Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century)

by Priest, Cherie

  There was no money, and what was left of her family was starving.

  Maria Boyd wrote a book and gave tours, speaking about her time in Union prisoner-of-war camps and retelling her adventures as a spy, but it wasn’t enough to keep anyone fed. She turned to acting, and the reviews were good but the pay was poor. She worked as a cab driver—one of the only women driving in Georgia, if not the whole continent. A seamstress. A cook. A governess. A messenger.

  And still they went hungry.

  So when the invitation came from Pinkerton—so unexpected and so unlikely—Maria was just desperate enough to take it, for here was a chance at an honest, interesting job that would earn her enough to eat, and to share.

  In truth, her options were narrowing by the day. She could turn detective, or she could stoop to the prostitution of which she’d so often been accused—a prospect that might’ve been brighter in her youth. But so late in her thirties? She’d surely still starve, only more ignobly.

  So she leaped, all the way from Front Royal, Virginia, to Chicago, Illinois.

  She leaped with all her worldly belongings, which fit in a single steamer trunk and carpetbag. These worldly belongings had in fact included a coat, but the coat was insufficient for even a Virginia winter, never mind one in Illinois, and she wasn’t dishonest enough to write off a new one as an expense.

  Not quite yet.

  She gathered her bag and the case notes she was writing up and moved. Andrew Kelly’s desk was warmer by far. Maria sighed, loosened one of her scarves, and smiled to feel the furnace-warmed typewriter keys beneath her fingertips. Only three more invoices to record and file and she’d be finished for the day.

  Allan Pinkerton’s office door opened with a crash.

  The aging Scotsman stormed through it just like he stormed everyplace, as if he could function at no other speed. His eyes landed on Maria’s now-empty desk, then found her over at her borrowed spot, her fingers hovering guiltily over the typewriter keys.

  “Maria!” he barked. He’d dispensed with any naming formalities months ago.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “In my office. I’ve got one for you.”

  She exhaled with relief. She belonged in the field. Even when the field was cold and miserable and she needed a better coat, she’d rather wander the streets of Chicago in the snow than sit there and type beside the furnace.

  She left the warm spot with only a little rue. Her employer held the frosted glass door open as she passed him and took the seat across from his enormous oak desk. A simple name plaque announced that he was the owner of this desk, and the finely stenciled name and all-seeing eye logo on the door’s glass announced he was the owner of this office, and that he never slept. Everything here belonged to him, and he liked to make sure everyone knew it.

  “All right, Mr. Pinkerton. Brief me.”

  “Listen to you there, picking up the lingo like you’re one of the boys. Never thought I’d see the day,” he said, as he parked himself behind the desk, facing her. The wheels on his chair bottom rolled back and forth as he fidgeted. He put his elbows atop a pile of ledgers, reached for a cigar, and lit it. Then he used his knuckles to drag a big glass ashtray within easier reach.

  “Rose uses the lingo, too.”

  “Rose is a special case.”

  “And I’m not?”

  The old man grinned. His white-bearded cheeks inflated and puffed as he sucked the cigar to life. “All my employees are special. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good, because it isn’t true. How was that art job in Philly? You turned that one over pretty quick.”

  “It was easy,” she said, which meant it hadn’t been very interesting. “Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. Alastair Duggard’s wife destroyed the painting.”

  “Why?”

  “Because her husband liked it. And because she found out about his mistress, who she didn’t like at all.”

  “Most obvious answer, indeed,” he said, tapping a scrap of ash into the tray. “Too bad we couldn’t get it back for him, but I suppose it’s his own fault it’s gone. He paid up?”

  “He paid up. I was recording the last of the invoices when—”

  “In Kelly’s chair, I saw.”

  “I was cold. I am cold. It’s cold.”

  “You’re in Chicago, dear.” He said it “Shi-kah-go” like the locals, despite his native (if fading) Glaswegian patter. “It’s cold here more often than not. You need warmer clothes, or thicker blood. Living down there in the jungles … it’ll make you soft.”

