by Otto Penzler
“Your people reelected you.”
“I should not have run. I am a man of the nineteenth century. I understood the challenges of the time—bringing an end to slavery, building the railroads, settling the western portions of the country. But my time is now over. We have moved into the twentieth century, and I have overstayed history’s welcome.”
I said, “Mr. President, if you were to be assassinated, what would become of your nation?”
He smiled. “That is one of the few things that don’t worry me. I selected a special man to be my vice presidential running mate. His name is Theodore Roosevelt. He’s what I can never be—a man of the twentieth century.”
“I’m afraid I know little about him,” said Holmes. “I remember reading that he led a cavalry charge up San Juan Hill.”
McKinley nodded. “He was running the U.S. Navy when war was declared. He resigned his Washington job and then organized his own troop of cavalry, fought alongside his men, and was recognized for his bravery. He is a genuine hero. And that should help when the country has to accept him as president. He is as well educated as a man in this country can be, is a respected historian, but also spent years running cattle in the Dakota Territory. He is only forty-two years old. He is fearless, intelligent, and utterly incorruptible. He is a man who sees these times so clearly that to a nineteenth-century man like myself, he seems clairvoyant. He is the man for the challenging times that are coming.”
“What challenges do you mean?” I asked.
“The ethnic and linguistic groups of Europe have been forging themselves into nations and joining alliances for decades now—Germany and Italy have risen, and Germany defeated France in 1870. The pan-Slav movement has united Russia with the Balkans. The strength of Russia places it at odds with the Turks and the Japanese. Now all of these nations, and dozens more, are in the process of arming themselves. They’re galloping toward a conflagration.”
“And what can Mr. Roosevelt do?”
“In a few days, he can begin by showing the world that once again, there will be an orderly succession here. When one American leader dies, another stronger and better leader will immediately step up into his place. And then Mr. Roosevelt will show the world that the United States has might. Knowing him, I believe he will begin with the navy, which he knows best. He has already suggested sending a Great White Fleet around the world to show the flag. Germany has been working to build a fleet stronger than the British navy. Maybe if the kaiser becomes aware that he would need to defeat two strong navies, he will hesitate to attack anyone for a time.”
“So you see Roosevelt as buying time?”
“Yes. I believe that if he does the job right, he can delay a general war by ten years. If he’s better than that, he can delay it by fifteen years. America is on the rise. Each day that our leaders can keep the peace makes the country richer, stronger, and less vulnerable. Keeping the peace will also give him the time to begin conserving the country’s wild places for posterity, and to begin curtailing and breaking up the trusts that have sprung up in industry to strangle competition and impoverish farmers and workers. I don’t know what else he’ll do. He is the man of the future, and I’m only a man of the past. I just know the time has come to get out of his way.”
“And what would become of you?”
“That, sir, will be up to you. I would like to have you arrange my assassination within the next few days. Then I want you to help me with my afterlife. My wife, Ida, and I want to go off somewhere to live the years allotted to us in anonymity and privacy. I love my country and I’ve done my best for it all my life. But now I would be content to watch it from a distance.” As he looked at Holmes, the president’s brows knitted in that stern way he had.
Holmes sat in silence for a moment. “Sir, I accept your charge. Tonight, I believe, is the third of September. We must move quickly and keep the number of conspirators very small. I believe we’ll be ready to move on the sixth.” He stood.
McKinley smiled and stood with him, so I had little choice but to do the same, although I felt a bit confused by their haste. I too took my leave, and Holmes and I went outside to find Captain Allen waiting by our cabriolet. We got in, and Allen said to the driver, “The Genesee Hotel,” and then stepped aside and let the cab go by.
On the way up Delaware, Holmes told the driver to stop at the telegraph office. There was one on Main Street, which was not far from our quarters. He went inside and wrote out a message he covered with his hand so I couldn’t accidentally glance at it, handed it to the telegraph operator, and paid him a sum of three dollars.
When we were back in the cabriolet, he said, “Take us to the Exposition grounds, please.”
“The buildings will be closed, sir,” said the driver. “It’s nearly midnight.”
“Exactly,” said Holmes.
The cab took us north along the deserted Delaware Avenue. The clopping of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestone pavement was the only sound. All of the great houses were closed and darkened.
After no more than ten minutes, we reached a section of the avenue that curved, and as we came around, the Pan-American Exposition rose before us. From this distance it was a strange and ghostly sight. It was 350 acres of buildings constructed on the site of the city’s principal park. Because the Exposition was, above all, a celebration of progress exemplified by electrical power, all of the principal buildings were decorated and outlined with lightbulbs, and all of them were lit, so the place looked like the capital of fairyland.
The countless bulbs glowed with a warm pink hue which never glared or fatigued the eyes, so a spectator’s attention was drawn to every detail, every color. I was dumbstruck at the sights. The Exposition grounds were bisected by a grand promenade running from the Triumphal Bridge at the south end to the Electric Tower at the north end. There were canals, lakes, and fountains surrounding all the buildings, so these large, complicated, and beautiful constructions with heavily ornamented walls were not only illuminated and outlined by the magical lighting, but the glow was repeated in lakes and canals that served as reflecting pools. As we approached, the impression was of a city, with domes and towers and spires everywhere.
