by Parry, Owen
She flashed her green eyes round to me, but spoke calmly. “Who is this man? Is he a crazy one, from the asylum?”
“Begging your pardon,” I said, “but would you be Mrs. Sarah Pomeroy?”
She graced me with those endless eyes for but a second longer, then considered Wilkie again. When she spoke, she looked between us and across the street.
“Who else am I to be, please? Now, you are going.”
The door shut with the finality of a vault.
“I’LL ’AVE ’ER PUT UNDER arrest, and that’ll be the end of it,” Inspector Wilkie said. For he was miffed at what he thought was her insolence. Convinced he was that she was Betty Green, the belle of Camden Town, and late of a fancy house set up in Lisle Street. “It’s clear as day, it is. I’ll tell you just what kind of blackmailing she’s up to. She’s got something on old Pomeroy, and it’s something ’e don’t want told.”
Not, indeed, if he was his son’s wife’s lover. If you will forgive me that awful supposition. But I did not see another explanation. I only wondered why the boy who lived next door had mentioned only an old man and not a young one, as well, if she was married to young Pomeroy.
If the woman was married at all.
I had more doubts than Thomas with his poking fingers. And far less likelihood of finding proof.
What was in those letters? Why had young Pomeroy told me about them? Were they truly his own, written to his wife? Or were they his own, but written to a woman not his wife, to his father’s mistress? Or was his father’s mistress the son’s wife, after all? And what on earth had Mr. Disraeli to do with it? Was he an acquaintance of Mrs. Sarah Pomeroy? Or of Miss Betty Green? And how far had I strayed afield from the corpse of the Reverend Mr. Campbell?
Did any of this have to do with ships of war and Rebels and Richmond’s schemes? If anyone in England had sought to divert my attention—and I suspected more than one Englishman of such designs—they had done a pretty job of it. For here I was in a swamp with no bottom, splashed by immoralities that were none of my business, while our murdered agents went forgotten and conspiracies plunged ahead.
I was unsettled.
The police rig took us back over Waterloo Bridge, where a handsome young man with anthracite whiskers darted between the carts and carriages, turning about to cry to a girl, “Julie, will you meet us at sunset, then? Just where you’re standing now?” And the girl nodded and called, “At sunset, Terry, but not before, for I’ve got to see Davies off.” Ash-blond she was, and radiant of complexion under her hat, with a lower lip born to pout. But here is the thing of it, why the trivial incident struck me so: Other lives go on, despite murders and betrayals and even wars. The bright boldness of this Terry and his Julie seemed to capture the spirit of our age, the turbulent sixties, with their progress, hope, immodesty and danger. But let that bide, for there is more to tell.
Wilkie pointed across my chest to the ramshackle buildings lining the northern bank. Motley they were, with their sagging roofs and worn advertisements lettered on their walls.
“All to be knocked down,” he told me, “to make way for the great embankment. And a good thing, if you arsk me. For there’s nothing along the river but crime and sin, from ’ere to Parliament.”
Indeed, the Parliament buildings rose nobly in the direction of the new, unfinished bridge, but I was of a mind to correct the inspector. For I had begun to wonder if crime and sin did not extend into the Houses of Parliament themselves. But I said nothing.
“I wants to be there when they knock them down,” the inspector told me. “Just to watch the rats with two legs outracing the rats with four.”
He offered to take me wherever I wished to go, but I had consumed too much of his day already. He wished to part, twas clear. And I needed to think a bit. So I had him set me down along the Strand, with its restaurants and shops and human thickness.