  She didn’t bother to correct him anymore when he talked about Virginia’s jungles. He’d never seen Virginia—or a jungle, for that matter—but she had better things to do than waste her breath convincing him of it. “I need to move around more, that’s all. And I believe you can help me with that—you said you’ve got a case for me?”

  “I do indeed. And it’s a big one, too.” He hesitated, leaving something unsaid.

  “Sir?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Maria: I can’t tell if you’re the best candidate for this one, or the worst possible choice.”

  “Another job working for the Union, I take it? I managed the last assignment to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  “That you did, but this one is … closer to the heart.”

  She was confused. “My heart? Your heart?”

  “To President Lincoln’s heart. Literally and figuratively.”

  “You … you want me to work for Abraham Lincoln?”

  “The situation is unusual—but not the same kind of unusual as usual.”

  “You’ve always had a way with words, sir.”

  He looked past her shoulder. “Do me a favor, dear—reach behind you and shut that door.”

  She did as he asked, and he continued, but in a quieter, more serious tone. “Mr. Lincoln and I have remained friends for many years, despite the incident at the Ford. Depending on who you ask, my son either saved his life or ruined it, and Mrs. Lincoln held the whole thing against us for a while. Abe’s recovery came so slowly, and so incompletely.… Still, the president has continued to accept our service in good faith. He presently employs one of our D.C. operatives—a young man named Nelson Wellers, who happens to be a physician.”

  “These days, I guess Mr. Lincoln needs a doctor more than a bodyguard.” Maria cocked her head and frowned. “But this Dr. Wellers is no longer sufficient? I worked as a nurse, but quite briefly, I want you to know; I wasn’t cut out for it. If you’re only looking to send me because I’m a woman—”

  “No, no, no.” He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his cigar, leaving a trail of smoke to underline his impatience. “Wellers is fine. Nothing wrong with him. Mr. Lincoln doesn’t need a nursemaid or another security agent for himself. He wants to hire someone to investigate a crime against somebody else.”

  “Oh.”

  “Really, Maria. If I wanted to insult you, I’d do it more directly.” He lifted one elbow and retrieved a file, then set his cigar in the glass tray’s groove. “So here are the brass tacks. The man in question is Gideon Armistead Bardsley, a doctor from Alabama. Not the kind of doctor who fixes you—this one’s an inventor. A scientist.”

  “Another negro,” she noted from the picture, a good daguerreotype that showed a long-waisted, broad-shouldered man in a suit that fit him well. He must be a little younger than she was, but she detected some lightness at his temples, the premature gray of someone who works too hard. “I’m sensing a theme.”

  “Twice isn’t a theme, it’s a coincidence. Will it be a problem?”

  “Wasn’t a problem last time. Won’t be a problem this time.”

  “Good.” He slid some paperwork across the desk. As Maria started to read, he pitched her the highlights. “Dr. Bardsley was a slave in Alabama until a dozen years ago, when he escaped. He got as far as Tennessee.”

  “No one sent him back?” The Bloodhound Laws were sti
ll on the books in the South, and anyone who’d returned the runaway would’ve been richly compensated.

  “The University of Tennessee at Fort Chattanooga paid for his freedom, on the condition that he stayed there and made them look good. Brilliant man, this Bardsley fellow. A real-life genius, if his diplomas can be believed. In four years he earned a master’s degree in some kind of advanced math, and a doctorate in electromechanical engineering—a brand-new field. I don’t think any other school in the South even offers such a degree. The next year, he bought freedom for the rest of his family still living: a couple of brothers, his mother, and a nephew.”

  “What was he working on in Chattanooga?” she asked, still absorbing the information on the pages before her. “It must’ve been profitable. That kind of buyout takes more than chump change.”

