by Hall, Ian
Francis Smalling, brought up on a farm in Illinois, had been released from the wild and he seemed determined to utilize every sense available to him.
Whilst everyone else busied themselves with farewells and boarding the train, Francis walked to its front and gazed for ages at the locomotive. I could see him talk to the driver, and could imagine the questions that Francis fired at him, boiler capacity and pressure, maximum and normal speeds, what kind of wood burnt best.
When he eventually boarded the train and took his seat beside me, he seemed eager to get the journey started. When the train gave its initial lurch, I swear he gasped. Having made such a journey several times before, I tried to recall my first wonder, but fell short, my memory stymied. In many ways I envied Francis his childish innocence.
We travelled slowly south out of Chicago and within an hour we had crossed the border into Indiana. We would remain on this train until Homewood Pennsylvania, the Eastern limit of the Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad. From there we would travel with the Pennsylvania Railroad all the way to New York. Almost four whole days of travel, speeding across country, would reduce our journey by almost 2 weeks. After that, a short train ride through New York state, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, would see us in Harvard by the first days of June.
At Plymouth Indiana the timetable stated we had to stop for an hour, and I saw Francis almost squirm on his seat. “What’s wrong?” I asked, giving him a nudge.
He looked at me with a worried look on his face. “Do you think I’ll have time to get some writing paper?”
I frowned slightly. “You could take some from my notebook.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s for writing to sister Margaret. I want something a bit fancier than that.”
I looked around. “Well, we’re here for an hour, there’s people out on the platform stretching their legs. Why not take a quick look around, but make sure you’re back in time. I don’t know when the next train is.”
He gave me a thankful grin, and quickly left the carriage.
I could tell that even at this early stage, Francis Smalling would prove an interesting case study from me. At times he had the confidence that only youth can provide, at others, like getting off the train in a strange station, he almost looked like a frightened rabbit. I watched for his return, but I needn’t have bothered. To his credit he was back in the carriage within 35 minutes, with plenty of time to spare. He even brought sandwiches with him.
“I couldn’t resist,” He announced with a smile.
After we’d resumed our journey he spent the next two hours alternating between looking out the window and writing slowly on his new stationery set. He seemed to choose his words painstakingly carefully and often stared out of the window his eyes unfocused, the softly chewed end of the pencil in his mouth, until he found the perfect word, then his head would return to his writing.
As the train stopped at stations, peddlers would climb aboard offering sandwiches and bottled drinks and by the time the sun began to set behind us, we were on the Indiana border with over two hundred miles behind us.
“So how fast does she go then, Francis?” I asked, knowing that he would have the answer.
He looked back into the carriage, “The engineer said that it could go up to around 80 miles per hour, but unless they were making up time for the timetable the fastest speed we would achieve would be fifty.”
I decided to test him further. “So what would the average speed be?”
“How long is the journey?”
“About 1000 miles,” I answered.
“And we’ll cover the full distance in how long according to the timetable?”
“Give or take four days.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “8.3 repeating, eight and a third miles per hour.” He replied deliberately.
“It just shows you how the figure comes down when you take in all the stops.” I said, settling myself back in my seat to try to sleep. I tilted my hat down over my eyes, and let Francis look at the darkening scenery.
With mountains and plains behind us, we soon passed slowly into New York. Even from a distance, the downtown part of the city rose in front of us.
With myself showing the way, I quickly led Francis past the lines of beggars at the station arch, and off down the street to my usual hotel. With some luck, two rooms were vacant, and I planned a lavish celebration.
“Tonight we dine on the very best restaurant New York has to offer.” I said as we met in the foyer after taking our bags to our rooms.
“I’m kinda tired,” Francis said, stretching as if to convey the concept to me.
But I shook my head, “I know what you’re going through, Francis. Believe me, I know the way to fix it.”
He gave a shrug, and followed me to Monsieur Francois, an establishment well known to me.
Holding my hand up against possible objections, I ordered German beer, and stuffed mushrooms. “I don’t care if you don’t drink, Francis, you’re drinking tonight, you’ll thank me.”
To my surprise he smiled at me. “I do make apple cider, you know.”
“I don’t get the connection.”
He looked quickly at the tables on either side, then leant closer. “I’m a bit of a dabbler in science; I’ve made alcohol before.”
Then it dawned; although he had the face of an innocent, in some ways Francis Smalling was as much of an ‘old hand’ as some adults I knew.
The beers arrived at our table, the thick tumblers glistening with condensation. “German beer,” I said across the table. “It’s good stuff, and strong too.”
I watched him taste, pronounce it good, and we began to drink. Within a few beers, the weariness of the train journey had passed into history.
The long and the short of it? We both slept until noon had passed us by, and awoke much refreshed from our first bed in four days.
I knew the train journey to Harvard lay ahead, but made no effort to catch the earliest train.
It allowed Francis to send his first letter home, costing him a dollar at the Wells Fargo office near our hotel.
After a day’s rest, we continued on to Cambridge, dropped our bags at the hotel nearest the campus, and practically had to drag Francis into the University library. He’d gone back to startled kid again, and his feet dragged as he walked the University grounds.
