“Please leave.”
“I will, I assure you. But I need to confirm the reason the Treasury is closed today, for my employer. Otherwise he’ll think I’m being delinquent in performing my duties.” I took a step forward. He said nothing, so I took a few steps more.
“Is it true the Treasury is locked due to the approach of Coxey’s Army?”
“Yes, I can confirm that.”
“But why today? The marchers aren’t due to approach the Capitol until tomorrow.”
“We are taking precautions. Many of Coxey’s men are known to have already made their way into the city.” I too knew this to be true. Besides Billy and Jasper, I’d met Mr. Coxey himself at the Capitol on Saturday. Who knew how many more Coxeyites wandered the streets?
“So it will be locked until the marchers are gone?”
“Most likely.”
“Thank you, officer.”
“You’re welcome. Now if you please, ma’am?”
Not wanting to test the limits of his indulgence any longer, I smiled and deliberately walked back down the street.
Now what?
I had allotted myself all morning to copy the property index. I could hike, as my morning hike had been interrupted by the terrible accident. I could take the trolley to Dupont Circle and pay a call on Sarah and Walter. I should return to Lafayette Square and get instructions from Sir Arthur on how to proceed. But I did none of these: I hadn’t worn the proper shoes for a hike, it was too early even for a future sister-in-law to visit, and I’d completed all the manuscript pages Sir Arthur had given me. Instead, I allowed my feet to take me down random streets. With my head full of questions about Annie and her mysterious companion, it wasn’t a surprise that I soon found myself less than a block from Lottie Fox’s establishment again.
And then I saw Chester Smith. He was skulking around the corner of Lottie Fox’s building. What was he doing here? And in broad daylight? I had no idea these types of places were open for business at this time of day. He glanced about him furtively and then disappeared around the corner. Without a moment’s thought, I followed after him.
I hurried to the point where he’d disappeared and discovered an alleyway that ran alongside the building, lined with whiskey barrels filled to the rim with torn linen, empty bottles, and rotten produce that attracted hundreds of flies. Chester was nowhere to be seen. I tiptoed the length of the alley, covering my nose with my handkerchief as I passed a particularly pungent waste barrel, overflowing with soiled newspaper, hairbrushes, combs, half-empty bottles of toothpowder, and dozens of rubber syringes, the purpose of which I didn’t want to know. I crouched down as I passed each window until I came to the last window of the house. It was open. I halted and slowly raised my head until I peeked through snowy white Chantilly lace curtains, all that was between me and a den of iniquity. Two dimmed figures stood a few feet away.
“Ah, Mr. Smith,” a woman’s voice said from within. “So good to see you again. We’ve missed you these past months.”
“Is Jenny here?” Chester Smith said.
I squinted to see what type of buttons Chester Smith wore on his vest. They looked to be pearl, but the light was too dim to be certain.
“Jenny is currently with another gentleman, sir. May I suggest perhaps another girl for your pleasure today?”
“What about Annie?”
I gasped and immediately covered my mouth, hoping no one heard me. Chester Smith knew Annie? Could he have been the man in the trap this morning? Was he the powerful man she’d bragged about? Had he come back to learn her fate? Had he come back to throw suspicion off himself by appearing not to know what had happened? But then wouldn’t the woman have seen him here last night? Or had Annie met him somewhere else?
One of the figures glanced toward the window, and I ducked below the windowsill. I pressed my body as flat against the side of the building as I could. A line of small black ants that I hadn’t noticed before made a trail from the ground to a slight hole in the clapboards a few inches from my cheek. Heavy footsteps approached the window. I didn’t dare look up.
“Annie?” The woman’s voice rose in pitch. “What do you want with Annie?”
“She comes . . . recommended,” Chester said, his voice clearly coming from mere inches above my head. If he leaned out and looked down, he’d see me. I held my breath.
“Well, Annie is not here. She went out last night and never came home.”
Home? That’s the last thing I’d call a bawdy house, I thought.
“Too bad but not surprising, eh? Girls like these aren’t the most reliable.”
“Well, Mr. Smith, my girls are reliable,” the woman declared. “It’s not at all like Annie not to check in with me.” The distress in her voice was undeniable.
