The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (15 page)

II

“Maybe it’s real,” said Jonathan. “The letter in Lincoln’s hand regarding military government. Maybe it actually exists.”

It was the afternoon of the same filthy day. There were three of them now—Jonathan, Abigail, and a truculent redhead called Rellman,
a prudish soul whose green eyes and ready scowl punished whomever they happened upon, for sins not yet committed. Rellman, alarmingly fat, was James Speed’s clerk. Speed had left the Administration and found offices on Twelfth Street, but Rellman, they were told, would be spending half of his time here, because this was where Dennard would divide up the assignments each day; although, so far—apart from that single memorandum “for practice”—Abigail’s assignments continued to consist principally of dusting and deliveries.

“The atmosphere at the Mansion was eerie,” Jonathan continued. Abigail sat on one side of the conference table, Jonathan and Rellman on the other. Books were heaped everywhere. Files were strewn across the credenza, each bound with its own brightly colored bow. “They all seem worried about something.”

Abigail pointed at the blackboard, and the ominous numbers:
15–32–7
. “Perhaps they are simply counting the votes.”

Jonathan shook his head. “It’s more than that. And if the letter exists, and the Managers find it, I do not see how Mr. Lincoln could survive.”

“Our client says the letter doesn’t exist,” interjected Rellman. “Ergo, it doesn’t exist. The matter is closed.” He was pink and pudgy and exuded an air of superiority, no doubt because he had been Speed’s clerk for two years and would soon be sitting for his examinations. He spoke with his master’s certainty of rightness on matters he knew nothing about. His face had the saggy softness of a man carrying thrice his years. His eyes, tiny and dark, seemed lost in the broad flesh. “We have important tasks,” he added. He looked at Abigail, then at Jonathan, as if expecting them to take notes. “We should be about them.”

Abigail shut her eyes briefly. The “important tasks” assigned her consisted entirely of copying marked passages from various volumes onto sheets of paper the lawyers could carry in their files. Dennard had even remarked on the excellence of her copperplate.

The work was suddenly a struggle. She had slept poorly last night. A strange congruence was growing in her mind, a connection between the fate of her missing older sister and the fate of Rebecca Deveaux. She knew nothing about where Rebecca had come from; she had only the vaguest notions about where Judith had gone after Nanny put her out of the house. But both were, evidently, overfamiliar with men; and if one had been found

(
sliced up
)

dead, then why not the other? Unable to bear the tension any longer, Abigail stood abruptly. She stepped toward the door, knowing that both men were watching her. When Rellman went back to his work, she flicked her head to the side, indicating that Jonathan should join her.

Out in the shadowy corridor, he smiled nervously. “If we keep this up, people will talk.”

Abigail studied the worried features of this man who, whenever he chose, could leave Washington City, return home to Newport, claim his inheritance, and live as the rich do. “I require your assistance,” she said.

“Of course.” Still agitated, glancing at the half-open door to the office. “Naturally, I am happy to assist you in any way I—”

Abigail interrupted. “My concern, at the moment, is for Rebecca Deveaux. I see no evidence that her murder is being pursued in a serious manner.”

His pale jaw jutted slightly. “The murders”—emphasizing the plural—“took place outside a brothel. There is no real question of what happened.”

“Assuming that Miss Deveaux was employed there.”

“Do you know for a fact that she was not?”

“No. But I do not believe that Inspector Varak knows, either.”

“What do you suggest?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You are a man of means. A successful young man, welcome in every great house in this city. Surely you number, among your many acquaintances, at least one who might be of assistance.” His look of surprise was almost comical, and she smiled. In truth, Abigail did not much care for herself in this role—she considered this sort of teasing flattery more Dinah Berryhill’s talent than her own—but experience had taught her its effectiveness. “Madame Sophie’s establishment, I am given to understand, is at the higher end of the trade. Such establishments would not exist without the patronage of those who are well off.”

“I hardly think—”

“Naturally, I am not suggesting that you personally would possess any knowledge, but you surely are on terms with young men who might.”

“Do you seriously expect me simply to walk up to one of my friends and ask him whether he happens to know whether Madame Sophie employed a colored girl named Rebecca, now deceased?”

“Why not? Unless, that is, you would rather inquire of Madame Sophie herself.” Her smile broadened. “Think of it as another favor for Mrs. McShane.”

She went back inside.

III

Jonathan Hilliman had no intention of complying with Abigail’s absurd request. He was fond of her—they were friends, confound it—but the temerity of the woman, to think that he would do such a thing merely because she asked! He fumed most of the afternoon, and that evening, too, as he shared the tale with Fielding.

“Can you imagine?” Jonathan kept saying. “Who does she think she is?”

“More to the point, who does she think
you
are?”

Fielding found the whole thing hilarious, but, then, he was quite drunk. He had dined—poorly, he insisted—at the home of Congressman James Blaine, a longtime Lincoln friend and associate, who had inexplicably voted in favor of the impeachment resolution.

“Said he thought Lincoln should have the chance to clear himself at trial.” Fielding chuckled, shook his head, took a long pull on his cigar. Trembling fingers fumbled at his collar. He was sweating quite unreasonably. “Said it was only fair.”

“How thoughtful,” snapped Jonathan, in his dudgeon. Above the fireplace hung a standing portrait, a bad oil of an earlier, landed Bannerman who had fought on the wrong side in the Revolution. The eyes were half lidded, the face was waxy, and it occurred to Jonathan that the man might have been painted after the Continental Army hanged him.

“Simply a matter of trying to have it both ways, old man. A skill you should cultivate if you wish to succeed in this town.” He subsided, gazing into the fire. Like Jonathan, Fielding Bannerman was resisting pressure to enter upon the family business. Unlike Jonathan, he was unable to point to another goal he had to pursue first, unless of course one counted dissolution. “Oh, but say. On what your friend the negress asked about.”

