by Robin Lloyd
“Who is he?”
“The man’s name is Rupert Bascombe, or that’s the name he is traveling under. He says he is from Bristol. Dresses formally, has a beard. I wondered if he might be an accomplice of Mr. Abbott’s.”
Townsend felt the air being sucked out of him, but managed to breathe out a question.
“What makes you think this man has anything to do with Abbott?”
“He has a whiff of abolitionism about him. My friends fear he might be an activist, an abolitionist investigator sent here by London’s Anti-Slavery Society pretending to be a planter. Some even wonder if he is the same man you saved, the prison escapee. If somehow Michael Abbott did not die, and this imposter turns out to be him, the authorities will have to be notified immediately. Abbott is a wanted man, and considered a grave threat to the island’s security.”
A wave of foreboding swept over Townsend. Could Abbott really be alive? If he was, he was in serious danger yet again.
“The man I helped never said anything about abolitionism. He never said why he was put in jail. It must be somebody else. I saw Michael Abbott knifed. I am sure he is dead.”
27
July 16, 1863
Townsend looked at his reflection in the small mirror in his cabin. He rubbed his smooth chin, and put down the straight razor next to his comb, brush, and scissors. He rubbed some coconut oil pomade into his hair, estilo cubano, and began trying to smooth out his unruly hair. Once he’d combed his hair to his satisfaction, Townsend pulled out his new trousers from the closet, and his only pair of nice boots. He looked at the short note from Emma again. It was written in the neat tight lettering he recognized from her illustrations. All it said was, “Important news. Meet me at the corner of Compostela Street and Los Cuarteles outside the small old church of Santo Angel at noon. There will be a covered Victoria cab there waiting for you. You will know it because the Negro postilion will not be wearing his top hat.” Townsend was familiar with the old church, which had been severely damaged by a hurricane years earlier. It had one of the most prominent belfries in the city, and was visible from the sea at the entrance to the harbor.
There was something comforting in this simple, businesslike note, something stolid and dependable in its straightforward prose. Just the thought of seeing Emma again made his breath catch. It had been brought to him by one of the small barefoot Negro boys who hung out at the docks. He knew the boy. Rafi was his name and like so many of the abandoned, homeless street urchins in Havana, he was always looking for odd jobs. He supposed Emma had sent someone at the boarding house down to the docks with instructions to find a messenger boy so as to avoid suspicion. Savage would be pleased how quickly she was learning to be an effective informant.
As Townsend scanned the docks looking for signs of Salazar or Nolo, he wondered what Emma’s news would be. Something to do with Southern agents, he supposed. Havana was now crawling with Confederates. He’d been told by Bertrand, who spent most of his time in the fandango bars, that some Rebel naval officers had just arrived in Havana from Mexico. They were on a clandestine mission to take charge of new warships on the continent. Word was they would soon board a British passenger steamer bound for England. Townsend asked Bertrand to try to get the names of these men so he could pass that intelligence on to Savage. Maybe these men could be apprehended en route. Maybe Emma knew who they were, and that’s why she wanted to meet him.
Apprehensive and tense, Townsend walked up to the hatless postilion sitting on the lead horse outside the church. The black man beckoned him to go inside the carriage. He opened the door and was startled to see an older man, balding with a silvery black beard and dressed simply in a brown robe. He started to back away, but then he spotted Emma’s familiar face in the opposite corner of the carriage.
“Hurry. Get in,” she said. “Close the door.”
Townsend sat down next to her as she banged on the door to signal the postilion to get the carriage underway.
“This is Padre Pablo Uribe,” Emma said.
“Oh,” Townsend replied as he looked back and forth from one to the other. “I am so pleased to make your acquaintance.” He shook the man’s hand uncertainly.
The horses quickly broke into a fast gait.
“I’m glad to see Rafi delivered the message as he said he did. My mother and I hand out food to some of these street urchins. Rafi is one of my favorites. He’ll do anything for me.”
“I was careful not to be followed.”
“Good. As a precaution, we are going to put some distance between us and the harbor. I want to show you El Cerro—the neighborhood where the Backhouse family lived. It’s just a few miles outside the city. It will also give us a chance to talk with the padre. He has much to tell us about Abbott. Important news,” she said with a broad smile.
Emma grabbed his arm, no longer able to restrain her excitement. “It’s Abbott! He’s alive!” she cried out. “Can you believe that?”
Townsend fell back in the carriage, stunned. So indeed Abbott was alive. He looked from Emma back to the man in the brown robe.
“It was a minor miracle he recovered,” Padre Uribe said. “I would like to think our prayers helped him.”
Townsend suddenly recognized the man facing him. He remembered the bearded face with the distinctive, slightly hooked Spanish nose. The last time he’d seen him was at the Church of St. Augustine. He was the man staring at Abbott through the barred window, his face lit only by a candle in the darkness.
“I remember when we last saw each other,” Townsend added. “Months ago.”
The man nodded at him. “Sí, fué hace mucho tiempo,” Padre Uribe said, but then quickly changed to English. “Yes, it has been some time now.”
