Deadlier Than the Pen Part 4

Chapter Four.

Once again, the weather was bright and springlike. The temperature had quickly soared into the fifties and the only wind was a gentle southerly breeze.

Ben set out on foot at mid-morning to run a variety of errands, including a stop at a candy store. His mother had a weakness for a particular brand of imported chocolates difficult to obtain at home. In the mirrored wall behind the counter, he could see Mrs. Spaulding plainly. He had been right. She'd not given up. It was a good thing he'd made the arrangements he had for Aaron.

With the wisdom of hindsight, he knew he should never have agreed to this tour, but four months ago he'd had his own agenda -- good reasons, or so he'd believed, for visiting the country's major cities.

What a waste! He'd learned that no one knew more about madness than he did himself. Most physicians understood far less and treated their patients with an appalling lack of humanity.

Ben studied Mrs. Spaulding's reflection once more as he took his package from the sales clerk. It did no good to long for what might have been. He'd promised Damon Bathory's publisher to keep Bathory's ident.i.ty a deep, dark secret. He could not reveal the truth without potentially dire consequences.

Eventually, though, someone would find out. Ben wondered if it would not be better to volunteer the information before that happened. For the moment, however, he had no choice but to honor his pledge.

Mrs. Spaulding ducked into a doorway when Ben left the candy shop. A fragment of his conversation with Aaron came back to him as she trailed along after him.

"That woman following you is up to no good."

"You let me deal with her."

"You'll take care of her?"

"I'll take care of her."

While her quarry was in a barber shop, Diana waited outside, lulled by the very normality of his behavior this morning into discounting most of her earlier fears. She was inclined to dismiss Foxe's theory as wishful thinking on the part of a man desperate to unearth scandal. After all, if Bathory had meant to harm her, would he not have done so the first time they met, in that darkened lecture hall with no witnesses?

She continued to follow him throughout the morning and into the afternoon, all the while feeling more and more safe. And if, by chance, Foxe was right, then the bodyguard he'd promised her, a hulking brute named Bruno Webb, was not far behind. He'd been waiting on Diana's doorstep for her when she'd left Mrs. Curran's house.

When the afternoon began to wane, Bathory returned briefly to his hotel. He was dressed to the nines when he went out again. Looking neither left nor right, he proceeded to the Everett House. Diana did not dare follow him inside the brightly lit restaurant. Instead, she made do with watching him eat, staring at him through the window as her stomach growled.

Bruno disappeared briefly around the side of the establishment and returned wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Diana considered sending him back for something for her, but thought better of it. Bruno's job was to keep watch over her, not feed her.

When Bathory emerged, it was to stroll along the east side of Union Square. She hurried after him, confident he could not hear her footsteps in pursuit. High above their heads, perched on poles, noisy arc lights covered any sound she made. A troop of hors.e.m.e.n would have been hard put to make themselves heard over that incessant clicking and clacking.

Bathory appeared to be searching for an evening's entertainment. Someone would have taken his place at Heritage Hall, though Diana had no idea who. At Steinway Hall, there had been an afternoon concert but nothing was scheduled for tonight. The nearby Academy of Music was home to a pantomime called Mazulm, the Night Owl and he might also select from a variety of legitimate plays, all within a few blocks of his hotel. Henry Irving's well-respected company of British actors was performing Louis XI at the Star Theater. Diana noticed Bathory glance that way as he crossed 14th Street, but he proceeded on without turning, pa.s.sing by the dark facade of the Union Square Theater.

Diana hurried by what remained of the structure, closed after the disastrous fire a few weeks earlier. Posters hopefully proclaimed that the theater would reopen in May, but that did not appear likely. Rebuilding had yet to begin.

A pity Irving's company was not presenting Faust tonight, Ben thought as he pa.s.sed the ruins. He'd have been tempted to attend, if only to give Mrs. Spaulding pause for thought. The play would surely have struck her as appropriate fare for Damon Bathory. Even better would have been Richard Mansfield performing his virtuoso Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but that talented thespian had left New York to tour.

Then he caught sight of the marquee of the 13th Street Theater. It offered the perfect choice, the very production of The d.u.c.h.ess of Calabria he'd read about in Mrs. Spaulding's column on Monday. Blood and terror. Revenge and death. A fitting end to Damon Bathory's stay in the city. And it would have the added advantage of making Mrs. Spaulding squirm.

To force her to sit in the audience after printing such scandalous gossip about the performers seemed to Ben a fitting punishment for her sins. She had not enjoyed the production the first time. She would hate having to endure it again.