The architecture was indescribable—a fanciful mixture of neoclassical, Spanish Renaissance baroque, and pure whimsy all placed side by side along the midway in every direction. There were some constructions that reminded me of the more ornate Hindu temples I’d seen, with their red and yellow paint and green panels.
Whenever I thought I had perceived the organizing principle of the Exposition, I saw my guess was inadequate and partial. The colors of the buildings at the south end were bright and vivid. The Temple of Music was a garish red, with green panels in its dome and a liberal use of gold and blue-green. Nearer the north end, by the Electric Tower, the colors had grown to be subtler, gentler, and more subdued, as though they represented a change from barbaric splendor to modern sophistication. I also saw monumental sculptures, like frozen plays, that purported to represent the Rise of Man, the Subjugation of Nature, the Achievements of Man. Another series was labeled the Age of Savagery, the Age of Despotism, the Age of Enlightenment. Perhaps if there was an organizing principle, it was that these were people who worshipped progress and pointed it out wherever they could detect it.
From time to time Holmes would jump down from our carriage and look closely at some building or press his face against the windows to see inside. Or he would stand on the raised edge of a fountain and stare along a prospect as though aiming a rifle at a distant target. He craned his neck to look along the tops of parapets, as though he were looking for imaginary snipers.
At length I got out and walked with him. “What are we doing?” I asked.
“The Exposition has been open all summer, and it’s now enjoying advertising by word of mouth. Current estimates are that it will have been visited by eight million people by its closing next month. If we came to do our examination tomorrow morning, not only would we draw attention to
ourselves, but we would be trampled by the crowds.”
“But what are we examining it for?”
“Vulnerabilities and opportunities, my friend. Not only must we find the best means, time, and place to conduct our feigned murder of the president, we must also make sure that we retain a monopoly on presidential murders for the day.”
“What?”
“You recall that President McKinley managed to give Spain a crushing defeat in 1898. That must make him seem to many European powers a dangerous upstart. He also has let the unscrupulous owners and operators of large U.S. companies and their political minions know that he intends to rescind many of their privileges and powers. I can hardly imagine a person with worse enemies than he has.”
“Is what you’re saying that we must keep Mr. McKinley alive in order to assassinate him?”
“Precisely. Our little charade can only flourish in the absence of genuine tragedy.” He walked along a bit farther. “That is why I told him we would move on the sixth. Giving ourselves until the tenth or twelfth might expose him to unacceptable risk.”
I remained silent, for I had finally realized what he was looking for. He showed special interest in the Acetylene Building, examining it from all sides and shaking his head. “The danger of explosion is too obvious,” he said. “We can avoid the hazard by keeping him away.”
We got out again at the Stadium in the north-east corner of the Exposition. It was a formidable place, considering it was built only for this summer, and like the other buildings, would be torn down at the end of it. The place could hold twelve thousand spectators. “This spot is tempting,” he said. “The marvel of large open spaces like this is that we could have him stand at a podium in the center, and assemble twelve thousand witnesses in the seats. They would all later swear that they saw the president killed, but none of them would have been close enough to really see anything but a man fall over.”
“It’s something to keep in mind,” I said. “We could contrive a rifle shot from up high—maybe on the Electric Tower—and pretend he’d been hit.”
“Let’s see what else is available.” We returned to our cab and Holmes directed the driver farther down the main thoroughfare.
We moved south to the ornate Temple of Music. It was about 150 feet on a side, with truncated corners so its square shape looked rounded. It had a domed roof, and every exposed surface was plastered with ornate decorations and painted garish colors, primarily red, and surrounded by statuary representing some sort of allegory that no living man could decipher—kinds of music, I supposed.
Holmes showed particular interest in this building. He walked around it from every side, looked in the windows, and, finally, picked the lock on the door and went inside. It was a large auditorium with a stage at the far end and removable seats in the center. “I believe we may have found what we were looking for,” he said. When we went out, he took a moment to relock the door.
We took our cab back to the Genesee Hotel and paid our tired driver handsomely for the long evening he’d had.
The next morning, as Holmes and I were having breakfast in our room, there was a quiet knock on the door. I got up to open it, expecting it to be Captain Allen. But there, standing in front of me, was an elderly man. Judging from his snow-white hair, his clothing, worn and a bit discolored from many washings, and the positively ancient shoes he was wearing, I thought him to be a tradesman who had gotten too old to pursue his trade. As kindly as I could, I said, “May I help you, sir?”
“Yes, my friend,” said the old man in a cracked voice. “Is this the suite of Mr. Holmes?”
“Why, yes it is. Would you like to come in?”
