Pat O'Malley Historical Steampunk Mystery Trilogy

by Jim Musgrave

  It took about an hour until we steamed into the depot at Collierville. The mounted cavalry disembarked from the cars, and I was given my horse from the mansion stables. I looked quite ridiculous in my costume. I even had the medieval jester’s cloth hat, called a Fool's hat, which was most distinctive, consisting of three points with a jingle bell at the end of each point. As I rode, the bells jingled, and the men would laugh. I also carried a mock scepter called a bauble, which was adorned by the inflated bladder of a pig. The costume was Becky’s idea.

  As we came riding up to the Wainwright Mansion, I could see the gas lights still on inside, so I knew the party had not adjourned. It was half-past eleven. We all dismounted and I led the soldiers and General Grant up the mansion’s wide steps, past the four colonial columns of granite, and into the hall of the mansion’s drawing room.

  “All right!” I yelled. “Everybody front and center!”

  Slowly, one by one, the men came out of their drunken trances and staggered into the drawing room. The southern ladies of the evening stood away, hiding behind their masks and watching from the sidelines behind the white columns.

  General Grant motioned for his men to go up to each of the men and pull his mask off. As each man was revealed, we saw who he was. The fifteenth man was Burlingame, and I thought that was all of them.

  I was about to explain to Grant about the invention, when another short man was led into the drawing room by Becky. One of the corporals walked up to the gentleman and pulled off his mask. There were some audible gasps from the Americans in the room. This masked stranger was none other than the 17th President of these United States, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee! His clean-shaven, distinguished jaw and short cut, graying hair were all immediately recognizable to any American citizen.

  Grant quickly saluted his president and turned to me. “O’Malley! What in blazes is the meaning of this? How dare you bring me to arrest these fine gentlemen? Sir, I am heartily sorry for this intrusion. We shall leave immediately!” If a man could become ignited by fire, I would assume Grant was this man.

  “Wait a moment, General,” said the president. “I came here because of a Dr. Letterman. He advised me that there was something going on at this location, and I needed to see it for myself. He also told me that Mister O’Malley was the man who had convinced Dr. Letterman to change his ways. The pressures of war have taken their toll on all of us, General, and this includes men like Dr. Letterman. He said he saw thousands of young men carted away to his hospital tents, only to see them perish in agonizing ways. He thought he could see a way to purify the sins of man through this racial cleansing, but he told me O’Malley made him see the danger of such thinking. I’m afraid I have also been guilty of allowing too much to happen under the guise of states’ rights and my southern roots. Mister O’Malley, I believe you wanted to show us something.”

  “Yes sir, Mister President!” I said. I walked over to Anson Burlingame and poked him with the head of my pig bladder scepter. “Take us to your invention!” I said, and my bells jingled as we were led out into the night by this President of The American Emigrant Company.

  The Jews were lined up waiting in front of the trap-door opening in the earth. The invention had been built beneath the ground, and the building extended underneath, but it was not visible from above ground.

  “These were the men I saw the other night in New York,” I explained to the President. “The American Emigrant Company was taking them down here to be murdered--to be gassed by poison--inside the horrific invention that I would assume is herein beneath this sod.”

  At that moment, a Union soldier brought Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler out of the slaves’ cabin number 12 and over to us. He was no longer shackled. He was walking as freely as a man should be walking, except for the fact that he was now stumbling. I also noticed that his arms were as thin as spareribs. I watched, with some amount of attention, as the former prisoner staggered directly up to Mister Anson Burlingame and spat into his face. Dr. Mergenthaler then fell into a swoon to the ground, and when one of the soldiers inspected his body, the soldier shook his head from side to side, in a most gravely serious manner.

  “Arrest all these men, and have them confined in Memphis. This is not to be reported to the press or to any living person outside those present,” said President Johnson. “If I find out one of you has reported this, I will have you hanged! Is that clear?”

  We all nodded our heads. I could hear a barn owl’s wings as it passed over our heads, and I remembered that on the battlefield we thought of it as good fortune when an owl passed over. An owl was a symbol of a higher spiritual intelligence looking over us all.

  All I could think about at that moment was the fact that I had to report the death of a father to a five-year-old boy in New York. This boy believed in the magic of his father, and I hoped I could explain exactly how his father was a hero and a man who stood for intelligence and values which needed to be protected for the good of us all.

  Epilogue: The Black Crook

  I found out later that my father had become quite inebriated during the masquerade party, and he ended up passing out inside the slave cabin where our serum was stored. He was dressed in the costume of a medieval king, and his “queen” was an Irish wench from Collierville, Tennessee. When he came to, I had to explain all that had gone on, and he was quite apologetic.

  “Patrick, I never wanted ta shame ya! I was just carried away by the party. I haven’t been outside me own tavern in twenty-six years! Can you forgive me? I’ve learned a lesson I won’t soon forget.”

  It was true. My father became a changed man after our trip to Tennessee. He got involved in his community of Five Points, and he ran for alderman and won. He vowed to clean-up the corrupt Tammany Hall, but he was fighting a losing battle in 1867, as the gents from “The Ring” were coming into their own powerful status. We may have won a war down South, but we were losing a lot of battles in New York City.

