The Lincoln Conspiracy

by Timothy L. O'Brien

  Two addresses were in the middle of the page:

  Brainard Hotel, Elmira, New York

  212 Madison Avenue, New York, New York

  “Augustus, is the name John Surratt familiar to you?” Temple asked.

  “Lucy Hale made a point of mentioning him to me at the National Hotel. I suspect he is the Patriot to Booth’s Avenger.”

  “Well done. Now, tell me why you don’t trust Pinkerton.”

  Augustus pulled two more sheets of paper from the back of the diary. It was another telegram that he had also decoded on an accompanying page. Temple scanned it, nodding in recognition as he reread it.

  February 10, 1865

  From: Patriot

  To: Avenger

  Maestro says Bloodhound asks to be a cinder dick.

  “We should get back to Mr. Pinkerton,” Temple said.

  “I was worried about even leaving him alone with Fiona.”

  “Fiona and Mrs. Dix have the situation in hand.”

  PINKERTON, STILL FOGGED, stretched his legs to their limits on his bed and pressed his elbows outward, trying to test the boundaries of the straitjacket pinning his arms to his sides.

  Temple opened the door to his room and stepped inside.

  “Your wife is untrustworthy, McFadden. She and that other beast, Mrs. Dix, had two attendants hold me back at the breakfast table, and then your wife chloroformed me.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Your wife also did this to one of my men at the Smithsonian. She burned his jaw.”

  “I’m aware of that as well. You’re not burned. Be thankful.”

  Pinkerton rolled against his restraints again, but the leather straps surrounding his chest and crossing underneath his crotch stayed taut.

  “Mr. Pinkerton, you yourself have women in your employ who are quite pleased to be aggressors.”

  “One woman. I have just one woman in my employ.”

  “She aided my wife, and we’re grateful to her.”

  “Right now I think Miss Warne should have let your wife rot in Defiance.”

  “Did you ever seek employment from a railroad man in New York?”

  Pinkerton stopped struggling against the straitjacket.

  “I loved President Lincoln, Mr. McFadden,” Pinkerton said.

  “You’ve said this to me before, Mr. Pinkerton, and I don’t doubt that you loved the president. Your work for the Underground Railroad was honorable.”

  “You know of that?”

  “I supported the Underground Railroad, too. It rather conflicts with your blather that the needy must always fend for themselves, does it not?”

  “I wouldn’t equate emancipating slaves with tolerating the vagaries and inadequacies of nutters who need to be confined to asylums. The latter individuals have already demonstrated that they cannot contribute to society. The former were never given an opportunity to prove themselves.”

  Temple sat down on a chair next to Pinkerton’s bed and laid his cane on the floor. Pinkerton turned his head toward him, his eyes creased with worry.

  “So there is mention of me in the diary, then?”

  “Which is why you wanted it in the first place, yes?”

  “Surely.”

  “You never have read it, have you?”

  “No, of course I haven’t. I knew about it because Lafayette Baker’s read the diary. He told me that if I got unruly in any capacity, he would make sure that the information came out in some fashion. But I’m not one to simply absorb threats without taking action. It was why my men were at the B&O in the first place.”

  “Why would it be damning for you to have sought work as a cinder dick?”

  “We have much to talk about, Mr. McFadden.”

  “Be that as it may, you’ll have to remain here and bound by your new camisole for a few days, I’m afraid.”

  “Days?”

  “Days.”

  “The man who got us here in the skiff knows where I am. He’ll return if he becomes worried.”

  “You’ll send a signed note to the door through Mrs. Dix that you’re not to be bothered.”

  “Without the use of my damn hands?”

  “Mrs. Dix has four men here who can help her, if need be. They’ll unstrap you. As far as they know, you’re just another patient. If you begin screaming again, you’ll get chloroformed.”

  Temple leaned forward in his chair, patting Pinkerton on the arm.

  “Now,” he said, “let’s talk about New York.”

