Deadlier Than the Pen Part 6

"You must henceforth stop trailing after me like a bloodhound."

Offended as well as embarra.s.sed, she forced herself to apologize. "I am not usually so bold."

"No. Just h.e.l.l-bent on writing scandal. You'd do better to try humor. If those stories you just told me are anything to judge by, you have a flair for it."

Surprised by the comment, she took refuge in b.u.t.tering a slice of bread she did not really want. She needed time to compose her response. By the time she looked up, he was staring at her with disconcerting intensity.

"I must earn a living, Mr. Bathory," she said in a quiet and blessedly level voice. "At the moment, in order to keep my job, it is necessary for the Intelligencer to entice readers away from rival newspapers. My editor, Horatio Foxe, believes you are the key. People will buy one paper over another if doing so enables them to learn things about you that they cannot find out any other way. In spite of what you may think, I have never invented an anecdote for my column. I may have speculated in the past about the inspiration for your writing and indulged in a bit of innuendo, but I do not make things up out of whole cloth."

"How rea.s.suring."

Hearing skepticism in his voice, she sighed. "I cannot guarantee what my editor may insert into one of my columns. If I offer him some tidbits juicy enough, however, he will be inclined to print only my words. The content of the story will thus be my choice, not his. Your choice, in fact."

"Some might argue that is but a trifling distinction."

"I endeavor to write only what is true."

"As you see it."

"I am ent.i.tled to my opinions on plays and books."

"Is that why you were attacked, Diana? Did your column offend someone?"

Should she tell him or not? She did not pretend to understand this complex, compelling man, but after the last hour with him, she found it impossible to believe he could be a murderer.

"The entire incident may have been staged," she said bluntly.

In concise sentences, she gave him the gist of Horatio Foxe's theory and what few details she had about the two women murdered along the route of Damon Bathory's tour.

"Why are you so certain I'm not the one who attacked you?" he asked. There was no expression at all in his eyes.

Omitting any mention of the doubts she'd entertained because she knew he'd given money to a man in the park, she explained her reasoning.

"Your editor has composed a remarkable piece of fiction," he said when she completed her tale.

Diana frowned. Somehow, she'd expected more reaction from him. After all, she'd just accused him of killing two women, maybe more.

"If Foxe speculates about this in print, the story could well cause people to stop buying your books. You might be taken in for questioning by the police."

"He's not likely to go ahead with the story once you tell him you know I wasn't the one who dragged you into that alley."

"He could say you hired someone. To stop me from following you."

One sardonic brow lifted, but he said nothing.

Fl.u.s.tered, she began to fumble in her leather bag for a fresh notebook. Only when she'd opened it to the first pristine page did she look at Bathory again.

"Ask your questions." He sounded amused. "Let us see what minor scandals you can unearth to replace the one your Mr. Foxe is so intent upon inventing."

Diana had to clear her throat before she could begin. "Where is your home?"

"Buffalo."

The answer came too pat, just as on that earlier occasion when he'd a.s.sured her that Bathory was a real name. Real, she thought again, but not necessarily his. As for Buffalo, she had her doubts about that, too. His speech pattern was all wrong. And earlier he'd accused her of following him "downtown." People from upstate New York tended to say "downstreet."

She declined to challenge him. After all, he might live in Buffalo now but not be a native.

"Where do you get your ideas?" she asked.

"Everywhere."

"From family stories?"

"You are thinking of the Blood Countess." He fingered his jade ring. "The Bathorys have an ... interesting history."

"I knew you deliberately tried to frighten me that night. I realized it as soon as you disappeared behind the curtain."

The wickedness of his smile disconcerted her. "No nightmares?"

The sudden memory of her dreams and their content brought a flush to Diana's face. Ducking her head, she quickly changed the subject.

"Where were you going in such a rush on the day I came to your hotel room?"

"I went to Bellevue," he admitted after a moment's hesitation, surprising her with his candor. "A brief visit, but an illuminating one."

"Research for a new story?"

"I suppose you'd prefer to hear I was once confined there as a lunatic and visited the place for old time's sake?" He took a sip of post-prandial coffee.

"Were you?" Her heart had begun to pound so loudly that she was afraid he would hear it.

