“Did they share their bounty with you?” Pamela let a hint of irony creep into her voice.
Ambrose shook his head, smiling wryly. “I hadn’t expected anything from them, so I wasn’t disappointed.”
The following morning, Pamela brought Ambrose’s envelope with her to the office. She had browsed in the messages last night, but couldn’t easily make sense of them. They resembled a puzzle with too many pieces missing. Harry would have to help her determine their value, if any.
He soon came to her office, and they studied the messages. Harry said, “Ambrose has given us an intriguing sample of useful evidence. Late in 1890 Fawcett seems to have ordered Sullivan to find ways to prevent my parole. In the end, he offered bribes to members of the parole board. I recognize the names. Fortunately, the bribes were unsuccessful, though they weren’t exposed.”
Pamela asked Harry, “Are you ready to recommend that Prescott and his associates hire Norton as a trust officer?”
He patted the pile of memos. “Over the weekend, I’ll speak to my friend Barney Flynn—while you and Prescott are enjoying a football game in Williamstown.”
CHAPTER 6
A Dark and Thorny Place
Williamstown
Friday, November 16
“Are you well, Jeremiah?” Pamela gazed at her companion with sympathetic concern. He had just moaned as the train bounced over a rough patch of track.
With a grimace Jeremiah Prescott stretched out his ailing legs. Even in a spacious parlor car, the train ride from New York to Williamstown was uncomfortable for a wounded veteran of the Civil War. Pamela patted his arm and then rose to her feet to stretch. With a firm grip on the overhead luggage rack, she swayed gently with the car’s rocking motion.
Prescott nodded toward a middle-aged man at the far end of the car and remarked softly, “Noah Fawcett is our traveling companion. You saw him a week ago at Delmonico’s.” The judge was reading a New York newspaper through thick spectacles. At his side was a bulging legal portfolio.
“Is Fawcett really corrupt?” Pamela asked. Yesterday afternoon, she had shown Prescott the incriminating messages that Norton had pieced together.
“The messages raise suspicions,” Prescott replied, “but they are too fragmentary to convict Fawcett in a court of law or in public opinion.”
The train rattled on through the countryside. The view out the window was bleak November. Trees in the distance had shed their leaves. Stubble covered the fields. The sky was gray, and low clouds shrouded the Berkshire Hills.
Pamela asked Prescott, “Why would Fawcett be traveling north in November? This isn’t the season for a vacation. The colorful foliage of autumn is gone.”
“He might have personal business in North Adams. He was raised in the area and still has a home there. His family’s woolen factory is in nearby Williamstown. Since his father died a few years ago, the judge owns the business and has hired a manager to run it.”
Intrigued, Pamela studied Fawcett more closely. He had laid down the newspaper, leaned back, and closed his eyes, but not to rest. His lips were pressed tightly together, his brow creased.
“He looks troubled,” she remarked. “Perhaps his workers have upset him. They might be on strike. In today’s depressed economy I can imagine the factory’s management has cut their wages or laid them off.”
“You could be right, Pamela. On the other hand, he might simply be suffering from indigestion.” He smiled in a teasing way.
“You lack imagination, Jeremiah.” She frowned in mock reproach, and then whispered, “Don’t look now. I believe the judge is beginning to show interest in us.” Fawcett had opened his eyes and glanced in their direction.
“He probably has recognized me and wonders who my lovely companion is.”
“Tush!” she murmured.
As the train pulled into the North Adams railroad station, most passengers scrambled to their feet and rushed to the doors. Pamela and Prescott remained seated. Their connecting train to Williamstown wasn’t due to arrive for a couple of hours, and their bags were checked through. They would walk the short distance to Main Street to see the town. It had a bustling, rapidly growing population and was seeking a municipal charter from the state government.
On the station platform they ran into Judge Fawcett as he descended from the car. “Prescott!” he said coolly. “What brings you here?” He glanced with interest at Pamela.
“We’re on our way to Williamstown for an important football game. My son is playing for Williams College against Amherst tomorrow. May I introduce my assistant, Mrs. Pamela Thompson?”
The judge appeared to recognize her name and frowned slightly. Pamela suspected that he had heard of her husband Jack’s embezzlement of bank funds and his subsequent suicide nearly three years ago. She was distressed when a stranger seemed to brand her with her husband’s disgrace.
He politely tipped his hat and then remarked to Prescott, “I’m going to the game as well and will watch from the bleachers with my nephew Isaac, also a student, though he excels in Latin and Greek rather than football.” The judge glanced at his watch. “Shall we have tea together at the Wilson Hotel? It’s quite decent and close to the station.”
Prescott glanced the question to Pamela.
“We’d be delighted, sir.” There was calculation in her friendliness toward the judge. She was trying to figure him out. Thus far, she didn’t like or trust him.
At tea, Fawcett proved to be a learned, well-mannered gentleman. Their conversation sought common ground and avoided courtroom disputes, politics, and other sources of contention. Pamela learned that the judge’s nephew, Isaac, was a junior at the college and an industrious young man who had won awards for his essays on Latin literature.
