A House Divided

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  When I left the newspaper offices myself a bit later, I was surprised to come upon Miss Todd on the village green. She was striding back and forth with great agitation, her fists clenched into tight balls.

  “My brother-in-law is impossible,” she cried when she saw me coming. “I tell you, Mr. Speed, I did not move from Lexington to Springfield only to trade the dominion of one man—my father—for another.”

  “I doubt any man could exercise dominion over you, Miss Todd.” The words were through my lips before I realized what I’d said, and I immediately clapped my hand to my mouth, but too late.

  Miss Todd stared at me for a moment and collapsed in peals of laughter. “Perhaps,” she said, when she regained her bearing, “you know me better than I believed.” She paused. “May I confide in you, Mr. Speed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “My brother-in-law Ninian does not approve of a match between myself and Mr. Lincoln. He thinks Lincoln uncouth. Too rough to be marriageable to a Todd sister. As if marrying one makes him an expert! Pray, what are your views on the subject?”

  My head was spinning. How could Mary ask for my advice on her courtship with Lincoln, especially this week of all weeks? And yet … I took a deep, steadying breath. I knew there was a compliment lingering inside her question, and I decided to be man enough to accept it. The lady’s preferences were clear at this point, and I served no one’s interests by falling victim to Iago’s green-eyed monster of jealousy.

  “We’ve had our differences on occasion,” I said, “but I’ve never met a finer man. Nor one of such keen intellect. Any woman, of any station, would be lucky to receive his proposal.”

  Miss Todd nodded happily. “That’s just what I think. Thank you for your candor, which I know may come at some personal cost.”

  “You deserve it,” I said frankly, “and so does he.”

  We exchanged a long glance; it was the truest look I’d ever shared with a member of the fairer sex, though there was no lovemaking to it. It was, I realized after a moment, the start of a new page in our relationship.

  “Are you certain, Mr. Speed,” asked Mary, breaking into my thoughts, “that you don’t have feelings for Miss Matilda Edwards? Such a pretty girl. And I have it on good authority she retains a great interest in you.”

  I thought about the last time I’d seen Miss Edwards, fleeing inside the Edwards mansion, skirts in hand, to change out of her muddy clothes after the misadventure with the shingles, rather than joining us in search of William Trailor’s hidden trunk. It wasn’t just Miss Todd’s pleasing appearance and high intellect that I valued, I realized, but her readiness for adventure.

  “I’m sure she’ll make some man a fine wife,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s to be me.”

  “That’s the answer I expected. One day soon,” Mary added, “you’ll find what you’re looking for. Whom you’re looking for.”

  “I appreciate your confidence.”

  She laughed. “I have one more favor to ask. It’s related to the case against Archibald Trailor. Come with me, if you please.”

  Mary started walking toward the American House, whose long row of chimneys was visible behind the capitol building, and I fell into step with her.

  “This business with William Trailor’s trunk hidden in our barn has me thinking about the Trailors’ case,” began Mary. “It’s a good deal more interesting than the usual tasks that occupy my time. The other day, Mayor May was over at our house, speaking with Ninian, and I heard him mention that Henry Trailor was being put up at the American House while awaiting the trial.”

  “Big Red wants to make sure his star witness doesn’t go anywhere.”

  Mary nodded. “I decided to learn what I could about Henry Trailor. As it turned out, Joseph had a good deal of light to shed on the subject.”

  “Who?”

  “Ninian’s Negro boy. His bondsman. You’re familiar with him from your visits to Quality Hill, are you not?”

  I nodded. Slavery had nominally been banished from Illinois since statehood. But the law allowed Negro boys to be held until their twenty-first birthday in contracts of indentured servitude that were slavery in all but name. A number of Springfield’s most prominent citizens, including Big Red May himself, joined Edwards in taking full advantage of this oddity of the law.

