The Technologists: A Novel

by Matthew Pearl

  From inside Ellen’s laboratory a strange noise sounded, like a baby crying or babbling some new word. Marcus could not help but picture the caldron in the cartoon—the awful power of suggestion—and imagine an orphan baby, whose eyelashes and toenails she used in experiments. To make matters more enigmatic, a pungent, stale odor like mold drifted out from her chambers.

  “What was that noise?” Bob asked, quick to turn the questioning away from them. He took a step toward her room.

  “This is my private laboratory, Mr. Richards—it is my sanctuary, my mecca, from crude boys like you two.” But her advantage on them had weakened. “My time is too precious to waste in chitchat and gossip,” she said, turning her back to them.

  “Go back to your mecca, then. And I mean Salem!” Bob called out as she closed and latched her door behind her, silencing the weird noises inside.

  As they walked back upstairs together, Bob worried aloud. “If she has an inkling that we are doing something out of the way, the faculty will hear about it at railroad speed. She will give us up without a murmur.”

  “I agree. She is placed in a position where she might feel she should take any opportunity to please the faculty. It is best not to draw her attention.” Marcus hesitated, but continued. “It sounds like you wish her to leave the school.”

  Bob shrugged. “If she does, I should hold the door open for her like a gentleman. I have too many things to do to worry much on it. You know, it sounds very much like you wish to defend her, or accuse me, Mansfield!”

  “We just need no other set of eyes looking at us.”

  “I wonder that hers don’t turn us to stone,” Bob quipped.

  “I have had a conversation or two with her. She is never dull.”

  “Dull, perhaps not. She read our faces like we were signboards. Up close, her looks are rather striking—I mean, as struck in the face with the fist of an ogre. Did you notice one of her eyes is larger than the other?”

  “No.”

  “From too much time looking through her microscopes, I’d wager. And each finger is stained another color of the rainbow from the myriad vials of acids and chemicals she handles. It makes me glad to work with metals. Turn the page, Mansfield—we have much to accomplish.”

  Bob told Marcus his latest plan: With the dinner break about to begin, Edwin would stay behind in the laboratory to finish sketching their salvage equipment, while the two of them would go back to State Street.

  “Come, then, on to the sports fields,” Bob said.

  “I thought we were going to the business district.”

  “We will do both. Bryant Tilden is going to help.”

  “Tilden? Are you cracked?”

  “I promised you I’d find a way to leave without being noticed, didn’t I?”

  When they reached the fields, which had been dusted with snow overnight, those eleven who had come to play looked to Bob, as usual, for direction.

  He announced, “This afternoon, men, let’s play baseball!”

  There were audible groans, and many turned away. In their occasional baseball games, Bob, naturally the pitcher, had never found more than five men, who then had to do double duty, running back and forth between sides in each play. It was not easy to build enthusiasm.

  Tilden stepped forward, relishing the moment.

  “What a scrubby choice of game, Richards. I say those who don’t want to play this scrubby baseball go to the fields over there and play football with me.”

  Bob nodded with satisfaction at Marcus as the athletes fell in behind Tilden. Marcus tried to hide a grin under a forced cough, as he, Bob, and Edwin were left standing triumphantly by themselves.

  As soon as Tilden and his cohorts were safely away, the three bolted—Edwin circling back to the rear entrance on Newbury behind the building, and Marcus and Bob racing each other through the streets to the horsecar station.

  XX

  A Study of State Street

  STATE STREET REMAINED IN DISARRAY though the businessmen, as Boston businessmen will do, tried to go about their endeavors as if everything around them were normal. Sheets and towels were draped over windows that were still missing their panes, and on street corners there were piles of lumber stacked high from furniture that had been broken in the crush of people trying to escape buildings. As had been the case near the harbor, much of the public stayed away out of fear or superstition or both. Workingmen, by contrast, were in great abundance, installing new windows and removing debris, a process that had been stymied by dismal weather.

