Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century) (6 page)

“Oh, no. I can’t trust them any more than you can. I’ll stick with the Pinks, if you don’t mind—they’ve kept me alive this long. Mr. President, my old friend … what I need is
information.
”

Three

Maria Boyd, sometimes called Belle and sometimes Isabella, stamped her feet and wished she was sitting closer to the big iron furnace in the corner of the room. She drew her shawl around her shoulders and eyed the empty desk beside the big iron hearth, where Andrew Kelly usually sat. He was away on assignment, and wouldn’t be back for a week.

One long, cold week.

“To hell with it,” she muttered. After all, no one was present to object: Rose Anderson was out of the office chasing down a murderer in Minnesota; Fred Williams was eyeballs deep in legal paperwork following that affair in New York last Tuesday; and Timothy Hall had been sent down to the jailhouse to bail out Percy Jones—who had gone and done it again, and might get fired this time, depending on the boss’s mood.

Only James Elders was left on the main floor of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency office. And yes, he’d probably notice if she moved seats, because he noticed every time she moved anything, and was not precisely subtle about it.

Maria wasn’t worried that he’d tattle to Mr. Pinkerton, who probably cared less than anyone in the whole of Chicago, but she didn’t want to look weak. She hated looking weak like men hated looking foolish, and she worked studiously to prove that she was up to the same tasks as everyone else.

In fact, no one really doubted it. No one dared doubt it, because Allan Pinkerton himself had brought her on board last spring, politics and precedent be damned. If the old Union spy believed that the former Confederate spy was worth her salt, then everyone else who wanted a paycheck had best believe it, too. But that didn’t mean they had to be nice to her, so every day she worked to prove that she belonged.

But she didn’t belong.

Not in that office, typing up notes and filing signed papers, stamping the backs of checks and sorting telegrams like a secretary. Not in Chicago, either, where the heat-flash of summer suddenly gave way to a winter like nothing she’d ever known in Virginia. And Virginia got plenty cold, thank you very much … as she found herself reminding coworkers who teased her about her fingerless gloves and layers of scarves.

Not as cold as this, though. November on Lake Michigan, and the whole world might be frozen, so far as she knew.

On the rare occasions when she felt like defending herself, she insisted that there hadn’t been time to do any shopping when she’d accepted the job offer. She’d packed her things and caught the first train to Illinois, desperate to escape an increasingly unhappy situation south of the Mason-Dixon, where she’d come under scrutiny that stopped just shy of an allegation of treason. She’d married against advice, been widowed against her will, and, if it weren’t for the once-celebrated spy’s continued friendship with General Jackson, she might’ve met a court-martial in her mourning dress.

Adding insult to injury, she hadn’t been able to redeem herself yet, as she’d become altogether too famous for further espionage work.

Or any other work, as it turned out.

The CSA no longer trusted her, and the newspapers accused her of terrible things. What meager fortune her family possessed was lost in the war, her father’s hotel burned, rebuilt, and then seized for taxes under flimsy circumstances. He’d died shortly thereafter, and her brothers were dead, too, lost to the war effort. One sister had succumbed to cholera while working as a nurse in a field hospital. One served as caregiver to her husband, badly wounded at the second battle of Shiloh.

There was no money, and what was left of her family was starving.

Maria Boyd wrote a book and gave tours, speaking about her time in Union prisoner-of-war camps and retelling her adventures as a spy, but it wasn’t enough to keep anyone fed. She turned to acting, and the reviews were good but the pay was poor. She worked as a cab driver—one of the only women driving in Georgia, if not the whole continent. A seamstress. A cook. A governess. A messenger.

And still they went hungry.

So when the invitation came from Pinkerton—so unexpected and so unlikely—Maria was just desperate enough to take it, for here was a chance at an honest, interesting job that would earn her enough to eat, and to share.

In truth, her options were narrowing by the day. She could turn detective, or she could stoop to the prostitution of which she’d so often been accused—a prospect that might’ve been brighter in her youth. But so late in her thirties? She’d surely still starve, only more ignobly.

So she leaped, all the way from Front Royal, Virginia, to Chicago, Illinois.

