The Professor's Assassin
Page 8
“The city is in a panic about the whole thing, the industries scrambling to prevent losses. I’ve never heard of so many ships wrecking at once—the number of arrivals must have been too great in the fog,” speculated Edwin.
“Too great!” Bob said. “There are more than two hundred wharves and docks in our harbor that would add up to more than five miles if placed end to end, Eddy. Even in much worse fog than that, our capacity for commerce—”
“Oh, who cares a fig!” broke in the Harvard captain. “It is not my business. But whatever it was, I’m not about to let it stop us from our practice, if we are to whip Oxford like we did Yale. Give me your hand, Plymouth. Godspeed to you Technology fellows.”
“Godspeed, Harvard.” Bob reached out to shake.
On Blaikie’s nod, his team rammed their shell into the side of the Tech boat. As Marcus grabbed their shell’s sides to steady it, Bob went headfirst into the ice-cold water with a splash. Edwin, flailing to stop Bob’s fall, followed him overboard.
“Cold day for bathing, Plymouth!” Blaikie shouted, as he and the Crimson pirates exploded with laughter.
Marcus grabbed his oar like a bat, ready to defend their boat from further indignity. Blaikie glared at Marcus, daring him to strike.
After another moment Marcus loosened his grip and let his instincts go quiet.
“Wise fellow,” Blaikie said with an approving nod. “Being a gentleman isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, is it, old salt?” Then, to his men: “Three cheers and a tiger for Harvard Class of 1868! Sixty-eight forever!” A trio of “rahs” were followed by a guttural whoop before their oars swept through the water again. Marcus watched the perfect unison of the other team as the shell took the curve of the river ahead.
“Bob’s right—those scrubs will see; we’ll be the true pathfinders!” Edwin yelled, knocking water out from his ear.
“Oh, damn what I say, Eddy,” Bob said. He shook out his hair as he floated back to their boat. “Come on, Mansfield, stop your gaping and fish us out!”
III
The Boston Police
AT WHAT REMAINED of one of the damaged wharves on Saturday, Sergeant Lemuel Carlton of the Boston Police paced along the cracked piers and the splintered docks. The fog had lifted by now, but it was still cloudy and colder than it should have been at this time of year. The best that could be said was it was a respite from the rain that had plagued the last wretched week in March.
“You!” he said to a patrolman who caught him by surprise. “About time you’re back, man. What did the captain of the Gladiator say?”
“I’ve spoken to him, sir.”
“I chose the past tense ‘did’ on the presumption of that very thing,” Carlton noted in disgust.
“He testified that … well, the very same thing as the others, sir! The very same!”
“That so? He hadn’t been on a spree—a bit cup-shot? He mustn’t be ashamed to admit being a sot to the police,” Carlton added, scratching his strong chin sagely.
“I questioned him thoroughly and he vowed he hadn’t had a drop, and I didn’t find any liquor upon his person or notice any in his rooms. Nor any of the others who were witnesses.”
Carlton bowed his head and sat down on a barrel at the edge of the pier, staring at loose planks that were floating past him below. His head throbbed with the echoes of all the futile conversations since the morning with his patrolmen, unnerved sailors, angry shipowners, crying passengers. He dismissed his inferior to assist the rest of the men with the debris. The Harbor Police had encircled the wharf with their boats and were steering incoming vessels away, including a small fishing boat weaving in and out with a heavy-duty net, looting lost booty.
Boots thumped aggressively on the planking behind him, and he was rising to attention before he even turned.
“Chief Kurtz,” he said, bowing. “I believe you will find we have the situation in hand.”
“Indeed!” responded Kurtz with surprise, pulling at one end of his bushy mustache and inclining his head toward the destruction. “Tell me, Sergeant Carlton, what is this situation? What I see are two of the most important commercial wharves of our city in tatters.”
“Three ships sunk, four others damaged or otherwise destroyed, with losses in excess of twenty-four thousand dollars. Fifteen individuals injured to varying degrees, mostly broken arms and legs, and burns, with loss of life avoided only by the great exertions of several experienced sailors.”
“But how?” Kurtz demanded after Carlton finished the report. “How did this happen?”
“That is the very question,” Carlton said, raising a single eyebrow, and clearing his throat assiduously.
“Hem! Haw! Go on!”
“Chief. I have spoken to several captains and navigators who were on the vessels involved and have instructed the patrolmen to interview as many others as we can locate. Each one, to a man, reports that their instruments failed—were deranged in their readings—all in the space of the same few minutes.”
“How is it possible?”
“It is flagrantly not possible, sir! You need not believe me alone. The captain of the Harbor Police says that it is emphatically and categorically not possible for so many compasses and what-you-will to fail at once.”
Kurtz stared ominously into the harbor. “Sabotage?”
“Chief,” the sergeant began, then hesitated before going on. “Chief, all the instruments were on ships from different destinations with distinct schedules, some arriving, some departing. How it could be sabotage, well, I have wrangled with that question with the same success Joseph had with the angel.”
“Then what, Sergeant Carlton? Necromancy? The devil? That’s what some of the sailors are squawking about, and that means ships avoiding our ports, and tens of thousands of dollars lost. If the mayor and the legislature sink their teeth into this, it will touch off a volcano under my feet. What do you propose doing about that?”
“We shall remove the debris as best and as quickly as we can manage, so the city engineers can begin to rebuild.”
Jaw clenched, Kurtz took off his hat and tossed it into the harbor. “There’s one more piece of debris to fish out, Sergeant!”
“Very well, Chief,” replied the officer obediently. “I will have my best man do it straightaway.”
Kurtz rolled his eyes. “You can return my hat to me in my office when you know what caused those ships to lose their direction. Until then, I’d rather not see that thunderstruck phiz of yours back at the station house.”
“But, Chief, perhaps the Harbor Police should lead this investigation.”
“They swallow too much of our funds already, and they would crave any excuse to siphon off more. No. Over my dead body, Carlton.”
“Then perhaps I ought to consult with some of the professors at that new college in Back Bay. They are experts in all the new sciences, and if the usual reasons for accidents do not fit, perhaps they could advise us where to turn.”
Kurtz pulled him away from the patrolmen who were milling around them. “Have you gone mad, Carlton?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t rile me! The Institute of Technology? You know the reputation of that place. Their sciences are seen as practically pagan. Just speaking to them will draw fire against us. Try the harbormaster if you need more help! Try the city engineer!”
“I have! All baffled! We need to find someone capable of understanding how this could happen, or we shall not advance one whit!”
“The single place with the finest intellects in the nation sits just across the river. What about that?”
“Harvard.”
“Yes! Go there and find someone smarter than you, and without delay! We are here to protect this city. I will not suffer another embarrassment like this!”
“Right away, Chief Kurtz. Chief, wait! You’re still …” But there he went without a look back, stomping all the way to his waiting carriage, the chief of police of the city Carlton loved, hatless for all Boston to see.