"No, but I do visit madhouses every chance I get."

The peach cobbler the waiter had brought for their dessert forgotten, Diana stared at him. "Why?"

"In the hope that doctors in one of them will someday develop a better way to deal with the insane." Strong emotion banished the earlier blankness from Bathory's face. "I saw one man at Bellevue who had been living on the street. He suffered from delusions of persecution. Heard voices. From the look of him, he'd once been a strapping brute. He probably had a family ... a life he enjoyed ... before he was reduced to an emaciated sh.e.l.l. Because one of the voices he heard told him to strike a man who'd only wanted to help him, the doctors considered him dangerous, a threat to himself and others."

"Why would he obey ... a voice?" She did not know very much about madmen and wasn't sure she wished to.

"Some patients think the orders come from G.o.d. More likely from Satan." Bitterness tinged his words.

"Is there no treatment?" She'd stopped taking notes, affected by his pa.s.sionate intensity.

"Most such patients are simply given ma.s.sive injections of morphine and chloral. This calms the hysteria but produces intolerable side effects. Thirst is the least of them."

"Horrible." Diana shuddered in sympathy.

Bathory did not seem to notice. "Every doctor I've talked to about the care of those who suffer blackouts, hear voices, or are subject to fits of rage insists the only safe place for such poor souls is an inst.i.tution. To be locked in, kept away from all contact with sanity -- there is the real path to madness. We must find better solutions, even for those individuals too deranged to be let loose on an unsuspecting community."

The problem of what to do with the insane clearly affected him deeply. Uneasiness stealing over her, Diana wondered why.

"What other choice is there?" she asked. "Surely you do not mean to suggest that the families of such people lock them in their attics?" That was in the best tradition of sensational fiction.

"Better that than the insane pavilion at Bellevue. And Bellevue is one of the better facilities." He picked up her discarded notebook and pencil and thrust them at her. "Write that Diana. Say that all madhouses are the same. Inhumane. Unenlightened. Often the doctors know less than the inmates."

"I sympathize with their plight, but it has already been written about."

"Old news?" The bitterness was back. "Yes. I've read Miss Bly's account. And some reforms were inst.i.tuted afterwards. But once the public outcry died down, the patients and their illnesses were forgotten again."

"I would like to help," she told him, resisting the urge to reach for his hand, "but the only way I can put any of this in my story is if you provide some reason why it interests you particularly."

"I see. It would help, then, to say I have a mad wife locked up at home?"

His voice was so deadly serious, she did not know whether to believe him or not. "Do you have a wife?"

"Does it matter, so long as you have scandalous details for your column?" The disappointment in his tone made her wince. He had no reason to trust her, just as she had no reason to trust him, but she had thought there was a rapport developing between them.

They had finished their meal. Bathory called for the check and Diana took that as a signal that the interview was over. She put her notebook away.

They left the restaurant and walked back towards his hotel in silence. She'd leave him there and go home. Spending time with Damon Bathory was even more exhausting than chasing after him.

He noticed her limping and hailed a cab. When he'd climbed in beside her, he gave the driver her address.

"I can invite you in," she told him, "but only into the parlor and there will be a chaperone present. My landlady is most strict about gentlemen callers."

"You said earlier that you need this interview in order to keep your job." His most winning smile was firmly in place.

"Yes, but -- "

"And if what you've already learned from me isn't enough, your editor will make something up out of whole cloth. Is that correct?"

"I fear so, yes."

"Then I've a proposition for you." He lowered his voice to a level that vibrated with sincerity. The effect of such charisma was difficult to escape and Diana was not inclined to fight it very hard. "If you promise not to follow me after I take you home, I swear I'll do nothing more exciting tonight than return to my hotel room and get a good night's sleep."

"All right, but -- "

"Then, when we're both well rested," he continued, cutting her off, "we will meet again. Tomorrow, if you like, at whatever hour and place you say. Why, we can spend the entire day together, and in the evening go to a play. Shall we sit together in an audience for a change?"

"Most theaters are dark on Monday nights," Diana reminded him, beguiled by the wistful note in his voice.

