“Mr. Lincoln?”
Lincoln stretched his legs and unfolded his arms. “It’s a thin gruel to put a man on trial for his life, Your Honor,” he began.
“What more do you want?” asked the judge.
“For one, it doesn’t sound like Mr. Prickett has any idea about the cause of death.”
“You yourself fished him out of the river,” Prickett shot back. “I think we can be pretty sure he drowned.”
“No—I mean, how did he end up in the river? For all we know, Jones threw himself overboard, perhaps in despondency over the young woman whose hand he’d lost to Mr. Bingham.”
“I doubt very much he would have been able to encase himself in the canvas bag he was found in.”
“The bag’s another thing,” said Lincoln. “It looked to me to be the sort used for baling cotton. I don’t suspect Mr. Prickett has got any way to prove how this fellow Bingham could have obtained it. He’s an artist, not a trader or planter.”
“And you don’t have any way to prove he didn’t,” said Prickett. “Besides, as you say, the fellow’s an artist. That class is well known to use canvases for making their paintings. It’s practically a tool of their trade.”
Before Lincoln could respond, Judge Thomas held up his hand. “If you’re moving to dismiss the charge, Lincoln, it’s denied. Bail’s denied too. The Court finds the People have satisfied their burden of detaining the defendant and going forward to trial.”
Daumier purred audibly. Through the window beyond the judge’s right shoulder, I saw a small transient steamer laboring upriver against the current. Four other steamboats were lying at the landing, in various stages of unloading and loading.
“Now, what do you want to do about the trial?” the judge continued. “I imagine we could round up a jury this afternoon, if you’d like, and hear the case to verdict even if we have to work late into the night. I told Ryder we’d be out of his premises by sundown, but I think he’ll give us leeway if we need it.”
Lincoln shook his head. “At a minimum, I need to interview the passengers and crew aboard the packet, who might have additional evidence as to Jones’s fate. There was an altercation on board, I understand, one involving a good number of persons other than Bingham who might have wished ill upon Jones.”
“When’s the ship due to make its next call at the Alton levee?”
Lincoln looked at me. “Four days hence, Your Honor,” I said.
“We’ll be well clear of here by then,” Judge Thomas said. “If you want I can put you down first on the docket for the next Alton circuit.”
“But that’s not until next April,” said Lincoln. “Bingham shouldn’t have to languish at the prison all the way through the winter when he’s not yet been convicted of a thing.”
“Then he should have committed his murder with a better eye toward the circuit calendar,” the judge said. He sucked on his cigar unsympathetically. “Besides, if the jury finds him guilty, he’ll wish he had more time to languish. I’ve heard on good authority the view from the prison yard is to be greatly preferred to the one from the gallows.”
“How about making a special stop in Alton on the way home to Springfield at the end of the circuit?” said Lincoln. “We have to pass by here after leaving Kaskaskia anyway.”
Lincoln took a small calendar from his frockcoat and flipped through the pages. “It’d be almost exactly three weeks from today. I imagine we could try the whole case in two days if we worked into the evenings.”
The judge pulled on his cigar and considered this. Daumier bent over beside Prickett and unleashed a torrent of words, a mixture of French and English.
After a few moments, Prickett pushed him aside and said, “The People are opposed to any special term, Your Honor. If Mr. Lincoln’s not ready to try the case today, what assurance do we have he’ll be prepared in three weeks? The defendant Bingham should wait his turn, same as with any accused.”
“But he’s not the same as any accused,” said Lincoln. “Your Honor has denied him bail, so he’s already serving a prison sentence, in effect. I daresay that’s not what the legislature had in mind when they built the state prison.”
“I’ll not hear any reargument on the denial of bail,” said the judge angrily.
“I’m not rearguing bail,” Lincoln replied calmly, “but rather explaining the sense of a special term. We’re due to lodge here overnight anyway on the journey home. I expect it would delay our return to Springfield only by a single day in the end.”