As he stepped into the sitting room, Holmes emerged from his bedroom and grinned. “Ah, Mr. Booth. I’m very glad to see you could come so quickly.” He added, “And thank you for hiding your identity so effectively.”
The elderly gentleman immediately straightened, stepped athletically to Holmes, and shook his hand with a smile. “The journey was by night, and very quick,” he said. “I came as soon as my final show was over. We’re due to begin rehearsals for the next one in New York in a month, and if I’m not back, my understudy will stand in for me.” He looked at each of us in turn. “Do you mind if I make myself at ease?” he said, as he pulled off the white hair, then carefully removed the mustache and put them in the pocket of his oversized coat. He had become a young man, perhaps twenty-one to twenty-five, as tall and healthy-looking as before he had been bent and weak.
“This is my friend Watson,” said Holmes. “He has my utmost confidence and trust. Watson, this is Mr. Sydney Barton Booth, a member of the premier family of actors in this country.”
I pulled him aside and whispered. “Booth?” I said. “But Holmes—”
“Yes.” He spoke loudly and happily. “The same.”
The young man said, “I’m twenty-three years old. My uncle John Wilkes Booth’s terrible deed took place twelve years before I was born. He was the only one of my father, grandfather, and nine aunts and uncles who sympathized with the Confederacy. The others were staunch Union people and supporters of President Lincoln.”
“The Booth family have long ago outlived any suspicion,” Holmes said. “In the interim, they have continued their tradition of fine acting, and particularly in the realistic portrayal of human emotion. Mr. Sydney Booth is considered the finest of his generation. I had deduced from our invitation that we would need the services of an excellent American actor. A friend of mine from the British stage whom I contacted before we left informed me that the Booths have always searched for a way to make up for the mad actions of Mr. Booth’s uncle. He also gave me his professional opinion that the present Mr. Booth was likely to be our man. We need him more than I had predicted, although in a performance with a very different ending.”
“But have you warned Mr. Booth of the delicacy and danger of the role he would be playing?”
Holmes turned to Booth. “Mr. Booth, our scheme is dangerous in the extreme, and will earn you little thanks if you are successful. The only reward is that it is a patriotic task that I am persuaded will strengthen your country—and with it, ours, at least for a time.”
Booth said, “I can think of nothing that would make me happier.”
Holmes said, “There will be only a handful who are invited to join in our conspiracy. In addition to us there will be the president, of course; his trusted secretary, Mr. Cortelyou; the chief of police of Buffalo, Mr. William Bull; the head of the military contingent, whom I hope will be our friend Captain Allen; and Dr. Roswell Park, the most respected physician in the city. Each of them may have a trusted ally or two who will need to be told some part of the plan, but not all.”
“That reminds me,” I said. “I must be on my way. I’m meeting with Dr. Park this morning.” I took my hat and cane and left the suite.
I found that my American medical counterpart, Dr. Roswell Park, was a man of great learning and a citizen of some standing in the medical community. He and I toured the University of Buffalo medical school facilities, the county morgue, and three of the local hospitals, as well as the field hospital that had been established at the edge of the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition. Everywhere we went, all doors opened and he was welcomed, something between a visiting potentate and a fatherly benefactor.
He and I examined the X-ray machine that was on display at the Exposition, which made it possible to see inside the body to detect a break in a bone or identify dangerous lesions. There was also an infant incubator on the midway, which I found particularly promising.
In many of our moments we were in places where the only possible eavesdroppers were the dead—the cadavers used for dissection by medical students, or the fresh bodies of transients found near the docks off Canal Street. During these times we discussed the difficulties of the assignment that the president and Holmes had given us, but we found a number of solutions in accepted medical protocols and in the simple matter of being prepared in advan
ce to make sure events unfolded in certain ways and not others. Dr. Park was a man of such thoroughness that he thought of some things I had not—making sure that certain interns and nurses would be the ones on duty the afternoon and evening of September 6, because they would unhesitatingly follow his every order, and arranging to have horse-drawn ambulances prepared to make certain clandestine deliveries during the nights that followed. By the end of that day I was ready to entrust my life to Dr. Park. It was a sentiment that went unexpressed, because that was precisely what I was doing, as he was entrusting his life to me.
I returned to the Genesee Hotel in the evening, and found Holmes and Booth still in earnest conference. Holmes had brought out the makeup kit that I’d sometimes seen him use in London. It was a mixed collection of substances he had borrowed from the art of the theater, but even more liberally borrowed from the more subtle paints and powders employed by fashionable ladies in the interest of beauty. He had often gained information in the past by posing as a longshoreman or a gypsy or an old bookseller, and this kit had helped transform his face. It seemed from the change in his appearance that the young actor Mr. Booth was as expert as Holmes. He had changed once more. He now appeared to be a rough sort of fellow of thirty years who worked outdoors with his hands. His skin and hair had darkened a bit so he seemed to be from somewhere in continental Europe.
They had also laid out a series of maps of the Pan-American Exposition grounds that Holmes appeared to have drawn from memory. Booth was studying one of them.
