Euphemia coldly withdrew her hands from her husband’s grasp. “Of course I don’t wish to see profits destroyed, but I have reason to doubt your explanation of events. I have reason to doubt the wage cuts were precipitated by a steep decline in orders.”
“Really?” Martin stood back up. He turned his back on his wife and strode to the opposite end of the room. She assumed this was in order to conceal the nervous tic in his right eye, which had begun to jump ever so slightly. He extinguished his half-smoked cigarette and absent-mindedly lit up another.
“Mr. Tibbs paid me a visit last week.”
Martin turned to face his wife with an expression of disbelief. “The bookkeeper? He was fired along with the other strikers. In fact, he was their leader!”
“Quite,” Euphemia replied simply. “He told me he no longer had anything left to lose. He showed me a copy of the company books and related some interesting anecdotes about Mr. Bayne, his exorbitant salary, and the manner in which he conducts himself at my factory.”
“Malice!” Martin protested. “Pure spite! What would you expect him to say? He was fired and wanted to lash out at me by spreading lies!”
Euphemia turned back to face her mirror. Slowly removing her rings, she spoke to Martin’s reflection. “That thought had crossed my mind, and so I kept silent until I could weigh the facts. Mr. Bayne’s performance this evening leaves me in no doubt as to the veracity of Mr. Tibbs.”
Martin gulped down a prodigious amount of smoke. He furtively cast a glance at his wife’s reflection, staring back at him in her mirror.
“Why are you protecting this man, Martin?” Her voice was dead calm.
The master of the house turned away from her again and began to pace. He shrugged, his back to his wife. “I told you. I owed him a favor. A rather large favor.”
“What favor? What could be of such consequence that you would jeopardize a thriving concern to shield him in this manner?”
“It... it’s a matter between gentleman. I... I... cannot speak of it.”
“Gentlemen?” His wife was incredulous. “You have the audacity to call that man a gentleman after his behavior tonight?”
Martin cut in frantically. “No matter what his behavior is or was, I am still a gentleman and must bear my obligations as one! You must understand, it’s a matter of honor that I fulfill my part of the bargain. A matter of family honor! You must trust me in this. I will say no more about it!” Martin’s voice had risen in pitch. Something akin to desperation had crept into his tone.
Euphemia rose and turned to face her husband. He stopped in mid-stride as she stared him down.
“You have spoken of your honor, but I am a practical woman. I suggest you think less about your pride and more about running an efficient operation. What you have done makes for bad business. It is bad business to cut the wages of honest workingmen in order to pay the salary of a parasite. It is worse business to let a hundred experienced workers go and replace them with novices in order to protect the salary of this same parasite. It was bad enough when Roland joined the company. This is ten times worse. Bad business all around.
‘Not only that. Your timing leaves a great deal to be desired. Because of the Pullman strike, Chicago is teetering on the brink of a worker’s revolt yet all you can do is add fuel to the fire. I want the original workers brought back and their wages reinstated. Above all, I want Mr. Bayne removed.”
Euphemia watched her husband pace around the room like a caged animal. He seemed panicked, scarcely rational. “I need time! You must understand, it is paramount that I not offend him in this! Do not ask me why, for I am not at liberty to explain myself further. Perhaps I can find him another place. Perhaps I can work out some other arrangement that will be satisfactory to him.”
“How much time?” Euphemia asked coldly. “I hope you understand that you are in no position to bargain here.”
Martin hesitated a moment. “Two weeks. Give me two weeks to settle matters for him.”
Euphemia continued to stare. “And at the end of two weeks, then what?”
Martin never stopped pacing. “As I said, I want to remain on cordial terms with him, so I’ll invite him out here on a Saturday afternoon. I’ll explain matters to him. I’ll offer him better terms elsewhere and... that will be that.”
Euphemia nodded. “Very well. I accept your provisos with respect to Mr. Bayne.”
Martin appeared ready to slip through the door to the safety of his own room, but his wife stopped him.