  “Joseph has a cousin who cleans the chambers at the American House. So I asked Joseph if his cousin could keep an eye on Henry’s comings and goings.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “He drinks a lot of whiskey, for one thing. More than most travelers staying at the hotel, even. And he’s foul tempered and treats the workers at the hotel no better than beasts.”

  “No surprises there.”

  “Listen to this,” said Mary, as we passed by the imposing front of the State Bank building, directly across from the capitol. She leaned toward me. “Joseph’s cousin says Henry has quite a supply of gold coins. Anytime a peddler comes through with something Henry wants, he digs into his pocket and out comes another coin for the purchase. Joseph’s cousin hasn’t seen that much gold since before the Panic.”

  “Where does it come from?”

  “The cousin doesn’t know, but there’s one other thing that’s very odd. Henry spends a lot of time in the room of another guest at the hotel. In the public areas, Henry and the fellow pretend they’re strangers to each other, but more than a few evenings Joseph’s cousin has seen Henry near the room of this fellow, either going in or leaving it.”

  “What’s the name of the other fellow?”

  We were a few feet from the front door of the American House. Mary came to a stop and smiled. “That’s where you come in.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Five minutes later, Miss Todd and I separately entered the American House. The lobby of the grand hotel was cavernous, with six stately columns holding up a high, intricately carved wood ceiling. An enormous, richly colored Turkey rug covered much of the floor. At the far end of the room was an imposing marble counter, where the hotelkeeper Elijah Iles presided in front of a cabinet lined with cubbyholes filled with keys. I proceeded directly to Iles; out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Mary had settled herself on an Ottoman divan near the doorway.

  Iles was a commanding man with wavy, graying hair and powerful whiskers. He was universally known as “Major” from his rank in the regiment raised from Central Illinois in 1832 for the Black Hawk War, during which he had commanded, among other green recruits, one Abraham Lincoln. Iles was also one of the original settlers of Springfield, having opened the settlement’s first general store two decades earlier.

  “In need of a room, Speed?” Iles asked as I approached his post. “Has Lincoln finally forced you out?”

  “What? No, I …” I sputtered off, flustered.

  Iles laughed heartily. “Believe me, I understand your pain more than most. There were nights in the tent, back when we were chasing after Black Hawk, that I put a sack over his head and smothered him half to death, just to quiet his infernal snore.”

  “He can be irritating, but that’s not the reason for a visit. I’m hoping for a favor, from one old shopkeeper to another.”

  “Name it.”

  “I’ve extended a good deal of credit to one of your guests, so much so that I’ve started to worry he might run out on the bill.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Iles.

  “That’s the thing—I’ve never gotten his name. Most of the time he’s dealt with my clerk, Herndon. A fine lad, but not one to trust with such a large account. All I know is: room thirty-two.” It was the one identifying detail Mary had been able to glean from Joseph about the mysterious guest in league with Henry Trailor.

  Iles’s face broke into a broad grin. His bushy eyebrows knit together, and the fine lines under his eyes danced merrily. “I was just about to say, don’t tell me it’s the fellow in room thirty-two.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Lincoln must truly have driven you out with
his snoring if you don’t know. Room thirty-two is where the banker August Belmont is staying. He spends most of his days, as you must know, consorting with Lincoln and other members of the legislature. But in the evenings, he spends a good deal of time with—”

  “Henry Trailor.” My mind was reeling. What business could Belmont possibly have with Trailor?

  Major Iles nodded approvingly. “Well done, Speed. I always say a shopkeeper who doesn’t know his customers isn’t going to be a shopkeeper for long. The same goes double for a hotelkeeper, I’ve learned.”

  The lobby had been empty, save for Miss Todd, during our conversation, but we now heard two voices coming down the main staircase off to the right of Iles’s desk. Big Red May and Henry Trailor materialized on the bottom steps. They were conferring earnestly.

  “Talk of the devil,” murmured Iles.

  Henry Trailor walked up to the desk and handed a key to Iles. “I’ll be back presently,” he said. Trailor nodded absently at me, his eyes unfocused, and rejoined Big Red, and the two men walked toward the exit.

