How many nights would they need to be here?
Would tonight be the one when the Rebels came?
Sophie drew in a deep breath and set aside the thought. She could go back to the Smithsonian whenever she wanted—probably—but staying here meant she was not only an eye witness to whatever happened, but she could help Mr. Quinn with his investigation. Both of those options, though dangerous and unsettling, were also attractive to her as a journalist.
Surely, in some regard, the President’s House was the safest place to be in a city that might be invaded by soldiers—even if it would be their target as well. Sophie would be very careful and very vigilant, but she would stay as long as she was allowed.
Last night when Mr. Quinn had brought her here, Sophie hadn’t had much of an opportunity to notice the details of the president’s home, dimly lit as it was—though she’d been properly breathless and awed at being inside the mansion. Though she’d been here once before, and had slept here overnight last night, today she still felt almost as if she’d ventured into a silent, most holy church: reverent and overwhelmed by the history and power of this “peoples’ house.”
Now, however, as she made her way along the first floor corridor, she noticed how shabby the rugs were, and how some of the paint and wallpaper peeled. There were tobacco stains on the carpet where visitors had missed the spittoons—or not cared to even find one.
When Sophie let herself through the door in the glass screen into the vestibule, she greeted the wrinkled Irish doorkeeper, Ed McManus, and asked for directions to the servant’s stairs that led to the basement. He was happy to comply and directed her as requested. But before she started off, she asked, “Did you see anyone moving around last night after midnight, Mr. McManus?”
“Now, miss, sure and wasn’t I off and sleeping just after eleven o’clock. But Thomas—he’d been sitting in the porter’s lodge there. And wasn’t he sleeping half the night, but he was in the chair and would’ve been the one to hear if someone come knocking. But after Mrs. Lander called at midnight, I didn’t hear of no one coming anyway.”
“Mrs. Lander came here? The actress?” Sophie was astonished. “At midnight?”
Old Ed had a gravelly voice that somehow fit his wrinkled face and diminutive persona. “Yes, she did. I don’ know about her being an actress, like you’re sayin’, miss, but Thomas said as she was a fine-looking lady, and she’s married to the colonel. That much I know.”
Thomas Burns was McManus’s assistant doorkeeper. “Do you know why she came here?” Sophie asked.
He didn’t seem to mind answering her questions, though he had to pause a few times to open the door to allow more of the countless job-seekers, soldiers, or Cabinet members inside—and in such random order, some matched up with another in such a way as to be laughable. “Och, and wasn’t Thomas sayin’ how she had some information about a plot on the president.”
“To do what—to kill him?”
“Well, that’s what they’re always talking about now, isn’t it, miss? Killin’ him, or stringin’ him up or summat. Prolly ain’t gonna end with jes’ capturing him.”
Sophie quelled a rush of apprehension and pity for Mr. Lincoln. She’d seen it countless times, but she still didn’t understand such violent hatred one man could have against another.
“Where’s Thomas now?”
“And ain’t he off somewhere with those soldiers, watching them march with their rifles and them looking like nothing more than a pack of scraggly dogs,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Don’t see how they’re about to protect any of us from the Rebels.”
“All right then,” she replied, unwilling to continue a conversation that was bound to heighten her own concerns about their safety.
It was cooler in the basement, and damp, darker, and filled with the smell of mildew and mustiness. Sophie managed to stifle a shriek—of surprise, certainly not fear, she told herself—as a rat bolted across the floor in front of her. But as she made her way from the bottom of the stairs, she heard the sounds of activity and conversation from the kitchen—along with the delicious smell of whatever was cooking.
Her stomach rumbled, and she realized her breakfast had been interrupted by the discovery of the body. Later, her task of keeping watch over the scene of the crime had also kept her from eating dinner at noon with the others. Sophie wondered if it would be permissible to ask for a piece of bread and an apple while she was speaking to the servants down here. In a way, it was strange living in such a grand house where there were servants everywhere. Especially the house of the president.
She could still hardly believe Mr. Quinn had brought her here.
