On Secret Service

by John Jakes

  “What are we going to do, Lon?”

  “I don’t know.” He’d been asking it of himself for hours. Together they watched the wick sputtering toward darkness.

  When the light went, his time sense distorted. He sat against a bank of shelves, Margaret beside him, nestling in the curve of his arm. Silently he concocted schemes. He rejected every one. Cridge was a brute, but he wasn’t stupid.

  He guessed it must be morning. He heard a scurrying noise. Margaret flung herself against him. “There are rats in here. I felt one on my leg.”

  He scrambled up, stamped like a Spanish dancer until he caught something under his heel that squealed. He listened.

  “I think I killed it.”

  The darkness filled with the sound of Margaret’s strident breathing.

  Later, he climbed the stairs again. Pounded the door again. Yelled until Cridge came back.

  “What is it?”

  “The lady’s uncomfortable. We don’t have a sink down here.”

  “Use a bucket. Use the floor. She has no claim to modesty. ‘I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color—’”

  “Cridge—”

  “‘—having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.’”

  “Damn you, have the decency to—”

  “She’s a whore. Let her piss in the dirt.”

  “Fucking bastard!” Lon bashed the door so it shook.

  They fought the terror of isolation, the knowledge that madmen were readying the assault on Andrew Johnson at the Kirkwood House, William Seward in his residence, the Lincolns and Grants at the evening performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s.

  “Your brother may have help from people in our government,” Lon said. “Help with getting away, at least.”

  “How can that be? How could anyone turn traitor after the war ends?”

  “Hate runs deep, Margaret. I’ve heard rumors about Stanton for a long time. I have a hard time believing in a conspiracy, but why would your brother invent it?”

  Silence. Faint chittering came from the direction of the stair. On his feet, he waited, tense.

  The rat never approached. After ten minutes Lon sat down, incredibly sleepy. In his head a clock ticked.

  God Almighty. They had to get out.

  Margaret was first to fall asleep. Her head tilted to his shoulder, resting there while he sat motionless so he wouldn’t wake her. He kept concocting plans, all of them flawed. He had no weapon. Well, possibly one, but no match for a pistol. Worse, he had no means of inducing Cridge to open the door.

  His head ached from hunger and the blows he’d absorbed. One foot was numb. He tried not to yawn; he felt himself drifting. He imagined an hourglass with the sand running out. Bright red sand, the color of blood from a wound.

  The image possessed him. He slept.

  He woke in panic. An hour might have passed, or a whole day. Blinking in the dark, he struggled to throw off his sleepiness.

  He eased himself away from Margaret; she was snoring softly. On the other side of the cellar, he unbuttoned his trousers and relieved the fullness that had come while he slept.

  Standing that way, seething with frustration, he thought of Cridge shouting the words from Revelation 17. The woman on the scarlet beast. Babylon the great mother of harlots…

  He caught his breath.

  Back at Margaret’s side, he touched her shoulder. “Wake up.”

  Muttering, she came out of sleep. She found his stubbled face, caressed it. “What is it?”

  “I want you to be an actress. I saw the way Cridge looked at you upstairs. You heard him call you a bad name. All right, you’ll pretend to be what he thinks you are. I imagine he’ll like that, fine hypocritical gentleman that he is.”

  He crouched down beside her. “This is what we’ll do.”

  “Mr. Cridge?”

  “What do you want, woman?” Cridge’s voice had a heaviness now; a weariness. It might slow him. Lon lay curled on his side near the foot of the stairs.

  “I want to wash and clean myself. The detective’s asleep. You have a pistol. I can’t hurt you. Open the door. Give me five minutes in the water closet, I beg you.”

  Her voice dropped, husky and insinuating; Lon almost smiled at the performance. “I saw you watching me last night. You’re right, I know tricks that please men. But I’m starving. A basin of water, a little something to eat—there’s a loaf of bread in the painted box in the kitchen. Give me five minutes and then I’ll be good to you, Mr. Cridge.”

  Lon hardly dared breathe.

  “If I do it, and find you’ve deceived me, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

  “You won’t have to do that, I promise.”

  Another silence. “All right. Wait.”

