The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy

by Jacopo della Quercia

  Morgan looked like his face had transformed into a ticking time bomb. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Wilkie scooted to the edge of his seat. “Jay—”

  “Don’t call me Jay.”

  “Jay, Mr. Edison was approached in ’09 by then-Secretary Carpenter to construct an important piece of equipment for the U.S. government. At the same time, you personally praised Edison’s abilities in a private communication to President Taft.”

  “I did no such thing!” Morgan shouted.

  “Yes, you did. I’ve seen the telegrams. They were among the many sweet songs of praise you sent the president shortly after his inauguration. Since this equipment Edison constructed is currently under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, I am afraid you must provide the Treasury with all necessary financial records—”

  “I will not comply!”

  “Including shipping manifests,” Wilkie stressed, “so that we can clear this business partner you know so well of any culpability in an attempt on the president’s life.”

  J. P. Morgan was furious. His face was so boiled over with anger that his nose turned dark purple. Choking with rage, he turned to Attorney General Wickersham. “You cannot possibly condone this schoolyard rambunctiousness. This is criminal idiocy!”

  “Mr. Morgan,” Wickersham said in a calm, controlled tone, “I am the chief law enforcer of the United States. We are not asking for your assistance or your opinion on these matters. We are telling you that you will provide us with the information we need to conduct our investigation.”

  Morgan emitted a deep grunt that shot smoke through his nostrils. “Gentlemen,” he glared, “this conversation is over. If you have any further questions, address them to my attorneys and not me at my library. Or at my office. Or in my home. You are not welcome here, and it is time for you to leave. Do I make myself clear?”

  “As plain as,” Wilkie paused, “that … thing on your face.”

  The ash fell from J. P. Morgan’s cigar.

  * * *

  “That went well,” said Wilkie, proudly puffing his Meridiana Kohinoor. The bronze doors behind him slammed closed and locked.

  “I’m glad you think so, John, because I’m afraid we are no closer to linking Morgan to the attack on Dr. Tesla.”

  “I figured as much,” Wilkie puffed. “With your permission, I’d like the Secret Service to assume authority over the Tesla affair in the interest of gathering information potentially connecting it to the attack on the president.”

  “It’s yours,” said Wickersham as the two reached the sidewalk and made a right toward Fifth Avenue. “Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be a while before you get the records you need out of Morgan. He’ll stonewall us until the day he dies if he has to.”

  “Yeah, about that. George, do you think Secretary MacVeagh would object to me employing some experimental methods as part of my investigation?”

  “You’re not going to kill Morgan, are you?”

  “No, but I am thinking of sending a secret agent to monitor the house of Morgan personally.”

  “You want to penetrate his fortress?” Wickersham laughed. “I don’t think any man could pull off that feat.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m sending a woman.”

  Wickersham stopped walking. “You’re talking about Miss Knox.”

  “Well, naturally.”

  “Miss Knox is your secret—”

  “Shh-shut up!” hushed Wilkie. “Why else do you think I hired her? Kate Warne proved invaluable to Allan Pinkerton. I’m confident that my little angel will perform just as admirably.”

  “You crazy Chicagoans,” Wickersham said, shaking his head. “John, this is a bad idea.”

  “Can you think of a better one? You saw that nice toffer Morgan has working for him. The man clearly has an affinity for pretty faces. If Miss Knox can use her looks and smarts to get a job at J. P. Morgan’s head office, we’ll be up to our armpits in confidential paperwork come Christmas.”

  “John, I’m more concerned about her safety. I mean, she’s Philander Knox’s niece.”

  “Relax!” Wilkie said smugly. “If Morgan so much as pinches her bottom, she’ll castrate him with a letter opener. I know she’s the shortest person in whatever room she’s in, but she’s also the deadliest. The young lady is well trained in Bartitsu, judo, jujutsu, fencing … hell, I’ve even boxed with her! You just wait and see, George. She’ll be the perfect concealed weapon for the Secret Service on this case.”

