4-3 A
0-1 V
36-1 M
10-1 O
1-1 N
3-1 E
3-1 E
26-1 U
20-21 2
20-15 S
3-1 E
18-20 R
23-1 8
4-3 A
22-5 T
22-5 T
20-15 S
22-5 T
20-15 S
18-20 R
16-10 H
34-1 L
25-4 J
4-3 A
3-1 E
4-3 A
4-3 A
20-10 I
18-20 R
1-1 N
1-1 N
18-6 B
36-1 M
22-5 T
20-21 2
3-1 E
4-3 A
4-3 A
22-7 7
11-4 G
1-1 N
18-6 B
11-4 G
20-10 I
4-3 A
10-1 O
18-20 R
1-1 N
18-20 R
4-3 A
7-1 F
20-15 S
18-20 R
18-20 R
1-2 D
25-4 J
20-10 I
1-2 D
14-1 9
“Sherman will arrive in Atlanta on January 28. The day before that, January 27, the ‘board’ meets. This is followed by a four-letter compound ‘GRFD’ and the numeral ‘9.’ So … what is the ‘board’ and what is meant by GRFD9?” Holmes tapped his cheek with the letter. “Indeed, what is the full import of this message?”
“Whatever it is, Katherine Wells thought the message important enough that you should see it, Holmes.”
“Yes, but to what end?” he mused. “To prevent an outrage, or to mislead? To betray Moriarty, or to serve his purpose? Are we intended to uncover a crime or to walk into a snare?”
“With such an enigmatical woman, perhaps both.”
Holmes looked up at me with raised eyes. “Tuck, you astonish me at times. I am prone to view the softer passions of women as incompatible with reasoned action; however, your insight into the convolutions of the female mind might far exceed mine. You have, of course, the confessional as your laboratory: You hear directly what I may only infer.”
“It is true that I have listened to women who struggle with objects in conflict. They are capable of hating and loving at the same instant, but I am inclined to sympathize. Human beings who are exploited often suffer from divided hearts.”
Holmes considered this and then sniffed, “So Katherine Wells provides us a coded message and a key to the code, but we must discern the true nature of the message. What does your deep experience with the ‘exploited’ female mind reveal to you on this point?”
“My experience is neither deep nor revelatory,” I replied, “but my instinct tells me that Katherine Wells wishes to help you.”
“I care nothing for instinct; however, if we accept your premise, we must act. General Sherman must be warned. We must learn what her friend ‘Henry J. Raymond’ is up to, what is the nature and purpose of this ‘board meeting,’ and we must discover what ‘GRFD9’ stands for.”
“I believe, Holmes, that you already have your suspicions about the nature and purpose of this ‘board meeting.’”
He leaned back and spoke hesitantly. “I am haunted by the flectere nequeo—those men in the forest who, if they cannot move the will of heaven, would move hell instead. This cipher has now sharpened my fears. Consider what would be the likely result if, heaven forbid, a figure as eminent as General Sherman were assassinated in Atlanta, the heart of the South.”
“I cannot tell.”
“Nor can I; however, for the men of Courtrai, it may be only the starting point.”
“Holmes, you have hinted before that the future of the American Union may be at stake. Now I begin to see why. Sherman is perhaps the most honored hero of the Union. An attack on Sherman… .”
“Could re-ignite the Civil War. Yes. And that may be precisely the aim of the men of Courtrai.” Holmes turned grim and fiercely excited at the same time. “We shall see whither that hypothesis will lead us. I’ll leave you now. It’s very late and we both have a full day tomorrow—you with your work and I with mine.”
He made for the door. All at once he looked like a starved greyhound straining against a lead.
“Holmes,” I said, “you will not find your drug at the inn. I disposed of it. All of it.”
He gave me a cold look. “I have no need of it now. The game is afoot; therefore, I can dispense with artificial stimulants. And what is this?”
Holmes touched the open envelope on my desk and the desiccated orange pips lying next to it.
I explained what I had learned from Father Claudian.
“’Alas, what baneful shade o’erhangs and dries this seed?’” Holmes murmured, then noting my baffled face, he added, “Petrarch. Well, Tuck, there is a distinct element of danger in this game we are playing. I have not heard of this particular warning sign, although it recalls the ancient practice of the Caribbean pirates in delivering an ace of spades to a traitor who has been condemned to death. You’ll remember that the card features one pip. Perhaps for lack of playing cards, the K.K.K. substitutes actual pips… .”
“Holmes, please. You have alarmed me enough as it is.”
“My advice is to lock your door and to take care of yourself, for there can be no doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger.”
“Thank you, Holmes. I shall do as you say.”
“I, um, I do wish to … I am extremely obliged to you, Tuck. You have been of material assistance to me.”
“It is I who am obliged to you, Holmes, for coming to my aid across ocean and continent. You are truly a remarkable man—and a friend.”
He opened the door, then turned. “You will take care.”
