The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt Read online

  Elmer Dover filled the doorway with a phony grin and announced, “Mr. Hanna ain’t here.”

  “When might he be back?” I said. I was standing a step below him, on the doorstep. It was hard not to contemplate an uppercut, but I did my best.

  “And why is this any business of yours, Mr. Hay?”

  I flashed my most ingratiating smile, just to annoy him. “I have a question to ask the senator.”

  “Maybe I can answer it.”

  “Maybe you can.” I glanced up and down Madison place, as if to say, Here? Not entirely obtuse, he invited me in.

  But not beyond the foyer. The stylish entryway, the black-and-white-tiled floor, the tall mirror with the throne-like seat, these were obviously Lizzie Cameron’s (that is, the landlady’s) taste. Not Hanna’s, and decidedly not Elmer Dover’s.

  “So, what is your question?” said Dover, standing uncomfortably close. I recognized this as his technique, bordering on brutish intimidation, to which I happened to be generally immune. (Another benefit of boxing.)

  I told him that Senator Hanna’s scheduled meeting at six o’clock this evening with the late William Turtle would need to be canceled.

  Dover’s eyes grew wide.

  I told him briefly what I had witnessed and added, “Would you happen to know what he wanted?”

  Dover shook his head.

  “Would Senator Hanna know?”

  “Couldn’t say.”

  Because he didn’t want to, I wondered, or didn’t know?

  “Then let me ask you again.” I pressed closer to the big man and looked him levelly—well, up at an angle—in the eye. “When will the senator return? Or is there another place I might find him? At the Capitol, perhaps.”

  “You can look for the senator if you like, sir, but he won’t be able to help you. I can assure you of that, Mr. Hay.”

  But I had a sneaking suspicion that Elmer Dover could help, though only if he wished.

  * * *

  “The strenuous life, the strenuous life—I’m sick of hearing it,” Henry said. “It’s enough to wear a fellow out.”

  “Our friend Cortelyou is just as strenuous,” I said. “A swimmer, an oarsman, a horseman—a boxer, for God’s sake.”

  “An Adonis,” Henry said. “But tell me, old boy, have you ever heard our Mr. Cortelyou laugh?”

  That made me laugh, because the answer was no. I said, as casually as I could, “So tell me, Henry, do you suppose he’s capable of murder?”

  “Of course he is. Aren’t we all? All we need is a reason.”

  “Speak for yourself, Henry.”

  “I am. And climb down from your high horse, my dear boy. Are you claiming, on the honor of your forefathers, that you are incapable of taking another man’s life?”

  “Leave my forefathers out of it. You may talk about yours all you like, but mine were a questionable lot.”

  “My forefathers are all that I’ve got, dear boy. Oh, to have an influence on the world beyond words! Or any at all. But you’re not answering my question. Could you take another man’s—another person’s—life?”

  “A serious question?”

  “Always.”

  I pondered it for a minute or two. Could I hate anyone that much? Probably, although no one came to mind. At last I replied, “Not coldly.”

  Our stroll had begun none too soon, given the horrors of the day. I had stopped by my office and found no solace there. A setback in the negotiations with Nicaragua over the alternative route for the canal. If only Theodore could calm his obsessions—this time, over “man versus mountains,” in Henry’s formulation—our negotiators might have more leverage to apply. Worse, the German warship that intervened in the uprising in Haiti had set Theodore to fantasizing about annexing that unhappy place. That’s all we need, another country we insist on straightening out but refuse to understand. The white man’s burden was a … burden.

  We walked east along Pennsylvania avenue. The Capitol dome loomed in the distance. When I had first arrived in Washington, at president-elect Lincoln’s side, the dome was under construction (replacing the low-slung affair that had looked insipid between the new congressional wings). So much had changed in the four decades since, along the fifteen blocks from here to the Capitol. Mathew Brady’s studio was gone, of course, and so were the organ-grinders and six or eight hotels. In their stead stood the flamboyant New Willard and the post office’s new clock tower, almost as tall as the Capitol, concealing the squalor and slums to the south. Center Market had survived—half of it, anyway. (The rest had become a National Guard armory.) The city’s center of commerce had shifted to F street, a couple of blocks to the north, while the avenue had grown a little shabby.

