The Technologists

by Matthew Pearl

  “Marcus! Look.”

  With a swift movement, the Harvard professor took one step into a pool between the rocks, bent down, and ran a small net through the water, lifting it up with a dainty fish inside. Even at a distance, they could see his face was beaming with joy.

  “He does not know who we are, Marcus,” Edwin said. “Why, he probably wouldn’t remember me as being a former student were I pickled in one of his jars. Agassiz has had a cottage here for years, so that he could study the sea life and such. He comes with his family.”

  Despite all that was going on, Marcus was struck by Agassiz’s joy at finding what he had been looking for in the fickle flow of nature. It seemed like an eternity since he had seen someone truly happy.

  As they stood there watching the Harvard professor, something green slithered over Marcus’s boot. “It’s one of Hammie’s pet snakes,” Marcus said with alarm, lifting it up from the ground. “Gawain and Bartleby, I think they are called.”

  “So?”

  “Hammie must have set them free, Edwin,” Marcus said. “He trained them, he named them. Who would do that and then set them free?”

  He quickened his pace now, Edwin trying to keep up behind him.

  “Say, you boys! What kind of snake is that you have there?” Agassiz called out. He made as if to follow them, shouting questions, but shortly turned back to his own pursuits.

  “I hope you are certain about this. We must be before we act,” Edwin said to Marcus.

  “Hammie will have his chance to tell his side of things and answer our questions. Do you have doubts?”

  “No, no, I cannot see another way, either. But we must be one hundred percent certain of our course. If we prove that a student at Technology was responsible for all these horrific events, for all those senseless deaths and injuries, for the perversion of scientific knowledge, you must realize any glimmer of hope that the college had to survive before this hour will be instantly dashed! The Institute will be broken up forever, and perhaps there will never be another like it allowed to exist.”

  “It is too late for Tech,” Marcus said. “It is better for it to have disappeared than to watch it die by inches.”

  As they arrived at the cottage, the door opened and a policeman stepped onto the stoop, frowning as soon as he saw them. “What do you want?” he demanded.

  “I believe the young gentlemen are here to help me,” Chauncy Hammond, Sr., said, emerging from behind the officer.

  “As you wish, Mr. Hammond,” said the policeman, returning inside.

  “Mr. Mansfield and …” Hammond turned to Edwin.

  “This is Edwin Hoyt, sir,” Marcus said.

  “Of course. I have seen you before at Institute events and around the village here, and I believe I have met your father in the course of business. The perpetual rival for Junior’s class ranking, aren’t you? Well, I wish I could greet you both in happier times. You’ll spend a few minutes with me inside, won’t you? I have something important to talk to you about.”

  Marcus and Edwin followed the magnate inside. The servants seemed agitated as they fluttered around them, and there was no sign of Hammie. Declining the offer of cigars and brandies, the visitors took chairs in Hammond’s richly decorated study where he insisted they take some tea from a shimmering silver teapot.

  Hammond gave a rusty sigh before beginning. “Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Hoyt. I am glad you are here. I need your help more than anything in the world.”

  “Mr. Hammond, what has happened?” Marcus asked, though he thought he knew. “Why are the police here?”

  “Junior has disappeared.” The elder Hammond had never seemed to bear much resemblance to Hammie before, his features plainer and more regular, but now his worried coffee-colored eyes and dust-colored skin could have been those of his son.

  “Couldn’t he be in the village?” Marcus proposed.

  “He took everything with him. His clothing, his favorite books, his class notes. He even released his snakes.”

  Marcus stared at the ground and silently cursed himself. He had waited too long and had given as clever an operator as Hammie too many warning signs. Their classmate had guessed that he had been found out.

  “He is a tender boy and at times I have been too hard with him,” Hammond continued. “I never wanted him to be spoiled by easy surroundings. He has brain power in spades, but he has a fragile constitution.”

  “Perhaps not as fragile as we’d believed,” Marcus said cryptically.

