“What exactly is it that we’re looking for, Bradshaw? A loose wire? A wire that doesn’t belong?”
“Yes, anything that strikes you as being in any way out of place, but also look for dried ink.”
“Ink?”
“India ink. It will look like black, sparkling dust or grit. There won’t be much, the police have already looked.” He explained to Tom what he’d learned this morning about the dried ink in Oglethorpe’s hair and on his clothes.
“What does it mean?”
“I wish I knew. What other lethal sources of current are down here, Tom?”
They both scanned the room.
“We’ve got a couple induction coils, batteries, the generator, and of course big Stan.” Tom was referring to the Stanley transformer on the wheeled dolly in the corner. Crucial to alternating current distribution, Big Stan was used to demonstrate step-down and step-up voltage, but it wasn’t used indoors. Yes, it could conceivably deliver lethal current, but in what circumstances might Oglethorpe have been enticed to encounter such current? That was the unfathomable mystery of his death. He was far too knowledgeable to do anything stupid with any of the equipment in the room. And if Big Stan had been connected to the building’s electric system, the lights would not have flashed and dimmed but tone out. The transformer would have blown the main building fuses. Bradshaw turned up his left palm, remembering the burn pattern on Oglethorpe’s palm.
He left the lab in search of a ladder. He found one in the storage closet down the hall and set it up where the Electric Machine had stood when assembled. He put a hand on a rung and hesitated.
Fatherhood had brought him a host of unexpected emotions. Parental love, he’d learned, swelled with worry, anxiety, hope, frustration. And phobia. He knew the exact moment the phobia had come. He’d been carrying Justin down the stairs—a small babe in arms, the day after Rachel’s death—when he stumbled and nearly fell. He’d recovered safely, no harm done to him or the child, physically. But the sudden attack of fear remained. It struck rarely, in situations where only balance kept him from falling, where there was nothing to grasp.
He looked up. The ladder shifted and swayed until he took a deep breath. The ladder stilled, but his stomach clenched. He climbed anyway. The ceiling was beyond his reach. He forced him himself to venture to the top step. The ladder—in fact, not mind—wobbled unsteadily.
“Uh, Tom. Would you mind?”
“Bradshaw!” Tom ran to put his weight onto the teetering legs of the ladder. “Are you hoping to find dried ink up there?”
“I won’t know exactly what I hope to find until I’ve found it.”
His heart pounding, his armpits stinging with sweat, he examined the conduit and the insulated wires that carried current to the connection at the wall tables. They moved the ladder several times, Bradshaw soldiering through each time, but nothing was amiss and the ceiling was clean. There wasn’t even a cobweb.
Bradshaw put the ladder away, and when he returned, he resumed his examination of the Machine’s components. Tom poked around the long lab tables, pulling open drawers, inspecting connection plugs and rolls of copper wire, switches and batteries, and a myriad of electrical components necessary to teach the fundamentals of electrical engineering.
“Say, Bradshaw, where’s McKinley’s bulb?”
The hair on the back of Bradshaw’s neck prickled, a sensation he had in the past correlated with imminent discovery.
“Isn’t it in the cabinet?”
Tom was now standing before the cabinet, the glass doors open. The ornate polished box, which usually held the specially blown glass of President McKinley’s presentation bulb, was empty.
“It’s nowhere else in the lab, I’ve been through everything.”
“Then someone has taken it, or—” Bradshaw took a single step aside and looked at the chair sitting there so innocently. There were many chairs in the laboratory. Several high stools for the students to use at the tables, two swivel chairs, and three arm chairs near the bookshelves. This was the only chair with a high proud back, a padded leather seat, and ornate scrolled legs. This chair had been brought down from Graves’ office for the sole use of President McKinley during his planned visit.
Bradshaw pulled the chair away from the wall, turned it around, and leaned in closely. There, clinging to a leg, was a flake of ink. Bradshaw picked up the chair and carried it to the center of the lab.
“Tom, help me find the mark.”
Tom bent low and studied the floor. “Here it is.” He pointed to the tiny red “x” that indicated where the front leg of the President’s chair was to be positioned.
Bradshaw placed the chair precisely then sat. He held up his right hand as if gripping an incandescent bulb.
Tom quipped, “If you’re trying to look like the Statue of Liberty, I believe you should be standing.”
“I need a cloth, a colored cloth. Blue would be best.”
Tom produced a yellow silk handkerchief.
Bradshaw snorted, got up, and began to root through the walk-in utility closet. “Cotton, Tom. And blue or green, ah, here!” He flourished a good thick pale blue cotton cleaning cloth. “Now, we get it damp.” He took it to a lab sink and dipped it under the faucet where it darkened, then squeezed it nearly dry.
He returned to the chair, dropped carefully to his knees, and began to wipe the glossy surface of the fir floor. With each pass, he inspected the cloth. On the third pass, he beamed at Tom.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile, Bradshaw. By golly, you’re almost handsome.”
“Be quiet, you dolt, and look at the cloth. What do you see?”
“It sparkles—black and white bits. India ink and—glass shards?”
“Not just any glass, phosphor-coated glass.”
“McKinley’s bulb? And ink? But what does it mean?”
