The Walker in Shadows (25 page)

"What do you mean, 'we'?" Josef demanded. "All the assumptions have been yours. You practically shoved them down our collective throats."

"Oh, the basic idea is right," Mark said. "I'm certain of that. What I might have been slightly mistaken about is-er-well, let me put it this way-"

"And now," said the announcer, "for local news. A shop in New Market-"

"Shut that damned thing off," Josef snarled, reaching for the knob. As he touched it, however, the content of what was being said finally penetrated. His fingers froze on the switch, defeating Mark's belated attempt to silence the voice.

"… a number of valuable books," the announcer continued. "The proprietor, Colonel William Blake, estimates their value at approximately fifty thousand dollars. The thief gained entrance through an upper window. The police have made casts of tire tracks in the alley behind the shop, and they hope for an early arrest."

Three pairs of eyes focused on Mark.

"Don't worry," he said hastily. "They aren't yours. I wasn't dumb enough to park where I would leave tracks."

Josef rubbed his forehead.

"Where are the books?" he asked gently.

"In your trunk. I had to take a bunch of them. If I had just swiped the one, he'd have suspected you right away, since you even told him who you were and where you lived and all. Now, keep cool, Mr. Friedrichs. Don't get excited. It's bad for your health."

"In my trunk," Josef repeated. "Fifty thousand… That's grand larceny, Mark. Very grand. Plus breaking and entering-"

"I wore gloves," Mark said.

Josef face was a bright, dangerous crimson. He folded his arms on the tabletop and lowered his head onto them. His shoulders shook.

"Josef." Pat found her voice. "Mark, curse you-look what you've done." In considerable alarm she reached for Josef's wrist. Before she could locate his pulse he raised his head and she saw, incredulously, that he was gasping with laughter.

"He'll have to go away to school," he wheezed. "To Hawaii, or Tibet -someplace where there is only one flight a month out…"

Relieved and unregenerate, Mark grinned at him.

"You're a good sport," he said approvingly. "I was afraid you might be mad."

"Mad?" Josef's alarming color faded, and his mouth closed like a trap. "Mad? What would your father have done to you, Mark, if he caught you in a trick like this?"

"Uh." Mark sobered. "I hate to think," he admitted.

"Think. Because whatever it is, that's what is going to happen to you. I'll ponder the subject. Your dad sounds like a man of considerable ingenuity, but I'll try to come up with something.

"In the meantime, we must deal with the situation as it stands. Just tell me one thing. Was it worth it?"

"Yes," Mark said. He got to his feet. "You'll see. I'll show you."

He slunk out of the room. Kathy, her eyes blazing, turned on her father like a miniature Fury.

"He did it for me, Dad. How dare you yell at him!"

Her father's face softened. "All right, honey. I do understand, but-"

"He has to be punished, Kathy," Pat said. "Good intentions don't count."

"What would your husband have done?" Josef asked.

"Made him pay for the books, I suppose. But, Josef- fifty thousand-"

"That's the Colonel's estimate. We'll find out the true market value." Josef grinned. "That will be a suitable job for the young swindler: getting the prices without leaving evidence of his interest in those particular books. I'll lend him the money, and he can figure out how to reimburse the Colonel anonymously. If he gets a job right now, after school, and works straight through the summer, he'll be able to pay me back. Plus eight percent interest on the loan, of course."

The idea obviously appealed to him. He was about to develop it further when Mark returned carrying the letters of Mary Jane Turnbull. The book bristled with little slips of paper, evidence that Mark had spent the remainder of the night, after the raid on the bookstore, in perusing his prize.

"The cloth is too rough to take fingerprints," he announced cheerfully, making sure the table was clean and dry before he put the book down. "I turned the pages with my fingertips, and-"

"You are unnecessarily obsessed with fingerprints," Josef said. "There is only one chance in a million that our overworked county police would… Wait a minute. Are your prints on record?"

"Certainly not," Mark said indignantly.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Josef said. "All right, Mark, what revelations have you come upon?"

"I want you to hear it straight from the horse's mouth," Mark said. "See if you get the same impression I did. I'll read it aloud."