“Wait!” she commanded. “I’m not finished yet. While we’re on the subject of questionable behavior, I also have something to say about Roland.”
Her husband stood suspended in mid-flight. “Yes?” he asked mildly.
Euphemia considered her words carefully. “The vision Serafina saw behind him at the séance has started me thinking in an entirely new direction about Roland. It aroused a suspicion that he may have had something to do with the death of that poor drowned girl. I can’t think of any other reason for the apparition.”
“Euphemia, my dear, you can scarcely condemn him because of that.”
Euphemia held her hand up for silence. “I intend to make inquiries into his behavior while he worked at my factory. Perhaps Mr. Tibbs would like to perform that little service for me.”
Martin opened his mouth to protest but Euphemia’s cold stare silenced him.
“So help me, Martin, if anything comes to light that connects your nephew with that girl’s death, being cut off without a penny will be the least of his worries. For the time being, just tell him to keep his distance from me and this house. Is that clear?”
Martin nodded silently.
“Very well then. I leave it to you to take the necessary steps regarding Roland and Mr. Bayne without any further intervention from me.”
She resumed her seat before the vanity and dismissed him offhandedly as she faced the mirror. “You may retire now, Martin.” Euphemia watched as his reflection bobbed his head and made hastily for the door.
“And Martin...”
“Yes?” He paused with his hand suspended over the doorknob.
She continued to address his reflection. “After your final tete-a-tete with Mr. Bayne two weeks from now, I never want to see that man in my house again. Is that also understood?”
“Yes, my dear,” Martin nodded vigorously. “Perfectly.” Before she could offer any additional comment he scurried into his own room and closed the door swiftly behind him.
***
Only when he was alone did Martin give way to his silent rage.
His valet was gone, so he had to undress himself. He threw off his coat and kicked it into a heap in the corner. Tugging angrily at his collar, he sent buttons snapping and flying in every direction. For a moment he contemplated smashing a lamp, a mirror, anything that would make a satisfying crashing sound. He breathed deeply several times to clear his head, to regain control. Finally, walking over to his dresser, he propped his elbows on it, running his fingers through his thinning hair, trying desperately to think of a way out.
He stared at himself in the mirror—not seeing his own reflection—seeing instead the image of a ghost with damp brown hair.
“This won’t do,” he muttered to himself. “This cannot continue as it has. I must take steps. I must put an end to this once and for all!”
He felt the weight of the invisible chain of his family honor grow heavier and tighter around his neck.
Chapter 10—Trained Troops
Much to his chagrin, Freddie was forced to halt his desultory investigation into the death of Nora Johnson for a while. Chicago had become the focus of national attention and every reporter in town was kept hopping. It was now the beginning of July and the Pullman strike had reached a critical stage. Despite the efforts of the Civic Federation to urge arbitration, George Pullman had remained adamant. “There is nothing to arbitrate,” was his only comment. After closing his shop for the summer, he had retreated to his island
castle down east.
His workers, left stranded, appealed to the American Railway Union for assistance. Because Pullman owned a few small railway lines to transport his cars, his workers were qualified to join the ARU. And join they had. On June 26th, the ARU, led by its fiery president, Eugene Debs, voted to boycott Pullman cars. This meant that any train which carried a Pullman Palace sleeping car would not be manned by an engineer, fireman, conductor, or switchman who happened to be an ARU member.
As Debs repeatedly emphasized, the boycott was intended to be peaceful. Any train that uncoupled its Pullman cars was free to travel. However, the men who managed the railroads took a dim view of this arrangement. They insisted they had a contract with Pullman to carry his cars and carry his cars they would. They weren’t about to let “Dictator Debs” tell them how to do business. Debs ordered his men to quietly walk off the job. If the railroads hired replacements, they were entitled to do so. The ARU would not resort to violence. Unfortunately for Debs, the ARU, the Pullman strikers, and the citizens of Chicago, things didn’t work out as planned.
