The Judges of the Secret Court

by David Stacton

  Asia was under house arrest. Her brother Junius had arrived the night before. Edwina was still upstairs, with Junius’s own daughter, Marion. Junius was no help. He was too stolid. And he and Clarke got on each other’s nerves.

  Clarke was bad enough to begin with. He was furious about the house arrest, when Edwin went scot free. He could not denounce Edwin. He denounced his wife instead. It was she who had brought all this upon him. Only she.

  She did not bother to answer. Did he expect her to repudiate her whole family, just because he had made the mistake of marrying her? After all, she had made the mistake of marrying him. She did try to keep out of his way. She blushed for shame enough, without having the detective hear what Clarke had to say. Why should she not be loyal to her family, for certainly Sleeper Clarke was not loyal to her.

  It was almost a relief when at last the Federal Marshal took Clarke and Junius into custody. She was not pleased with June. He knew how she felt about Wilkes, and yet all he could say was that he wished John had been killed before the assassination, for their family’s sake.

  Clarke was arrested on the grounds that he could have read Wilkes’ letter, since it had been unsealed, and so could have prevented the plot had he chosen. That business was the sort of farce he was so good at. But it was not a good farce. The charge against Junius was even less substantial. He had written John Wilkes about their oil investments in Pennsylvania, and the government suspected that the plot numbers were really a cypher. June knew nothing about such things. A life of concentrated self-interest had left him with a curious innocence about the ways of the rest of the world. He went along to jail almost cheerfully.

  Asia was at last left alone with that grief she did not even dare to mention, yet she had no will to weep. Thoughts were her grief, not tears. She saw herself as a Roman matron. Roman matrons do not weep.

  The detective took pity on her. He begged her to let his wife take over his duty. Asia was so patently both ill-treated and ill. Would she not prefer a woman in the house? Asia said to thank his wife kindly, she appreciated the offer, but she would rather be watched by ten men who could keep quiet, than by one chattering female. That was true enough. Asia had not only the soul of a man, but a man’s hatred of gossip. Do what the world would, she would not be seen humiliated by her own sex. She went upstairs to write to Edwin.

  It was true she had been unpleasant to Edwin about his first wife. The woman was an actress, and Asia received no actresses in her home. But of them all, he, apart from herself, was at least loyal to the family, when even Junius was not. On her way to her room she stopped in to look at Edwina, who seemed to be taking her afternoon nap. Edwina, too, had doted on her Nunkee Wilkes. She gazed down at Edwina, and then slipped back into the corridor. It was as Edwin had said. That jolly man Clarke had never loved her at all. And she had tried for so long to believe that he did. Why had Wilkes done this to them all?

  He could not have said himself.

  In Concord, the previous Sunday, Ralph Waldo Emerson had delivered his own eulogy upon the passing of a great man. Try though he would to hobnob with the great and deal with the problems of poor, self-educated Thoreau, at bottom Emerson was an American. Therefore, it did not matter what he had said to Carlyle, he was also a snob. If one cared for things of the mind, in the America of his day, one could not be anything else. So he had had some trouble with his eulogium. But he had finally found the right words. Lincoln, he had said, was remarkable in this, that he was a great worker. And great workers were so rare, for everybody had some disabling quality.

  Though he had yet to admit to his own, he was quite right. Everybody had. In Washington City the public had filed by all that dreary rainy day, from six in the morning until nine at night, just to see what a great worker looked like. They wanted to see if that face had survived death.

  The funeral train was already made up. It was to leave Washington City at eight the next morning, a procession of nine cars, preceded by a black-draped locomotive, that was to visit Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago, and finally, to arrive at Springfield on the 3rd of May. It was almost the same route Lincoln had taken to his first Inaugural, and now they were taking him back.

  His stepmother, when told of what had happened, was not surprised. She had reached old age, she knew something of the world, and she had not expected him back alive anyway.

