by Oak, B. B.
The barber’s chair was slid aside, the boards pulled up, and I saw Henry’s face appear above me. He put his hand down on my shoulder. “Well, Adam, ’tis no wonder you did not meet me on time. I see that you got all tied up.”
If that was meant for humor it got not a chuckle out of me. I was hoisted out of that coffin-space, unbound, sat down in the barber’s chair, and dusted clean, all the time receiving many sincere words of apology from the three Negroes.
“Oh, Dr. Walker is fine. He’s had far rougher treatment than you gave him and managed to survive it,” Henry cavalierly assured them. He turned to Rose. “I would like you to tell us about your twin sister, Mrs. Davis. The more we know, the more we can help her.”
“Help her? Has she met with a mishap on her journey to Canada?”
“I can better answer that if you tell me how she came to be on that journey.”
Rose nodded and proceeded to tell us her and Tansy’s history. They had been raised up together in Portsmouth, Virginia, in the small but comfortable home of their kindly owner, Miss Prouty. The elderly spinster treated them almost like daughters, even taught them how to read, write, and cipher although it was against state law to do so. And they always did their best by her too. When Miss Prouty fell on hard times, Rose and Tansy took in laundry and mending to keep a roof over their dear mistress’s head. And when Miss Prouty needed expensive medical treatment they hired themselves out to make sails and ships’ colors at the Gosport navy yard to pay for it. It was there that Rose met Cato, a slave shipwright who eventually managed to earn enough money to purchase his freedom. When he left Virginia for higher wages up North, he promised Rose he would one day marry her.
Miss Prouty made her own promise. To thank her beloved twins for all their care, she told them she would give them their freedom in her will. But she did not. Instead she bequeathed Rose to her brother and Tansy to her nephew Shiloh. They were the only property of any value Miss Prouty owned. Cato managed to make enough money at a Boston shipyard to buy Rose from Miss Prouty’s brother, and a year or so later, he and Rose earned enough together to buy Tansy from Shiloh Prouty.
“But he refused to sell her,” Rose told us. “Not for all the money in the world, he told us.”
“When Cato informed me of this impasse, I interceded,” Mr. Smith said. “I felt justified in suggesting that if Tansy’s freedom could not be bought fair and square, she would just have to take it. By way of the Underground Railroad, she made her way to Boston. She arrived here Monday last.”
“How we wept for joy when we were reunited,” Rose said.
“Just wouldn’t stop bawling, them two,” Cato added, tearing up himself at the memory.
“But Prouty was hot on her trail, and came to Boston soon after she did,” Rose said. “The Vigilant Committee was quick to warn us that he was prowling round the neighborhood, and we sent Tansy off. So when Prouty finally managed to find out where we live, I let him come right in and look around our rooms as much as he wanted to.”
“When did Prouty call on you?” Henry asked her.
“That’s a mighty polite way of putting it. He came banging on our door in the small hours of Wednesday morn.”
“Are you sure?” I said, unwilling to accept that Prouty had still been in Boston when Tripp was shot.
“Yes, I am sure of it,” Rose told me irritably. It seemed she still held some resentment for the way I had unintentionally frightened her. “The sun had not come near to rising yet. Even so, he was too late. Tansy was long gone.”
“She left here with Rusty on Tuesday,” Smith put in. “When he got wind of her predicament, he offered to drive her to a safe Station in Plumford.”
“Rusty who?” I said.
“Rusty the picture taker,” Smith replied.
“He must have a last name,” I pressed.
“Does John the Baptist need a last name? Or Joseph of Nazareth?”
“I believe Rusty is the alias of an Underground Railroad Conductor,” Henry said. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard many a story regarding him.”
“All true!” Smith said. “Rusty is a hero to us colored folk for sure. No one knows his real name, and he is called Rusty for his red hair and face full of red freckles. I was most proud to meet him and put Tansy in his care. He drove her to a Station in Plumford, where another Conductor would take her farther north from there.”
