town Topics.
Tilden waited for a second item to be brought to his attention before he swallowed both his anger and his pride and
sent a message to Colonel William D'Alton Mann to the effect that he was prepared to offer a donation in the cause
of future anonymity. To Tilden's surprise, the message
went unacknowledged.
After waiting several days, and having seen the hurt in
Margaret's eyes, Tilden met first with his attorney, Mr. An
drew Smithberg, to inquire as to hastening the availability
of the Greenwich house and also as to the progress Mr.
Smithberg was making in the construction of a fictitious personal history for Margaret. Tilden had confided in the attorney because he reasoned that if Margaret were to live
under an assumed name, she ought to be armed with sat
isfactory answers to any questions that might normally
arise, whether they be casual or official. Smithberg assured
Tilden that he was diligently at work on both projects and hoped to have a resolution shortly. Tilden did not bother
questioning the Beckwith & Company lawyer regarding
any legal recourse against Colonel Mann. There had been
no provable libel against him personally, not even in
Mann's use of the word
suspicious
in reference to Ella's
death. And the “soiled dove” euphemism as it applied to
Margaret was not one he chose to challenge in open court.
Upon completing his interview with Mr. Smithberg, Til
den left his office early and walked to Park Row,where he
waited on the sidewalk outside the editorial offices of
Town
Topics.
It was useless, he knew, to request an appointment with Colonel Mann and even more so to attempt a confrontation in Mann's office. Prudence had long ago dictated to the publisher that he keep his stout office door locked at all times and that all visitors be well screened. A male
receptionist behind a barred bank teller's desk kept an up
dated list naming a hundred or more possible visitors of
hostile disposition. A silent alarm would be touched if any
of these were to appear. Colonel Mann's hack—he owned
no carriage—was met by a guard each morning, and he
was escorted to it at the curb each evening. Tilden's inten
tion was to loiter until the colonel left for the day and
follow the hack on foot until an opportunity arose to leap
aboard. He waited less than an hour before the genial snow-
bearded man appeared, paused on the sidewalk to admire a
passing babe in a wicker perambulator, gave a cube of
sugar to the hack driver's horse and bade good evening to
his guard. Tilden mingled with the homebound crowd at
the first uptown intersection. As the hack slowed to allow
their crossing, Tilden slipped to its blind side and was
aboard in a single leap.
“
Hey,” the driver snapped. “What do you think you're
up to?”
“
It's all right.” The colonel raised a hand, noting no
threat of immediate harm in Tilden’s manner. Tilden, in
fact, had clasped his hands over his knees and was affecting a posture of carefree relaxation. “My young friend will not
be staying long.” Colonel Mann met Tilden’s eyes and di
rected them to the small two-shot Derringer that peeked from beneath his lap robe.
Don't be ridiculous,” Tilden whispered, his tone good-
natured. “The thing isn't even cocked and for heaven's sake don't do it now. I'm here to talk business.”
Hmmph !'' The older man looked down at the
weapon.
“Another day, another lesson learned. You're quite sure
I'll have no occasion for this?”
“
The fact is I'd break your arm, you rascal, if I thought
it would help. But I know it would not. Now, how can we
reach an accommodation?”
“
That's a problem, sir.” He sighed. “Care for some rock
candy?”
“
Tell me the problem, Colonel.”
“
'I would very much like you to pay me the compliment of buying a lifetime subscription. But the dilemma I find
myself in is that the person supplying the information I've
used is probably more interested in having it in than you
are in having it out.”
“
Ansel Carling?” Tilden held his smile.
“
Oh, goodness no,” the colonel laughed. “Oh, dear me.
That's a good one. Ansel Carling, indeed.”
Tilden stared at him.
”
I am sorry, Mr. Beckwith. It's rude of me. I know you don't get the joke. The person I refer to is Mr. Gould, of
course.”
“
You admit that?”
“
Yes, indeed. Mr. Gould himself insisted that there be
no duplicity. He divined, you see, that you would be paying
me a visit, although he did not predict it in this fashion.
Dear me. I hope others won't be making a habit of leaping
into my cab.”
“
Did Mr. Gould predict the outcome of this meeting?” Tilden asked.