The Illusion of Murder

by McCleary, Carol

  Even though there are other people about, every now and then I can’t help taking a look behind me. It’s dark and I still have the key someone has killed for.

  A short distance down the tracks they are connecting a Pullman car behind mine. It’s a beautiful car, polished forest green with a substantial gold trim that obviously shows it belongs to someone with an abundance of wealth.

  I stop and stare at the nameplate on the side of the car, the name engraved in gold on a silver plaque.

  Amelia.

  My heart beats a little faster and I get a flash of a man speaking her name as his lifeblood poured out onto the ground.

  A porter steps down from the Amelia and lights a cigarette, and I saunter over to him.

  “Good evening.”

  “Evenin’, ma’am.”

  “Isn’t this Mr. Westcot’s car?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

  “I met him once. Would you mind taking my card to him?”

  “Can’t do that, he’s not aboard.”

  “Really? Who’s using the car?”

  A grunt comes from above us. A man is standing on the top of the Pullman’s steps looking down at us.

  The porter mutters, “’Scuse me,” and goes up the steps, the man moving aside for him without ever turning his eyes from me.

  Another man, a chip off the old block of the one that’s staring down, appears from behind me.

  Feeling boxed in, I quickly move away.

  Obviously they are plainclothes policemen; they have the thick necks, beefy frames, and Irish whiskey noses of New York City’s Finest, with the roomy cheap suits that all seem to be cut from the same cloth.

  They also could be Pinks, a nickname crooks have given Pinkerton’s private detectives. Many Pinks are former policemen and to find them protecting a millionaire’s rail car would not be unusual. The men employed by the agency founded by Allan Pinkerton, an immigrant from Scotland who was Chicago’s first police detective, are much favored by businessmen as investigators, guards, and strike breakers ever since the Pinks foiled a plot to assassinate President-Elect Lincoln when he traveled by train to the inauguration in Washington.

  Why are two coppers guarding the Amelia? Or, more likely, whoever is in it. It certainly isn’t its owner, Westcot; he’s on his way to count his money out west.

  Turning around, I smile politely and give them a “Good evening.”

  Not particularly friendly greetings are returned, along with tips of their hats.

  Very interesting … coppers, for sure. But I did get a surprise—their accents are British.

  So why are two British dicks protecting the train car of Sarah’s lover?

  Who is important enough that one of the richest men in America gives up his luxurious Pullman so his guest can have a romantic tryst with an actress?

  It’s a very short list, for sure … but who?

  An answer comes to mind as to the possible identity of the lover, but it’s so incredible, so far-fetched that not even my vivid imagination will accept it as gospel. It’s simply not within the realm of reason that one of the most important men on the planet is in that train car. Not even what Frederick thinks is my overworked imagination can make me believe that he is in that car. If that were the case, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

  It just can’t be … which only leaves me aching to find out who is in that Pullman.

  * * *

  I CAN’T SLEEP.

  Lying awake, I listen for the telltale sounds of Sarah leaving her compartment for a romantic rendezvous with the mysterious occupant of the Amelia, but I don’t hear it. She might have sneaked out too quietly for me to hear over the noise of rolling wheels on the rails and the creak of the train cars.

  I finally doze off but in the middle of the night I’m jolted awake as the brakes screech, bringing us to a stop to take on coal and water.

  The moment I wake up I know what my next step must be. I quickly dress, and remove the key from my shoe heel and slip it into my pocket. As I put my hand on the compartment’s doorknob, I pause for a moment and ask myself: Should I really go through with this?

  The train has stopped, it’s the dead of the night, and the rest of the world is asleep. I have the key to Amelia. This is an opportunity that might not be repeated.

  If there are easier ways to find out what’s in the storage locker rather than sneaking around in the dark, they all avoid me at the moment.

  Fighting the jitters, I lean my forehead on the door and close my eyes. Do I really want to do this? Now or never, that’s the answer. If I am ever going to do it, it has to be now.

  I squeeze the key in my hand. I made a promise to a dead man to get the key to “Amelia.” Well, this is the only way that promise can be kept.

  It’s time to open Pandora’s box and see what is inside.

  64

  Slipping by the snoring porter’s curtained bunk, I quickly open and close the exit door behind me to keep a breeze from sneaking in and awakening him.

  The night is cold and dark as my feet touch the rocky rail bed and I immediately regret that I didn’t wear my ulster.

  Down toward the front of the train, I can make out the chute that is feeding coal to the tender car and a line from a water tank to the boiler. It’s a fuel stop in the middle of nowhere, with no houses, no station. I am at the far end of my train car from the Amelia and I have to walk slowly and cautiously to keep my footing on the rocky bed. After everything I have been through, it would be a fitting conclusion to my race around the entire world if I were to fall and hit my head and be left on the side of the tracks while the train continues on to a triumphant arrival at New Jersey—minus me.

  No light shows in any of the Amelia’s windows. The undercarriage storage locker is about halfway down the length of the car.

  Despite the crunch-crunch-crunch noise I’m making, I pick up my step because I don’t want to run into someone who decides to stretch their legs and get a breath of fresh air.