  Tacked on to the train was an ordinary Mail Car, which had been fitted up as a pullman for Mary Lincoln. She refused to use it. For five weeks she would not leave the White House, who had expected to remain there for three more years. But whether she was alive or dead, she scarcely knew.

  Neither did Wilkes. But he had had one good piece of news. Jones had learned at Allen’s Fresh that the soldiers had turned south. That was his chance, and he was eager to take it. It was now safe to put Booth and Herold out on the river.

  Booth was more than willing to go. He had exhausted the papers. It was at least something not to have to face another night in this hopeless and deserted swamp. Why did the world hate him so today, when they had loved him so yesterday and hated Lincoln in his stead? Could the world love only a dead man?

  He let Jones and Herold boost him back on a horse, but he was too weak to sit erect with ease. He had been very ill. The two men guided his mare, wet branches swept across his face, and at last they came out on to an empty road, eerie in the cold night. They passed below Jones’s house.

  “Can’t you take me up there and let me have a cup of hot coffee?” Booth begged, and did not know he was sobbing.

  Jones said not. The darkies at the house would see them. They had to go on.

  Booth had expected that answer, but he did not like to hear it. It seemed strange to him that he should be reduced to begging for a cup of coffee. He allowed the horse to jog him on.

  A little later he heard the wind rising. The horse was picking its way downhill, towards the shore of the river. Herold and Jones told him to wait, and went off to drag a small skiff from the weeds to the water. Then they placed him in its bow. The skiff shipped no water, but he could sense the wetness of the water slapping at the hull. It was to be in a cradle, or that barge in which the dead body of King Arthur drifted down the pages of Malory. It was many years since he had thought of Malory.

  Herold and Jones got in, Jones pulled at the oars, and they drew away from the shore. Booth felt drowsy. Once across this water, and he would be safe. He hauled himself up and tried to make out the dim blur of the Virginia shore, but could not. The night was too misty.

  That was what saved them.

  Jones could see what Herold could not. He shipped the oars and let the boat float with the current. There was a gunboat above them on the river.

  Booth turned to look, and it was there, all right, a long shape on the surface of the water. As he watched, the turret gleamed and there was a red glow of fire. They were being shelled.

  Jones slipped off into the mist. A shell fell into the water to the left of the skiff. The splash poured down on them and the skiff began to rock, and then shot aground in the bulrushes. Jones and Herold grabbed Booth and dumped him into some bushes. Then they ran to hide the boat.

  The gunboat was so close that men could be heard talking on its deck.

  Jones came back and said it was not safe to try again that night. They must wait a day. He rowed them back to a bluff below his farm and left them there.

  Herold said nothing. Neither did Booth. But if the boy’s thoughts were half so terrible as his own, then there was no hope. There was no hope at all.

  XXIII

  On Friday the 21st, Dr. Mudd got up early. He was feeling better. He had got over his scare.

  But he had not quite recovered from Booth’s visit. Oh, he remembered the man well enough now that the whole world wanted him. And he knew him well enough. Booth was not a man to be trusted. He had met him the previous November, at Church, through Dr. McQueen. Booth had chattered on about the Confederacy and the
war, oil stocks and the family property of Tudor Hall. He had wanted to buy horses one moment and land the next, but he had never shown the colour of his money. That had not surprised Dr. Mudd. Whatever else actors might be, they were flibbertigibbets. Dr. Mudd had spent his life among settled people. He knew a poor financial risk when he saw one. He had not wanted anything to do with Mr. Booth, he had tried to make that plain, but the man had plagued him anyway. He persisted in posturing as a country squire in search of property. Mudd found that annoying, for a genuine offer for his land would have greatly pleased him. He wanted to sell, and he did not like his time tantalized in that way.