Perhaps I only wanted people by me. To have a little taste of simpler cares. But this was no day for the soul’s rest, for I always seemed to be looking past the smiles of the ladies and their beaux to the ravaged faces weaving along the pavement, ignored by those who would go home to cherished families and money in the bank. There was a great hurry of delivery boys bobbing under loads of packages, and the windows of the shops held such abundance it would have tempted a hermit into luxury. Sleek of waist above eminent skirts, ladies of fashion pretended to listen to each other as they went, and young men on the way up did not look down at the hard world at their feet. But I saw only the faces lashed by life and the broken hearts, the ragged girls and the cripples who could but envy my slight degree of lameness. A bit of rain come flirting, and the ladies crushed their starched muslins through shop doorways, while swains or squires—men of town and country—laughed to see them fearful of the elements. The gentlemen made a great to-do of tipping hats and holding doors and laughing. Always laughing they were, with a legion and more of beggars at their boots.
Dear God, I wished to see the last of England. And to return to my America forever.
“I WANT YOU TO GO TO GLASGOW,” Mr. Adams said quietly, before I could offer a word of my own conclusions, “on urgent business. How soon can you leave?”
He had spoken hardly a word as we walked, bidding me hold my peace until we reached the breadth of Regent’s Park, where only the grass might hear us. I had steered him away from the spot where the boy was found, since I was as haunted by the business as Wilkie and have my superstitions, I will admit. No sooner were we seated on a bench, with governesses leading their troops past in review, than Mr. Adams raised this matter of Glasgow, all on his own and without a bit of prodding.
“There is a morning express,” I told him. “I can go tomorrow, but—”
“Then go. I’ve had a curious message from our consul in Liverpool. Everything appears in order on the Number 290 matter, the lawyers have filed and the courts are at work, so that appears to be that. But now he claims a rumor’s circulating in the Birkenhead yards about a secret warship under construction along the Clyde, not far from Glasgow. I can’t see how they would know of such a thing in Liverpool, but a Scottish yard is said to have built an enormous wooden tent over a vessel destined for the Confederacy. To hide their labors, you understand. The ship is reported to have a metaled hull that would render it formidable—perhaps, even unsinkable.”
Our minister sat upright, with posture so perfect he might have taught comportment in a boys’ school, and he spoke without emotion, stating facts. He turned his chin toward me, with that slow, iced-over dignity of his. “There it is, Major Jones. Glasgow. Where the first agent met his misfortune. It’s Glasgow, after all, it seems.”
I was relieved, for he had made a better argument for my going than I could. And yet, there was much left for me to tell him. And I was ready to tell him and waiting to tell him, but Mr. Adams had still more to say. Twas queer. For he seemed to me a close man, whose speech was measured and lean, yet that afternoon found him in a confidential mood. Perhaps he felt that I must be informed on every matter, or maybe he just felt a need to talk. Being a high diplomat must be a bit like leading men into battle, see. You must be strong for all, and hold yourself in, never showing fear or doubt or weakness. But all men need to speak from time to time. Our hearts demand it, though why I cannot say. And after we have talked, we do feel better.
“I had the oddest few days,” he began. “Lord Parch invited me down to Fawes, which the English seem to think a signal honor. Frankly,” he said, with his palms atop the ball of his cane and his eyes on the children playing across the sward, “it was a worse bore than dinner with Stanton and Chase at the same table. And I suppose I felt guilty, off in the country, watching the titled glories of England shotgun every living thing in a pair of counties while you were in town doing my work for me.”
His lip wrinkled ever so slightly as he remembered. “The house was cold and miserable—I can’t imagine what it’s like in winter. I counted the minutes until it seemed a decent hour to ta
ke my leave yesterday afternoon, but just as I was about to have my bag brought down, His Lordship took me by the arm and insisted—‘insisted’ is the only suitable word—that I stay over for breakfast this morning. He claimed he had something he wished to show me. Well, I didn’t want to offend the man—given his position—so I took my place at dinner between a fellow intent on explaining the merits of a dozen kinds of hounds and a lady who believes the Church of England must reconcile with Rome. Then, in the morning, when I went down for breakfast, the butler told me Lord Parch had already gone back to town on the early train. And who should appear—purely by accident, of course—but Earl Russell and Lord Lyons, who should have been in town themselves. They made rather too much of their disappointment at finding His Lordship missing, but insisted our meeting was more than a solace—that it was, indeed, fortuitous that they had ridden over to visit.”
