by M. J. Trow
Grand nodded. In all sorts of ways, tonight belonged to gentlemen of the South.
‘Did he do it, sir?’ Peanut John blurted out, his head reeling with the chaos all around him. ‘Mr Booth. Did he shoot the President?’
‘It looks that way,’ Grand said. He looked at the boy. ‘Better get yourself home, Peanut,’ he said. ‘Get that head seen to.’
‘I found this, sir.’ The boy held out his hand, and something glittered in his palm. ‘I guess Mr Booth must have dropped it.’
Grand squinted in the alley’s light. It was a gold cufflink inlaid with enamel. A red cross and a sword on a white background. He had never seen the design before. He slipped it into his pocket. ‘Let’s see if we can’t give this back to Mr Booth,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He passed the boy a shiny dollar. ‘The next drink you take in the Star, Peanut John – let Mr Lincoln buy that for you.’
In the years ahead, dozens of men would claim to have been there at the end, all crammed into Henry Safford’s little space in the Petersen rooming house. Four men all claimed to have been the one who placed the pennies on the closed lids of Abraham Lincoln’s eyes. The house had been ransacked and occupied, like so many in Atlanta, Richmond and anywhere else where the rebel flag had floated. Shocked soldiers had shoulder-barged locked doors, and knots of key people had taken them over as their personal headquarters. Sixteen doctors, of varying rank and expertise, had tiptoed into what was now the President’s room, to watch and wait, to suggest, pontificate, argue. In the room at the front, grim with appropriately black furniture, Mary Todd Lincoln sprawled, surrounded by her ladies. She sobbed, she moaned. Occasionally, she screamed. But the guards on her door had strict orders; on no account was she to have access to the President. If, as everyone believed, these were the man’s last hours, they deserved to be peaceful ones. One face the broken woman hoped for, and one that appeared before her at some hour in that night of the longest hours, was her son Robert. He was crying, his tears trickling on to his mother’s hair as he held her to him.
Robert had been on his way to see his father, but someone in the hallway had told him that it was too late, that his father would not know him. So he’d gone to his mother instead. He had never seen the woman who had given birth to him in this state before, not even when his brother Willie had died. Her carefully braided hair lay loose over her shoulders, and her eyes were red with crying, mucus dribbling over her thin lips. Young Lincoln had thrown his captain’s coat over his shoulders as the chaise had rattled through the chaotic Washington streets. He had jumped out and run the last half mile, jostling with revellers who had not yet heard the news, men with smiles on their lips and liquor on their breath. One or two of them cheered the man, a soldier and hero of the hour. One or two more had seen his grim-set, pale face and jeered at him. ‘Cheer up, fella,’ one of them called. ‘The war’s over. God bless old Abe!’
And it was not just grief that made the tears trickle down Robert Lincoln’s face that night. It was guilt. He should have been there, with his parents in the box at Ford’s. But he was too tired. He had been up for thirty-six hours without a wink of sleep and had stood on the porch of McLean’s house at Appomattox when General Lee had ridden up to surrender. Young Lincoln had never thought he would see the greatest soldier of the war, but there he was, silver-haired and, ramrod-backed, dismounting from Traveller like a man tired of life. Ulysses Grant, with nothing of the majesty of Lee, had stepped out on to that porch, a cigar glowing in his teeth, his boots thudding on the planks. Lee had stopped and swept off his campaigning hat. It was a moment of history. And the President had wanted to hear it all, over and over again at breakfast the previous day, in case his boy, the witness to that moment, had left anything out. Young Lincoln had lived on beans and hard tack for three months and had not slept in a bed since February.
‘Son,’ his father had said to him, ‘we want for you to come to the theatre with us tonight.’
But Robert Lincoln could not keep his eyes open, and so he turned the old man down. The President smiled, patting the boy’s hand. ‘All right, son,’ he said. ‘Run along to bed.’
And he had. Now he looked across at the solemn faces of his mother’s entourage, each of them trying to hold it together for her sake. He should have been there. If he’d been in that box, he would have stopped the madman, even if it meant taking the bullet destined for his father.
