Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  “I did.”

  “Tell the jury what you observed.”

  As Daumier related the events of the evening Lincoln had discovered Jones’s body under the watchful eye of the Piasa Bird, I studied the jury. They were listening to the Frenchman respectfully. Despite the broad support enjoyed by the mob, Alton was not a provincial town. To the contrary, its prominent location on the great river had attracted many migrants from other states and foreign lands. Daumier might not have looked or sounded like the average resident of Alton—if such a person was to be found in the polyglot community—but there was every reason to believe he was well-known and well-respected here.

  “Did you find anything among Jones’s effects that suggested the person or persons responsible for his murder?” asked Prickett.

  Daumier answered in the affirmative and identified Bingham’s “fine portraits” trade card with the word “Midnight” written on the reverse side. As the waterlogged card was passed gingerly among the gentlemen of the jury, Prickett continued his examination.

  “Did you subsequently ask the painter Bingham to explain the presence of his card in Jones’s pocket?”

  “I found him late the same evening at the Tontine,” said Daumier. “He was in the same condition most men at the Tontine have achieved by that hour.” The audience chuckled knowingly, and Daumier’s smooth, childlike face broke into a smile. “Bingham admitted to me that he and Jones were well acquainted with each other and that they had steamed up the river aboard the same steamship, the War Eagle. He also told me he had arranged a meeting with Jones at midnight on the night he died and that they’d quarreled violently.”

  The jury leaned forward with interest. All around me, the gallery was listening carefully.

  “Did the defendant Bingham likewise admit he had taken Jones’s life with his own hands?”

  “He told me he was sick and tired of Jones, that he longed to be rid of him.” Several jurors began whispering back and forth. “They were in a contest, he told me, for the hand of Mademoiselle Roman.” Daumier nodded respectfully toward Tessie, who glared back. “He was on the point of admitting his guilt for the crime of murder even more explicitly when I’m afraid Monsieur Lincoln over there intervened.”

  “What, exactly, did Mr. Lincoln do?” asked Prickett, casting a sideways glance at his opposing counsel.

  “Bingham was in the middle of unburdening his soul,” said Daumier, “when Monsieur Lincoln interrupted our conversation and demanded that Bingham appoint him as his lawyer. After much cajoling by Lincoln, he did so, as a consequence of which Bingham refused to cooperate any further with my investigations.”

  Several men in the crowd muttered angrily. Lincoln rose to his feet. “I’d ask the Court to instruct the jury that it’s not wrong to seek and observe the advice of counsel, Your Honor.”

  Judge Thomas expelled a long trail of smoke from his cigar and shook his head. “I’ll do no such thing. The jury is free to draw whatever inferences from the defendant’s conduct it views as reasonable. Overruled. Proceed, Prickett.”

  “Did you leave your interview with Bingham, truncated though it was, suspicious he was Mr. Jones’s killer?” asked the prosecutor.

  “The circumstances seemed to admit no other possibility,” replied Daumier.

  “Did you investigate your suspicions further?”

  “I did. I boarded the War Eagle, the steamer on which Monsieur Jones spent his final days, in order to interview the crew of that vessel and also locate whatever other evidence might be available for collection relating to Bingham’s guilt.”

  “I want you to leave aside anything the crew told you,” said Prickett, “as a number of them are present with us, and they shall speak for themselves shortly.” He gestured toward Pound and his mates sitting uncomfortably against the far wall. “Did you uncover any additional evidence of Bingham’s guilt on the steamer War Eagle?”

  “I found one very telling item in particular,” responded Daumier. He looked directly over at me and smiled; at the same moment, Lincoln turned to me with an anxious frown. I could do no more than shrug in response to my friend.

  “Tell us about it,” Prickett was saying.

  “I searched the cabin the defendant Bingham had occupied during his trip, but there was nothing of consequence. However, when I searched the cabin of Monsieur Jones, I came upon an object of quite some interest.”

  I cursed silently, realizing that once Pound had told me Jones’s belongings would have been carted off at the Half-Breed Tract, I had never gone ahead with my idea to examine his stateroom. I could only hope that my oversight would not prove costly.

