The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  And to prepare for the bar: for the head of the Female Department at Oberlin taught her girls that their sex was no barrier to entering the professions.

  So now Abigail read. She would sit up at the kitchen table into the late hours, turning the pages in fascination, making notes by the light of the lantern. She read Coke and Blackstone and Chitty and the other great treatise-writers. She had not imagined that there would be so much to take in. At the office each morning, she would slide the borrowed volumes back into their places, then do her sweeping and dusting, all the while waiting for McShane or Jonathan to give her something to do: copy a letter, deliver a package, or visit the Library of Congress to fetch a source not in the firm’s collection. While waiting, she would read. If sent on an errand, she would read while bumping along in cab or streetcar. At other times she would sit in the office and listen to the legal arguments, wondering when Dennard would return, and whether she would then be allowed to begin her formal apprenticeship.

  Jonathan had made clear that Abigail was expected to continue with her chores, even as she read a bit of law, and did a bit of research. She did not understand why he seemed embarrassed whenever he gave her an assignment. Yesterday she had handed him a short memorandum summarizing the trial of Charles I. She was not entirely sure what relevance might be found in the deposition of an English monarch, but she was sufficiently excited to be part of what was going on that she murmured no dissent. Abigail had never worked so hard in her life. Two nights ago, she had missed dinner at the Berryhills’. Dinah had stopped by the house, thinking her friend must be ill, and had found her bent over her books instead. Angry, Dinah warned Abigail that she was wasting her time with this law nonsense. Whether or not Lincoln was removed from office, Dinah scolded, their lives would go on as before.

  “That is not the point,” said Abigail.

  No, said Dinah. The point was that, if Abigail was not very careful, Octavius Addison would be snatched from under her nose—Octavius being a boring young mortician with a bit of education whose father ran one of Washington City’s colored newspapers.

  “And?”

  “And he will marry one of the Mellison girls rather than you.”

  “I am betrothed.”

  But Dinah had already returned to her list of the eligible men of their set who would soon be snatched up, by one of the predatory Mellison girls or some other pretty little shrew: Dinah’s term for most of the young colored women they knew, although others might suggest that the term applied best to Dinah herself.

  Abigail replied that she had no interest in Octavius or anyone other than her beloved Aaron; that any man who would marry one of the Mellison sisters was hardly worth competing for; and that, in any case, she intended to be a lawyer, and would not be sidetracked by worry over the domestic portion of life. And if a part of her understood that to give too many reasons was often to give no reason at all, another part of her was pleased to mislead even those she loved most, like Dinah or Nanny Pork, resisting any intrusion into the secret shadows of her remarkable mind.

  II

  On the morning of Friday, February 22, Abigail arrived early as usual, waved cheerily to the policeman guarding the lobby, who knew her by now and waved back, and climbed the stairs to the landing. Since Little was not yet in, she started a fire in the stove, then began sweeping the floor, even though she had already swept it last night. She sang as she worked. She did not particularly enjoy these chores, but they were a good deal easier than those laid upon her strong back by Nanny Pork; and if menial work proved the price of her advancement in the law, she would perform it with joy. For, as Nanny also said, no road worth traveling was smooth.

  Abigail had just settled at the table to resume her study of Blackstone when a heavy rapping drew her to the door.

  In the hallway stood Mr. Plum, the nervous, middle-aged legal secretary and copyist from Grafton’s firm down on the first floor, who sometimes did small tasks for Dennard & McShane. Plum was fluttery and disordered at best, and just now was not at his best.

  “Oh dear,” he said, eyes smeary behind smudged spectacles. “Oh dear.” Wringing his hands. “Oh, there you are!” he cried, as if she had been lost for many months. Then he turned and shouted down the stairs: “She is here! I found her!”

  “Who is out there, Mr. Plum?” asked Abigail, quite thrown. “What is the matter?”

  “Mr. Hilliman sent me to find you.”

  “I am where I always am at this hour.”