  Cridge plodded away, returned moments later. “Stand away from the door.” Lon’s upper teeth cut into his lower lip until he tasted blood. He’d told Margaret to step down three steps, no more.

  The bolt rattled. The darkness against his eyelids lightened. Margaret said, “See, there he is. Asleep, just as I told you.”

  “Come up a step at a time.”

  “Oh, thank you, I’m so grateful.” Lon slitted one eye, watched her lift her skirts. Cridge carried the same lamp and revolver that he had had last night. As Margaret stepped on the top riser, within reach of him, she said, “Can you tell me the time?”

  “Almost ten-thirty.”

  “At night?” Her anxiety almost gave them away.

  “I didn’t let you out so I could answer questions. Clean yourself, then we’ll go to the bedroom. Move out here so I can shut the door.”

  Margaret stepped into the hall. Cridge reached for the doorknob. Her hands flew to the lapels of his coat. With an enormous sideways tug she pitched him onto the stairs.

  His pistol went off. The lamp sailed out of his hand, arcing into the basement as he rolled and bounced down the steps. The lamp’s reservoir broke, threw a stream of oil over the packed earth. The wick ignited the oil, which burst into a streak of fire.

  Cridge sprawled on his back, gasping. Lon stamped on Cridge’s arm, snatched the gun, his own five-shot. Cridge struggled upright, slid a case knife from a sheath under his coat. His clenched teeth shone with bubbling saliva. He stabbed at Lon, who sidestepped and fired a shot into Cridge’s wrist. The knife spun away in a shower of blood.

  Lon dropped on Cridge with both knees. Hair hung in his eyes. Cridge clawed at him. Lon knocked him back with a blow of the pistol. He threw the pistol away and pulled the watch and chain out of his vest. He wrapped the long chain around Cridge’s neck.

  Cridge’s eyes bulged. His pudgy fingers flew up to the metal links tearing his skin. After that, Lon’s memory blanked.

  When the rage passed, he looked up to see Margaret pressing her hands to her mouth. Drops of sweat fell from Lon’s chin. His breathing slowed. The watch chain had dug so deeply, it had all but disappeared, leaving a thin necklace of blood on Cridge’s throat. Dizzy and nauseous, Lon pulled the watch chain loose. Cridge was dead.

  He wiped the bloody chain on his torn trousers. The oily fire was burning itself out in the dirt. He opened the watch case with his fingernail. The crystal showed a spiderweb of cracks. The hands had stopped at thirty-five minutes past ten.

  Margaret dropped to her knees, threw her arms around him. “We’re all right, we’re safe,” she said, soothing and rocking him like a child.

  Minutes later, when he recovered himself, they ran upstairs to Franklin Square.

  Fire bells rang in the distance. Soldiers and Metropolitan Police with torches surrounded the entrance to Seward’s town house. Lon and Margaret hurried across the trampled grass to the cordon of armed men. He showed his badge to a police officer. “What happened here?”

  “A man said he was delivering medicine from Mr. Seward’s doctor. He got into Seward’s bedroom with a knife. He stabbed a male nurse and a State Departmen
t messenger. The man beat young Fred Seward so bad, he’s in a coma.”

  “What about the secretary?”

  “Had the sense to roll out of bed. Fell smack on his broken arm, but he wasn’t attacked.”

  “Was the culprit caught?”

  “No, he escaped. That’s not the worst. An assassin shot the President at Ford’s a few minutes ago. Grant wasn’t there, he and his wife changed their plans. Took the train to New Jersey.”

  “Is the President…?”

  “Wounded. They carried him to a house across from the theater. That actor, Booth, shot him, then jumped from the box to the stage and ran out the back way.”

  Lon took Margaret’s hand. They moved east from Franklin Square, through dark streets where crowds gathered and cavalry galloped. In Tenth Street, police with locust sticks formed a human barricade in front of Ford’s. People pushed and shoved, shouting, “Burn it down.”

  The house across the street belonged to a family named Petersen. Those outside were quieter than the theater mob, though as Lon and Margaret moved among them, they heard wild and contradictory rumors asserted as fact. The entire cabinet had been assassinated. The Grants had been murdered on the train to New Jersey. The President was already dead. So far as anyone knew, no attack had been made on the Vice President. Perhaps the man assigned to kill Andrew Johnson had lost his nerve.

