“There is strange,” I said after a time, “I did not know that we were in communication with the Confederacy by telegraph.”
“We are not, Captain Jones.”
“Will you explain it to me, then?”
“That I will. Their lads rode high into Maryland. All for the purpose of taking over a stretch of our wire and sending this message.”
“It sounds of great import,” I said.
“Twas addressed to General McClellan.”
Now that was a rare thing, and my curiosity rose higher still. But for honor’s sake, I asked him, “Are you certain it is fitting I should hear of it?”
He worked his pipe a long time. “I have thought hard on it, see. It is your business, Captain Jones. If you are entered into this Fowler matter.”
“The message concerned the murder?”
Didn’t he give me a look then. “Are we talking murder, then?”
I had failed to govern my tongue. “Well, murder it may or may not be. We shall find out in good time.”
“And doesn’t it all make sense now, with the Rebels just pleading over the wire?”
“What did the message say, Mr. Evans?”
He lowered his pipe to the level of his knees, a sign that more than one sentence would come out of his mouth, cursed slow Welshman from black Glamorgan that he was.
“Twas from Jefferson Davis himself,” Evans said. “Begging General McClellan to believe him and swearing to beat the band that not he nor anyone under the Southern flag had lifted a hand against the Fowler lad. A clear thing, it was, that the business has put the fear into the great Rebel himself, for he offered a parley of cooperation to set the business right. To read it, a man would think the fellows in Richmond are more afeared of having the blame for the Fowler boy’s deceasement than they are of all the armies in the Union.”
I nodded, but my words formed slowly. “You have… been of great assistance to me. I am indebted.”
He thrust the stem of his pipe toward me. “I knew it was a tale that needed telling to you.”
“I thank you again. You are a true buttie, Mr. Evans.”
He rose to leave me to my work, without waiting for me to ask about Mr. Lincoln. Then he hesitated.
“There is yet another matter,” he said. “General McClellan clears all of the messages now. It is a strict command that he shall be the first to see the telegraphics. And he forbade us the passing of this message to Mr. Lincoln. He said there was no need to trouble the President with it. We were not to breathe a word of it, upon penalty of martial justice.” He glanced about him a last time. “Is that not a queer business, Captain Jones?”
I was set to agree when I saw a shadow pass the door. A moment later, a cavalryman appeared. Twas the man I had seen twice before, once at General Scott’s departure and again when he fetched me for my interview with General McClellan. Now the curious thing was the quiet of the fellow, for a cavalryman makes a loud approach, what with his spurs and his steel and his swagger. But I had not sensed this one’s presence until his shadow caught my eye.
“Captain Jones,” the cavalryman said, “the general’s waiting on you.”
I thought they would have their comeuppance then, the officers in their fancy coats and braids, when they saw me come marching in escorted to see the general. But it was not to be.
The cavalryman led me across 17th Street to a carriage parked unpleasantly close to a house of shame. The general waited within the trap, alone.
“Sit down, Captain,” he said, pointing to the forward seat.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” I took my seat just as the carriage drew off.
“Jones… pull down that blind, would you?”
He closed the other side himself, leaving just opening enough for the fumes of the lamp to escape. The general wore an evening cloak. Where it fell away in the front, gold shone on midnight-blue cloth. He looked as though he had been gotten up for a portrait. And he had taken a generous hand to his cologne water.
“I have been informed,” he said, “that you were badly treated, Captain Jones. Shamefully treated. By my own staff.”
“A fine major come to my assistance, sir.”
“It will not happen again, Jones. You have the personal apologies of the general commanding.”
“Twas nothing, sir.”
He leaned toward me and the lamplight burnished his dark hair. “The thing is, Jones, I have decided that you are of most use to me if we go about things more quietly. Perhaps headquarters isn’t the place for your reports.” He sat back and smoothed a fold of his cloak. “I understand… that you raised a number of questions in a regimental camp today.”
His intelligence was fine. I hoped it was as good when it come to the Rebels.