"That will take all day," Pat objected, looking at the thick volume.

"No, it won't. I've already marked the relevant passages." Without further ado Mark opened the book.

"Background first," he began. "These letters were written by Mary Jane to her friend, who lived in Richmond. Cordelia kept them. Ten years after the war was over she had them published, 'as a memorial to a martyr to that Holy Cause for which so many died.' " Josef started to speak; Mark raised an admonitory finger. "Wait. We'll discuss our conclusions later. I want you to hear this first.

"The ladies had been corresponding for some time before hostilities broke out. I won't waste time with the earlier letters; the first one of interest to us has the date of April twentieth, 1861.

Mark stopped reading. "Nice lady, isn't she?"

"I don't know which is worse, her literary style or her vindictiveness," Pat said.

"The style is typical of the time," Mark said tolerantly. "They all wrote that way. The important thing is her reference to an incident that caused Peter to be sent away. It isn't mentioned in the earlier letters, so either some letters were lost, or Cordelia edited them for publication. But it's obvious, isn't it, what the incident was?"

Josef cleared his throat. "I will admit that Mary Jane's catty remarks can be interpreted as referring to a romantic attachment on Peter's part, an attachment of which she did not approve-"

"That's putting it mildly," Mark interrupted. "She says she would rather see him dead than engaged to… All right, Mr. Friedrichs, I won't say it; she doesn't mention the girl's name, I admit that.

"Okay. We roll merrily on, to First Bull Run, in 1861.

That was the first big battle of the war. Bull Run, or Manassas, is only about twenty miles from Washington, and a lot of the dumber congressmen and senators went out to watch the fighting. They ran like rabbits when the Union lines broke.

"In August of 1862 the same damned thing happened, at the same place. Second Bull Run. This time Lee decided to follow up the victory and invade the North. He crossed the Potomac at Leesburg, and here's Mary Jane's comment:

"Dear me," Pat said. "She couldn't drop the subject, could she? I wonder if Peter tried to see Susan while he was at home."

"He'd try, if only out of spite." Josef looked disapproving. "Charming young man, wasn't he? I particularly like his inimitable humor about robbing a helpless old man."

"He was eighteen that year," Mark said.

"Is that an excuse or an explanation?" Josef inquired.

"Go on," Pat said quickly.

"Well, they fought after that at Harpers Ferry and at South Mountain, near Hagerstown. A lot of it was right around here, you know. Union troops, pursuing Lee, passed through Poolesville. The maneuvering of the armies ended on September seventeenth, in the bloodiest one-day battle of the war-Antietam, or Sharpsburg, as the Confederates called it. The whole countryside became a huge hospital, as far south as Frederick, with wounded soldiers in barns, private homes, and churches."

"I remember reading that the mortality rate among the wounded was incredibly high," Pat said, with a shiver. "Of course they had no idea of antisepsis then."

"A few days after the battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation," Mark said. "He had been waiting for a victory, so it wouldn't look as if he did it out of desperation. But Antietam wasn't a victory for either side. At best it was a bloody draw. Of course, to Mary Jane it was a Confederate triumph.

"Guess who," Kathy said.

"Now," said Mark. "We skip almost a year. The following June, 1863, Lee again crossed the Potomac into Maryland.

"He had to win this time. The North had lost a lot of battles, but they were winning the war. The blockade, Grant pressing in the west, no help from Europe -the South needed a big victory, deep in enemy territory. Well, they had the big one. Gettysburg.

"They fought for three days-the first, second, and third of July. For two weeks before that Lee's men were all over Maryland, burning bridges, capturing horses, generally raising Cain. On June twenty-ninth Stuart's cavalry captured some Union supply wagons in Rockville. Stuart was a dashing, brilliant commander, but that time he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn't been fooling around in Maryland he might have arrived at Gettysburg in time… It was awfully close, you know? So damned close…

"Don't digress," Josef said.

"What? Oh. Well, guess who was among the gallant horsethieves in Maryland? Right. The Turnbulls came home for a visit, and Mary Jane got off her pedestal for once.

"Is that how she speaks of her stepmother, after twenty years?" Pat demanded. "And what's that about her illness?"