The deputy lieutenant–author-doctor-poet-playwright-athlete-humanitarian–dog owner smiled bashfully. “Yes, that’s a nickname my friend Mr. Barrie calls me. We have a cricket team called the Allahakbarries. All very good chaps. However”—his tone shifted—“I can assure you that my more recent use of that alias is due to the seriousness of the matter at hand. Mr. Casement and Mr. Morel, whom I believe you know as ‘Bulldog’ and ‘Tiger,’ operated with the same secrecy when they exposed King Leopold’s crimes in the Congo.”
The president scooted to the edge of his seat. “You know why we went there?”
“Yes. Violet told me everything.”
“Excuse me?” asked Robert.
Arthur looked stunned. As if he had just committed a dreadful mistake. “Violet Jessop! The young lady working for you! Is she not one of your agents?”
All eyes turned to Wilkie, who had a fresh cigar in his mouth. “I’m sorry to say this, Mr. President, but Miss Knox no longer works for me. Her name is Violet Jessop and she’s been working for the White Star Line since 1910.”
The president knew there was not a shred of truth to this. “No, she hasn’t!”
“Exactly!” Wilkie lit a match, filling his eyeglasses with flame. After he lit his cigar, he brushed his finger against the side of his nose.
“How much did she tell you?” asked Taft, turning back to the Colossus.
“Well, aside from what I now assume was her real name, just about everything.”
“Everything?” asked Robert.
“I believe so, Mr. Lincoln. She even briefed me about your timely dilemma! I understand you carry a most unusual pocket watch.”
“Yes, I do.”
The author’s whiskers twitched. “May I see it?”
Robert Todd Lincoln looked at the four faces staring at him with curiosity. Deep down, he hoped and prayed that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could put this American mystery to rest where it began: in a pub in London. Robert reached into his coat and pulled out a thick handkerchief, which he unfolded across the table. Its magnificent gold contents remained as captivating and mystifying as always.
Sir Arthur produced a pipe and began to pack it with tobacco. “Has it always been like that?” he asked Robert.
“Been like what?”
“Closed.” Doyle smiled as he lit his pipe.
“Oh!” Robert carefully opened the timepiece and set it down on the handkerchief, revealing its silent dial and mysterious inscription for the author:
Сдѣлано
въ
Америкѣ
Doyle started puffing his pipe and gently picked up the timepiece. His careful hands and sharpened eyes ran over the silent device as if the doctor was examining a patient. “Ah, so you’re an American, are you?” he playfully spoke to the timepiece. He then followed its gold chain to its shimming watch fob, which appeared to interest him greatly.
“You’ve examined its works, correct?” he asked Mr. Lincoln.
“Yes, I have.”
“And what did you find?” The doctor puffed his pipe like a tugboat.
“It’s paradoxical,” Robert tried to explain. “On a whole, the watch is very much what you would expect, but it does not require any external kinetic force of any kind. The watch somehow winds and powers itself. The closest thing it has to a power source is a small cylinder of what numerous tests proved to be lead. The cylinder had copper strands embedded in it, possibly as heat sinks. When I cut into the cylinder, I also found a second, smaller gold cylinder inside it containing water. I don’t know how, but somehow this lead-cased gold cylinder powered the device in a safe deposit box without interruption for decades. Maybe even since the time of my father’s assassination until recently.”
Doyle raised his eyebrows. “Nearly fifty years of continuous, uninterrupted movement without any external force whatsoever?” He puffed and puffed. “That is most curious.”
“I know. The watch seems to violate the first law of thermodynamics, but I swear to you I saw it working the night my father was killed. It’s an impossible invention.”
“I agree. Too impossible, which would suggest there is something about this watch which is not what we think,” observed Doyle. “You said there is a gold vial inside surrounded by lead, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You are absolutely sure it is lead?”
“Yes,” Robert stressed. “I ran extensive tests on the device, as did Yale University. They assured me that the samples I gave them were lead.”
