by A. A. Glynn
“A pair of helpful gentlemen who gave a much appreciated hand in apprehending the two you see here. I think they had to dash away being late for an engagement,” Dacers stated without batting an eye. He hated evading the truth when dealing with his old friend from Scotland Yard, but felt duty bound to protect the Bullochs from official scrutiny. He quickly changed the subject, nodding to Fortune, half-dressed and shivering in the February cold and Tebbutt, both now being guarded by the foremen and some of his crew. “I hand this pair over to you for reasons I’ll explain later,” said. He lifted up the leatherwork false hump. “And this object contains evidence vital to charges which will no doubt be brought.”
Again, he was holding back the full truth by not mentioning Sam Meakum, who had disappeared, but Meakum had moved to prevent Fortune and Tebbutt from killing him and, out of gratitude, he secretly hoped he would escape scot-free.
Twells’ detective companions moved forward, and placed their substantial hands on Fortune and Tebbutt.
Twells glowered at the pair of captives. “Two rum-looking coves, Septimus,” he rumbled. “They ought to be displayed at the Egyptian Hall with the other curiosities. Are they Americans?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
Twells produced a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Dacers.
“Because of this. A little urchin in rags and without shoes, looking as if he came out of the St. Giles Rookery or Seven Dials, rushed into the Detective Office just as I was finishing night duty and threw this on the desk. He said a bloke he didn’t know gave him sixpence—a whole sixpence, if you don’t mind—to deliver it. Then he ran off. It’s because of this note that we came up here this morning.”
Dacers unfolded the paper and perused it with his eyebrows raised in surprise. It read:
Inspector Twells, Sir:
I am given to understand that there are some Americans in the region of the Blue Duck and Blindman’s Yard, Hungerford Bridge, who’re up to no good.
Mr. Septimus Dacers, whom I believe is known to you, has gone there alone in his professional capacity and I fear there is a good chance that he will be harmed by them. I respectfully suggest it would be in his best interests and the interests of the Queen’s peace if your office investigated without delay.
A Concerned Citizen.
It was literate, written in the beautifully formed copperplate hand employed by engravers on legal documents and banknotes; there was a slight stain on one corner of the paper that looked like acid, and the paper itself was of a kind recently handled by Dacers when he looked at a proof of the letterhead of the Resurgent South, alias the Dixie Ghosts.
Who’d have thought it? he commented mentally. Setty Wilkins corresponding with the “crushers” he claims to hate! I felt all along he knew something about Fortune and his friends. The man’s an enigma. He seems to know about everything. And he thought he heard the echo of Setty’s archaic Cockney argot voicing something he had said a few days before:
“A man never knows vot’s vot these days.”
Indeed he doesn’t, Setty, old culley, assented Dacers mentally. Indeed he doesn’t!
“Septimus, I want you to come with us and these beauties to Scotland Yard to provide information on them,” declared Amos Twells. “We don’t know the first thing about them or what their lurk is, but I know you well enough to know you’d never collar them without proper cause.”
“A little later if you please, Amos,” said Dacers wearily. “I’d like to have a couple of hours’ sleep.”
Twells gave an irritated grunt. “Oh, no! This is my case now and I want to be on firm ground from the first. You’ll come now or I’ll clap the darbies on you and drag you in.”
“Very well,” Dacers agreed with a sigh, “but I hope you have the means of providing some tea and toast at the Detective Office.”
CHAPTER TEN
JUST DESERTS
At Scotland Yard, Septimus Dacers gave Twells a statement of what he knew of the activities of Fortune and his henchmen. It was a full disclosure but for the judicious omission of the true identities of James and Irvine Bulloch. There was no perversion of the course of justice in this, for they played only a marginal role in the affair of the Dixie Ghosts. He described them as two unknown passers-by who helped in the capture of Fortune and Tebbutt.
The missing Sam Meakum was another matter, since he had a material role in the group’s attempts to obtain finances, so Dacers gave information about him, emphasising the way he released Dacers when his murder was planned. Dacers hoped this would aid Meakum if he was brought to trial. Out of gratitude, he still secretly hoped Meakum managed to evade capture.