“Sir, I was asking into the circumstances of Captain Fowler’s loss. A proper inquiry—”
“Yes, Jones. Yes, the inquiry. Vital matter. But I cannot overstate the sensitivity of all this. I hardly expected you to go straight from Philadelphia… to the field, as it were.”
“Shall I stop asking questions, sir?”
He raised his chin like a tiger on the sniff. “Not at all, Jones. That’s not what I meant. It’s only… that we want to be more discreet in the future. Don’t come to my headquarters. My staff need not be a party to this matter. I will take it upon myself to contact you.”
“Yes, sir. Begging your pardon, sir, I have come to a point where I think the business wants a police fellow. I haven’t the skills—”
“Nonsense, Jones. That’s the last thing. Police, indeed. The army’s capable of sorting out its own affairs.” He fanned away my concerns with an ivory hand. “Listen… how did you find Mrs. Fowler? You may be frank.”
The carriage bounced along, good of spring. “Well, sir, she was a great lady. The very picture of mourning. But addled with grief, as we might expect.”
“How ‘addled’? Don’t be polite, man. Was she mad? Was she ranting?”
“Sir… I am not fit to judge such a thing. The woman was disturbed by events, certainly. Her son…”
“Has she got the boy’s death through her head?”
The general had a habit of leaning forward, then sitting back and folding his arms, only to lean forward again. Twas as if the carriage was too confining for him. “I didn’t warn you, Jones, because I wanted you to meet her without prejudice. But Mrs. Fowler… is given to spiritualism. And other curious beliefs. Occult matters that strain patience and credulity.” He swallowed with that big neck of his and it was like watching a great snake gulp down an infant. “Now… did she appear to understand the situation? Might she listen to reason? Or do we need to suggest an interview by a medical committee… to establish the state of the poor woman’s faculties?”
“Well, sir, she knows the boy is dead, though there’s a bit of churning in her mind. And she’s certain as chapel on Sunday he was done in by assassins. That’s sure.” I looked at the general, wondering again why he had chosen me as his delegate. “She’s hard set on punishing the Rebels, sir. She’s all for a great hanging and bloody vengeance.”
He dropped his chin down onto his collar. “To be expected. They’re a hard bunch, the Fowlers. Christian on the outside, cannibals within. I expect she rambled on about dark conspiracies on the part of slaveholders… all sorts of claptrap.”
“She does believe the issue of slavery counts up, sir. Given her son’s lecturing and crusading and all. And she’s personally strong against the evils of Negro bondage.” I considered the splendid man sitting before me. It is hard to be honest with a general. “To be fair, sir, a reasonable person might well share her—”
He waved the thought away. “I’ve made myself plain on the matter, Jones. I know the men of the Confederacy. Served with ‘em. They are… misguided, at present. But they are not assassins.” He cocked his chin again. “They will fight us on the field of battle, if we force them to it. But they are not murderers. The Southrons are men of honor—would that I could say the s
ame of all our own. This war is an unspeakable tragedy, brought about by New England impatience and the belligerence of the sedentary.”
“Sir, I could not help but feel sympathy for the poor woman, given the family history and such. I was inclined…” I come up short of proper words to disagree. How weak we are in the presence of power. I think it is an unrealized source of evil.
McClellan sent me an odd look. “Jones… Mrs. Fowler takes a certain position in society. It is a high, though not a usual one. She is… indulged.” He sniffled as though the autumn had gotten at him, and pulled out a fine handkerchief. “It is a family conceit that the Fowlers live apart, secluded from worldly concerns. That is a fiction, Jones. The woman has a web of acquaintances, some of them from the lowest quarters of the press… while others include the madmen who drove us to this war with their intransigence. She is… maniacal in her prejudices. Far more intolerant than any Southron. And she has long been treated generously by men of goodwill. But there are limits to what even Lettie Fowler can be allowed. Her sort have done their best to wreck the Union. With their venom, and their deification of the African. The time to call their bluff may be approaching.”