He insisted on being shown the laboratories first, and on immediate entry, I got challenged as to my identity by a man who seemed to be one of the professors.
“I am Paul Chapman of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.” I said “I have credentials that allow me access to any art of the University.”
“I am Professor James Wattles,” the man began, but had no time to complete his introduction.
“Professor of science,” Francis took over. “He shook his hand, and introduced himself. Instantly he was all ‘bell jar’ this and ‘coil’ that. Their conversation made little sense to me, so I found a seat, and watched their interaction. Quickly gone was the challenge of the professor; he looked so animated now that I swear he’d fallen head over heels in love.
Francis had certainly won him over in seconds, and they started walking from one area to the next, their arms gesticulating wildly, their conversation both hurried and animated.
I swear they talked each other’s ears off for an hour before Francis approached me. “Where’s the library? I have to check something.”
As I turned to leave, I could tell by his waving that the professor wanted to see me, so I just gave Francis directions and watched him quickly disappear.
“Who is that young man?” The professor asked, a far different man from the one who had challenged my authority more than an hour previously.
“He is the newest detective on the payroll of Pinkertons.” I said with growing pride.
“Oh, my. He’s wasting his time.” The man looked quite flustered. “His knowledge is quite astounding, I swear he’s actually far more than the science dabbler he professes to be.�
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“Oh yes?”
“We spoke quite exhaustively on various subjects, and his knowledge and scientific acumen are probably above mine, and I don’t say that often.”
“But you suspect him of being more than a dabbler?” I pushed.
“Oh goodness, yes,” The professor quickly countered. “I’d say in some of the subjects he’s actually a pioneer.”
“A what?” I asked, looking at the doorway Francis had just exited.
“Oh he’s quite the forerunner in both electricity and magnetism. If he’s telling the truth about his ‘experiments’ in his own laboratory, then he’s at the cutting edge of the science; I mean not everyone writes directly to Maxwell.”
I stood quite impressed. “So you’d have no problem with him studying here?”
“In Harvard?”
“Yes, our investigations are of a seasonal basis, and I expect he’ll be free for most of the winter.”
The man clapped his hands together. “Oh, we’d be delighted to have him here. He may even be persuaded to give a lecture or two.”
I had to give my head a shake at that point; Professor Wattles had indicated that Francis Smalling, at seventeen, was an equal of a professor at Harvard.
Harvard; Firmly in the Far East
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
June 15th 1866
My dearest sister.
It is the seventeenth of May, and I write to you from a speeding train, travelling from Chicago to the far coast, Cambridge, and Harvard.
I am amazed at the haste of my travel across our great country.
The land flashes past many times the speed of a galloping horse, and the passage is so smooth, it allows me to write in legible script.
I pass the plains of Indiana at faster than the most fleet horse, yet then linger at the next station while people stretch their legs, and mill like sheep on the platform in seeming disarray.
I am now a fully-paid member of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and their motto of “We Never Sleep” is ingrained in my head, for I swear I’ve slept little on my adventure so far.
Harvard is now my objective. I seek to learn the knowledge to bring the Johnny Reb to justice and pay the full price of his life for the scouring of our elder sister’s memory.
Please read the relevant parts to mamma, but omit details of any investigations. I should regret to both worry or disturb her.
I leave you now, your faithful brother, Francis.
I thought of my first letter to Margaret, and wondered if its speed to her would rival mine to Harvard. I sincerely doubted it.
Days of work in the laboratory with Professor Wattles as a constant companion proved too much of a distraction for me, and the act of letter writing got forgotten once more. As I settled to sleep after a long day, I determined to write once every two weeks, then soon realized that timeframe had already been breached.
Each morning, I sat with Chapman and we did further work on the criteria for a criminology course, and I watched with some pride as it slowly took shape. We had all the pertinent main core subjects in bold letters, and now passed into the heady realms of the details of the actual curriculum.
After lunch came the real delight of my scholastic day, we pushed the barriers of science at a rate I had never done before. I showed Wattles my new design of capacitor, using a sheet of rubber as the insulator. We leered over Maxwell’s theorems, and we performed the experiments to prove them. As the summer months passed into fall, I guiltily shunned all thoughts on the apple harvest, confident that the farm hands could take care of the job without my help.
I also finished the manufacture of my portable microscope. With lenses bought from a University supplier, I had three on my hat, exactly one inch in diameter, linked on a sliding rail that popped down in front of my right eye at the tap of my finger. In my breast pocket I carried the larger calibrated hand-held magnifying glass.
Although the lenses looked quite obtrusive on my hat, I cared nothing for Chapman’s questioning glare. In fact, once he’d tried the contraption himself, he stopped his caustic remarks, although he did stop short of asking me to adapt his own hat.
As the dog-days of August dawned, Chapman made plans to travel to Wisconsin, and get us both back on the Johnny Reb case. With considerable reluctance I packed my new reading material into my case, and we took the return journey from Cambridge to Chicago.