Bradshaw felt his smile fade. “I don’t know. Yet.” He continued wiping in an ever-expanding circle until the cloth picked up no more glass. All the pieces together took up less space than a postage stamp.
“Where’d you learn that trick for picking up glass?”
“When my son began to crawl, I found I had to crawl, too. You’ve no idea how much filth and danger there is on the floor.”
Bradshaw sat again on the chair.
Tom cocked his head with an amused smile. “I wish I knew what you were thinking,” he began, and then his smile faded as the color drained from his face.
“Bradshaw, you don’t think—”
“Yes, I do. President McKinley was supposed to sit here before the Machine, holding up his souvenir bulb.”
“But not while the Machine was running. He was supposed to pose for a photograph, safe and sound and not in the least bit of danger.”
The photograph was to be taken as Tom said, with the President in absolutely no danger. Then the photograph was to be double-exposed with the image of the Machine running in its full glory, arcs of lightning shooting from the sphere. Nikola Tesla had himself posed for similar photographs. Afterward, from a safer distance, the President was to have experienced the thrill of the bulb lighting in his hand.
“So what happened?” Tom asked. “Did Oglethorpe sit there, holding the bulb, while the Machine was actually running? By gum, he was a fool for a genius.”
“The Machine couldn’t have been running. Oglethorpe died no later than two o’clock. The Machine wasn’t turned on until half past three.”
Tom shook his head. “I don’t see how it could have happened then, if he was sitting in that chair and the Machine was off. And where does the ink come into it?”
“I don’t know. But somebody must. Oglethorpe couldn’t have been alone. Somebody moved him. Somebody later turned on the Machine.”
“Maybe it was that hefty woman, the one who
delivered the note with your name on it.”
“Maybe,” Bradshaw said, but his thoughts had gone elsewhere. “Tom, you’re scheduled to give tours up at the Snoqualmie power plant tomorrow, aren’t you?” Before Tom could open his mouth to reply, he added, “Let me take your place.”
Tom looked confused for a moment, then understanding lit his eyes. “You’re thinking of McKinley’s itinerary. Snoqualmie was one of his stops. But his trip to Seattle has been canceled.”
“That didn’t prevent a man from being killed here.”
“What do you expect to find up there? Some lethal trap?”
He didn’t know what he expected to find, he only knew he should go up and have a look round. “Can I take your place?”
“I don’t mind. Actually, that works very well for me. The boys are having a tug-of-war rematch with the frats.” Besides his teaching duties, Tom was steward of the men’s dormitory, which currently housed several dozen boisterous young men. More a big brother than a father figure, he joined in their competitions and somehow, amidst the whoopla and backslapping, earned their respect as well as their obedience. Tom wiggled his brows. “You should see the mud hole they’ve dug.”
“I hope you don’t see it too closely yourself.”
“Not this time. My boys have been exercising at the gymnasium. They’re ready.”
Chapter Eleven
At another university, tracking the whereabouts of students for any given time might prove difficult. It turned out to be a relatively easy task for Benjamin Bradshaw. The entire student body consisted of just under five hundred, of which only fifty belonged to the engineering department and twenty of those were in electrical engineering.
Because Oglethorpe also taught Industrial Problems, a political science course, another half-dozen students had been under his direct influence. By checking attendance records, Bradshaw was able to make an accurate list of students’ whereabouts. Most were accounted for at the time the lights in the Administration Building faltered and for the two hours prior, when Oglethorpe had actually died. Most had been attending classes, which also put assistant professors Hill and Kelly clear of any possible involvement.
Four students remained unaccounted for. One was Artimus Lowe, the law student Bradshaw had seen rapidly departing the building at the time the lights faltered. The School of Law was downtown at the old university. Investigating Lowe’s whereabouts would have to wait. The second student was Oscar Daulton, who’d been in Bradshaw’s presence when the lights faltered, so he need only discover what the boy was doing for the two hours prior in order to clear him. The final two students were the very same who had witnessed that incriminating note being delivered to Oglethorpe. Glen Reeves, resident of Sigma Nu Fraternity, and Miss Sara C. Trout, whom Bradshaw hoped to find at home at the women’s dorm.
***
“Tea, Professor Bradshaw?”
Bradshaw accepted the proffered cup, declining milk, sugar, and lemon. He’d been lucky. He’d found not only Miss Trout at home and in the dormitory’s visiting parlor but Glen Reeves with her, paying a call. Two in one blow, as they say.
The room was tidy, and the furniture comfortably worn. Bradshaw sat by the window in an upholstered easy chair trimmed with worsted fringe. Mr. Reeves and Miss Trout perched at opposite ends of a slippery, silk-covered armless sofa, looking as if they both might topple over with the slightest wrong move. Impossible, he imagined, to make love on that sofa, which was no doubt the very reason some parent had made the donation.
Like yesterday at the inquest, the pair were keenly aware of one another. Miss Trout fidgeted, her cheeks stained an unbecoming mottled red. Mr. Reeves fussed so much with the sofa’s fringe, Bradshaw expected it to unravel any moment to his feet. No tingling sensation prickled the back of Bradshaw’s neck, but still, there was something here to be discovered.
