The Tarleton Murders

by Breck England

  But Tom Beaufort was a powerful man. They struck at each other with force; the swords banged together again and again. I tried to get round them so I could knock the gun out of the window, but Beaufort snarled and took a swing at me that could have split my head from my body.

  Holmes pushed me back with his free hand and charged at the man, who coiled round and clouted Holmes in the head with the hilt of his sword. Holmes reeled backward. Beaufort leapt for the air gun and cranked it a turn. I could see beyond him through the window that Sherman was still a plain target in the midst of his pleasantries. I ran toward the brute; he turned just in time to give me a blow to my head as well.

  I was sure my skull was cracked; I felt blood on my hands. Then Holmes jumped between us, coming close to carving Beaufort in two, but the big man staggered back and away. He raised his sword and made to spear Holmes with it.

  “Stop!” came a voice like thunder in a hollow chimney.

  Tom Beaufort froze against the wall. Holmes stood erect and turned, as did I, to see General Abraham Beaufort in the doorway, hatless, his face slack and flowing with sweat and dirt. In his hand he held a weighty revolver pointed, it appeared, at all of us.

  “Stop,” he repeated between tightened teeth, this time softly. “I damn near killed two horses gettin’ here from Edgefield. You been mixin’ with that mob of Kluxers, and now you just about shamed us to hell.” He spoke to his brother as if no one else were present. “Thank God I put an end to this.” It was a rattling whisper.

  Trembling, Tom cried, “Flectere nequeo … !”

  “Shut your mouth. No more of that devil talk.”

  There was silence.

  “H-how did you find me, brother?”

  “I just now sweat it out of that drunken one-arm fiend in that tavern over yonder. When you came up missin’ in Edgefield, I knew you what you was after…”

  “Let me shoot Sherman, brother, for the honor of it. You know what he done. You know what he is.”

  “Honor? It’s pride—damnable pride, that’s what it is. ‘Before destruction the heart of man is haughty.’ Pride destroys as sure as the weatherglass promises rain. The pomp and pride of the South was all kindling, and that man out there … all he did was supply the spark. Get up now. You’re comin’ with me.”

  “I ain’t comin’.”

  “No, he’s not” said Holmes. Abruptly the point of his blade touched Tom’s throat. He turned to the General, “Your brother is in my hands now.”

  “As you are in mine, sir,” the General turned the revolver on Holmes.

  “I intend to put your brother in the hands of the Federal army out there,” Holmes gestured at the window, “for the attempted assassination of General Sherman.”

  “You will not have the opportunity,” Abraham Beaufort replied.

  “Then your brother will not leave this room alive.”

  “Nor will you.”

  “I should take that chance,” Holmes said, almost casually. “But there is a way for us both to get what we want.”

  “Yes?”

  “If your brother will give me a full confession of his part in the murder of the Tarleton brothers and the plot to kill Sherman—in writing—I will let him go. I will keep the confession to myself unless I am forced to use it to clear another party.”

  The General wiped the filthy sweat from his eyes and stared more closely at Holmes. He could see that Holmes was not shamming.

  “Agreed. Where are pen and paper?”

  “I’ll get them,” I leaped up, sponging the blood from my hands onto my cassock. I made a frenzied search of the warehouse offices and found an iron pen, ink, and foolscap.

  “I will write your confession for you,” I told Tom.

  “I confess nothing.”

  “You will,” his brother growled in his tobacco-corroded voice. “You will tell. How you grew up readin’ about knights and ladies and Greek heroes and feats of honor and passed your days in a fantasy. How we was raised hearin’ about the dishonor of the family and how our ancestor was shamed by Bloody Ban Tarleton, and when we come south to do horse trading we found out that there was Tarletons still living. And you couldn’t leave it alone. You was goin’ to murder the sons, wipe out their name, burn their farm, kill their horses… .

  “It was all talk till that scum heard you, that yellow-pants little bounty jumper who said he’d do all the Tarleton boys for fifty dollars.”