  Henry and I exhausted the topic of Nicaragua, given the constraints on what I could say, when Henry exclaimed, “What about Cortelyou? Did he murder someone?”

  I had to laugh. “You’re too eager, Henry.”

  “Now you’ve got to tell me. Did he?”

  “Not that I am aware of. Not that he isn’t capable of it…” I bowed Henry’s way. “Even more, perhaps, than either of us.” I told him of Cortelyou’s eleven o’clock appointment with the man who had been murdered in front of me four hours earlier.

  “So what did our Mr. Cortelyou say?”

  “Haven’t seen him. Nobody has, all afternoon. He isn’t at Jackson Place—”

  “Unless Theodore stashed him upstairs.”

  “And as far as I know he isn’t at home.”

  “You checked? And didn’t take me along?”

  I told him about Nellie Bly’s volunteer legwork while I tried to carve out an hour here and there to run the world. Her involvement seemed to perturb him, which I took as charming evidence of … jealousy?

  “You find anything to-day?” I said. I meant in the Northern Securities papers.

  “Why use three words when ten words will do? Are lawyers paid by the word, like Dickens?”

  Ah, the source of Henry’s distress: he hadn’t found anything yet worth the search. Maybe there was nothing to find. That was the likeliest explanation, and no cause for shame.

  * * *

  At home with Clara, a second evening straight.

  So rare.

  So relaxing.

  So … dull. Deliciously so.

  We sat by the hearth in the parlor. A fire blazed. As delicately as I could—there was no good way—I described what I had witnessed that morning. (Our ’phone call after the police let me go had been brief.) I was surprised at how I had distanced myself from the horror. Then I noticed that Clara was shaking. I crossed to her chair and cradled her head in my belly as she cried. The tears were not for William Turtle. How could they be? She had never met the man. They were for Del, then. Unless they were for me, for what I had seen.

  Once they passed, Clara buried her face in the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar. The cover was a dreamy portrait of three generations of American womanhood cozying under a tree.

  I took up The Hound of the Baskervilles, trying to recall where I’d left off. Dr. Watson had arrived at Baskerville Hall, out in Devonshire, charged by Sherlock Holmes (still on a case back in London) to record all facts that might touch on the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville at the edge of the moor. There was talk of a convicted murderer who had escaped onto the moor. In the dead of night, Dr. Watson heard a woman’s sob of despair, and his suspicions turned to Mrs. Barrymore, the servant.

  The next day, Dr. Watson was walking on the moor when a stranger called his name. It was Stapleton, the eccentric neighbor and naturalist, butterfly net in tow. Near the treacherous Grimpen Mire, where a single misstep promised death, “a long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor.” The murmur became a roar, then again a murmur. Stapleton recalled that he had heard the sound once or twice before, but never so loud. The peasants, he explained, believed it was the hound of the Baskervilles, shrieking for its prey.

  It was a story, nothing more, but I shuddered.

/>   “John, where are you?” Clara said. She was staring at me—for how long, I had no notion. “Any place … interesting?”

  “Not especially. The moors. The Willard.”

  Clara looked pained. Was it because she knew Lizzie was staying there, too? I was spent. I had been awake for too many hours, and I had started out the day seeing what no one should see.

  The Willard. That terrible room, the smoke-filled corridor—all a blur. First I tried to ignore it, and then to bring it back to mind.

  Black, black smoke and the thunder in my ears

  Yes. Now I needed a verb.

  Wreaked …

  No, thunder doesn’t wreak.

  Crashed like a wave on the shore.

  A cliché.

  Black, black smoke and the thunder in my ears

  Wrapped around my soul like a shroud,

  Passable.

  And a man at my feet, unmoving, unbowed

  Actually, he was plenty bowed. Try rhyming with ears.

  in tears.