  When I broke the sad news to little Seth Mergenthaler, he took it in the way a young, imaginative son of Arthur Mergenthaler would be expected to take it. He looked up at me with those sad, brown eyes and stated, “He’s not dead, Mister O’Malley. He’s a mazikeen like me! He’s just invisible.”

  Dr. Jacobi advised Bessie not to break into little Seth’s imaginary world just yet, as it would be too painful for him. We decided to take him to see a matinee of the new musical extravaganza, The Black Crook, playing at the 3,200 seat Niblo’s Garden Theater on Broadway. In fact, Becky and my father also attended, and we all had very good seats due to my Becky’s close relationship with the theater manager, William Wheatley, who also directed the show.

  This musical told the story of the evil Count Wolfenstein who tries to win the affection of the lovely villager Amina by placing her boyfriend Rodolphe in the clutches of Hertzog, a nasty crook-backed master of black magic (hence the show's title). The ancient Hertzog stays alive by providing the Devil (Zamiel, "The Arch Fiend") with a fresh soul every New Year's Eve. While an unknowing Rodolphe is being led to this hellish fate, he selflessly saves the life of a dove, which magically turns out to be Stalacta, Fairy Queen of the Golden Realm, who was masquerading as the bird. The grateful Queen whisks Rodolphe to safety in fairyland before helping to reunite him with his beloved Amina. The Fairy Queen's army then battles the Count and his evil minions. The Count is defeated, demons drag the evil magician Hertzog into hell, and Rodolphe and Amina live happily ever after.

  We all observed little Seth as he watched the show. He was seated in front of us with his head balanced upon his two hands, and his elbows firmly entrenched on his thighs. He was utterly transfixed by the action on stage, so I told the others about how I solved the case.

  “I became suspicious of Letterman because he was the last person to have an affair with Bessie. I knew when I confronted him he would be angry, but I also knew he would eventually come out of his anti-Semitic rage.”

  “How could you know that?” Bessie asked.


  “I saw how Dr. Letterman acted when he was with Seth. His was not the emotional expression of a man who could hate his own people. I believe the horrible experience of seeing those thousands of wounded and dying soldiers hardened his heart to reason. When I confronted him, I think I was able to break through that callousness so he could think again. I was fortunate when it became true.” I noticed that little Seth’s head turned around just as Rodolphe was being taken to the Black Crook, Hertzog. “That’s father,” he said, pointing to Rodolphe, and he turned back around to continue watching the show.

  “How did you know those kidnappers were in the slave cabin?” Becky asked.

  “Becky, you know we fought in Collierville, in 1863. I used my intuition, just the way you taught me in your transcendental approach to crime solving. “I pictured that battle in my mind’s eye, and I recalled the Confederate Colonel, John McGuirk, who had lost his eye in that battle. When I went off to examine those other cabins, I saw this same McGuirk come out of cabin 12.”

  “Son, you knew just when to go fer help. I now know how smart you are, and I’m proud to say yer me boy!” said my father, grasping my forearm in a tight squeeze. “You taught me a lot, and I’ll die a much happier man because of it. Yer ma would’ve been proud of you.”

  I kept thinking about what President Johnson told us on the night we discovered the underground extermination gas house and crematorium. He said he would hang anybody who reported what we found. I wondered if Johnson were an honest broker. What was he going to do with that invention? Was he telling us the truth that he had learned the error of his ways? Only history would tell.

  I did know that Grant was a changed man. After inspecting the crematorium and gas chamber beneath the earth of the Wainwright Plantation, he vowed to never again endorse laws which would separate people and alienate the Union. The Virginia law was torn up, and Grant began to run an honest campaign for the presidency.

  This case was like getting pulled down into an ever-widening gyre at sea. Once you get caught on the edge, it pulls you down into its center where you can drown in the black depths. I suppose anybody on the periphery of the World Eugenics Collective or The American Immigrant Company might believe the organization was just trying to improve society in a scientific way. The simple fact remained, however, that in the core of that supposition was genocide and hatred, and once it was uncovered, the entire group became conspirators. The Civil War was like that--in fact, all wars become this insidious gyre. The noble rich and the brave warriors get sucked down into its center until they must face the core of evil, such as brother fighting and killing brother, rich society buying their way out of war, and the ultimate evil of profiteering from genocide and death.

  After the rousing chorus and happy ending of The Black Crook, we began slowly moving down crowded Broadway, looking to hail a cab. Little Seth seemed to be thinking deeply about something, as he was moving even more slowly and kicking at every stray pebble. After several minutes, he stopped, and we all turned to look back at him. His face became resolute and serious, as he held his little hand over his heart and began reciting some scripture he had memorized.

  “Shedeem or Mazikeen are held to resemble the angels in three things. They can see and not be seen; they have wings and can fly; they know the future. In three respects they resemble mankind: they eat and drink; they marry and have children; they are subject to death. It may be added, they have the power of assuming any form they please.”