He affected not to notice when she was seated off to his right, an arrangement that enabled him to keep an eye on her during the performance. She spent a good deal of time scribbling in her notebook, as she had during his reading. He wondered why. It seemed a waste of print to attack the same play twice, but he supposed there was much she could still say about it if she chose.

The story had a number of difficulties, not the least of which was an adaptation that would have had the play's original 17th century author rolling over in his grave. The production was also severely marred by the fact that the leading lady kept losing her voice. It was obvious to Ben, if not to the others in the audience, that the d.u.c.h.ess suffered from a heavy cold. It would have been better -- for those who heard her as well as for her own health -- if she had allowed her understudy to go on.

Unfortunately for Ben, Mrs. Spaulding's earlier commentary had been unerringly accurate. Indeed, he now thought she'd gone easy on the actors. He suffered through to the end, but not without consequences. The sulfurous fumes from torches carried by characters on stage only increased a blazing headache brought on by the abysmal quality of the performance. That Mrs. Spaulding would once again take up her pursuit of him suddenly seemed intolerable to Ben. Where did the woman think he was going to lead her? Into some den of iniquity?

He'd tried scaring her with the Bathory ring at the lecture hall. He'd tried insulting her morals in his hotel room. He'd tried wearing her out by racing up one side of Manhattan and down the other. Nothing had worked. A new tactic was called for.

The crisp, bracing air outside the theater acted on him like a tonic. Antic.i.p.ation simmered in his veins as he realized what it was he really wanted to do to about the tenacious Mrs. Spaulding.

Should he?

If he acted on the desire uppermost in his mind, he'd hide himself. When she reappeared, looking for him, he'd turn the tables on her and become the one in pursuit. He was certain an opportunity to confront her in private would not take long to present itself.

Grinning at the sheer folly of the idea, he slipped into the shadows, furtive as any villain lurking in the pages of a horror story.

Diana was sick of following Damon Bathory. Not at all averse to losing sight of him "accidentally," she dawdled as long as she could on her way out of the auditorium, but this ploy created another problem. Several members of the cast, most of whom she knew well, had spotted her sitting in the audience. Nathan Todd, actor, director, and producer all in one, and an old friend, sent a note by way of the ticket seller to invite her to come backstage.

Under other circ.u.mstances, she'd have gone gladly, but ever since Foxe had made his additions to her review, she'd been avoiding an encounter with Lavinia Ross, the company's ingenue and the "Miss L. R." of the piece. Diana would want her wits about her when that confrontation came to pa.s.s. She owed the woman an explanation and an apology, and she intended that she would have one, but not tonight. After three hours of bad acting and smoking torches, her head pounded like surf during a storm.

Stopping at the box office, she scribbled a reply to Toddy's invitation, then took a deep breath and stepped outside. There was no sign of Damon Bathory, nor did she see Bruno Webb. She had the perfect excuse to give up and go home, but even as that thought crossed her mind, her sense of responsibility began to nag at her. Foxe had given her an a.s.signment. More importantly, her readers had been promised a story.

Looking neither right nor left, Diana headed for "the Rialto," as 14th Street was called where it formed the south side of Union Square. There was still a chance she'd spot Damon Bathory before he got back to his hotel. Up ahead, the theater district was bustling. Hansom cabs and privately owned carriages vied with pedestrians for room to move. Hooves clattered on the cobbled streets. Wheels creaked. Adding to the din was a distant horse car bell, warning that a trolley was approaching on the tracks that ran down the middle of Broadway.

Diana had no warning before someone seized her arm and jerked her into the narrow pa.s.sage that ran between the Star Theater and the fire-damaged brick building next to it. Before she could draw breath to scream, a hard hand covered in a rough wool glove clapped over her mouth.

Reacting on instinct, she kicked out with both feet and at the same time aimed a blow at her a.s.sailant's face with her handbag. He knocked it aside. She heard it fall to the ground even as she was dragged deeper into the shadows.

Bathory, she thought. He was a murderer and she was his next victim!

A sense of disbelief swamped her. How could this be happening when there were so many people nearby? Did no one see? Did no one hear?

Diana increased her efforts to break free, but nothing she did succeeded in loosening the grip on her arm or the hand over her mouth. Slowly, inexorably, she was dragged towards the far end of the alley. Blocked by packing crates, debris from the theater fire, and a high fence, it offered no avenue of escape.

More by luck than design, Diana's boot connected with her captor's shin. He retaliated instantly, releasing her but striking her so hard across the face that her hat tumbled off and was trampled underfoot.

She had no opportunity to scream. In the second she was free, she could manage nothing louder than a strangled croak, too faint to be heard from the street. Then he got hold of her again.