  Lon ran into a journalist he knew and questioned him. Yes, many in the audience and in the cast had identified Booth. “He dropped his pistol on the floor of the box. He shouted something in Latin when he jumped to the stage. He caught a spur on some bunting on the box and landed hard. Might have broken his leg. Better if he’d broken his neck.”

  Carriages rushed physicians and general staff officers to the Petersen house throughout the night. The mob frenzy to burn Ford’s wore itself out. Hundreds gathered in the chilly darkness but few spoke, and then only in hushed voices. Lon and Margaret sat on the curbstone in front of the theater. After daybreak, rain began. Lon took off his coat and draped it over her head.

  Soaked and cold, they kept the vigil. At seven-thirty, a colonel opened the door of the Petersen house. All conversations stopped. The rain fell with a cold, rushing sound.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that at twenty-two minutes after the hour, the President expired.”

  Margaret began to cry. She wasn’t alone. Lon said, “I’ll take you home. Then I have to report. I have to help catch the men who did this.”

  A carriage arrived for Mrs. Lincoln. She tottered down the steps, wailing as she clung to two Army officers. Somewhere in the city a church bell tolled. Others rang and clanged and resounded until the pealing filled the sky.

  “What day is this? I’ve lost track,” Lon said as they pushed through the silent crowd. Margaret leaned against his shoulder, the rain and her tears mingling.

  “Saturday, the fifteenth. Tomorrow is Easter.”

  He listened to the bells and remembered Easter sermons preached by Mathias Price. “Then Lincoln was martyred on Good Friday too.” This time there would be no resurrection.

  72

  April 1865

  Ever afterward, Lon remembered it as the black Easter. Huge swags of crepe appeared on government buildings and office blocks, theaters and music halls, residences rich and humble. Women donned mourning weeds. Men wore black armbands or lapel ribbons.

  Sunday brought glorious sunshine ill suited to the capital’s mood. Baker called his men together at the War Department. Secretary Stanton spoke to them in a meeting room thick with smoke and speculation. Every man wore a bit of black.

  Stanton’s pug-dog face had a strange lividity. He marched back and forth in front of the detectives like Napoleon before his troops. “I take a large measure of responsibility for the tragedy which has occurred. I opposed the President’s attendance at the theater, but not forcefully enough. I did not prevail. Now I will not rest, and you will not rest, till the arch-conspirators who planned this outrage are brought to justice. We know the principal perpetrators. A boarder at the Surratt house, a school chum of John Surratt’s named Louis Weichmann, came forward yesterday. He identified Surratt’s gang and confirmed that Booth met with them frequently. I have authorized a reward of $25,000 each for the apprehension of David Herold and George Atzerodt, in addition to $50,000 for Booth. Baltimore police will locate and arrest men named Arnold and O’Laughlin. However, I call all of these persons mere pawns and hirelings. The murder of our beloved President was planned and approved at the highest level in Richmond. Booth and his cohorts were maneuvered by the cold-blooded gamesman who laid out the work. I refer to the unscrupulous Jefferson Davis. He will hang. So will they all.”

  Squeezed between Sandstrom and another detective, Everton Conger, recently released from the First D.C. Cavalry, Lon was plagued with doubt. Cicero Miller said the plan was entirely his. Did Stanton know that? If so, was he purposely shifting blame to the Confederate president?

  “Colonel Baker will supervise pursuit and apprehension of the suspects. Arrests will begin immediately, with a presumption of guilt in all cases. Show them no mercy, gentlemen. They showed none to our slain leader.”

  Lon said, “Use the ax.”

  Sandstrom swung it into the door of the Ohio Street sporting house. The result was predictable: feminine squeals and shrieks, an odd counterpoint to the church bells calling the faithful to worship.

  Lon led the charge into the downstairs hall. “Secure the back door. Throw the women in the wagon. Ella Turner?” he shouted. “Where’s Ella Turner?”

