Chapter 31 #3
Hiram Sumner laughed. He looked positively gleeful. He had moved to the longer settee with August; August was recumbent across the man’s lap, tolerating a damp handkerchief being swiped over his face, his hair.
“Topple that pedestal, Ms. Stone,” Sumner called. “He may yet crack.”
Instead of being wrong-footed, Laurie laughed. “Geez, I’ve lost my touch, eh? I never said I wasn’t. I’m for women’s suffrage, too, all right?”
“Why, thank you.”
“Look. You want to write a hit piece on Mr. Wright—either of them—I can’t stop you. Neither can a federal cop.” He nodded to Brasher. “Freedom of press, right? So long as it’s all true. There’s a lotta truth here; can’t deny that.”
Brasher clenched his jaw. No rich man’s solutions here, Chary thought.
Laurie went on, “But you’d get two good men in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“Not to mention yourself,” Brasher added.
Despite her admonishments, Sarah had been flushed since Laurie’s easy flattery. (Chary sympathized.) “I wouldn’t. I really wouldn’t.”
Laurie nodded. “So, why not?” he asked softly. “What happened there?”
“You must know, Mr. Tulley. There was a bounty: five hundred dollars silver to the man’”—she smiled, tentative—“‘who can print the mystery of August Wright.’ Straight to my editor. A few others, and your Sam Sullivan, too, I must assume? Very exclusive. With conditions.”
“Conditions being that you cable your major findings along to Raberding.”
“Periodically, yes, through my editor. I didn’t know who was on the other end.
That was strange on its own, but it was so much money…
But then I couldn’t see what worth there was in exposure.
Mr. Wright was alive, but he wasn’t doing anything illegal.
It… turned out to not be the kind of story I wanted to write, for any sum.
Nothing that I wanted a name for. So, I went home. ”
“You did,” Chary remembered aloud. Mrs. Leonard had explained at the time she’d had a loss in the family and would be taking some time. Mrs. Leonard had been irritated because she was so newly hired. But instead of taking off and leaving permanently, without further notice… Sarah had come back.
“I tried,” Sarah said.
Laurie said, “He didn’t like that.”
“No. A man came to my doorstep to tell me how much he didn’t like it.”
“Raberding could’ve hired anyone, but you were already in.” Laurie glanced over to Chary, quick and meaningful. “Can you describe the man who threatened you?”
“Blond,” Sarah said at once. “Lighter than yours, Mr. Tulley, or Mr. Wright’s, and receding. His accent a bit like yours too. I mainly remember thinking he wasn’t Irish, and wasn’t that surprising—” She flushed more.
Laurie glanced Chary’s way again. Yes. He did think it was Irving Sawyer. The stitches were all in place now.
“He knew where my sister rents her rooms. Her husband passed in Cuba, on the Maine—she’s a little boy, six years old. I daren’t put it down after that.”
Laurie sighed. “I’ll say,” he agreed. “Well, he’s dead now. Both of them.”
“Goodness.”
“In the future, you might wanna consider a pseudonym, yeah?”
Hiram Sumner coughed, and it sounded like hypocrite. Laurie showed a rude finger behind his back.
Sarah searched Laurie’s face. “Awful as it was… might it not be a rite of passage?”
“The blackmail and threats? Sure, maybe to have survived ’em. You ought to ask Nellie Bly, or Ida Tarbell, how many they’ve weathered.”
“Tarbell! She took on Standard Oil—you know her?”
“Yeah, I do. And yeah, she did. I can get you in touch if you want.” Laurie held out a hand. “Let me know, too, if you ever want to move away from The Cosmopolitan, all right?”
Sarah shook the hand. “Even without that, I won’t say a word. But I still think you have profited massively from the investigative work of women done before you, Mr. Tulley. Your sex alone has made your work respectable.”
Chary was indignant—surely, to be male had formed a part of it, but that alone?—but Laurie chuckled. “They’ll like you. Sam will, too.” He crossed his arms and looked to Brasher in challenge. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes, is a quid pro quo difficult?” Sumner murmured, quite innocently; August snickered.
“All right, reporter,” Brasher growled. “Mikhail’s not abed yet. He’ll take you to the station, Sarah. If that’s amenable.”
“Mikhail. Yes, thank you.”
Laurie—stopping short of baring his teeth at Brasher—escorted her out.
Brasher stared up at the bullet holes once more. He sighed. “Gonna be a bitch and a half to get rid of him.”
“I’m sorry, Sidney.” August, from the settee.
“You did what you had to,” Sumner soothed.
“Amen,” Chary agreed, only a little blasphemous.
“Since we are now hopefully out of Lawrence Tulley’s range of hearing,” Sumner said, glancing to Chary, who then tried to look his least like a tattletale, “if you’ll kindly take care of the physical, Sidney, and let me deal with the rest?”
“If you don’t mind the harder task,” Brasher grumbled. “How many vice societies had the bastard joined?”
“Well, precisely. He was fortunate to have made more than a few enemies.” Sumner smiled a dangerous smile. “His disappearance won’t be a surprise.”
Brasher shook his head. “Let’s get this over with.”