by M. J. Trow
‘What is?’
‘This crest. The cross and the sword.’
‘You know it?’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘It’s the coat of arms of the City of London. What on earth is it doing here? Where did you get it?’
‘Er … I found it,’ he lied. ‘Lying on the stage at Ford’s. It caught my attention in the limelight, and I thought Booth might have dropped it when he landed on the boards. Is it from properties perhaps? Part of the costume department?’
‘Well, I suppose … it could be something Lord Dundreary would wear, but why go to such lengths? You can’t see cufflink designs, not even from the orchestra pit. I’m afraid I cannot help you, Captain.’
Grand pocketed the thing again and was about to take his leave when there was another knock at the door. Margareta was there in an instant but was swept aside by a rotund man with a large nose, a drooping moustache and a huge bunch of flowers.
‘Miss Keene.’ He bowed. ‘Forgive the intrusion. As soon as I heard of the tragic events of Good Friday, I just had to offer you my most sincere condolences.’
Grand recognized the English accent at once. Was Washington crawling with these Limeys? Was it 1813 all over again?
‘Thank you, Mr … er …?’ Laura took the flowers and passed them at once to the maid, who stood there fuming at the newcomer’s arrogance.
‘Sala,’ the man said. ‘George Sala. My card.’ And he flourished it under her nose before placing it in her hand with more smarm than was strictly necessary.
Laura’s face fell. ‘You write for the Telegraph?’ she asked.
‘I write for the public, madam,’ he assured her, ‘and the public’s right to know.’
‘Right to know what?’ Grand asked him.
Sala looked him up and down. Grand was half a head taller, ten years younger and had a distinctly military air about him. Sala beamed up at him. ‘You are …?’
‘Standing between you and Miss Keene,’ Grand said. ‘Margareta, you’ve done more than enough door-opening for one day. I’ll show the gentleman out.’ He grabbed Sala by the lapels and frogmarched him to the door.
‘How dare you!’ the journalist spluttered. ‘Miss Keene, I …’ But the rest of his sentence was lost behind the slammed door.
Sala shook his velvet coat back into place and was about to knock again when he thought better of it. He had not cared for the captain of cavalry inside. And he cared for the steel in his eyes even less. Damn. Now he’d have to trot back to Ford’s and talk to lesser fry about their reminiscences of the Night It Happened. And there was no time to be lost.
‘Thank you, Captain Grand.’ Laura smiled at him. ‘That was very … gallant.’
Grand half bowed. ‘I’m afraid he won’t be the last,’ he said.
‘I am used to gentlemen of the Press,’ she told him. ‘But you were right to assume that I do not need them today.’
‘You know he was waiting for it, don’t you, Grand? The assassin’s bullet, I mean.’
Major Henry Rathbone was still white as a sheet that Sunday morning. A watery sun was gilding the cannon on the parade ground below his room, and the chapel bell called the faithful to prayer. His hair looked redder than ever against the white of his pillow, and his beady little eyes never left Grand’s. The captain had had to leave his pistol at the door and let himself be searched by the guards stationed there.
‘He said—’ Rathbone’s stream of consciousness went on – ‘he said he wouldn’t live out his term. “When the rebellion is crushed,” he said, “my work is done.”’
‘You can’t blame yourself, Henry.’ Grand was tempted to pat the man’s good hand, but thought better of it. You couldn’t pat a man like Henry Riggs Rathbone; it was like patting a goldfish.
‘I don’t,’ Rathbone snapped, as though outraged by the suggestion. ‘I did what I could. I wrestled with that maniac, tried to get the knife off him. I was concerned for Mrs Lincoln.’
Grand nodded. ‘And Clara. You were concerned for her.’
‘Why?’ Rathbone frowned.
Grand fidgeted. This was an odd moment. ‘Er … she’s your fiancée, Henry,’ he said. ‘You know, the girl you’re going to marry.’
A look of pain flashed across the major’s face. He pulled his nightshirt closer around him with his good hand and shifted so that he could whisper to Grand. ‘She’s a fan of Wilkes Booth,’ he hissed.
‘Clara?’
Rathbone nodded. ‘Insisted we go to Ford’s.’