So the woman, who I assumed was the madam, Lottie Fox, didn’t know what had happened. Hadn’t the police arrived yet?
“I guess Fanny will have to do,” Chester said. “Assuming she’s still here.”
“Of course, Fanny would be delighted to—”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“What the hell?” Chester said.
“Someone’s at the front door,” the woman said. “The police, by the sound of it.”
To confirm her suspicions, a voice shouted, “Police! Open up, Lottie.”
“I can’t be found here,” Chester said. His heavy footsteps stomped away from the window.
I counted to three before daring to peek through the window again—in time to see Chester fling open the back door.
Oh, no! He’s going to see me here.
I glanced about in a panic for somewhere to hide. Finding nothing, I began to turn to flee when a large, fleshy hand covered my mouth. And then an arm swung around the front of my shoulders and impeded my escape. Was that spearmint I smelled?
As I struggled to free myself, desperately trying to open my mouth wide enough to bite my captor, a familiar voice whispered in my ear, “What are you doing here, Miss Davish?”
I turned, with the loosening of his grip upon me, into the face of Simeon Harper.
“I’ll release you, but please, for all our sakes, be quiet.”
Voices, the familiar baritone of the policeman who had questioned me this morning in particular, carried through the open window. I nodded my assent and he let go of me. I immediately stepped away from him, glancing about for a glimpse of Chester Smith. He was nowhere in sight.
Guessing my concern, Mr. Harper whispered, “Chester’s not here. He took one look at me and thought he’d chance it with the police.”
“He did?”
“No,” he said, chuckling. “He took the other alleyway, simply by chance.” In a rush, I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Un, deux, trois, I silently counted in French, trying to gain my composure.
As I did, I couldn’t help but study the journalist, glancing first at the buttons on his vest. They were plain brown agate. Was he the man who had abandoned Annie in the carp pond this morning? Luckily I have had long practice keeping my emotions and my suspicions from showing on my face. Without that skill, I would have been dismissed from almost every position I’ve ever had.
“So what are you doing here?” Harper asked again.
“I could ask the same of you.”
“I came here on a tip. I followed the police. Now hush a minute.” He put his ear as close to the window as possible without being seen.
Assuming he was telling the truth and didn’t know about the accident, who could’ve known to tell Harper? And then I remembered—Billy and Jasper. They knew Harper from the march. He’d camped outdoors with them for months. They would trust him. Jasper had voiced doubts that the police would investigate. Maybe he thought a reporter might do better.
“Jasper Neely told you, didn’t he?” Simeon Harper jerked around to face me so fast he nearly stumbled.
“How in the hell—? Excuse my language, but damn! How did you know that?”
I ignored his question and
said, “Where were you this morning?”
Simeon Harper looked sideways at me and then laughed heartily in a hushed voice, until the blood rose in my cheeks with embarrassment.
“I’ve heard about you, Miss Davish, but I never thought you’d aim your investigative eye toward me. I told Sir Arthur you’d make a top-notch journalist if he didn’t have you otherwise employed.”
Brushing aside the compliment and the fact that he hadn’t answered my question, I said, “You’ve heard about me?”
“Of course I have. You were in the papers.” Of course, a journalist of all people would have read the newspaper articles mentioning my involvement in the murder cases of several prominent people.
When will people forget? I wondered. Perhaps they never will. Then I’d have to use this to my advantage.
“Well, then,” I said, “you didn’t answer my question. Where were you this morning?”
“I see you’re like a bulldog, never giving up. Yes, ma’am, you would’ve made a fine journalist.” I raised my eyebrows as I continued to stare at him. He still was evading the question. “I give up!” He mockingly held up his hands. “But before I tell you, answer me this. Why do you want to know?”
“Because I know why the police are here.”
“And you’ll tell me what you know?”
“If you tell me where you were this morning.”
“Deal.” Harper held out his hand. I hesitated for a moment before shaking it.
“Oh, no, no, no!” a woman inside the building cried. I closed my eyes, trying to ward off the pain in her voice.