“Yes, I shall, but do not over-concern yourself. This is, after all, God’s house.”
“So it is,” he said abruptly, “and do not delude yourself into thinking that you have found all of my drugs.” He grinned and was gone.
I lay upon my bed in the dark, my attention wandering continually over the new developments of the day. Supposing that our hypothesis were true, then what hellish destiny hung over the people of the South who have already suffered such calamity? I reflected on the many tales I had heard of the brutality of Sherman and his army, of the burning of cities and the ravening mobs of soldiers who stripped bare the countryside, leaving the inhabitants to starve and leading their legions of hopeful slaves into hopelessness.
Then had come Reconstruction and deepening hatred for the Yankee, who in a foredoomed quest for justice turned the world up
side down and made the slaves the masters. Angry, defeated, like whipped wolves, former rebels put on masks and tortured by night and bribed by day their way back into power while gradually crushing the former slaves back into the soil once again. Now they spoke of a “new South” where “the relations of the southern people with the Negro are close and cordial… . Nowhere on earth is there kindlier feelings than between the whites and blacks of the South today.”
They are succeeding, the “men of Courtrai,” I thought. They have lulled the American nation to sleep with their cunning words and lured their unthinking enemy back into their midst. And now for the master stroke.
“Who is it?” I called. I was certain I had heard someone outside my room. I had no idea what time it was, but it was well past midnight. Through the bars of my cell window the moon was a thin, curved knife, giving too little light to see by. Perhaps if I lit the lamp… .
There it was again. The barest scraping noise, accompanied by faint breathing. Just outside my door.
“Father Claudian?” I called again.
Nothing.
Then I thought of the dried pips on the table and how foolish I had been to take so little notice. But what should I have done? I would never leave my station. Perhaps a few precautions, though, something more than a feeble locked door… .
I could still hear the breathing.
Was there anything in the room to defend myself with? A walking stick? A knife? I could think of nothing—except for my stout ruler.
Slowly and soundlessly I rose from my bed, picked up the ruler from my table, and crept behind the door. With my ear to the door I could hear even more surely that someone was breathing on the other side. I reasoned that, although I am not particularly brave, I am a stout fellow and have held my own in more than one boxing ring. So I decided to venture.
“I know someone is there,” I said in my clearest, coldest voice. “Whoever it is, I warn you that I am armed. Identify yourself!”
There came a scratchy whisper: “Father Simon!”
The voice seemed familiar. “Who is it?” I decided to unlock the door, and someone peered round the opening in the darkness—a barely visible face.
“Father Simon. It’s me, James!”
Chapter 32
Astounded, I let him in, locked the door behind me, and tried to understand his muffled talk. He was almost frozen, his hands and face like ice, so I lit some coals in the grate and covered him with my quilt. Hot tea did not revive him but put him straightway to sleep.
He lay on my bed while I made myself comfortable next to the fire. Fortunately, the little noise we had made went unnoticed by Father Claudian, and we both slept sound and warm until morning. I awoke to find James still snoring quietly, looking utterly exhausted, so I wrote him a note telling him to stay where he was until I returned; then I went to attend to my duties with the school children. It wasn’t until midmorning that I was able to return to my room, where James still slept like a dead man. I sent a message to Holmes at his inn that a certain visitor from Jamaica had arrived and would like to see him.
At luncheon, I managed to get away with a bread roll and some soup for James. Resting his head on my pillow, he was just stirring, so I fed him a little of the food and told him to remain in the room and make no noise—that Mr. Holmes and I were eager to hear what had happened to him.
When I had finished my day’s work, I hurried to my room. James was at my table writing; he had decided to make a report for us. A little puzzled that I had heard nothing from Holmes during the day, I was answered by a blustering knock on my door and he himself entered, puffing furiously at his pipe. He seemed a totally different man from the somber pessimist of the day before.
“James!” He greeted my guest in eager whispers and sat down with hardly a nod to me. “I must hear your story. What have you to tell us?”
“Well, suh,” James stifled a cough and looked at me pleadingly for tea. He was clearly quite ill. After a long draught, he went on. “I made my way to Savannah and got passage to Kingston. It was a wonderful long voyage and I made fren’s with some sailors and they takes me up to the gove’nor’s house. Your letter just like magic, Mr. Holmes, ‘cause I was brought right in to the gove’nor hisself!”
“Excellent,” Holmes sat back satisfied. “Sir Anthony is a gentleman who honors his debts. Pray, what happened next?”
James’s hoarseness had increased and he was struggling to talk. “I done wrote it all down for you all.” Taking his report in hand, Holmes read it aloud. It was surprisingly fluent.
