Maybe it was someone else who just needed a safe place to hide now that the Confederates were crossing into the city. Maybe Mr. Stimpson, or another of the young naturalists who boarded at the Smithsonian in exchange for doing cataloging, had returned from their evacuation. Those men, all of whom she knew, lived in the North Tower. But maybe someone had been locked out, not realizing everyone else had left the building—and the city.
These realizations emboldened her, and Sophie went to the door. She’d left a lamp on the table in the entrance, turned down just to the lowest glow to light the way for her uncle’s return. Now she regretted it, for the light would give whoever was outside the advantage of sight inside.
Holding her rifle at the ready, she called, “Who’s there?” as she peeked through the glass sidelight.
It was too dark to see more than a silhouette, but there was only one. The man’s shape was too long and slender to be her rotund Uncle Joseph, though.
And it was holding something else long and much more slender. A rifle.
“Who’s there?” she called again, edging to the window on the other side of the door to try a different angle.
“Miss Gates? Is that you in there?”
Sophie frowned. The voice was familiar. “Who is it?”
“It’s Adam Quinn, miss. From the President’s House. Is that you, Miss Gates?”
Adam Quinn? Sophie lifted her brows, frowning into the darkness. What on earth—?
But she was already undoing the locks, ridiculously relieved that it was him and not the Rebels. Unless he was with the Rebels—no, of course not. He knew Mr. Lincoln, and he said he’d come from the President’s House.
Maybe he was trying to hide from the army that seemed to still be marching over the bridge.
She shivered. Just how many men were there on Long Bridge, coming to take the city? Her knees wobbled a little.
“Come in.” She stepped back as soon as the locks were undone and raised her rifle . . . just to be certain.
When Mr. Quinn opened the door to reveal himself, he stilled at the sight of the barrel pointing at him. “Well, I reckon I wasn’t expecting such a warm greeting, Miss Gates.”
His drawling comment nagged a smile from her, and she lowered the rifle. “Are you alone? Come inside. What on earth are you doing out there? Don’t you know the Rebels are coming across the bridge? Did they see you? Did you see them? How many are there?”
Still holding his own rifle, her visitor closed the door behind him. Along with him came the brisk chill of the damp spring night and the faint scent of wood smoke and tobacco.
In the soft golden glow, Sophie looked up at the man she’d learned was a close friend and confidant of the president during a recent murder investigation. He was nearly as tall as Mr. Lincoln, which she personally had cause to know, having once been in the same room with both men. That had been the most exciting day of her life, standing in the president’s office and being commended by him for helping to catch a murderer. Her alter ego, Henry Altman, had written that story, and it had been Sophie’s second published piece. Not in the New York Times, unfortunately, but in the much smaller, less prestigious Washington Republic. Still. It had been published.
“Where’s your uncle? Surely you’re not here alone, Miss Gates.” Mr. Quinn set his rifle against the wall and swept off his unfashionable, wide-brimmed hat, spraying her with a soft rain of water from the drizzle that had been falling all day.
“I don’t know where he is. He’s been gone for hours. What are you doing here?” She went to the sidelight to look out, unable to see the Long Bridge from this view. “Did you see the soldiers? How many are there?”
“He left you here alone? With the Confederates coming?”
“Not exactly,” Sophie replied, still contorting herself to look out the window. “I can’t see the soldiers—”
Mr. Quinn sighed. “I reckon I won’t get any straight answers from you until I give you what you want. Those aren’t the Rebels crossing the bridge, Miss Gates.”
“They’re not?” She pulled away from the window and looked at him curiously. He was really quite tall, and somehow the only part of his face that was caught by the lamplight was the nice little cleft in his clean-shaven chin. The rest of him was mostly in shadow, though she could see a hint of unruly dark hair and long, straight nose.
“No, they’re my men. From the President’s House.”
“Your men? How many do you have out there? Two hundred? Three hundred?” Sophie had heard enough buzzing rumors to know that when Mr. Lincoln had called up the city militia over the last three days, barely half of the men had signed on. They weren’t willing to actually shoot at their Southern brethren, and some of them had even left the city to head south and enlist with the Confederate Army. But the troops she heard marching over the bridge sounded far more numerous and impressive than the low count that had been mustered.
Mr. Quinn chuckled. “That’s what we’re trying to make everyone think. There’s only a doz—well, now, if I’m talking to a reporter, I best be careful what I say.”
But Sophie caught on quickly. “You mean you’re creating a lot of noise to make it sound like there are more men than there are.” She grinned. “That’s smart. The sound carries across water, too, so the Confederates on the Virginia side of the river will hear all the noise. Maybe they’ll think twice about coming over here tonight.”
He looked down at her speculatively. “Now, you’re not going to be telling your Southern friends about that little trick, are you?”
“My Southern friends? I’m from New York City, Mr. Quinn. I don’t have any friends in the South.”
She felt his eyes fasten on her. “But your uncle does. And he’s made no secret where his sympathies lie.”
“I am not my uncle, Mr. Quinn. I form my own opinions.”
“I reckon you do at that, Miss Gates.” His voice wasn’t quite as slow as a Mississippi drawl, but it took its time and had a low, rough edge to it.