  “Civic planning, if the public information can be believed. He felt there was no good reason you couldn’t generate power for entire cities with old-fashioned technology like water. He was developing schematics for water turbines that could convert the flow of rivers into electricity with the right kind of dams and wires. It’s a bit over my head, to be honest, even if it is true.”

  “You think it’s not?”

  “I think he was working on military projects. I can’t imagine any other reason the school would’ve paid for his life and his education.”

  “A negro designing weapons for use against the North? I don’t know about that.”

  “Maybe not weapons. Armies and navies need a million and one things to operate smoothly. He could’ve been working on any of ’em. When you meet him, you can ask him.”

  “Is he still in Washington?” The document in her hand was a courthouse copy, identifying him as a free man of color with an address in the capital.

  “In 1876 he defected to the Union, taking his mother and nephew with him. He started out in Philadelphia, but moved to D.C. when Mr. Lincoln took a personal interest in one of his projects.”

  Maria flipped through another page or two of biography. She stopped at an engraving of a machine emblazoned across a patent application. “‘The Bardsley Automatic Computational and Calculational Device,’” she read, eyeballing the diagram and marveling at its implied dimensions. “Good heavens, it must be enormous.”

  “A whole roomful of a machine, I’m led to understand.”

  “A whole mouthful, too. Why do inventors do that? Name their inventions such ridiculous things?”

  “Any number of reasons, I’m sure, but the Lincolns agree with you, at least. When Mrs. Lincoln explained the project to Dr. Wellers, she called it a giant mechanical brain—a brain that could think faster, better, and more accurately than any man ever could. Wellers said that such a thing could really fiddle with a fellow’s head, and she laughed … so now the thing is called Fiddlehead for short. Think of it as a code name, if you like that better.”

  “Got it. So the Lincolns are … what? Dr. Bardsley’s patrons? Sponsors?”

  “Yes. And at the moment, they’re his lifeline.” He passed her a newspaper article, then continued. “Three nights ago, armed men broke into the doctor’s laboratory at the Jefferson Science Center, destroying a great deal of expensive equipment, and doing their best to kill Bardsley in the process.”

  She didn’t lift her gaze. “Was the Fiddlehead itself destroyed in the incident?”

  “Damaged, yes. Destroyed, no. Apparently the doctor tricked the intruders into vandalizing less interesting equipment.”

  She set the newsprint article aside. “So he’s not just a brilliant man, but a clever one, too. Tell me, then: What was this Fiddlehead designed to do? A giant brain, you said, but everyone everywhere has a brain. What makes this one so special? What was it told to think about?”

  “The war,” he said simply. “They asked it to analyze the war.”

  “And the results were…?”

  “Nothing I’m at liberty to discuss right now. You’ll get that information from Lincoln, as well as further details on your assignment. He knows more about the machine than I do, and I’m sure he’d be happy to fill you in.”

  “Your certainty on that point exceeds mine, sir. Does he know you’re sending me?”

  “Yes, he knows. And I’ve assured him that you’re a consummate professional who will do the job you’re given, with no qualms, concerns, lingering political loyalties, or complaints. Do I make myself a liar, or do I make myself clear?”

  “Abundantly clear, as always. But while I appreciate the vote of confidence—”

  “I don’t need your appreciation; I just need your follow-through. Listen, Miss Boyd: Abraham Lincoln might not have been your president, and I understand. However, he is nobody’s president anymore, and right now he is my client.”

  “But he’s still active politically, isn’t he? I’ve heard that he’s a vigorous advocate for ending the conflict, presumably with a restored Union,” she replied carefully.