  Little Seth then began to smile, his grin widening across his face until it almost looked like a grimace. “During all the one hundred and thirty years that Adam was separate from Eve, male spirits lay with her, and she bore by them, and female spirits lay with Adam, and bore by him. Father and I were these offspring, and mother is the daughter of Lilith!”

  Bessie Mergenthaler walked back to her son and attempted to lift him into her arms, but he resisted.

  “We are the good Mazikeen, but there are evil ones also! They will torture you, and burn down your homes, and rip the flesh off your bones!” said Seth, smiling all the time, and we were quite frightened by his words.

  However, after another few moments, the boy suddenly returned to the normal figure of a five-year-old. “Mama, can we get custard?”

  Bessie swooped up her son and held him close to her bosom. “Of course, Seth, we shall get you a nice big custard treat!”

  As I hailed a hackney, and it pulled up to the curbside, I kept thinking about Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler and his Mt. Sinai Hospital. His death proved that no matter how logical and scientific we think we are evil can always find a way to corrupt. But one man’s superstition, and a little boy’s love, can ultimately destroy that evil in the wink of a fairy’s eye. As little Seth crawled over my legs to get to the window seat, he looked full at my face and winked.

  Jane the Grabber

  By

  Jim Musgrave

  As the Bhagavad-Gita summarized the human quandary: "Thinking of sense-objects, man becomes attached thereto. From attachments longing and from longing anger is born. From anger arises delusion; from delusion, loss of memory is caused. From loss of memory, the discriminative faculty is ruined and from the ruin of discrimination, he perishes."

  Prologue: White Slavery

  Boston, Massachusetts, April, 1868

  John Allen and his wife Susie had a simple method to procure young women. As a former religious student, John knew that the churches attracted many people who were previously “full of sin” and who now needed to become “cleansed in the way of the Lord.” The young women were no exception, as the parents used the Christian faith as a method of inoculating their sons and daughters against the temptations of the devil. John and Susie were well aware of these temptations, as these enticements had formed the bedrock upon which they had built their entire lives in New York City.

  Waiting outside the newly erected Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street, John and Susie were staring up at the gigantic Gothic steeple. They each wore the Sunday dress of the cultured elite. He was in his blue suit with matching waistcoat, vest and white straw hat. She was wearing a hooped dress of crimson red taffeta and many petticoats beneath, and her outfit was completed with a red parasol and what John liked to call her “fire engine bonnet.” Each layer of the church’s steeple progressed upward, as if it were assembled to rule the sky. The pointed top had the tiny cross of Jesus--without the Catholic martyred body--firmly ensconced, like a lightning rod for God.

  Susie chuckled and asked, “You figure these church-goers believe they’re in a house of God because it’s so high?”

  John looked down at his little wife, as he was over six feet and four inches in height, and she was a tiny lady of five feet and one inch. “It was made to rise above the Bunker Hill Monument. It is the purpose of these so-called men of God to always be one step ahead of the state or the king, whichever ruling elite is in charge at the time. For they understand that the only power they possess over these elite is death. Even the rich must die, as Shakespeare knew so well. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub. Since the rich and powerful must control both their own futures in the hereafter and those of their subjects, the church intrudes itself in the role of the shaman or ‘keeper of ecstasy.’ I am now a keeper of the authentic ecstatic experience, and we are here to offer it to these young women.”

  The married couple from New York City watched as the young women broke away from their parents and ran down the grass embankment toward them. Their hair flowed in the wind like silken strands of glory, their Sunday bonnets bobbing on their backs, their long stockings stretching with each long stride they made.

  John saw one that looked like a prospect. She was not running wild with the freedom of being released from the Lord; no, she was carefully wending her way down the proper beaten path, looking all around her at the burgeoning springtime. He watched as she stopped to bend daintily over to pick a wild flower.

  She held it up to the sun, watchin
g its blazing light penetrate the fragile softness of the flower’s petals. She squinted at the flower, twirling it around and around between two fingers and thumb, finally stopping this twisting to begin plucking the petals with her other hand.

  John watched her red lips move as she severed the petal from the central golden source of the bloom. His lips moved with hers as he whispered, “He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not.”

  John Allen motioned to his wife to follow closely behind him. He then began to walk toward the young woman, who had completed her chore and was now standing still, watching the approach of these two strangers with vague curiosity.

  “Oh, Miss! Do you have a moment?” John cried, beginning to pick-up his pace as he came closer to this young lady. She was wearing a black dress with satin borders, and she had the sadness of one who knew death at an early age.

  But her face was bright and curious, and John knew her kind of beauty was world-weary and in the need of a change. The girl shook her hair when she spoke, and the auburn bangs on her round forehead flew backward like a horse that was rearing up to attack.

  “What is it?” she asked. The adolescent impatience in her tone was there, like all of these girls, and it was just the manner he thrived on.

  “I’m so sorry, but my wife and I were looking for the theater district. Do you happen to know how we can get there from these parts?”

  The girl’s eyes grew wide. “Theater? Are you from the theater?” she asked.