  Poor Plum could not meet her gaze. His hands were trembling, and he shuffled his feet like a schoolboy. “You’d better get down to the carriage, Miss Canner,” he said. “Something has happened.” A nervous pause. “Something bad.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Inspector

  I

  THE BODIES HAD been found outside a colored brothel operated by one Sophia Harbour, also known as Madame Sophie, at 489 Third Street, in the shadow of the Capitol with its grand new dome. Bodies, plural, because Mr. Arthur McShane did not die alone. He was found with a young colored woman. Inspector Varak acquainted Jonathan and Abigail, in perhaps more detail than necessary, with the bloodthirsty nature of the offense. Sliced up, he kept saying. Your friend was sliced up.

  And wanted to know who might have done such a thing.

  Jonathan confessed, shivering, that he had no idea. Abigail, sitting beside him, looked gray-faced and stricken. Jonathan had no words of comfort to offer. He had been in battle. He had charged the Confederate works at Petersburg, and watched men beside him blown to bits. He had shivered and wept. He had never known a man, or a woman, to be sliced up. He was angry and frightened, and wanted to see the body, but the inspector would not let him go to the morgue: Not really your job, son. More the sort of thing for family.

  The police were headquartered in a small brick building not far from the prison for high Confederate officials, near the Capitol. The fetid room where Varak asked his questions was in a corner of one of the basements. The murder, as the inspector had already noted, took place just a few short blocks from the Bannerman residence.

  “Have any enemies at all, your Mr. McShane?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  The inspector turned to Abigail, who murmured a negative.

  “A friendly sort of man? Gruff? Describe him for me.” Tapping his pen impatiently on his desk. “It’s just that I haven’t a picture of him at all.”

  Jonathan pondered how to explain his employer’s simple likability, his gregariousness, his way of guessing what you were thinking before you knew it yourself; his encyclopedic knowledge of obscure precedents from the British common law, and his easy familiarity with the Law Latin and the Law French. Jonathan wanted to put this into words, but all he managed was “Mr. McShane was an outstanding lawyer.”

  “Was he, then?”

  “Yes. A great legal mind.” Varak was proving difficult to impress. “One of the finest.”

  “Everyone liked him,” blurted Abigail, one of the few sentences she had uttered since entering the room.

  “Not everyone,” said the inspector, writing hard. Abigail blushed. Varak moistened a sausagy finger, turned a page. He was a broad, bluff man, mighty chest all but popping the brass buttons of his blue jacket. Shaggy brown locks hid a weathered, exhausted face, and Jonathan had the impression, the way one did around certain men, that he had done something heroic in the war. “Tell me again when you saw him last.”

  “Around six in the evening.”

  “Yesterday evening. Thursday.”

  “Yes.”

  “He was off to a meeting.”

  “Yes.”

  “What sort of meeting?”

  “I’m not really sure.”

  Varak stopped writing. His eyes were bulbous, and ready to disbelieve every word out of Jonathan’s mouth, or Abigail’s. “You are his law clerk.”

  “Yes.”

  He turned to Abigail. “And you?”

  “I have the honor to be employed as a cler
k for Mr. Dennard, his partner.”

  “Currently out of town.”

  “Yes.”

  Varak’s podgy eyes moved from one face to the other. “And neither of you knows where Mr. McShane was going?”

  “No.”

  “But you can hazard a guess, can’t you?” Addressing himself to Jonathan. “You’re an intelligent young man. Been at Yale, or so they tell me. I would imagine you’ve been considering nothing else since you heard the news.”

  Water was dripping somewhere. In the hallway a man laughed huskily. Jonathan spread his hands. He wanted out of the airless room. “Mr. McShane is a lawyer. Was. He drafted contracts, tried cases—whatever his clients needed. I have no idea on which client’s behalf he was working yesterday.”