As he was on the way home after being at the headquarters of the detectives, he realised that, in spite of all the dizzying events that had occurred since he was plunged into the affair of the Dixie Ghosts, there was one glaring cause for dissatisfaction in the way it had turned out. He had not found the cause of Theodore Van Trask’s troubles, and therefore had not eased the distress of Roberta Van Trask, the bright-eyed and possibly naïve reason for his becoming involved in the first place. He had not fulfilled his promise to the girl.
Again, he felt that events had conspired to make a “guy” of him.
And he was stabbed by a sword of guilt the moment he entered the door of his lodgings. Mrs. Slingsby was standing in the hall, looking grave and eyeing his crumpled and grubby appearance with a measure of alarm.
“Miss Van Trask is here, Mr. Dacers,” she said, “And the poor girl seems very melancholy.”
As before, He found Roberta Van Trask seated in the parlour, and she did indeed appear to be most distressed.
He apologised for his unshaven state and the condition of his clothing, about which he felt acutely conscious in her presence. Then he apologised further. “I’m sorry, Miss Van Trask. There have been many developments in my investigations since I agreed to assist you, but I must admit I have so far failed to discover the reason for your father’s unhappiness.” As he spoke, he had a haunting recollection of the scorning voice of Cal Tebbutt, known to Miss Van Trask as “Fairfax,” declaring in anything but the tones of a Virginia aristocrat that Theodore Van Trask had betrayed his country.
Her troubled face broke into a sad smile. “That’s all right, Mr. Dacers. I’m sure you have done your very best. I called again to tell you that something has happened to increase my father’s worries. He has confided in me a little, but only a little, and says that, more than ever, he is in danger of being disgraced. I fear the strain will bring on his earlier illness again, and he is speaking of handing in his resignation to Mr. Adams.”
“What has happened to disturb him so?”
“A man, a Virginian, has shown up at the embassy and has asked for asylum. It seems he is frightened of the British authorities. He confesses to be an ex-Confederate but, as Mr. Lincoln said just before his death, we are one nation now. He is now a citizen of the United States and is entitled to asylum in the embassy.”
“And who is he?” asked Dacers.
“He says his name is Samuel Meakum.”
Dacers pricked up his ears at that. “Does he? I happen to know something about him. Has he been given asylum?”
“Yes, but Mr. Adams says much depends on the nature of the reasons for which the British Crown wants him,” she said. “There are some categories of law under which he must be handed over. He is lodged in the embassy for the time being, until the legal staff can go into the matter. As soon as he arrived, my father became more worried. He has confided in me, but it was only to say Meakum has the power to disgrace him—to ruin him. Nothing could induce him to say why. He is now on the verge of resigning, and I’m sure it is through fear of this Meakum man revealing something damaging about him. I’m worried, Mr. Dacers. I do not want my father to be disgraced after all his years in diplomacy, and I do not want him to resign if the matter is small but exaggerated in his mind by his state of anxiety.”
Again, Dacers recalled Tebbut
t, snarling from under the seated James Bulloch that Theodore Van Trask was a traitor. Whatever knowledge Tebbutt had of that matter was obviously shared by Sam Meakum. It might be something that would shock Roberta Van Trask if it came to light, though she plainly wanted to know about it. He decided to say nothing to her about the allegation of treason so as not to worry her further, but it now seemed imperative that he fulfil his original task on her behalf.
Prodded by the anxiety written on the face of Roberta Van Trask, his brain began to race, seeking a solution. He balanced what he knew of the characters of Theodore Van Trask, the American Ambassador, Charles Francis Adams, and Sam Meakum. The first two were of proven stolid devotion to their duties as servants of their country with the exception, in Van Trask’s case, of the flaw of an allegation of treasonable behaviour made by Tebbutt, a man of erratic and sometimes unbalanced temperament.
Meakum, with his blocky build and pugnacious face, looked like a prizefighter, but was not so ruffianly as his appearance suggested. Dacers recalled his efforts to restrain Tebbutt when he tended to violent extremes, but his crowning act in Dacers’ eyes was his releasing of Dacers when he was on the very verge of being murdered, then cutting himself loose from Fortune and Tebbutt. There was certainly decency in Sam Meakum.
