Thoreau in Phantom Bog

by Oak, B. B.

  Upon my return from the stable I found Payne interrogating Haven as Henry silently observed. “I’ll ask you one more time afore I resort to physical persuasion,” Payne was saying. “Where’s the loot hid, Jack Steeple?”

  Haven shook his head. “Thee must set me free, for I am but a plain man in speech and deed.”

  Payne’s eyes bulged in anger. “How would thee like a punch in thy face, friend?” He raised a closed fist.

  “No reason to resort to violence, Lieutenant Payne,” Henry said. “Let us simply go up and search his room.”

  “We’ll have to pull up the floor boards, I reckon. Got a crowbar and hammer handy?” Payne said.

  “In fact I do.” Henry went to the back of the bar and down the hatch to the cellar, returning a moment later with the requested tools.

  “The loot is always below the boards,” Payne said when we were in Haven’s room. He did not even bother to have a look around before he began to energetically pry up the flooring.

  Whilst he did so Henry examined the rest of the floor but found nothing there of interest to him and began running his hands along the walls. What he was looking for, I knew not. I got busy and turned the bed over and felt through the mattress and pillow stuffing. Payne continued to tear up the floor with the crowbar. He appeared to be rather enjoying himself.

  “Methinks I found something,” Henry said after a good long while of Payne’s banging and crashing. “Pray halt with that destruction for a moment, Lieutenant Payne, and look up there.” He pointed to a corner of the ceiling.

  I could see nothing amiss, but apparently Henry had. He pushed a chair to the corner and stood upon it. Reaching up, he slid his fingertips over the area and then pulled a pocketknife from his coat. Slowly and carefully he prized out a six-inch square of plaster with the tip of his blade. I could see that behind the removed square the lathing had also been cut away.

  Henry felt with the tips of his fingers into the space and lifted out a fish hook that had been wedged into the plaster. It had a string tied to it. He pulled up the string and at the end of it found attached a leather pouch. “I do believe,” he said, “we have here what we seek.”

  Payne threw down his tools with a clatter. “I’ll take that,” he said in peremptory fashion. He grabbed the pouch and marched downstairs to the taproom ahead of us. At the sight of the pouch Haven groaned and dropped his head.

  “You can’t keep anything hidden from my sharp eyes, Jack Steeple,” the lieutenant said. He untied the pouch and poured the contents onto the table. We all stared at a glittering array of gems set in rings, earbobs, necklaces, and brooches.

  “Well, well, well,” Payne said. “Seems that actress who was robbed has her share of wealthy admirers.” He pulled out his list. “But where’s the most costly piece of the lot? Where’s the ruby necklace?”

  Henry picked up a heavy gold necklace with an empty center setting. “I wager this piece once sported a ruby.”

  Payne scowled at his prisoner. “Flicked it out and sold it already, did you?”

  I glanced at Haven, and a look of puzzlement flashed across his face.

  “I doubt he had time to sell it,” Henry said. “Maybe he swallowed it when he heard you charging up the stairs to arrest him.”

  Payne turned on Haven. “Is that what you did, you thieving sneak?”

  Haven stared at the jewels on the table. “Don’t know what thee speaks on with such rudeness. Never seen any of that mess of twinkles. As a Friend I care not for such worldly extravagance.”

  “If he did indeed gulp it down his gullet,” Henry said, “you might want to keep those sharp eyes of yours on his chamber pot, Lieutenant Payne.”

  “I intend to do just that,” Payne said, “when he’s safe in our Leverett Street Jail.” The lieutenant turned to me. “I will need to rent a wagon to haul this man back to Boston.”

  He seemed to be under the impression that I was somehow connected with the Sun Tavern stable, and I did not bother to correct him. I procured a wagon and even hitched Payne’s overworked horse to it. I checked Haven’s injured leg one last time before he was carted away. My suturing had held!