And that she had slept across the hall from the President of the United States.
If only those condescending Knickerbockers from back home could see her now.
As soon as it came, Sophie blocked the thought of Peter and his family—the inestimable and revered Schuylers of Fifth Avenue—and the horrible scandal that had ended their engagement, causing her mortified parents to ship her off to Washington. There was no need to dwell on the past.
She found the kitchen easily. Located in the center of the ground floor of the president’s mansion, it was a large, barn-like room with whitewashed walls and high, curved ceilings. There were two iron-barred windows set high in the walls, so that you couldn’t see out them without standing on a chair.
When she stepped across the threshold, Sophie was shocked to find none other than Mary Lincoln herself in the kitchen, standing at the stove and stirring a large pot of something that smelled amazing. She was speaking to the cook, a light-skinned Negro who appeared to be several years older than Sophie, and two other kitchen workers. Leah, the maid who’d made the discovery of Johnny Thorne’s body, was there as well.
All of them looked over at Sophie, and she had to fight the unfamiliar urge to curtsy in front of Mrs. Lincoln. Drat. It reminded her of the way Peter’s Aunt Hildegard had made her feel.
“Are you in search of something to eat, Miss Gates?” asked the president’s wife, handing her spoon to the cook. She didn’t appear to be embarrassed about being discovered working in the kitchen—which was far more than Sophie could say for the snooty Aunt Hildegard.
“I don’t recall seeing you at supper, Miss Gates,” Mrs. Lincoln said, “but I suppose you’ve been busy helping Mr. Quinn and missed the meal. Mr. Lincoln told me about it all, and you were just speaking with my cousins, weren’t you? What an awful business this is. All of it. All of it.” Her voice rose to a higher, tense pitch, then she seemed to collect herself. “Cornelia, make sure this child gets something to eat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the cook.
“Thank you, Mrs. Lincoln.” Sophie still felt awkward about invading the kitchen, as well as finding the mistress of such a grand house actually cooking in it.
She didn’t know Mary Lincoln at all, having merely shaken her hand at the Lincolns’ first levee in March, and then met her again for another short moment last night when Mr. Quinn brought her here. And of course, there had been all sorts of gossip and tale-telling about the new First Lady: how she was a country bumpkin, how she put on airs, how she had a temper that was often punctuated by flying objects, how she was very well-read and intelligent “for a frontier woman,” and more. There were also whispers that most of her family were abolitionists—including her cousin Martha Todd White. Mrs. White, who was from Alabama, had actually stayed in the White House during the inauguration festivities despite the fact that she and her husband had gone over to the side of the Secessionists.
Mrs. Lincoln’s brothers, who had not been invited to Washington and never would be, according to Mrs. Grimsley, had already made their positions known as Confederate sympathizers and pro-slavers. Mary Lincoln’s opinion was that her “brothers have made their choices—deciding against my husband, and through him, against me. Whatever happens shall happen.”
But the Mrs. Lincoln facing Sophie at the moment was kind an
d at ease—if not a bit nervous about the impending invasion—and if the gossip about her was anything more than that from spiteful women, or powerful men who disliked her influence with the president, it was not apparent to Sophie. In fact, she could empathize with her in some ways.
The older woman was short and tending to stoutness, but she had a good-humored, round face. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and smoothed back into a sleek collection of knots and braids. Worry limned her eyes and bracketed her mouth with lines, but her demeanor was smooth.
“Thank you, Cornelia,” said Mrs. Lincoln. “I don’t know what we’re to do about meals for all of those rough men, sleeping in the East Room. Perhaps they’ll cook some of their meals over the fireplace up there. And the way they’re spitting all over, staining the carpet!” Her voice rose a bit again, and she sighed heavily. “But we cannot be without them. Mr. Lincoln wants to send me away with the boys, but I will not go.” The flash of stubbornness and fire in her eyes reminded Sophie of her own determination.
“Yes, Madam,” said the cook.