“What’s going on in there?” Simeon Harper whispered, straining to see through the window without being caught.
“Let’s walk. Neither one of us needs to be found here.”
“You certainly shouldn’t be.” The journalist laughed before heading back along the alley.
I crouched down and followed, careful not to bump into the garbage barrels. Thankfully, I couldn’t see Mr. Harper’s reaction to the discarded rubber syringes he must’ve noticed as we passed. He glanced around the corner of the building, hoping to avoid the police, and waved me forward when the sidewalk was clear.
“My gig is this way,” he said, and started to walk briskly down C Street. After walking in silence for several blocks, he said, “Well?”
“First answer my question. Where were you this morning?”
“I was in Coxey’s camp. It is still the biggest story in town, you know. I spent the night there, one last time, and was there until after breakfast, what little there was of it. Jasper came back, insisting I make a call on Lottie. He said it would be worth my while. So I left. I stopped at the Treasury first to check something out, but it was closed. So then I came here. And you know the rest. Now what’s going on in there?” He pointed back toward Lottie Fox’s place.
“Why were you at the Treasury?”
“You don’t give up, do you?” I waited in silence. When he realized I wasn’t saying a word until he answered, he said, “I was there to follow up on a tip I got two days ago involving a certain bank I’ve long suspected was involved in fraudulent dealings during the whole gold depletion crisis last year.”
“Gold depletion crisis?” I tried to keep current with the news, public affairs, and world events. I tried to read the newspapers whenever I had spare time. “Does that have anything to do with the Sherman Silver Purchase Act?”
“Yeah,” he said, surprised. “What do you know about it?”
“That under the Sherman Purchase Act, the government purchased millions of ounces of silver. It was supposed to improve the economy by directly helping miners who were struggling due to an oversupply of silver, and indirectly by raising inflation and letting farmers pay off their debts.”
“Yeah, but the problem was that the law required the Treasury to buy the silver with specially issued treasury notes that could be redeemed for either silver or gold.”
“Why was that a problem?”
“Because almost everyone redeemed the treasury notes for gold.”
“And the country almost became bankrupt?”
“And the country almost became bankrupt.”
“So what are you investigating?”
“The tip mentioned the name of a bank, the National Bank of the Potomac. It piqued my interest because I’ve always suspected it of having insider information, knowing about the passing of the Sherman Purchase Act before it was even passed and then knowing about its repeal beforehand. Having such knowledge, it bought as many treasury notes as it could when silver was at its lowest and then exchanged them for gold.”
“And you suspect they also knew when the gold reserves were growing dangerously low, but continued to exchange the notes for gold anyway?”
“Exactly.”
“But is that illegal?”
“No, but it’s scandalous, especially if the head of the bank is a relative of a member of Congress and he used congressional insight for profit. The Division of Notes, Coupons, and Currency should have a record of all the transactions. I hoped to look into it.”
“But why? Didn’t you say that Coxey’s Army is the big story?”
“Sure it is. But after they march to the Capitol tomorrow, there won’t be a story any more. I was hoping to get a jump on a new story—this bank scandal could’ve been just the thing. Or maybe you have something to tell me that is even better?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“I’m all ears, Miss Davish. All ears!”
* * *
“People underestimate the prostitutes of this city,” Simeon Harper said as we plodded along. Unlike Walter, who drove with reckless abandon at breakneck speed, Mr. Harper handled his horse with casual inattention. And I was almost as much on edge as if Walter were driving. We trudged along so slowly, I could’ve walked faster.
“Most people ignore that they even exist,” he said. “In fact, I’ll be surprised if the police spend more than the time it takes to type the paperwork investigating this. They did inform Lottie of the girl’s fate, but I think Jasper’s right. That man, who fled the scene, won’t be sought unless I bring the injustice of it to light.”
As promised, I’d told Mr. Harper about the carriage accident I’d witnessed and about how the victim was one of Lottie Fox’s girls. He’d insisted I show him the exact spot where Annie entered the water. So he’d assisted me into his gig, introduced me to Swift (named for Jonathan Swift and not the horse’s inclination toward speed), who flicked his tail at a fly in acknowledgment and proceeded ever so slowly back to the carp ponds. When I told Mr. Harper, I’d watched his face carefully for any signs he knew this story already, that he was guilty of abandoning that poor “unfortunate woman.” I saw nothing but honest surprise and professional interest. But I’ve known murderers to lie before. I had to ask.