  “Well, can we at least discuss this over lunch?”

  “Sure. Delmonico’s is just a few blocks from here. In the meantime, let me buy you some ice cream.”

  * * *

  “Are they gone?”

  “Yes, Pierpont.”

  J. P. Morgan stepped back from his window and took a puff from his disappearing cigar. “Good. Call the wire operators. Tell them we need an emergency meeting.”

  “Right away, sir.” Belle hurried out of the study while Morgan returned to his desk. He took a pad and paper and wrote:

  A L I E N S

  And then, after some consideration:

  He set the note aside and resumed his solitaire. A few minutes later, he reached for a new Meridiana Kohinoor only to discover that his leather cigar box was empty. John Wilkie had taken every single one of J. P. Morgan’s hand-rolled Havanas.

  The king of Wall Street threw the empty tobacco chest across the room and swore angrily.

  Chapter XIV

  “BULL—!”

  Captain Butt looked up from the ticker tape. “That’s all it says, sir.”

  Robert Todd Lincoln and John Hays Hammond shared a look of mutual puzzlement. President Taft, who knew the wireless room was not built for a man of his size, preferred to stand in the doorway. He teased his mustache as he contemplated the message.

  “Is this some type of code word?” Taft asked the captain.

  “No, sir.” The transmission was Wilkie’s report on his recent meeting with J. P. Morgan. His entire report. Mr. Hammond, who was not entirely used to John Wilkie’s curtness, could not help snickering.

  “Robert, may I have a word with you?” Taft walked back to the Oval Office before his friend could respond. It was the first time the president had ever given Robert an order.

  “I’m sorry I could not be more helpful,” Hammond confided.

  “It’s all right,” said Robert. “Just take today’s samples back to the laboratory. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

  “Of course.” John picked up a tote full of vials and was about to walk out the door, but Robert caught him.

  “John!” Lincoln picked up a sealed jar on the table containing two tiny metallic fragments. “Please do not forget these! Keep them on your person at all times. Never leave them unattended.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry.” John accepted the precious container, but his tired eyes were full of grief. “You know I can’t give you a definite report on these until we’re back in the States, right?”

  “I know. Take all the time you need.” Robert nodded to Captain Butt and then hurried out the door.

  “Robert…”

  The last son of Lincoln turned around.

  “It could be many months,” John added.

  Robert, standing alone in the corridor with his coat wrinkled and mud speckled on his boots, bowed his head in reply. He was prepared to accept whatever fate was awaiting him in the Oval Office.

  It had not been a good week for anyone on the airship.

  * * *

  “Why won’t you tell John about the pocket watch?”

  “We have already discussed this. You know I cannot.”

  “Bob, do you realize how severely you’ve crippled this entire adventure with your secrecy?”

  “Will, I do not have a choice!”

  It was Saturday in Alaska, sunset, and for the third day in a row there was nothing unusual on the ground or in the skies above the Wrangell Mountains. For Captain Butt at
the helm, the landscapes were scenic but not surreal. There were countless clouds and stars to behold, but no spectacular streaks of blue light. For Robert and John, the airship’s modest laboratory became a headquarters filled with snow, earth, air, and ice collected throughout the region. Unfortunately, the zeppelin lacked the necessary equipment to test these samples thoroughly. There had been no grand discoveries. No surprises. No little green men from Mars.

  Although the president had prepared for this scenario by saying and doing very little the entire trip, something he did not anticipate nor know how to handle was the mounting crisis over Robert Todd Lincoln’s pocket watch. When Robert first revealed this mysterious timepiece to Taft, he did not expect the president to tell anyone about it. Not Captain Butt, not John, and most certainly not Nellie. One week later, tensions were brewing between the two men over who should know about the device, transforming the Oval Office on Airship One into a floating room full of arguments.

  “Bob, you could tell Archie was insulted we did not include him in your initial investigation. Why keep him in the dark all over again?”