Roberta Van Trask studied Dacers as he stood in front of her, dishevelled, tousle-haired, dusty, and looking anything but his usual well turned out self. He held his hand to his head, thinking deeply, and she felt a lift of the heart and a surge of warm affection for him. He appeared to her a hero, battered and wearied by his recent misadventures, but ready to champion her father and himself.
Dacers took his hand from his head and said: “Miss Van Trask, what does Mr. Adams think of your father?”
She looked puzzled. “Why, I know he has the greatest respect for him and the greatest trust in him. Both he and Mrs. Adams were extremely kind to him during his bout of illness.”
“And what does he think of me?”
“Well, I know he has a great deal of faith in you, and he has told you himself how much he appreciated your help when you accompanied my father to Liverpool.”
“And, lastly, what does he feel about you?”
“He has always shown me the most tender affection. Mr. Adams is a family man and I always felt he was as kind to me as to his own children.”
Dacers’ unshaven face relaxed into a slight smile. “Good. So we are all in good standing with Mr. Adams. Do you think, if you make an overture on my behalf, he will allow me into the embassy to talk to Samuel Meakum in confidence? But do not let your father know about it under any circumstances.”
The girl frowned. “I’m not sure. I don’t know anything about the diplomatic niceties of such a thing, but I will ask Mr. Adams if it is possible.”
“Good, but, remember, your father must know nothing about it. So, if I visit the embassy, I do not want to encounter Mr. Van Trask. You might suggest that Meakum and I meet at a secluded spot in the garden,” Dacers said.
“I’ll try, Mr. Dacers,” she promised. “I’ll try.”
Her efforts were not in vain and, the following morning, a footman from the U.S. Embassy arrived at Dacers’ lodgings with a formal note bringing the compliments of the Honourable Charles Francis Adams, United States’ Ambassador to the Court of St. James, requesting the company of Septimus Dacers, Esq., the following afternoon. It specified that Mr. Dacers should meet Mr. Adams in the garden of the embassy.
Dacers, in sober frock coat, tall hat, and carrying his stick, arrived at the embassy with some trepidation. He was going to take a chance on behalf of Theodore Van Trask and his daughter, and hoped it would pay off. Everything depended on Sam Meakum co-operating with him, and on the breadth of tolerance and understanding of Ambassador Adams.
Charles Francis Adams himself, gravely dignified in middle age with white hair on two sides of a balding portion of his head, met him in the vestibule of the building and offered his hand. “Mr. Dacers, welcome to the soil of the United States. I remember with gratitude your earlier service for us,” he greeted. “Our guest, Mr. Meakum, is willing to see you and is waiting in the garden. I am sure there is no reason why you should not converse in private, so I’ll take you to him and leave you alone.”
Sam Meakum, in new clothing obviously supplied by the Embassy, and looking very different from the shaking, fearful man who cut Dacers’ bonds, was sitting in a chair in a quiet corner of the garden. A second chair had been provided for Dacers.
They shook hands. “First, I want to thank you for cutting me loose at Blindman’s Yard and for saving me from a watery grave,” said Dacers. “I want you to know that, if the British authorities claim you and the embassy cannot protect you, I’ll speak up for you at your trial.”
Meakum looked relieved and mumbled his thanks.
“And, to save the reputation of a good man, I’d like to know exactly what hold Cal Tebbutt had over Mr.Van Trask, and why he burst in on him and threatened him with a pistol.”
Meakum spoke volubly, seeming only too willing to unfold the story.
“Tebbutt and I hit hard times,” he began. “I came from a Virginia farm, but ran away to sea as a youngster to get away from my bullying old man. In the war between the States, I was in a Southern ship running the Yankee blockade on the Southern coast. That’s where I met Tebbutt, likewise a Virginian who’d had a wandering time. He’d served in the Confederate Army from early in the war, got some kind of a head wound in the battle of Shiloh, and it caused him to act kind of peculiar every once in a while, ’specially after drinking.