Breathing hard, he once more clamped his hand over her mouth. Certain he meant to kill her, Diana did the only thing she could. She bit him.

With a bellow of pain and rage, her captor flung her away. She landed flat on her back in the alley, too winded by the impact of the fall to cry out.

Her ears still ringing from the earlier blow, Diana stared dazedly up at the fire escape high above. It nearly touched the high brick wall on the other side.

She was in an alley in the theater district on the Sat.u.r.day night following Damon Bathory's last reading in this city.

Diana sat up with an abruptness that only increased her dizziness and the pounding in her head. Her attacker was no more than a dark shape in the encroaching blackness, advancing, about to seize her again. Terrified, she opened her mouth to call for help, but no sound came out.

Seconds elongated into an eternity as she tried to tell herself that this was just another nightmare. The pain radiating from her bruised face argued otherwise. The ominous figure loomed over her, silently threatening. Why didn't he get it over with? She was at his mercy.

Thoroughly terrified, Diana at last managed to scream.

Footsteps pounded into the alley.

At the sound, Diana's a.s.sailant whirled to look behind him. On Horatio Foxe's orders, Bruno Webb had been keeping an eye on her. Somehow, he'd missed her abduction, but at her scream he'd come running.

"Look out!" she shouted as a flash of light reflected off the lethal-looking blade in her a.s.sailant's hand.

Bruno's rush never faltered. He was taller and heavier than the man in the alley. One good close look at him and the attacker turned and fled. As Bruno stopped to a.s.sist Diana to her feet, the miscreant began to scale a board fence at the far end of the alley.

"Stop him!" she gasped, giving Bruno a shove. She sat back down again, hard, then watched in dismay as her rescuer lumbered towards the fence. By the time he reached it, he could do no more than catch hold of the back of the fellow's coat. With a wriggle and a kick, the villain broke free and hauled himself the rest of the way over the top.

Diana was on her feet, dusting off the back of her skirt, when a lantern appeared at the entrance to the alley. At last there was enough illumination to see, but it came too late for Diana to get a good look at her attacker.

The new arrival was a police officer -- one Diana recognized.

The danger well and truly over now, she started to shake.

The 15th Precinct station house was the home of Manhattan's elite Broadway squad. Diana had been there before, visiting the precinct house in search of tidbits for her column. She knew several of the officers, including the one who'd escorted her from the alley, lending her his long, many-b.u.t.toned blue coat when she couldn't stop trembling and settling her in a chair in his captain's office with a cup of hot coffee to hold onto.

"Just tell Captain Brogan everything you remember," Officer Hanlon said kindly. "Then you can go home."

It was warm in Brogan's small, cluttered office, but she shivered as she recalled what had happened.

"Why did someone attack you?" Brogan sat behind a desk. Diana was in the wooden armchair opposite. Above them, an overhead lamp burned low, two jets under each of two shades flickering in unison. Brogan picked up a pen and held it poised over a blank sheet of paper.

"I don't know."

"Any idea who he was?"

She shook her head. It was the truth. She had not recognized him, but the man in the alley had not been in evening dress. "He was dressed in rough, wool garments. Very plain."

A frown creased her forehead as she tried to remember more, making her face throb. Her whole head pounded. Concentrating required more effort than she had energy to expend, but she was now absolutely certain of one thing. It had not been Damon Bathory who'd a.s.saulted her. He would not have had time after leaving the theater to make a costume change.

She almost smiled at her inadvertent choice of words. Obviously, she'd spent too much time around theatrical people. It seemed more natural to think in terms of costumes than clothes.

"What did he look like?" Brogan asked.

"It was too dark to see his features."

Should she give them Bathory's name and share the information from the telegrams Foxe had shown her? If she did, they'd bring him in for questioning. She was not certain why, but she did not want that to happen. She needed to sort everything out in her own mind before she made any accusations.

To stall for time, she sipped at the coffee. It was thick, oily, bitter, and laced with whiskey so potent that it made her eyes water. Drinking it had the desired restorative effect, however, warming her, while at the same time giving her a few moments' respite in which to consider how much she wanted to tell the police.

Fishing for a handkerchief to wipe her streaming eyes, Diana was distracted by the realization that something was missing from her leather bag. Sadly worse for wear, both it and her mangled hat had been retrieved and returned to her.

"It's gone," she murmured.

"Money? His motive was theft?"

"There was no money in it." She'd tucked the five dollars Foxe had given her into her garter. That was for emergencies. But she'd used the last of her own money to buy a sandwich at the interval between the acts of the play. She'd been half starved by then.