Mr. Adams sighed at the convolutions of the world. Or perhaps at the sight of a little boy thrashing his sister while their governess flirted. “You see, Major Jones, nothing can be done straightforwardly here. I might as well be at the court of the Emperor of China. Frankly, I expected a blistering about corpses and coded messages, but there was nothing of the kind. After our coffee, Lord John suggested the three of us stroll the grounds for a ‘friendly chat.’ Of course, I was glad to listen. Especially after I heard what they had to say—or what they implied between the two of them.”
He nodded in satisfaction at the memory. “It appears we have turned a corner. They made it quite clear that England does not want a war with the United States, not now and not tomorrow. In fact, they hinted that the Prime Minister has other concerns entirely.” He gave me a brief, sideward glance. “Of course, with Lord Palmerston you never quite know. But, far from chastising me, they seemed determined to enlist my backing, although they couldn’t quite bring themselves to say precisely what might require my support. Nothing but mumbling about Old Pam at the tiller of state and a stable course amid the winds of crisis. They even offered a near-apology for the Prime Minister’s remarks over General Butler, insisting that not a word of it was ill-meant toward me. It all seemed terribly slap-dash and not very English.”
He poked his walking stick into the gravel. “At the same time, they seemed anxious to prepare me for a degree of turbulence in the future. They made a mystery of that, too, assuring me of their personal good intentions, but suggesting that not everyone, even in their own party, was fully subject to their control. On the whole, though, the conversation seemed all I could have asked. Lyons has even come around on Seward. Instead of the ogre all England thought him during the Trent affair, our Secretary of State now appears to be a reasonable gentleman who is not without a certain wisdom. I can’t begin to convey what a change that is. They even told me Lindsay won’t find any serious backers when next he offers a motion in support of Richmond in Parliament. Really, it was an extraordinary morning. By the end of it, I felt I might have asked for the moon and gotten, at the very least, a wheel of Stilton.”
“Well, there is good, sir,” I told him. “For a war with Britain would go hard.”
“I should hate to see it,” Mr. Adams said. “Enough blood has been shed between our two countries. After all, we’re brethren, whether or not we enjoy the family resemblance.” He not only turned his head toward me, but tilted his shoulders in my direction, which was a gesture of extravagant physicality from our minister. “And what have you learned, Major Jones? While I’ve been off watching the unintelligible shooting the inedible?”
I told him everything I could remember, about murdered eel-men and dead pawn-mothers, boys butchered like pigs in a slaughterhouse and phantoms in red silk masks, and a brass watch recovered with its secrets stolen away. When I handed him the timepiece, he said not a word, but slipped it into a pocket without examining it. Then I spoke of slums and penny gaffs, omitting only the lewdest utterances of Miss Perkins. He hardly interrupted, saying only, “Dear God,” when I told him of the severed hand and the dead boy. But when I spoke of my visit to the Pomeroy house, he felt obliged to assist me.
“A difficult family, if reputation is to be believed,” Mr. Adams told me. “This wouldn’t be their first scandal. Although one shouldn’t gossip, I did hear that a maternal cousin of the elder Mr. Pomeroy had difficulties in the West Indies in his youth—the family money comes from sugar, you see, and there were suggestions that slavery did not end on their plantations as promptly as the law declared it should. Anyway, this young fellow went out to the islands and married a Creole girl, after which there were hints of every sort of horror, from miscegenation to madness. There was a child, too, at least one. The scandal became so much a public matter that the authorities ordered him back to England—quietly, of course—with his madwoman wife and the child. He seems to have retired to the countryside, somewhere in the northern counties, where he locked his wife in the garret and contented himself with seducing governesses. I believe there was a deadly fire, as well.” Mr. Adams gave a faint shudder at the indecency of it all, then set his face in ice again. “Nonetheless, the Pomeroys count among England’s wealthiest families. They lack only the title so desired by the elder.” He looked at me. “Now, what had you begun to say about Mr. Disraeli?”