  Allan Pinkerton paused, settling back in his chair and peering thoughtfully across the desk at her. “Presumably,” he said at last. “I’ve never asked before, but perhaps this is the time, before I send you jaunting down to D.C. on a delicate mission—”

  It was Maria’s turn to interrupt. “You want to know how I feel about the war.” She folded her hands atop the paperwork. She took a moment to organize her thoughts, then she told him. “It’s a hard thing to explain, you know. I earned my fame as a child, Mr. Pinkerton. I thought—and operated—with the fearlessness of a child, accepting what I was told by my nearest elders. I still believe some of it—or, it might be more accurate to say that I still feel some of it. The South was my home, and I do not believe it was fairly treated in the years leading up to Fort Sumter. When war broke out, the whole thing felt like a grand adventure.”

  Pinkerton snorted. Maria smiled tightly, unhappily. “Oh, I know. A stupid thing to feel. But, again, I was still in my teens, and the war was young too. It hadn’t taken so much yet.” Her voice trailed off, then recovered. “So I sit here now, two decades and thousands of miles away from my youthful adventures, with tens of thousands of lives lost to a cause I didn’t understand very well and I understand even less now. And you want to know how I feel about the war.”

  “Well,” he pointed out, “you still haven’t told me.”

  She swallowed. “I still believe in the rights of states to self-govern, and some of the points the Rebels have fallen back on as they’ve lost slavery as a political option. But the older I get and the farther I travel, the less I think of slavery itself—and I won’t pretend the war would’ve happened without it. It’s complicated, that’s all. I understand why some people thought the subject was worth fighting over … but at this point, is it worth fighting further? I … I don’t think so. The South isn’t fighting for slavery anymore, but for survival. The North isn’t fighting for abolition anymore, but for reunification. And there are days when I feel … when I feel like the whole world is burning to the ground around us.”

  Burned like her father’s hotel, and her brothers’ bodies. Like her family homestead. She fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but failed. The words tumbled out, landing in a pile between her and the man who’d saved her. “It’s taken enough already, from both sides, that any victory may be Pyrrhic. Give it another few years, and we’ll all be scrabbling around in the dirt, fighting for scraps and starving, regardless of who wins.”

  “A sad summary, Miss Boyd.”

  “A sad state of affairs, Mr. Pinkerton. In my more cynical hours I don’t know who to resent more: the slave owners for the peculiar institution, or the slaves themselves for what it’s cost to end it.”

  “That’s hardly fair.”

  “I know, and I hate myself for it, particularly since I’ve come to know and respect … some former slaves.” Her voice petered out again. There were things her employer was welcome to suspect, but needn’t know for certain. “But you’re decent enough to insult me directly, so I’m decent enough to tell
you the truth. I’m only being honest.”

  “As if that excuses anything.”

  She sighed, and met his stare blink for unhappy blink. “You asked me how I felt and I told you. I wish I were more noble than this, but I’m not. I wish there had never been slaves. I wish there had never been a war. But if wishes were…” She hunted for some expression she hadn’t heard a thousand times before. Failing to find one, she tried again. “I am capable of controlling my behavior, if not the sentiments I learned in the cradle. I would like to believe that actions are more meaningful.”

  “There might be something noble in that. Or maybe only hypocritical; I can’t decide.”

  “Decide whatever you like. You’ve already told me that my performance is satisfactory. I have grown accustomed to compromise, sir.”

  “And do you think compromise is enough?”

  “Not particularly. But it’s worked for the last twenty years, and it’ll work for the next month in D.C., if you’re still game to send me.”

  His chair popped and creaked as he leaned forward. He tossed another envelope onto the pile of paperwork and said, “Oh, I’ve already booked your ticket. I just wanted to make sure you were still game to go.”

  Four

  Mary Todd Lincoln brandished a gun. She was small in stature and getting along in years, and guns made her feel better, stronger, and more prepared.

  Gideon understood. He had one, too, tucked into the back of his pants, underneath his grandfather’s coat. It wasn’t within easy reach, but he needed both hands free in order to rummage through the wreckage of the Jefferson. Night was falling, and it was already dark enough in the basement where the Fiddlehead lurked, even with the lantern Gideon held aloft, aiming its watery white light into every corner.