Townsend now felt a shiver run down his spine as he remembered that night. The Spaniard explained how he had followed them to the tavern. He had stood in an alleyway, and was about to step out into the street and introduce himself when that street mob appeared.
“Believe me, Captain, there was nothing I could do. I just watched helplessly from the shadows, stunned as those street dancers grabbed you both. As soon as they were gone, I could see there were two bodies. I ran over. I recognized Abbott as the one who had come to the church asking for me, and saw that he was bleeding. Then I heard the sound of hooves clattering on the cobblestone. I dragged Abbott into an alley, and moments later some men were there. They seemed to know what they were looking for. They searched the surrounding streets, looking for any trace of blood, I suppose. Luckily it was quite dark and they didn’t see any trail. They came close to where I was hiding with Abbott, but fortunately they never found us behind a shed. I waited. Again I’m sorry I did not pull you to safety as well, but there was not much I could do. I was quite surprised when a group of police threw a bucket of water over you and you woke up. I had thought you might be dead. Then the police took you off in chains to the prison.”
“And Abbott—how on earth did he survive?”
“He had a deep wound, but miraculously the knife blade slid into one side of his abdomen and didn’t puncture his organs or his intestines,” Padre Uribe replied. “He was feverish for the first two weeks. The injuries he’d sustained escaping from El Morro hadn’t healed, either. He told me about the sharks. I told him God must be watching over him. I didn’t want to take him to a hospital for obvious reasons. I treated him as best I could, frequently dabbing the wounds with iodine solution and giving him laudanum for the pain. It took weeks for him to recover.”
“Where is he now?” Townsend asked.
“That’s just it,” the padre said. “As I told Emma earlier, I don’t know exactly where he is. I believe Matanzas. He went there disguised as a planter. Grew a beard. He was wearing a signature black top hat with a red feather. That was to be the code. The way he would find his contact.”
“Contact?”
“Yes, the slave
who wrote the letter to Grace Backhouse. He wrote that she should have her emissary wear that hat, and that’s how he would recognize him. He was an English-speaking slave her husband had been trying to free. This man claimed he knew who killed her husband.”
“Rupert Bascombe,” Townsend mumbled. His veins felt icy cold.
Both Emma and Padre Uribe looked at him in surprise.
“How did you know that name?” Padre Uribe stammered. “That’s it, Abbott’s alias.”
“You didn’t tell me that you—” Emma started.
“Let me explain. I saw a man when I went to Matanzas . . . before I saw you at the Consulate. It looked like Abbott. It was just a glimpse, and then he disappeared. See there now, this is not good news. They have suspicions, Don Pedro and his plantation owner friends, and probably the police. Heigh-ho! This is terrible!”
Townsend put his head in his hands. Once again Michael Abbott was going to cause him no end of trouble. He told Emma and Padre Uribe about his conversation with Don Pedro, and how the Spanish merchant suspected this Englishman named Bascombe was a fraud and somehow connected with Abbott.
“He believes Bascombe could be an English abolitionist—not a comforting identification or safe description to be given in Matanzas.”
The air in the carriage seemed to grow suddenly stale, leaving no trace of the earlier enthusiasm. There was no need to say anything. They all knew that Abbott could be in trouble, his fake identity uncovered, and there was little to nothing they could do about it. They drove southward through the working class neighborhood of San Lázaro, passing the public gardens across the far outskirts of the city.
Emma was the one who broke the silence.
“Padre, how did you come to be Michael Abbott’s contact in Havana?”
“Abbott had ties with the Anti-Slavery Society in London. Maybe that’s how Grace Backhouse found him. I don’t know, but before he left London the Society had given him my name as a contact.”
“You are with the London Anti-Slavery Society?”
“I am one of their informants here in Cuba. I should tell you that Uribe is an alias. Even Abbott never knew my real name.”
“Why would a Catholic man of the cloth like yourself take such risks to help Protestant abolitionists?” Townsend asked.
“In Cuba, there are few alternatives for a man of principle. I was an ordained priest for the Diocese of San Cristobal de la Habana, but the torture that the Spanish government used to crush the slave revolts in the early 1840s changed me forever. I became a member of the Franciscan Third Order and lived for a while in Guanabacoa. Then I came to the Church of St. Augustine here in Havana. At the time I went to the plantations regularly to provide basic religious services for the slaves. I secretly collaborated with London’s Anti-Slavery Society to give them information about the emancipado workers who were being held illegally, as well as anything I heard about slave deliveries.”
“So you knew George Backhouse?”
“Yes. I gave him the names of planters and others who were holding emancipados and other Negroes illegally. I trusted him. We would meet discreetly in various places including his house on one occasion. I admired him for trying to enforce the treaty, but I also knew he didn’t understand what he was confronting. The system is entrenched here. The so-called emancipados are turned over to the state and rented out like property to the planters as field laborers. They might as well be slaves. It is an old story here in Cuba, and I suppose you could say Backhouse paid the price for trying to change it.”
“Have you continued to work with the English?”
“Only with the Anti-Slavery Society. Not with the Consulate.”
“Why not the Consulate?”