He turned his commanding eyes upon me. “Do not misunderstand me, Jones. I do not justify secession. I am prepared to give my life’s blood for our glorious Union.” He tucked his hand into the gap in his tunic. “But the death of Anthony Fowler must not be exploited for vicious purposes. And we must not limit our search for the killers to those who might seem the most obvious perpetrators.”
“Well, the boy was murdered, sir, that’s sure.”
The fine pose of his face did not change. “Yes, Jones. But by whom?”
“I cannot say, sir.”
“You are to look everywhere, Jones. Everywhere. Exclude no possibilities, do you understand? The killer’s motives may have been of the greatest cynicism.” The lamp flickered and lit him up handsome. “I take it you do not… believe he might have been shot by a sentry? Mistakenly? Not a chance of it?”
“No, sir. For he was shot with a pistol, and close.”
That surprised him.
After a good pause, he said, “How do you know that, Jones? I understood no ball was extracted.”
“No, sir. But a surgeon saw the body. He marked it sure as a pistol wound. And there were powder burns on the boy’s uniform, which speaks to the distance.”
His jaw locked for a bit. Then he said, “What else did you learn today?”
“Captain Fowler was not killed on the lines. The body was moved and put there. With thought on the doing. That’s the bones of it, sir.”
He pawed at the little wedge of beard on his chin. “You’re certain of all that?”
Of a sudden, I smelled a great stink. It overpowered the general’s cologne water. Twas a mammoth smell of horses. Even with the carriage shut up and blind, I knew where we were. Passing the remount stables, the devilish long clapboard barns thrown up to hold thousands of the beasts for the army. I could hardly imagine a more terrible place and always gave it a wide berth.
Now there was no reason to go to those stables unless they were your destination, for they stood between the edge of the city and the river marshes. I realized the coachman was driving about for the sake of it and keeping to the back ways.
“Are you certain?” the general repeated.
“Well, sir, I believe that I am certain. For many saw the pieces of it, but could not assemble them whole. No shot. And no blood on the ground under the body, see. A fresh greatcoat put on him after he died. There’s clarity in it, for him that looks. A murder it was, sir. But we do not know where it was done, or what Captain Fowler was doing at the time, or whose hand held the gun.”
McClellan pondered that. The carriage pulled back onto a street with a regular surface for a time, then jounced over dirt again. But the ride was not so rough and this part of town was less fertile of odor.
The general tapped a signal to his driver with the hilt of his dress sword. Then he settled again and said, “You’ve done a splendid job, Jones. Excellent work. Mr. Gowen was right about you.”
“Am I shut of the business now, sir? I expect you’ll want a more capable sort—”
He shook his head, drawing down his eyebrows like curtains. “Not at all. No, we have to uncover all the facts, all of ‘em. You’ve uncovered a conspiracy, Jones. Surely you see that?” His hand fretted on his tunic but did not slip inside. “Find out who’s behind it. Where did the murder take place? And why? You’re the man for it, Jones. We must find the truth. And then we must use that truth for a higher good.” He nodded, as if weighing the wisdom of the ages. “Root out the truth of it.” A little smile lifted his mustache. “No matter who it might embarrass. Anthony Fowler will have justice.”
“Sir… I am not a policeman. I do not know what to make of this further.”
“Nonsense. You’re a born policeman, Jones. Allan Pinkerton himself couldn’t have done better. Listen, I’ve given this a great deal of thought. Strategic deliberation, you might say. In the morning, you will report to the Ordnance Office. Where Fowler worked. Take over his desk, his duties. Look through his papers. Don’t stick on niceties. There’s no shame in it. If justice is the purpose. Get to know his fellow officers. Examine the details of his life. See if we can’t learn anything that way.” He straightened the fit of his cloak and I sensed we were soon to part. “And I think it best if we go about this more quietly, Jones. As I said. You can see the sensitivity of the matter. We don’t want our purpose misunderstood.” He tested the set of his mustache with his little finger. “Use my name only in an emergency… and wait for my summons.”
The driver reined in the horses, calling them up. The carriage rocked then settled.