Unbeknownst to the major players in the drama, the starvation winter of 1894 had curiously affected the mood of Chicago’s poor. Hungry, homeless, and angry, they were looking for a target for their rage. They found it in George Pullman and the railroads. Pullman had let his workers starve while he continued to pay a six percent dividend to his shareholders and maintained a multi-million dollar capital surplus in his company. Railroad expansion was the main reason for the great depression of 1893 and the railroads were carrying Pullman cars. That was all about to change.
The ARU boycott ignited a firestorm on Chicago’s south side as roving mobs sought to bring the railroad industry to its knees. Switches were spiked, trains derailed, engineers dragged from their compartments and beaten. Thousands gathered to tip over boxcars and set them on fire. The tracks that hadn’t been ripped up were rendered impassable because of the twisted masses of smoking metal lying across them.
An injunction was issued to force the ARU strikers back to work. Even if Debs had obeyed, it would have made little difference. The wild fires in the freight yards were spreading too fast. There was rioting as far away as Sacramento and at many points in between. Finally, when the railroads complained that the delivery of mail was being impeded, the White House intervened. The army was sent to restore order to Chicago and get the trains moving again.
On the fourth of July, 1894, the Fifteenth U.S. Infantry, two companies of the Seventh Cavalry, and a battery of the First Artillery arrived by train from Fort Sheridan. They were quickly deployed to the terminals on the south side which had been hardest hit by the mobs—the Union Stockyards, Blue Island, and Grand Crossing. As the troops struggled to curtail vandalism in the freight yards, the passenger lines serving the embattled neighborhoods shut down, making the simple act of moving around the city increasingly difficult.
Freddie was painfully aware of the rigors of travel as he glanced down at the pedals of his bicycle. It had been years since he had attempted to ride a wheel and his balance was a bit shaky. When his editor gave him the assignment to cover troop movements at the stockyards, his first task was to improvise a means of getting there. Since traveling forty blocks on foot was hardly efficient, he pleaded with one of the boys in the print room to lend him his wheel. The price of renting the contraption was exorbitant but Freddie was in dire straits. He paid the lad three dollars and mumbled something about buying one for less as he wobbled off down Dearborn Street in search of a story.
It was ironic, he thought. The government always knew how to make a bad situation worse. While the rioting had been alarming, the mayor and governor were on the point of getting matters under control. It was only when the federal troops marched in that all hell broke loose. To arrive on the fourth of July, of all days. Freddie laughed bitterly to himself. Whose independence were they protecting? Not the ARU’s, nor that of the workers at Pullman.
He turned down Van Buren Street and headed toward the lake. In the one day since the troops arrived, reports of violence had doubled. Granted, none of it had touched the Loop, but even at this distance Freddie could smell the smoke.
When he reached Michigan Avenue, an unusual sight awaited him. Directly ahead, on the green field known as Lake Park, he could see white tents. The infantry had set up camp there. They certainly had a good view, overlooking the Illinois Central tracks and Lake Michigan, with Chicago’s grandest hotels at their back. It seemed like a parade ground. Gentlemen and ladies with parasols were strolling along Michigan Avenue to review the troops. Some of them waved and called out encouragement to the boys in camp.
Freddie pedaled on southward. He was finally getting a feel for the machine and his sense of balance was returning. When he reached Sixteenth Street, he decided to swing over to millionaires’ row on Prairie Avenue. He was curious to see how the hoi poloi were dealing with this affront to their sensibilities.
The street was quiet. He supposed many of the residents had fled to their country houses until order was restored. A deathlike stillness hung over the Pullman mansion in particular. Freddie could see no movement. All the curtains were drawn. Though the lawn was trimmed, there was no sign of a caretaker either. He speculated that when George Pullman left town, no one remained behind to tell tales to the press.