He thought for a moment as their cab came to a stop in front of the house on 10th Street. "Will you allow me to take you to the circus instead? Eighty-six acts in three rings, or so the advertis.e.m.e.nts say."

A delicious sense of antic.i.p.ation coursed through her at the prospect of spending more time with him. His lighthearted tone heightened the feeling. So did the appreciative look in his eyes. The admiration of a man for a woman he desired shone there. He made no attempt to hide it. Responding female to male, Diana forced the last of her doubts into a dark corner of her mind and smiled back at him.

"If we go in the afternoon," she said, daring to tease him a little "I can write a review of the opening performance."

"Done. How early shall I come for you? Interview first, I think. Business before pleasure."

Diana's smile abruptly dimmed.

"What is it?" He sounded genuinely concerned.

"I have an early appointment, but it shouldn't take long. Why don't I meet you in the lobby of your hotel at nine."

"A new story?" he asked.

"An old one. Unfinished business."

Diana was relieved when he did not press her for details.

Neither did he linger over farewells. When he'd gone, she drifted to the window and stood concealed by the lace curtains to watch him climb back into the waiting cab. She stayed there until it was out of sight, her fingers toying idly with the brooch at her throat. She listened until the last clip-clop of the horse's hooves had faded away. Only then did she turn away and, frowning, make her way upstairs to her tiny, solitary room.

She did not know what the morning would bring, but the last time she'd felt this edgy, this full of hope, she had been about to elope with Evan.

That had been the beginning of the most exciting time she'd ever known. It had also been the worst mistake of her life.

Chapter Six.

Diana had believed the weather forecast posted at the top of the Equitable Building and printed in every newspaper in the city, a prediction of springlike conditions on Monday. She had dressed accordingly in the pre-dawn hour, and by the time she had realized her mistake, it was too late to go back inside to change clothes. Shivering, she climbed into the Hansom she'd arranged for, determined to be at Grand Central Station as she'd planned in order to keep the promise she'd made to herself before she'd walked out of the 13th Street Theater two nights earlier.

She was not looking forward to the confrontation ahead, and the unsettled weather mirrored her feelings. During the night, a torrential rain had soaked Manhattan, causing the gutters to overflow. In the wee hours of the morning, the temperature had abruptly dropped, coating streets and sidewalks alike with a layer of ice and turning the downpour to sleet. The first hailstones struck the roof of Diana's cab soon after she set out. The precipitation had changed, yet again, to snow by the time she arrived at her destination. A gust of wind nearly strong enough to lift her off her feet struck her the moment she exited the hack. To add insult to injury, the driver demanded twice his usual fare.

"On account of the storm," he explained. "It's a corker."

Grudgingly, she gave up more money than she could afford and hurried into the many-turreted brick building. She'd hoped to stop and buy a cup of hot coffee to fortify herself, since she'd left Mrs. Curran's boarding house before her landlady arose to prepare breakfast, but with the delay in getting here, it was nearly time for the early train to Hartford to depart. Squaring her shoulders, Diana made her way through the train shed at a fast clip.

Dealing honestly with Damon Bathory had been the right thing to do, she thought as she crossed the huge building. And so was begging the forgiveness of Lavinia Ross. Diana had braved the storm because she was determined to speak with the actress before Lavinia left on tour. Todd's Touring Thespians would be away from Manhattan for the next several months.

Embarra.s.sment and guilt had plagued Diana in the week since Foxe made his unauthorized additions to her column. On Sat.u.r.day night, forced to see again the very play she'd savaged, she'd realized she could not let Nathan Todd's company go off without trying to make amends. She could not undo what had appeared in print, but she could at least explain how it had happened.

She found Nathan Todd, a heavy-set, red-faced gentleman in his mid-forties, supervising the loading of props, costumes, and set pieces. In a booming voice that echoed in the open s.p.a.ces above, he shouted orders to the baggage handlers. "Confound it! Be careful of that flat!"

He subsided into unintelligible grumbles, then fell silent when he caught sight of Diana.

She burst into speech, stumbling through her explanation.

"Any publicity is good publicity," Toddy declared when she'd finished stammering out her apology.

"I am surprised you'll even speak civilly to me. I expected you to cut me dead."