  “Have the two of them been spending a lot of time together?” I asked Iles quietly.

  The hotelkeeper’s eyes followed the pair as they walked away. “I’ll assume,” he said, “that my old subordinate Captain Lincoln has a good reason for wanting to know all of this.”

  “That’s a fair assumption.”

  “Big Red comes to check in on him every now and again. I don’t think he wants his principal witness wandering far. And of course, he’s the one paying for Trailor’s stay.”

  “Out of town funds or his own pocket?”

  Iles shrugged. “If the town has any funds, I’d certainly like to know it. I was promised a hundred dollars for improving the street outside when I put up this place. I’m still waiting.”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Henry Trailor and Big Red had come to a stop not far from the front door and that Mary had managed to reposition herself to be closer to them. “Someone told me Henry Trailor has been spreading gold around,” I said. “Doesn’t sound like he needs Big Red to pay for him.”

  “Who declines an offer of free lodging?” said Iles. “Especially at the finest establishment in the state.”

  “What about Belmont? Could he be the source of Trailor’s gold?”

  Iles gazed at me a good long time before answering. “I haven’t any idea. I’d tell you if I did.”

  I sensed another guest approaching. I looked up, and my breath caught. It was the auburn-haired, green-eyed young woman whose path I had crossed, ever so briefly, on the evening of the gala.

  “May I have my key, Major Iles?” she asked. As Iles turned to search his cubbyholes, the woman glanced toward me, and immediately there was a light of recognition in her eyes.

  “We must stop meeting like this,” she said, her face relaxing into a mischievous smile.

  “And yet we’ve never properly met at all.”

  Major Iles, turning his attention back toward us with a key dangling from his hand, said, “Have the two of you never been introduced? Mr. Joshua Speed, of Springfield, may I have the honor of presenting Miss Rose Flannery, of Chicago.”

  I bowed, and she curtsied. A thought flashed into my mind, wholly formed: Mary said I’d meet my match. Could this be her, so soon?

  “We may not have met properly before now,” Miss Rose Flannery of Chicago was saying, “but I have come to know something about you, Mr. Speed.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” I managed, as my insides tumbled.

  “You come from a prosperous family in Kentucky but preferred to make your own way rather than following your father’s wishes. You are a thoroughly honest storekeeper but seem happy for most any excuse to abandon your counter.”

  “How do you know all that?” I asked, astonished.

  “I’m not finished. I also know you share lodgings with Mr. Lincoln but don’t always share your secrets with him.” She gave me a composed look. “We’ve been lodging at the American House for several weeks. You can learn a lot by lingering in its lobby, if you’re paying attention. Thank you for the key, Major. Good day.”

  She made her way across the lobby and up the sweeping staircase. My heart racing, I watched her receding form.

  “My thoughts exactly,” murmured Iles beside me.

  “Too bad she’s spoken for,” I replied, thinking with envy of the dashing young man who had interrupted our conversation the evening of the gala.

  “What? No, she isn’t. At least not that I know of. If you mean the gentleman she’s at the hotel with, he’s a relation of some sort. A cousin, I believe.”

  “That’s the most encouraging news I’ve heard in days,” I said, my eyes still fixed on the steps Miss Flannery had ascended and my heart beating wildly. “What’s their purpose in town?”

  “Same as everyone I’m hosting. Business with the legislature.”

  I forced myself to return to the matter at hand. “Back to my original question. Should I trust Belmont not to run out on his account?”

  “You don’t trust the Rothschilds?” Iles asked. There was a slight smile on his face. “Before you answer, have I ever told you about the first two years I ran my store here, back when the town was just coming into existence?”

  I shook my head. As I continued to face Iles, I held my right hand down at my side with three fingers extended. Three minutes. I hoped Miss Todd could make out the signal from where she was positioned at the other end of the lobby.