“So several people can verify that you were at Coxey’s camp and not with the dead woman this morning?”
“Lots of people.”
“Thank goodness. I can’t imagine what Sir Arthur would’ve thought if you were caught up in this business.”
“You’re right there. I certainly wouldn’t be invited to dine again.” He laughed. Both of us knew, after his confrontation with Chester Smith, Mr. Harper wasn’t going to be dining at the Smith home ever again.
“But I saw you,” I said, my conscience on Sir Arthur’s behalf not yet clear.
“You’re mistaken, Miss Davish,” Simeon Harper said, misunderstanding me. “Truly, I wasn’t there.”
“No, I mean I saw you at the place where Annie . . . worked.” I stammered at the thought of what she actually did to make her living.
“Of course you did.” He flashed me a mock look of surprise before smirking. “You were there as well, remember? And you never did tell me what you were doing there.”
“No, I mean I saw you there before. On Saturday.” He raised an eyebrow. Before he could come to the wrong conclusion, I added, “I was walking to the depot. By chance
I happened to see Annie sunning herself on a balcony as I passed. When I crossed the street, I saw you speaking to another . . . such woman in the doorway of the same house.”
“Yes, you caught me. I’m a regular there.” When my eyes widened, he added, “No, it’s not what you think. I didn’t know Annie. Well, maybe I’ve met her once or twice—I’ve met all Madam Fox’s girls once or twice—but I do know Lottie Fox. It’s like I was saying earlier—prostitutes are unappreciated, and that goes double for their madams. Lottie is one of my best sources. You’d be shocked to hear some of things she’s told me over the past few months.”
“Yes, I’m sure I would be,” I said in all seriousness. He laughed.
“Things I eventually wrote for the paper,” he said, chuckling at my misapprehension. He was enjoying my discomfort a bit as well.
“Oh,” was all I could say.
“I met Lottie Fox while I was following Coxey’s Army. Ever heard of the Veiled Lady?”
The Veiled Lady? Of course I had. This mystery woman, a marcher who wore a black veil, was one of the many intrigues of the Commonweal of Christ that kept me, and I dare say many women, reading every story that was printed about Coxey’s Army. The Veiled Lady, as we knew her, had disappeared from the march as mysteriously as she had appeared.
“You know who the Veiled Lady is?” He nodded but said nothing more. “Well?” Like thousands of others, I was eager for news of her, who she was, why she was there, and what had happened to her. To prolong my anticipation, he retrieved a yellow-and-red packet of Wrigley’s Spearmint pepsin gum from his vest pocket. He offered the packet of gum to me, pointing the green arrow on the wrapper toward me.
“No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” He pulled out a stick, slowly unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth.
“Well?”
After chewing several times, Harper finally answered me. “Lottie Fox.”
“Lottie Fox?” I couldn’t believe it. “But the Veiled Lady was ‘the Great Unknown’s’ wife. Are you saying that Lottie Fox is the wife of the Great Unknown?”
Coxey’s Army was populated with many colorful characters: the Veiled Lady, of course; Abraham Lincoln Jenkins, an Irishman known for eating four pounds of cheese at a sitting; “Weary Bill,” a steamboat captain who perpetually looked exhausted driving the Army’s signature panorama wagon; and Honoré Jaxon, clad in the traditional dress of the Métis, who claimed to represent American Indians while carrying only a blanket, a hatchet, and some cooking utensils, to name but a few. But most intriguing of all, besides Marshal Carl Browne, was “The Great Unknown,” whose past, real name, and association with the Commonweal of Christ was an enigma. He was tall and handsome, had the bearing of a military man and a pronounced limp, and spoke passionately about the rise of the poor and the fall of the rich, bordering on anarchistic. After he joined the ranks of Coxey’s Army, he became Carl Browne’s assistant marshal and a regular feature in the newspapers.
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