"What is missing, Mrs. Spaulding?"

"My notebook."

"Perhaps it fell out when you dropped your bag."

"Yes. It must have. There was nothing important in it." Not even her notes on Damon Bathory. She'd filled the last notebook, similarly covered in green cloth, the previous day, and begun a new one tonight. The missing item contained only her scribblings during the performance. She'd not been writing a review, just jotting down random thoughts for future columns ... and trying to avoid being spotted by the man she'd been following.

Brogan continued to ask questions, several of them delicately put, aimed at determining whether or not her a.s.sailant had taken liberties of a personal nature. At the time, she'd feared for her life and given not a single thought to her virtue.

"Thank goodness for Bruno," she said.

"Yes." Brogan consulted his notes. "Bruno Webb. He says he's an a.s.sociate of yours. Just happened by, he says." There was a question in the sympathetic gray eyes.

"Yes. He works for the Independent Intelligencer, as do I." She was careful to volunteer nothing more.

After a few more questions, all routine, Brogan seemed satisfied with her account. "You may be sure we will be extra vigilant for the remainder of the night," he a.s.sured her. "We'll keep an eye out for the blackguard."

"I am relieved to hear it." Diana stood, shrugging out of Officer Hanlon's coat and returning it to him, but at the door she stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Brogan. "Are there many such attacks on an average Sat.u.r.day night in the theater district?"

That the police captain seemed reluctant to answer did not surprise Diana. Now that she'd regained her composure, they'd all remembered she worked for a newspaper. No doubt he envisioned a list of unsolved crimes blazoned across the front page.

"Not many." He made a vague gesture with one hand. "Bright lights are a deterrent."

If the theater had not burned down, the alley would not have been so dark. Diana understood that. But what now struck her as peculiar was that the villain had selected her. Out on the street, the light had been excellent. A thief should have been able to see that there were more prosperous-looking folk out and about at that hour. It seemed a remarkable coincidence that she'd been warned that Damon Bathory might be in the habit of attacking and killing young women and then, that very evening, been attacked herself.

When Diana left Brogan's office, she found Bruno waiting for her in front of the chest-high sergeant's desk in the lobby. He rose from a hard wooden bench to cross the wide plank floor and offer her his arm.

"Mr. Foxe will pay for a hack," he said.

She did not argue, though Mrs. Curran's house was an easy walk from the precinct house.

During the short drive, her bodyguard sat silently beside her in the cab. His stoic mien did not encourage questions.

There were -- Diana had decided by the time she reached the sanctuary of her own room -- three possible explanations for what had happened tonight.

Damon Bathory had not been the man in the alley, but he could have hired some thug to do his dirty work. Poke had seen him give money to that man in the park. As far as Diana could determine, however, Bathory wasn't aware she'd been following him, so why would he set someone on her?

A more logical suspect was Horatio Foxe. Had he staged this whole performance to convince her to go after Bathory with renewed dedication? Diana wouldn't put such a scheme past him. He was desperate to win his "war" with the other newspapers.

On the whole, however, she was inclined to favor a third option, the one the police had suggested. It made much more sense to believe that the incident had been entirely random. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ben did not intend to leave the darkened barroom of the Hotel Hungaria until he was certain Mrs. Spaulding had given up looking for him and gone home. He had no idea how long he'd been there. He'd ducked inside to avoid her pursuit, ordered a drink, and claimed a shadowy corner for himself. Once there, he'd become lost in his own dismal thoughts.

For one moment outside the theater, he'd been tempted to throw caution to the winds and voluntarily talk to his nemesis. Foolhardy. Imbecilic. Yet appealing. He was becoming obsessed with the woman. What was it about her? He tried to tell himself that she was ordinary, no one special, that he had simply been too long without a female companion. But there was something ... he shook his head and polished off his drink. Time to go back to the hotel and get a good night's sleep.

Union Square was quieter, almost peaceful at this early morning hour. The fresh air came as a welcome relief and he inhaled deeply. In spite of his tiredness, he decided to take the long way around the three-acre park to get back to his hotel, to let the mild exercise relax him.

His perambulation brought him past the heroic equestrian statue of George Washington that stood at the southeast corner of the square and the pitiful remains of the Union Square Theater. The latter sight triggered a vague recollection of talk overheard in the bar. Something about a woman being accosted in an alley between the ruins and the adjacent Star Theater.

He made his way to its mouth and peered into the darkness but saw nothing of interest. He had already moved on when more of the comments he'd overheard while he'd been brooding over his solitary drink came back to him.