  “Mr. President, we both know whose decision it was to exclude him from the Halley’s comet affair.”

  “Yes, we do,” Taft said sternly, “and while I do not agree with everything Nellie tells me, I accept her decisions. All the same, you need to accept that we would probably not be here right now if I did not tell her about your pocket watch.”

  “Will, you had already offered me the airship by that point.”

  Taft slammed his hand against his table. “But not before that goddamn automaton tried to murder me in the White House!”

  Robert shook his head and took a long drink from his tumbler. The two had been rehashing the same argument all week, only from rotating parts of the office and with slightly different vocabulary. Robert glanced into his nearly empty glass of scotch and ice, wanting nothing short of a silver bullet to end this discussion once and for all. He looked at the Surprise cabinet, which presented one option. “Do you have any more of that comet vintage?” he asked. “The 1858?”

  The president’s mood lifted. “I might. Let me check.” Taft walked over to the cabinet and flipped through its shelves. After a thorough search, his mustache drooped a bit. “No. There’s a bottle of ’61, but it’s not on ice. Besides, I think we should avoid a Civil War year.”

  The room brightened a bit thanks to the president’s attempt at humor.

  “Too bad,” said Robert. “I think the ’58 would have cleared our heads. My father saw that comet the night before his third debate with Stephen Douglas.”

  “Really?” Taft smiled. “Did it help him?”

  Robert rubbed his short, thick beard. “I think seeing the comet lifted his spirits going into the debate. My father was in an unfriendly part of Illinois that day. I imagine he took the comet as a sign of better things to come.”

  “In that case, I suggest we do the same with this elixir.” Taft popped the cork off a bottle of 1811 Veuve Clicquot, which he had been saving in the event that John and Robert made a major discovery. Since there appeared to be none in sight and the president considered the current situation an emergency, he poured two tall glasses of the bubbly stuff and handed one to his friend. “With malice toward none!” Taft toasted, lifting his glass high.

  “With charity for all,” Robert followed.

  The two clinked their glasses and drank down the comet.

  “Thanks, Bob.” Taft belched. “I needed that.”

  “I think we both did.” With peace restored, the two friends were finally able to talk out their differences. Robert went first. “You have to understand, Will. If I am wrong about Alaska just as I was about Halley’s comet, I do not want to disgrace my family name by having brought my father’s assassination into this. I have worked so hard for so long to preserve his memory, and I must not tarnish it during these last few years of my life.” Robert looked up at Taft. “Please respect that.”

  Taft leaned with one hand against the Roosevelt desk. “Bob, you will always have my deepest respect and admiration, but you need to be more open with those who are here to help you. Archie gossips like a magpie, I’ll give you that, but I think Jack has a right to know the real reason why we brought him three thousand miles from home.”

  “I gave him two samples from the watch’s power source,” assured Robert. “He should be able to determine everything he needs to know about its mechanics from them.”

  “I don’t think that’s enough, Bob. I think we need to bring in a new brain to figure out where the watch was built.”

  “Why is that?”

  Taft looked this way and that, as if someone was listening. “Suppose you’re right about the phenomenon you monitored here, but wrong about where the pocket watch comes from. ‘Made in America’ could refer to anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. I know your reasons for suspecting Alaska, but how many of the world’s greatest clockmakers ever lived in this icebox?”

  “I will admit that I sometimes ask the same question.”

  Taft thought for a moment. “Let me see it again.”

  Robert set his champagne glass on the Roosevelt desk and handed Taft the folded handkerchief from his pocket. The president unwrapped it and, once again, carefully studied the mysterious object’s even more mysterious message:

  Сдѣлано

  въ

  Америкѣ

  “I wish I knew the Russian for ‘curiouser and curiouser,’” said Taft. He looked the watch over and weighed it in his hand. “Is there anything special about this stone?” he asked, pointing at the fob.

  Robert wrinkled his eyebrows. “The quartz?”

