The Lions of Fifth Avenue: A Novel

CHAPTER ELEVEN

New York City, 1914

But Father promised!”

Harry’s wail pierced the air inside the apartment. It was all Laura could do to not strangle him.

“Harry. Enough.”

“But I want to play catch.”

He’d at least lowered his voice to a reasonable level, so she took a breath and tried again.

“Your father is busy at work, and I have a meeting with my advisor at the university. You’ll have to wait.”

“The boys will make fun of me if I can’t throw well.”

“Who? Who will?”

“The boys.”

He’d been doing so well, she hated to see him lose his precarious social standing at school. “Fine, I have twenty minutes. Shall we play a quick game of catch together?”

He agreed, grudgingly. He preferred his father in all matters to do with sport—that was clear enough.

When Harry had been a small child, he’d needed his mother much more than Pearl had. Harry had sought out Laura’s attention, asking her question after question. They talked so much that she often found her own voice ragged by the end of the day. The subjects changed as he grew older, but the inquiries were no less frequent: Why did they move to New York from the country? How many people live in New York? Could he build a tree house in the park behind the library? Why was the woman begging on the stairs of the library?

Whenever Laura and Jack argued, Harry would ramp up his interruptions, as if trying to save them from each other. It was maddening, and oftentimes Jack would end up yelling for Harry to be quiet and send him to his room. She’d stop in after to check on him, and find him hiding under his bedcovers, sucking his thumb. “He’s a sensitive boy,” she’d tell Jack. “We must be careful.”

Laura and Harry made their way outside, where a fine mist had settled over Bryant Park, coating the benches and walkways and turning the bark of the trees black. Empty of the usual pedestrians, the space felt slightly sinister. Jack had told them that the land underneath the library had been a graveyard for the poor during the first half of the last century. After the bones were moved to Ward Island across the Harlem River, a giant reservoir had been erected over the same spot. He’d pointed out how some of the old reservoir’s stone walls had been incorporated into the library’s foundation down in the basement, and Laura had wondered if the stones had been excavated from the graveyard, amazed at the way the layers of history settled upon each other over time. One day, would the white marble walls of the library support an even grander building? It was hard to imagine one grander than the New York Public Library.

As she and Harry tossed a ball back and forth, her mind returned to what she’d witnessed at Patchin Place. For some reason, the physical interaction between Jessie and Amelia consumed her more than the radical causes and viewpoints discussed in the meeting above Polly Holladay’s restaurant. The words and sentences, spoken in voluble, passionate cadences, were nothing compared to the quick touch of lips of the two women. That was unnervingly physical, tactile, in a way that Laura couldn’t quite comprehend.

She fumbled a throw from Harry, who teased her. “You have to hold your hands like this, Mother. Here, try again.”

She did, purposefully flubbing it this time. Her son’s physical skills took after her side of the family, unfortunately, instead of Jack’s, and she wanted to encourage him. “You’re much better suited to this than I am,” she said. “Try once more, let me see if I can get it right.”

This time, she did, and he cheered her success as if she’d swum the English Channel. She loved her boy. His gradual transformation out of his shy awkwardness was everything she had wished for. Lately, he could match Pearl friend for friend as they recounted their day at the dinner table, although, every so often, Pearl surprised Laura by retreating into a sullen moodiness. Laura knew she missed having her mother around, even if she wasn’t able to express it. Laura’s own mother was no substitute, no matter how she spoiled them. But didn’t Laura get to have a life outside of the library walls? She was in her prime, brimming with energy. Wasn’t that only fair?

The temperature was dropping with the sun, and she shuttled Harry back inside. Upstairs, she offered the children bread and butter and then headed uptown to Columbia.

Professor Wakeman was waiting behind his desk. “You’re late.” He checked his timepiece with obvious disdain.

Laura apologized but then got right down to business. “For my thesis, I was thinking it might be interesting to write an in-depth profile of Max Eastman, who edits the downtown magazine The Masses, and his wife, Ida. You may remember they got into some hot water when they married and she decided to keep her maiden name. Put it on their mailbox, even.”

Professor Wakeman regarded her as if she’d pulled a bomb out of her satchel. “I remember that. Caused quite a stir.”