That bullet lay deep in Abraham Lincoln’s brain, just behind the orbit of his right eye, which bulged alarmingly. All night long the doctors did all they knew to keep him alive. They probed the wound with a silver instrument to keep the blood flowing, keeping his heart beating and his lungs inflating in short, desperate bursts between the long agonies of silence. They replaced the blood-soaked towels around his head and prayed. All those men of science, powerless, fell to their knees as the Reverend Dr Phineas Gurley beseeched his God to do what they could not.
Matthew Grand walked out of Ford’s Theatre as a grey, wet dawn replaced the shadows of the night. Tenth Street was packed with crowds, silent now after the hysteria of the last hours. None of them knew that beyond the bricks of the Petersen house, the man who freed the slaves was dying.
It was twenty-two minutes past seven by Dr Charles Leale’s watch. He had been there, in the Presidential box as John Wilkes Booth’s gun-smoke was still drifting across the stalls. All night he had held Lincoln’s hand to let the man know he was not alone in his darkness. Dr Charles Taft pressed the President’s chest, straining to feel a heartbeat. Surgeon-General Joseph Barnes felt a last surge of blood pump through the carotid artery.
They all heard Gurley intone, ‘Our Father and our God,’ and Robert Lincoln sobbed on somebody’s shoulder.
In the frightening, tragic silence that followed, Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, took off his spectacles. His beard looked greyer in that dawn than it had seemed the night before when someone had woken him with the dread news. Tears filled his eyes. ‘Now,’ he said softly, ‘he belongs to the angels.’
In the street outside, as if somehow they all knew that the moment had come, men swept off their hats and let the rain cry its own tears on their bare heads. From somewhere a church bell tolled solemnly, the death knell of the South. The death knell of old Abe.
FOUR
James Batchelor sat back on his heels, his head spinning. Here he was, a journalist or so he had always hoped, and instead of his mind weaving a headline and a good few inches of newsprint, all he wanted to do was to be sick. He wasn’t frightened at the sight of blood, or at least he had never thought that to be so; that was before he had seen this sight – of a girl who not long before had pressed her warm body against his, now lying in a pool of the stuff. That pool was spreading slowly around her head, glinting with highlights that seemed far too bright. They hurt his eyes. He put his head down in his hands and tried to stop the world from spinning.
A voice broke through the buzzing in his head.
‘Wos’ goin’ on? Effie?’
Batchelor turned sharply, almost unbalancing and putting his hand down on the slick ground before he realized he was doing it. He snatched it up, but too late – it was sticky now with even more of Effie’s blood.
‘Effie?’ The voice became a screech. The girl, dressed like Effie and in a crowd virtually indistinguishable from her and dozens of her kind, screamed, her mouth a black hole in her powdered face. She stumbled back from Batchelor, who reached out to stop her. Even as he did so he knew it was a mistake. She thought he had done this terrible thing. He must explain.
‘No, I didn’t do this. I …’
The girl peered forward. ‘I know you. You was with Effie tonight. She come back, said you didn’t want ‘er. You killed ‘er!’ She opened her mouth to scream again, and Batchelor took another unwise step forward. The girl turned and ran for the lights of the street. ‘Murder!’ she screamed as she ran. ‘Murder!’
The journalist was still standing there, dripping hand by his side, when the police arrived, rattles
shattering the echoes in the alley. There were two of them, young constables trying to grow convincing moustaches, both failing.
‘What’s going on here, sir?’ one of them asked, peering round Batchelor to the girl’s body sprawled on the ground.
Batchelor was heartened by the ‘sir’. They seemed to have realized at once that he couldn’t have done this dreadful thing. ‘I found her, officer,’ he said. ‘Her name is Effie …’
The other constable chimed in. ‘You know the deceased, then, do you, sir?’
‘Well, no, I … I met her for the first time this evening.’
The constables exchanged knowing looks. Batchelor could have sworn that one of them winked. The one with the marginally more luxuriant moustache spoke again, trying to keep the smirk out of his voice. ‘Oh, I see, sir. You met her this evening.’ He looked down at the pitiful heap of tawdry clothes, at the cooling puddle of congealed blood. ‘Did she not give satisfaction, sir?’