  “What was the name of the bounty jumper?” Holmes interrupted eagerly.

  Slumped in the corner, Tom Beaufort was staring at the floor. “We called him Worthless,” he finally muttered. “He’d do anything for a nickel. Worth was his name. Adam Worth.”

  “You thought you’d seen the last of him years ago, but then he re-appeared?” Holmes urged him on.

  “I never figured he’d shoot ‘em in the ba-ack,” Tom began to sob. “He called on me … , oh, ten year ago, now. He’d turned into a fancy gentleman, gives me his calling card, says, ‘You remember me? I remember you.’ I cursed him, but he said he done a favor for me and someday I better return it for him.”

  “Killing Sherman,” said Holmes.

  “Yes. He gives me this air gun, tells me where to go, and I’m glad to do it. I swore I’d do it. Now he’ll kill me and you and all of us … I’ve failed him.”

  “We shall see about that. Tuck, have you got it all down?”

  I had been scribbling all the while. “Yes, now we must have his signature and those of the witnesses.”

  The General lifted his brother with one hand and held the gun to his head with the other. “Sign.”

  Tom glared through his tears at the sheet of paper—I had rarely seen a man so miserable. At last he took the pen and slowly scrawled his name, then the three of us signed as witnesses.

  “Reverend sir, I am not blameless in this,” General Beaufort turned to me. “I have known the truth for fifteen years. When I heard you asking questions about the Tarletons at the fête in Charleston, I became afraid for my brother. I told him about you, and he composed one of his fancy riddles to warn you off. I fear it has caused you much distress of mind; for that, I am heartily sorry.”

  “I have been much distressed, that is true. Thank you for your apology, sir. What will you do now?”

  The General held his brother’s arm firmly but without rancor. “I intend to take him home now. I trust you will live by our agreement.”

  “You may depend upon it,” Holmes gave the General a little bow.

  The brothers shuffled down the stairs, two shaggy creatures almost identical from the back, their golden spurs clanking against the iron steps.

  From the window we watched a sort of pathway opening up in the muted crowd, and the people stood alongside looking on as Sherman and his party passed by.

  “Come, Tuck. We haven’t a moment to lose!”

  Chapter 38

  We charged down the stairs and followed the Beauforts out a back entrance that the General had found, but Holmes was oblivious to the two brothers, who were climbing slowly onto a horse. Instead, we fought our way through a narrow alley overgrown with weeds and rubbish back into the main street where the crowd was scattering.

  “Harris!” shouted Holmes. From the window he had spotted Harris, who was himself searching for us.

  “Wh-what-what…?”

  “I’ll explain everything, but we must get to your office without delay.”

  “My office?” Harris looked puzzled.

  “Yes, specifically your type-writing machine.”

  As it happened, our carriage and bored-looking horse still stood at the corner, and we were at Harris’s desk within a few minutes. Holmes whipped out Tom Beaufort’s confession.

  “Do you have a supply of carbonated paper? Please make two carbon copies of this document.”

  As Harris plucked a
t the typewriter he grew more and more agitated. “This … this is the story of the decade,” he murmured, his fingers speeding through the task. I marveled at how quickly it was done: there were now three typed copies of the confession in our hands. Holmes scribbled on the typewritten document and gave both it and the original back to Harris.

  “Harris, is there a safe or strongbox in this office? Please lock up the original signed confession immediately. It must remain absolutely secure. I have written instructions to you on your copy.”

  Harris read Holmes’s note and nodded solemnly. “What-what will you do with the other two copies?”

  “One of them will go into my scrapbook of murderers. The other—I have a special use for it.”

  Harris folded the original and sealed it in an envelope. “The-the story of the d-decade,” he stammered again.

  “You must not print it,” said Holmes.

  “I would not if I c-could,” Harris replied. “Good luck!”