  “I contracted for the building of a log store, sixteen feet square, and set out on horseback for St. Louis to buy goods,” the major was saying. “I spent four weeks shopping and brought back fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of goods—wrought iron, pot metal, dry goods and groceries. It was July 1821. The Indians were as numerous as the white man around here back then, and I sold to them about equal. Everyone was honest, and I often left my store open for days at a time.

  “When my original stock was reduced, I locked the door, gave my key to old Matheny, and left for St. Louis again, in perfect confidence that all would be safe. But upon my return two months later, the store had been robbed. Nearly everything was gone.”

  “Robbed by whom?”

  “I never found out. I heard a rumor that a family called Percifield, living out on the bluffs, was selling my goods out of the back of a two-horse wagon. So I took an officer and searched the wagon. Found goods very much like my own, but the marks had been removed and I couldn’t tell for sure. Had to abandon the search. Though a few years later I did hear that the Percifields had been nabbed for another set of robberies. One was hung and the other sent to the penitentiary. At least that’s what I heard.

  “The Percifields, if that’s who it was, did teach me a good lesson.” Major Iles looked at me.

  “Which was?” I prompted.

  “Don’t trust nobody. And if someone seems too honest, don’t trust them even more.”

  Right on cue, there was a great wail from the other end of the lobby. Both Iles and I turned to stare. Miss Todd was lying prone on the couch, hands raised above her head, crying out in pain.

  “I believe that’s Ninian Edwards’s sister-in-law,” I said to the innkeeper.

  But the savvy Iles already knew this, and he left his post and rushed to her aid. In a flash, I reached across the counter and snatched the key out of the cubbyhole marked 32. Then I raced up the staircase. I didn’t look back, but I could still hear Mary carrying on behind me.

  I figured I had four minutes, maybe five at most. I reached the third floor and sprinted down the hallway until I found a doorway with a carved wooden 3 and 2 nailed to the door. I turned the key and let myself in. It was dark inside, only tiny slivers of light leaking in through mostly drawn curtains, but I didn’t take the time to strike a candle.

  The room was richly appointed, like the lobby, with overstuffed chairs and a grand canopied bed. It was immaculately clean. The writing desk was bare and there was not a book in sight. It was easy to pictu
re the fastidious Belmont residing in the place.

  The only personal effects in the room seemed to be stored in a traveling trunk that was pushed against the wall, its lid propped open. I rifled through it quickly. There was nothing but the fine clothing, neatly folded, I had seen Belmont wear in his daily perambulations around Springfield: black frockcoats, vests and trousers, and white starched shirts, along with undergarments. Removing these carefully, I felt around the bottom of the trunk. Perhaps he’d hidden a diary or some other type of writing. Nothing. Time was running out.

  Despairing that the whole adventure had come to nothing, I was placing the clothing back into the trunk exactly as I had found it when I felt something crinkle inside the pocket of one of the frockcoats. I reached in and felt a tight wad of paper. Without thinking, I grabbed it and jammed it into my pocket. Then I finished putting Belmont’s trunk as I had found it, left the room, locked the door behind me, and raced for the staircase.

  As I came down the final set of stairs, I saw a crowd of men gathered around Mary. Fortunately, Major Iles was still among them, his distinctive wavy hair and full beard hovering over the stricken woman, and his counter was unattended. I thrust the key back into its slot and hurried to join the fray. Mary was lying on her back and staring at the ceiling, her arms akimbo and her face in great distress, but when I came into view, her eyes suddenly focused.

  “I … I think it’s passed,” she announced, starting to sit up, only to be urged back down by several of the men surrounding her.

  Iles took notice of me. “What happened to you?” he asked. “You disappeared right after Miss Todd took ill.”

  “Emergency trip to the backhouse,” I murmured, clutching at my stomach, and the innkeeper nodded discreetly.

  Miss Todd continued her rapid recovery, and in a few minutes she insisted she felt well enough to be on her way. She squinted at me. “Mr. Speed, is that you? Perhaps you’d be so kind as to escort me back to my house.”