Were these two troubled souls, aching to unburden themselves? Had they been beguiled by the rhetoric of the anarchists? Misled by the passionate references to freedom? Thomas Jefferson and his call for revolution? The young could be so zealous about political injustice. But without life experience, they weren’t able to properly evaluate dangerous stances like anarchism or socialism. Had these two foolishly made a pact to save the world from a capitalist leader and instead killed an engineering professor?
“You were both in Electrical Design when the note was delivered to Professor Oglethorpe?”
“Yes.” Miss Trout looked at him through her eyelashes. “The woman came right in, without knocking.”
“Did this woman say anything?”
“No.” She flashed him one of her smiles, which he ignored. “She handed a note to Oglethorpe, looked him up and down like she thought he was beneath her contempt, then turned on her heel and walked out.”
Mr. Reeves spoke up. “I thought he was being summoned by the law class. They’ve been doing that, holding mock trials and summoning people to appear. You don’t have to go, not like a real summons. I was surprised when he mentioned your name and then stormed out.”
“Thank goodness he did.” Miss Trout didn’t appear to realize how her words sounded considering Oglethorpe had left to attend his own death. “Professor Kelly came in and explained the lesson to us. He’s kind like you, Professor Bradshaw.”
Bradshaw ignored the compliment. “Can you describe the woman to me?”
“Of course. She was a big woman, strong-looking. Stout would be a good word to describe her. She wore a simple suit of blue wool, not the least fashionable. Something a charwoman or domestic might wear. She appeared to be near forty—”
Bradshaw interrupted. “Yesterday, Mr. Reeves testified she looked near fifty.”
“Oh, what do boys know about age? To them a woman is either eligible to be courted or over-the-hill. No, she was near to forty, but I wouldn’t say much over.”
Mr. Reeves shrugged, taking the insult as his due.
“And you’re sure you’ve never seen the woman before?” He looked from Miss Trout to Mr. Reeves. They both shook their heads emphatically.
“What time did you leave class?”
Reeves swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Miss Trout looked at her hands, and her face, which had begun to fade to normal shades while speaking of the mystery woman, again began to mottle.
“Two,” they said in unison again.
“But class was only scheduled until half past one.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Reeves, “but it took that long for Professor Kelly to go over next week’s lessons. He looked ahead in Oglethorpe’s lesson plan. He gave us a sort of head’s up, so we’d be prepared. I was rather looking forward to that, showing old Oglethorpe that he didn’t have us stumped.”
The two o’clock time coincided perfectly with Professor Kelly’s account, which meant so far as Bradshaw could tell, he was hearing the truth. Cline had given Oglethorpe’s estimated time of death as approximately between half past one and two.
“And where did you go at two, after leaving Professor Kelly?”
Reeves got up and paced to the window. He stood with his hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets.
Bradshaw was encouraged. “You were both due in Oglethorpe’s Industrial Problems class at three-thirty. Professor Kelly stepped in for that class also, when Oglethorpe didn’t arrive. He marked the two of you tardy by approximately ten minutes. Where were you between two o’clock and twenty minutes to four?”
A door closed somewhere in the building. Light footsteps raced down wooden stairs, followed by giggling laughter. Outside, the faint echo of military drilling was drowned by the rumble and whistle of the Seattle and International Line that skirted Lake Washington on the edge of campus. It was a long train. No one spoke until the sound of drilling cadence could be heard again.
“You tell him, Sara.” Reeves faced the window.
&
nbsp; Miss Trout’s eyes filled with apprehension as well as disappointment. She gazed at Glen Reeves’ back with what could only be described as regret.
“We went for a walk.”
“A walk? Where to?”
“You won’t tell, will you, Professor? I’d be disowned. My mother would never forgive me.”
“For taking a walk?”
All the mottled spaces of Miss Trout’s face filled until she blushed pure scarlet.
Bradshaw said, “It was stormy that afternoon. Are you saying you were walking out in the wind and rain?”
She pressed her lips tight, then drew a tremulous breath with a small squeak of anguish. Her voice, when it emerged, was emotionally high-pitched. “There’s a place in the woods, off the trail that leads to the lake. There’s a hut there, an old woodshed, I think. It’s sheltered—” she broke off, as if choking on the words. Reeves was absolutely no help at the window.
Miss Trout’s hands fluttered protectively to her belly. A feminine gesture that could imply nothing, but it was exactly what Marion Oglethorpe had done when first hearing of her husband’s death. And Mrs. Oglethorpe was with child.
“Did anyone see you while you were taking this walk?”
Miss Trout hid her shamed face in her hands. “Oscar did.”
“Mr. Daulton?”
“H-he was studying in the hut. He left when we arrived.”
Bradshaw sank wearily back into his chair. So Daulton had squirreled himself away rather than join a study group where he might possibly have bolstered his confidence. But his whereabouts had at least now been established. He’d left the hut after Oglethorpe had been killed. And these two young idiots were not anarchists, they were not assassins. They were foolish lovers who now found themselves in trouble, or at the very least in regret of their indiscretion. Well. He was now out of student suspects, other than Artimus Lowe.
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