Winter at Death's Hotel (19 page)

What I had seen was a human legg in fact, it was sticking out stiff and no clothes on. I flashed my lite and seen a site I hope never to see again, though twenty years on the Municipal Police, it was horrable. What I seen when I looked was a nood woman with no clothes and she had been cut up terrible. I seen stabs in both her bosoms, which was nine in one bosom and fourteen in the other, not that I counted then but later. She had also had her nose cut off and her mouth and her eyes was missing. When I moved my light down I seen a terrble woond on her belly wich was a cut all around to make a circle and things removed because the caviddy had been stuffd with horse manoor on wich was her mouth nose and eyes in form of a face. She was siting or had been purched on a trash can with legs and arms out straight, her body was stiff, she looked like jumping.

This was the most horble thing I ever seen. I saw no blood anywheres that I could see.

I at onst blew my whissle and removed to Elizabeth Street to prevent anybody from seeing this site until Officer Flynn # 3167 from the next beet come running, I sent him to the station for help and call the Murder Squad in Mulberry Street. Then I wated until they come and others with the doctor and others and until they removed the body and I resumed my beet, which was done for that nite as it was past four o'clock.

James Malone Number 3492

She thought she would be sick again, but she got through it and made herself think,
think
, about what she had read. McClurg had prepared her for the disfigurement but not for the “mutilation,” which she now understood too well. The horse manure was shocking and at first like something that might have been done as what men called a “practical” joke, though she couldn't see what was practical about them. But as she forced herself to think she realized what had been done: the murderer had cut into the abdomen and removed enough to make room for the manure; what he had removed was probably the womb (the source of female hysteria,
hysterectomy
, yes) and replaced it with manure.
Shit.
She knew the word; everybody did. And she knew how men used it, to mean both nonsense and something loathsome.

But the face made on the manure with the lips and nose and eyes? What did the murderer mean—that this was the face of woman? This was the real face of the womb? Or was it simply that he had cut off what made her pretty and desirable and put those things where they were most alien, and so most loathsome?

It wasn't, she thought, something that an angry lover would have done. It was too cruel, too horrible—and in a dreadful way too poetic—to be explained so. Or did she not understand the force of male rage? Arthur was never truly angry with her; he could be irritated, petulant, even loud, but he could never be like this. But could other men?

He
hates
women.
What did that remind her of? Something in the lobby. Yes, sitting with Newcome and Mrs. Simmons and thinking that there was something different about him, and she had wondered why she had first thought that he was “safe.” And then she had wondered whether only a man could have committed the first murder (because she hadn't known about the second one then), and if so did that mean any man, all men—even Alexander Newcome? He had had a bruise on his face, which had suggested violence to her: gentlemanly as he seemed, even neurasthenic, was he capable of ripping out a woman's uterus and filling the cavity with shit?

And was no woman? Could a woman do it? She thought the idea was unthinkable but realized that she was thinking it. Could it have been another woman, one who hated the copper-haired woman, perhaps because she had stolen the good-looking young man?

I
haven't lived enough.

She read the policeman's report through again and was struck by how strange he had made it all seem—how strange it had been to him. As if he had rounded a corner and found himself in a different world. As in a dream, perhaps. And having fenced in his experience with this idea of strangeness, he had left himself and anybody reading his report with a conviction of unreality, of uniqueness. And so the conclusion might well be that this was the unique work of a madman. (Or woman, she forced herself to think.)

And no blood. Not even on her? Did it mean she had been washed? And where did you wash a human body—in a bathtub? Few enough living places had a bathtub, let alone the means to get a dead body into it and drain off the blood and leave no sign. Perhaps something like that could be done in some sort of factory? Something with vats? Or a commercial laundry?
Or
a
hotel?

She shuddered.

She went downstairs to Reception and asked for Manion but was told it was his day off. She left a note, thanking him. She wanted to ask him to visit her, but that would be improper. She wanted to try telephoning Minnie Fitch again but made herself walk away from the booths. She would make herself wait until two o'clock.

