“Father Simon! Come quickly.” I opened to Father Claudian, whose eyes as they regarded me were congealed either with cold or disapproval—I could not discern. Perhaps both. “The bishop is here to see you.”
“The bishop to see me?” I couldn’t credit it. I had slept all night in my clothes and was unsuitably rumpled, but I could do nothing about that. Into the presence I went.
“Father Simon,” the bishop greeted me with a damp handshake. He was large, and like many large men sweat a good deal in the humidity of Charleston even in the cold months. At his neck his long hair formed a big coil that was always moist.
“My lord,” I said, then catching myself, “Your reverence”—the American usage.
“I have come to see you particularly,” he said, glancing at Father Claudian, who took the suggestion and left us alone in his austere study. The bishop invited me to sit.
“A blessed New Year to you, my son,” he said.
I offered up the customary blandishments. “Your reverence, I hope my presence at the Cotillion last night was not unseemly. While I did receive an invitation, I had determined not to go—but Father Claudian insisted. It was probably not the place for a clergyman… .” I said before I realized it. “I mean … for a plain priest like myself.”
“Not at all, not at all,” he waved his hand. He spoke with the accent of the Georgia hills, a feature of his which had always amused me until this moment. “I understand you have recently returned from Rome, and you had the blessed fortune of meeting His Holiness in person!”
“Yes, your reverence. I was present for a … um, presentation. To a friend from England. An old schoolmate.”
“A remarkable blessing. I myself had the privilege of his acquaintance when he was Cardinal Pecci and I was a diplomat at the Vatican. A warm and generous soul.”
“That he is.” I did not demur, nor did I forget the Pope’s shrewd face and the baleful wording of his latest encyclical.
As if reading my thoughts, the bishop produced a copy of that very document and laid it on the table between us. “Here is the papal encyclical of December 28. Isn’t it miraculous that we in Charleston can read it only a few days after it is given in Rome? The wonders of the telegraph!” He paused. “My son, I enjoin you to study this very carefully.”
“Of course I shall, your reverence. Are there passages in particular you would wish to call to my attention?”
He pointed to the same passages General Gary had read to me the night before.
I scanned them again and asked, “Why these?”
“My son, you’re a foreigner. Your history, your views, are not the same as ours. Here we observe the God-given order of nature where it would result in chaos and confusion if that order were disturbed.”
“You refer to the observation that God is the author of inequality.”
“I do. Unlike you, I grew up in this country. My family held slaves, and I held slaves. They are free now, but that is only a legal contrivance. It does not change the clear order of things—the Negro is naturally subordinate to the white man. He is very prone to excesses, and plunges madly into the lowest depths of licentiousness. Without the restraint of his white masters, we would be faced with the most deadly antagonism and inhuman warfare in this country.”
I felt my spine stiffening against this little lecture. “I’m not sure I understand, your reverence. It is very early on New Year’s Day. I know your reverence has duties. Why have you so discommoded yourself to bring these matters to my attention—matters with which I am well acquainted, though I am an alien in your midst?”
“Because, my son, I see no future for the Negro in the South unless he is brought back under the entire charge of civilized men—and I believe you Jesuits are the men for the task. The Society of Jesus has done such miracles before. When we gain our full rights once again … .”
Here he stopped. I believe he sensed he had gone too far. For the second time in twelve hours I felt that I was being recruited … for what, I did not know. I dearly wished Holmes were there with his analytical powers to make something intelligible of this hidden game.
The bishop reached for my hand. “My dear Father Simon, I must take my leave. Today is the Feast of the Circumcision—there are services to attend to, for both you and myself.” Then he laughed nervously. “And after that, as every year, the Irish want me to come round and bless the beer barrels.”
I smiled. “That should prove diverting for you, your reverence. I am indebted to you for your kind attentions, and I assure you I am your humble servant in everything.”
“I am gratified to hear that, Father. Very gratified.” He rose ponderously from his chair and I saw him out of the rectory to his carriage.
When I returned, Father Claudian was waiting behind the door.
“What did he want?”
“I am not sure. He required me to read the new papal encyclical.”
“All of it?”
“No. Only the section dealing with inequality of rights.”
“Ah. An excellent idea. He is concerned about you. The town is full of talk about how you helped a Negro escape from the Atlanta jail.”
“What? How …?”
“Unseemly behavior for a priest, don’t you think?”
I was indignant. “To begin with, I didn’t do anything of the sort. The man escaped without any help from me. I admit that I went there to procure his release because he was jailed unjustly… .”
“He is black!” Father Claudian hissed at me, then became calm again. “You haven’t been here two years, so I suppose allowances must be made. But by doing what you have done, you have put our work—even our very presence here—in jeopardy. We have tried, God knows how we have tried, to minister to the Negroes. Before the war one of our former bishops even started a church for them, but he was forced to shut it. Now because of you anything we try to do may be looked upon with suspicion.”