She leaped with all her worldly belongings, which fit in a single steamer trunk and carpetbag. These worldly belongings had in fact included a coat, but the coat was insufficient for even a Virginia winter, never mind one in Illinois, and she wasn’t dishonest enough to write off a new one as an expense.

Not quite yet.

She gathered her bag and the case notes she was writing up and moved. Andrew Kelly’s desk was warmer by far. Maria sighed, loosened one of her scarves, and smiled to feel the furnace-warmed typewriter keys beneath her fingertips. Only three more invoices to record and file and she’d be finished for the day.

Allan Pinkerton’s office door opened with a crash.

The aging Scotsman stormed through it just like he stormed everyplace, as if he could function at no other speed. His eyes landed on Maria’s now-empty desk, then found her over at her borrowed spot, her fingers hovering guiltily over the typewriter keys.

“Maria!” he barked. He’d dispensed with any naming formalities months ago.

“Yes, sir?”

“In my office. I’ve got one for you.”

She exhaled with relief. She belonged in the field. Even when the field was cold and miserable and she needed a better coat, she’d rather wander the streets of Chicago in the snow than sit there and type beside the furnace.

She left the warm spot with only a little rue. Her employer held the frosted glass door open as she passed him and took the seat across from his enormous oak desk. A simple name plaque announced that he was the owner of this desk, and the finely stenciled name and all-seeing eye logo on the door’s glass announced he was the owner of this office, and that he never slept. Everything here belonged to him, and he liked to make sure everyone knew it.

“All right, Mr. Pinkerton. Brief me.”

“Listen to you there, picking up the lingo like you’re one of the boys. Never thought I’d see the day,” he said, as he parked himself behind the desk, facing her. The wheels on his chair bottom rolled back and forth as he fidgeted. He put his elbows atop a pile of ledgers, reached for a cigar, and lit it. Then he used his knuckles to drag a big glass ashtray within easier reach.

“Rose uses the lingo, too.”

“Rose is a special case.”

“And I’m not?”

The old man grinned. His white-bearded cheeks inflated and puffed as he sucked the cigar to life. “All my employees are special. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Not really.”

“Good, because it isn’t true. How was that art job in Philly? You turned that one over pretty quick.”

“It was easy,” she said, which meant it hadn’t been very interesting. “Sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. Alastair Duggard’s wife destroyed the painting.”

“Why?”

“Because her husband liked it. And because she found out about his mistress, who she didn’t like at all.”

“Most obvious answer, indeed,” he said, tapping a scrap of ash into the tray. “Too bad we couldn’t get it back for him, but I suppose it’s his own fault it’s gone. He paid up?”

“He paid up. I was recording the last of the invoices when—”

“In Kelly’s chair, I saw.”

“I was cold. I am cold.
It’s cold.
”

“You’re in Chicago, dear.” He said it “Shi-kah-go” like the locals, despite his native (if fading) Glaswegian patter. “It’s cold here more often than not. You need warmer clothes, or thicker blood. Living down there in the jungles … it’ll make you soft.”

She didn’t bother to correct him anymore when he talked about Virginia’s jungles. He’d never seen Virginia—or a jungle, for that matter—but she had better things to do than waste her breath convincing him of it. “I need to move around more, that’s all. And I believe you can help me with that—you said you’ve got a case for me?”

“I do indeed. And it’s a big one, too.” He hesitated, leaving something unsaid.

“Sir?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Maria: I can’t tell if you’re the best candidate for this one, or the worst possible choice.”

“Another job working for the Union, I take it? I managed the last assignment to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“That you did, but this one is … closer to the heart.”

She was confused. “My heart? Your heart?”

“To President Lincoln’s heart. Literally and figuratively.”

“You … you want me to work for Abraham Lincoln?”

“The situation is unusual—but not the same kind of unusual as usual.”

“You’ve always had a way with words, sir.”

He looked past her shoulder. “Do me a favor, dear—reach behind you and shut that door.”

She did as he asked, and he continued, but in a quieter, more serious tone. “Mr. Lincoln and I have remained friends for many years, despite the incident at the Ford. Depending on who you ask, my son either saved his life or ruined it, and Mrs. Lincoln held the whole thing against us for a while. Abe’s recovery came so slowly, and so incompletely.… Still, the president has continued to accept our service in good faith. He presently employs one of our D.C. operatives—a young man named Nelson Wellers, who happens to be a physician.”