  No gentleman comes to your house in disguise. That ridiculous false beard had shown what a man like Booth thought of other men’s acumen. He was like a child, a dangerous child, and yet it is not the duty of a doctor to turn a wounded man away. Actors were half-cocked creatures. Then, on Saturday, at Bryantown, he had found out what had happened. So when two officers had appeared at his house the following Tuesday, he had had his story ready. They had accepted it, gone away, and then come back. So he had told them his story again. He could not deny that he knew Booth, for that could be proven. He could deny that Booth had come to his house Saturday morning, for that could not be proven. He had given the officers a statement in writing, and hoped the matter ended there.

  All the same, he had remained uneasy until today. Friday was the day he usually had noonday dinner with his father, who lived close by. For once he was glad to get out of his own house. He put a little pomade on his moustache, combed his beard, and went out into the hall.

  His wife was waiting for him there. She had been cleaning, and had a duster round her head. She looked frightened. In her left hand she held a slit riding boot, still elegant and shiny.

  “I found it under the bed, when I was dusting the front bedroom,” she said.

  “Throw the damn thing away.”

  “The niggers will get it. It’s good leather.”

  Dr. Mudd could think of no answer to that. His wife was very pale.

  “The man who was here, it was Booth, wasn’t it?”

  He hesitated, and then nodded.

  She did not ask him why he had not told the officers that. “I’ll hide it,” she said.

  He went down the stairs, got on his horse, and rode over to his father’s house. They talked of small things there. The matter was not something Dr. Mudd wished to confide to his father. When the two men were most intimate, they talked politics and land. Those were the subjects they had in common. They shared no others. That had not occurred to Dr. Mudd before. He had always admired his father as a shrewd man, and that, heretofore, was all he had demanded of men. But now, as he sat there concealing his own fright, he saw that it might be possible to expect more.

  The other guest at table was Mr. Hardy, a fellow landowner in the neighbourhood, and a friend, he supposed, for they had known each other for years. When a message came that Dr. Mudd was wanted at home, Hardy rode back with him. They found Lieutenant Lovett in the yard. He was wearing civilian clothes.

  Dr. Mudd did not ask him what he was there for. He thought only of the boot. He told Lovett about it and sent his wife to fetch it. When the boot came, Lovett turned it over in his hands and said it was a fine boot. Then he arrested Dr. Mudd.

  Like the others, Dr. Mudd did not bother to ask what he was being arrested for. That impressed Lovett, and so he told him. Besides, the legality even of martial law demanded that he do so.

  The charge was quite clear. It stated that the said Samuel A. Mudd “did, at Washington City, and within the military department and military lines aforesaid, on, or before, the 6th day of March, A.D. 1865, and on divers other days and times between that day and the 20th day of April, A.D. 1865, advise, encourage, receive, entertain, harbour and conceal, aid and assist the said John Wilkes Booth, David E. Herold, Lewis Payne, John H. Surratt, Michael O’Laughlin, George A. Atzerodt, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel Arnold, and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with the intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the execution there, and in escaping from justice after the murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, in pursuance of said conspiracy in the manner aforesaid.”

  With the exception of Booth and John H. Surratt, who must be the son of that woman whose boarding-house he had once entered, in order to meet Booth, Dr. Mudd had never heard of any of them. The charge was conspiracy and treason. The punishment was death.

  Dr. Mudd asked to be allowed to change, and then came back. As he rode out the gate, he noticed that Frank Washington, the coloured man, had forgotten to repair the shakes of the fence, and that Hardy had gone into the house as soon as the arrest had taken place and had not come out since. Neither was a matter he wished to mention to Lovett.

  The other person arrested that day was the stage carpenter, Spangler. He had been in and out of the precinct station all week, there seemed as little in him as they had got out of him, but Stanton was determined to have him all the same. True, it was clear from the evidence that Spangler had known nothing of the plot until at least two hours before its execution, if he knew even that much, but he had been inside the theatre, and when one of the stage carpenters had shouted, “That was Booth. I swear it was Booth,” while Booth was galloping down the alley, Spangler, whom the uproar had brought outside, had turned and smashed his face in. “Be quiet,” he had said. “What do you know about it? Don’t say where he went.” He had been drunk at the time, but it proved conspiracy, that statement. For that he would hang. Somebody had to hang. For that they would all hang.