It seemed too early for lunch, but eating was a way to pass the time. She wandered to the door of the restaurant and looked in, but as she had expected, almost nobody was there.

“Luncheon for one, ma'am?”

“Oh, no, I—oh…” A hand was waving from a distant table. She made out two women, both wearing hats, realized that one of them was waving at her. The waiter said, “Will you join them, ma'am?”

“Well, I hadn't…” At that point, the woman who was waving got up and came charging across the big room. Louisa knew from the walk and the look of iron-bound corsetry that it was Marie Corelli. Before she even got to Louisa, she was saying, “There's somebody you
must
meet,
cara.
” She took Louisa's free hand. “Come along—you'll like her—a remarkable woman—a
serious
woman…”

“It's so early, and I don't like to interrupt—”

“You're not interrupting; I'm inviting you!” She pulled Louisa forward.

The other woman, who had turned to look at them, seemed somewhat desiccated—what Louisa thought was
used
up
—by both time and trial. She was too thin, older, her face made severe by much frowning. She didn't get up.

“And
this
,” Marie said, “is Victoria Woodhull!”

The woman smiled, the smile not a great success. She said in a nasal American voice, “And Mrs. Doyle is asking herself, ‘Who is Victoria Woodhull?'” She laughed with her mouth closed; the laughter came out as a series of small coughs, mm-hmp, mm-hmp, mm-hmp.

They sat, Louisa already embarrassed because she was supposed to know who the woman was. Perhaps understanding this, Marie said, “Mrs. Woodhull has been a valiant campaigner for women for many years.” She glanced at the other woman and smiled. “You won't remember, because you're English, but Victoria ran for the presidency of the United States twenty-five years ago.”

Louisa stared. “But women can't vote!”

Mrs. Woodhull laughed again. “Of course not! That's why I ran!” She was picking at some sort of soufflé. “I ran on the Free Love platform. ‘I shall love whom I want, when I want, where I want.'” She smiled at Louisa. “And I have, though I've been married three times.”

Marie babbled something about being so glad she could bring them together; it seemed that she knew Mrs. Woodhull in England, where she lived now. Marie said to her, “Louisa is very upset about some murders of women here.”

“I'm not upset—”

“You
should
be very upset,” Mrs. Woodhull said in that unpleasant voice. “We should all be very upset. I saw the morning papers. We should be picketing police stations and smashing windows until they find the killer. But of course they won't.”

“They
will
—in time.”

“They won't—they're men.”

“Forgive me, but I think that's unfair.”

Mrs. Woodhull looked up at her, fork halfway to mouth. “Men hate women,” she said crisply, then put the food between her jaws and chomped.

It made Louisa laugh. “Not
all
men, surely.”

“All men. All women. Some of them handle it better than others.
Contain
it better may be the apter word.” She was working on her plate again, cut something and speared it and said, “You learn the real truth when they're angry. Or scared. Then the language shows the real man. When I ran for president I received lots of letters that called me dirty names and threatened to kill me. Men.”

She made Louisa angry—it seemed so unfair to Arthur and all the nice men. She said, “Perhaps you generalize because of that bad experience.”

Mrs. Woodhull gave her a shrewd look. “You're married to Conan Doyle the author, aren't you. Treat you well? Not a brute? So he's the other sort—treats you like a child, probably. Has a pet name for you—something small and soft and cuddly? One of my husbands called me ‘Bunnikins.' What does yours call you when he's being nice?”

“It would hardly mean he hates me, Mrs. Woodhull.”

“No. It would mean he's one of the better sort, not like the one who's committing these murders. On the other hand, it means you're his little play-toy and everything you have is through his largesse, meaning you'd better toe up. Does he give you your own money?”

“Do forgive me, but I think that's insulting.”