  Henry and I watched the wagon roll off toward the post road and went back inside the tavern. We found Ruggles at his station behind the bar, looking bleary eyed but sober enough. We began to tell him all that he had missed whilst he lay in a drunken stupor on the parlor rug. He seemed not the least bit interested and took from his breast pocket a folded sheet of paper. He placed it upon the bar for Henry and me to read.

  Farewell, Sam. No good here for me now. People know I am whore. Must travel fast. Cannot take Roos. Got me another roos. So do not worry. I get by fine. You take care. Always I pray for you.

  “Why’d she go and leave me?” Ruggles moaned. “I forgave her the moment she confessed about her past.”

  Would the Board of Selectmen have forgiven her though, I wondered. If Edda had stayed here with Ruggles, they well might have decided that his tavern was no longer respectable enough and revoked his license. There were plenty of men in town who would have liked to take over Ruggles’s profitable business. Constable Beers for one. I did not point this out to Ruggles, of course. It would take him time to see that Edda had done him a favor by leaving him.

  “Does roos mean red in Dutch?” Henry asked him.

  Ruggles nodded. Reminded of the bird, he whistled for her, and a moment later the parrot swooped into the taproom. She settled on Ruggles’s shoulder and pressed her bright red head to his cheek.

  “Your mama has gone and left you,” Ruggles told the bird as tears streamed down his face.

  Henry motioned to me to step outside with him. We stood on the porch and stared out at the Green.

  “I think Sam’s good, generous heart will eventually mend,” I said.

  “Is that your diagnosis, Doctor?”

  “My hope anyway. Sam only knew the woman for two months, and he has long-time friends here to support and comfort him. So the prognosis is good. I’m more worried about poor Edda getting by on her own.”

  “Not so poor,” Henry said. “She didn’t leave here empty-handed.”

  His remark distressed me. “You think she stole money from Sam?”

  “No. I think she stole from a thief,” Henry said. “She stated in her note to Sam that she has another roos. Meaning another red. Rubies are red.”

  “She found the jewel thief’s stash!” I said. If anyone could have found it other than Henry, it would have been Edda. “But why steal only one jewel? Why not the whole lot?”

  “I think it was very clever of her not to be greedy,” Henry said. “She must have reckoned that if Haven discovered that only the ruby was missing from his stash, he would accept the loss rather than cause trouble. A thief does not want to draw attention to himself by accusing others of thievery, after all. And Edda must have also reckoned that if Haven got caught, the police would assume he had hidden the ruby somewhere. Payne certainly thinks Haven still has it.”

  “But what if Payne eventually decides someone at the Sun Tavern took the ruby? Sam might fall under suspicion.”

  “I think not. Don’t forget that Edda has already confessed to the crime in her note by alluding to the roos. She did that to protect Sam,” Henry said. “Besides, I doubt that the ruby will be the only gem missing by the time an official inventory is made at the police station in Boston. And Lieutenant Payne will make sure to caste the blame on Jack Steeple or claim he had an accomplice who made off with the missing pieces.”

  “Should we tell Sam your theory, Henry?”

  “Yes, when he’s sober enough to understand. He will be comforted to know that Edda will not be in desperate financial straits. She should get more than enough money for that ruby to set herself up in a new life where nobody knows her.”

  “So we have seen the last of her,” I said. “And the last of our quack Quaker too. I suppose we’ll eventually learn Haven’s real name when he’s put on trial.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t much care what his name is,” Henry said. “Indeed, now that I know he is not the assassin, I have no interest in him at all. We must return our attention to finding Tripp’s and Vogel’s killer, Adam. Before there is yet another Conductor killed.”

  JULIA

  Thursday, May 25

  Around noon Tansy and I shared a light luncheon at the card table in my bedchamber rather than in the dining room, where ground floor windows would have made her more likely to be viewed by passersby. I decided to be completely open with her, hoping she would be so with me, and finally told her about the brutal assassination of the Railroad Conductor in Waltham.

  “So you see, Tansy, it wasn’t necessarily because Mr. Tripp was in the act of transporting you that he was murdered. When Mr. Vogel was killed, he wasn’t conducting a fugitive to a Station. He was at his place of business.”