“One less day with Mrs. Thomas,” the judge muttered to himself in a tone unmistakably suggesting this was an argument in Lincoln’s favor.
“Your Honor—” Prickett began, but the judge cut him off, saying, “And you’re certain you’ll be ready, Lincoln? If I’m going to put Prickett to his proof on that day, I won’t want to hear you need still more time.”
Lincoln leaned back to where I sat. “Could you do it for me, Speed?” he whispered. “Interview the crew and find witnesses who might be helpful for Bingham? You’re already planning to go back on the ship. I can’t—I’m going to be tied up with the circuit.”
When I hesitated, he added, “If you’re not sure, let’s keep the case on the regular schedule and try it next April. Bingham can manage to last out six months in prison. And the judge is right—if he’s convicted, he’ll be glad to have had those six months.”
The image of the planter Jones as I’d encountered him in the ship’s salon flashed into my mind. I had failed one man my age, of similar circumstances—failed to keep him safe from the depredations of the monte and perhaps hastened his untimely death. Now the life of a second young man hung in the balance. Despite our different upbringings, Bingham, too, was a young man trying to make his own mark on the world. I thought about his foul cell, with the walls covered by water drops that would surely freeze before long. He deserved a better fate than shivering through the winter in an ice-coated cell.
“Take the special term,” I said. “I’ll find your witnesses, one way or another.”
CHAPTER 9
As we left the Ryder building, the ink-stained journalist fell into step with us. The man had, I now realized, stayed behind to hear the argument over Bingham’s fate. As we walked along, his head swiveled back and forth, taking in everyone and everything on the streets. An odd light played in his eyes.
“That’s quite a case,” the man said in a voice laced with the hard, flinty vowels of New England.
“Have you a particular interest in it?” asked Lincoln. “It doesn’t seem your typical concern, Lovejoy.”
“It’s not often we have a murder trial in Alton.”
“Then keep your eyes and ears open for me. I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
“Help you? With all the help you’ve been to me!” The journalist’s cheeks had suddenly gone crimson.
Flashing a pained smile, Lincoln turned to me and said, “I should have introduced the two of you. Joshua Speed, meet Elijah Lovejoy. Lovejoy, this is my friend Speed. Lovejoy’s the publisher of the Alton Observer. And a devoted Abolitionist. As those of us in the legislature know only too well.”
Lincoln was currently serving his second term in the state legislature. Since the legislature paid little and met for only ten weeks every other year, the position left him plenty of time—and cause—to develop his law practice.
“Surely that makes you allies,” I said.
Lovejoy snorted derisively. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? In fact, Lincoln is one of my biggest disappointments. Which doesn’t make me inclined to extend myself for this private matter of yours,” he added, looking pointedly at Lincoln.
Lincoln came to a halt in the middle of the street. The skin covering his prominent jaw was drawn tight. “I did the best I could, under the circumstances.”
“I don’t accept that for a moment,” Lovejoy shot back.
“What’s all this about?” I asked. I had rarely seen Lincoln so off-balance.
&n
bsp; “A bill was put before our House, earlier this year, condemning the Abolitionists and affirming that the federal Constitution protects the right to own slaves,” said Lincoln. “A ridiculous bill—no one had asked our opinion, and it had no legal effect. It’s not as if anyone’s proposing to make Illinois a slave state. Anyway, the bill passed overwhelmingly. I was one of only six legislators to vote against slavery. But that wasn’t enough for Lovejoy here.”
“What wasn’t enough for me was that you couldn’t convince more of your number of the evils of slavery,” Lovejoy rejoined. “To say nothing of your statement afterward claiming that the Abolitionists made the evils of slavery worse. An outrageous affront to the cause of freedom.” Lovejoy smacked his hands together and his eyes glowed with passion.
“You know I believe patient, lawful action is the only way to end the institution.”