Batchelor was outraged. ‘What?’ he roared. ‘This girl is dead, and you stand there making mockery of her. What kind of man are you?’
The constable drew himself up and puffed out his chest. ‘I am the kind of man, sir,’ he said, ‘who is going to arrest you for the murder of this unfortunate.’ He flicked out some handcuffs and before Batchelor could move had deftly attached one to his wrist, clicking the other around his own. He turned his head to the other constable who was hanging back, trying not to let his eyes focus on the corpse and yet finding his eyes straying to it, almost of their own volition. He looked as though vomit would be in his immediate future. ‘Brown,’ the arresting officer said, ‘stay with the body. Keep the crowds back. Look for clues.’
‘I can’t do all of those by myself, George,’ the boy said. ‘Can I just keep the crowds back?’ That at least would give him a chance to get away from the pool of blood, with its smell of rusty death. ‘At the entrance to the alley.’
‘That’s Morris to you, Brown,’ the constable said, from the lofty height of three weeks’ seniority. He looked at his friend’s face and relented. ‘That will do. Keep the crowds back. I’ll send someone to you from the station as soon as I can.’ He gave a tug on the handcuffs and nearly pulled Batchelor over. ‘You come along with me,’ he said, roughly. ‘My sergeant will want a word with you, I have no doubt.’
‘I didn’t kill that poor unfortunate girl,’ Batchelor said. ‘She was dead when I found her.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Morris said, pulling him along. ‘That’s what they all say, sir, if you don’t mind my observing.’
Batchelor dug in his heels, and they came to an ungainly halt on the pavement. The crowd was indeed gathering, and Brown was having his work cut out to keep them at bay. ‘How many murderers have you arrested, do you mind my asking?’
‘I don’t mind at all, sir, no. I have arrested one, to date.’ The policeman gave a sharp tug on the handcuffs, and they carried on walking.
Batchelor could not disguise his contempt for the man’s lack of experience. ‘Oh. I am a journalist, I should tell you, and when I write up this story, I will need as much detail as I can glean. May I ask who the miscreant was, the one you arrested?’
‘That all depends, sir,’ the constable said, slyly.
‘I should also tell you,’ Batchelor said, by now very much on his dignity, ‘that I will not give you a bribe. It is against my principles.’
‘There now, sir.’ The constable perceptibly brightened up at the news. ‘It is against mine too. It is good, isn’t it, to meet another man who thinks as you do?’
Batchelor was puzzled. ‘Then on what does it all depend, if not the amount of the bribe?’
‘On your name, sir.’
‘James Batchelor,’ Batchelor said. ‘But …’
‘Then, sir, the murderer I have arrested is called James Batchelor. You may need that for your newspaper, sir, if you live to tell the tale.’
‘If I what?’ The journalist wasn’t sure what emotion was uppermost; it was either outrage or blind fear. ‘If I live to tell the tale? What does that mean?’
The policeman was imperturbable. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, calmly. ‘The penalty for murder is hanging, as I am sure you well know.’ He turned to his prisoner. ‘That kills you, or so I have heard. You’d have to ask Mr Calcraft – you know, the executioner.’
Batchelor looked at the man. Was that a sardonic smile there, or not? ‘I do understand all about the health problems associated with hanging,’ he said, trying to adopt a jaunty outlook. ‘But I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill that girl.’
‘I think we have already agreed, sir, that’s what they all say. Anyway, not to worry.’ He hauled his man up some stone steps and through a forbidding door with a blue-shrouded lamp over it. Batchelor got his bearings. This was Vine Street, home of the C Division. ‘Here’s the station. You can explain it to my guv’nor.’ He unshackled himself from his end of the handcuffs and handed the loop to another policeman, who promptly closed it over his own wrist. ‘He has a bit more experience than I do of horrible, vicious, bloody murderers such as your good self.’ He touched his finger to the peak of his helmet. ‘Good evening, sir. It’s been a pleasure.’ And he turned on his heel and walked out of Batchelor’s life.
Batchelor was yet again outraged. It seemed to be the pattern for the evening for him. He tugged at the handcuffs and spoke to his new captor. ‘Shouldn’t he stay and explain what’s going on?’ he asked, a little plaintively.
