Betina Krahn (33 page)

As she entered the cavernous, paneled room, the clumps of men gathered around the long board table lowered their voices to whispers. The company lawyers were seated along the wall behind the chairman’s seat and at the far end stood Winthrop and Lynch, talking with Afton.

She could feel their hostile stares like needles pricking her skin. She had been in worse spots before, she told herself. She headed for her usual place at the head of the table, but vice president Graham intercepted her. With an apologetic look, he informed her that since she was the subject of this meeting, he would be presiding in her stead.

“I see,” she said, refusing to show how that hurt. “Of course.”

It seemed a dark omen. She moved to the chair immediately to the right of the chairman.

“Let’s get straight to it, shall we?” Graham declared as everyone settled uneasily into their chairs. “You know the reason for calling an emergency session … the recent revelations in the newspapers regarding our board president.”

“News
paper,
” she corrected him. “Only
one
newspaper carried those scurrilous accusations.”

“The New York World,”
old Augustine reproached her. “The city’s
leading
newspaper.”

“In the interest of fairness,” Graham quickly continued, “we must offer Mrs. Von Furstenberg the opportunity to address these charges before taking action.”

He turned to her and nodded, giving her the floor. She looked around the table, seeing only fixed expressions and set minds.

“The facts of the situation have not changed, gentlemen,” she said.

“And just what facts are those, Mrs. Von Furstenberg?” old Haffleck interrupted, leaning forward. “I don’t recall getting any facts from you at the last board meeting. You made your case based on your record at the reins of the company and we were willing to accept that. But now, in light of the public accusations and additional charges—”

“But, these are not additional charges,” she declared. “You heard Winthrop and Lynch’s threat when they left here that day. They said you and I would pay for not going along with their nasty little grab for power. Clearly, they are the anonymous ‘sources’ the news writer quoted in the article. No one else claims that I frequent brothels.”

“Have you any proof of that?” Lynch demanded, rising and looking at the others. “She might have been seen by any of dozens of patrons of the place.”

“Put her to the question,” Winthrop said eagerly, shooting to his feet. “She prizes
honesty
so … ask her point-blank if she has ever been to the Oriental.”

Every face in the room turned to her. She summoned all of her courage.

“I will
not
answer such a question. Not unless every man here is forced to submit to the same hideous request about his own personal life.”

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Graham visually collected a consensus from the board and turned to her.

“It has gone beyond the personal, Mrs. Von Furstenberg. However it began, however unfair it seems, it is now a matter of public discourse and affects the good name and fortunes of this company. Our stock prices are teetering even now. You must answer the question or we shall be forced to conclude that you cannot answer except in the affirmative.”

“I—I—” Whatever she said would seal her fate. She looked around the room with dwindling hope. “I will not deny that I was in the Oriental Palace once.”

The murmur that went around the room sounded like vultures’ wings.

“There, you see—from her own lips—she admits it!” Lynch crowed above the turmoil that was unleashed.

“I move that Beatrice Von Furstenberg be removed as president of Consolidat—”

“Stop!” The commotion that was growing in the hall outside burst through the double doors.

A motley contingent of people came tussling and shoving into the boardroom, with Connor Barrow at its head. “You need to hear what we have to say!”

Beatrice was stunned. Behind Connor came Priscilla, Lacey, Frannie, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Belva
Vanderbilt, followed by several news reporters. The women pushed past the sergeant-at-arms, who managed to halt the reporters at the door.

“What the devil—this is a private meeting!” Graham insisted.

“No, this is a
trial
.” Connor strode furiously to the table.

“And womanhood itself is in the dock! None of this would be happening if Beatrice Von Furstenberg were a man!” Frannie Excelsior declared with an upraised fist, before the others pulled her back against the wall with them.

“We’ve come to give evidence,” Connor continued, “and if you want the truth, you’ll hear us out.”

“Get these people out of here!” Lynch ordered, glaring at Connor. “They’re trespassing!”

“Testifying,” Connor corrected, taking in Winthrop’s and Lynch’s presence but turning quickly to the other directors.

Beatrice felt her heart beating in her throat. They had come—he had come—to testify to what they knew? To help her?