“The press mocked them, said that she regarded the title of ‘Mrs.’ as a badge of slavery. Even the letters to the editor were nasty and abusive.” Laura pulled some of the pieces she’d dug up in the morgue on the first floor. “They’re all written by men, saying that such a notion will unleash a slew of divorces and other scandalous behavior. I want to do a follow-up.”

“It’s old news. Nothing there.” Still, he picked up his pen and scratched something on a notepad near his elbow. She caught sight of the words just as he placed a piece of blotting paper over them: Eastman—potential story idea.

So far, so good.

Laura had noticed over the course of the first semester that students’ story ideas that had been summarily dismissed by Professor Wakeman sometimes turned up under his byline in the press. To ensure she got the thesis subject she’d wanted, she’d decided to pitch a throw-away idea first, to divert his attention. She waited.

“Anything else?” Professor Wakeman asked.

“Well, how about something on the Heterodoxy Club?”

He yawned. “What a horror of a name.”

“They’re a group of women who meet in Greenwich Village every two weeks and debate progressive causes.”

“It’s a ridiculous name for a women’s club. Heterodoxy? Sound like they’re trying too hard to be intellectual, if you ask me.”

“I think it’s a valuable story to cover.”

“Well, all right,” he said finally. “You may write on this subject. Do not try to shock me with any vulgarities, though.”

Two weeks later, Laura attended her second meeting. This time, instead of formal speakers, each woman was asked to stand and give a brief summary of her background and why she was drawn to be a member. The stories were so varied, the family origins fascinating—from an isolated farmhouse in Maine to a decrepit mansion overlooking the Hudson River, from barely having enough to eat to a childhood of rich indulgence—yet somehow they’d all ended up in this one place, united not for a common cause, but simply to be able to speak their minds freely, without the disapproval of husbands and fathers. The women were vastly different from each other, yet united by their desire to achieve, to overcome discrimination against their sex. During a break, Laura ducked into an empty meeting room and scribbled some notes, which she then hid in the very bottom of her satchel.

Amelia invited her back for tea at Patchin Place, and again Laura accepted, but this time she didn’t get flustered when Jessie appeared from the back room and placed another kiss on Amelia’s lips, wrapping her arms loosely around Amelia’s neck. She understood that down here in Greenwich Village the old traditions were being subverted and altered, and that the two men standing closely on the corner might be friends, or they might be lovers, and that was fine.

Jack asked her about the Heterodoxy Club meeting after he crawled into bed late that night. All she wanted to do was go back to sleep, but they hadn’t had any time to check in with each other lately. She rubbed her eyes, fighting the urge to snuggle back under the quilt.

“It’s strange, going downtown,” she answered. “I feel like I’m visiting some European city, if that makes any sense. Different customs, different issues, it’s all so unfamiliar.”

“Did you see your school friend, the one you’d mentioned at your parents’?”

“Dr. Potter. Yes, she was there.”

“Funny, I don’t remember you ever mentioning her before.”

Part of her wanted to tell Jack all about Amelia, as she’d told him about Professor Wakeman and some of the other larger-than-life characters from her outside life, but it would be too difficult. There were too many angles to the woman that Jack would find contradictory, and if she tried, she’d end up missing something important, or stressing the wrong thing. She didn’t want to talk about Amelia.

“She was a few years ahead of me, I barely knew her.” She pulled Jack close. “I’m sorry you have to deal with all of the craziness here. The thefts, I mean.”

“It’s fine. You seem happy, I must say.” There was a hitch in his voice, but she was too tired to inquire further.

“I guess I am.”

She turned over, exhausted, and fell fast asleep.

“Mrs. Lyons.”

Laura stopped short as Mr. Gaillard approached her on the steps to the library. She’d been lost in thought trying to come up with a good lede for the book review she’d been assigned and hadn’t noticed him standing right next to one of the lions. She looked about quickly for the beggar, but the woman was nowhere to be seen, which was probably for the best. “Yes, Mr. Gaillard?”

“May I have a word?”

It was almost as if he’d been waiting for her.

“Do you need to see me with my husband?” she asked. It was a Wednesday, so he’d be meeting with the chief engineer. “I’m heading inside and I’m sure I can round him up for you.”