  Those huge eyes held Jonathan’s for another second or two, then dropped once more to the page. “But he was working for only one client these days, so they tell me. I very much doubt he would have run off to draft a contract when he had a President to defend.” Before either could answer, Varak shifted his attention to Abigail, his look appraising. “Or maybe there wasn’t any client. Maybe his only meeting was with, say, this negress”—he peered at his notes—“this Rebecca Deveaux. Negotiating the price of her services, say.”

  Jonathan could not restrain himself. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Why? Do you think Miss Deveaux provided services to your friend Mr. McShane for free?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then I would say we’ve solved the mystery of where and with whom your Mr. McShane was meeting yesterday evening.”

  Before Jonathan could come up with a suitable response to this terrible calumny, Abigail interrupted.

  “Has it been established that Miss Deveaux was indeed a prostitute?”

  Varak’s heavy eyes burned. “Are you presuming to tell me my business?”

  Abigail’s voice was as submissive as Jonathan had ever heard it. “I would never do that, sir. It’s just that, if Miss Deveaux was not a prostitute, then it is possible that the meeting had another purpose.”

  “She was a prostitute,” said the inspector, closing the matter. He turned another page. His next question, asked without so much as a lift of the heavy head, took them by surprise. “Benjamin Wade. Benjamin Wade is who, please?”

  “Do you mean Senator Wade?” said Jonathan. “Senator Benjamin Wade from Ohio?”

  Varak’s eyes moved greedily. “I don’t mean anyone in particular.”

  “Senator Wade is leader of the Radicals.”

  “And the Radicals would be who, then, please?”

  Jonathan glanced at Abigail. He kept expecting her to stun Varak with her brilliance, the way she stunned Jonathan himself. But she was looking at the stained floor, her fists balled tightly, her chin tucked against her neck, a pose he had seen from time to time in civilians who survived the battle. He wanted to offer a smile of encouragement, but that was impossible if she never looked his way.

  “Who, please?” said the inspector, tapping the paper impatiently. “The Radicals.”

  “The Radicals,” said Jonathan, too didactically, “are a wing of the Republican Party. The President’s own party, but they despise him. They’re trying to get rid of him. Surely you have read about it in the papers.”

  “A lot of people despise this President. A couple of them have tried their hand at doing away with him.” He scribbled a note, turned another page. “I seem to recall that the late Vice-President might have been involved in one of those plots.”

  “That was a complete fabrication—”

  Inspector Varak was not even interested. “And why would these Radicals of yours hate the President so much?”

  “The conduct of the war, for one thing. And his policy—”

  “Opposing Mr. Lincoln’s war hardly makes a man a radical.” An echoing laugh, surprisingly hearty in the dank little room. “Everyone with any sense was against it. Whole thing was completely unnecessary. None of our business what the South does with its negroes.” He shook that heavy head, glanced at Abigail, then back at his book. “Half a million or more dead because of Abraham Lincoln’s vanity and lies.”

  Abigail’s head came back up, but she said nothing. Jonathan chose to challenge only the inspector’s implicit minor premise. “No, no, the Radicals thought the President’s war policy insufficiently energetic.”

  “He crushed the South, slaughtered its young men, burned their homes, and confiscated their slaves.” Varak’s voice was perfectly calm. “I understand the Union soldiers even melted down the railroad tracks when they weren’t busy helping themselves to all the silver and gold they could steal. That wasn’t energetic enough for your Mr. Wade and his Radicals?”

  Again Jonathan hesitated. The conversation had taken an absurd turn. He wanted to correct the inspector, who had evidently been reading the pro-Southern broadsheets. But Varak, like Lincoln himself, projected an air of competence that made one want to assist him in his inquiries.

  “They object to his policy toward the defeated states,” Jonathan explained. “The Radicals believe the South should be treated as a conquered territory. Mr. Lincoln considers the Southern states to be our wayward brothers. Inspector, please. I was not being serious. I am sure that the Radicals had nothing to do with—”

  Varak waved him silent. “I shouldn’t worry, Mr. Hilliman. Your friend Mr. McShane was sliced open with a prostitute at his side. Whoever did the deed took the time to slice her open as well. These are violent times, Mr. Hilliman. I shouldn’t think it has anything to do with politics.”