The govenor send me recomendation to work at George Town on plantation used to be Tallton fambly land — I was prentice over seer — I work long side old Jerry the over seer he work for Talltons long time, he say Master Rafe Tallton was a babby when he come with a fambly slave named Tigona, she raise him but she get et by a corkodile — Master Rafe he a hard master, he sell out when slaves freed in George Town and he win the Fare Hill in a card game and he go to the States and nobody see him ever agin — I don know what else to do so I come back on the ship — no money lef so I walk from Savana and it mighty cold—
“Superb! Now the chain is complete.” Holmes stood and paced the room. “Rafe Tarleton was the child of Banastre Tarleton and Perdita, Gainsborough’s glowing lady. To conceal the child, the father sent him with a family retainer to the West Indies, where he grew up and became master of the plantation. When the British freed the slaves, Rafe must have found his lands unprofitable and risked all on what is now the Tarleton plantation in Georgia. The unfortunate Tarleton brothers who met their end at Gettysburg are therefore indeed the descendants of the unlamented Bloody Ban Tarleton.”
“But as you said, Holmes,” I interjected, “what difference does it make? Even if the brothers Beaufort felt to pay a debt of honor by killing the Tarletons, they were both hundreds of miles away at the time.”
Holmes put his finger to his lips and smiled. “It’s all part of a larger picture that is now coming together in my mind. True, the Beauforts were far away geographically, but perhaps not so far away in spirit. Your original poison letter makes that quite clear.”
“Are you saying they employed an agent? Adam Worth?”
“I say nothing for the present. Goodness gracious, Tuck, we must do something for this heroic man who has compassed sea and land on our behalf and looks near to death.” He seized James’s hand and shook it vigorously.
James only smiled. “I’d sho like to see my fambly again.”
“And you shall, James, you shall! A few more days, and all will be revealed. You shall be safe then.”
I was disturbed by Holmes’s assurances, knowing the likely fate of a colored man under the kind of accusations that James faced. “I hope you are not raising our hopes beyond reason, Holmes. You have spoken of powerful forces… .”
“So I have, and powerful they are. But they are about to meet a countervailing force they have not reckoned with.”
A knock came at the door. I stepped out to find Father Claudian with the post. “You have a visitor?” he asked.
“Just my friend Captain Basil.” I stood outside the door until the priest withdrew, then glanced at the post. There was a letter from Mr. Henry W. Grady of the Atlanta Constitution!
Holmes took my arm as I went back into my room. “This news from James crowns a most fruitful day, Tuck. I have spent several useful hours in the Charleston Library Society reading up on the Flemish uprising of 1302 against the French. The famous battle of the Golden Spurs at Courtrai pitted the flower of French knighthood, with horses and chargers of the finest, against common weavers and fullers and foot soldiers. Let me read from my notes: ‘The beauty and strength of that great French army was turned into a dung-pit, and the glory of the French made dung and worms.’ Isn’t it immortal, Tuck? And they brought down the greatest French general of his time, Robert of Artois, with nothing but stav
es and pokers.”
“That is the story I heard from Martin Gary,” I replied.
“Yes, and it is the story that Martin Gary and friends intend to re-enact! They will assassinate General Sherman, and it will be Courtrai again.”
“Unbelievable.”
“You may think so, but here is another piece of information I received today.” He waved a telegram over his head. “This from Mr. William Pinkerton, of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Chicago. Dear Mr. Holmes, per your inquiry, Study for Battle of Golden Spurs by de Keyser stolen Boijmans Museum Rotterdam 1876.”
“So Martin Gary presented a stolen painting to the city of Charleston?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, and I am quite certain it was stolen by Adam Worth. You see, the tapestry comes together tightly now. These threads are linked.”
“But how? Why would the great Adam Worth steal a painting for a wretched gang of old Confederates here in Charleston?”
“Adam Worth, our Moriarty, is a fine hand at art theft. He finds it diverting. He himself stole Gainsborough’s celebrated portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire from Christie’s auction house in London just two years ago, causing an enormous sensation. I am a man of few deliberate aims in life, but one of them is to recover the Duchess one day from Moriarty’s slippery hands.”
“How do you know he has not already disposed of it?”
“He carries it always with him, I believe in a case especially constructed for the purpose. Her golden tresses and complexion like blooming roses have entranced him utterly, and he will not part with her. That is why I aim to have her from him. I cannot think of a more direct way to wound him … unless …” Holmes drifted away in thought, as he often did so infuriatingly.
With James dozing and Holmes mesmerized by his pipe and the bricks in the wall of my cell, I picked up the missive from Mr. Henry W. Grady and opened it. The letter inside was a flowery expression of gratitude for my acceptance of their invitation to join an august band of business, civic, and religious leaders working toward a New South of industry, piety, and prosperity for all, and a welcome to me as the representative of “that worthy and highly regarded divine, The Most Reverend Bishop of the Diocese of Charleston.” This ornate expression of respect was accompanied by a humble request to attend a committee meeting of the interested parties to be held in Atlanta at 10 o’clock Monday morning January the twenty-seventh at the Kimball House. As a courtesy, a list of the other invitees was attached for my perusal.
The Tarleton Murders Page 23