‘Yes, it is,’ Blackstone confirmed.
‘Joe came here in the Fifties, and when the Civil War broke out in ’61, he already felt patriotic enough about his new home to join the Union Army as a cavalryman. Well, one day, when he was on a short leave in New York City, he went into French’s Hotel in search of some refreshment, but the management was worried his frayed uniform might offend some of their fancier guests, so they refused to serve him.’
‘Bastards,’ said Blackstone, who had been a soldier himself, and knew all about frayed uniforms.
‘Joe survived the war, and started his newspaper, which became a big success, and when he’d made enough money, he bought French’s Hotel outright, had it razed to the ground, and put the Pulitzer Building there in its place.’
‘So the story had a happy ending,’ Blackstone said.
‘Yes, it did,’ Johnson said, though that was not the point of his story at all. ‘But do you know why he built it so tall?’
‘Because he needed a great deal of space to run his newspaper properly?’ Blackstone guessed.
‘That’s part of the answer, but only part of it. You see, the World’s two biggest rivals, the Sun and the Herald, have their offices nearby, and Joe wanted his building to dwarf theirs. The popular tale is that he said he wanted a building in which his editors only had to go to the window in order to spit on the Sun, but I believe — if you’ll excuse the crudity — that what he actually said was that they only had to go to the window in order to piss on it.’
‘That sounds more like a Hungarian,’ Blackstone said in a tone which left the American unsure whether he was joking or not.
‘So that’s the building he wanted, and that’s what he got,’ Hiram Johnson continued. ‘It’s three hundred and nine feet tall, which makes it the tallest building in the whole wide world.’
‘But from what I’ve already learned about you Americans, I don’t think it will be the tallest building in the world for long.’
‘I do believe you’re right, sir,’ Johnson agreed.
‘And this Joe Pulitzer bloke started out with nothing,’ Blackstone said thoughtfully.
‘And he started out with nothing,’ Johnson confirmed.
‘So it would seem that this really is the land of opportunity.’
‘It is, sir. We pride ourselves on the fact.’
The ship had docked, and no sooner had the gangplank been lowered than a stream of people poured down it. There were men, women and children, all poorly dressed (though not a great deal more poorly than Blackstone himself), and they carried their possessions in a variety of carpet bags, sacks and small steamer trunks. The dockside police had been waiting for them, and shepherded them towards a number of moored barges.
‘Where are they going?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Ellis Island,’ Hiram Johnson told him. ‘It’s out in the bay. It’s where they’ll be processed.’
‘And will you and I be going out to this Ellis Island, too?’ Blackstone wondered aloud.
‘No, sir, we will not. It’s only the steerage passengers who are taken to the island. We’ll be processed on board the ship.’
‘So despite this being the land of opportunity, there’s still one law for the rich and another for the poor?’
Johnson chuckled. ‘Now you’re catching on,’ he said. ‘The preamble to our Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” However, if you read between the lines, it also says, “But if you think the rich will get the same treatment as the poor, you must be crazy”.’
He paused, as if suddenly concerned that having held his country up as a shining example, he had now said something which might tarnish it in Blackstone’s eyes.
‘Of course, with the numbers involved, we’ve no choice in the matter,’ he continued hastily. ‘Why, last year alone, a million and a half people passed through Ellis Island. There simply wouldn’t be the space to process that many people anywhere else.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Blackstone agreed non-committally.
A new thought came into Johnson’s mind. It had been his mission to find out more about the other man, and in that he had failed miserably. Where he should have been asking shrewd questions, he had fallen into the trap of instead boosting his home country. Where he should have been analysing responses, he had instead provided responses to be analysed.
Well, there were still a few minutes left, and he was determined to make the best of them.
‘So, tell me, Mr Blackstone, what brings you to the United States of America?’ he asked. ‘Business?’
‘I suppose you could say it was business, in a way,’ the other man replied enigmatically.
‘You’re a salesman perhaps?’ Johnson suggested, though Blackstone’s shabby suit seemed to argue against that possibility. ‘That’s my own particular line of work, you know.’
‘I’d never have guessed that,’ Blackstone said, and once again the American was not sure whether he was joking or not.
‘Yes, I represent Buffalo Pharmaceuticals,’ Johnson continued. ‘We started out small, but we’re growing bigger every day, and now we even have a European office, which is why I happen to be. .’ He paused, conscious of the fact that he had allowed himself to drift away from his intended aim again. ‘So are you a salesman?’ he asked, getting back on course.
‘No,’ Blackstone said, ‘I’m not.’
‘Then perhaps you’re an engineer of some kind?’ Johnson said doggedly. ‘A railway engineer? We’re very big on railways in America.’
‘No, not that, either,’ Blackstone replied. For a moment he said no more, then — perhaps deciding it would be rude to supply no details at all — he added, ‘I’m here to pick up a man, and escort him back to England.’
‘Then you’re kinda like the Pinkertons?’ Johnson exclaimed.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘They’re a big detective agency, but most of their work doesn’t involve detecting at all. Their main business comes from providing protection. I suppose you’d call them bodyguards.’
‘Ah!’ Blackstone said.
If that was Blackstone’s line of work, it would certainly explain his innate hardness and aloofness, Hiram Johnson thought. It would even explain why he felt under no compulsion to be more smartly kitted out. Because if you were willing to entrust your life to a man — and he was good at his job — you wouldn’t give a damn how he dressed.
Blackstone had still neither denied nor confirmed that this was his line of work.
‘So you’re a bodyguard of some sort?’ Johnson repeated.
‘In a way, I suppose I am,’ Blackstone conceded, smiling again, but very thinly this time. ‘It is my job to see that nothing untoward happens to the man who I’m picking up until he’s safely back in London.’
What a very strange way to phrase it, Johnson thought.
‘And will something “untoward” happen to him once he is back in London?’ he asked jovially.
‘That would depend on your point of view,’ Blackstone said. ‘I wouldn’t regard it as untoward at all. In fact, I would see it as a very satisfactory conclusion to the whole affair. But I suspect the man I’m escorting won’t see it in quite the same way.’
‘Why? What will happen to him?’ Johnson asked, with an eagerness to know which almost made his question a demand.
‘Once back in London, his accommodation will be provided for him. So will his food, and though, for the most part it will be pretty plain fare, he will be allowed to order whatever he wishes on his last night in that accommodation.’
‘Oh,’ Johnson said, disappointed at the mundane nature of the answer. And then something in the back of his brain picked up on the last few words and decided they were important.