The Alchemy of Murder Read Online Free PDF

water.
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    K NOWING MOST MEN would hesitate to physically remove a lady, I decided my plan of attack was to be polite, but firmly inform the guard I wouldn’t leave until I met with Mr. Pulitzer.
    After three hours of ignoring the copy boys who tried to shoo me home as I badgered everyone who entered the building with desperate pleas to get me in to see Mr. Pulitzer, I was surprised no one called the police and had me arrested as an anarchist or Free Love advocate.
    An older reporter who watched me from his desk with an amused grin on his face raised my ire. I was a hair’s breath away from giving him a tongue lashing when he suddenly helped me slip inside before the gatekeeper could stop me.
    I swept across the editorial room with the grace of a lady of quality, careful to lift my skirt off the floor to keep the bottom from being fouled by the tobacco juice that didn’t reach spittoons. Newspapermen pride themselves on being a special kind of intellect who hang around smoky bars for five-cent beer and the free lunch, and believe they are entitled to foul editorial offices with chewing tobacco juice and cigar fumes.
    I felt the animosity of the men as a woman invaded their territory, and that put my chin up an extra inch.
    I quickly knocked, then threw open Mr. Pulitzer’s office door without waiting for an answer. Facing me was Mr. Pulitzer and John Cockerill, his managing editor. Both frowned for a moment before Mr. Pulitzer removed a pipe from his mouth and said, “Since you insist, do come in, young lady, and close the door.”
    I put my clippings from the Dispatch on his desk and collapsed in a chair. I blurted out I’d been robbed of my last penny and needed a job. I don’t know if they were impressed or just speechless because a young woman had the nerve to barge in and demand a job. Either way, they seemed much amused by my wanting to be a newspaper man .
    Mr. Cockerill handed me twenty-five dollars but declined to give me a response as to whether I was being hired. I realized the money was charity because I was broke and it was their way of brushing off an annoying child.
    I wanted a job, not a handout.
    “I have a great story,” I stated boldly. “The type of newsworthy reporting the World is famous for.”
    “What is this newsworthy story?” Mr. Pulitzer asked with a hint of humor in his voice that irritated me.
    “An exposé on the scandalous conditions at the madhouse for women on Blackwell’s Island.”
    “Young woman, every newspaper in town has already done a story on that notorious insane asylum.” He scoffed. “It has a worse reputation than Bedlam.”
    He was about to have me evicted from his office. I had to do something quick or I was finished, not only in New York but in the newspaper business. To accept a position on a lesser paper was not in my blood.
    “No one has done the story the way I will do it.”
    My mind was flying. I hadn’t really thought out how I would do the story, but I had to say something that would impress him. I researched stories about conditions at the asylum and felt they ranged from too maudlin, to little more than what a man thought conditions for the unfortunate women must be like. I wanted to write a more personal and realistic story. And I knew how he was drawn to sensationalism.
    Desperate for a job, I realized there was only one way to really impress him.
    “I’ll get myself committed to Blackwell’s Island as a mad woman.” And then, thank God, I remembered his quirk about ten being his lucky number, “And I will stay there exactly ten days!”
    Mr. Pulitzer took the pipe out of his mouth and stared at me.

5
    It’s not easy to act crazy.
    I’ve never been around a person insane enough to be institutionalized, unless you include my stepfather whom I suspect was bitten by one of Dr. Pasteur’s rabid dogs. But, I knew from my research that one could not get committed to the asylum without an examination by doctors and an order from a