The judge explained that Isaac’s parents had passed away. “I am his legal guardian.” The judge’s tone of voice hinted at a disagreeable burden.
In turn, the judge asked about Edward Prescott. His father replied that the young man was a good student with wide-ranging interests. Most recently, he had enjoyed a summer of gardening at Mrs. Morgan’s estate, Ventfort, in Lenox.
The judge seemed impressed. “Mrs. Morgan has spent millions on the mansion, and her husband has invested nearly as much in the gardens. Your lad is fortunate. He may later find the Morgans to be powerful patrons.”
In the course of conversation Pamela realized that Fawcett had once attended Williams. “How was your experience at the college?” she asked.
“That was thirty years ago,” he replied readily, apparently pleased by the question. “I was a classics and religion scholar, rather like my nephew. Nature hadn’t designed me for the rough and tumble of college sports. In those days, I preferred to hike to the summit of Mount Greylock and enjoy the view. Professor Mark Hopkins had the greatest influence on my education. I was drawn especially to his lectures on the moral foundations of character.” He glanced quizzically at Prescott. “How was it to study at Columbia College?”
“Our course of studies was like yours at Williams: Latin, English literature, mathematics, and philosophy. But, as you can imagine, we had many distractions in New York City.”
Pamela detected a knowing smile on the judge’s lips, as if he felt confirmed in his view of Prescott, a godless cynic with little respect for law and order.
After tea, they returned to the station and caught a late afternoon train. In a few minutes, they crossed the town line into Blackinton, a small village belonging to Williamstown.
“We are approaching my family’s woolen factory,” the judge announced, pointing with obvious pride to a long, three-and-a-half-story industrial building, built of fieldstones and mortar.
“It’s now fifty years old. We employ some two hundred and fifty men and women and provide them with houses, a school, a church, and a store. The blue military uniform you wore thirty years ago, Captain, might have been made here. We supplied the Union army with thousands of them.”
At a large profit, Pamela remarked
to herself. During the war, her mother used to complain of the poor quality of the uniforms worn by the wounded enlisted men she tended.
Pamela asked the judge, “Has your firm seen any labor unrest during the present economic depression?”
“No, madam. When we reduced production and therefore wages and employment, we made it clear to the workers that troublemakers would be the first to go, and they would leave with nothing but a bad reputation. We didn’t tolerate any discussion of a union, not to mention a strike, and we fired a few complainers to show we meant business. Our firmness has cowed the workers. Snuff the first spark, I say.”
Pamela was tempted to ask if docile workers were also fired. Were they and their families evicted from the company houses? But she wanted information from the judge rather than an argument. So she gave him a noncommittal nod.
“Is Blue Monday a problem here?” Prescott asked the judge.
“What’s that?” Pamela asked.
Prescott explained, “Over the weekend, many workers indulge in heavy drinking. By Monday, they are so tired or ill that they slow down production in the factory and cause accidents.”
The judge agreed that many of the larger mills had that problem. “But we simply don’t allow production to slow down on Mondays. If a worker is unfit for the job, we fire him or her on the spot and require other workers to fill in for him. Half of our workers, by the way, are female, mostly young, and some of the males are children. They are less likely to drink than grown men. In any case, no liquor whatsoever is legally sold in the area. Because our workers don’t waste their wages on drink, we can afford to pay them less. That helps to keep us competitive.”
While he spoke, Pamela tried to imagine the lives of typical workers in Williamstown. Dawn to dusk for six days a week, they tended noisy, dangerous machines, repeating the same mechanical process remorselessly, and breathed air filled with dust. If distracted for a moment, a worker could easily lose a finger or an arm or life itself, with disastrous consequences especially for a family.
Pamela had recently witnessed a similar system in New York’s meatpacking plants. She could understand why many workers would seek relief and drink themselves sick on Sunday, their only day off. The judge showed no sympathy or compassion for his workers, a fault that appeared to have carried over into his administration of justice to the poor and unfortunate in New York. She imagined that his heart was a dry and thorny place.
At the Williamstown railroad station they hired a cab for the one-mile ride into the village and waited on the platform for their luggage. A large brick factory stood across the Hoosac River.
“It makes coarse cotton cloth and is the main employer in Williamstown,” the judge remarked, resuming his role as guide.
Pamela shook her head. “Williamstown appears to have greatly changed. When I vacationed here as a child, it was a small, charming New England rural village. Now it’s beginning to look like an ugly factory town.” In an aside to Prescott she asked, “Has the college suffered?”
“No, it has become a splendid little island of leisure and learning for young gentlemen.”
Pamela silently resented the image: a splendid island indeed, now surrounded by regimented, soul-killing textile mills.
Their luggage arrived. They followed the judge into the cab and set off for the center of the village and the college campus.
On Main Street, Pamela recognized old, ivy-covered college buildings on spacious lawns: Griffin Hall, the Observatory, East Hall, and the Chapel.
Near the head of Spring Street, the village shopping center, the judge remarked: “President Carter has overseen a remarkable expansion of the college campus: Hopkins Hall on the right, Lasell Gymnasium and Morgan Hall on the left are among the most handsome academic buildings in New England. Set back from the road you’ll see three new science buildings, outfitted to the highest modern standard. The enrollment has doubled during Carter’s tenure to over three hundred students.”
