The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (21 page)

Abigail hesitated. Among the President’s men, Sickles was the rogue. She had told nobody of the madness of the past two days: how Varak thought she knew Rebecca, how somebody had forged her name alongside Rebecca’s in the register of the Metzerott Hotel. If anyone would understand, and offer practical advice, it would be this … scoundrel.

And yet she could not imagine sharing a confidence with such a man as Dan Sickles, and so she only nodded, and left.

II

Jonathan walked Abigail down to the street. Last night, Fielding had repeated his request for an introduction. Jonathan had promised, but considered this hardly the moment to raise the question.

“I shall be here when you return,” he said. “And I shall be with you in spirit.”

Abigail smiled, but without the usual hint of mischief. He had never seen her so uneasy. She nodded, said nothing. Jonathan stood on the sidewalk, watching, until she vanished around the corner.

Back upstairs, more work awaited. Dennard had left a note on the table instructing Jonathan to copy out several motions the lawyer had prepared. An hour later, Jonathan was still writing hard when Inspector Varak walked in without knocking.

“I hoped to see Mr. Dennard,” said the officer, his helmet beneath his arm in ironic deference to the surroundings. He brushed a bit of sleet from his tunic. “Perhaps I ought to wait.”

“I have no way of estimating when he might return.”

“I see,” said Varak, the puffy eyes roaming the lines of books. His round face was still pink with cold. “Read all of this, have you?”

“No, sir. The books are there for reference.”

“This is how you spend your day, is it, Mr. Hilliman? Using the books, looking up cases, and so forth? I shouldn’t think that a particularly fulfilling task for a grown man.” As Jonathan digested this insult, the inspector, who up to now had remained near the door, stepped farther into the room. “Tell me about your employer.”

“I believe I have already told you all I know about Mr. McShane.”

“Not your former employer. Your current employer. Dennard. What’s he like?”

“Surely you can’t believe he had anything to do with the murder!”

“Don’t believe I said I thought anything of the sort. Peculiar turn of mind you have.” He paged through one of the books lying on the table.
“The Trial of Charles I,”
he read aloud. “By Sir Thomas Herbert and John Rushworth. Read this one, have you?”

“Miss Canner is using that one.”

“Is she indeed? That Dennard’s idea, was it?” He lifted another. “
Precedents of Equity
. This Miss Canner’s, too?”

“Yes.” Jonathan’s burgeoning irritation made the
sir
difficult.

“Only there are those who claim that the colored girl isn’t doing any of the work. But I suppose she is, isn’t she?”

“She is.”

“And Dennard. He’s happy with this arrangement, is he?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Because my sources tell me there is some tension between Dennard and the President. It’s my understanding that there might have been some pressure to include Miss Canner as part of the defense.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Jonathan, his unease growing. “And I fail to see how any such rumor could be related to the murder of Mr. McShane.”

“Don’t you?” He was at the window, tugging the broken handle, producing a terrible growl even though the pane did not budge. “People tell me Dennard didn’t want to take this case. Thought it might be bad for business. Thought McShane was being a bit of a romantic, even.” He left the window, began perusing the shelves. “You do see the pattern, don’t you, Mr. Hilliman? McShane brings in a case that Dennard thinks will wreck the firm, and then McShane conveniently dies.”

“You cannot be serious.” He recovered himself. “And Mr. Dennard has taken the case.”

“But under pressure from the President, you see. That is my point. Maybe he didn’t foresee the pressure.”

Jonathan stared, remembering Dennard’s sudden reversal, on the very day a telegram arrived from two of their railroad clients urging the firm to stand down. “You cannot possibly be serious,” he repeated. “Mr. Dennard is the kindest of men.”

“Not my impression. People tell me Dennard is rude and rather overbearing. Quite a difficult man, actually.” He drew a book out, shoved it back. “Now, tell me, Mr. Hilliman. Why did your employer need fifty dollars?”

“Mr. Dennard? Why not ask him?”

“Not Dennard. McShane.” The policeman had managed, in his traverse of the room, to wind up directly in front of Jonathan. His hands were behind his back, his broad chest thrust aggressively forward. “The morning of the day he was killed, your former employer went to Cooke’s bank, at Pennsylvania and Fifteenth Street, and withdrew fifty dollars from his account. Any idea why?”