‘Well, weren’t you invited by the President?’ Grand asked him.
‘Were we?’ Rathbone’s eyes swivelled right and left. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.’
Grand frowned. ‘Look, Henry, you’re all right,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a fright, and you’ve got a bad cut on the arm. Of course, it must have been awful for you in the box …’
‘Where was she?’ the major asked quickly, his voice still a hoarse rasp.
‘Who?’
‘Clara.’
‘What do you mean?’
Rathbone did his best to explain with the use of only one hand. ‘The President was here. With his back to the door. Next to him, Mrs Lincoln. She couldn’t see the door either. Then me, then … Clara.’
‘Er …’
‘Don’t you see?’ Rathbone hissed, astonished at Grand’s stupidity. ‘She wasn’t in line with the door. She would have had a clear view of Booth as he came in. And she didn’t say a word.’
Grand looked at the wrinkles in Rathbone’s comforter, where he had placed the box’s occupants mentally in its folds. ‘She could only have seen the door if she turned round, Henry,’ he said. ‘But that applies to any of you.’
‘No.’ Rathbone shook his head, shaking his body at the same time. ‘No. It was Clara. How else could Booth have got into the box? There was a guard outside.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Clara bought him off. Clara and that father of hers.’
‘The Senator?’ Grand couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Henry …’
‘I want you to go now, Grand,’ Rathbone said. ‘It’s good of you to check on me, but as you see, I’m perfectly all right. Perfectly.’ And he trembled, his eyes rolling in his head.
‘Good.’ Grand stood up, grateful to be away, and shook the patient’s hand. ‘Take care of yourself, Henry.’
Beyond the door, an army doctor waited with a small leather bag. ‘I know,’ he said, reading the expression on Grand’s face. ‘He’s mad as a rattler. Wouldn’t you be? With what he’s seen? God help America now.’
A dim light was filtering through the thin curtains of Matthew Grand’s hotel room on the corner of Sixth and Pennsylvania. There was no clock, and he could not see his watch from the bed. It had to be morning, with a still-shocked capital creaking into life and coming to terms with its loss. But something had woken him. It was nothing from out in the street. It was here, in his room.
He half sat up and was reaching out for his hunter when he felt his hair yanked backwards and his head crunched on the headboard. The muzzle of a .44 was cold on his temple, and he knew better than to move.
‘You’re an elusive son of a bitch, Captain Grand,’ a voice said. ‘I’ll give you that.’
The curtains were wrenched aside, and the April dawn hurt Grand’s eyes. He felt the iron grip on his hair relax. There were two men in his room, both in the Union uniform of dark-blue. The one with the gun moved backwards and sat down carefully in a soft chair. The one who had opened the curtains crossed to the door and locked it.
‘Luther.’ The gunman jerked his head, and the other one hauled the coverlet off Grand’s bed, leaving him sitting, rather ridiculously, in his nightshirt. Resisting the urge to tug down the hem, he decided to bluff it out.
‘You clearly know who I am,’ he said. ‘Will you return the compliment?’
The gunman let the hammer ease forward under his thumb, and he slid the pistol into a holster under his coat. ‘I�
�m Lafayette Baker,’ he said. ‘This is Cousin Luther.’
The younger man nodded. ‘Luther Byron Baker, to be precise,’ he said. ‘My ma and pa favoured men who’ve made a nuisance of themselves in the past.’
Lafayette smiled. ‘Luther comes from the philosophical side of the family. Me, I’m more devoted to practical matters.’
‘Really?’
Lafayette nodded. ‘Like catching killers of Presidents.’ Lafayette Baker’s thin lips were all but lost in his heavy black beard, but his eyes were everywhere, darting and glowing below the worried frown of his brow. He did not look like a man to cross.
‘What a coincidence,’ Grand said.
‘How so?’ Lafayette asked. Cousin Luther stood against the far wall, arms folded, watching and waiting.
‘You haven’t told me what you’re doing here,’ Grand said, pulling the coverlet back up over himself, ‘disturbing an officer of the Union Army at this Godforsaken hour.’