  “We are in the very shadow of the Boston Massacre itself in these streets, Mansfield. Right there in front of that door, a mob formed, shouting from all sides, ‘Drive out the rascals!’ ” Though Marcus had been in Boston ever since he was taken out of Smith Prison during the war, Bob still took pride in pointing out the historical sights of the city, and while he meant well, it reminded Marcus that Boston did not run through his blood. “Though I know not whether strangers to our city wish to find such sights anymore—it is the smokestacks of the East Cambridge Glass Manufactory, not Bunker Hill’s sublime granite finger, that the eyes of visitors search for in our skies these days. What is it you wanted to look for, anyway?”

  “Something I was thinking might be of use to us there, at the Old State House,” Marcus replied, gesturing toward the quaint brick façade of the building. “First we will need you to be measured for a suit.”

  “Mansfield, you are sounding dangerously like me. What do you have in mind?” As Bob accompanied Marcus up the steps he listened gamely to the plan.

  The Old State House had stubbornly retained its maiden name long after it had traded its government function for a commercial one. The lower story was mostly lawyers’ offices, and there were several tailors above. Marcus rang at the door of a tailor’s office that faced the State Street side.

  Marcus frowned when there was no answer. “Perhaps they have not returned to work yet since the incident.”

  “I have known a few Boston tailors in my life, Mansfield, and if I can say one thing about them it’s that they would have their tape measures at hand as they are lowered into their caskets.” Bob rang the bell again sharply, and this time the old tailor opened the door and greeted them with gusto, as if welcoming the first customers to a new shop. With the streets around this location so empty, business had no doubt slowed to a trickle.

  The tailor was a slight, shriveled man who was probably easy to miss outside in the world but expansive and enthusiastic in the kingdom of his shop. “You must be Harvard boys,” he guessed.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Bob, “proudly so. I need a suit made. Graduation events coming upon us, you know, balls and so on, and the Boston rule is you can never decline an invitation. Let’s cut a splurge! The latest from Paris, if you please.”

  “Of course, dear boy!” the tailor replied, dropping an array of needles from inside his sleeve into the palm of his hand, as proudly as a cat showing its claws. “Come stand over here, if you please.”

  While the tailor cornered his customer by the mirror, Marcus stepped quietly into a back room under the eaves. From inside his coat, he pulled out a switchblade. He peered back into the other room, where Bob regaled the tailor with stories of some legendary Phillips Exeter football game. Marcus gestured to Bob with an upward moving hand. Bob saw his drift, pitching his voice louder.

  The window under the eaves was partially opened. Marcus lifted it higher and stepped carefully out onto the ledge. His balance was precarious at first on the sloping shingled roof, but he managed to pull himself completely out and then up to the narrow, flat top. On an ordinary day, the sight of a man standing high on the Old State House would have attracted attention and speculation. He counted on the fact that the laborers spilling up and down the street making repairs in, around, and on top of buildings would sufficiently disguise his activity. Above him, at the height of the tower on the roof, the flags of each of the Boston newspapers rolled and unrolled in the breeze
, staking their claims for public attention. It was a clear, chilly day. Below him, he was struck by the many distinct noises he could hear—snatches of conversation, the shouts of workmen, the racket of horses and wagons. But no music, he noticed. No piano playing from any windows, and certainly no organ grinders. These were not welcome among the strict commerce conducted here.

  He put one foot in front of another across the center line of the roof until he reached the edge overlooking State Street. Crouching, he leaned over the gold-plated clock that had faithfully kept time for the inhabitants of this crucial quarter of the city—until the day time had ceased. That day, the glass of the clock had melted over its face, obscuring and locking down the hands.

  Locking time, Marcus thought to himself. Lying flat on his stomach, he reached down and carved off portions of the discolored crust of glass bit by bit. He hoped Bob was keeping the tailor busy. If not, the next face he might see would be that of a Boston policeman.