“No.”

“Rather expensive for a colored prostitute, I would think. Not my world, you understand, but those with more experience than I assure me that the going rate at Madame Sophie’s establishment is closer to a dollar or two, depending on the girl one chooses. Still, I suppose he might have had it in mind to leave a gratuity.”

“I have no idea what Mr. McShane would need fifty dollars for,” said Jonathan, ignoring the gibe. But he was thinking that no man would be so big a fool as to carry so much money on his person, especially into Hooker’s Division. “Perhaps you should ask Mrs. McShane.”

“She says she has no idea.” The inspector pursed his heavy lips, as if in disapproval of the opposite sex. “The difficulty is that the fifty dollars was not found on the person of either decedent.”

“Then perhaps the crime was a robbery.”

“That is what my commander believes. He tells me that the time has come to turn to more pressing matters. Perhaps he is correct.” He examined the shiny helmet. “But on the off chance that my commander is wrong, and this terrible crime was not after all about the fifty dollars, then the degree of violence proposes a quite different motive.”

“What motive would that be? Anger? Jealousy?”

Varak was at the door. “Panic,” he said; and went out.

III

Senator William Pitt Fessenden lived in a modest house on B Street South, in the shadow of the Capitol. Abigail had to change lines on the horsecars three times to get there, and still wound up walking the last block and a half, so that when she arrived she was half frozen.

Shivering on the cobbled walk, she immediately confronted a dilemma.

At the decent houses of Washington City, as in most of the nation, negroes were expected to go around to the kitchen door. But Abigail had been raised to challenge such strictures by ignoring them: she sat where she liked on the horsecars, and walked past policemen without asking permission. Moreover, she was visiting Fessenden as a more or less official emissary: she had every reason in the world to enter through the front door. Yet there was the danger that such a choice might give away her role: neighbors would wonder why a colored girl showed such effrontery. On the other hand, were she arriving at the house as Abigail Canner, citizen, unconnected to politics or the impeachment trial, she would without question have proceeded to knock at—

The front door opened. A slim redhead beckoned her close, and Abigail, happy to have the weight of decision lifted, hurried forward—to greet, she imagined, Mrs. Fessenden.

“What do you want?” demanded the redhead suspiciously, and Abigail realized that the woman was a good deal younger than she: no more than fifteen. And although she had drawn a shawl around her shoulders before opening the door, it was obvious now that she wore a uniform.

A housemaid.

“I have come to see the Senator.” When the maid looked skeptical, Abigail handed over the note from James Speed. “Please give him this.”

The redhead hesitated, and for a bad instant Abigail wondered whether this child intended to leave her standing on the porch in the icy wind. “You wait in the kitchen,” the maid finally said, and led the way. And Abigail, even in the midst of her considerable relief at getting out of the cold, found herself irritated at not having been invited to sit in the parlor.

IV

“I was under the impression that the matter had been settled,” said Dennard when Jonathan was finished. The lawyer was out of breath as usual, sprawling more than sitting behind the wide desk as Jonathan remained on his feet. “I have been assured by General Baker that the investigation is closed.”

“Evidently, the inspector disagrees.”

“Yes. Yes.” Dennard’s soft hands were pawing through a file that lay open on his desk, his eyes drifting over the words, a trick he often used to gain time to ponder. “And the man actually implied that
I
might have—Well, never mind. I shall take care of the matter.” His pouchy gaze rose. “Was there something else, Hilliman?”

Jonathan hesitated. He was wondering whether Varak might be right. Not his innuendos about Dennard, but on the larger matter, that the motive for the murder was not robbery but panic. He met his employer’s scrutiny. He dared not raise the matter: Dennard has already told him to forget McShane and concentrate on representing their client.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Any word from Miss Canner?”

“She has not yet returned, sir.”

The aged eyes narrowed. The news seemed to bother Dennard a good deal more than the inspector’s visit.

“Well, that is most unfortunate,” the lawyer finally said.

“Surely her absence means that progress is being made.”

“No, Hilliman. I rather suspect that it augurs the opposite.”

V

“He refused to see me,” said Abigail.

Jonathan was hanging her hooded coat in the cabinet. A sullen Washington rain pattered the windows without enthusiasm. “I don’t understand.”

