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“How old?”
“Fourteen.”
“When I was fourteen, I ran away to the circus. Did Mr. Warren send you?”
“Mr. Forrer. Mr. Warren said it was O.K.”
“What do you have there?”
The kid had an envelope of newspaper clippings.
Bell had read the top one already:
Averell Comstock, director of Standard Oil, and at one time president of the corporation, died after a brief illness. Comstock was one of the big oil capitalists of the country who laid the foundations for the Standard Oil Company alongside John D. Rockefeller, Clyde Lapham, and Henry M. Flagler. He served, too, as a director of the Weste
rn Union Telegraph Company, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Pittsburgh National Bank. His wealth was estimated at from $75,000,000 to $100,000,000.
The second clipping reported that Averell Comstock had left ten thousand dollars to a Mrs. Mary McCloud who had a coffee stand that the oil magnate had frequented on Fulton Street.
The last clipping reported that a Mrs. Mary McCloud had died in a tenement fire in Chatham Square.
Forrer had typed a note.
Same Mrs. McCloud. Tenement short walk from Fulton.
“Come with me, Tobin.” John D. Rockefeller’s train was leaving in three hours. If Bell didn’t have enough time, the kid could follow up and wait for reinforcements.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bell!”
They raced downtown on the Elevated.
—
Before descending to the street, Bell scanned the squalid neighborhood from the vantage of the Chatham Square El station. Walt Hawley and the Evening Sun and most of the big New York dailies occupied the clean, modern Newspaper Row section of Park Row less than a half mile downtown. This was the upper section of Park Row, a slum that had been a slum for most of the city’s long history.
He spotted a burned-out tenement and led Tobin down the stairs, three at a bound.
Sawhorses blocked the sidewalk. The buildings that flanked it had burned, too. Rain had fallen since, and the odor of wet charred wood hung heavily in the air. Settlement House workers were helping families who lost their homes load bedclothes and furniture that had survived the fire.
“Maybe this will help,” said Bell. He pressed two twenty-dollar gold pieces, two months’ sweatshop earnings, into the hands of the startled woman in charge.
“God bless you, sir.”
“Did anyone here know Mrs. McCloud?” he asked.
None did, but one said she thought Mrs. McCloud had worked on Fulton Street. Bell and Tobin hurried downtown and across Fulton toward the East River. At the waterfront, carts and temporary stalls had set up business selling refreshments.
“I hope those aren’t Jamaica Bay oysters,” said Tobin.
“Why’s that?”
“Jamaica Bay’s polluted with the typhoid.”
“We’re looking for coffee stands,” said Bell. They found a row of them selling coffee and cake and pastries. One space was empty. Bell paid for coffee and cake for the apprentice. The kid tore into it hungrily but paid close attention as Bell questioned the woman who poured.
“Where is Mrs. McCloud?”
“Gone.”