  That night, locked in Old Capitol with the other whores, Booth’s mistress somehow obtained chloroform and attempted suicide. When they heard about it next morning, Sandstrom said, “Too bad she failed.”

  With the suspect roundup under way, Baker’s men were far removed from preparations for the state funeral. On Monday, the moronic Lewis Paine returned to Mrs. Surratt’s boardinghouse. Waiting detectives arrested him along with Mary Surratt and her daughter Anna. Lon at the time was busy on Tenth Street.

  “Keep moving, all the way to the front of the wagon.” He jabbed the suspect, John Ford, with his gun barrel.

  “This is outrageous,” the theater manager said. Members of Ford’s cast, including Mr. Hawk, Mr. Emerson, and Miss Keene, loudly seconded the protest.

  “You’re lucky we don’t torch the place,” Lon said. “Eugene, once they’re all out, padlock it.”

  The cowed actors, stagehands, and box-office cashiers squeezed and pushed until they packed the police wagon like tinned herring. One old fellow pleaded with Lon.

  “Sir, I’m Buckingham, the doorkeeper. I only work here part-time. Been a carpenter at the Navy Yard for years. I’m loyal. Ask my bosses.”

  “In the wagon,” Lon said.

  On Tuesday, Abraham Lincoln lay in state on a black catafalque in the East Room. The commander of the Military Department of Washington posted an additional $10,000 reward for Booth. The city council added $20,000. Cavalry, mounted Washington police, and independent searchers charged off to Maryland in pursuit of the conspirators still at large. That evening, after two days spent hauling suspects to the Old Capitol, Lon went to Baker’s office.

  “Sir, I ask to be relieved from duty here in the District. I want to join the chase.”

  “All those rewards enticing you, Mr. Price?”

  “Colonel, I don’t give a damn for the money. I have an account to settle with Davis and his crowd.” Especially one of them. Lon hadn’t breathed Cicero Miller’s name to anyone. Whenever he was tempted, he pulled back because of Miller’s statements that persons high up in Washington were implicated. Lafayette Baker was only one step removed from Edwin Stanton.

  “Do you have any special knowledge of where the suspects might be?”

  Lon remembered Miller mentioning Surrattsville and Port Tobacco. He hated to lie, but he did. “No, sir.”

  “Well, in consideration of what you suffered in Richmond, I’ll let y
ou go.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “Like everyone else under my command who has ridden off to Maryland, you’ll keep me informed. That isn’t a request, it’s an order.”

  For which Baker might have a private and urgent reason. Miller could hold the answer.

  Wednesday, April 19, church bells and cannon fire announced the noon funeral in the White House, to be followed by a procession on the Avenue. Lon heard the tolling and cannonading as he cantered over the East Branch bridge into Prince Georges County. An hour before, as he had left headquarters, Baker told him that the German conspirator, Atzerodt, had been caught near the hamlet of Surrattsville.

  Riding there, Lon passed large parties of mounted soldiers, and other, smaller groups of armed civilians. Lon neither stopped nor spoke to them. He reached Surrattsville in mid-afternoon. There he found Army pickets guarding the Surratt tavern, and a crudely lettered notice nailed to the door.

  CLOSED

  Order U.S. Govt

  He rested his lathered horse in the shade of a huge oak just beginning to leaf out. People imagined police work to be romantic, but as he’d learned long ago from Pinkerton, results were mostly gotten by plodding. He fed his horse from a nosebag, watered him at a trough, and set out southward in search of Miller.

  He rode into lanes leading to farmhouses and cabins, showing his badge each time. “I’d like to describe a man and ask if you’ve seen him.”

  “One of Lincoln’s killers?” the farmer or householder usually asked.

  “Yes, and if you’ve seen him, you’ll remember.”

  But no one had.

  Dusty and saddle-sore, he made camp in the woods that night. Fighting off gnats, he dined on a hard biscuit from his saddlebag, washing it down with creek water. Throughout Thursday and Friday he continued the search, getting mud and manure on his boots, getting chased by roosters and pigs, but getting no clue to Miller’s whereabouts. Perhaps Margaret’s brother had already slipped across the Potomac to Virginia, with or without Booth.