Murder in the Oval Library

by C. M. Gleason

  Lincoln made a muffled noise that sounded like an abbreviated laugh and looked up from his random perusal of papers. His eyes were light with humor—not related to the subject matter, Adam knew, but due to the shocked reaction of his advisors.

  “Gratefully, I was in bed by half-past eleven, which is where I stayed until just before dawn. Mrs. Lincoln was with me,” he added unapologetically. “Our slumber was only disturbed once—by John here. I woke at half-past five to get shaved and to the news that there had been a plan to blow up Willard’s”—Adam’s eyes widened; for this was news to him—“but the plot was foiled. And so was the invasion of the city—so far, anyway. Since then, I’ve been here.” The president spread his long-fingered hands to indicate the office. “In meetings,” he added with such a grave tone that it was almost edging into self-deprecating humor.

  Adam gave him a grateful look, and though he wished he didn’t have to do so, pressed further. “Mr. President, as your bedchamber is only two doors from the oval library, I reckon I should ask whether you heard any sounds from that room during the night.”

  Lincoln thought before responding, tilting his head as he seemed to mentally review the time in question. “I couldn’t say for certain, but I reckon I might have heard a small thump or thud sometime in the night. It would have been after you woke me, John. What time was’at? But it wasn’t loud enough to cause alarm—at least, it didn’t sound like an invading army.” His dry attempt at humor produced a short, dutiful bark of laughter from Scott.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Adam said formally. He turned to the others with an expectant look.

  As their commander had so willingly answered the questions put to the room at large, the rest of them could have no hesitance in responding.

  “I was awake—writing in the diary I started just last night,” replied John Hay in a rueful tone. “Near midnight, Thomas Burns came up to this floor. A visitor had arrived downstairs and wanted to speak urgently to the president. Instead of bothering him, I had Thomas bring her into the anteroom up here and spoke with her there, then relayed the message.”

  The anteroom was the waiting room situated between the president’s office and the oval library. This was a spacious chamber where Lincoln generally met with people like job-seekers or others who weren’t particularly distinguished and didn’t need to be seen in his office.

  “Her? The visitor was a woman?”

  Benson had mentioned seeing possibly a skirt at the top of the stairs just around midnight, so that fit. But he’d also heard people talking.

  Hay nodded, and, as there often was, a little sparkle of pleasure glinted in his eyes. His normal mood was one of cheer and charm, though today he sported circles under his eyes—as did everyone else in the chamber. “It was Mrs. Jean Davenport Lander. The famous actress, and wife of Colonel Lander.”

  The woman’s name didn’t sound familiar to Adam, but he reckoned he wasn’t all that up on the names of such people. “What did she want?” he asked, even though he didn’t know that the content of her message would be relevant to the matter at hand. “And how long did she stay? Who came with her?”

  “She brought word of a plot to assassinate—or capture—the president. Six or so Virginians, collected by a man named Ficklin. One of them was bragging about it when he came into town to buy a horse, and made the mistake of saying so to Mrs. Lander. We’ve already sent someone to Richmond to find Ficklin,” added Hay. “As to who else . . . well, Mrs. Lander had a maid who came inside with her. She must have wanted to see the inside of the President’s House,” he added dryly. “Only I guess the colonel wasn’t with her, or surely he would have come in and left the maid at home.

  “Mrs. Lander left about twenty past midnight, I’d say, and then I went in and woke up the president to tell him about it. After that, I wrote some more in my diary and then went to bed. I believe I slept because I woke up at five when Nicolay banged on my door. Been here in the shop almost ever since except to use the water closet or get more coffee.”

  Adam nodded his thanks and tried not to allow his attention to fixate on the news Mrs. Lander had brought. Assassination attempts and threats had been being made to Lincoln since the election and, he wagered, that wasn’t going to end anytime soon.

  “I left here at half-past ten last night,” said General Scott with an air of irritation. “Came back this morning at seven. I didn’t see anyone coming in or out of the library.”