“I’d best see if there is any news about the troops trying to come through Baltimore,” said Mrs. Lincoln, wiping her hands on the apron she’d donned to protect her blue-sprigged lawn skirts. “Mr. Lincoln has been worried about it all the day. And those Confederates invading us here! And now this terrible thing in the library.”
The mistress of the house, clearly overwhelmed by tension and anxiousness, took her leave just as one of the kitchen assistants offered Sophie a small tray. It held a small bowl of soup, a hunk of bread, and a slightly-bruised, beginning-to-wrinkle apple left over from the autumn store.
“Thank you so much,” Sophie replied. “I’m hungry, but I didn’t come here only for food.” She looked at Leah. “As you know, I’m helping Mr. Quinn. I need to speak with anyone who had to work on the second floor yesterday or last night. Especially anyone besides you, Leah, who had work to do in the library—or who might’ve been around very early this morning or very late last night.”
“Well, miss, there are the lamplighters who come around every evening and see to the lamps in each room, then they come through and turn them off at nine o’clock and light the candles if need be. It’s Bill who does for the rooms on the second floor.”
Sophie’s mouth was watering as the scent of the beefy stew teased her. “If I could speak with Bill, that would be a good start. And whoever was the last person to go into the library yesterday. If you could help me determine who that is, that would be helpful. We’re trying to discover whether anyone saw Johnny Thorne or his killer during the night.”
Leah seemed eager to help, and, thankfully, she took Sophie to the servants dining room where she could sit and speak to each of them as she ate. It was a cramped room that held the scent of mildew, as well as that of smoke and food. Though the space was adequate, there was a scarred table so large there was hardly enough space for the chairs around it. Sophie took a seat with her tray at one end.
“I was surprised to see Mrs. Lincoln down here,” she said as Leah brought her a mug of sage-and-mint steeped water.
“Oh, the Madam, she come down often. She like to cook, she says, and she misses doing for her family. Miss Cornelia says it ain’t often the mistress even knows anything about the cooking or kitchen, but the Madam did so long for Mr. Lincoln and them boys that she knows all about it. She even tells Miss Cornelia how to find the best meats, and what a good vegetable looks like.”
Sophie’s hunger pangs had eased a bit now that she’d sipped several bites of soup and dunked a corner of the bread hunk. “Thank you. Now, you said Bill would come through and light the lamps on the second floor—about what time? And then he came back through at nine o’clock?”
“Yes, miss. The lamps get lit right when the sun is getting to the tops of the trees over yonder, and then at nine o’clock, they get turned off. That’s when I draw the curtains, miss.”
“And that would be the last time anyone entered the library?”
“Unless Mr. Lincoln did. He likes to sit in there with a candle and read his books. Want I should find Bill now?”
“Yes, thank you, Leah. And I do want to talk to every one of the servants.” Sophie set down the sheaf of papers on which she’d been penciling notes.
“All of us?” Leah’s eyes went wide. “We are thirty-four, miss.”
“Yes, all thirty-four of you. Perhaps I should speak with the housekeeper and explain.”
“Oh, miss, there is no housekeeper. Only a steward and butler, Mr. Brown. The Madam sees to everything herself.”
Sophie hid her surprise; but that made things easier, as Mrs. Lincoln obviously knew and supported her task. “Well, then, I suppose I must rely on you to help me so that I speak to everyone. At least, everyone who works in the house.”
That turned out to be only twenty-one servants, including Mr. McManus and his assistant Thomas Burns.
Bill, who was a tall, light-skinned Negro with a smooth gait, was the first to enter the dining room. “Yes, miss,” he said when Sophie told him to sit. “You’re wanting to know about when I was in the family room. The library.”
She nodded, and he continued. “I lit all the lamps up there yesterday at half-five. That’s when the shadows fall and the rooms get darker, you see. Every night, the chandeliers get lit by a gas lamp I raise up on a tall hook. And for the small lamps, there goes a tube from the fitting in the wall to the lamp, and we light it with a match.”
“But the gas lamps go off at nine o’clock, and you have to go back around to the rooms. Was that the last time you were in the library?”