  “But he was killed because he was helping runaway slaves, wasn’t he?”

  “Well, yes.” It could not be denied.

  “As was Mr. Tripp.”

  “So it seems.”

  “And you could be killed too, Julia, for sheltering me here!”

  Exactly the reaction I feared Tansy would have. “Except for a few very trusted people, no one knows I’m associated with the Railroad,” I told her. “And no one except Adam, Henry, Rusty, and now Mrs. Tripp know you are here. You obviously trust Mrs. Tripp or you wouldn’t have shown yourself to her yesterday.”

  “I did so want to see her again and let her know I was all right,” Tansy said. “She was very concerned for my safety when I left for Carlisle with her husband.”

  “You know, my first impression of Mrs. Tripp was that she wasn’t very sympathetic regarding runaways,” I said. “But apparently I was completely wrong about her. I wonder why she acted so coldly toward Henry and me.”

  “Mrs. Tripp isn’t cold,” Tansy said. “But she is chary. And God knows she had reason to be.”

  “Had reason to be? What was that reason?”

  Tansy spooned some hasty pudding into her mouth and chewed awhile. I could tell she was considering how to answer me. “I don’t know,” she said after she finally swallowed.

  But of course she did. “You told me the other day that you didn’t want to talk against the man who died helping you, Tansy. That suggests you do indeed have something against him. Did Mr. Tripp molest you?”

  “He did not.” Tansy must have seen the disbelief in my eyes. “I will go fetch the Bible and swear upon it that he never so much as laid a hand on me.”

  I believed her then, for I knew that she held the Bible sacrosanct. I tried another approach to find out what she was holding back. “You seemed surprised when Mrs. Tripp told you that Jared had gone off to Ohio.”

  “Jared? Who might that be?”

  “Mrs. Tripp’s elder son, as you well know.”

  “Oh, right. I heard her speak of him.”

  “It sounded to me like you knew him personally.”

  Tansy regarded me as if I’d gone off my rocker. “How could I? You heard Mrs. Tripp say that her Jared left for Ohio weeks ago.”

  “Will you swear on a Bible you never met him?”

  “If you do not stop badgering me, Julia, I will just out and out swear!”

  But rather than blaspheme, Tansy abruptly left and retreated to the attic. Apparently she preferred that cramped space to my vexing company.

  I went down to the kitchen just as Adam and Henry were coming through the back door. “Are you hungry?” I asked them.

  “As bears,” Adam said.

  “Pray have some pudding. I made it myself.”

  I lifted the cover off the pot on the stove, and they stared at the contents. This being my first try at making a hasty pudding, I thought a few lumps and a bit of scorching forgivable, but these two hungry bears apparently did not and politely refused my offer.

  “Perhaps the midday fare at the Sun would suit you better,” I suggested a bit huffily.

  “Sam has closed the Sun for the rest of the day and taken himself to bed,” Henry said.

  As he and Adam explained to me why, I brought a wedge of cheese and a tin of crackers from the pantry, and we all settled around the table. That the Quaker had turned out to be a jewel thief in hiding was most surprising, but I was not surprised to hear that Edda had abruptly left Plumford. She had done it for Sam Ruggles’s sake, I was sure. His business would have suffered if she had stayed at his side. Those willing to sleep at an inn where the proprietor’s wife had stabbed a guest in his bed would be few and far between.

  “I have wasted valuable time suspecting the wrong man,” Henry said. He looked desolate. “What if the two murders are not even connected?”

  “They must be,” Adam said. “Both men were Underground Railroad Conductors, and the assassin stated in his warning letter that he had been hired to kill Conductors, one after another.”

  “I have heard you refer to this letter, but I’ve never seen it,” I said.

  Henry took a folded sheet from his jacket pocket and gave it to me.

  “A most distinct penmanship,” I remarked at first glance.

  “That spot of brown in the corner of the paper could well be an oil from India,” Adam told me. “And the green stain in the fold could be medicinal tobacco powder.”

