Tadeusz realized it was the Englishman himself who had fired the final shot that had stopped the fleeing man.
“As are you, sir,” he cried, and then saw the bloodstain on the Englishman’s grubby shirt a few inches above his waist. “Sir, you’re hurt!”
“A mere scratch, young man. It is of no consequence.”
McKane called his other men up, and while four held their pistols steady on the wounded man, the remaining five hauled him to his feet, wrestled him inside and into a kitchen chair, where he sat, his hard, clear eyes fixed only on the disguised Englishman as if he sensed who was the most dangerous adversary in the room.
“There, McKane, is the murderer of Condor Cameron.”
Tadeusz blinked at the man. “But … he’s the man who told me the trainer wanted me to carry the tack to the other stable!”
Chief McKane scowled. “What’s he saying?”
The Englishman translated, and McKane swore. “Hell, that’s pure bunk.”
“On the contrary. You will note that, although twenty-five years older, our captive is remarkably fit, so appears far younger, and is, at a reasonable distance, nearly a double for Tadeusz. Especially if wearing identical clothes, doing the same work in the same place, and never seen before in Sheepshead Bay.”
“Simple coincidence,” McKane snapped.
“Coincidence is no part of this crime. Once this man arrived in Brooklyn, Condor Cameron’s fate was sealed.”
Oblivious to his wound, a thin smile flitted across the prisoner’s granite visage, but he uttered not a word, his gaze fixed toward the wall.
“You talk in riddles,” McKane sneered. “Just who is this alleged murderer, and what, pray tell, was his motive?”
“A step at a time, if you please. That is the method of science,” the Englishman said calmly. “When Mr. Vanderbilt first told me of the crime and the alleged perpetrator, I had strong doubts. I decided to investigate, and learned at once that young Tadeusz spoke no English at all, and so could not have argued with a man who spoke only English. With his meager wage from the track, he could afford no more than a shared room, could barely buy food and an occasional needed article of clothing. Where, then, did he find the money to purchase a pistol? My visit to his cell confirmed my deductions. Character is important in an investigation, and I saw at once the young man had so much integrity as to be incapable of such a crime except in self-defense, and there was no evidence Cameron was armed.”
The Englishman shook his head. “No, the boy was innocent. Therefore, the murderer had to be someone else at the track that day. But Cameron was barely known in New York, was well liked in racing circles, and engaged in no activity that would cause such violence. Logically then, the crime must have sprung from his past. At that point I recalled the source of his wealth—the transcontinental railroad—and realized what his dying words had been.”
“An amazing feat,” McKane scoffed, “since what poor Condor was telling us has never been in doubt. His killer was from foreign shores and had broken our laws, and those words pointed straight to that anarchist!”
But by then no one in the kitchen was looking at the bombastic chief, or listening to him, not even his own men. They all watched the Englishman as if mesmerized, as much by the power of his voice as by his words. All but the prisoner, who appeared to smile at some private joke.
“No, McKane. What those panicked exercise boys heard was a single word. Or, to be precise, three words of which their confused minds actually heard only the last. That word was not ‘our laws,’ but ‘outlaws.’ And the two words that preceded ‘outlaws’ were ‘the’ and ‘California.’ Cameron was telling us that his killer was one of the California Outlaws.”
The prisoner showed no reaction, simply watched and waited with the patience of a man who knows that what he is watching for will come as inevitably as the snow of winter in the high mountains.
McKane could see the quick solution to the murder desired by his businessmen friends slipping away. “You’re telling us a man like Cameron was connected to a gang of crooks in California?”
“That would depend on what your definition of ‘connected’ and ‘crook’ is,” the Englishman said drily. “As it happens, I came to New York directly from California, where at present there is a furor that bears on Cameron’s murder.”
“What furor?” McKane demanded.
“The trial, and certain conviction, of one of the leaders of the so-called California Outlaws.”