“But the bishop just spoke of a new ministry to them … about bringing them back under the ‘entire charge’ of the white man. He wants me to help… .”
“So you should. His vision is right and just, Father Simon. In any case, you owe him obedience. He is your bishop.”
“Faith is greater than obedience. Shall I obey a superior who requires me to treat others as my inferiors? Under the charge of white men, indeed!”
Father Claudian exhaled in resignation. “You Jesuits wear me out with your fine reasoning. You’re worse than the lawyers I used to joust with. The colored population must be brought to heel or they will run riot over us! Can’t you see that?”
“Didn’t your own Thomas Jefferson declare that all men are created equal?”
“And the pope declares that they are not! Jefferson was an atheist. I fear you are in danger of your soul, Father Simon. As your immediate superior, I propose that you… .”
“I respect you, Father Claudian, but you are not my superior. I belong to the Society of Jesus. My provincial superior is in Baltimore, and it is to him I owe obedience, not to you.”
His lips became as tight and white as his hair.
“Now if you will excuse me, Father, I have duties to see to.” I stalked back to my cell and washed up. Fortunately, we were occupied with divine service for the rest of the day, so I managed to avoid Father Claudian’s icy gaze while longing for the evening when I could shut myself in and return to my study of Pascal’s Triangle.
At last the day ended and I could retire. As I approached my cell, I detected a strong odor of cheap ship’s tobacco—an unmistakable sign. Holmes had returned!
He had flung his loose limbs onto my only chair and lay staring upward, blowing bluish swirls of smoke at the ceiling. Removing the white alb from my shoulders, I half lay down on my bed. “You’re very welcome,” I said, trying not to appear too happy to see him. “When did you return?”
�
��An hour or so ago. I took lodgings at the foot of Meeting Street, and then I came to your service—in the very last chair. You and your co-celebrant are very vexed with one another.”
“How on earth …? Oh, never mind.”
“It takes little skill to see that two men are scrupulously avoiding each other.”
“We had an argument over the rights of man—whether all men are created equal,” I muttered.
“Of course they are. One man equals another man. It is simple mathematics, is it not?”
“If only it were so. Holmes, I have something remarkable to show you—but I have two questions. First, why did you want me—me!—to become a member of the Atlanta Ring, whatever it is?”
“I trust Harris explained what the Atlanta Ring is. It’s very simple, Tuck. I want a pair of ears listening in on the meetings of the great conspiracy.”
“What great conspiracy? You keep hinting at such a thing but never come down to earth and explain yourself.”
Inhaling deeply from his pipe, Holmes leaned back even further on my chair until I thought the legs would snap. “Some men are afflicted with a mania, Tuck. I have a mania for mystery—and shag tobacco. Others are manic for alcohol or sex. Your Southern aristocrats lost everything in the war except their mania for power and wealth. At one time the entire marketplace of the Western world was in their hands, for cotton was truly king. The vast textile mills of England and America undergirded the wealth of both countries, and the slave empire bestrode the ocean.
“Then they overreached and it all came crashing down. But the mania remains, now multiplied manifold by their hatred of the Yankees who defeated them—the Yankees with their iron and steel mills and their railroads and their steamships. Their greedy eyes are upon it all. Do not doubt me—the Atlanta Ring has no small purpose in mind, and if they succeed, many will be crushed under it.”
“And what would be my role in such a group?” I asked.
“To listen. To observe. And to report to me.”
“Apparently I have been accepted by them. Here is the letter Harris wrote them on my behalf.” I handed it to Holmes.
“Ah! A carbonated copy of a type-written document. Extraordinary device, the typewriter. It will be of inestimable value in the detection of crime. Think of it, Tuck! The criminal in the crude maze of his mind will think he can communicate incognito with this device, for nothing in his hand is revealed. But he does not yet realize that each machine has its own character, its own signature, as individual to it as a man’s handwriting is to him. Yes! It will be a boon to my work, this new age of the typewriter!”
“A machine has its own signature?”
“Most certainly. Look, here is a slight crevice in the letter ‘a,’ and a piece of the letter ‘n’ has broken off.” He read the document, his head slightly nodding. “Your friend Harris is just splendid. He has done exactly right. I believe he may prove useful to us yet.” He sat up abruptly. “Now for your second question.”
“Ah. Why your journey to Kentucky? What did you discover there?”
“Precious little,” he sighed out smoke and then gave me a teasing half smile, “except for one thoroughly golden nugget of information!”
Chapter 28
We paused while I made tea and extracted some aging biscuits from a Christmas basket given me by the parishioners. It was all the dinner Holmes needed, and all I was going to get.