  “Has he spoken to you about his mother?” the businessman asked.

  “You mean Mrs. Hammond?”

  “No, no, Mr. Hoyt—my present wife and I have been married only the past five and a half years. Junior’s mother died when he was but thirteen. When he was a boy and lied or committed some other small sin, she would lock him in the closet. One day, a day not unlike this, he vanished. We looked everywhere, turned the house and stables upside down for any trace of the boy. Finally, as we sat in the house frantic and desperate, thinking what to do next, we heard the sound of sobbing coming from the closet! We had already looked there, but he had buried himself deep inside. He had shut himself in for saying some naughty oath to himself, and announced to his mother that all was right now because he had duly punished himself. Despite her harshness with him, when she died he seemed to lose even that unhappy mooring.”

  “He is a sensitive spirit,” Edwin mustered as response.

  “A genius, that’s what he is, Mr. Hoyt,” Hammond replied firmly. “Geniuses take blame or credit on their shoulders for everything around them. I am a common man, by contrast, whose only genius is in his determination. When I was your age I had no higher interest than wrestling and riding with friends. Junior has never had much in the way of fellowship. He has spoken of you both, and one or two others. You may be his only friends, and that you are here is providential. That is why I have asked you inside. I need your help bringing him back to me. You needn’t understand everything about him, you needn’t even like him, but know that he needs our protection now more than ever.”

  “Won’t the police be able to find him?” Edwin asked.

  “I’m afraid I must not divulge too much, but his disappearance may be related to the recent catastrophes in Boston, and there are reasons I cannot share that fact with the police. You know the whole city has been flipped like a flapjack. But I must bring him to safety. As Junior’s peers, I’d hope you might have a better sense of where he might be.”

  Hammond proceeded to give them a list of Hammie’s favorite spots. The magnate said that, meanwhile, he was already gathering a group to search every last inch of Nahant.

  “We will find him, Mr. Hammond,” Marcus promised. And see him punished, however you try to shield him.

  “Thank you for your loyalty,” Hammond said, taking Marcus’s hand and pumping it. “You have repaid my faith in you all these years.”

  As they were walking away from the cottage, Edwin pulled Marcus aside, out of hearing of a search party that was convening nearby. “There is the policeman again. Let us tell him at once what we know about Hammie!”

  “Chauncy Hammond is a man of power and fortune, Edwin. I have been in his employ. I know how he is.”

  “So?”

  “You heard what he said about protecting Hammie and not giving information to the police. If our allegations take wind, he will delay any course of action we might take until Hammie has completely disappeared from reach. We have to find him before anyone else can bring him back under the protection of his father.”

  * * *

  “SERGEANT CARLTON, I thought you should see this. It was found among the papers of the man killed in the sewer explosion.”

  “You mean the disfigured gentleman, Joseph—”

  “Yes. Mr. Joseph Cheshire.”

  Sergeant Carlton beckoned for the patrolman to sit down across from his desk in the central police station of Boston. He was already exhausted from dealing with the mountain of scientific raw materials,
documents, and equipment they had carried out of the Institute of Technology, and Louis Agassiz’s hysterical insistence that every item be considered important evidence of the college’s misdeeds. Carlton had learned his lesson from the Harvard scientist’s failed theory on landmass shifts, which had drained so many of their resources. As a matter of fact, he had begun to be profoundly impressed and fascinated with the studies at the Institute—at least what he could understand of them. They struck him as modern in a way that made Agassiz seem thoroughly ancient. He had encouraged Agassiz to leave the city to better reflect on the events, and was determined to find what he needed to carry out the conclusion of the case on his own before the imperious professor returned. “What is this to me?” Carlton now asked, after studying the patrolman’s slip of paper.