  TEMPLE SPENT TWO more days at St. Elizabeth’s, resting, eating, conferring with Augustus and Fiona, and waiting for the search for his double in Virginia to begin winding down.

  He left just before sundown on the fourth day, wearing the uniform he had pilfered in the burlap sack from the Old Arsenal. The greatcoat was too heavy for late spring in the District, and he draped it across the neck of the horse that Mrs. Dix had loaned him, stashing his cane beneath it, tied to the pommel, so that it wouldn’t draw attention when he crossed the river again.

  Fiona reached up to rub her husband’s bad leg as he sat in his saddle.

  “You finally got to put on a uniform.”

  “War’s over, Fi.”

  “You still wear it well. And that’s another brand-new pair of boots you have on.”

  “I’ll mind them.”

  “You come back home to me, Temple McFadden. We have a life to live together.”

  Temple put his hand on his lips and smiled down at her, then tipped his Union cap to the doorway, where Augustus and Mrs. Dix stood. His horse bucked and snorted as he trotted down the hill, away from the asylum. Temple patted the mount’s neck, leaning forward to whisper in its ear, until it calmed down. The light began to fade from orange to violet as he made his way to Edwin Stanton’s home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE VISITS

  Franklin Square was quiet.

  But even on quiet nights, Edwin Stanton’s three-story brick mansion was ringed by soldiers, three out front facing K Street, three in the alley behind it that ran between 13th and 14th streets.

  Stanton’s wife was asleep upstairs when he arrived home, so he sat in his library reading through the notes the prosecution had given him for the trial of the president’s assassins. Floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookcases surrounded him. He had first ordered them specially made for the room when he bought the property in 1859, but war shortages meant it had taken six years for him to get them finished. Nearly three thousand volumes filled the shelves, the entirety devoted to law, military strategy, and history.

  He’d also once set his mind on buying custom Italian glass for all of his windows during President Lincoln’s second term. He never had made the purchase, and now he wasn’t sure he would keep the house at all. He gazed out of his library into the dining room, recalling the laughter that used to surround the table when the president spun yarns at meals.

  A drumbeat of poundings on the front door reminded him that the mansion’s bellpull was still broken, and when he swung the door open, two soldiers were standing there. The first was one of Stanton’s regulars; the other stood outside the pool of light pouring from his hallway and onto the stoop. The man in the shadows had a cane.

  “Yes, Private Leonard?”

  “This one here says he has an urgent delivery for you, sir. Says he has photographs of John Wilkes Booth that you requested.”

  Temple stepped into the light.

  “Right through the front door, is it?” Stanton said.

  “Right through the front door.”

  STANTON BROUGHT TEMPLE back into the library.

  “Your resourcefulness surprises even me, Mr. McFadden.”

  “I haven’t much time.”

  “I want you to know something: I loved the president.”

  “I have heard that said frequently of late.”

  “I am not jesting with you, sir,” Stanton howled, slamming his fist on the arm of his chair. “When I began with him I considered him
the original gorilla, plagued by imbecilities. At the end I believed him the wisest, steadiest soul I had ever encountered, and I firmly believe God put him here to serve in this moment. No one else could have.”

  “Mr. Stanton, we have other matters to discuss.”

  “We will get to those. But I need you to understand my utter devotion to President Lincoln. I watched him expire. I sat by his bedside and watched him die.”

  Stanton began crying with a sudden, childlike force, pulling his spectacles from his face and burying his fists into his eyes, his chest and his shoulders convulsing. Temple looked away, waiting for the war secretary to compose himself.

  “I want you to tell me about Thomas Scott.”

  “Mr. McFadden, you have very little weight in this standoff.”

  “I have the diaries and I have two photographs of Booth.”

  “As of an hour ago you no longer have the diary,” Stanton said, pulling a kerchief from his breast pocket and wiping his eyes and spectacles. “Troops led by General Custer went to the asylum on my orders and brought your wife, Mrs. Dix, Mr. Pinkerton, and the diary back to the War Department. They are all only a few blocks away from us right now.”