“Samples?” asked Doyle, surprised. “You never showed them the watch?”
“No. I…” Robert looked down at the timepiece for a moment with sadness. “I could not let the public know about the discovery. I’m approaching old age, Arthur, and I have worked so hard to maintain my father’s good name. I did not want anyone to think that my father’s assassination was driving me mad, as it did my mother or Henry Rathbone. I had to maintain some anonymity.”
The patient Arthur listened attentively. “I completely understand and respect your decision,” he replied. “And if I may say so, I can think of no president more worthy of his son’s devotion than your father.” Robert smiled, as did President Taft, while Sir Arthur Conan Doyle examined the watch’s cauterized rim. “Is this watch completely airtight?”
“Yes, it is. Just as I found it.”
“Ingenious.” Within Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mind, a vast array of wheels and locks suddenly fell into place. “Mr. Lincoln, would you please pass the tea?”
Taft, realizing their apparent error in etiquette, said, “I’m sorry. Where are our manners? Major, please pour the man a cup of tea.”
“No, no. That won’t be necessary,” Doyle corrected. “Just the teapot, please.”
Wilkie’s cigar drooped in his mouth. “You plan on drinking that stuff straight out of the pot?”
Robert ignored this and offered the teapot to Arthur. “Careful. It’s hot.”
“Good! That will help.”
The four Americans watched in horror as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dropped the prized pocket watch into the steaming teapot.
“What are you doing!” screamed Lincoln.
“What kind of mad tea party is this?” barked Wilkie.
“Mr. Doyle, Mr. Lincoln is a good friend of ours! Explain yourself!” shouted Taft, pointing at the knight with a chip.
“Please be patient, gentlemen,” Doyle urged politely. “You heard Mr. Lincoln say the watch is sealed, which means I am doing no damage to its internal works.” The Colossus then folded his great hands and said, “Mr. Lincoln, your father was approached by Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl to negotiate the sale of Alaska after the American Civil War. Correct?”
Robert grimaced at the teapot where his father’s pocket watch was submerged. Nevertheless, he replied, “Not officially. The first offer from the Russians came during the Buchanan administration; they said no. The second came in 1867, two years after the war was over.”
“And during this time, the Russians were, shall we say, quite friendly to the United States.”
“Yes,” said Robert. “They were our closest European allies during the war. After the Crimean War, they sought to use us as a political counterweight to the British Empire.”
“And during the Civil War, I think it is safe to say that the sale of Alaska was always in the back of their mind?”
Robert nodded. “Yes. They were clearly waiting for a Union victory and actively worked toward one. I imagine the only reason they didn’t approach us immediately after the war was out of respect for my father’s murder.”
The Colossus paused for a moment out of reverence. “Mr. Lincoln, based on your personal knowledge, how would you describe the relationship between the American secretary of state and the Russian ambassador to the United States during the war?”
Robert, thinking back to William H. Seward, a man he knew well and one of his father’s closest advisers, replied, “William Seward and Eduard de
Stoeckl were very close friends. In fact, I would describe them as ideally suited for building a lasting relationship between the United States and the Russian Empire.”
Sir Arthur smiled. “As would I,” he said. He then lifted the simmering pocket watch from the pot by its chain. The Colossus carefully set the timepiece on Robert’s handkerchief and flipped its lid open.
The magnificent pocket watch was ticking.
The four Americans stared speechlessly at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was as if they had just witnessed a magic trick. Robert quickly picked up the wet timepiece and stared at it in disbelief. It was alive. It was moving. It was back from the dead.
“Is this how you English always take tea?” asked Wilkie.
“I am a Scotsman of Irish descent,” Arthur corrected. “But to answer your question: No. Not all of them.”
“Arthur,” asked the president, whose old chair was creaking, “how did you fix Bob’s pocket watch with a teapot?”