She knew he’d lived on the frontier, in Kansas, for a while—which explained his informal manner, unfashionable clothing, and sun-browned skin. And she suspected—though she didn’t know for certain—that it was during the Free State battles that he’d lost his left arm. He wore a prosthetic instead of an empty coat sleeve, and he was so comfortable manipulating it that Sophie wouldn’t be able to tell which was the false one if she didn’t know it was his left arm.
“Is it true there are soldiers at the President’s House?” she asked. “I saw them marching along the Avenue.”
“Yes.” He looked at her with consideration, as if still questioning where her loyalties were. “Maybe you’d want to tell your uncle about the hundreds of men you heard marching across the Long Bridge tonight.”
“Maybe I do. If he ever comes back.”
“You don’t know where he is? When did he leave? How did you come to be here alone, with the Rebels at our shores?”
Sophie still kept peering out the window. “Are you sure those are all your men—and what do you mean by your men?”
Mr. Quinn sighed again. “I reckon you’ve taken up the right vocation as a newspaper reporter, Miss Gates. You’re more full of questions than answers. But I’m not answering any more questions until you do some of mine.”
“I suppose you have a point. Yes, I’m here alone. Uncle Joseph didn’t exactly leave me here; he doesn’t know I’m back.”
“Back?” It only took him an instant to catch on. “So your aunt and cousins evacuated, and you sneaked back. Is that how it happened? Your uncle was supposed to be here, and now he’s gone. Probably at the National or Willard’s, drinking with his friends and waiting for the invaders to come.”
She frowned up at him. “Why are you asking me so many questions if you already know the answers?”
He shrugged, his wide shoulders shifting in the golden light. “I reckon I might have made a good reporter myself if it didn’t require talking to people.”
Sophie choked on a laugh. “Well, you’re an honest one, aren’t you, Mr. Quinn? You don’t like talking to people.”
He shrugged again. “Most of the time, I’d just as soon be in a quiet location with my own company.”
“Then what are you doing living in Washington City?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“I ask myself that nearly every day, Miss Gates,” he said. There was a touch of levity in his voice, but it evaporated when he changed the subject. “What about the others—the Megatherium Club? Did they evacuate too?”
The Megatherium Club was the name adopted by the group of naturalists who boarded in the North Tower. All in their twenties and thirties, the men were hard workers during the day, but acted like a wild brotherhood at night. A few weeks ago, Sophie had infiltrated one of their nighttime club meetings as Henry Altman—and Mr. Quinn had been present as well. She supposed she still owed him a favor since he hadn’t exposed her real identity to the men who worked for her uncle. Or to her uncle himself, for that matter.
That realization caused her to temper her tone into a more conciliatory one. “Yes, they’re all gone as well. Uncle Joseph was going to stay because . . . well, you already know. He wasn’t afraid of the Confederates, but he also wanted to make sure nothing happened to anything here at the museum.”
“And you sneaked back so you could be here to report the story. What on earth did you tell your aunt?”
“I gave a note to one of my cousins to give to her later. We were all riding in a long caravan with some other friends in their carriages, and Aunt Harriet won’t even realize I’m missing until they get to Baltimore.”
“Baltimore! They’re threatening to close the railways there and not allowing anyone to go north, or to come south from Delaware or Pennsylvania. I don’t know how far your family is going to get.” Mr. Quinn sounded concerned.
“My aunt has family in Baltimore. They’re Confederate sympathizers too,” Sophie admitted dryly. “Yet another reason I didn’t want to go with them. I’ve heard arguments on both sides about this conflict, and I can see the perspective of both the Union and the South. But I don’t think war is the answer, and states just can’t decide to leave the country if they don’t like who gets elected president. That’s not the point of our democracy, is it?”
“I reckon we can’t be the United States of America if those states can come and go as they please. Not to mention the issue of enslaving other men.”
The bite in his otherwise relaxed drawl alerted her to his change of mood. “Are you an abolitionist, Mr. Quinn?”
“I reckon I am, Miss Gates. I lost property, peace, blood, and a limb fighting to keep Kansas free because I don’t believe any man has the right to keep any other man like a possession.”
She crossed her arms over her middle. “And does that belief include not treating a woman—a wife, a mother, a sister—like a possession as well? Like a half-wit, or less of a person than a man? Unable to make her own decisions?”
His eyes widened. “Well, now that’s a sharp turn of conversation, Miss Gates.”
“I merely ask because I suspect the next thing out of your mouth is going to be an admonishment to me about being here—a female alone—when the city is about to be invaded by an army.”
He took his time answering, and for some reason, that annoyed her a little. “In my mind, it’s not advisable for anyone to be alone when an army is about to invade a city—man or woman. Even if they do know how to hold a rifle.”
“And load and shoot one.”
“Even if. I saw the light on in the tower, and as I know Dr. Henry lives here with his family, I thought it would be a good idea to check in and make sure everyone was all right when we came down here to march on the bridge. And,” he added a bit more firmly as she tried to speak over him, “I had a sneaking suspicion that a young woman who fancies herself a newspaper writer might have decided to investigate the situation.”
