New York - The Novel

“Mr. Morgan, without presuming upon our acquaintance, sir, how do you think I should handle this affair?” Of course, he couldn’t do it. Unthinkable. He passed by respectfully.
    J. P. Morgan stepped into a cab, and was gone.
    And no sooner was he gone than, with a terrible sense of horror, Master realized the profound stupidity of the impulse. Who, Morgan would have asked, was proposing the deal? Gabriel Love, he would have had to answer. He’d have had to tell J. P. Morgan that he was in business with Daddy Love.
    However great his ill-gotten wealth, however venerable his white beard, however much he gave to charity, Mr. Gabriel Love would never cross the threshold of the House of Morgan. Mr. Morgan did not speak toa man like Gabriel Love; wouldn’t even look up from his desk at him. Some might call it Morgan’s proudness. Some might call it snobbery. But the fact was, Morgan was right.
    He was doing business with a dreadful old criminal, and he could only pray it turned out all right. Swiftly, Frank Master walked out of Wall Street and made his way home.

    It was already dusk when Mary left the house in Gramercy Park. The afternoon had passed quietly enough. Frank Master had seemed a little depressed when he returned from Wall Street, but after a nap he had brightened up again and busied himself with preparations for the trip he was making upriver to Albany the following day.
    From Gramercy Park, Mary took a cab, which soon brought her down Fifth Avenue to her brother’s house. After spending some time with his family, she asked to see him alone.
    “I need a favor, Sean,” she said.
    “Tell me.”
    She took out a letter. It was just a small note, in a sealed envelope. On the front was written the name of Donna Clipp, and her address. She handed it to her brother, and he looked at it.
    “That’s Frank Master’s hand,” he remarked.
    Mary smiled. In fact, the envelope, and the brief note inside, had been carefully written a few days ago by Hetty Master, who had plenty of examples of Frank’s writing to copy. But Sean didn’t need to know that.
    “It has to be delivered tomorrow, about the middle of the morning, into the lady’s hand. I have to know for definite that she has it. Could you arrange that?”
    “I’ve got a boy that can deliver it, certainly.”
    “If he’s asked, the boy must say you gave it to him.”
    “All right.”
    “And most of all—I didn’t give it to you, Sean. You never got this until tomorrow morning. A gentleman you assumed to be Frank Master left it in a hurry with a servant at your door, with urgent instructions that it be delivered at once.”
    “This is the favor?”
    “That’s it. Just remember that it wasn’t me that gave it to you.”
    Sean nodded. “Why?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    “If you say so.”
    “I’ll tell you this,” she said. “It’s for his own good.”
    He slipped the letter into his breast pocket. “Consider it done.”
    As Mary returned home later that evening, the cab driver told her: “There was a big circus parade downtown this evening. You’d think summer was starting already.”

    The ferry was due to leave at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon. By five, it was still at the pier. The problem was the engine. The captain of the vessel apologized for the delay, but assured his passengers that it would be dealt with shortly.
    Small comfort to Frank Master.
    Where the devil was Donna Clipp? Not a sign of her. She was supposed to be there by three. Twenty minutes after that hour, he’d gone himself in a cab to her house. But she wasn’t there, and her landlady said she’d gone out more than an hour before, telling her she wouldn’t be back for a few days. He’d hurried back to the pier, but the ticket taker and the steward both assured him that no lady of her description had appeared while he was gone. It was almost four by then, so he’d gone aboard.
    Had she had an accident? Possibly. But the alternative, he supposed, was more likely. She’d gone off elsewhere, left him in the lurch, and looking like a fool. Gone off, it could only be, with another man. A younger man, no doubt. He’d experienced a sickening feeling that he hadn’t known since he was a young man, before he’d met Hetty.
    He’d gone into the saloon on the boat and had a brandy. He was feeling foolish, and lonely. Every so often he’d go to the door and look along the pier, in case she’d turned up. But there was no sign of her. Just the