“Well,” said the smiling Scot, “there are only two ways this watch could work based on Mr. Lincoln’s description of it. Since the timepiece was clearly never meant to be wound, I opted for a more practical power source: heat. Gold is an excellent heat conductor. The watch’s gold casing, while quite lovely, is part of the reason why it’s working right now.”
“You’re telling me Abraham Lincoln had to dip that thing every day into his morning coffee?” Wilkie scoffed.
“Not at all. I have no doubt the watch worked splendidly in its own time. I am merely illustrating that the device’s original power source has clearly expired.”
Robert looked up from the timepiece. “You know what powers this?”
“I do.” Doyle nodded. “What you are holding is a steam-powered pocket watch that runs on uranium. It’s the only explanation for the lead surrounding the water-filled gold vial inside it. It’s also the reason why your watch ran without interruption for so long. According to Ernest Rutherford’s recent research on radiation, the uranium in this pocket watch slowly decayed over time until it became a completely new element. And there is another gentleman, an American. I believe his name is Boltwood—”
“Bertram Boltwood.” Robert gasped as he realized how the pocket watch worked.
“Yes! The same year Rutherford published his theories on half-life periods, Mr. Boltwood determined that lead is the final decay product of uranium. As such, you are correct, Mr. Lincoln. You always were: This pocket watch is impossible. It cannot work in its present form because it is no longer the same device it was forty-five years ago!”
With these words, Taft’s wooden chair collapsed under his weight. The president landed hard on the floor while a large piece of his chair pulled down on the harness beside him. Its line yanked it through the window and into the air at great speed until the contraption disappeared into the airship.
“Mr. President! Are you injured?” Major Butt and Chief Wilkie rushed to help him.
“I’m all right, I’m all right!” said Taft as he climbed back onto his feet.
Agent Sloan ran into the room. “Is everything all right, Mr. President? I heard an explosion.”
“It’s no trouble,” Taft assured him. “False alarm.”
Wilkie looked out the window up to the airship and whistled. “I guess it’s a good thing you weren’t wearing that harness. The Indian rope trick worked like a charm!”
Robert, meanwhile, continued his conversation as if nothing had happened. “How could the Russians have built a machine so technologically advanced nearly fifty years ago? And why would they give such a device to my father?”
“That, I’m afraid, is a question we may never be able to answer,” confessed Doyle. “However, I do have a theory based on the most likely explanation for the timepiece’s design, its strange message, and the circumstances in which you found it. Firstly, I believe this pocket watch was a gift from someone in the Russian government to resume negotiations for the sale of Alaska. Perhaps it came from Tsar Alexander II, but I’d say it more likely came from Russian minister de Stoeckl as a gift for your father.”
“Why?” asked Robert. “Why such a strange gift?”
“Because the technical ingenuity behind this machine is only one of its surprises! Mr. Lincoln, I believe de Stoeckl used this watch to facilitate the sale of Alaska to the United States by revealing to your father that its lands contained gold! That is why the watch says ‘Made in America,’ which I am sure you gathered is in reference to Russian America. In this case, it is a literal truth. The watch’s gold came from Alaska. Its magnificent sample of gold-bearing quartz came from Alaska. And I believe the uranium which once powered it came from Alaska as well.”
“That can’t be,” said Taft as he dusted himself off. “If de Stoeckl knew there was gold in Alaska, why didn’t he tell the Russian government? There’s no way they would have let him sell the land otherwise.”
“I agree,” said Doyle. “I think there are several explanations why de Stoeckl chose to reveal this to President Lincoln, and they are quite sensible. One reason could have been to avoid a war with the British, who almost certainly would have invaded Alaska if they knew there was gold there. The empire could easily have claimed the deposits just as they did during the recent crisis in Venezuela. Not only would Russia have been powerless to fend off such an attack, but the loss of their gold fields would have made Russian America even less valuable. However, I believe Ambassador de Stoeckl could have just as well revealed this secret to President Lincoln so he could sell the land quickly, especially after the enormous financial expense of the Civil War. De Stoeckl was in very poor health when he resigned as ambassador two years later. But thanks to the generous reward he received from Alexander II for completing the sale, he was able to live another twenty years, eventually retiring in Paris. As a physician, I would say that’s a rather remarkable medical recovery! Perhaps one made possible only because he was able to sell Alaska, which, if I am not mistaken, was something Secretary of State Seward was ridiculed for!”