The Englishman’s voice seemed to fill the tiny kitchen. “It all began with the desperation of a government that wanted a transcontinental railroad, and the bribery, venality, corruption, influence peddling, and chicanery of members of that government in conjunction with the notorious Big Four railroad barons—Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker. As a result of what has been fairly labeled an entirely new form of embezzlement, a monstrous octopus now holds a death grip on the state of California, and particularly the wheat farmers of the San Joaquin Valley. It is called the Southern Pacific Railroad.”
Despite himself, there was enough of the true policeman in McKane to make a fact catch his attention. “That’s Cameron’s company!”
“Precisely,” the Englishman nodded. “The Big Four are the most visible, but there are others of equal wealth and power, and one of these was Condor Cameron. His profile was kept low because, while Huntington was the idea man, Stanford the public face, Hopkins the record keeper, and Crocker the field boss, Cameron was the enforcer. The man who oversaw the ruthless coercion of entire communities into agreeing with all railroad demands, the evictions of farmers and ranchers, and the murders of anyone who tried to stand against the railroad. Hence his nickname.” The Englishman glanced directly at the silent prisoner, “Is that not so, Mr. Evans?”
When it finally came, the prisoner’s voice was low, and as hard as an anvil. “A condor’s a scavenger. A vulture. When you see a condor, something’s died.”
“Quite so,” the Englishman said, and said to McKane, “the basic motive was and is the Southern Pacific’s ruthless ruination and murder of the small farmers, ranchers, and laborers who really conquered the West. The immediate motive was the furor in California I spoke of earlier, caused when the farmers fought back and the railroad secured a court judgment in 1878 that, the farmers charged, reeked of political corruption and bias since the governor of California was also president of the Southern Pacific—Leland Stanford.”
“You’re joking?” McKane’s eyes widened in envy at such brazen corruption.
“You can well wonder,” the Englishman said grimly. “By 1880 the valley was boiling, and at a place called Mussel Slough, a U.S. Marshal and three railroad men evicting farmers were confronted by the irate farmers. All were armed, as is the custom of your country, and someone fired the first shot. Six settlers and one railroad deputy died, and the railroad man who had killed all six of the settlers was himself gunned down later that day by ‘unknown parties.’ The state brought charges of ‘overthrowing the government’ and ‘interfering with a U.S. Marshal’ against seventeen settlers. Five were convicted of only the lesser charge, served five months in a local jail, where their cells were never locked, and they came and went as they pleased. When they were released and returned home, they were given a hero’s welcome.
“The railroad went on evicting and ruining, the farmers went on resisting. Five years ago the Southern Pacific was the target of a series of train robberies. The California government quickly labeled the perpetrators ‘The California Outlaws,’ put a price on the heads of the leaders, Jon Sontag and Christopher Evans, and, with the aid of the railroad, set a manhunt in motion. Two months ago Evans and Sontag were ambushed by a large party of marshals and railroad detectives. Sontag died of tetanus from his untreated wounds. Evans lost an arm, an eye, and suffered brain damage, and is even now standing trial, which will certainly go against him. However, other members of the Outlaws were not captured, and one sits t
here: Mr. Andrew Evans, a cousin, I believe, of the man on trial.”
In the silence, the rising summer sun slowly turning the light in the kitchen to a pale gold, the prisoner in the chair said, “They let John die, and they’ll lock Chris up forever. The Outlaws are finished, but one day the Southern Pacific will go, too.”
“Then why murder Cameron, Mr. Evans? Why not let time, history, and his maker punish him?”
The prisoner’s eyes darkened, “Life is short, and justice is slow. For all of us they killed with their greed, I killed one of them for us.”
“You’re an excellent shot. Why risk getting so close, being seen with him? It was your undoing.”
Now Andrew Evans looked again at the Englishman. “I wanted him to know why he was dying, and he did. He deserved what he got.”
“I have some sympathy for your cause, sir, but not your methods. You would have let the boy there be punished for your crime.”