  Similarly, Secretary Cameron hadn’t spent the night in the Executive Mansion, but had left with Scott. Major Hunter, who was managing the two corps of soldiers between the White House and the Capitol, also was gone overnight, leaving well before eleven.

  Even though Adam glanced at Lane, who’d seemed anxious to leave, it was Nicolay who spoke next with his story. He was the son of German immigrants, and tended to be far more sober and brusque than the younger, assistant secretary John Hay. “I worked in my office until about half-past eleven, then went to bed and attempted to sleep. I stuffed two handkerchiefs in my ears and pulled on a hat so I didn’t hear much of anything, but I didn’t get a damned wink of sleep. Didn’t leave my room until five o’clock when word came about the ruined plot to explode Willard’s. I woke the president then.”

  “All right. Thank you.” Adam looked at Lane, the last one to speak.

  “As you know, I slept on the floor across the president’s doorway. I spoke to John when he came with the news from Mrs. Lander. It was almost half-past midnight. I left my post when the president left his bedchamber at half-past five to go to his office.”

  “Timmons mentioned you did a perimeter walk around the outside of the mansion at midnight to speak to your guards,” Adam said.

  Lane seemed a bit taken aback. “Yes, of course I did. I spoke to each one of them to make certain they knew their area of responsibility, give them the new password, and to confirm the end of each guard duty. I was back at my post by half-twelve, and that’s when I saw Hay coming out of Mr. Lincoln’s bedroom after waking him.”

  “Then you must have seen Mrs. Lander and her maid,” Adam said.

  “Yes, I reckon I did. Her hackney driver had parked under the portico and was waiting there when I walked out to make my perimeter. She and her maid must have already gone in and upstairs, but when I finished my walk around the house, the carriage was just driving away.”

  “Was there anyone in the corridor during the night other than Hay when he woke the president?”

  If anyone had seen or heard the murderer, it would have been Lane, sleeping in the doorway of the chamber two doors from the oval library. Adam knew from experience that his friend, when on guard duty, woke at the slightest sound or disturbance.

  “No.”

  “Did you hear any unusual noises in the night?”

  “Nothing unusual.” Lane gave a wry smile. “But there were fifty soldiers sleeping on the floor downstairs, and who can say what’s unusual. I didn’t hear anything from the library overnight, if that’s what you want to know.”

  If Lane didn’t hear or see anything, he didn’t. But how could that be? At least two people—Johnny Thorne and his killer—had to have gone into and out of the oval library sometime in the night.

  Unless the murder had happened much later than Adam believed. . . but even then, after five o’clock in the morning, people were up and moving around on this floor. Someone would have seen something. Especially with all the blood that would have been on the killer’s hands and clothing.

  “There’s a door connecting the library and the president’s waiting room. And that door on that wall there,” said Hay, pointing to a small, unobtrusive door at the back of the room, “leads from this office to the waiting room. So someone could move between all these rooms without going through the corridor.”

  Lincoln added quietly, “And there is a door connecting the oval library to Mrs. Lincoln’s bedchamber . . . which then connects to my bedchamber.”

  Adam stared aghast as Lane choked
back some noise that sounded like an outraged, disbelieving curse.

  “I believe it would be prudent,” Lincoln continued in his understated manner, “to move a dresser in front of Mrs. Lincoln’s bedchamber door that leads into the library. Under the circumstances.”

  Lane still seemed to be struggling with his outrage and frustration, but he merely nodded. Then, after a moment of taut silence where everyone seemed unwilling to criticize the president for a lack of care for his own safety, the Kansas senator passed his rifle from one hand to the other, leaving his right hand free to shake that of Lincoln’s. “I’ll return as soon as I’m able—with as many men as possible.”

  “Thank you, Jim. God willing you’ll scare up a passel of them, and that we get word from somewheres up north that the troops from New York and Ohio are near. And that the Massachusetts has passed through Baltimore.” Lincoln glanced out the window, where he had an unobstructed view of Confederate tents just across the river.