“Yes, he was.” Wilkie smirked. “Seward’s Folly. Everyone thought it was hilarious until it led to a gold rush.”
“Precisely,” said Doyle. “Because of this pocket watch, Secretary Seward knew there was gold in those lands.”
Robert thought about this. He had no doubt Secretary Seward would have been enthusiastic to purchase Alaska if he had this information, as would his father. The gold would have provided the country with much-needed funds to finance reconstruction and, if his father had lived, compensation for emancipated slaves in the South. He also knew that pocket watches were his father’s preferred choice of gift, and a device such as this one would have been graciously accepted. For Ambassador de Stoeckl, it would have been an artful means of persuasion. All the same, such a revelation about Alaska would have immediately become a national secret and something the War Department would have desperately kept hidden from the collapsing Confederacy.
However, there was still something that did not make sense to Robert. “But why uranium?” he asked Doyle. “This could have been an ordinary watch. Why invent something so spectacular? In fact, how could anyone at the time even know that uranium could be used to power machinery?”
For a moment, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle appeared stumped. “That is a very good question, Mr. Lincoln.” The author sat back in his chair and returned to his pipe. “Well, there is one possibility. It’s faint, but it does enjoy my full confidence because it is part of a most important chapter in my life.
“During my youth, when I was still a medical student, I had the unique opportunity to serve as doctor aboard a whaler, the Hope. It was a fascinating experience and very dangerous work. However, I have no doubt that the physical health I enjoyed throughout my whole life has been affected by it! The air is most pleasant in the extreme northern latitudes.”43
“I know exactly what you are talking about.” Taft smiled before resuming his meal.
“Thank you, Mr. President. It was a remarkab
le experience, but I am embarrassed to say that it also gave me intimate knowledge about what it’s like to fall into freezing water! This happened so frequently that my captain came to call me ‘the Great Northern Diver.’ It was both terrifying and humiliating, but since I was the ship’s doctor, I took the experience as an opportunity to learn whatever I could about how to treat hypothermia. After one particularly bad fall into the Arctic, a sailor told me he had heard of a people native to North America who use certain rocks for medicinal purposes, namely heat. After researching the subject, I learned that such stones do exist and are most likely uranium, which I imagine would be prized by indigenous fishermen and hunters in freezing climates.”
“Such as Alaska?” asked Wilkie.
Doyle put his pipe in his mouth. “I imagine it would be somewhere you Americans have been finding uranium in the fifty years hence.”
“Bob, could the Russians have found all the material they needed for this in the Wrangell Mountains?” asked the president.
Robert went over the innumerable maps and logs he had amassed in his head the past two years. “The gold and copper could have easily come from the Morgan-Guggenheim mines. And Hammond said his men struck a lead cavern in the mountains.”
“That’s a recipe for tremendous amounts of uranium,” Doyle added.
“And the gold-bearing quartz?” Taft continued. “You said it’s quite rare. Has there been any found near the Wrangell Mountains?”
Robert set his eyes on the brilliant watch fob.
“Bob?”
“Yes, there has. Hammond said gold-bearing quartz was discovered at Willow Creek in 1906. It’s located at the foothills of the mountain.” Robert looked to every man as he spoke: “Everything necessary to make this watch could have come from the Wrangell Mountains.”
This seemed to satisfy Taft. He celebrated by lifting his glass. “Well, I guess the mystery about your father’s pocket watch has been solved! Congratulations! Now, is there anyone here who can explain how Basil Zaharoff got his hands on one as well?”
The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy: A Novel Page 25