“Sir, if I may… there’s another matter most unpleasant, about the uniforms for the troops and a terrible instance of dishonesty—”
The carriage door opened. I saw a fine town home, brilliantly lit, and heard a gay tune.
The general stepped out. When his boots reached the street, he arranged his uniform a last time and corrected his posture to perfection.
“Ordnance Office in the morning, Jones. You have my full confidence. Justice must be done.”
I rose early and went breakfastless to the War Department. I could not leave so much of my former work undone, and I sat to my old desk first, matching accounts and eating the sugar biscuits my Mary Myfanwy had sent me. For all my tiredness, I could not be in bad spirits, for my weekly package from my Mary Myfanwy had been waiting for me, along with a cold chop preserved by Mrs. Schutzengel, upon my return to the boardinghouse the night before. My Mary Myfanwy kept a wise household, and saved all her letters to me through the week to send in one package, for it spared good money. When the packages arrived, each made a holiday. If I could not settle my love in my arms, I could rest my heart in her words and admire the gentility of her hand. She wrote on good paper, as a lady should, and spared not the expense of that. Her letters were lovely things.
The package had been a great treasure, not only because of the biscuits, which even Mrs. Schutzengel, a great jealous baker, described as “Maybe almost German good,” but because of a pencil sketch one of the young colliers had made of our son. Twas clear young John would be a handsome scrapper, blessed with his mother’s aspect.
I will not lie to you. I clutched the picture against me and wept.
Twas difficult to keep my mind on the work that morning, for the Fowler matter had bitten deep into me. There was much I could not figure. I still did not understand why General McClellan had sent me to Mrs. Fowler, nor did I fully understand the general himself. He had a great way of saying things and not saying them, and thanks to Evans the Telegraph, I knew there was more to the business than the general was ready to lay on the shop counter. Still, he was a busy man, with the whole war on his shoulders now, and I hung my cap on his telling me that we must get out the truth, no matter what it might be. A general might have his reasons for kee
ping a fact or two in his pocket. And he seemed to have a great faith in me. Flattering that was.
At eight o’clock, with the stoves lit and a lamp a needless luxury, I went up to my new place of duty.
The ordnance staff’s rooms lay just a staircase from Mr. Cameron’s office, so important was their business. I was coming up in the world.
There was no one about, but the office door I wanted was unlocked.
I let myself in. Four fine mahogany desks filled the room, nothing of your military issue. There was a fine window, with an airy view of branches close, though they were bare now. Mr. Corcoran’s mansion stood just across the avenue. Twas a grand spot to sit and work, well-heated, light, and clean.
I determined Fowler’s desk by simple figuring. Two of the other desks had tobacco ash not long smoked by the smell of it, and the third had a fine china cup with the last day’s coffee half in it. Fowler’s desk, though laden with papers and books, had a bareness when it come to personal effects. It might have belonged to a good Methodist.
Sitting down in the dead man’s chair, I hastened through the drawers, but found little of Anthony Fowler. The desk was full of work, badly organized. The lad would never have made a clerk. The only items that spoke to his character were those books on the desktop and a pair of fine pens.
I picked up the first of the stacked books. Phrenology of The Non-Caucasoid Races, it said. The second was called, The Christian Path To Moral Reform And Temperance. My Mary Myfanwy would have approved of that. Next down was a volume of Mr. Emerson’s. Then there was a book about Africa and savage tribes and the like, followed by a text in German as heavy as a rock. Young Fowler had been modest in his pleasures.
I heard footsteps along the hall and stacked the books again, but the boots went past, The sounds of a staff began to rise from the neighboring offices. I set myself to study the official papers upon the desk, since the dead boy’s work was to be my work now.
It seemed Fowler had been the officer charged with the first review of purchasing orders for cannon. There were letters from foundries and arsenals, and pleas for guns from field commands, the latter thick with endorsements. Few things seemed to have been resolved, and the requests and complaints began to repeat themselves. I wondered why on earth a freshly minted captain of good family, born for the cavalry, would have been placed in a position that wanted a terrible lot of experience and promised no glory.
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