  Temple blinked, trying to make sense of what Stanton had just told him. The old man had outmaneuvered him, just as he had when he arrested him in the stands at the Grand Review. Temple’s mouth went dry. It was all over now. Stanton had what he wanted, and Temple could no longer bargain.

  “How did you know?” Temple asked.

  “The oarsman. Mr. Pinkerton believed him to be one of his, but he’s my man and I’ve had him with Pinkerton for two years now. Pinkerton is a man to be watched, and my man watched him. After the oarsman dropped the pair of you at St. Elizabeth’s, he reported back to me. Please be assured, I have no intention of harming your wife or putting her in jail.”

  “Why didn’t you send troops to the asylum the evening I arrived? Or the next day?”

  “Because you needed time to compose yourself after your inventive departure from the Old Arsenal, and I wanted to see to it that you had the time to do so. And I wanted Mr. Wood to busy himself in Virginia. He hasn’t a notion about where you and the diary are right now, and that’s just as well. He has his uses, but they aren’t in order here anymore; the war is over, and it’s time for him to recognize that and be less eager for bloodshed. In any event, you needed your rest if you were to continue on the path you’d chosen. I hope you understand that all of what has occurred here will never become part of a public dialogue. But justice still might be served.”

  “How do you see that?”

  “You’re determined to find a certain person, I take it. After great deliberation I’ve decided that’s perfectly fine. What you’re digging into will never go to trial, Mr. McFadden. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “You’re content to see Mrs. Surratt hang?”

  “I’m confident that Mrs. Surratt was deeply involved in a plot to kill the president. I’m confident that the sooner our fragile democracy moves beyond this murder, the better. The diary offers the possibility of a narrative that is … disruptive. President Lincoln was a pragmatist and would have understood.”

  Stanton moved to his windows and looked out on his guards, his fingers coursing through his beard. He turned back to Temple.

  “Do you know who Maestro is?” Temple asked.

  “I believe I know what Maestro has done, but I do not know who he is.”

  “How did you become aware of him?”

  “Through the diary at first—just like you did, yes? Once I was aware of Maestro’s presence in Booth’s firmament, I began to think back to events, conversations with the president. That’s how Thomas Scott came more fully into my view.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Mr. Scott is an influential railroad man, an executive with the Pennsylvania Railroad. President Lincoln brought him into the War Department to oversee all of our rail lines during the war. He managed the transport of cargo and soldiers in an extraordinary fashion. On one occasion alone he successfully arranged the movement of some thirteen thousand troops and their horses by rail from Nashville to Chattanooga.”

  “What was his relationship with Maestro?”

  “I am not entirely certain. But Mr. Scott is evangelical on the topic of railroads. He and a broader clique became quite intent on forcing President Lincoln’s hand earlier this spring. They wanted him to use the powers of the federal government to support a national railroad that traversed the North and South and connected to the West. It would begin in Pennsylvania, connect in St. Louis, and terminate in San Francisco, with spurs throughout a rebuilt and revitalized South. Mr. Scott called it the Texas and Pacific Railroad. His Scottish apprentice, Andrew Carnegie, was very much involved. Mr. Carnegie, lest you’re unaware, is an intimate of Mr. Pinkerton’s.”

  “You and the president represented the railroads as lawyers and did very well on them. What was so troubling about the Texas and Pacific’s plans?”

  “The president was a railway advocate for much of his private career and for much of his presidency, certainly. He saw to it that the Railroad Acts bestowed large land grants and government funding on industry to speed the completion of a transcontinental railroad. But it all evolved into a force unto itself. There was corruption in the funding and construction of it, and there was corruption in the legislatures. The sums of money involved transformed people.”

  “So President Lincoln set out to block it?”

  “Not the transcontinental railroad. Never. He said the ugliness around that was the price of progress. As I told you, he was a pragmatist. It was Mr. Scott he wanted to block.”