  Reaching down, he maneuvered his hand through the melted glass until he could feel the Roman numbers of the clock face and the clock’s hands. He pulled his arm out and mopped his brow with his sleeve.

  Retracing his steps over the roof and back through the window into the tailor’s office, he found he had nothing to worry about—he could have crashed through the roof without the old man noticing. Bob had the tailor enthralled, and was now in the midst of rich gossip about the finer Boston Brahmin families.

  When Bob saw Marcus had returned, he declared to the tailor that he had to call on a young, pretty, and eminently wealthy young woman and her family to continue a great love affair, the prospect of which the tailor approved heartily.

  “Dear me!” the tailor said as they took their leave. “But you never said your name.”

  “Many apologies, my good fellow. I am William Blaikie, stroke oar and First Scholar of Harvard ’68. You may add the charges for the suits on the Blaikie credit, of course. To borrow is human, to pay back, divine.”

  “Indeed, Master Blaikie!” said the tailor playfully. “And give my regards to the Lowells and the Abbotts at the next mask ball, will you please?”

  “Suits?” Marcus asked when they were coming down the stairs.

  “Three, for good measure,” Bob said, nodding. “Only the most fashionable for Blaikie for his summer in Newport.”

  “I see you had no problem keeping the old fellow’s attention.”

  “Did you know the word respectable is used in Boston more than anywhere else in the world, Mansfield? Once you know that, you know everything.”

  As they exited the building, there was a young boy who had been loitering on their way in, now slumped on the steps to one of the office buildings under repair.

  “On with ya!” growled a workman, throwing a brick out a window. Scurrying away, the boy almost knocked into Bob.

  “Whoa there, lad!” he said, grabbing the boy by the shoulder. “You shouldn’t hang around while these repairs are made. It’s hard company.”

  “What do you know, you blasted swell?” the boy demanded, pushing with both hands against Bob’s strong chest. “I belong ’ere more than you, I bet!”

  Bob chuckled and continued down the street.

  Marcus motioned with one finger for Bob to wait.

  “I thought we were in a hurry, Mansfield,” Bob complained.

  “If he believes he belongs here, this is probably not his first visit,” Marcus said. “Did you notice his arm when he pushed you?”

  Bob shrugged. “Lame. What of it?”

  Marcus turned back to the boy and stretched his hand out. “What’s your name, lad?”

  “Theophilus,” the boy said, spitting the word out. “Theo, for short,” he said in a softer voice, belatedly accepting Marcus’s waiting hand and giving it a light shake.

  “Theo,” Marcus repeated approvingly. He was studying him. “Theo, my name is Marcus.”

  “Come on, Mansfield, what could he know?” Bob urged.

  “More than you, I’d wager, you hog in togs!” the boy rejoined, snapping his cap at him.

  “Really? And how much would a lad like you possess to wager?” Bob replied.

  “This is my good friend Bob,” Marcus interrupted.

  “Well, he has a mouth on ’im, bless ’im!”

  “Hold on there, you little scamp!”

  “He does at that, Theo.” Marcus smiled. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

  The boy shrugged, a shadow passing over his haggard face. With a heavy sigh, he looked down at his right arm and began rotating his hand limply. There was a thick band of scars around it. His face contorted into a wince. “Some weeks back now. Wrist hurt bad,” he murmured, holding back a sob.

  Bob raised an eyebrow when the boy named the time of his injury. Marcus knelt down to Theo’s level and put his hands gently on his shoulders. “Were you inside one of these buildings when that happened? This one?” he said of the edifice nearest where the boy had been loitering.

  Theo nodded. “Best bank porter Front Merchants’ has ever had. Then the glass … My hand got stuck in the window when the glass, because I …” He paused once more, his lips trying to pluck the right words. “I wanted to touch it. Can’t use that hand much now, but the doctors say in a few months, maybe even just three … Not as bad as Mr. Goodnow, who can’t see right much out of one eye anymore after his spectacles melted into it. Well, I’ll be here to claim my position back soon as I’m strong again!”