“‘Patient action!’” cried Lovejoy. “Tell that to our millions of brothers who suffer every day in chains. And you wonder why I have little interest in helping you with your murder case.”
The two men were glaring at each other, hands on their hips.
“Help me or don’t, but don’t question the sincerity of my views,” said Lincoln sharply. “The only way forward is by working within the established legal system.”
“You have no idea,” said Lovejoy at nearly a shout. He collected himself and then continued, with just as much passion but this time in a voice of controlled fury. “A few months ago, I had the privilege to break bread at my home with a man named Henry. A good, honorable man from Louisiana, an industrious man, a loyal friend and son. He’d spent all twenty-one years of his life in bondage on a sugar plantation. His only crime was to have been born with the wrong skin color.”
“An escaping slave?” I said, surprised that Lovejoy would admit so openly to sheltering a fugitive.
Lovejoy nodded defiantly. “He had quite a journey to my doorstep. The first time Henry tried to escape, he stowed away on a steamer leaving Baton Rouge and hid behind four hogsheads of sugar. He was so near to the boat’s engineers that they were in constant sight. He had nothing to eat. On the third night, he crept out to eat scraps off the crew’s table and he was caught. He was sent back to his master. He received thirty lashes from the cat o’ nine tails.”
Lovejoy looked up to see if we intended to challenge his recitation. Neither of us spoke.
“The next spring, Henry tried again. He ended up in the sealed hold of a ship with nothing to drink. He tried drinking the bilge water, but it made him deathly sick. Then he took to wandering around aimlessly in the darkness. He felt a single drop of water fall from the ceiling—from what source he never knew. Frantically, he stopped on the spot, opened his mouth, and waited for the next precious drop. It never came. He was captured by a slave catcher the day before he would have steamed into free waters. This time, he lost track of how many lashes he received before he passed out from the pain.
“Finally, this spring, Henry tried yet again. He managed to get a false set of papers, only they described a man who was nine years older and three inches shorter than he, so Henry was in constant fear someone would examine the papers closely and find him out. When he tried to board a steamer in Memphis, the clerk refused to accept them. But a free Negro he’d met the previous night at a boardinghouse in the Pinch district vouched for him, and the clerk took his word. Henry made it to Alton, and I spent an evening with him, sharing a meal at my table and learning his story. Then he moved along farther north.”
Lovejoy seemed on the point of tears as he finished his story. He took a deep breath and added, as a coda, “Now tell me, Lincoln, what your system ever did for Henry, or the millions like him.”
“I’m glad to hear things turned out well for Henry,” said Lincoln quietly.
The journalist waved Lincoln’s words aside. He looked at his watch. “I’ve tarried too long,” he said. “I need to meet up with my brother Owen. The citizens of Alton, in their great wisdom, have announced they’ll be convening a gathering to consider whether my paper and I should be expelled from the city limits. Owen’s agreed to help me write out my plea for toleration.”
“Expelled!” I exclaimed. “What have you done to them?”
“Spoken the truth,” Lovejoy replied defiantly. “The men of Alton don’t want to read what I must write.”
When he did not elaborate, Lincoln said, “Lovejoy moved to Illinois last year after wearing out his welcome across the river in St. Louis. But he’s proved even less popular in Alton. I know your printing presses have been destroyed here—is it on two separate occasions?”
“Three times. Dumped into the river by a mob, each of them. But I shall not be intimidated.” He glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot, then added in a low, confident voice, “The fourth is arriving from Cincinnati soon enough.”
“Is your brother a publisher as well?” I asked.
“A student of theology,” Lovejoy replied, “as I was, before I realized my sacred obligation to spread the word of the evils of human bondage. My father the Congregational minister would have despaired if one of his sons hadn’t followed his calling.”
Turning to Lincoln, he added, “Who knows? Perhaps I will stumble upon something of interest about your case. If I do, perhaps I’ll send word. Now, good day.” He strode off, constantly skimming the streets as he went.