“I heard of him even afore I come north,” Rose said. “Rusty used to travel all through the Southland in that wagon of his, taking pictures of the plantation gentry in the day and then driving their slaves north to freedom in the night. Then he got found out and had to run for his life, but he is still active here in the North.”
“Rusty can outfox hounds,” Smith said, “and he can swim faster than men can row a boat. Once he held his breath for ten minutes underwater whilst them slave catchers paddled back and forth right above his head, looking for him. They would have strung him up if they’d caught him.”
“They came near to getting him more than once,” Cato added. “But that never stopped Rusty from doing what he thought was right. He was born brave.”
“He was born musical too,” Rose added. “It’s said he can play the guitar better than an angel can play the harp.”
“We asked him to play a tune afore he left with Tansy,” Cato said, “but he wouldn’t take the time for it. He said getting Tansy to safety was more important.”
“He made time to take Tansy’s likeness for me, though, bless his good heart,” Rose said. “Then Prouty went and stole the picture from me when he come.”
“He has been showing the picture around Plumford,” I said. “I saw it myself. That’s why I mistook you for her.”
Rose gave me yet another withering look and turned to Henry. “Now that we have told you how Tansy came to be in Plumford, you must tell us what has befallen her since.”
Henry did so in his straightforward way, holding back nothing. And as Rose listened, her big eyes became glossy with tears. “How can you be sure Tansy did not drown in that bog?” she asked him.
“We searched it most exhaustively,” Henry reassured her. “We think your sister may still be hiding in the area, but if she is, Prouty will eventually find her. The man seems most resolute to get back his property.”
“Tansy is far more than that to him,” Rose said. “And I pity her for it. It is a black woman’s curse to be loved by her white owner. What good can come of it?” Tears spilled from Rose’s eyes and ran down her full, smooth cheeks.
“Tansy is going to make out just fine, honey,” Cato told her. “She’s smart just like you and strong just like you.” He pulled Rose against his broad chest and wrapped his mighty arms around her. After experiencing his death-like grip, I was astounded by his gentleness.
Henry drew Smith and me aside. “I have just learned from Mr. Coburn that another Conductor on the Railroad has been murdered,” he told us. “His name was Ned Vogel, and he was a dedicated abolitionist who conveyed many runaways to freedom. He published a newspaper in the town of Waltham, and he was killed at his place of business in the early hours of Wednesday last.”
“The very same day Tripp was killed,” I said. “Surely that is more than a coincidence.”
“Far more,” Henry said. “A letter was slipped under Mr. Coburn’s door earlier today. It declared that Underground Railroad Conductors will continue to be assassinated until they cease such activity.”
My heart tightened. “Then Julia is in danger.”
“I will send no runaways her way until we put an end to this danger, I assure you,” Henry promised me.
“A warning must be dispatched along every line counseling extreme caution,” Smith said.
“Yes, by all means,” Henry said. “But we cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated, through fear, into submission.”
“Was Vogel shot down like Tripp?” I asked Henry.
“The letter gave no details. We must go to Waltham to find out more. I v
olunteered your assistance along with my own in investigating this matter for Mr. Coburn, Adam. I hope you do not mind.”
“Of course not! This assassin must be run to ground before he kills again.”
We left straightaway and caught the next train to Waltham, just up the Fitchburg line from Boston. As soon as we’d settled in our seats Henry took a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket.
“Here is the missive Mr. Coburn received. I asked if I might have it to analyze.” He handed it to me. “There is something I noticed right off and would like your opinion on it, Doctor. Observe the very small brown smudge in the left-hand bottom corner.”
I opened the letter and held it up to the car window. “Oh, yes. I see it.”
“Is it blood?”
“It could be.” I sniffed the stain. “It smells like chaulmoogra.”
“Chaulmoogra,” Henry repeated. He liked the sound of Indian words. “What is that?”