“These days, I guess Mr. Lincoln needs a doctor more than a bodyguard.” Maria cocked her head and frowned. “But this Dr. Wellers is no longer sufficient? I worked as a nurse, but quite briefly, I want you to know; I wasn’t cut out for it. If you’re only looking to send me because I’m a woman—”

“No, no, no.” He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his cigar, leaving a trail of smoke to underline his impatience. “Wellers is fine. Nothing wrong with him. Mr. Lincoln doesn’t need a nursemaid or another security agent for himself. He wants to hire someone to investigate a crime against somebody
else.
”

“Oh.”

“
Really,
Maria. If I wanted to insult you, I’d do it more directly.” He lifted one elbow and retrieved a file, then set his cigar in the glass tray’s groove. “So here are the brass tacks. The man in question is Gideon Armistead Bardsley, a doctor from Alabama. Not the kind of doctor who fixes you—this one’s an inventor. A scientist.”

“Another negro,” she noted from the picture, a good daguerreotype that showed a long-waisted, broad-shouldered man in a suit that fit him well. He must be a little younger than she was, but she detected some lightness at his temples, the premature gray of someone who works too hard. “I’m sensing a theme.”

“Twice isn’t a theme, it’s a coincidence. Will it be a problem?”

“Wasn’t a problem last time. Won’t be a problem this time.”

“Good.” He slid some paperwork across the desk. As Maria started to read, he pitched her the highlights. “Dr. Bardsley was a slave in Alabama until a dozen years ago, when he escaped. He got as far as Tennessee.”

“No one sent him back?” The Bloodhound Laws were still on the books in the South, and anyone who’d returned the runaway would’ve been richly compensated.

“The University of Tennessee at Fort Chattanooga paid for his freedom, on the condition that he stayed there and made them look good. Brilliant man, this Bardsley fellow. A real-life genius, if his diplomas can be believed. In four years he earned a master’s degree in some kind of advanced math,
and
a doctorate in electromechanical engineering—a brand-new field. I don’t think any other school in the South even offers such a degree. The next year, he bought freedom for the rest of his family still living: a couple of brothers, his mother, and a nephew.”

“What was he working on in Chattanooga?” she asked, still absorbing the information on the pages before her. “It must’ve been profitable. That kind of buyout takes more than chump change.”

“Civic planning, if the public information can be believed. He felt there was no good reason you couldn’t generate power for entire cities with old-fashioned technology like water. He was developing schematics for water turbines that could convert the flow of rivers into electricity with the right kind of dams and wires. It’s a bit over my head, to be honest, even if it
is
true.”

“You think it’s not?”

“I think he was working on military projects. I can’t imagine any other reason the school would’ve paid for his life and his education.”

“A negro designing weapons for use against the North? I don’t know about
that.
”

“Maybe not weapons. Armies and navies need a million and one things to operate smoothly. He could’ve been working on any of ’em. When you meet him, you can ask him.”

“Is he still in Washington?” The document in her hand was a courthouse copy, identifying him as a free man of color with an address in the capital.

“In 1876 he defected to the Union, taking his mother and nephew with him. He started out in Philadelphia, but moved to D.C. when Mr. Lincoln took a personal interest in one of his projects.”

Maria flipped through another page or two of biography. She stopped at an engraving of a machine emblazoned across a patent application. “‘The Bardsley Automatic Computational and Calculational Device,’” she read, eyeballing the diagram and marveling at its implied dimensions. “Good heavens, it must be enormous.”

“A whole roomful of a machine, I’m led to understand.”

“A whole mouthful, too. Why do inventors do that? Name their inventions such ridiculous things?”

“Any number of reasons, I’m sure, but the Lincolns agree with you, at least. When Mrs. Lincoln explained the project to Dr. Wellers, she called it a giant mechanical brain—a brain that could think faster, better, and more accurately than any man ever could. Wellers said that such a thing could really fiddle with a fellow’s head, and she laughed … so now the thing is called Fiddlehead for short. Think of it as a code name, if you like that better.”