“Well, he was released from the army after being wounded and seems to have drifted around a bit, then decided he’d try the sea. Though he was no kind of a sailor, the blockade-running business needed all the hands it could get, and he finished up in my ship, the Possum. I kind of took to him and helped him out so far as seamanship was concerned. He came to depend on me quite a bit. Then disaster struck us. We were running for Southampton to collect a cargo we hoped to break through the blockade with when a Yankee vessel trailed us and sank us.” Meakum paused and shuddered at the memory.
“Tebbut and me survived in the sea for a long time, but many shipmates drowned. In the end, we were picked up by a British ship and brought into Southampton. We were stranded in England, had our fill of war, and wandered a while, getting a little work here and there and we finally reached London.”
Meakum went on to tell how the pair discovered the Blue Duck. Josiah Tooley, the landlord, had a young brother who had emigrated to America, settled in South Carolina, and joined a state militia regiment at the beginning of the Civil War. He was killed early in the hostilities. This connection made Tooley sympathetic to the South and his pub became popular with various Southerners in London. A very mixed bag.
Through the Blue Duck, the pair of stranded seamen made contact with Henry Hotze. An energetic Swiss journalist who had earlier settled in Alabama, Hotze established a pro-Confederate newspaper, The Index, in London. It sought to bring British public opinion to accept the breakaway Southern states as a legitimate nation.
Meakum and Tebbutt began to work for him, distributing the paper and performing other chores. This brought them in some regular money. which, unfortunately, gave Tebbutt a chance to indulge in hard liquor. And, because he thought it would give him some standing among Southern exiles and the British upper crust, he adopted the distinguished name of Fairfax.
During their association with Hotze, the pair frequented the region of the United States’ Embassy, monitoring the comings and goings there and occasionally picking up scraps of gossip and rumour useful to The Index’s campaign. One day, while in the small park near the embassy, they encountered Theodore Van Trask taking the air. When speaking to Northerners in the vicinity of the embassy, they disguised their Southern accents as best they could, and Van Trask, in conversation with them, seemed not to realise that they were Southerners.
Septimus Dacers leaned forward in h
is chair, eager for the part of Meakum’s narrative he most wanted to hear.
An hour later, he was in the office of Charles Francis Adams, sitting before Adams’ desk, having just related to Adams what Meakum told him. He had mixed feelings of both fear and hope. For he had taken a chance on either saving or ruining the diplomatic career of Theodore Van Trask as well as his reputation as an American loyal to the Union.
Adams leaned back in his chair and looked at Dacers levelly. “So, Mr. Dacers,” he said, “as a lawyer, I like to have a full grasp of the evidence. So, let me review everything I have heard from you.
“You say Mr. Van Trask, on meeting Meakum and Tebbutt, revealed to them that his nephew, Major Nicholas Van Trask, was a prisoner of the Confederates in Libby Prison in Richmond? Heaven knows that was a ghastly place, a converted tobacco warehouse where captured Union officers were housed in wretched conditions and half starved. Certainly, no man deserved to be held there, much less some of the best officers in the Union service.”
Ambassador Adams, paused and his face reflected his disgust at the thought of Libby Prison. “I knew from Mr. Van Trask, of course, that his nephew was a prisoner in Richmond, but understood he managed to escape. I did not know the details Meakum revealed: that he and Tebbutt told Mr. Van Trask that Hotze, that slippery but clever enemy of the Union, had influence with certain circles in Richmond and could organise the major’s release for a sum of money—a considerable sum, which would go into the Confederate war coffers.
“Mr. Van Trask kept it all secret from his daughter and myself, met the pair in secret, and paid over the money. Meakum and Tebbutt were honest brokers in that deal.”
Adams seemed slightly amused, shook his head and the suggestion of a smile passed over his lips. “I’ll say this for Henry Hotze: so far as my side in the war was concerned, he was a confounded nuisance, but an honest one according to his lights. The money went into the sources that saw to Major Van Trask’s release. I can tell you that the major’s story from then on was one of extreme heroism, though ultimately tragic.