  Turtle wasn’t crying; he was dead. For God’s sake, dead! Who gave a damn about rhyme?

  CHAPTER TEN

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1902

  Mark Hanna had skipped town (to Cleveland, I was told), and Cortelyou sent a messenger to say he was far too busy to see me until three thirty at the earliest. So I stopped in to see the Secret Service chief, to learn my fate.

  “The caliber matches, sorry to say.” John Wilkie could deliver bad news with an affecting nonchalance. “A twenty-two.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Nellie Bly chimed in. I had asked her to come, so we could continue on to the Willard. She sat in a hard-backed chair, her feet barely reaching the floor.

  “It doesn’t disprove anything, either,” I pointed out. “Did you ask your man if he put a bullet back in the chamber?”

  “He says he did,” Wilkie replied, “but between you and me, I’m not sure I believe him.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “It’s a mistake no rifleman would want to admit.”

  “So I’m not off the hook?” I said.

  “To me, you were never on it. But I can’t speak for the DC coppers.”

  “Your opinion might count with them,” I said.

  “Ha! You live in your world; I am stuck with mine.”

  So far, the newspapers had printed nary a word about Turtle’s murder, though how long this blessedness would last was anyone’s guess. Should the yellow sheets learn that the secretary of state was a witness, much less a suspect, in a cold-blooded murder, the furor would make “Remember the Maine!” look like an afterthought.

  “Anything else in the autopsy I ought to know?” I said.

  “Nothing useful. The bullet went into the brain stem, angled down, which suggests that his assailant was tall.”

  “Or shot from up here,” I said, raising my arm.

  “Could be. In any event, death was instantaneous.”

  That, I knew. “Then Miss Bly and I—sorry, Mrs. Seaman and I—should be…”

  “What do you know about this man Turtle?” Wilkie said.

  “Not a lot,” I replied. “I met him in Pittsfield. Not a pleasant experience. He’s a big man up there. Rather a slithery fellow, for his size, but civil enough. He did let me talk to his client. Hard to figure out whose side he’s on, other than his own.”

  “You think he recognized the killer at the door?”

  “Oh, yes. He said, ‘You!’ It was someone he knew. I am sure of it.”

  “That should narrow it down, at least a little,” Wilkie said. “Are there people who would want to kill him?”

  “I would wager my last Garfield fiver on it. His funeral may draw a big crowd, but I can’t say he’ll be mourned much.”

  * * *

  “Garbage cans, huh?” I said.

  “And milk cans—what of it?” Nellie said. We were rounding the corner of the Treasury Building, waiting to cross Fifteenth street. An automobile horn blared, causing a nag to rear, tying up traffic. “Somebody has to make them. There’s money in it.”

  “I’m sure there is.”

  “Tell me, John, have you always been wealthy?”

  “How do you know I am?” I guided her elbow behind the rig, whose horse had returned to earth.

  “I make it my business to know,” she shouted.

  “Then you should also know that the answer to your question”—we reached the opposite sidewalk, by the tailor’s—“is no. I got rich the old-fashioned way—I married well. And you?”

  I braced for a slap and got a guffaw.

  “Funny thing is,” I went on, “I wasn’t even thinking about money when I married her. I really did fall in love.” I was surprised at my own candor, especially on the street.

  The morning traffic had eased, but the sidewalks were full. The sun was bright in the sky. Women ambled along in slender overcoats and wide-brimmed hats, spinning parasols; the men hustled by, the derbies outnumbering the top hats. A street piano man playing ragtime teamed up with a black boy, whose whistling kept harmony—so much sweeter than an organ-grinder’s screech. I dropped a dime into their cup.

  “What do you hope to find out?” I said, pointing to our destination.

  Nellie shrugged. “It depends on what we see.”

  The hacks jostled for attention in front of the Willard’s entrance. Everyone entering or leaving the hotel looked important—rather, self-important—including me, no doubt, and certainly Nellie Bly. The grand lobby fostered the conceit; the marble Corinthian pillars and the high ceiling dwarfed the people below but, paradoxically, made them feel big.