  “And why only Mr. Scott?”

  “Mr. Scott and his group wanted to control all of the rail lines in the South. To do that, they needed cooperation from the Democrats controlling the region’s legislatures. To that end, they wanted President Lincoln to withdraw Union forces from the South, to step back from securing the rights of free Negroes there and from imposing a new order on the Confederacy. The president, of course, dismissed this avarice, and I supported him fully. Only a week before he was murdered he had requested a meeting with Mr. Scott and others in his faction to make it plain to them that he would use every power at his disposal to stand in their way. Once stirred, President Lincoln was a mighty force.”

  “Mrs. Lincoln shared some of this with my wife.”

  “These men wanted to forsake every principle behind the war so they could pursue their fortunes. It was an issue that split the family. Robert Lincoln was allied with Mr. Scott and the others. I think that crushed the president, frankly. His own son.”

  Stanton began to wheeze heavily, and he peeled open the top of his shirt, slumping back in his chair. Sweat covered his chest and brow when he sat up again. His hands shaking, he drew deeply from a large cup of coffee on the table beside him.

  “I struggle with asthma,” Stanton said. “A symptom, my doctors tell me, of the depressed state of mind I have had since my childhood. They advise me that coffee will attack my malady. They have recommended tobacco as well, but I don’t enjoy smoking.”

  “I still have the Booth photographs, Mr. Stanton,” Temple said. “You are in no position to simply dictate terms to me.”

  “What do the photographs give you?”

  “They clearly show that Booth had a journal in his breast pocket when his corpse was brought aboard the Montauk. The journal was never cataloged among his belongings. If the Congress were to be made aware of a missing diary, scandal would ensue.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Safety for my wife and for Alexander Gardner. Mr. Gardner wants to give up his business and travel west to photograph the railroads and the Indians, and he will need a final, lucrative commission. Grant him an exclusive commission to photograph the conspirators’ trial.”

  “I can see to all of that. I assure you, I am not a murderer, Mr. McFadden.”

  “You and yours kille
d my friend. That was murder.”

  “Mr. Flaherty was a criminal. A counterfeiter, a—”

  “You made great use of his skills,” Temple shouted. “If he was a criminal, why did your government employ him to make cogniacs out of Secesh currency?”

  “Calm yourself, Mr. McFadden. You imperiled him yourself by hanging on to that damned diary. I have no regrets about trying to extract it from you.”

  “Or about sending Lafayette Baker into Swampdoodle?”

  “I would do it again. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I would do it again.”

  “Why did you try to get the diary out of the District to begin with?”

  “I had no idea that anyone was trying to spirit the diary away. I had given it to a judge for safekeeping and thought that was that. Lafayette Baker hired Mr. Tigani himself, and the madness at the B&O that morning surprised all of us.”

  “I want a guarantee of safety for my wife and friends. Including a Negro whom General Custer apparently missed when he collected my wife at the asylum. His name is Augustus.”

  “Your wife and friends will be kept safe, I promise you that. I will have them moved into the Willard.”

  “I’d rather Mr. Pinkerton be kept under the impression that everyone is still detained. He’s inventive, and he’ll inevitably try to follow me. Keep him in a room at the Willard without a view to the street. I want safe and unencumbered passage for myself in the District and to New York.”

  “You will have those.”

  “If and when I return to the District, you’ll have the Booth photos. If I don’t return, the photos will pass on with me.”

  “Fine. Where are you bound for now?”

  “I have one more visit to make in the District, and then I plan to go to New York.”

  “Will you be seeing Mr. Baker?”

  “I will.”

  “Mr. Baker made much of the fact—to my face he said this, mind you—that the Booth diary conveys the notion that Maestro controlled me. There is no truth in that. I would never have betrayed President Lincoln for an outsider.”

  “But you still have a reputation to preserve. The diary has a power to stain people that goes well beyond the truth of whatever is written in it. So you have had ample personal reasons to keep it out of the public eye.”