“Who are you, to come bursting in here?” Winthrop demanded anxiously.

“Connor Barrow, attorney.” From the number of nods around the table, the name was familiar to a number of the directors. “I don’t know what these men have told you”—he pointed to Winthrop and Lynch—“but Mrs. Von Furstenberg is totally innocent of the charges leveled in the
World
yesterday.”

“He has no right to be here,” Lynch snapped, pointing at Connor. “He’s that politician she’s involved with—the one in the newspapers. He’ll say anything to protect her.”

“Is that so?” Connor looked around the table, folded his arms, and spread his feet. “Then I won’t say anything, and let others speak for themselves.” He nodded to Priscilla.

He was here. Beatrice could hardly see anything but Connor as she struggled to keep her composure. She had no time to think about where he had been for these last troubled days or how he came to be here. She had to maintain her focus; too much was at stake. They had come to testify …

“Priscilla?” Her voice was suddenly thick with emotion.

“It’s all right, Aunt Beatrice.” The girl’s voice quivered and she clamped her hands together as every eye in the room turned on her. “It’s partly my fault and I want to tell what I—”

“We got to see Mrs. Von Furstenberg!” It was Dipper. He and Shorty were alternately dragging and shoving someone into the room with them. “We found him. A little bit ago—snoopin’ around outside!”

Squeezed between Dipper and Shorty like a sausage in a casing, was a scruffy, undernourished-looking fellow in a worn gray suit, sporting a battered bowler hat and the beginning of a black eye. Dipper’s blocky face beamed as he and Shorty hauled the man to the table, opposite Beatrice, and held him in place with no little force.

“This is the reporter?” Beatrice had to steady herself on the table.

“Artie Higgins, he calls hisself,” Dipper announced. “Of that
New York World
.”

“This is absurd—what is he doing here?” Lynch motioned to Higgins.

“He didn’t want to come,” Dipper said, as everyone
eyed the bruise darkening around Higgins’s eye. “But we persuaded him it wus the right thing to do.” He looked at the reporter. “Tell ’em what you told us.”

“Ohhh, no!” Higgins jerked free unexpectedly and rushed for the door, but Dipper and Shorty caught him and forced him, struggling, back to the table. “This isn’t right—you can’t make me talk! I’m part of the free press!”

“This has absolutely no relevance—” Winthrop began.

“It has every relevance,” Beatrice declared. “You’ve said that there could have been any number of sources—men who saw me cavorting at the Oriental. I say there were only two.” She turned to Higgins. “Please, Mr. Higgins … tell us how you got the information for the story you wrote.”

The reporter glared furiously at her and pursed his lips.

“Cat got yer tongue?” Dipper said, tightening his grip on Higgins’s arm. “He sung like a bird a little bit ago. Said he got the story from a fella … came to him at the Pressman’s Bar, up on Thirty-fourth Street.”

“I suggest you tell us what you know, Higgins, and help us get at the truth,” Graham spoke up. “Libel suits against newspapers can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and newspapers don’t employ reporters who cause them expensive legal trouble.”

The reporter looked from Graham to Lynch with a furious glare. Finally, seeing no hope of rescue, he snapped: “All right,” and shook free of Dipper and Shorty’s hands.

“It’s true,” Higgins admitted. “A man came into the bar and asked the bartender if he knew any reporters. The barkeep pointed me out to him, and he came over and said he had a story … asked if I was interested.”

“Is that man in this room?” Beatrice asked.

He still hesitated, until Dipper and Shorty looked like they were about to seize him again and then he nodded.

“Who is he?”

Another pause occurred before he raised his gaze and nodded to Lynch. “It was him … over there. Archibald Lynch.”

There was some consternation at that, but Lynch lifted his head above the other board members’ hostile stares. “That’s not how it was. I was in a restaurant—he came up to me and asked questions—”

“Did you talk to any other witnesses before you wrote the story?” Beatrice asked the reporter, ignoring Lynch. “Did you talk to anyone from the Oriental Palace?”

“I checked it out,” Higgins declared defensively. “I asked if he knew anybody else who could back up his story. He gave me a name and I talked to him, too. That fellow agreed it was all true, so I wrote it up.”