  I read the letter with building rage. “These are the sanctimonious ravings of a despicable murderer,” I said after I’d finished.

  “Do you think the author insane?” Henry asked me.

  “I think the institution of slavery insane,” I said. “But the man who wrote this letter seems to be in control of his faculties. His intentions are clear enough at any rate. What I don’t understand is why he mentions Vogel’s murder, but he does not mention Tripp’s murder.”

  “Because he had not yet committed it,” Adam said.

  “But why would he kill another Conductor only a few hours after assassinating the first one? It seems to defeat his stated purpose,” I said and read aloud from the letter. “May what I did to Vogel serve as a warning for all the others.”

  “Read the next sentence aloud,” Adam said.

  “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.”

  “There you have the answer to your question, Julia,” Adam said. “Tripp must have been the next name on the list he mentions, and he simply took the opportunity to eradicate him.”

  “But how did he know Tripp would be driving down Drover’s Lane at that time?”

  “That’s what I have been pondering,” Henry said. “And the conclusion I always reach is one I do not wish to accept. Someone in the Underground Railroad alerted him.”

  “A spy?” I said in a hushed tone. “Who knew the route Tripp would be taking besides Mrs. Tripp?”

  “Only the Station Master who arranged the delivery with Tripp,” Henry said.

  “Well, who was that?” Adam said.

  Henry hesitated. “My mother.”

  “Oh, Henry, you do not suspect her!” I said.

  “Of course not. Which means my reasoning must be faulty. Or I am missing a key piece of information. We should talk this over with Rusty. He’s been active in the Railroad far longer than I have. Stories concerning his derring-do go back near a decade.”

  “Does he know you’re also a Conductor?” Adam said.

  “Well, yes. He made mention to me upon first meeting that we were in the same line of work as Conductors. Weren’t you the one who told him, Adam?”

  “Not I. In fact, I took care not to. I know how secretive you Railroad people like to keep things.”

  Henry looked at me, and I shook my head. “Rusty did not hear it from me,” I said. “I have spoken to the man only twice. The first time was when he took my likeness.”

  “He took your likeness?” Adam asked me in a rather sharp tone.

  “Yes, and I had no idea he was even connected with the Rail
road then,” I continued. “The second time we spoke it was but briefly in front of you, Henry.”

  “I wonder how he found out I was a Conductor then.”

  “Most likely the same way we found out he was one,” Adam said. “There are probably stories circulating up and down the Railroad about your heroics too, Henry.”

  Henry laughed that off. I discerned a blush beneath the tan of his cheeks.

  “I would like to make a copy of this letter straightaway,” I told him.

  “Certainly,” Henry said. “Meanwhile, I’ll go fetch Rusty. I’m rather curious to see the inside of his wagon, although I’ve refused his many invitations to have my likeness taken. I know well enough what I look like.”

  As soon as Henry left, Adam and I went to my studio. I put the letter on the drawing board and began to copy it whilst Adam gazed out the window.

  “There goes Henry across the Green,” he said.

  “Are there any customers waiting at Rusty’s wagon?” I asked.

  “No, Rusty is leaning against the side of it with nothing better to do than pose like a coxcomb in those flashy striped pantaloons of his. He thinks himself quite the ladies’ gent, doesn’t he?”

  “I suppose he does.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me he took your likeness, Julia?”

  “Because you would have wanted to see it, and I do not care for the way I came out. Rusty insisted that I smile, and the result is quite artificial.”

  “What right did he have to insist that you smile for him?”

  “Adam! You sound downright jealous. If you are, you are being absurd.”

  His shoulders lifted in a shrug, and he continued to stare out the window. “Henry is talking to Rusty now. They’re going inside the wagon.” He then turned to face me. “I apologize, Julia. You’re right. It’s absurd of me to be jealous of Rusty. But I don’t like the man.”

  “I didn’t like Rusty the first time I met him, either,” I admitted. “But now I understand his brash behavior and silly patter are meant to distract people from his true mission. We cannot forget all he’s done over the years to help slaves escape.”