“No, ma’am. I was hoping to have a quiet word with just you. This way.”

He led her inside and up to the Trustees Room on the second floor. A long table, one end piled high with papers, sat directly beneath a bronze chandelier, which had been decorated with a series of vaguely malevolent-looking satyrs. A bust of a notable figure took up each corner of the room: Alexander Hamilton, Washington Irving, John Jacob Astor, and, finally, Joseph Green Cogswell. When Laura had asked Jack who on earth the last was, he’d proudly informed her that Cogswell was the first superintendent of the Astor Library, back in the middle of the last century.

It was an awfully grand room to work out of, intended for meetings of the trustees. “Do you not have a proper office?” she asked Mr. Gaillard. “I’m sure my husband can secure you one if you prefer it.”

“They’re in the midst of appointing one for me. This is temporary, although I certainly could get used to it.” He waved a hand at the focal point of the room, a massive cream-colored marble fireplace, with a quote from Thomas Jefferson inscribed above the mantel.

“The entire library is a remarkable place. I tell the children that constantly, that they shouldn’t take any of this for granted.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

He gestured to a chair next to the one at the head of the table. “Unfortunately, there are well-organized book-thief rings here in New York, drawn to our city’s treasure. I’m doing everything I can to figure out why our books are going missing. I’m guessing that this particular thief is educated and has access to the stacks, in some way. Someone who has a rudimentary knowledge as to how to value a book.”

“Why rudimentary?”

“Because he’s chosen one that’s too valuable to be able to easily sell.”

“The Tamerlane?”

He nodded. “Unless some collector only wants it for his private collection. That does happen, unfortunately, and when it does, the books are lost forever.” He leaned forward. “The only people who have a key to where the Tamerlane was kept are the rare book librarian, myself, and your husband.”

Laura swallowed.

“May I ask you a rather delicate question, Mrs. Lyons?”

“You may, I am happy to assist in any way I can. But I do need to get up soon to the apartment, the children will be getting hungry.”

“This won’t take long. I wonder, is your family having any financial trouble?”

The conversation was taking a strange turn. “Absolutely not. We’re perfectly fine. It’s helpful that the residence comes with the job. We consider ourselves quite lucky.”

“Is that right?”

Better to be straightforward, she decided. Get whatever this was out in the open. “Are you wondering if my husband is responsible for the stolen books?”

He didn’t answer, just stared, until the silence became intolerable.

“I must say, I resent the inference. Mr. Lyons reveres books and would never take one out of turn. He’s writing a book of his own, even.”

“What sort of book is Mr. Lyons writing?” Mr. Gaillard asked.

Jack had been working on it for so long that she wasn’t quite sure what it was about anymore. “Fiction. Really, I find your line of questioning unreasonable. My husband’s character is sterling.”

“We have four books missing, Mrs. Lyons. I have to go down every path, at this point.”

Four books? Jack had only mentioned two, Leaves of Grass and Tamerlane.

Mr. Gaillard continued. “The library has guards stationed at every exit who check the bags of anyone coming in or out. The rare books are locked away, and two librarians staff the Rare Book Room at all times. Yet still the books are being taken. I must find out why.”

“Of course you must.”

“That is why we are currently searching your apartment.”

“What?” She remembered the way he’d been stationed outside the library, as if to stop her from entering. “Where are my children? And Jack?”

“Harry and Pearl are down in the children’s library, with the clerk there. Mr. Lyons is at the apartment.”

She swished out of the room, the detective following behind her, down to the first floor and back up the small stairway to the mezzanine. Jack stood leaning against the banister, looking bored. He straightened when he saw her ascending, the detective behind her.

“Sorry about this, love,” he said. “They’re almost done.”

He and Mr. Gaillard shook hands like they were bridge partners, not suspect and policeman. The detective glanced over to a uniformed cop, who gave a slight shake of the head.

“We found nothing, sir,” the man said.

“I thank you for your patience and cooperation.” With that, Mr. Gaillard and his crew took their leave.

Only after they’d entered their apartment and shut the door behind them did Laura speak.

“Tell me now. What is going on, Jack? The truth this time.”