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EXTRA! EXTRA! SWEETHEART SEER SEES GHOSTS AT ASYLUM
Exclusive to The Daily News by T. S. Woodhouse
Just yesterday, New York’s beloved Sweetheart Seer, the irrepressible Evie O’Neill, made the arduous trek to the Manhattan State Hospital for the Insane on desolate Ward’s Island.
“Arduous trek? You took a ferry ride!” Mabel interrupted. She was sitting at Evie’s vanity table painting on a fresh coat of her best nail varnish.
“Ahem. You are interrupting my dramatic reading,” Evie said.
Her mission? To forgive the man who so recently attempted to murder her, Luther Clayton. While there, Miss O’Neill became aware of a far greater danger to the inhabitants of the asylum, for it seems that ghosts haunt the halls and moors of Ward’s Island, or so claim the patients. Some folks might say that believing in ghosts is enough to put one into an asylum. Yet, in light of the recent, unfortunate murders there, it’s hard to doubt them outright, especially now that they’ve got a Diviner on their side.
“There is pos-i-tute-ly a ghostly presence at the asylum,” Miss O’Neill insisted to this reporter after her brief visit. “Why, with my Diviner sensibilities, I detected it right away! I know how deeply the doctors and nurses care for their patients, and that is why I urge them to have my uncle Will Fitzgerald and his team of Diviners out to investigate and rid the island of any spiritual trouble right away!”
The brave and kind Miss O’Neill did not worry at all about her own safety but was only concerned with the well-being of Luther Clayton and the nearly seven thousand patients housed at the asylum. “I fear they are in great danger!” Miss O’Neill insisted.
This newspaper eagerly awaits the response of the hospital administration.
Mabel gave Evie a hard squint. “You’re using those poor people so you can get back to the asylum and Luther Clayton.”
Evie started to protest, but there was no conning Mabel. “Maybe I am. But they did talk about ghosts, Mabesie. And Luther knows something about James. We keep getting these messages—‘Follow the Eye’—and Luther said, ‘The Eye has him.’”
“What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I pos-i-tute-ly have to see him again!”
Mabel considered this. “And you talked Theta into doing your show tonight?”
“I didn’t talk her into it,” Evie said with a bit of umbrage. “She wanted to do it.”
That afternoon, Theta had pretended to be a secretary from WGI, calling up the press to announce that the Sweetheart Seer would have a very special guest that evening, Miss Theta Knight of the Ziegfeld Follies.
“If the luck of the spirits is on her side tonight, Miss O’Neill will uncover the mystery of Miss Knight’s past in Russia,” the “secretary” had promised in a nasal voice. “It’ll be a swell show. You don’t want to miss it for the world.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Mabel said. “That Harriet Henderson doesn’t like you.”
“Gee, thanks, Mabesie.”
“It’s the truth. Ignore it at your peril!” Mabel said in her best Nana Newell voice, making Evie laugh. Mabel’s smile faded. “It is the truth. And you do ignore it at your peril. She can twist the story any way she likes. And once she writes it in her paper, people believe every word as fact, whether it is or not.”
Evie waved away the comment. “Let me worry about the Harriet Hendersons of the world.”
“I do worry about them,” Mabel said.
“Will you come to the show tonight? Theta and I are going to the Hotsy Totsy afterward. It’ll be the berries!”
Mabel blew on her nails. “Sorry. I’ve got a meeting.”
“All these secret meetings. When will I get to meet the mysterious Arthur Brown?”
“Oh, sometime.”
Never, Mabel thought.
By the time Evie and Theta arrived at the radio station, a crowd had gathered outside along with the press. As expected, Harriet Henderson was front and center.
“Oh, Miss Knight! Miss O’Neill!” Harriet called, waving her lace handkerchief, a gift, she’d proudly reported, from Jake Marlowe himself. It was no wonder to Evie that Harriet only wrote glowing articles about Jake.
Evie winked at Theta. “Like clockwork.”