  “You see, Sergeant, before he died Cheshire appears to have written down the names of some of the students at the Institute of Technology, addressing a note to one of the newspapers. This was crumpled and discarded, likely after writing in neater hand. His hand is not easy to read. He claims—well, claimed, I should say—that those polytechnikers have important information about the disasters. Taken together with Professor Agassiz’s discovery of those instruments and materials connected with the very same Institute, I thought—”

  “Yes, I follow your drift,” Carlton said, inspecting the piece of paper more closely. “Rather awful handwriting, isn’t it?”

  “Sir.”

  “Yes, rather. Marcus Mansfield, Robert Richards, Edwin Hoyt, Ellen … Swallow, does that read? Wretched cramped hand.”

  “True enough, sir. Not easy to make out.”

  “This Cheshire seemed to have reason to believe these collegies were conducting their own investiation of sorts. Have you looked for these individuals yet?”

  “Indeed, sir. Mansfield does not have an address listed in our directory. Ellen Swallow is not a name listed in the catalog of the Institute, nor in the last two Boston directories. The others have domiciles listed, but are not now present at them.”

  There was a knock at the office door and after a few moments the patrolman returned and whispered in Carlton’s ear.

  “God save the mark!” Carlton said. “Bring him in.”

  The patrolman escorted in a tall young man.

  “I’m Sergeant Carlton. You say you have important information related to the disasters?”

  “I think I do, sir.”

  “Well? Speak up already, man.”

  “I think a friend of mine knows something.”

  “You think he is responsible, Mr.— What was your name? You think your friend has something to do with these evil deeds?”

  “No, sir! Not a chance!” said the tall young man, who swallowed hard at the insinuation. “My name is Frank Brewer, I am a machine man at the locomotive works. No, it’s only that my friend—his name is Marcus Mansfield—had come to me asking for some materials from the foundry, and, well, there have been other odd facts since, like when he came to try to stop our being hurt in the boiler explosions, and I have been awful worried that he has been trying to investigate the occurrences on his own, perhaps with the help of his friends. You see, he is a student at the Institute of Technology, where I hope to attend next term, and he has a special knack for the most advanced new sciences because of it. The lot of them do. They are masters in the mechanic and chemical arts.”

  “Marcus Mansfield again!” Carlton said. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks much,” Frank said, lowering himself into a chair after a brief hesitation. “I think he has come so far that he is able to anticipate what will happen next and can discover the resolution.”

  Frank jumped back onto his feet again and wrung his hands with consternation.

  “You are doing what is right,” said Carlton.

  “I feel such a traitor at the moment, Officer. My hands shake because of it. But I cannot help thinking he must not believe the police would accept their help, and feels he has nowhere to turn. Promise me you would not punish him for trying to help with this on his own!”

  “At this point, if they can help, I shall deputize him myself for the rest of his days,” said the sergeant.

  Then he pulled aside the other policeman. “Patrolman, put those names from Cheshire’s note in a circular to be distributed across the whole department. Forget old Agassiz, he has been trapped by his own rusty principles. It may be the Institute is not our enemy in this, but our only salvation. I want Mansfield, Richards, Hoyt, and Swallow brought to me in irons, if necessary. And if Chief Kurtz or anyone from City Hall asks, mention nothing of the Institute.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  LIII

  What Hath God Wrought

  THEY WERE THE FIRST ONES waiting to board the first train back for Boston in the morning. Marcus had wanted to leave the evening before but found to his displeasure that they were trapped in Nahant. “There isn’t even a steamship?” he had asked when Edwin told him there were no night trains and that they would have to stay overnight in his family’s rooms.

  “When the visiting season starts in the next weeks, there are two each day. But at this time of the month there isn’t another train or ship until tomorrow,” Edwin replied. “In the meantime, should we look in the places Mr. Hammond suggested?”

  “Hammie’s not in Nahant, Edwin. Not if he wishes to hide—it’s too small.”