  And we were out the door. I did not have to ask where we were going, for I knew—and the dire look on Holmes’s face confirmed—that the life of Mrs. Katherine Wells was now in the most profound danger. Holmes lashed the horse to speed, dodging through the streets until we arrived at the Kimball House. He literally leapt from the carriage, and I had to run to follow him into the hotel and to the lift.

  The door of the Garden Suite, Adam Worth’s room, was open, with trunks piled about in the hallway.

  “Leaving Atlanta so soon?” Holmes and I stood in the open door. The brassy yellow walls and draperies the color of blood bespoke a gaudy luxury. Worth stood looking out the window, his face spectral, enigmatic, and Mrs. Wells, in traveling cloak and hat, was seated at the fireplace in a Queen Anne chair with great golden wings. A thin case made of fine wood sat on a table in the middle of the room.

  “Business calls, Mr. Holmes,” said Worth. He looked like any stout, well-to-do merchant in his lavish whiskers and greatcoat. “We are taking the 2:40 to Savannah, and thence to New York.”

  “By now you are aware that your business here has not prospered,” Holmes replied. “I have seen to that.”

  “Yes, you have seriously incommoded me twice now—once in my Roman affairs and now in my Atlanta arrangements. It has been an intellectual treat to see the way in which you have grappled with me. By the by, how did you manage your escape last night?”

  Holmes explained.

  “Your power of observation is formidable, Mr. Holmes. Think of it—a piece of glass and a mildewed crack in a wall. Very resourceful.”

  “The power is in the small things, Mr. Adam Worth. The things others don’t see, the light-catching things that go unobserved by duller eyes.”

  It was incredible. Here they were, each the other’s nemesis, conversing like two painters on the art of observation.

  Mrs. Wells stood and came toward us. “It was a dull evening last night after you left,” she said to Holmes. “I missed my dance with you.”

  “Your companion led us a merry dance even so,” Holmes replied. “It was an ardent experience for us.”

  “It did become quite hot, though,” she fanned herself. “The fires were too high. Americans are always too hot or too cold—never satisfied. I take it, then, that your name is not Captain Basil but Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Yes, and your name is not Katherine Wells but Kitty Flynn, a barmaid from Liverpool who has fallen in with a thieving mob of murderers and does not know how to extricate herself.”

  “What?” I cried, inadvertently. Mrs. Wells colored and looked back at the fire.

  “Yes, Tuck, it’s a most diverting story. For years, Mr. Worth had a partner in crime called Piano Charley, a music-loving safecracker. A decade ago they opened a little ale-and-bitters shop together in Boston, which just happened to be situated next to the Boylston National Bank. By tunneling underground, they broke into the bank and stole nearly a half a million dollars.

  “That heist drew the attention of the Pinkerton Agency, so the lads escaped with their loot to Liverpool, where they began to compete for the favors of a girl they met in a public house. To impress her, Piano Charley pretended to be a Texas oilman named Charles Wells, and Worth played the part of a big New York businessman named Henry J. Raymond. The competition for Kitty’s hand ended in a draw, although she did contract a marriage with Charles Wells.”

  “He is the husband she speaks of?” I asked.

  “Yes. Charley is a man with the delicate hands of a pianist, well suited for safecracking, while Adam was clever, and she was devoted to them both. She joined them when, as I’ve told you, they set up the American Bar in Paris; but Charley is a hopeless drunkard, and when the partners inevitably fell out, Charley returned to North America and promptly ended up in jail for bank robbery. He has been there ever since. This much I have learned from corresponding with the Pinkertons.

  “Meanwhile, Kitty moved with Mr. Worth to London, where he plotted crimes in every corner of the globe from number 198 Piccadilly—among them the assassination of General William T. Sherman, a coup that would garner him a very large fee indeed—so large that he felt the need to supervise things in person. Hence his presence here.

  “Now at some point, Kitty became aware of the true nature of her two husbands… .”

  “Really!” Katherine Wells objected, but with a coquettish smile.