“Of course it's insulting; everything that men do to women is insulting. Or worse. And forgive
me
, Mrs. Doyle; I do tend to go too far. Have you seen Ibsen's play about the doll's house?”

“Oh—no—Ibsen is… My husband doesn't approve of Ibsen.”

Mrs. Woodhull laughed, a full laugh this time, mouth open to show her false teeth. “I rest my case, m'lud.”

Marie said, “I saw it in London.
Epouvantable
. You're not eating,
ma
chère
.” This to Louisa.

Louisa had ordered the
table
d'hôte
luncheon and had simply looked at it and listened. The truth was, Mrs. Woodhull annoyed her, more for Arthur's sake than her own. She said, “Just because there is a man who is murdering women doesn't mean all men are evil. The murderer is a monster!”

“On the contrary, my dear.” Mrs. Woodhull smiled at her around a piece of lettuce. “He is the perfect man—from a man's point of view, I mean. The
beau
idéal.
He is doing what they'd all like to do.”

“I think that's nonsense.”

“
Do
you? Well, you got spunk, anyway.”

They finished eating; the others ordered dessert; Louisa wondered how she was to get away. The conversation turned to other things—cooking, shops, British politics—and suddenly Mrs. Woodhull was getting ready to leave. She muttered something about the convention of the International Society of Women's Clubs and got out of her chair. She said to Louisa, “Are you personally frightened of this murderer?”

“I hardly think in a city of this size he will pick me out, if that's what you mean.”

“No, it isn't what I mean. Does his
existence
frighten you?”

Louisa had thought about that. “Because of what he is—yes.”

Mrs. Woodhull nodded. “Get yourself a gun. I always carry one. They supposedly called the Colt revolver ‘the equalizer' in the West; they meant for men, but it works for women, too. Go buy a gun. And if the perfect man shows up, start shooting.”

When she was gone, Marie apologized to Louisa. “I didn't know she was going to pick on you so,
chère
. She's very clever, you know.”

“She has somewhat peculiar ideas.”

Marie made a very French-looking moue. “It depends on which end of the street you look at things from, perhaps.”

***

“What'd he say?”

Cassidy was standing over Dunne with a smug look on his face, rare for him. He said, “You were right. Like always.”

“He told you?”

Cassidy nodded. He pulled another chair close so they couldn't be overheard. “At first he was real stuck up and Hahvahd, but oncet he saw I was the honest skinny, he came around. We went out to Doheny's; I hate Canelli's.” This was pretty daring of him to say, because Canelli's was where Dunne always took him. “He told me his troubles. In a nutshell, the rank and file don't like him. I made like that was all news to me. He isn't such a bad kid, actually.”

“Only stuck up and rich.”

“Yeah, and a snob. But I gave him some pointers on being more like the rest of us, starting with those collars he wears. He was grateful.”

“And he told you?”

“He did and he didn't. He wanted to tell me the whole kaboodle, but like I say, he's a good kid: He thinks he owes Roosevelt loyalty. So what he told me was, Roosevelt got a letter from some woman who was staying at an uptown hotel and she said she saw the murdered whore—the first one, not the new one—there in the hotel the day before her body was found. Roosevelt told Hahvahd to tell Cleary to deal with it.”

“‘Deal with it.' That's what he said?”

“His very words.”

“He didn't say what hotel?”

“I think what he said was ‘a very good uptown hotel.'” He made himself sound like the Harvard man.

“Well, there's only about a dozen of those. Cripes.” Dunne gnawed on a finger. “What'd he say about the woman that sent the letter?”

“Something like she's the wife of somebody. No, wait—‘the wife of a visiting author.'”

“What the hell is a
visiting
author? Somebody from out of town? Well, of course, if he's staying in a hotel, he's visiting.” Dunne heaved his body out of the chair. “You a member of the Authors Club, by any chance?”

“Ha-ha.”

“Your big moment has come. Follow me.”