  Now, as they rocked back and forth in their seats on an Eastern Railroad car from Lynn, Marcus was relieved to see the craggy scenery disappear behind them. It had rained during the night, the air was now hazy and still, and an almost summer heat had descended across New England, a foretaste of the relentless temperatures certain to come. To find Hammie, they would have to decide where he would hide in the city. With the secret laboratory demolished, Marcus felt confident he knew where he would go next: the Hammond Locomotive Works.

  “But that is in plain sight,” Edwin replied.

  “Most of it will still be closed from the damage done by the boiler explosions. And think of it from his perspective, Edwin. It is entirely private and Hammie knows the place inside and out. He was practically raised there. He might not stay long, but if he’s been there, we might be able to find some trace as to where he will be headed.”

  When they drew closer to the city, Marcus lifted his bag and excused himself. When he returned to his seat, he was wearing a faded blue uniform with brass buttons that didn’t seem to have been dulled by time. Edwin appeared transfixed by the sight.

  “It’s Decoration Day,” Marcus explained, a little shy at his classmate’s awestruck expression. “Bob had wanted to take me with him to some of the festivities. There will be former soldiers in their uniforms all across the city. This will help us.”

  “How?”

  “Because I won’t stand out as much carrying this.” Marcus held open his carpetbag to reveal the disassembled rifle he had taken from the Hammond collection.

  When the train reached the station closest to Hammond’s works, somewhat remote from the city center, they found a messenger and sent notes to Bob and Ellen. They had tried sending a wire through the telegraph office of Whitney’s Hotel the night before, but by that time the operator at the hotel informed them disruptions had forced him to cease sending out any new messages altogether.

  Marcus and Edwin approached the avenue that divided the two rows of buildings comprising the Hammond Locomotive Works. The usually bustling compound seemed uncomfortably quiet and still without the rumbling thunder of machines and the combined roar of boilers, furnaces, and supervisors and workers trying to meet schedules or fill urgent orders. Marcus thought there should be piles of scrap iron around the corner that they could use to break through one of the boarded windows in the lower machine shop that had been shattered by the explosions.

  “Marcus, hold on!” Edwin whispered as he began making his way behind the buildings.

  Marcus turned and saw that he had opened the street door to the business office in the main building
.

  “Not locked?” he asked softly, joining Edwin in the threshold.

  “Someone must be inside.”

  “It’s him. He’s here right now.”

  “What if Hammie left it ajar on purpose? A booby trap, like at his private laboratory?”

  Marcus gave this less thought than Edwin might have hoped. “Then we will finish our business with him here and now.”

  Edwin wiped his brow with his handkerchief and patted his pocket Bible. “I wish Bob were with you, Marcus, I do. He could help you more than I could, for he is never chicken-hearted.”

  “You are a man of good courage, Edwin, as much as anyone I know. Bob would say the same. Keep cool and all will come out all right.”

  Edwin forced a nod, and the two moved cautiously through the dark business office, which was stocked with plans for new locomotive orders. Marcus lit a small lantern and swept it across each hallway, motioning for Edwin to follow. Barely breathing, they sprang into chamber after chamber, prepared to confront Hammie, whose form they saw in every shadow, whose whisper they heard in the passing breeze, then they repeated their steps into the corridor and then through the next department, and then all over again.

  As they walked among the massive machinery of the foundry, they were captivated by an unexpected sense of wonder. The machines at rest resembled slumbering beasts, ready to be roused by a single misstep on their part as they walked through. It was an eerily dynamic netherworld, still warmed by the artificial heat of industry that could never properly be removed through even the most advanced system of ventilation.

  “Do you smell that?”

  “What?” Edwin asked.

  “Tobacco smoke.”

  Edwin sniffed. “Are you certain?”

  Marcus gestured for Edwin to follow him to the threshold of the boiler shop, from which thin curls of smoke emerged. He took one step inside, raising the rifle and peering through the target sight. “Hammie!”

  Chauncy Hammond, Sr., turned around, a cigar crimped between his lips, his eyes alive with surprise. He was feeding papers into the stomach of a furnace lit bright red.