  But in Washington City during those sullen gray years after the war, everything had to do with politics. And so the newspapers, lately starved for scandal, dutifully exploited the crime. “President’s Lawyer Is Stabbed to Death,” said an anti-Lincoln sheet. “Lincoln’s Ally Dead with Negress,” said another. But the Republican press was scarcely better, omitting only the political connection: “Lawyer, Prostitute Murdered.” Jonathan wondered how Lincoln and his staff had reacted to the news; and who would now advise the President in the impeachment inquiry.

  Certainly his own days on the case, and Abigail’s, were likely at an end, given that Dennard had opposed the firm’s involvement from the start.

  Abigail surprised them both by speaking up. “Inspector, may I ask a question?”

  The huge eyes looked interested. Not in the question. In the species: a negress who thought for herself.

  “Please,” he said.

  “You said that Mr. McShane and Miss Deveaux were found on the sidewalk outside the brothel.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Do you happen to know whether they were on their way into the building, or on their way out?”

  Varak’s forehead creased. With irritation. “What possible difference does that make?”

  “I was just wondering,” said Abigail, meekly.

  The inspector gave her a long, searching policeman’s stare, the sort of look that was supposed to make you confess on the spot, then turned his attention back to Jonathan. “You asked why I raised the name of Benjamin Wade. Look at this.” From his desk he drew a wrinkled envelope, slit open at knife point. A brown stain might have been blood. Sliced up. He turned it over. “Happen to recognize the handwriting at all, do we?”

  “No,” said Jonathan.

  “No,” said Abigail, after a spooky pause.

  “Any idea what might have been in the envelope?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Pity. We found it just like this, beside McShane’s body. Bloody odd of them to leave it behind, don’t you think?”

  Jonathan might have nodded. He might have argued. He might have done a lot of things, had he not been staring at the inscription on the outside, in spiky handwriting he did not recognize:

  For Mr. Benjamin Wade

  Personal and Confidential

  “Bloody odd,” Varak repeated, and, with a rough, angry shove,
slid the envelope back into his desk.

  II

  From the police headquarters on Capitol Hill, they rode up to Nineteenth Street to pay a call on Mrs. McShane and express condolences. Abigail seemed shrunken and distracted. She insisted on waiting in the carriage. At the door, the maid told Jonathan that the widow was not receiving at this time, and that he should return tomorrow. Now, heading back to the firm’s offices, he turned to Abigail.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You should not have been there.”

  “It was I who insisted.”

  “Still.”

  “You are kind, Jonathan, but you need not worry about me. I know you have your own grieving to which to attend.”

  They rode along in silence for a bit. The winter sun was bright but cheerless. With Arthur McShane gone, Jonathan was possessed of a sudden longing to quit this sad little city. He should marry Meg and go back to Rhode Island, which was where in any event she wanted to go. She despised Washington society, as did nearly everyone not from Washington. Jonathan had come to the city because his late father and McShane had been good friends, and because Uncle Brighton, who nowadays ran the family business, thought his nephew should learn the law before taking the reins. Meg considered the whole thing a detour, and also suspected that Brighton was robbing the business blind, but Jonathan was not the sort of man who turned easily once his path was chosen.

  In that sense, at least, Abigail seemed a kindred spirit.

  Finally, he said, “There is no need to go to the office. If you would like, I can take you home.”

  “No, thank you. I have work to do.”

  A streetcar passed, horses struggling on the icy cobbles. Unfriendly eyes burned their way. Jonathan wondered whether passersby considered the two of them a couple.

  “You do realize that we are unlikely to continue representing the President in this matter.”

  She lifted her chin. “Until we are discharged, however, we should continue as we began, should we not?”