Freddie became increasingly aware of the afternoon sun as it scorched his back. He was wearing a dark wool suit, not the sort of thing one ought to wear in July while cycling. He could feel sweat dampening his hat band and streaming down his temples, but he reminded himself that it would be ten times hotter when he reached his destination.
At Thirty Ninth Street, he veered west toward Halsted Street and the sprawling expanse of the stockyards. Reports had been coming into the press room all morning of various locations where mobs had formed and dispersed, so Freddie decided to head directly for the train tracks at the north end of the yards. Sooner or later, the troops would try to move a train through that point and, sooner or later, they would be met by something ugly.
When Freddie finally slowed his wheel and dismounted to survey the situation, none of the descriptions he had read prepared him for what he saw. He caught his breath in shock. Boxcars had been reduced to piles of molten metal. Several were lying on their sides, their burning remains strewn across the tracks as if tossed there by some careless giant. An engine had jackknifed where it had been derailed by a spiked switch, still coupled to the cars behind it. Its humped back gave the appearance of a beached whale.
And then Freddie saw an even more chilling sight. The face of the mob. There were thousands of men, women, and children but they all wore the same enraged expression. Many were screaming curses: at the sky, at the trains, at the troops who were bringing an engine up the one track that was still open. The men were hatless and coatless, their sleeves rolled up. Some carried ropes to topple the few cars that remained upright. Others carried half-empty whiskey bottles and staggered as they searched for the next object of their wrath.
The women were more frightening than the men: wild-eyed furies, their hair streaming in all directions, shrieking at the engine as it came into view. They reminded Freddie of pictures he had seen of the Parisian women who stormed the Bastille a hundred years earlier.
Most frightening of all were the children, their faces pinched and hardened by hate. Some, no more than toddlers, were screaming obscenities along with their elders. He glimpsed a gang of boys, about nine years old or younger, lighting fires beneath empty boxcars. Their parents must have taught them how and set them the task because the police wouldn’t shoot children.
Bombarded by the violent images directly ahead of him, Freddie stepped back a few paces, almost tripping over his bicycle. He retreated to a safe distance on the other side of the street where he saw a few onlookers gathered. They were men who wore business suits and derby hats. Respectable citizens who had come to gaze at the curiosity of humanity gone mad.
Freddie smiled nervou
sly at a short, rotund man to his left. The man sported an enormous gold watch dangling from his vest. “Hello,” he offered tentatively.
“Quite a sight,” the short man commented jovially. “Something to tell the grandchildren.”
“Assuming we live to have any.” Freddie gulped.
His companion chuckled. “It isn’t us they’re after. They hate the roads and the men who built them. If any of the railroad managers was to show his face in the yards, there would be a lynching for sure.” He held out his hand. “Silas Mayhew, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The young man returned the greeting. “Freddie Simpson. I’m a reporter for the Gazette.”
Mayhew nodded. “All the papers have come to the yards looking for stories lately.”
“There must be several thousand people gathered here!” Freddie was awestruck.
“They come and go. I’ve been watching them for a few days now. They swarm around anything that’s moving. They tear it up or burn it down and then go off looking for something new, somewhere else.”
“Is that what’s drawn them here?” Freddie pointed to an engine that was backing up to join two freight cars standing behind it. The freight cars were being guarded by about twenty soldiers carrying rifles, bayonets pointed toward the encircling crowd.
“The soldiers are trying to move the beef.”
“I don’t see any cattle.” Freddie squinted to get a better view.
“Not the live ones, son. They come in from the west on the hoof and go out to the east as dead meat. Those two cars are packed with dressed beef on ice. Bound for New York if the troopers can manage to get ‘er moving before all the ice melts.”
Freddie remembered an article in the Courier from the day before. “Meat famine threatened in New York.” He had thought the headline was absurd. Nobody was in any danger of starving to death for lack of sirloin—especially not the customers at Delmonico’s, who would have to make do with lobster until their filet mignon arrived.
Shrouded In Thought (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 2) Page 11