  Eight hundred feet away. Adam could hardly credit the situation. If Maryland secedes . . . and even if it doesn’t . . . Washington is caught in a trap.

  Let our troops come soon.

  As Lane went to leave, someone knocked on the other side of the door. It was William Stoddard, the youngest and newest of the president’s secretaries. “Chase and Seward are here,” he said, referring to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State, respectively.

  Lincoln looked as if he were about to say something, then clamped his lips closed and nodded.

  Adam could have spent a few moments bringing the president up to date on his investigation, but there was so little to tell as yet that he couldn’t bear to burden the man with any more unpleasant information. Instead, he shook his honorary uncle’s hand and merely said, “I’ll be on my way as well. When there’s something important, Mr. President, I’ll report.”

  He wasn’t certain Lincoln even heard him, for Chase and Seward entered the room, and talk immediately swung to armies, edicts, and strategy.

  When Adam came out of the president’s office, he turned in the direction of the oval library. The ever-present job-seekers were still there, lined up along the hall . . . but Miss Gates was not, as he’d expected, at her station outside the oval room.

  Instead, the door was ajar—and, as he strode down the corridor, he heard voices coming from inside the chamber.

  Precisely what he had been trying to avoid.

  Where the blazes was Miss Gates?

  CHAPTER 4

  IN SOPHIE’S OPINION, THE OPEN AND EASY ACCESS TO THE PRESIDENT’S House was both distressing and shocking. She stood at her post outside the oval library and tried to ignore the line of people—mostly men, attired in all manner of clothing and aroma—who were apparently waiting to see the president without an appointment.

  Aside from that, she could hardly believe they’d come today, with the Confederates breathing down the city’s figurative neck—and that they’d actually been admitted to the house. Not only admitted to the house, but allowed on the second floor where the family lived and the president did his work!

  But tension and nerves abounded, even among those seeking something from Mr. Lincoln—a job, a pardon, or a commission. Everyone throughout the mansion was on tenterhooks as they waited to see whether the city would be invaded tonight or not.

  Every time a door opened on the east end of the corridor—where the president and his secretaries apparently had offices—those waiting in line jolted to attention and began to call out to whomever had appeared. Heaven forbid Mr. Lincoln himself should show even a whisker or the toe of a clunky shoe; she could only imagine the riot that would break out.

  Sophie was torn between reluctant admiration for the tenacity of the job-seekers and irritation that they would dare to bother him or his staff during this anxious, dangerous time.

  Thus, she intended to take no notice of them, even though she stood in the corridor and was facing the line of people (which, unbelievably, stretched along the wing where the family’s bedchambers were located—what would happen if the president should walk out of his bedchamber in a night robe and slippers?). But it became difficult to ignore the queue, for she found herself drawn into listening to the soupçon of conversation rattling along around her. She’d always found people—what they did, why they did it, and how they went about doing so—fascinating and instructive.

  That was, in part, why she wanted to be a journalist. Wasn’t that precisely what the news was? Reporting on what happened and why and how, and the effects on people—along with the motivations of the people behind those actions.

  “Is it true there’s a dead body in there?” one of the men finally asked her. He was dressed in the clothing of a middle-class man—likely a tradesman of some sort: clean and hemmed trousers devoid of patches or mending, a crisp, white cotton shirt, a dark blue waistcoat, and over it all he wore a greatcoat that went halfway to his knees.

  “No,” Sophie replied truthfully.

  “But there was,” said another man with a bald head and bright red beard, clutching a silk top hat. “I heard them!”

  “Who was it?”

  “Was it one of them damned—pardon me, miss—Rebels, and got what he deserved?”

  “Did he try to sneak in to kill the president?”

  Suddenly she found herself the center of attention of a dozen pairs of eyes. Their owners shifted closer as if preparing to receive a confidence, and the line adjusted to snake in a delicate curve closer to her.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Sophie replied, then swiftly took control of the conversation, redirecting it back to the curious. “And you’re all waiting to speak to Mr. Lincoln? What do you hope he can do for you?”