“And the name of that man?” Beatrice was twisting into knots inside.

“Him.” Higgins nodded to Lynch’s partner. “Harold Winthrop.”

“Anyone else?” she demanded, over Winthrop’s sputtering and the other directors’ growing outrage. “Did you talk to anyone besides these two men before you wrote that story?”

When he shook his head, she nearly melted with relief.

“There were no other witnesses. Just Lynch and Winthrop,” she said to the board. “Do you see what they’ve done? They couldn’t
persuade
you to vote with them, to oust me, so they thought they’d
force
you to do it. Once the story was made public, you would have no choice but to remove me.” She turned on the pair. “Then
what? Who would you have smeared next in your quest for power? Graham? Wright?”

“This is absurd—she’s guilty as sin, and the only way she can defend her immoral behavior is to attack those who know the truth about her!”

“Then give us the names of other men who saw her at the Oriental,” Graham declared. “We’ll call on them ourselves, for verification.”

Lynch looked desperately at Winthrop, who reddened but said nothing. Then he looked around at the anger and accusation in his fellow board members’ faces, and realized that they had withdrawn whatever support he once had.

“We’re waiting, Lynch.” Graham rose. “The names of these other witnesses you claim to have. Winthrop?”

“So our word isn’t good enough,” Lynch said furiously, dragging Winthrop by the arm toward the door. “Go on to hell in a hand basket … with her. I’ve had enough. I’m getting out. Don’t come running to me when your precious stock prices take a dive!” He and Winthrop barreled past Connor, past the sergeant-at-arms, and through the clutch of reporters and employees collected just outside the door.

For a moment everyone stared at the door where they had disappeared. Then the silence burst and Graham hammered for order as everyone began talking at once.

Beatrice wasn’t certain where these revelations left her. She looked around the board table, then at her suffrage friends, Priscilla, and finally, at Connor. Would they still have to tell the board what happened? And if they did, what would that do to him … to her … to them?

“Gentlemen!” Secretary Wright pleaded for order. “I think it may be drawn from their response that Winthrop
and Lynch attempted to override the board’s authority by going public with a story we had already dealt with and voted on. They knew the story could damage Consolidated’s credibility and force us to rescind our prior decision. Whatever their motivations—”

“Their motives should be perfectly clear,” Connor inserted. “Their malicious allegations against Mrs. Von Furstenberg were part of a scheme to gain power and influence on the board.” He paused to look at Bebe. “Mrs. Von Furstenberg could never behave in an immoral or unethical manner.”

Beatrice couldn’t speak. This was the second time he had vehemently defended her at no small risk to himself.

“Yes, well,” Graham began, clearly uncomfortable with what came next. “We could certainly accept that explanation for the charges against Mrs. Von Furstenberg … if she hadn’t already admitted to being at this Oriental Palace.’”

“What?” Connor looked to her with a frown.

“Yes, I … I have admitted that I was at the Oriental Palace … on one occasion.” She cleared her throat. “It is not a particularly proud moment in my life, but it hardly represents a great moral failing.”

“I can tell you why she was there.” It was Priscilla, who had stepped forward.

“No!” Beatrice hurried around the table to intercept her niece.
“I
will tell you why I was there.” She looked down into Priscilla’s huge dark eyes, forbidding her to speak. “All of this began when I foolishly—”

“When she foolishly decided to do a bit of ‘missionary’ work in my establishment,” said a bold voice from the doorway. “And I’m
not
talkin’ about positions, here.”

The figure in the doorway was swathed in dramatic black and red velvet and an enormous feather-trimmed
hat, with her arm outstretched and propped against one of the door facings.

Beatrice was shocked speechless at the sight of Charlotte Brown standing on the threshhold of her boardroom. Behind the notorious madam stood several of the girls from the Oriental, dressed to the nines and grinning and winking at Beatrice over Charlotte’s shoulders.

Around the table, jaws dropped in astonishment.

“Hello, Congressman,” Charlotte Brown said as she swayed into the room and paused to survey those present. “Hello, Mrs. Von Furstenberg.” She let her gaze linger on more than one of the red-faced board members. “Hello …
boys
.”