“When they leave you no choice, you do what you must,” Evans said quietly. “And do you really think you would have found me still in Brooklyn if I had not feared they would convict the boy? Had that happened, I would have declared myself instantly. But I’ve been watching your activities, too, Englishman, and when I saw you arrive with McKane and his men I knew you had guessed the truth, and there was no reason not to save myself. I only wish you had been a worse shot.”
The Englishman inclined his head to Evans. “My apologies, but I could not be certain Tadeusz would be exonerated without your capture.”
McKane growled, “Very pretty sentiments, I’m sure. But all Cameron did was make all the money he could for the railroad and himself, and there’s not a damn thing illegal or immoral about that. It’s called free enterprise, and it’s why America’s a great nation. This man is a cold-blooded murderer, who is going to fry since you tell me we don’t swing ’em anymore.”
The Englishman wrinkled his austere nose in distaste. “I believe Evans’s actions to be wrong, McKane, but he’s ten times the human being you are, and I will be on hand to see that he gets a fair trial. You may count on that.”
McKane glared and barked at his policemen, “Take him out, damn it.”
The prisoner safely in the first carriage, Tadeusz and the Englishman climbed into the second for the return trip. The carriage had barely started to roll when Tadeusz, with the rampant curiosity of youth, burst out in German, “Mein herr, how did you learn that Evans was the murderer?”
The Englishman laughed. “Elementary, my boy. Always cast a suspicious eye upon any solution so convenient for the authorities. An actual murderer rarely fits so neatly into the prejudices of all concerned as you did: young, poor, foreign, militant, outspoken, powerless, and essentially defenseless. Once I observed your character, confirmed that you spoke no English, and realized what Condor Cameron dying words must have been, the rest was simple.”
My stepgrandmother laughed in the tenement on Seventh Street. “Your grandfather told me he nearly struck the Englishman. ‘But how did any of that lead you to a man no one knew existed!?’”
“Ah, that was in itself a key. Consistent with my theory of the motive, our murderer was a stranger in Sheepshead Bay. Clearly, he was the ‘stable hand’ who sent you away, and who was seen arguing with Cameron. He would look like you in overall build, general coloring, and facial features, and he had to be wearing basically identical clothes. Therefore, he must have been observing the track and its employees for at least a few days to find someone with access to the stable who looked enough like him and to learn Cameron’s habits.”
At that point, my stepgrandmother told me, Tadeusz said he began to glimpse a hint of the Englishman’s rigorous logic.
“A man from the West, wanted by the police there, and certainly of limited means, would not be found in one of the grand hotels. Discreet inquiries at the few rooming houses in the vicinity after such a man who showed great interest in the track, was out all day, and had come from the Far West, quickly turned up our Mr. Evans, who had not bothered to disguise his name, secure in the assumption that in distant New York it would mean nothing.”
“Once I learned he had vacated his room the day before the murder, and knew he had been watching you that morning to know what you were wearing, it was logical to assume he had taken new lodgings near your room. A few pennies to the street urchins, who inhabit the poorer areas of all cities today with nothing to do but observe everything that happens in the area, soon turned up Evans and his new accommodations. The rest you know.”
With that, Tadeusz said, the Englishman sat back and lapsed into a morose silence, as if, having told the story, the world had suddenly become a dark, empty place.
Tadeusz was given his job back by the Sheepshead Bay track, with, at the Englishman’s hint of possible lawsuits, a healthy settlement for his wrongful incarceration. He used the money to move to a better room by himself and to start English lessons.
A month after that fateful morning, Brooklyn awakened to the shocking news of the daring escape of Andrew Evans. There was a great outcry against Chief McKane, with hints of his being afraid of a public trial that would reveal both his attempt to convict an innocent man and Condor Cameron’s unsavory history. McKane stoutly denied such “vile slander,” promptly discharged four jail officers for gross dereliction of duty, and vowed Evans would soon be recaptured.