“I made the tour of a few horse farms in the vicinity of our friends the Beauforts of Kentucky,” he began. “It is capital country for raising horses, which love to graze on the blue grass peculiar to the land, and there are races nearly every day even in winter. Tuck, do you realize that horses race counter-clockwise in this country? I was told it is a sign of protest against the British, who always race clockwise.”
“Fine, but what about the Beauforts? The golden nugget?”
“And the Kentuckians hold their own Derby! Fancy the cheek. As for the Beauforts, not much information to be had. They are held in esteem by their neighbors, although Thomas is considered unsocial and unapproachable. He is a single man, has had some trouble in the neighborhood defending his ‘honor’ against laughable slights, threatening people with dueling pistols, that sort of thing. But the older brother, the general, is well respected.
“Then I happened on an old country tavern at a place called Bardstown. It was a deep well of information, and I dropped a pail in for all I could get. Over at least a gallon of a local distillate called Bourbon (most excellent, by the way), I was able to pry out the history of the Beauforts. They are an enormous family that settled on the blue grass of Kentucky long ago. Some of them fought for the South, some for the North, but the true hero of the family is the grand patriarch two generations back, one Abraham Beaufort, or Buford, a Revolutionary War patriot who …
“Fought at Waxhaws! Another missing link found!”
“Precisely. He it was who tried to surrender to Colonel Tarleton and saw his men sabered to death instead.”
“As I suspected! The murderer of the Tarletons would be someone who bore a long grudge against Bloody Ban!”
“Our friend Thomas Beaufort is only a distant relation to the Beaufort of the Waxhaws, but we know he has a mania for honor. The fact that his ancestor was humiliated so famously would gnaw at him, particularly since the rogue Tarleton lived on and prospered. Thomas easily fits the character of the writer of your poisonous poem—and avenger of his family’s dishonor.”
“The chain grows a little longer each day.” I had to tell Holmes about the Cotillion. “I too have added a link—I am sure that it was General Beaufort I spoke to about the Tarleton murders at the victory celebration in the fall. He must have either written the poem himself or inspired his brother to it.”
“Very likely.”
“And there’s more.” I rehearsed for him my encounters at the Cotillion ball, the paintings, the story of the battle of the golden spurs, my odd interchange with the bishop—and the dreadful feeling that I was being recruited for a mission to re-enslave the former slaves.
“Capital!” Holmes leaned over and slapped my shoulder. “No doubt the scoundrels felt the need to flatter you, to curry your favor: thus the invitation to the Cotillion. And your bishop—whatever his motives, he must be in sympathy with them.”
“I believe I might have offended them—and the bishop. I more or less resisted their appeals … perhaps more rather than less.”
Alarmed, Holmes sprang up from his chair. “Tuck! You must become their most fervent recruit. They have opened the door into the very heart of the conspiracy and invited you in!”
Of course I agreed, although I had my doubts that there really was a “conspiracy.” Then I explained what was most intriguing about that night: my discovery of Pascal’s Triangle embedded in the coded message from Mrs. Wells.
Holmes seized my scribbles about the Triangle and studied them closely, then smoothed out the Katherine Wells document on the desk. He stared at it for some time.
“So what have you made of this discovery of yours, Tuck?”
“I make nothing of it. I have flagellated my brains since last night in hopes of finding some application of the Triangle to the figure.”
“Then let us put our heads together and try again. I may be able to add yet another link to our chain.” From his watch fob he pulled a pocket-compass and laid it before me on the desk. “What do you see here?”
“A compass with a brass lid.”
“What else?”
“The manufacturer’s name, Negretti and Zambria.”
“Good heavens, Tuck. Count them! Thirty-six! Thirty-six points obviously representing the 360 degrees of the compass at a ratio of one to ten. ”
“Like the golden spurs.” I began to understand.
“Exactly like them. You will recall that the golden spur has 36 points. Now if we lay the wheel o
ver Pascal’s Triangle, which contains 36 boxes, what does that give us?”
“No idea.”
“I believe it gives us a number and a direction. For example, if we label the arrow pointing straight north ‘zero degrees,’ and the boxed number immediately beneath it is “1,” then we have “zero-1.”
“Or 1-zero.”
“Yes, of course, it could be so. But in any case, it is the only such combination on the key. Now let’s look at the cipher to see if there is a zero-1 combination—or a 1 zero. And … here it is. One occurrence. It’s the first boxed number in the fourth column.”
33-3
4-3
0-1
36-1
10-1
1-1
3-1
3-1
26-1
20-21
20-15
3-1
18-20
23-1
4-3
22-5
22-5
20-15
22-5
20-15
18-20
16-10
34-1
25-4
4-3
3-1
4-3
4-3
20-10
18-20
1-1
1-1
The Tarleton Murders Page 20