  Crouching down in front of the locker, I wish I had had the foresight to stick a kitchen match in my pocket because it’s too dark to see the lock hole. Fortunately, exploring with my fingers, I find it.

  A serious case of the jitters has set my nerves on fire, as if my body knows something I don’t—but should.

  Fumbling, I drop the key onto the rocky train bed that is black from soot and coal dust. Patting the ground I find it, and using two hands to guide it, I slip the key in the lock and turn it. The brackets make an awful metal grating noise that makes me cringe as I lift the lid. Damn. I’m so jittery, I’m sure the scraping is loud enough to wake the dead. And I can’t see anything in the locker; it’s just a black void. Either it’s completely empty or whatever is inside is farther back, hidden in the darkness.

  I reach back as far as I can, but feel nothing. Pandora’s box is empty? I edge back and stare at the box, refusing to believe the obvious—the key to Amelia has opened an empty box.

  Footsteps crunch to my right and I turn to a gun in my face.

  * * *

  “YOU CALLED THAT ONE RIGHT, MR. SELOUS. The woman’s a troublemaker—that’s a certainty for sure.”

  The speaker is one of the British coppers, a redheaded one. The train has finished fueling and we are in the common area of the car containing Frederick’s compartment. While the redheaded copper had pointed his gun at my nose outside, his mate ran up behind me, putting aside his own pistol only long enough to handcuff me.

  Treating me as if I’m a dangerous criminal when I’m investigating a case does so remind me of my interactions with New York’s Finest.

  Lord Warton has joined the others trampling me underfoot, poetically at least, but the night is young. They may still kick me like a dog.

  His lordship has a whiskey glow and he’s unsteady on his feet. Obviously he has been sucking on a bottle in the middle of the night. Whatever demons drive him to find relief with John Barleycorn seem to have intens
ified since I last saw him aboard the ship.

  Frederick had come to my rescue and had them put away their guns and remove the cuffs, telling them, “She’s not dangerous … just nosy.”

  Listening with a cold sense of fury to the men boasting and back-patting themselves and each other, I keep my peace because I have no defense.

  Frederick refuses to meet my eye, which is fine with me because I’m more angry at myself than at him. He had guessed my intent and told the coppers, and they set a trap. Walking into it was inexcusable.

  Other passengers, who had poked their heads out of their compartments to see what all the commotion was about when I went ballistic at being manhandled, were ordered back to bed. Sarah never showed her face.

  Vigilance committee. That is how I have come to think of the Brits who have seized me as if I am a criminal. Like the groups of men who cleaned up San Francisco and many another Western towns by stringing up the bad guys to the nearest trees, the British coppers act with authority when they have none. That the two coppers have guns, muscles, and look very much like police detectives, make them the natural administrators of justice at the moment.

  When I reach my fill of the abuse as they debate how to “restrain” my “wild impulses,” I start throwing verbal punches. “At the next stop, I’ll have the sheriff remove all of you from the train,” I tell the redhead, “and place you, your cohort, and the rest of this posse of vigilantes under arrest for manhandling a woman.”

  “I’ll have you know we are police officers,” the redheaded copper snaps back.

  “Then you’re thousands of miles outside your jurisdiction. You’re a bunch of foreigners who have attacked an American citizen.”

  Frederick reaches to pat my hand and I jerk it away. “Nellie—”

  “What is your authority, Mr. Selous? And the rest of you, tell me, who granted you a license to kidnap a woman and hold her prisoner?” I look from one to the other, giving a good stare to each. “It’s pretty obvious that you have plotted with my competitor to keep me from winning. In case you haven’t noticed, the local police have been at every stop to cheer me on.”

  That is not completely true, but I threw it in for good measure.

  “When I step out at the next stop and inform the crowd that you have physically assaulted me, do you have any idea what the men in that crowd are going to do?”

  The redheaded copper looks at Selous. “I thought you said she wasn’t dangerous.”

  “She needs to be locked up,” Warton manages to say.

  His drunken slur reminds me of my drunken stepfather who abused our entire family with his bad words and beatings. I hated that man. I step up to Warton to make sure I am right in his face.

  “I am filing charges of slander and abuse against you at the next stop. You can look for your next bottle of whiskey in a jail cell, if you aren’t strung up to the nearest tree by the crowd first.”

  Lord Warton takes a step backward, almost falling as he stumbles. The man is so horrified, he appears ready to totally collapse.

  “I’ll have you horsewhipped.” He points a shaky finger at me.

  “Another threat for the police!” I snap.

  Frederick steps in between us. “Show his lordship back to his compartment,” he orders the redheaded officer. “Return to your duties,” he tells the other officer.

  Frederick grabs my arm and I jerk it loose. “You’re also going to jail.”

  He starts laughing and that spikes my rage.

  “Stop, please,” he begs, “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at the way the others got out of here so fast.”

  There seems to be an eternal silence as we stand staring at each other.

  Naturally, I break it. “I meant it when I said I’d have the whole gang of you arrested.”

  “I’m sure you could do it; you’re America’s sweetheart. But after what I’ve been through since I met you, a long prison term sounds like paradise.”