‘Officer of the Union Army,’ Lafayette repeated, smiling grimly. ‘Well, let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Cousin Luther here can call you “sir” because he’s only a lieutenant. Me, I’m a full colonel. So, you shape up, soldier. I have some questions for you.’
‘Have you?’ Grand stayed on his dignity. ‘On what authority … Colonel?’
Lafayette sighed. ‘I am the head of the National Detective Police, son,’ he said. ‘Stanton’s right-hand man. I loved my President like the next man, but there are a hell of a lot round here who didn’t. I want to know which side of the picket wire you stand on.’
‘I was at the theatre,’ Grand told him, ‘when Lincoln was shot.’
‘We know that,’ Luther said. ‘You were seen leaving with John Wilkes Booth.’
Grand blinked. How wrong could these men be? ‘I may have been seen leaving after Booth,’ he said. ‘I was chasing him.’
‘How commendable.’ Lafayette crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. ‘Were you armed?’
‘No, I’d gone to watch a play,’ Grand explained.
‘So, let’s get this straight. You were in the theatre when Booth jumped on to the stage?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’d seen him shoot the President?’
‘I didn’t actually see it,’ Grand admitted. ‘I wasn’t looking that way. I heard a shot, and then Booth was on the stage, shouting.’
‘Shouting what?’ Luther asked.
‘It sounded like, “Sic semper tyrannis.”’
‘So it is always with tyrants,’ Luther translated aloud.
Lafayette nodded. ‘The motto of Virginia. Home of the good ol’ boys. What did you do?’
‘I gave chase.’
Luther grinned. ‘D’you catch him?’
Grand looked at the man. He didn’t like Lafayette Baker, but he liked Cousin Luther less. ‘All I caught was the butt of a pistol. Or something like it.’
‘From Booth?’ Lafayette asked.
‘An accomplice.’
Lafayette sat upright slowly, looking at the man in bed closely. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘From what he said,’ Grand told him. ‘Something like, “You didn’t think Johnny would come alone?”’
‘Johnny?’
Grand shrugged. ‘I assumed he meant Wilkes Booth.’
Lafayette nodded. ‘Luther and me, we’ve talked to a few fellers over the last few days. Some of ’em were good friends of Booth. Nobody calls him Johnny. He’s Booth. Or John.’
‘That’s what he said.’ Grand was sure.
‘What did he look like?’ Luther asked.
Grand was remembering. ‘Big. Maybe six foot one, two. Beard. Wore a wideawake and a duster.’
‘You saw his face under the brim of a wideawake?’ Lafayette checked.
‘Yes.’
‘In the dark?’ Luther butted in.
‘Yes.’
Lafayette chased the idea. ‘With all Hell broken loose in that theatre?’
‘Yes.’ Grand was determined. He wasn’t shouting, but he was sure.
Lafayette leaned back in the chair again. He clasped his hands and pressed his index fingers against his lips, looking at Grand closely. ‘Would you know this man again?’ he asked.
Grand nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’
The head of detectives turned to his cousin. ‘Show him, Luther.’
‘You’ll see more in the daylight,’ the younger Baker said. ‘Come over to the window, Captain Grand.’ He fumbled in an attaché case that came from nowhere and passed a photograph to Grand.
Grand squinted at it in the shaft of light from the window. ‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.
‘Alexander Gardner took this at Lincoln’s inauguration – the second one, I mean. Ironic, really. You can’t see the President himself – he must have moved while Gardner was taking it. Luther and I are in there somewhere.’
‘Lovely,’ Grand murmured.
Lafayette tapped the top of the tintype with an imperious finger. ‘There, up on the balcony of the White House. In the top hat. That’s Booth.’
‘My God.’
‘But that’s not I want you to look at. Down here. At the bottom, below the fence. This man?’ He pointed to a figure in kepi and military jacket.
Grand shook his head. He’d never seen the man before.
‘This one? The tall one next to him?’
Grand saw a man as tall as the one he had collided with in the alley, but he was younger, clean-shaven. He shook his head.
‘What about this?’ Lafayette’s finger touched a man scowling towards the camera.
‘No, I’ve never seen him. Who are they?’ But before Lafayette could answer, Matthew Grand had snatched the photograph back from Luther’s grasp. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘That one! That’s him.’ All eyes in the room fell on the indistinct features, the broad cheekbones, the thick, dark beard. ‘That’s the man I met in the alley.’