  “Yeah. You said whatever powers this watch is the most unusual thing about it, but what about its fob? Did this rock come from Alaska, or America, or … well, did it even come from this planet?”

  “Gold-bearing quartz is rare, but not impossible to find,” said Robert. “The forty-niners mined plenty of it during the California Gold Rush.”

  “Is there any gold-bearing quartz in Alaska?”

  “There might be. I will ask John. However, I doubt the Russians would have sold us Alaska if they knew there was gold here.”

  Taft took one last look at the engraving before snapping the watch shut. “This doesn’t make any sense to me. The more you tell me about this timepiece, the more it sounds like it did not come from Alaska.” Taft wrapped the watch in Robert’s handkerchief and handed it back to its owner.

  “It is possible,” Robert reluctantly admitted. “And for that reason, I am willing to accept that this watch is no longer a matter of national security.”

  Taft looked concerned, as if his words were somehow pushing Robert away from him. “But there are still so many unanswered questions about the mountains and the mines!”

  “I agree, but there is the distinct possibility—no, the likelihood—that this pocket watch has absolutely nothing to do with them. John and I collected our materials and he will run the necessary tests on them at Yale, but as for this mystery”—Robert patted the pocket watch in his coat—“I do not want to burden the government with my problems for one minute more.”

  “Bob…” Taft implored. “Helping you find all the answers to your father’s murder is not a burden. Please, I only want to help you more!”

  “I am the most qualified person in the country to investigate this,” Robert affirmed. “I have my father’s papers and was able to find the pocket watch in the first place. If I am lucky, there may be something in my archives that eluded me.”

  Taft bit his lip, empathizing. “Well, for whatever it’s worth, it’s probably better off that you will be far away from me these next few months. Nellie is meeting with George Wickersham as we speak. If they choose to go to war with J. P. Morgan, he is going to fight against my administration with every ounce of his strength.”

  “Really? The government is finally going to break up U.S. Steel?”

  “Possibly,” Taft
acknowledged. “And I think a mutual friend of ours is not going to be all too happy about that.”

  “Which one?” asked Robert.

  The president lowered his head and groaned loudly. “Politics makes me sick.”

  Chapter XV

  Theodore Rex

  My dear sister:

  The meeting between the President and Colonel Roosevelt is over, and none, not even any of us who are with him, are much the wiser as to what actually happened. They lunched at Mr. White’s, and then, at the Colonel’s suggestion, he and the President were left alone, with Jimmy Sloan on guard at the door. Even Griscom and Norton were excluded, and whatever passed between them remains a secret between them—up to the present time. When I arrived, after lunching with Stokes and Mrs. Griscom, they were still locked in the dining room. Jimmy told me that no person had been with them and added:

  “The Colonel is too foxy a guy to let any of these chumps hear what he says.”

  … Such is politics as seen from the inside, dear Clara. Aren’t you glad that Lewis is in the wholesale cotton business?

  With love,

  Archie.17

  * * *

  Taft sat comfortably at the head of the dining room table, munching salted almonds and sipping coffee while the former president quickly closed the curtains across the room. It was an overcast and unpleasant day, but old Big Lub could not complain. Spending a September afternoon in New Haven was a trip down memory lane for the Yale graduate. Besides, he did not just ride a motorboat across Long Island Sound from Oyster Bay, battling gale-force winds, six-foot waves, and probably a few great white sharks along the way. Why didn’t TR just take the train? Such is the strenuous life, Taft supposed.

  The perceptive president could not help admiring his predecessor as he moved. He had the body of a football player, the speed of a boxer, the eyes of an archer, the mustache of a bodybuilder, and the determination of an Olympic athlete. He circled the room like a general once the curtains were closed, checking every door and lock until he finally settled in his chair. The former president sat upright, took a loud gulp from his enormous coffee cup, and nodded with approval. The coffee, just as requested, was strong enough to take the balls off a bull.