The policeman looked down at Batchelor’s clothes, at his hands, all covered with blood. ‘I think we can manage to piece together the facts,’ he said. The absence of the ‘sir’ rang around the room. ‘There’s been a horrible murder, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘But …’
‘I’ll just leave you in this cell for a while,’ the copper said, pushing Batchelor through a thick door and disengaging the handcuffs in one movement. ‘Someone will be along to see you.’
‘When?’
‘When they come,’ the policeman muttered, but the answer was drowned by the thick slamming of the door.
Batchelor slumped on the plank of wood attached by chains along one wall. A chamber pot, swimming already with the contents of many bladders, since departed, stood in one corner. The window was high but so furred with cobwebs as to give no hint as to time of day or night, though Batchelor knew that it was gone midnight by now. He should be tired. He had already been tired when he left his colleagues, what seemed like days before. He could never sleep in this vile place, not if they kept him there for the rest of his life. Just thinking about how short that might be made goosebumps rise along his arms, and he shivered, just one convulsive movement from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. No, he would never be able to sleep in here.
FIVE
Laura Keene had changed out of the blood-spattered dress she had worn when she cradled the President’s head and was now in the gown she had had made for her star performance in The Sea of Ice, an eternity ago. She hadn’t slept, and she had wondered throughout it all whether she would be able to face the boards again without hearing that echoing shot, without seeing that spreading blood, black in the theatre’s dim light.
There was a knock on her door. Her maid scuttled to open it, and a tall, handsome captain of cavalry stood there, in full dress uniform with epaulettes and sash. He swept off his kepi. ‘Would you tell Miss Keene …’ he said and held out a calling card in a white-gloved hand.
‘Miss Keene is not seeing anyone …’ the maid began. She’d been given strict instructions. Stage-door Johnnies, star-struck adoring fans, elderly gentlemen with a certain glint in their eye – Laura Keene’s maid knew all the types. The captain hardly fitted the bill for any of these, but after Friday, Laura’s decision had extended to all men and most women.
‘It’s all right, Margareta,’ the actress said. ‘Please show the captain in to the drawing room.’
Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a drawing room. Laura had been staying at
the Pennsylvania House, but after the events of Friday, she knew she would be besieged by newspapermen and so had had her belongings transferred here. It was only temporary. She’d be off to Harrisburg in the morning.
‘Captain Grand, ma’am.’ The visitor clicked his heels. ‘I am glad to see you looking well.’
That was no more than the truth either. When Matthew Grand had last seen Laura Keene, she was aghast, rocking backwards and forwards on the floor of the Presidential box as though the shattered head she had held there was still in her hands. Now she looked calm and serene, the grey eyes showing no hint of emotion. The long ringlets were shiny and curled again. Her cheekbones were a little wide, perhaps, and her mouth a little broad too, but she was every inch the actress and she could play any role she chose.
‘May I offer you some tea, Captain?’ she said.
‘No, thank you, ma’am.’ Grand smiled. ‘I merely came to see how you were after … after what happened.’
‘How did you find me?’ She sent Margareta away with a flick of her hand.
‘Your stage manager, Mr Gourlay. He was helpfulness itself.’
‘Was he?’ Her face twisted into an ironic smile. ‘I must have words with Thomas.’
‘Forgive me, Miss Keene.’ Grand was inching his way in this conversation, trying to find the right words. ‘How well do you know John Wilkes Booth?’
He saw her face harden, her eyes sharp and glittering. ‘Not, clearly, as well as I thought. He killed his President, Captain Grand. As far as I am concerned, the man deserves to rot in Hell.’
‘I see. Er … tell me, Miss Keene, have you seen this before?’ He took the cufflink out of his pocket, the one Peanut had found in the alleyway. ‘Was it perhaps one of Booth’s?’
Laura straightened to her full height. For all this man wore the uniform of an officer and gentleman, for all he had shared moments of that terrible night with her, he was now being impertinent. ‘How should I know what John’s …? Oh, wait.’ She frowned and took the trinket from him. ‘How curious.’