  Holmes went on, “And of the rogues that surround him, such as the faux Count Schindler we encountered aboard the ship, actually one Max Shinburn, a notorious master burglar. Kitty has been contemplating for some time the wisdom of remaining in the thrall of such villains. In me, she found what she hoped was her means of escape; thus, she transferred to me, through you, Tuck, a copy of the cryptic announcement of the impending plot against Sherman. Although I say it myself, her hopes were not misplaced.”

  Worth’s sham smile had faded. He drew a small pistol from his greatcoat. “You have provided me such sport, Mr. Holmes, I say unaffectedly that it would be a grief to me to be forced to an extreme measure. I had a bit of fun with you in Rome by shooting out the window of your little pensione… .”

  “Yes, poor Stepnyak. He failed you. No doubt he will accidentally step in front of a train one of these dark nights, if he has not already. As will that miserable, poetic wretch Tom Beaufort… .”

  “It is only a question of time,” Worth replied in his soft, precise voice. “But I have had my fun with you. We will be leaving here in a few moments, and you two will be coming along. A tavern near the station is frequented by a band of fanatics who ride about the countryside in fancy dress tormenting the blacks. I’ve had some dealings with them, and they will be happy to make provision for your disappearance.”

  “Henry… .” Katherine Wells advanced a step. “You go too far.”

  “Oh, Tuck,” Holmes said, his voice almost casual. “I forgot to tell you how Mr. Worth began his career. In his youth, he was a Union soldier who calculated how to make a profit from the war. Both the North and the South paid a bounty to anyone who enlisted. The little wretch could desert, get his fifty-dollar bounty, serve for a few weeks, and then desert again. Who knows how many times he jumped bounty from the blue to the gray and back again?

  “Once, while on the gray side, he took another fifty dollars for shooting three innocent men in the back. Perhaps he would like to repeat that feat of honor now.” Holmes abruptly turned his back on Worth.

  Worth stood still, icy with anger. “To the tavern, gentlemen.”

  “You had better read this first.” Holmes held over his head a carbon copy of Tom Beaufort’s confession. “It is a chronicle of your ‘honorable’ role in the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as your part in an assassination attempt on General Sherman.”

  Worth scanned the paper quickly. “This is rubbish! Anyone could have written it—no signature, no witnesses… .”

  Holmes laughed. “
I assure you, it is merely a mechanical copy of a signed and witnessed original that is locked in a very secure place. Revealed to certain people—to the Pinkertons, for example—it would provide more than enough evidence to help you to lodgings with your friend Piano Charley, or perhaps even to the end of a rope.”

  “I assume that you have arranged such a revelation,” murmured Worth.

  “I have indeed. If we are not heard from within the next few hours, this document will be put in the hands of those who can make best use of it.”

  “Why has it not already been done?”

  “Because I wish to make a bargain with you. You may leave here without hindrance if you will undertake to give Kitty Flynn her freedom, and furthermore never to molest her again.”

  Worth sniffed and gave the woman a long, hard look. “Is that all?” She glared back at him with sudden contempt in her eyes.

  “No, that is not all. Additionally, there will be no ‘trust,’ there will be no ‘Battle of Courtrai,’ and there will be no new civil war.”

  Worth considered this for a moment, smiled, and said, “To the best of my ability, I shall comply with your requests.”

  “If you break your word, I will know it.”

  “No doubt. I am aware that your sources of information equal my own,” said Worth, coolly. “Anything else?”

  “One more thing,” Holmes pointed to the case on the table. “The Duchess.”

  “Ah, there. Now you cross a line. You may do your worst, Mr. Holmes, but the Duchess remains with me.”

  “Very well,” Holmes sighed. “But you will return her someday?”

  “She will not be buried with me. I will give her back, I swear, before I die.”

  “Then in lieu of the Duchess, and as earnest of your promise, I do require the return of the Vatican cameos. I cannot come away empty-handed; you must agree it would not be fair.”

  “It is a reasonable trade.” Worth extracted a long walnut box from the case and gave it to Holmes. “You may return it to the Holy See with my compliments.”