“A very foul-tasting, foul-smelling oil used to treat Leprosy and various skin conditions,” I said. “Some doctors even use it to treat Consumption.”
“Do you see any other physical evidence?” Henry said. When I shook my head he urged me to look more carefully at the letter’s bottom fold.
“There’s a slight green tinge running along it,” I said, finally managing to discern it. “As if from a light dusting of green powder.”
“Yes,” Henry said. “What could that be, do you think?”
“Pollen?” I suggested.
“Perhaps, for there is certainly enough of that in the air of late. But can you think of anything of a more medical nature?”
“Tobacco leaves in powder form,” I said, “are sometimes used to relieve the catarrh.”
“Hence the letter writer might be a consumptive, a leper, or a sufferer of phlegm,” Henry remarked sardonically.
“More likely a doctor dosing patients with such oils and powders,” I said.
“What think you of the penmanship?”
“Quite grandiose,” I said, observing the bold strokes and curlicues.
“The sentiments expressed are also grandiose.” Henry’s tone was scornful. “Go ahead and read the letter.”
I read it three times over with great care, and here it is to the best of my recollection:
I have been sent to destroy the spider’s web of wrongdoers who flaunt justice by aiding escaped slaves to flee from their Rightful Owners.
At the behest of certain Propertied & Honorable Gentlemen of the South I am come to derail the Underground Railroad. I possess a list of the Conductors of this illegitimate network. May what I did to Vogel serve as a warning for all the others. I will continue to eradicate these Outlaws, until enough are slain for the survivors to see their certain fate at my hands and cease their illegal activities.
See the light of reason, quit any and all assistance to escaped slaves, and your lives will be spared.
The Hand of Justice
“So we are up against an assassin hired by a band of slave owners,” I said to Henry, handing back the letter, which I found repulsive to hold.
“Worse yet, he sounds as if he believes his mission to be a messianic one,” Henry said. “There is nothing more relentless than self-righteous egotism.”
When we arrived in Waltham we were directed to Vogel’s newspaper office at the edge of town. No one was operating the press on the first floor, and we went upstairs to the office. The door to it was locked. We looked through the glass panel, and a stoop-shouldered old man wearing thick glasses looked back at us from across the room. He made no move to come forward, and Henry shouted out who we were and why we had come. He finally walked over to the door and unlocked it. He introduced himself as Mr. Vogel’s chief assistant, Tom Baker.
“You must understand my caution,” Mr. Baker said in a thin, strained voice. “Before Ned was murdered this door was open to one and all. But now I am afraid the man who killed him may return. Yet I feel it is my duty to get out this issue of the Gazette in honor of its esteemed editor and publisher, and I came here directly after his burial today. May poor Ned rest in peace.” His voice choked, and he turned away to collect himself.
We looked around the office. An open window let in a breeze but did not dispel the heavy scent of printer’s ink. There were cases of type, composing sticks, cutters, type saws, bodkins, tweezers, forms of type, and stacks of proof sheets scattered on benches along one wall, and against the other wall was a large desk.
Mr. Baker turned back to us. “I shall never forget the sight of him there.” He pointed toward the desk. “Every detail is pressed into my mind like molten type metal into a mold.”
“Were you the one to find his body?” Henry said.
“I was right downstairs when he was murdered!”
“Then you heard the gun go off,” I said, assuming Vogel had been shot like Tripp.
Mr. Baker shook his head and continued to recount what had happened in his own methodical fashion. “As I was saying, I was working the press downstairs and caught a glimpse of someone going by the open door and up the stairs around midnight. That is not unusual. We work quite late to get out the paper, and people bring stories and advertisements at any hour of the day or night. I thought maybe that was the case, and decided to go upstairs to see if Ned wanted any additions to the page I was setting up to print. As I entered the office I saw a man jumping out the window. I hurried to the window and watched him tumble down the slope and disappear into the trees. You can see for yourself how steep it is in back.”