“Well, now that you’ve proven yourself correct, I suppose you’d best see to your ‘men,’” Sophie replied. This man was far too clever for his own good. No wonder Mr. Lincoln had put him in charge of investigating the murder of Custer Billings last month. “Does that mean you’ve enlisted then, Mr. Quinn? In the Union Army?” Then she could have kicked herself. Of course he couldn’t enlist with a missing arm!
“Not yet,” was his rumbling response. He didn’t seem to notice her faux pas. “Not officially. But it’s only a matter of time, now that things are going the way they are. But for tonight—and for the foreseeable future—I’ll be guarding the president in his house, along with the other men of the Frontier Guard.”
“The Frontier Guard. So that’s who was marching to the mansion today. They said it was General Lane—do you know General Lane?” Sophie couldn’t keep the light of admiration from her voice. The heroism of Jim Lane during the Mexican War, and then during the Bloody Kansas conflict, had been all over the papers—which of course she’d read avidly, as a hopeful journalist as well as an American.
“Fought with him in Kansas.”
“You were a Jayhawker?” Sophie tried not to sound too impressed, but it was difficult not to. The stories that had come back to New York about the fierce frontier warriors led by the wild General Lane were both thrilling and terrifying. He was a national hero, despite the nasty business related to the death of one Gaius Jenkins. Some said Lane had murdered him in cold blood, others said he’d been provoked—but the courts had ruled the case self-defense. “So it is true—there are soldiers garrisoned in the Executive Mansion.”
“For the foreseeable future. The Confederates will come—if not tonight, then tomorrow or the next day. They’d be fools not to act quickly, before reinforcements come from the North. And God knows how soon they’ll arrive.” He reached over to take up his gun. “Miss Gates, I reckon one rifle ain’t going to do much good against a whole army—whether it be a man or woman holding it.”
She understood his point. “Uncle Joseph should be back soon.”
“There’s no telling when—or if—he’ll be back. For all you know, he might have decided to follow your aunt and cousins to Baltimore. Why don’t you come on back to the President’s House with us. At least for tonight.”
“I don’t—”
But he kept talking in that easy drawl. “More important, Miss Gates, I’d consider it a personal favor. If my mother ever found out I left a woman by herself when an army was coming to invade the city, I wouldn’t have enough skin left on me to hold my bones together. Not to mention what she’d do to my ears and the rest of me.”
Sophie couldn’t hold back a laugh—mainly because he sounded deadly serious. “Well, I suppose that would be a waste of a good Union soldier then.” She drew in a deep breath in an effort to settle her pulse. Stay at the President’s House? What better place for a news correspondent to be? “All right, then. I’ll just go up and get a few things.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said gravely. “I’ll be right here, waiting.”
And watching.
He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. And as Sophie dashed up the stairs of the East Tower, she could admit to herself that she was relieved not to be left alone when the invaders were coming.
It wasn’t until she was on her way back down the stairs that she realized the President’s House might not be much safer.
But at least she wouldn’t be alone.
* * *
To everyone’s surprise, the Rebels didn’t come that night.
Dawn broke over a tense, half-empty city like a sigh of relief, revealing silent streets under a wash of pink.
True to his word, Jim Lane had slept at Lincoln’s second-floor bedroom door, his long legs stretched out in front of it. He’d kept three weapons with him through the night: a bayoneted rifle, a revolver, and his “Arkansas toothpick”: a long, slender, wicked-looking knife.
Located on the main floor, the East Room—which was the largest and most updated chamber in the entire mansion—
was occupied by the men of the Frontier Guard. Two massive fireplaces cast dancing shadows over the occupants while keeping the April damp at bay. When not taking turns at guard duty, each man slept head-to-wall on the red velvet carpet. Their feet faced the center of the room, and they lined their Enfield rifles and bayonets in a long, metallic row down the middle.
“No pillows,” Lane said. He wanted everyone to sleep, but to sleep lightly enough to come awake at the first sound.
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time Adam turned Miss Gates over to the other females on the second floor—some wives of Frontier Guard members, Mrs. Lincoln, and her relatives. Then he left the mansion to once again march two dozen men back and forth across the Long Bridge—creating as much noise as possible—before returning to the mansion just after eleven o’clock.
In Lincoln’s office with General Scott, Jim Lane, the president, and Hunter, Adam shared the news of several Confederate campfires along the Virginia shore of the Potomac, but in the dark it was impossible to see how many troops—if any—there were.
This worked to the advantage of the Frontier Guard as well, and Lane and Adam agreed that their tactic of making so much noise on the bridge might have contributed to the hesitation of the Rebels to attack. Neither side could know how many men the other had.
Lincoln went to bed at half-past eleven, and Lane took up his post outside his bedchamber door.
Nevertheless, when the morning dawned without an invasion, the relief was tempered. If not last night, then tonight. If not tonight, then tomorrow night.
Meanwhile, they tensely waited for word of reinforcements from Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio.
Several hours after the peaceful dawn, the small Frontier Guard was eating eggs, dried apples, and ham in the East Room. Lincoln was meeting with his advisors. The women were dressing in the bedchambers.
And then someone screamed.
Murder in the Oval Library Page 3