  The trouble was to find him. He had been homeless since the death of his wife. He slept at Ford’s Theatre and took his meals at a boarding-house. Sometimes he forgot to eat, but he never forgot to drink. When finally cornered, he was having dinner at Mrs. Scott’s boarding-house. The other guests sat as far away from him as they could, for they all knew the police had been after him, so clearly he must be guilty, and guilt can be contagious. They wanted no part of him. He knew that, but since he had felt very hungry, he had sat with them anyway.

  When the officers arrived, he stood up and blinked at them. Of course he hadn’t wanted Booth to be caught. Why should he? The man had always treated him square, lent him money when he needed it, set him up a drink, and acted as though he were a man and not a middle-aged laughing stock. He’d just returned the favour, that’s all, without stopping to think about it. Surely that wasn’t something they’d hang you for.

  He begged them not to arrest him. He made a scene about it, for, as everybody knew, he had no self-respect. He didn’t want to die.

  They arrested him anyway.

  XXIV

  Booth still lay on the riverbank, with Virginia unattainable across the water, though he could glimpse it through the trees. He was feverish again, to judge by the sound of him.

  Here in the woods Herold didn’t feel so bad. In the woods he always knew what to do, even if he didn’t know exactly where he was. But Booth felt lost out here, he guessed. He was pretty worried about Booth. Herold wasn’t too bright. The furthest he could think into the future was five minutes ago. From the way he was raving, Booth wanted to go back to Washington, and Herold was afraid to do that. He felt safer where he was.

  From Great Hero Booth had passed to Great Sinner. He had to justify himself some way, and even when delirious he thought about that. If he could not be the great hero he wanted to be—and the papers told him he had misjudged his audience there—then he would impress the world with the enormity of his sins.

  He saw the scene so vividly that in amongst the scraps of feverish Shakespeare, as he raved, Herold could see it too; for Booth had reached the stage of self-pity, and that is always a vivid emotion. Herold had had such visions himself, though on a simpler level: A great hunter, and a rich man, too, like John Jacob Astor, he came back from the West to impress his sisters. But he did not understand the Shakespeare.

  Booth was in t
he midst of the tent scene from Richard III. They had all come to haunt his dreams, Prince Edward, Clarence, Seward, Lord Hastings, Ella Turner, Anne, his wife, Buckingham, and Lincoln. The dawn came. The ghosts vanished. The scrim went black. The house was silent. He started from his dream and grabbed the readiest words. It was time to arm.

  King Richard: Give me another horse (he should never have allowed the horses to be shot). I did but dream. (What was happening to him could not be true.) O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! (Not true either, but what is a Great Sinner without a conscience, cowardly or not?) What! do I fear myself? There’s none else by. (Yes, he was beginning to fear himself. He feared the fever. Yet, I am I.) Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am: Then fly. What! from myself? Great reason why—lest I revenge. What! myself upon myself? (Why had he shot Lincoln, anyhow? It had brought him nothing but trouble. He could no longer remember.) I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not.

  Of course he was not. Somehow, despite Matthews and the lost letter to the National Intelligencer, he must explain. He would go to Washington, as a simple ordinary man. He would explain, and he would move the authorities to clemency. His speech would take place in an enormous cool pillared hall. Perhaps the Rotunda of the Capitol, but if so, why were the senators wearing togas and sandals, and what was Stanton doing there? There was no such scene in Julius Caesar.

  He would explain. He would move them to tears. The misunderstood Great Sinner would be seen for what he was, the Hero. Dressed simply in black he stood there, holding them by his oratory. He was so afraid his voice might give out.

  All I want, he would say, is a grave.

  A little little grave, an obscure grave.

  He had always been adept at pathos. But he remembered now. Those lines were from the wrong play. They are spoken by Richard II, before he is betrayed by the pretended clemency of Bolingbroke into giving himself up, not by Richard III.