Henry and I went to the window. The slope below plunged into the woods and was indeed very steep. The drop from the window to the ground was a good twenty feet.
“Did you notice anything particular about the man that would help identify him?” Henry asked Baker.
“Well, he was slender. Can’t say how tall he was. He was dressed in dark clothes.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No. His slouch hat was jammed on his head most securely, for it didn’t fall off even as he rolled head over heels down the slope. He appeared very nimble.”
“Would you say he was a young man?” Henry said.
“Sure as heck wasn’t an old one like me,” Baker said irritably. “Are you going to keep interrupting or let me get on with it? I already told all this to the constable and then to the Coroner’s Jury, and it ain’t easy on me to be telling it again. So I’d just as soon get it done with.”
“Pray go on,” Henry said.
“I turned back to the room and looked toward Ned’s desk. He was slumped forward in his chair, his head down on the desk like he was taking a nap. He often did that. He’d just lay his head down, take himself forty winks, and then be bright as a button again. I went over to him and . . . oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.” Baker pulled out a checkered handkerchief from his trousers pocket and blew his nose.
Henry and I went over to the desk, and Baker joined us. He smoothed his palm across the polished surface of mahogany veneer. “Cleaned up good, didn’t it?” he said. “But I couldn’t get the bloodstains out of the floor.”
I looked down and saw a dark, irregular stain at least a yard in circumference on the pine boards. “There must have been a great deal of blood,” I said.
“Oh, my, yes!” Baker said. “It was sliding off the edge of the desk and dripping down onto the floor. I thought at first Ned had gotten punched in the nose and had a real bad nosebleed. ‘Put your head back, Ned!’ I yelled at him. But he didn’t budge. I figured maybe he was unconscious, so I placed my hands against his ears and pulled his head back for him. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.” Out came the handkerchief again.
Neither Henry nor I said anything. We just waited this time.
Baker cleared his throat. “When I pulled back Ned’s head I found myself looking into his slit-open throat. I could see down to the base of his skull! I screamed and stepped back, letting go of his head, and it flopped backward and dangled over the back of the chair. It w
as still attached to his body, but just hanging there by his neck bone. His eyes were wide open. Dead eyes staring at me upside down. I kept on screaming all the way to the constable’s house.”
“Was a weapon found?”
“No,” Baker said. “The constable and his boys combed for it everywhere. Not just the office, but beneath the window and down into the woods. They found nothing.”
“What did the neck cut look like?” I asked Baker.
“It looked horrible!”
“I am sure it did. But was the cut jagged or clean?”
“As clean as when my wife slices cheese with a wire,” Baker said.
“What conclusion did the Coroner’s Jury reach?” Henry asked him.
“That Ned was murdered, of course. Death by near decapitation.”
“Was any speculation made concerning the type of murder weapon used?”
“They concluded it was a very sharp knife indeed.”
Henry turned to me. “Could a length of wire wrapped around the neck and clinched from behind slice clean through it?”
“If sufficient force is brought to bear, it could be done in short order,” I said.
Mr. Baker gave us the name of the coroner, who was also a doctor, and we went to interview him at his office. Dr. Hamilton was in the process of dry cupping a patient and had us wait outside on the porch as he performed what I myself consider a useless procedure. When Dr. Hamilton joined us on the porch, he gave us less than five minutes of his free time. He described in professional detail how the tissue, muscle, nerves, arteries, and veins of the neck had been cleanly severed, but he thought Henry’s hypothesis that Mr. Vogel had been garroted with a wire ridiculous. His own hypothesis was that the killer had used a scalpel.
Once again Henry and I took the rail cars, this time back to Concord. We discussed what we had heard and concluded that if Vogel had been murdered near midnight, the assassin would have had ample time to get himself to Plumford and shoot Tripp a few hours before dawn.
“Unfortunately, we have no suspect now that Prouty’s alibi has been confirmed,” I said.