Lincoln smiled ruefully after him. “If such are my friends—” he said with a laugh before shaking his head. “He’s a determined man. Hardheaded to a fault, as you can see. But if he ever did fall upon something useful to Bingham’s cause, it could prove valuable.”
Lincoln and I parted, and I spent the next twenty-four hours seeing what I could do to solve my father’s financial crisis. I talked to a few riverboat captains whom I encountered near the levee to see if I could locate a replacement for Pound. But they were either engaged or retired for the season, and no one wanted to agree on a price for next spring without knowing what the financial Panic would become.
I had the idea that perhaps I could sell the War Eagle and use the proceeds to pay off my father’s debts. But when I walked into the only bank in town to inquire whether they knew of any potential buyers, the banker merely shook his head and advised me to try again the following spring. I knew it would be pointless to tell him I feared my father didn’t have that long.
In my spare moments, I tried to see if I could advance Bingham’s case. There were several other men staying at the Franklin House who had been aboard the War Eagle, and I questioned each one in turn. But none of them had spoken to Jones or Bingham after the fateful monte, and none admitted to having any idea of how Jones had met his demise. It seemed I needed to await the return of the ship to question the captain and his crew.
The following evening, I decided to take up a search for the mysterious hook-nosed man. Armed with Bingham’s drawing, I went from tavern to tavern along the levee, looking for someone who might recognize him.
I started at the far end of the levee and worked my way back toward the Franklin House. Despite the sharpness of Bingham’s likeness, I was unable to find any barkeep or patron who would admit to having seen the man. Eventually I reached the Tontine, the same shabby grog shop where we’d found Bingham on the night of his arrest. The barkeep and several patrons near the front of the room professed ignorance, and I was heading out the door when I noticed a man in a battered straw hat and shabby clothes who had been slouched against the wall, watching me.
I took a few steps toward him, and with a jolt I recognized him as the fool who had helped perpetuate the monte on John W. Jones.
“It’s Willie, isn’t it?” I said as I nodded a greeting.
“Dunno,” he replied with a shrug.
“Did you hear Jones turned up dead the day after you and Devol took him?”
“Dunno.” His face did not betray any emotion.
“Well, he did. I’m looking into who might have killed him. I wonder whether you’
ve ever seen this rogue, either aboard the War Eagle or otherwise.”
I showed him Bingham’s drawing, and to my great surprise, his face lit up with recognition. “I’ve seen him, all right,” he said. “Saw him here on the levee, the morning we docked in Alton. Can’t miss that nose of his. Most unfortunate.”
“You did? What was he doing?”
“It’s a funny thing,” Willie said. “He got off the War Eagle, kit bag in hand, and started talking to the ticket sellers walking up and down the wharf. He must have been looking for a southbound steamer, because after talking to one seller, he went aboard a ship and not ten minutes later, it cast off and headed downriver.”
“What would cause a man to disembark a northbound ship and immediately board a southbound one?” I asked.
Willie shrugged.
“Do you know who he was? His name, or even his occupation?”
Another shrug.
“How’d you happen to notice him?” I asked with growing frustration.
“I see things—and people—for a living,” Willie said without affect. “I’m practiced at it.”
This was, I thought, the one thing he had said in whose truth I had complete confidence. I was about to say so when I heard a familiar voice—commanding, cool, and clear like snowmelt—cut through the smoke and gloom of the Tontine. Following the voice back to a small, square table in the ill-lit rear corner of the shop, I came upon two men playing poker.
“Devol!” I shouted.
The bushy-mustached gambler nodded without removing his eyes from the table. His opponent, who sat with his back toward me, was bareheaded and partially undressed, with the red straps of his suspenders resting taut against his white shirt. The largest Jürgensen watch I’d ever seen was fastened to his right wrist. From the casual, confident way he was holding his cards, I guessed at once that he, too, made his living at the tables.
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