I told him of my visit the night before and of the letters gained then promptly lost. Not least, I told him of Mr. Disraeli’s threat to embarrass us over my past, and of his mention of the Earl of Thretford and his half-brother. Mr. Adams listened quietly, until I had gotten through a tidied-up version of the White Lily’s appearance in my room and the subsequent confrontation with the masked fellow.
Mr. Adams had been thinking all the while. And then he thought some more.
“I don’t believe we need worry about Disraeli,” he said quite suddenly. “That’s not the way he behaves. If he intended to compromise you, he would never have warned you. He would simply have done it, surprising you when you least expected it.” He leaned forward, just a bit, shifting the slightest fraction of his weight onto the walking stick implanted before him. “As a matter of fact, it sounds as if he’s frightened himself. He must have wanted to get rid of those letters very badly—you didn’t have time to review them, I take it?”
“No, sir. And, as a gentleman, I—”
“Disraeli doesn’t think that way. If he gave them to you, he expected me to learn what was in them. I believe that’s clear enough.”
“Unless,” I said, for I had been thinking, too, “it was merely a trick to appear to be free of the letters. Think you, Mr. Adams. How would the fellow in the red mask have known I was to have the letters? Unless Mr. Disraeli sent him word? Which also suggests Mr. Disraeli knew how to contact the masked fellow whenever he wished, whether he is this Lieutenant Culpeper risen from the dead or another person entirely. Might it not be, sir, that it was a nasty ruse put up to place the letters into the masked fellow’s hands, by a roundabout route that seemed to be secure? Shifting any blame for future doings from Mr. Disraeli—and tying you to the letters, if such should prove to advantage?”
When next he spoke, Mr. Adams sounded chastened, although I had intended no such effect. “I’m afraid I have allowed my vanity to show,” he said. “I find your supposition the more convincing of the two. Although I can’t fathom the Earl of Thretford’s involvement—unless the letters do lead us back to a Confederate conspiracy. From what little I know of the Earl, young Pomeroy would be too small a fox for Lord Arthur to hunt.” He canted his head one tenth of a degree. “So . . . the man in the mask was to take the letters from you all along, but this Perkins girl interfered?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now she has possession of the letters. But the conspirators, whoever they may be, don’t know that?”
“I hope not, sir. For her sake. But they have figured out a great many other things, so I fear they will come to that, as well.”
Mr. Adams nodded. “Indeed. They seem to know a great deal. Particularly about you, Major Jones.”
“But the records, the files . . .”
“A military record tells certain things,” I said, “but to understand it properly a body must know much more. And how did they know I would be the one to come? How could they have had time to prepare so much, all tailored to my benefit?”
“I’m afraid,” Mr. Adams said, “that I may know at least part of the answer to that. You see, I had a telegraphic message—two, in fact—prior to your arrival. The first mentioned that a special agent would be despatched.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t believe it included your name. But the second one did.”
“I thought the Atlantic cable had broken apart?”
“It did. Before the war even started. But Washington cables New York, a fast packet carries the message to the Irish coast, and the telegraphics are relayed from there. The cable between Ireland and England remains in order.” He almost smiled, though it was a bitter sight. “I had the second message a full week before your arrival. Still . . . it hardly seems enough time, does it?”
“Unless,” I said carefully, “there is a spy in Washington. Who learned my name early on and sent the intelligence by an earlier ship.”
Mr. Adams shook his head and tapped with his stick. “I would hate to think that. Good Lord. It would have to mean a spy close to Seward himself.”
“Or,” I said, “close to Mr. Lincoln. And Mr. Nicolay.”
“I can’t . . . well, that would explain much, were it true. The code, for instance. In order to intercept the messages, they would need to have broken our code.” He took a deep breath and let it out again. “I wonder what message was in Campbell’s watch? They must have read that, too. What on earth might it have said? What could have been worth his death?”