‘You’re sure?’ Lafayette checked.
Grand looked at him, nodding. ‘I’m positive.’
Baker slipped the photograph back into his cousin’s case.
‘Are you going to tell me who those men are?’ Grand asked.
The head of detectives looked at him, then at Luther, then at Grand again. ‘The one in uniform is John Surratt. He’s a Confederate spy, passing letters between Virginia and Canada. Our sources tell us he wasn’t in town last Friday, and we don’t know where he is now. The big man is Lewis Powell. Also calls himself Lewis Paine. He’s the one that got Seward.’
All weekend, Grand had been hearing rumours of the attack on Secretary of State Seward. A lunatic had broken into the man’s home and run amok, slashing Seward’s throat and lashing out at anyone, man or woman, who got in his way.
‘He’s known to be on the loose somewhere in the city,’ Luther said. ‘Only a matter of time.’
‘It’s our guess he’ll show up at Surratt’s boarding house sooner or later,’ Lafayette said, nodding. ‘He’s a few cents short of a dollar. If he weren’t, Seward would be dead by now.’
‘Were they trying to kill everybody in the government?’ Grand asked.
‘The Vice President …’ Lafayette checked himself. ‘Tsk, where are my manners? The President was in the Kirkwood House Hotel. He didn’t so much as stir himself as Lincoln was dying. But our information is that there was somebody sent to deal with him too and the man lost his nerve.’
‘God preserve us,’ Grand muttered, the enormity of the conspiracy now beginning to dawn on him.
‘Oh, he has, Captain Grand,’ Lafayette said, smiling. ‘For all I know there was a derringer aimed at my back too on Friday.’ He looked around the room. ‘We’re all still standing. It’s the men standing next to Surratt and Powell I’m interested in.’
‘He had an English accent,’ Grand said. ‘The man who stopped me.’
‘English, huh?’ Lafayette said.
‘Must be lots of those,’ Luther commented. ‘Half the cast of Our American Cousin for
a start. And that doctor guy …’
‘Doctor?’ Grand repeated.
‘Africanus King,’ the head of detectives told him. ‘There were more doctors with Lincoln at the end than my dog’s got fleas.’
‘There’s something else,’ Grand said, and he crossed to his wardrobe, fumbling in his uniform pocket. He noticed that Cousin Luther’s hand had slipped inside his coat, just in case. Since Friday, nobody felt safe. ‘Here,’ Grand said, ‘either Booth dropped this, or the tall Englishman did.’
Lafayette took the trinket and weighed it in his hand. It was a cufflink, enamelled in red and white. ‘Is that gold?’ he asked.
‘I guess. But it’s the design that interests me. It’s the coat of arms of the City of London.’
Both Bakers looked at him. Lafayette found his voice first. ‘And you know that how?’ he asked.
‘Miss Keene, the actress,’ Grand said. ‘I showed it to her.’
‘Did you now?’
‘I didn’t tell her where I found it. In fact I told her I’d come across it on the stage after the shooting. Wondered if it belonged to one of the cast.’
‘And did it?’
‘No. At least, it wasn’t part of the play’s costume, Miss Keene was sure of that. She just recognized the design.’
‘Miss Keene is currently the guest of the US government in Harrisburg,’ Lafayette said.
‘What?’ Grand couldn’t believe it. ‘You’ve got her under arrest?’
Lafayette Baker laughed. ‘If Mr Stanton had his way, half of Washington would be in irons by now.’
‘But Vice … er … President Johnson …’
‘Ain’t crawled out of a bottle for the past three days,’ Lafayette said, finishing the sentence for him. ‘Stanton’s running the show for now. We’ll play things his way.’
‘And his way is to arrest everybody at the theatre that night?’ Grand said, checking.
‘Stands to reason.’ Luther tucked the attaché case under his arm.
‘But it’s at my discretion.’ Lafayette had reached the door. ‘For now, I’m letting you walk around. But please don’t think of leaving town, Captain. Luther and I have got an assassin to catch, but my eyes and ears are everywhere. Believe me.’