“This war of ours…there has been no shortage of casualties. I know where the bodies are buried. On my side, yes. But also on yours.”
The accusation was bracing. But still, the break-in at Brown’s, the lies of omission to his partners, the subterfuge surrounding Tesla, the eventual betrayal of his eccentric friend—they were still a pittance in comparison with those weighing on the other side of the scales. Paul wore his sins on his sleeve. “I’ve had to do some things of which I am not proud. But I’m not the one who electrocuted William Kemmler, who set fire to Tesla’s lab, who spread lies in every newspaper in America.”
Batchelor frowned. It seemed he was trying to gauge something in Paul. “I’d been curious about this for a while, I have to say. Thomas and I actually debated it on more than one occasion. I guess you’ve given me my answer.” He looked Paul dead in the eyes. Paul did not flinch. “Christ. You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Who set that fire at Tesla’s laboratory.”
“You did.”
“No, we didn’t,” said Batchelor calmly. “George Westinghouse did.”
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
—KARL POPPER
“THAT’S NOT TRUE,” said Paul.
“The night of the fire,” said Batchelor, “Westinghouse told you to take Tesla to dinner at Delmonico’s. Only you didn’t go. He suggested it because he wanted you both out of the lab. Did you or did you not share the address Tesla gave you with Westinghouse? He wasn’t trying to kill Tesla—only to shake him up, to bring him back into the fold. But the fire was much worse than he’d planned. You were hurt, Tesla vanished. His man didn’t know you were still in the building when he set the flame. For Christ’s sake, who do you think pulled you out of the fire? Who do you think saved Tesla?”
“The police said it was a stranger…”
Batchelor looked at Paul as if he were the greatest idiot on the earth. “You think some Good Samaritan dove into the flaming wreckage and saved your life? This is New York. It was my man. I’d had him following you for a month. The Pinkertons are plenty tough. He ran into the building when he saw the flames. By the time he got inside, you’d collapsed. He got Tesla to help get you out of the building, but while he was trying to revive you the lunatic ran away. The terror of it all threw the poor man’s brain out of sorts. Westinghouse’s plan had the opposite effect of the one he’d intended. Fortunately for us.”
Paul struggled to conjure some bit of proof that might show that Batchelor was lying.
“Don’t make that face,” Batchelor continued. “You’ve never been good at playing the doe-eyed na?f. In the end, you did Westinghouse’s dirty work for him. You were the one who talked Tesla out of the royalty. You did more to doom Tesla with a compelling speech and a scrawl upon the dotted line than Westinghouse did with arson.”
Paul felt as if he were looking into a kaleidoscope. As if all the colors in the known universe had been rearranged. “Even if what you’re saying is true…how can you know? How could you know what Westinghouse told me that night?”
“Surely by now you know the answer to that,” said Batchelor. “Reginald Fessenden told us.”
The heavy air caught in Paul’s throat. The bitter irony was that Edison had known more about the secret operations of Westinghouse than Paul did.
All this time, Paul had thought he knew who the villain in this story was.
Now he realized that it was him.
“Speaking of which,” continued Batchelor, “would you go easy on the kid? Fessenden? He’s a good boy. We conscripted him into conspiracy. I was his damned press-gang. Pittsburgh has been hell on him. Miserable place. Worse than Indiana.”
Paul was out of argument. What he had achieved was worse than losing. He’d won, and now he knew that he shouldn’t have. He couldn’t defend Westinghouse anymore. He could not even defend himself.
Westinghouse could go to hell. So could Edison. Coffin. Morgan. Batchelor. The lot of them be damned. Paul already was. There remained only one person in this blood-speckled tragedy who deserved more than brimstone.
“I’ll make you a deal,” said Paul.
Batchelor nodded. “Much appreciated.” He stood, stretching his legs. He’d gotten what he’d come for.
“You haven’t heard what I want yet.”
“Pardon?”
“You want to make a deal? Let’s make a deal. But first you should hear my offer.”
“You’re still negotiating?”
“Yes,” said Paul. “The moment you stop is the moment you’re never given another thing.”
Batchelor sat again.
“We’ll keep this all a secret,” offered Paul. “What my side has done. What your side has done. You have mud to fling at Westinghouse? I have mud to fling at Edison. I know about his connection to Harold Brown. I trust you’re not eager for him to make another appearance.”
Batchelor shook his head ruefully. “I told Thomas—told him a hundred times—not to do business with that man. This was always Thomas’s problem, I suppose. Poor management.”
“Brown’s off hiding from the mess he created?”
“Banished would be a better way of putting it. He’s far from New York, and we’ve made it very clear that his appearance within a thousand miles of here would not be healthy for him.”
“I’ll happily do you the service of not finding him. You want Fessenden to join Edison in New Jersey? I’ll see that it’s done. Westinghouse wants him jailed, but I’ll find some pretense to let him loose. You want to stay on at GE? Easy. But in exchange, there is one more thing I’ll need you to do for me.”
Batchelor waited expectantly.
There were many grand prizes Paul might demand for keeping his fetid secrets. And yet the only thing he really wanted would be inconceivably small to Batchelor.
“We’re all going to burn,” said Paul, “and we all deserve to. You. Me. Edison. Westinghouse. Brown. But together we might have a chance of seeing that one good thing comes of this unholy mess.”
“Oh?”
“There is one person who we can assure is granted the justice that we’ve so thoroughly deprived each other.”
“And who, Mr. Cravath, is that?”
Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.
—STEVE JOBS
AGNES WASN’T AT home when Paul presented himself on her doorstep the following afternoon. He rang the bell a dozen times, but there was no response. Not even the maid came to answer the door. Number 4 was the stillest house along Gramercy.
Paul next went to the Metropolitan Opera House. The house manager was awkward. Miss Huntington was not in attendance. Paul asked when she might arrive.
“She won’t.”
Miss Huntington had given the Metropolitan board just a few days’ notice, he explained. She’d said that the city no longer suited her. She’d left no sign of where she might be headed.
This information was repeated by everyone of whom he inquired over the following days. No one had seen Agnes. Her house was being put up for sale. Even Stanford White told Paul, by way of letter, that he’d heard the news of Agnes’s sudden departure, but hadn’t any idea where she’d replanted her flag. Though if Paul did find her, would he please bring her back?
Three sleepless nights later, Paul read in the society pages a most curious item: The chanteuse Agnes Huntington’s engagement to Henry La Barre Jayne had been called off. DID HE JILT “PAUL JONES”? read the titillating headline in The Washington Post, referring to Agnes by her most famous role. Paul’s further inquiries confirmed that the Jayne clan had departed en masse for Philadelphia. This was a blow for their beloved son, but it was survivable.
It seemed that Agnes had simultaneously turned her back on both the city of her dreams and the safe perch of a marriage into wealth and stature. What she had once craved she had apparently renounced. And now she was somewhere else, searching for something else.
It didn’t take Paul long to figure out where she’d gone.