“Yes, miss. The gas come from a pipe down from Capitol Hill, from the gas company. They shut down at nine o’clock, so the gas stops then. I go back to all the rooms on the second floor and light candles just before then.”
“Was there anyone in the library when you went in there before nine?”
“No, miss. Only Leah, who was drawing the curtains. Only there was some blocks and a toy cart left there by Mr. Tad and Mr. Willie. I helped her put them in the cupboard so no one would step on them. Them corners of the blocks hurt your feet, even through the shoes.”
Sophie smiled. “I can imagine that. Did you go back to the library at all last night? Or to any other room on the second floor?”
“Only at maybe half-ten, miss. Mr. Lincoln rung the bell. He was wanting a new candle. But he was still in his office with Mr. Nicolay and that Mr. Lane come from Kansas. He wasn’t in the library, miss.”
“After that, where did you go?”
“I went to bed, miss. Down here. Didn’t go anywhere else till Mr. Brown rousted me at dawn.”
“Peter Brown, the butler?”
“Yes, miss. And he does the waiting on the family at dinner time, and other steward jobs.”
“Thank you,” Sophie said, and dismissed the young man. She scribbled a few notes as she waited for the next servant to come in.
The next two hours she spent in the cramped space talking to the maids, footmen, steward, and other workers. She made notes of their names and regular duties, and who had access to the second floor and who didn’t. The occasional ringing of bells in the kitchen or the hallway made a pleasant chiming sound, though Sophie admitted that it might not be quite so pleasant to the servants being summoned to upper parts of the house, interrupted from whatever task they might currently be doing—including sleeping.
One of the kitchen maids had just appeared to take Sophie’s tray when the sounds of an excited conversation came in from the hallway.
“Can’t know why would someone put a good piece of clothing in the furnace bin like—By the saints, Mae! Will you look at this?”
“That looks like blood. Sure is, that’s blood on that coat.”
“And all over it, it is. Still don’t need to be throwing the likes of it in the bin when it could be—”
“Blood?” Sophie shoved back from the table and pushed her way between chairs and wall out to the
hallway.
Two maids were standing there, just outside the elliptical furnace room, which was located next to the base of the curved South portico.
“I can put it in the laundry,” said the one with strawberry blond hair as they inspected what appeared to be a long, weather-beaten coat. “Scrub it clean enough if I’m puttin’ me elbows into it. Looks like it’d fit Tommy good.”
“May I see that?” Sophie asked. The two maids—Mae, and Bridget was the Irish one with the strawberry hair—looked up.
“Miss Gates.” Bridget, who appeared to have discovered the bundle, looked from the article of clothing to Sophie, and then comprehension settled over her features as she realized why the other woman was interested. “Someone tried to hide—or throw out—this coat.”
“There’s blood on it,” Mae said unnecessarily, then her eyes widened too. “Blood. From the killer.” She shoved her half of the bundle toward Sophie.
Or, more accurately, Sophie thought, blood from Johnny Thorne.
“Where exactly did you find this?” She gave the coat a shake and held it up in front of her.
It was a man’s coat—not a top coat or a fancy frock like businessmen or politicians wore in the city, but a canvas one lightly oiled to keep the weather and elements off. It was the type of garment worn by the gold miners or farmers—or frontiersmen, and it would fit a man much larger than Johnny Thorne.
And sure enough, there were dark stains all over the front of it, and along the underside and front of the coat sleeves.
A cold shiver took her by surprise as she realized she was holding—she had to be holding—the clothing of a killer.
A killer who’d been, and likely still was, in the White House.
CHAPTER 7
Friday April 19
IT WAS AFTER TWO O’CLOCK BY THE TIME ADAM RETURNED TO THE President’s House from George Hilton’s office.
He’d decided to leave the bundle that included Jane Thorne’s belongings at the doctor’s workshop. Not only did he have no place to put them for safekeeping at the White House, but he also didn’t have the time to examine them as closely as he needed to. There were other, more desperate matters at the moment.
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