Death in Saratoga Springs Read Online Free PDF Page B

hall. Mrs. Helen Fisk, an influential patron of St. Barnabas Mission, supported her request for a tour.
    Porter’s office was in a corner of the building’s ground floor and consisted of a suite of rooms, all of them clean, well-lit and well ventilated, and fully insulated from the noises, sights, and smells of the adjacent factory floor. A female clerk in a spotless white frock showed them into Porter’s private office. He wore a dark gray suit and tie, his hair slicked back and parted in the middle, and he sat at a gleaming gray writing table. Neat stacks of business paper lay before him. A white telephone was off to one side. Uniform rows of gray file boxes stood on white shelves covering the gray walls behind him. There were no colorful flowers or bright pictures in the room, only unrelieved grays and whites, in striking contrast to the gore throughout the rest of the building.
    For a moment, Porter scrutinized his visitors with steel gray eyes, then greeted and seated them in simple upholstered chairs. He gave them a brief description of the company, the largest and most modern meatpackers in the New York area.
    Pamela made a sweeping gesture over the room. “Does the strikingly efficient appearance of your office make a statement about your industry?”
    â€œYes, indeed, Mrs. Thompson.” He pursed his lips and waved a hand toward the files. “This office expresses the rational spirit that governs the modern meatpacking process. We are among the leaders. Efficiency in the service of profit, that’s our motto. I’m proud of our packing plants and happy to show you through one of them. You will see the most productive meat processing east of Chicago.”
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    Porter took them to the stockyard adjacent to the main plant. More than 500 hogs had come in by train overnight. As Pamela and Harry arrived with their guide, men were forcing the hogs up a chute into the third floor at the western end of the plant. The visitors watched from a gallery as hogs entered the building and were hoisted by their rear legs onto a moving overhead trolley. Amid ear-splitting squeals and shrieks, swarthy men in blood-soaked aprons slit the animals’ throats as they passed by. Blood flowed in rivulets to drains in the floor. Other men dropped the still-twisting and turning animals into a large vat of boiling water.
    Pamela tore her eyes away from the carnage and exchanged glances with Harry. His face was pale. Through gritted teeth, he murmured, “This is like war. The hogs are losing.” Nearby, Porter gazed at the scene, detached and calm, his mind apparently fixed on the process.
    A machine scooped the hogs from the vat and sent them through a scraping machine to remove their bristles. They were hooked up to yet another trolley and passed rapidly between two lines of men.
    With a hint of awe in his voice, Porter said, “The proprietor, Captain Jed Crake, a remarkable man, has personally put on an apron and performed most of the tasks that you are observing. Watch closely. This is a crucial moment in the process. Each man has a specific task in the second or two as the carcass goes by him: One severs the head, and it falls through a hole in the floor; another slits the body; a third widens the opening; and a fourth pulls out the entrails, which fall through a hole in the floor; and so it goes on until the carcass is completely stripped of its ‘waste’ parts. It’s then cleaned and sent on to the chilling room, where it hangs for twenty-four hours.”
    He led them to the floor below. In one room, men were scraping and cleaning the entrails for sausage casings; in another, they were boiling and pumping away grease from scraps to make soap; in a third, a stamping machine was pulverizing bones for fertilizer; and so on.
    The stench was unbearable. Pamela held a perfumed kerchief to her nose, but to no avail. Her stomach was roiling dangerously. Harry stiffened. Even Porter began