“She has a name.”

“Miss Canner, then. The point is, she’s rather clever—isn’t that what you’re always telling me? An agile mind and so forth?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, then, look, Hills. I have the most marvelous idea. Weren’t you up at Yale with Wily Whit?”

“Who?”

“Whitford Pesky. He was in your year, wasn’t he? I run into him at the club from time to time. Now, I’ve visited Mrs. Scott’s and a few of the finer establishments, but Whit knows the worst of those places inside and out. Keeps an eye on them for the Provost General. He’d be the one to ask.”

Jonathan rounded on him. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? I shall not spend my time blundering about Washington City asking questions about … about brothels. Really, Fields. Can you imagine if your cousin Meg heard?”

“You’re probably right.” Fielding lifted his glass in a mocking toast. “Better to let the police handle the investigation. From what you’ve told me, they’re doing a magnificent job.”

IV

In the morning, Dennard sent Jonathan down to the municipal courthouse to file motions of postponement in the firm’s other pending cases. Outside, the young man hailed a cab for the ride back to G Street. He felt half asleep. He had dreamed of the dead Bannerman above the fireplace, and awoke worried about being on the wrong side. He shouted a new destination. He had to shout several times before the black driver heard him above the clatter of hooves. He ordered the man to take him to the Provost General’s headquarters. At the gate, Jonathan asked for Major Pesky. As Fielding had pointed out just last night, Jonathan and Whitford Pesky had been up at Yale together. Jonathan was Skull and Bones, through two of his uncles. Whit, being new money, could not be considered, and had been tapped for Third Society instead. When the war broke out, both men enlisted. Jonathan went down to Virginia with the Thirty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, fought at Petersburg, and helped chase down Lee at the end, but the Peskys arranged for their son to stay behind the lines: thus the post with the Provost General, charged with military governance of Washington City. To his family’s dismay, Whit Pesky enjoyed military life, and stayed on. Rumor proposed that the part he enjoyed most was pursuing the opportunities for corruption that his sinecure in the Provost’s office presented: in particular, the significant wartime traffic in forged discharge papers. Not that Whitford
Pesky had any need of stained money. Like Jonathan, Whit would succeed to his family business one day. The Peskys were big in copper out west and enjoyed some loose connection to the Union Pacific. Jonathan suspected that Whit took bribes because he enjoyed the risk.

Whit was tall, and handsome in that naturally roguish way that most young men aspire to, some attain, and a chosen few, fated to cause women to swoon whenever they walk across a room, never outgrow. His uniform was crisp. Everything glittered. He said he was happy to see his old friend, but he had guessed that the visit was business, and the flared orange eyes were already calculating how much whatever Jonathan wanted might be worth. They went to the bar of the Maryland House hotel, a place Whit proposed when Jonathan said that he wanted nobody who knew him to overhear. It was illegal to serve alcohol this time of day, so they drank lemonade.

For ten minutes they kept up a stream of pleasantries.

Then Jonathan explained why he was there. He needed a simple piece of information. The Provost General kept meticulous records of the city’s bawdy houses. Jonathan wanted to know whether one of Sophia Harbour’s girls was missing.

“Missing?” Whit seemed to doubt his hearing; or his friend’s sanity. “Why would one of them be missing?” Then he got it. “Oh. I see. Of course.”

As it turned out, Whit had the answer at his fingertips. Some clamorous police inspector with a foreign name had been by just yesterday, he said, and the Provost General had instructed Major Pesky to give him whatever assistance he might require. So Whit had gone to the records and determined that, yes, the late Rebecca Deveaux was indeed one of Sophia Harbour’s girls.

“Does that answer your question?”

“Yes. Yes, it does.” But he felt oddly disappointed, for Abigail’s sake.

“Good.” The major had to get back to his post. He had remembered an important meeting. He downed his lemonade in a gulp, tossed a coin onto the counter. “Oh, and Hills …”

“Yes, Whit?”

“There are people looking over my shoulder on this thing. People of true influence.” He leaned close. “We never had this conversation. Anybody asks, we were reminiscing about New Haven.”

I

THE MOST GLAMOROUS
salon in Washington was the modest home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Eames, at the corner of Fourteenth and H, just up the street from the law offices of Dennard & McShane. The Eames home was often open to the great men and women of the Republic, but the main event was generally on Saturday evening, when one would find leaders of both major parties, and usually of a few that were extinct, breaking bread together at that most nonpartisan of venues. Senator Charles Sumner, the most eloquent and famous of the Radicals, was a regular guest, and prominent governors, poets, and generals swept through the Eameses’ parlor if they happened to be in town. John Hay, who now lived in Paris but until two years ago had served as one of Lincoln’s secretaries, had been heard to describe Mrs. Eames as hostess of the most attractive salon in the capital since the time of Dolley Madison. All over New England, the educated classes spoke with reverence of the salon’s charm and wit. So, when, on that same Wednesday, Jonathan returned to the office to find waiting an invitation to a reception on Saturday night at Mrs. Eames’s salon in honor of the president of the New Orleans chess club, he accepted with alacrity. True, he knew next to nothing about chess and had never been to New Orleans; and he had buried his employer and friend on Monday. Nevertheless, one did not say no to Fanny Campbell Eames. And so he put aside his other worries and began instead anticipating an enjoyable evening at the Eames salon.

What he did not expect was the note that came back when he sent Little over with his acceptance. At first Jonathan thought himself the victim of some bizarre jest. But the bold, curving handwriting of Mrs. Eames was known all over Washington City:

It will be lovely to see you. And do please bring Miss Canner
.