  “Do you remember anything different in those days before it happened?” Marcus asked.

  “Different?” Theo asked.

  Marcus looked to Bob for help. “Anyone unusual around these streets, for instance?” Bob inquired. “You greeted customers when they came to the bank?”

  “Sure I did. Took their hats, that kind of thing,” he said forlornly.

  “Anyone who might have been witness to any unusual activity?”

  “I ’member someone the day before it all happened—a workin’-man repairing the fireplugs—I saw him there that morning, then through the window later in the day at a different plug.”

  “If he was in the street that long, the workman might have seen something. Would you recognize that workman if you saw him again?” asked Bob.

  “Nah. Didn’t know ’im and didn’t stop to look at ’im closely.”

  “Do you remember anything about him?”

  “Nah.”

  “What about inside the bank? Did anyone leave an impression, or mention anything strange they had seen?” Marcus asked quickly, sensing the boy was growing bored of the interrogation.

  “Not too much,” Theo replied, shrugging his shoulders again but still warming to their attention. “Well, Mr. Cheshire, the stock merchant, he was there that mornin’, and I remember he talked to me about the harbor. The compasses.”

  “The compasses?” Bob asked.

  “Remember,” Marcus said to Bob as he rose to his feet, “the compass manipulation had just been reported in the evening editions the night before State Street. I’m beginning to think the experimenter didn’t want to step on his own shadow. He waited until the city had learned more about what happened at the harbor and was properly terrified about it, before he unleashed his second maneuver.”

  “ ’Course, he’s dead now,” mumbled Theo, oblivious to Marcus’s theorizing.

  “Who?” Marcus asked. Seeing the lad’s reluctance to continue, he added, “We’re friends now, aren’t we, Theo? Who did you mean?”

  “Mr. Cheshire! I ’eard he was trampled to death in the stampedin’ to flee from here. He was as gentle and kind a man—well, not so gentle and not always kind, really, but a rich man, a friend of mine, I’d say, who oftentimes remembered me by name and always gave a coin or two when I served him well. And if a man as great as Mr. Cheshire can be killed, why, all State Street can die.”

  As Theo stifled a tear for the lost stockbroker, a man in a sackcloth suit wheeling a supply of bricks grabbed the boy by the back of the collar.
“I told you to scram! I’ll mix you in with the cement, you stay a minute longer!”

  “Leave him alone,” Marcus said, stepping between them.

  But Theo slipped out of the man’s grasp and dashed down the street.

  “Wait! Theophilus!” But then Marcus was grabbed by the same man.

  “I’ve seen you.”

  “Hands off,” Marcus said.

  The speaker, ruddy and powerful, had an oily mustache that could double for the bristles of a blacking brush. “Right—I knew I’d seen that phiz of yours before. At the lighting demonstration. You’re one of the boys from that technology college.”

  It was one of Roland Rapler’s unionists. Marcus wrested away his arm but made no reply.

  “You must be mistaken, sir,” Bob intervened. “We’re just visiting Boston for the week from New York.”

  “Visiting this particular quarter, you are?” demanded the laborer with a taunting air. “You and your school can make all the machines you want, but when disaster happens, we’re the ones to save the buildings, the harbors, the livelihoods of your fathers and brothers. You should be out to help us, not the machines.”

  “Good afternoon,” Marcus said.

  He and Bob hurried away. Behind them, the man cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted, “Take care of the little lassie helping you, collegey!”

  “What did he say?” Marcus said, his face flushed red with anger as he wheeled around.

  “Hush, Mansfield—remember what Hammie told you,” Bob said, catching his arm. “They are all brag. Damned agitator doesn’t even know who you are.”

  But Marcus started back toward the much larger man. Bob managed to restrain him before he could reach him.

  “It was a threat, Bob. To Agnes. He must have seen me with her at the wharves.”