  “What did you find?”

  “There was a scrap of paper wedged underneath his mattress.”

  “Let me show what you found to my brother Lincoln first,” said Prickett in a magnanimous tone, “and then I shall show it to you and the jury.”

  Prickett made a great ceremony of opening one of the books resting on his chair and pulling forth a single sheet of lined blue paper. He handed it to Lincoln with a flourish.

  Leaning over Lincoln’s shoulder, I saw at once that the sheet contained two different sets of notations made by two different hands using two different inks. The top two-thirds of the page set out the following in a neat, looping script:

  New Orleans

  September 29, 1837

  Mr. John W. Jones Jr. sold to Mr. Alfonso McDaniel

  29 Bales Cotton

  380. 372. 387. 370. 366. 370. 392. 368. 401. 392. 374. 371. 372. 404. 388. 392. 394. 400. 387. 383. 387. 371. 373. 367. 369. 391. 402. 380. 372. = 11,075 lbs

  PAID 11,075 lbs at 18 ¾ cts = $ 2,076.56 PAID

  Meanwhile, a different hand had scribbled on the otherwise empty bottom portion of the same sheet:

  Roman Hall—Tessie—Bingham—

  A Fraud On Board

  Without comment, Lincoln gave the note back to Prickett, who handed it to the witness.

  “Is this the paper you found under Mr. Jones’s mattress?”

  “It is.” Daumier could not resist sneaking a triumphant glance in my direction.

  “While I allow the gentlemen of the jury to examine it,” Prickett continued smoothly, “tell us what it is.”

  “It’s two things in one. The top half, obviously, is a bill of sale for eleven thousand and some pounds of cotton. Monsieur Jones told several persons that he was carrying a great deal of money on his person on account of his having traveled to New Orleans to sell his family’s cotton harvest, and here’s the proof of that transaction.” Daumier paused. “The bottom half—”

  Lincoln quickly handed the books he’d been balancing on his lap to me and shot to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. The bill of sale may speak for itself, but the witness should not be allowed to speculate as to the contents or meaning of the remainder of the document.”

  “Mr. Prickett?” Judge Thomas asked, pulling on his cigar thoughtfully.

  “The witness will testify, Your Honor, that he is familiar with the decedent Jones’s handwriting from other samples and that he has developed a fair idea of the meaning of the statement. Mr. Lincoln is free to cross-question if he wants. I’d prefer, naturally, to have Mr. Jones’s testimony on the meaning of his words, but unfortunately Mr. Bingham ensured he isn’t around to give it.”

  “That’s not proper—” began Lincoln in an aggrieved tone, but the judge cut him off, saying, “Your objection is overruled. As Mr. Prickett says, you’re free to cross-examine. You may proceed, Prickett.”

  The prosecutor smiled obsequiously. “Thank you, Your Honor. Go ahead and describe the bottom half of the document to the best of your abilities, Avocat Daumier.”

  “The first thing to say is that it’s Jones’s longhand. As you mentioned, I was able to obtain another exemplar of his hand, from the ticket ledger of the War Eagle when he signed for his passage. The lettering matches precisely.”

  “Go on.”

  “So it’s obvious he took a scrap
of paper from his belongings and jotted down something of importance.” The document, having been passed about the gentlemen of the jury, had returned to Daumier by now, and the constable held it up and read from it. “‘Roman Hall . . . Tessie . . . Bingham . . . A fraud on board.’” He looked up at Prickett. “I don’t think there can be any doubt about his meaning. He had met Tessie—Miss Roman—and the defendant Bingham at Roman Hall, the estate owned by Miss Roman’s father. He’d thereafter ended up aboard the same ship as Bingham, his rival suitor, whom he considered a fraud.”

  Tessie and Bingham had been listening to Daumier’s testimony quietly, but the young woman blew out her breath impatiently at this declaration. Bingham leaned over and whispered into her ear. Not a few members of the jury studied the two lovers.