  To her mild surprise, as a group, they seemed eager to tell of their hopes and intentions. Perhaps they believed she might be able to help their individual causes in some way.

  “I reckon I’m here for a position at the Treasury,” one of them told her. He was short and wiry with gray threading his dark beard and sideburns. “I got some news for him about them Rebels too, and when I tell him, he’s going to want to hire me.”

  “I want a post office commission,” said a different one, dressed in slightly newer clothing. He had a shiny black walking stick with a silver knob at the top, and a matching tip at the bottom.

  “I’ve got a letter from my cousin, who’s married to Mrs. Lincoln’s sister’s nephew, says I’m the man for a job at the patent office.” The man brushed his hand down over a dark beard, and she noticed he was missing part of a finger. “Got the letter from Mr. White right here!” He tried to hand it to her, but she avoided taking it.

  “I’m only here to tell Mr. Lincoln I’m loyal to him, and to the Union,” said a tall man dressed in shabby clothing that exposed bony wrists in the same way the president’s clothing did to his long arms. “And I’ll fight for him!”

  She looked at him. “I believe he’s going to need all the help he can get. But perhaps you’d be better served by speaking to General Scott rather than waiting around to speak to the president.”

  “Them Rebels—they tried to blow up Willard’s last night,” said Mrs. Lincoln’s cousin’s nephew—or whoever he was with the letter he’d shoved at her. “Need to have their arses—er, excuse me, miss—need to send them packing!”

  The non sequitur drew Sophie’s attention. “Someone tried to blow up Willard’s? The hotel?”

  “Sure was. They found a bunch o’ piles o’ rags hidden throughout the hotel. Looked like they was going to light them on fire and let it go.”

  “I heard about that too,” said another man further up the line. “About Willard’s. That black doorman found it all—and I’m here to tell Mr. Lincoln I’m going to sign up for helping keep him safe.” He sported a dark mustache that drooped so far over his lips he appeared to lack a mouth.

  “Do they know who did it?” Sophie asked, already thinking of the headline for another speculative news article: Willard’s
Nearly Blown Sky High by Sneaky Sympathizers.

  Of course, she didn’t know for certain the culprits were southern, but considering the fact that the Willard Hotel was where Colonel Clay’s small troop was garrisoned, and also that Mr. Lincoln had stayed there before his inauguration, it made perfect sense.

  Before either of the men could respond to her question, Sophie noticed one of the maids. She was peeking out from the luxurious bedchamber named after the Prince of Wales’s visit last year, across from Mrs. Lincoln’s bedroom and just down from the door Mr. Quinn had asked her to guard. Sophie recognized the maid as Leah, the woman who’d discovered the body of Johnny Thorne. Leah’s eyes darted nervously between Sophie, the lineup of job-seekers, and the door to the library. She was carrying a broom and what appeared to be a dust cloth.

  Speaking of people and their reactions and motivations . . .

  “Leah,” Sophie called, and smiling, beckoned to her with what she hoped was a comforting smile. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

  Aware of the prying ears and eyes of the people in line, Sophie made another snap decision and opened the door to the library as the maid walked toward her. Leah stumbled to a halt, her eyes widening and her broom tipping when she realized the other woman wanted her to accompany her inside the terrifying room, but Sophie gave her an implacable look and gestured her inside.

  Taking care to keep the view from the corridor as obscured as possible, Sophie slipped inside the room after the maid and pulled the door nearly closed behind her.

  “Oh, praise Heaven, it’s gone,” Leah whispered. Her eyes were only a trifle less wide and horrified now, for her attention had gone to the bloodstains on the floor, then to the splatters over the wall and spines of books. The dark, floor-length curtains over the window nearest the body were still closed, and Sophie was certain they too had splatters of blood on them—though it was difficult to tell from where she stood.