“To be blunt. I don’t trust the consul general. Backhouse told me about him. He felt Crawford went behind his back.”
“I have heard these accusations before. Do you think Crawford might have—”
“No, I know what you are about to ask. No, I would never say that. I just believe there were rivalries between the two men.”
They sat there in silence until Emma finally spoke up.
“Why are you just telling us about Abbott now?”
“Abbott never wanted to involve either of you because of the danger. We agreed he would send me notes, brief notes once a week, but it has been several weeks now that I have not received any word from him. I am worried. That’s why I came to see Miss Carpenter.”
“Do you know where he is?” Emma asked. “Is there a way to get word to him that his life could be in danger?”
“I’m afraid not. By agreement, he said the less information he sent the better. All I know is he was going to the plantations where there were English slaves. He was making inquiries there.”
“I was at a plantation with English slaves,” Townsend interjected. “A plantation owned by Don Eugenio Hernández. Not too far from the coast where I witnessed the slaves land—where I saw Abbott.”
“Why don’t we go?” Emma exclaimed. “We could start making our own inquiries.”
“I could tell Don Pedro I want to help,” Townsend said, echoing Emma’s enthusiasm. “I could tell him I could be useful . . . identifying the man.”
The Spanish priest shook his head.
“No, I don’t recommend it. Too risky. Don Pedro has his suspicions, but at this point they are just suspicions. We don’t know much more than that. Any questions you might ask could lead to unfortunate consequences. If you are too inquisitive, they might suspect you both. Trust me, I know Matanzas. It has its own variety of justice.”
As the horses and carriage began climbing a hill, Townsend looked to his left at a sparkling view of Havana Bay in the far distance. Soon they were driving into a neighborhood lined with homes with high, sculpted stone entranceways and massive wooden doors studded with brass knobs. Emma explained that this was El Cerro. She pointed out the expansive private gardens of the opulent villa belonging to Count Fernandina, one of Cuba’s wealthy plantation owners, and then, as they turned on Buenos Aires Street, she showed him the Backhouse residence with its large columns shading the front entrance.
“You can see it’s a neighborhood common criminals would not idly enter. When I would come and visit, the Backhouses never locked their doors. They felt safe here.”
They stopped the carriage and knocked on the door. A maid let them in. The house was currently not rented, and Emma was able to persuade the kindly woman to let them come into the house to look at the view of the city and Havana Bay in the distance.
They walked through the spacious living room where Grace Backhouse had placed her elegant French-Erard piano, and went out to the veranda. Townsend could see the road traffic moving up and down the Calzada de Cerro, and he could scan the bay. The house was all on one floor, with the servants living separately. Emma led them to the small library room where Backhouse and his clerk, Thomas Callaghan, had been attacked. They all stood there in silence as if somehow the walls could speak and tell them what had happened. Townsend tried to imagine the scene, the shouting, the scuffle, the overturned chairs, and then the blood on the floor, the assailants running out the door as one of the servants called for help.
“Who do you think killed him, Padre?” Townsend asked.
The priest reflected on the room. “I have often thought about the Backhouse murder—how the assailants got in and out of here with so little trouble. There were servants working at the time, yet these two men entered without anyone sounding the alarm or intervening. I think they may have walked through the front door. Someone who knew the house must have helped them. The police questioned nine or ten suspects, including two white servants employed here, but that was it. According to Backhouse’s dinner companion that night, Thomas Callaghan, two men of color attacked them while they were sipping an after-dinner wine. They had knives. Callaghan was tied up, but not hurt. He couldn’t id
entify them. It was too dark. After knifing Backhouse, they fled immediately. They could have been thieves, but I believe they were hired matones. I believe the English word is, thugs.”
“Hired by whom?”
“Who knows? Rich planters, slave traders, merchants, police. There are many people who might have wanted Backhouse dead.”
Padre Uribe shook his head sadly.
“I tried to persuade Abbott to go back to England. I told him it was useless to continue his investigations. It was too dangerous for him here. He was a prison escapee, a wanted criminal, and would be executed by the government if they found him. I wanted him to leave while he could, but he refused.”
“Why?” Townsend asked.
“I think he knew how much suffering Grace Backhouse had been through, and he wanted to try to give her some solace, if not some answers. She believed the murder was carefully planned. And she wanted the British government to recognize her husband’s sacrifice, an acknowledgement that her husband had been killed in the service of his country. Abbott felt an obligation to find the man who wrote her the letter. He was determined to find George Backhouse’s missing journal. That is, if it existed. He was convinced he could find it.”
“I have heard about that journal,” Townsend said. “A news reporter who was here then told me it could be important.”
“Backhouse was always writing in that journal. When I traveled with him through the countryside, he was always scribbling notes. Given his investigations, it might well have had important sensitive information.”
“Sensitive enough to warrant murdering him?”
Padre Uribe didn’t answer. He leaned over close to both of them, his voice barely audible. “Abbott told me,” he whispered, “that Grace Backhouse is convinced it was slave traders who ordered her husband’s death. Apparently she was told that by a merchant who was in Havana at the time of the murder.”
The robed padre gave the sign of the cross, and then recited a small prayer.