  “Tell the jury how this relates to your conclusion that the defendant Bingham is guilty of the murder of Mr. Jones,” said Prickett.

  Daumier shrugged as if with modesty. “The truth proclaims itself, does it not? Two men contest the hand of one woman. One of those men—Bingham—admits to me he has long sought the death of the other. The other”—Daumier waved the bill of sale in the air—“records his view that the first is a fraud. He subsequently ends up in the river, dead. What other conclusion could there be?”

  “Indeed,” said Prickett, taking his seat.

  “We’ll take our luncheon recess,” said Judge Thomas.

  But Lincoln shot to his feet. “With respect, Your Honor, I’d like to examine Constable Daumier now, when his testimony is fresh in our minds.” The judge glared at Lincoln for a moment but then nodded. I heard several of the jurors grumbling about the empty state of their stomachs.

  “Good morning, Constable,” began Lincoln. In the crowded courtroom, he stood barely three feet from his quarry, the very tall lawyer looking almost directly down at the seated, compact witness.

  “Avocat Daumier, if you please,” said the man pridefully.

  “Very well, Avocat Daumier,” replied Lincoln. “The honorific, I believe, refers to your prior service in France as a member of what we here in Illinois term ‘the bar,’ is that correct?”

  “The avocats are in the highest rank of the French system of judicature,” replied Daumier. “More comparable to a judge”—he nodded toward Judge Thomas, who pulled on his cigar coolly and affected not to notice the gesture—“than to a common lawyer.”

  “I wear the insignia of ‘common lawyer’ with pride,” said Lincoln, smiling.

  “I expect you do,” returned Daumier.

  I glanced at the jury and felt confident that Lincoln’s modesty was better received than Daumier’s grandiosity.

  “But common lawyer or esteemed jurist,” continued Lincoln, “would you agree with me that one should be in possession of all possible facts before coming to a conclusion of great legal significance?”

  “All facts that are available, yes, I’d agree.”

  “And yet you accuse George Bingham without possession of all the facts, or even most of them.”

  “With this, I do not agree,” said Daumier, frowning.

  “The cause of Mr. Jones’s death, for example. You have not provided any testimony regarding that subject today, have you?”

  “As you yourself know, Monsieur Lincoln, his body was pulled from the waters of the river. It is safe to assume, surely, he drowned.”

  “But was he alive when his body first entered the water?” Daumier hesitated. “Or had he been killed on board first?”

  “From my examination of his body, I concluded that he may have received a blow to the back of his head.”

  Lincoln nodded; Martha had told him during our dinner at Conran’s boarding house on the St. Louis levee about Daumier’s inadvertent revelation of this detail to her.

  “Struck how? By what implement?”

  “I do not see the difference,” Daumier said at last.

  “Similarly,” continued Lincoln, “there are other possible interpretations of the note you found. Isn’t that the case?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  Lincoln leaned down to examine the bill of sale, which remained on Daumier’s lap. “‘A fraud aboard,’” he read. “That could refer to any number of things.”

  “I must respectfully disagree,” said Daumier. “Especially when you look at the context of the writing. He references Bingham and their competition over Miss Roman’s hand, which began at Roman Hall. He is the fraud.” Daumier pointed at Bingham with his index finger, and the courtroom murmured at the emphatic accusation. Tessie tightened her grip on Bingham’s bound hands.

  “You’ve never talked to Jones about what he meant?”

  “Of course not,” replied Daumier. “The first time I laid my eyes on the man was when I examined his corpse.”

  “And you’ve never asked anyone who did speak to Jones during his lifetime what he could have meant?”

  “I did not. Again, I fail to see what other meaning there could be.”

  “You do know Mr. Jones lost a great deal of money—indeed, virtually the whole of the cotton proceeds referred to in that bill of sale—to a gambler at the card table on the very evening of his death, isn’t that correct?”

  “It is. I imagine the fervor of his competition for Miss Roman’s hand had driven away all reason.”

  “And you know Jones returned to the salon after his losses at the tables and threatened the gambler with mortal harm, before he was subdued by a member of the ship’s crew?”

