Free The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie MAnsfield: A Tragedy of the Gilded Age by H. W. Brands Page A

her accidentally. I had a friend with me at the time, but I had rather not answer his name. I first visited Miss Mansfield at her house in this city when Mr. Fisk took me there to dine. I don’t remember the date, but I think it was about two years ago. She then resided in the house she now occupies. I have called on her, but how frequently I cannot say. I cannot form a correct idea how often I visited her in the last six months—probably eight or ten times a month. It may be more or less, but to the best of my judgment that is about the average. I had no stated times for calling on her, and had not been in the habit of doing so. I might have, sometimes, called upon her three or four times a week, but other weeks I did not see her at all. I cannot locate a single week when I did not see her. I have gone in there and dined, but that is the only meal I have taken there. I did not go to dinner by appointment, but I very well knew the dinner hour.”
    The courtroom laughter that follows this final statement throws Beach off. But after letting the good humor fade he resumes the attack. “Have you threatened unless Fisk settled that you would pursue and crush him?”
    “In a legal way I have said so, but not in a physical manner.”
    “Have you threatened to make publications in the newspapers against him again and again?”
    “Yes, to expose this case and the manner in which he has swindled me.”
    “Have you not made propositions to settle with him?”
    “I have made some propositions in the way of arbitration, but not in any other form, to my knowledge. I said I would take the papers to the legislature and lay them before it in order to injure him.”
    “When you first visited the house of Miss Mansfield, was Mr. Fisk an habitué of that house?”
    “Oh, yes. Mr. Fisk lived there, and Miss Mansfield lived there at the same time. He remained there a year after I commenced to visit her. I do not remember exactly when he was displaced by her. I had nothing to do with it. I took no hand in the direction of the affairs of the house.”
    “Have you been in the habit of sleeping in that house?”
    “Probably not more than three or four times in two years. I have frequently stayed there until ten o’clock in the evening. I hardly ever was in the room alone with Miss Mansfield. Mrs. Williams was generally there.”
    “You never stayed with Miss Mansfield alone in the room?”
    “No, sir.”
    “You understand the full force of this declaration?”
    “Yes. I have no recollection of staying with her alone in the room late in the evening.”
    “I want you to make the declaration understandingly: I ask you if you have repeatedly and often spent the late hours of the evening alone with Miss Mansfield, alone in the room.”
    “No, positively. When I remained as late as ten o’clock Mrs. Williams was generally with me.”
    “Your acquaintance with Miss Mansfield was simply the ordinary acquaintance of a gentleman and a lady?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And there was not more familiarity in that house and between you and Miss Mansfield than would be proper and becoming between a married head of a family and Miss Mansfield?”
    “There was nothing improper between her and me.”
    The spectators don’t know what to make of this assertion. Many display disbelief that anything not improper could have triggered the storm of emotions that led to the current welter of lawsuits and, just now, to Josie Mansfield’s sobbing departure from the courtroom. Of course Stokes would lie, to protect his family if not himself. All eagerly await the testimony of Marietta Williams, to hear if she will confirm Stokes’s improbable tale.

But they will have to wait. Judge Bixby keeps his Saturday sessions short. The court adjourns promptly at two o’clock, and the participants and spectators are turned out into the cold.
    Pleased with his performance, Stokes repairs to nearby Delmonico’s for a late lunch. He then visits one of his lawyers, Rufus