  “What you’ve been through? I have blood on me from murder and nearly was killed myself not once but twice. I hope a big, strong man like you wasn’t too terrified as I fought killers.”

  Satisfied that I have gotten the last word in, I start for my room. He follows, whispering magic words: “I have answers to your questions.”

  Weak person that I am when it comes to a story, my feet stop.

  He touches my arm again, gingerly, as if he’s afraid I’ll bite. “Please join me for a moment in my compartment where we can talk in private.”

  We sit across from each other. Pushing the wrinkles out of my dress, I sit back and clasp my hands together.

  “First,” he says, “let me tell you what I meant when I said I’d had nothing but trouble since I met you. You aren’t the cause of the trouble, it just happens that it began about the time we met.”

  “Tell me everything,” I command. “Everything. Start at the beginning. And try not to lie too much.”

  “Before I begin, I must have your word of honor that what I’m about to tell you will never find its way to the public during the lifetimes of any involved.”

  “I can’t promise that, I’m a reporter. Besides, I already know a great deal.”

  “Your promise is required for me to go on.”

  “How can I make a promise when I don’t know all the facts? What if you tell me something that in good conscience should be revealed to the public or the proper authorities?” I hold up my hand to stop his objection. “I will commit to this. If you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t do the story, I won’t do it. But … only if I find the reason compelling. I’ve already put together much more than you realize and I don’t care what country ends up controlling the Suez Canal. And I’m positive that I know the identity of the mysterious personage whom Sarah is visiting.”

  Much of what I “know” qualifies as wild guesses, but I doubt he’s going to be completely honest with me anyway. I don’t know how many chords I hit—he appears a bit amused—so I lock eyes with him in order for him to get the full impact of my knockout punch.

  “How is good old Bertie?” I ask, attempting a cockney accent.

  That wipes the humor from his face. His eyes narrow and his forehead folds into wrinkles. “You are dangerous.”

  “Start talking,” I command again. It feels good to have the upper hand after scraping bottom. “Start with the murder in the marketplace.”

  “Fine. The events that led up to that deadly confrontation began some weeks earlier, at least for me. I was visiting an old hunting chum in Cairo, a Turkish collector of exotic animals who has dealings with a wide variety of individuals in Egypt, including those who are ardent followers of the Mahdi movement. Let’s call him Bey. He heard a story that I didn’t find credible, but when I passed it on to the head of our mission in Cairo, I was shocked to discover that there was credence to it.

  “Bey told me that a plot had been hatched by the Mahdi to galvanize the entire Egyptian population behind them by striking a blow against Britain that would shock the entire world. The plot is to assassinate a very important personage—”

  “Bertie,” I interject.

  “The plot is to kill the individual while he is on a, uh—”

  “Romantic tryst?”

  He clears his throat. “While he’s on an unreported horse-racing venture in America. As you must know from reading newspapers, the gentleman is an ardent racehorse owner who regularly enters his horses at important British meets and on the Continent. He has had for a number of years a friendly competition with Mr. Westcot about who has the fastest three-year-old filly in the world. The track time of the two horses are the same and the only way they can settle the matter is to race them together. So, the … uh, the personage decided to bring his horse to America and hold a private, and of course, secret meet at the track where the Kentucky Derby is run.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Obviously, such a race could have been arranged much more easily by simply shipping only horses rather than people, so my
guess of a romantic rendezvous is most likely the correct one.”

  Selous gives me a diplomatic smile of conciliation. “Let’s just say that there is more than one motive for the trip. The person we are speaking of is noted for occasionally travelling incognito.”

  “Fine. So how did word of this trip get all the way to Egypt and to the ear of terrorists?”

  “In a manner that is not as unusual as you might think. The individual who is second in command of Britain’s mission to Egypt is part of the personage’s inner circle back home. The friend learned of the trip while in London. When he returned to his duties in Cairo, one night over dinner he told his wife about it—”

  “With servants present,” I interpose.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re right, it’s not unusual. There’s more than one servant in New York who got rich leaving his ears open while serving an employer who talks business over cigars and brandy. It’s pure arrogance by men who don’t consider servants as people.”*

  “Quite so. The servant was a Mahdi loyalist who passed the information on to higher ups, who hatched the plot. They knew that their target would be travelling by Pullman car. It so happens that they had once killed an important member of my government, along with several high ranking Egyptian officials, with a bomb on the Alexandra-to-Cairo run.”

  “You’re going to tell me they placed the bomb in the locker under the train. And used a Pullman key to do it.”

  “Exactly. The keys are easy enough to steal; there are Pullman cars in Egypt.”

  “And Mr. Cleveland intercepted the key. I take it he was a British agent?”

  “A naval officer—”

  “Mr. Cleveland’s been dead for two years.”

  Frederick clears his throat. “We used Cleveland’s identity not only because he no longer needed it, but his profession as a cutlery salesman serving Egypt fit the need for a cover. The naval officer was given the assignment because he spoke Arabic. My government doesn’t have many full-time spies and none fluent in Arabic. My own initial involvement was simply to fulfill a request that I meet Cleveland in Port Said and fill him in on what I had learned from Bey, who had told me that the key was to be passed by a scarab merchant in the marketplace to the hired assassin.”