  Nellie was already at the hotel desk, in pursuit of the clerk who had been on duty the morning before. The same one as to-day, a young Irishman named O’Brien. He was seated on a low stool, so she could look down at him, which she did. He was a fair-haired fellow with freckles and an unlined face. His pale eyes were agog. He would tell her anything, truth be damned.

  “You heard the gunshot?” she was saying.

  “Oh yes, ma’am.”

  “Where were you at the time?”

  “Over here, ma’am. I mean, over there.” He pointed to the far end of the cherrywood counter, closest to the entrance.

  “After you heard the gunshot, did you see anyone leave through the lobby?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am.”

  I bellied up to the hotel desk and listened. First, gain their trust. Pay attention to what they say—and don’t say. Then go for the jugular, by way of a capillary. Something like that.

  “All right, who?” Nellie said at last.

  “Four or five of ’em,” the young man sneered.

  “Four or five of what?” Nellie said.

  “Them ladies … You know what I mean.”

  “How did you know?” I said.

  He looked at me for the first time. “Oh, you can tell,” he said. “You see ’em ever’ mornin’ comin’ through. Not all at once, though. Takes a gunshot to clear ’em out! They was a-rushing out o’ here like goats chased by a coyote. In case the cops were gonna show up, which they darn well did.”

  “Where were they coming from?” I said.

  “The cops?”

  “The … ladies.”

  “How should I know?” the young man chortled.

  I said, “Did they come from the elevator or down the stairs?”

  That made him think. He closed his eyes and his hands shimmied; he was trying to picture the scene. “From the elevator, I guess,” he said.

  “All of them?” I said.

  “Seems so.” He squirmed in his seat. There was something he wasn’t saying.

  “Anyone else?” Nellie said.

  The right question. The desk clerk shut his eyes again and watched. “Just a man,” he said. “In a cloak. Dark plaid.”

  Nellie said, “Did you see his face?”

  He shook his head. “He was wearing a slouch hat of some sort, pulled down over his forehead. Not lookin’ thi
s way or that.”

  “Short or tall?” I said.

  “A little tall. Prob’ly taller than you.”

  “Hurrying?” I said.

  “Not really. The … ladies, they was. But he was … a pretty good pace, passing through. But not … runnin’ or nothin’.”

  That suggested someone with aplomb. The kind of man who could open a door, shoot a man in the forehead, and make his getaway, all without exciting suspicion.

  Other than mine.

  * * *

  I left Nellie to question the doorman and the hack drivers at the curb, to find out if a mysterious man in a cloak had sought a ride. I had a rendezvous upstairs. The subject of the rendezvous was unaware of this.

  The elevator operator was as scrawny as a pterodactyl bone and almost as old. I asked if he had been on duty the morning before. He had.

  “Do you know Mrs. Cameron?” I said.

  His grin revealed several teeth.

  I was nervous about asking the next question, but I saw no choice.

  No, he hadn’t seen her yesterday morning.

  “Thank you,” I said. I meant it.

  I knocked on the door of her corner suite. Lizzie Cameron was wearing a thin robe of crocheted white cotton that covered slightly more than it revealed.

  “Hello,” I said, choosing the conventional.

  “Hello, Johnny,” she replied. Her long neck was uncoiled, like an asp’s. “Would you care to come in?”

  A silly question. Why else was I here? “I would, thank you,” I said. “Your husband is here, I hope.”

  “I’m afraid he isn’t. Would you still care to come in?”

  “I suppose I would, thank you.”

  We settled into opposite loveseats in the octagonal sitting room. She apologized for having nothing to offer beyond cold coffee (which I declined) and said, “And what brings you here, Mr. Hay?”

  “Business,” I said.

  “A pleasant change of pace.”

  “If you say so. The untimely death yesterday morning of William Turtle.”

  A crooked nod, meant to ingratiate. “What does this have to do with me, pray tell?”