It was now late in the afternoon, the sun had set, and students were returning from the athletic fields to their fraternities and residence halls. Shouts and laughter filled the air. In the distance a band of musicians was practicing. Classes had ended for the week, and the young men were looking forward to tomorrow’s game and to visits with family and female friends.
Pamela and her companions passed a large twin-towered Congregational church on the right, where college ceremonies and other events were held. Next door stood the college president’s house, a white, well-proportioned building in the neoclassical style from the beginning of the century.
Farther up Main Street, the cab pulled into a drive and stopped at the door of the Greylock Hotel. It had closed a few weeks earlier after the summer season but opened again for this special weekend. The Greylock and its companion across Main Street, the Taconic Inn, offered modern conveniences, including hot and cold running water and electricity. The judge arranged for a room, then left in the cab to meet his nephew. Pamela and Prescott took adjoining rooms.
“I’ve invited Edward to join us here for supper this evening,” Prescott remarked. “Shall we freshen up now?”
“Yes, I want to make a good impression.” For a moment, a troubling apprehension gripped her. Would she and Edward like each other? Prescott would be watching, concerned.
An hour later, Pamela sat in the hotel lobby, Prescott at her side, waiting nervously for the young man’s arrival. She had dressed to present herself as she was, not for fashion’s sake. Her black hair was in a chignon; the streaks of gray served as accents. From her slim wardrobe she had chosen a blue silk gown with a high collar and added a pearl necklace.
“You look lovely,” Prescott assured her, smiling fondly.
A few minutes late, Edward entered the lobby, his eyes searching the guests gathered there. Seeing his father, he brightened instantly then started toward him in an easy, loping gait. He was broad-shouldered like his father, but a little taller and more muscular. In his blue eyes there was keen intelligence, in his facial expression, candor and good humor.
A half smile came to his lips as he approached Pamela. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Thompson.” He took her hand in a surprisingly gentle grip and bowed slightly, his eyes locking on to hers.
“Please call me Pamela, and you must be Edward.” She noticed that he had his mother’s manners and good looks, combined with his father’s genuine character. She liked him instantly.
Prescott led them to the dining room and took a table off to a side at a good distance from louder, livelier diners. From a simple menu they agreed on broiled scrod from Boston, caught early that morning. Pamela and Prescott chose a white French wine from the Loire Valley. The waiter glanced at Edward.
“Cider for me. I’m in training for tomorrow’s game.”
The waiter smiled. “Good luck.”
When the waiter left, Edward leaned toward Pamela and softly remarked, “Williamstown prohibits the sale and public consumption of intoxicating beverages. By custom the law isn’t enforced in the hotels—summer guests would go elsewhere.”
“If liquor can’t be sold in local stores, where do people find it?”
“Vermont is only a mile north of us. A notorious store stands precisely on the state line. Special Officer Starkweather of the local constabulary has tried in vain to close it down.”
“I’ve heard,” continued Pamela, “that students at other colleges imbibe as much as they wish. What is the custom here?”
“A college statute forbids the consumption of intoxicating beverages. In practice the rule applies only to public drunkenness or other scandalous behavior. In my fraternity we police ourselves with reasonable discretion. I haven’t observed any problems that would cause the college authorities to take action.”
Shifting the topic, Pamela asked Edward about his favorite professors.
“Professor Arthur Perry comes to mind. He teaches political economy. In today’s passionate controversy over tariffs on imported goods, espec
ially British, Perry is on the free trade side. I believe tariffs are necessary, if New England’s textile industry is to compete with Great Britain’s. Without protection the mills in Williamstown and elsewhere in Massachusetts would close. Their workers would be laid off, and their families would become destitute. Perry might be wrong, but his arguments are vivid and lively and spiced with humor, and he encourages us to think for ourselves.”
Prescott had listened attentively to his son. Now he asked, “Are you acquainted with a student at Williams named Isaac Fawcett? On our way here, we met his uncle, a retired judge from New York.”
“Indeed!” replied Edward, his eyes suddenly dark with anger. “Isaac unfortunately belongs to my fraternity and is a troublesome snitch. His uncle is a gilded tyrant—bright and shining on the surface but contemptible within.”
“How do you know him?” Pamela probed, finding the young man’s reaction to be harsher than she would have expected.
“Through the college YMCA a few of us in the fraternity try to do some good in the community. Judge Fawcett has replaced discontented workers with scabs and reduced the wages of others to the point that they can’t support their families. Some have been evicted from company houses. For a while we brought food and clothing and some money to the worst cases of need. Then, suddenly, Fawcett ordered us off the company’s property, claiming that we were causing unrest among his workers and undermining his authority.”
“Why would he suspect you?” asked Prescott.
“Isaac overheard us speaking about the situation of the mill workers. Thinking we were alone, we had criticized the judge and his company’s harsh treatment of the men and women we knew. His nephew carried our remarks back to the judge, provoking his anger and our banishment. In truth, we had been careful not to roil the workers.”
Death at Tammany Hall Page 5