A few days later, the tall Englishman appeared at the racetrack where Tadeusz still labored. “I doubt McKane or anyone else in law enforcement will ever see Andrew Evans again, and so with any trial now unlikely, it is time for me to depart. Ride with me to the docks and the ship that will convey me once again to Europe.”
“I cannot, sir,” Tadeusz said carefully in his fledgling English. “I must work.”
“Tut, young man, I have spoken with your employers. There will be no problem.”
Grinning, Tadeusz eagerly climbed into the Englishman’s carriage, and the coachman urged the team away. The Englishman, in a curious but serviceable mixture of his bad German and Tadeusz’s fledgling English, said, “How much of why Condor Cameron was murdered do you understand, Tadeusz?”
“Not sehr much, sir,” my grandfather had to admit. “The English, it was too, ah … ah … what is it? Ah … quick? Ja, quick.”
“I thought as much.” The Englishman nodded, staring out the carriage window as the wealthy town houses and shabby tenements of Brooklyn rolled by in the warming summer morning. “This last year I have traveled extensively in your new country, and have seen a great struggle in progress. It is a primal contest that also exists in my own country, and in your former nation, but America is young and raw, and the struggle is naked here. It is between the forces of justice and humanity, and those of wealth and power.”
The Englishman turned from the window to look at Tadeusz. “The murder of Condor Cameron was a small moment in that struggle. Do you understand that?”
“I think so,” my grandfather said slowly. “Yes sir.”
“Good.” The strange Englishman glanced again out the window where the teeming slums of the docks had begun, the masses of people flooding along the narrow streets as the coachman cursed and forced his way through. “There is a young congressman in the state of Nebraska, where the great western plains of this nation begin, who is standing for your senate. His name is Bryan, and I envision an important future for him. When we spoke, he used an image that defines his view of this clash of contending forces—‘crucifying mankind upon a cross of gold.’”
When he turned once more from the window, the Englishman looked hard at Tadeusz. “Your new nation stands at a crossroads, and I fear that in the next century it will choose the wrong road, as I now suspect my own country did in this century. A nation can be a great force for the human spirit and potential, or it can be an empire. It cannot be both.”
My stepgrandmother told me that my grandfather said the Englishman again sat for the rest of the ride to his ship in a morose silence. But when they arrived, as
the coachman held the carriage door open, he turned to Tadeusz, and said, “Do you know, Tadeusz, where you will stand in this struggle of which I spoke?”
“I, sir,” my grandfather said, “will stand for justice.”
The Englishman nodded. “That is where I have stood my whole life. Not the law, which is always created by those in power and inevitably ends favoring them and their views, or even the truth, but justice. Yet what is justice, Tadeusz? Do we know? Does anyone?”
With that, my stepgrandmother told me, the Englishman smiled at my grandfather, instructed the coachman to take him back to Sheepshead Bay, and with a final wave mounted the gangplank to follow his luggage aboard the ship.
Tadeusz Jan Fortunowski never saw him again, nor ever knew his name, but I think I know his name, and sometimes I wonder if this story of my grandfather was the first seed that set me, Dan Fortune, on my own search for justice.
God of the Naked Unicorn
Ova Hamlet
(a creation of Richard Lupoff)
I
It was a chilly winter’s evening and the sound of the jingling coach bells attached to the harness of carriage horses penetrated both the swirling yellow fog of Limehouse where the Thames swerves and eddies and dark Lascar shapes flit through shaded passages, and the ancient rippled glass of the windows of my humble flat to remind even a sad lonely man that there were yet revelers at large in the city anticipating the joyous holiday of Nativity.
My mind fled back to earlier, and jollier, holiday seasons, seasons spent in my youth amidst the savage tribesmen of barbaric Afghanistan before a Jezail bullet cut short my career in Her Majesty’s service, causing me to be seconded home and returned, ultimately, to civil existence. At home in London I had attempted to support my modest needs by setting up practice in Harley Street, but had been forced to accept accommodations with another person of my own class and station in order to make ends meet.
Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years Page 42