  “You are correct.”

  “Perhaps that was the fraud.”

  “What—the card game? I do not think so.”

  “Why not?” pressed Lincoln. In the tight quarters, the two men almost seemed engaged in physical, hand-to-hand combat as they grappled with each other.

  “For one thing,” said Daumier, “the card game bears no relation to the other items he has written down. For another, it is very unlikely Monsieur Jones made these notes after the card game in question, if that is what you are suggesting.”

  “So you purport to tell us not only what this unseen man meant by his words but when he wrote them?”

  “But he is not an unseen man, Monsieur Lincoln,” said Daumier calmly. “At least he is not unseen to me. I feel I know him well. I have met many young men of his sort in this country. He is young, ambitious, adventurous. He pursues vigorously what he wants, and he is not used to disappointment.”

  Though I was careful to show no reaction, I thought the avocat’s diagnosis of Jones was unusually canny for a man he had never met. I would have described him in the same terms.

  Lincoln must have feared that Daumier’s description carried the ring of truth, because he said, with much sarcasm, “You know all this about a man you never met?”

  “Truly I do, Monsieur Lincoln,” said Daumier earnestly. “He is all these things. He loses at the tables, and he is furious. Outraged. Embarrassed, even. As you admit, he challenges the gambler with a firearm. This same man is then going to retreat to his cabin and soberly make notes assessing his situation? He is going to turn his anger inward, not outward?” Daumier shook his head. “Not if I am a student of mankind, he is not.”

  Lincoln’s shoulders slumped, and he took a step back from the avocat. He was losing the first battle of the trial, I feared, and the faces of the gentlemen of the jury made clear they believed so as well. But then Lincoln made one final thrust.

  “‘A fraud on board,’” said Lincoln, looking at Jones’s writing one more time. “You suggest Mr. Bingham was the fraud, and you dispute my suggestion of the tables. What about something else? Or someone else?”

  “What about it?” said Daumier.

  Lincoln drew himself up to his full height and gazed slowly around the courtroom before his eyes came to rest on the avocat again. “It may be possible Mr. Jones had become aware of another fraud on board the War Eagle.”

  Daumier looked at him suspiciously. “What are you suggesting, Monsieur Lincoln?”

  “Perhap
s another witness will help us answer that question,” replied Lincoln, moving to resume his seat.

  CHAPTER 32

  “What other fraud?” said Bingham urgently. “What have you found out?”

  We were gathered on the hillside above Captain Ryder’s offices. Lincoln, Bingham, Tessie, and I formed a tight circle, convenient not merely to avoid being overheard but also as a break against the winter wind, which whipped off the river. After much arguing, Runkin had consented to allow Lincoln to consult privately with his client during the noontime recess, but the guard stood thirty feet away and kept a surly gaze on his prisoner.

  “I have a few possibilities in mind,” said Lincoln. “At this stage of the trial, it’s sensible that we not get tied to any one strategy. Let’s see where the prosecution tries to take the evidence.”

  “George is innocent,” said Tessie with feeling. “You must make those men understand it.”

  “Mr. Lincoln’s doing his best, darling,” said Bingham.

  “No aspect of the defense will be more important than you, Miss Roman,” said Lincoln. “You’ll be my first witness, most likely. And even the mere impression you give, sitting next to Bingham and supporting him in front of the jury, is important.”

  I was about to condole Lincoln on his cross-examination when I felt a sharp jab in the small of my back. Yelling out in pain, I swung around to find Nanny Mae with her knitting needles poised to strike a second blow.

  “I answer to ‘Speed’ or ‘Joshua,’” I said. “Either will command my attention.”

  “Sometimes I’m too blamed tired to say the words,” the old woman said unapologetically. “You’ll understand when you get to be my age.”

  Smiling, I took her by the arm and walked a few steps away so that Lincoln could continue to talk with Bingham and Tessie in private. The crowd from the courtroom was scattered over the hillside leading down to the river and enjoying food and drink being purveyed by enterprising local innkeepers.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” I said.

  “I could hardly miss the biggest trial in years.”