Once back in our company headquarters, I spend a morning getting an actual picture drawn of our suspect. The artist scribbled an image that I constantly challenged, then when I seemed satisfied, he drew a wide brimmed hat on the man’s head. I swear it looked like him, as much as a drawing could, that is. With a huge “$500 Reward” at the top, we got a hundred copies printed, and packed our gear to travel by horse.
We studied maps, and placed his last two murders with big red dots. Then we decided on an arc of patrol, from Eau Claire to Wausau, and then over to Green Bay. “We can’t be everywhere, but at least we’ve got the main ground covered.” Chapman said.
“He won’t hit the same town again,” I said, shaking my head, “surely not?”
“No, I agree,” Chapman tapped Eau Clair on the map. “But if we put up some posters here in the west of the state, we might drive him east.”
“Thus setting a trap,”
“More driving him towards us,” he grinned. “Johnny Reb has to spend some time casing out his victims; that means he has to stay in one place for several days. We just have to be lucky enough to be there too.”
“And although we can’t predict a pattern with just two victims, the direction is east.” I circled with my finger over Wausau.
With excitement building within me, we loaded our horses into freight wagons on the train in Chicago station, and boarded the carriage. Headed north along the newly-laid railroad, we would head up the shore of Lake Michigan, pass through Milwaukee, then head across country to La Crosse, on the Wisconsin border. By horse, we’d track back northeast, and begin our work.
The first part of the trip proved the most scenic I’d covered by train. The lake looked as big as any sea with the far shore well below the horizon, and the sunrise on that first day looked spectacular, its rays beaming off the rippling water. After Milwaukee, the train turned inland, and although the lake was lost behind us, thousands of smaller lakes broke the countryside, and the vista beyond my square of dirty railroad glass changed by the minute.
We spent the night in La Crosse, and rode out early the next morning.
“What’s the main objective?” I asked. My head had been buried in science and equations for so long, it felt good to get outdoor and on with the investigation.
“We make our presence known to every town sheriff,” Chapman replied. “We make sure they know how to get in contact with the Chicago office, and we keep our eyes open.”
“How do we cover every town, just the two of us?”
“We work smart, we travel light, and we spread the story of the confederate hat and coat. We make those the heart of our investigation.”
“It’s his role, the part he plays,”
“Exactly,” Chapman said, “it’s his identity, he won’t change it. He can fake the accent, he can disguise that, but like us he has to travel light, he won’t have more than one hat, and he has to carry the coat somehow, probably as a bedroll, or wrapped up in it.”
I nodded. It made complete sense. “And the sword,” I added. “Don’t forget the sword.”
“Yes.” Chapman answered quickly. “He’s got an act to perform, and hopefully we’ll have a hundred eyes looking out for his costume.”
At Eau Clair, Chapman headed straight for the sheriff’s office, and I followed in his coat-tails.
The man sitting behind the desk looked nervous.
“I’m looking for Sheriff White.” Chapman began.
The thin man stood, and I swear he flexed his gun fingers. “Ricky White got sick and died, not too long ago.” He kicked his chair
slowly back against the wall, looking at us suspiciously. “Who are you?”
“Detectives from the Pinkerton Agency,” Chapman reached into his top pocket and pulled out a card, which he flashed in the man’s face, then pocketed it again. “We’re up here investigating a series of murders. Annabel Joyce, Christine Bismark.”
With the announcement of our intent, the man seemed to relax. “Oh, okay. I don’t rightly know anything about that.” He said, still looking nervous. “There ain’t been no new sheriff elected yet, I’m only standing in on account of I’m good with a pistol. Name’s Delroy.”
“Pleased to meet you, Delroy,” Chapman asked, reaching across the desk to shake hands. “Chapman and Smalling,” I shook his hand, and found his fingers wet and clammy. “We need to put up a couple of wanted posters, and make you aware of a few things. The guy may be a southern soldier, he may have a Confederate uniform; coat, sword, hat. So, anything you see, get a telegraph to Wausau, that’s where we’ll report to when we’re not in the country. We think he’ll strike again. Both times he’s hit in Wisconsin in September, we if he keeps to the pattern, it’ll happen soon.”
I dropped four posters onto his desk. “This is our guy.” I said.
Delroy looked at me. “He’s mighty young for a detective.”
“My bullets will kill him as sure as yours.” I said, tapping the posters with my forefinger. I decided I didn’t like Delroy one single bit.
We said our goodbyes, and climbed back onto out saddles. “Your opinion?” Chapman asked.
“Nervous. He had a lying air to him.” I said swinging my leg over. “I wouldn’t trust him if he told me there’d be a sunrise tomorrow.”
Chapman grinned, turning his horse’s head out to the road.
“Where next?” I asked.
“Chippewa Falls, just a few miles north.” He answered, kicking his mount to a trot.
And that’s what we did in the last week of August, and the first few weeks in September. We beat the doors of sheriffs, town mayors, and prominent businessmen. We put up posters in the first few towns, and as we traveled eastwards we let that practice dry out, hoping we’d drive the Johnny Reb towards the Great Lakes into our claws.