“I went to Senator Fessenden’s home, just as you told me. The maid admitted me. The housemaid told me that the Senator was in. I waited for three hours, but he wouldn’t see me.”

“Did you give him the card? The one from Speed?”

“No, Jonathan. I am the village idiot.”

He faced the full fury of those wide gray eyes. Most women, in Jonathan’s
experience, grew uglier when angry; as did most men. Abigail was as much an exception to that rule as she was to so many others: the rising color in her sandy cheeks simply made her more beautiful. And yet the pain in her expression was undeniable. It occurred to him that she had been humiliated by Fessenden, and did not much care for it. “I apologize. I just wanted to be sure—”

“Three hours!”

“Yes, I—”

“In the kitchen, Jonathan. He kept me waiting in the kitchen, like a servant!” Abigail regained her control. “Never mind. It makes no difference. What matters is that he would not see me. He has changed his mind.” She nodded toward the door to Dennard’s office. “You will have to tell your employer.”

“He is your employer as well. We shall both tell him.”

“No. There is a chain of command. The President and his men talked to you, you talked to me. The commands made their way down the chain. The bad news must make its way back up.” She went to the side table, picked up a broom. “I have chores.”

Jonathan watched as she turned her back. Then he straightened his tie and knocked on Dennard’s door. There was a protocol for these meetings. Jonathan remained standing while the lawyer sat. Usually, Dennard was giving instructions. Now and then he would assign reading and test his clerk on various fine points of the law, as preparation for Jonathan’s coming examinations for the bar. Today, however, Jonathan did the talking, relating everything Abigail had told him, and then, on a nod from Dennard, going over it again.

The lawyer heard him out, then nodded. “About what I expected.”

“Would you like to speak to Miss Canner?”

“There’s no need.”

“Maybe we should send her back to Fessenden.”

“To what end?”

“I thought we were expecting to negotiate.”

The lawyer stood. His office was smaller than McShane’s but nearly filled by the huge mahogany desk, with its twin kneeholes—known in the parlance as a partners desk—with room to sit on either side, and a plentitude of slots and drawers and cubbyholes to help keep things sorted. Bundled files lay neatly atop a cabinet, each tied with green or blue string, the records of lawsuits Dennard had put aside to handle the impeachment. Now he turned to the window and folded his arms.

“You are an intelligent young man,” said Dennard, “and I am sure you will be a fine lawyer. But you have a good deal to learn about the ways of Washington. This was never a negotiation, Hilliman. Never. It was a test of wills.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Consider. Fessenden is an ally of the President’s. That much you know. Wade and his people hate the President, et cetera. You know that, too. The Radicals think they have the battle won. They do not think Mr. Lincoln can escape. Now, I’m not sure they’re right. Trial has yet to begin. The most brilliant evidence, once challenged, often loses its luster. My point is, they sent a message through Fessenden for one reason only: to find out whether the President is as confident as they are. If he was confident, he would reject their overture. If he was worried, he would accept it.”

Jonathan tried to work this out. “We sent Abigail—Miss Canner—with the intention of negotiating further.”

“Remember your elementary contract law, Hilliman. If I offer to purchase your house for five hundred dollars, and you make me a counteroffer of six, your counteroffer serves as a rejection of my original offer. We sent Miss Canner with a counteroffer. Her very presence made plain that we were rejecting what the Radicals had proposed. If we meant to accept, I would have gone, or Stanton, or Speed. Even you. Sending Miss Canner, however, was a slap in the face.”

“What!”

“She is nobody, Hilliman. Oh, don’t give me that look. One doesn’t mean literally. She is smart. She will be a fine lawyer, et cetera. Finney adores her. Sumner. Everybody. But she holds no official rank. She is not in the Cabinet, et cetera. She is not a lawyer. She is a clerk. She is also a woman, and she is colored. She could not possibly be carrying a secret message from the President, because nobody would believe she was in the President’s confidence. That is why Fessenden refused to see her. He knew as soon as Miss Canner arrived at his home that Mr. Lincoln had rejected the offer. By making her wait, he is telling us he knows—and that the opportunity for negotiation is over. We’re going to have ourselves a trial, Hilliman.”