A Study in Revenge: A Novel

by Kieran Shields

  “ ‘In the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe. The frontier is the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery and civilization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, tools, modes of travel, and thought. But he must accept the conditions which the frontier furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe but a new product that is American.’ ”

  As the room settled into the methodical rhythms of the speech, Grey’s thoughts fell into place, like the needle of a compass settling on magnetic north after having been spun about. He returned to the first element of the inquiry: the death of Frank Cosgrove. The motive was unknowable at present, meaning that the dead man’s old partner, Chester Sears, could not be eliminated as a suspect. Grey doubted that possibility. Sears’s hasty flight from Portland could indicate guilt, but the man hadn’t fled immediately after the murder—only after Cosgrove’s corpse had been disinterred and burned. There was another party involved in the goings-on in Portland.

  What to make of the Boston connection? The note with Horsford’s name and Cambridge address, along with the apparent code, was found in Sears’s room. He hadn’t written the note for his own benefit; notes meant to be seen by only the writer’s own eyes didn’t require the use of a code. Cosgrove wouldn’t have written it, since it was on Tremont House stationery and referenced people living near Boston. Cosgrove worked exclusively in the Portland area. Besides all that, there was no discernible reason for the criminal partnership of Cosgrove and Sears to be interested in scholarly information or items such as would be present in the late Professor Horsford’s study. The only obvious motive for trying to steal something from the professor’s study would belong to a commercial competitor of his. The idea seemed logical given the fortune that Horsford had made from his various chemical inventions. But then his daughter had indicated that his recent studies were not at all commercial in nature. They amounted to little more than hypothetical musings, receiving scant notice in academic circles.

  Something was missing, some connection, and Grey couldn’t shake the feeling that it had to do with the coded reference on Sears’s note: “boy 22 horse 78 dog ink sun.” He ran the numbers and words through his head again and again. There was something oddly familiar about them. The frustration at his inability to recognize the code gnawed at him. He was barely able to subdue the urge to rise and begin pacing. He noticed that Justice Holmes was glancing at him, a keen worry in the older man’s eyes.

  “Feeling well, Grey?”

  Grey nodded. He could only imagine the look of concentration on his own face that had prompted the judge’s concern. Needing to calm his thoughts once more, he stared ahead at the man reading Frederick Turner’s paper on the role of the frontier in American history.

  “ ‘The story of the border warfare between Canada and the colonial frontier towns furnishes ample material for studying frontier life and institutions. The palisaded meeting-house square, the fortified isolated garrison houses, the massacres and captivities are familiar features of New England’s history. The Indian was a very real influence upon the mind and morals as well as upon the institutions of frontier New England. The occasional instances of Puritans returning from captivity to visit the frontier towns, Catholic in religion, painted and garbed as Indians and speaking the Indian tongue, and the half-breed children of captive Puritan mothers, tell a sensational part of the story; but even in the normal relations of the frontier townsmen to the Indians, there are clear evidences of the transforming influence of the Indian frontier upon the Puritan type of English colonist.’

  “ ‘For example, Connecticut in 1704 ordered her frontier towns that for the encouragement of our forces going against the enemy, the public treasury will allow the sum of five pounds for every man’s scalp of the enemy killed. Massachusetts offered varying bounties for scalps, according to whether the scalp was of men, or women and youths. One of the most striking phases of frontier adjustment, was the proposal of the Reverend Solomon Stoddard in 1703, urging the use of dogs “to hunt Indians as they do Bears.” The argument was that it would not be thought inhuman; for the Indians “act like wolves and are to be dealt with as wolves.” Thus we come to familiar ground: the Massachusetts frontiersman like his western successor hated the Indians; the “tawney serpents,” of the Reverend Cotton Mather’s phrase, were to be hunted down and scalped in accordance with law.’ ”

  A grotesquely absurd image stuck in Grey’s mind: various-size scalps hanging in a line befuddling some powder-haired Colonial treasury clerk whose job it was to measure and classify the scalps according to gender or age and pay the proper bounty. The Cotton Mather Human Scalp Gradation scale. He would have chuckled to himself in spite of the historical horror of the idea if another, even more painful, thought hadn’t struck him at that same moment: a system of classification. Frustration and disappointment bordering on self-loathing began to well up from the lowest point of Grey’s stomach. He felt a pain in his knee and looked down to see his own fingers digging into his pant leg. He forced his hand to release. The brutal obviousness of the answer threatened to overwhelm Grey’s mind, and for several seconds he couldn’t harness his thoughts.

  The speaker droned on. “ ‘This is one of the most significant things about New England’s frontier in these years. That long blood-stained line of the eastern frontier which skirted the Maine coast was of great importance, for it imparted a western tone to the life and characteristics of the Maine people which endures to this day. Within the area bounded by the frontier line, were the broken fragments of Indians defeated in the era of King Philip’s War, restrained within reservations, drunken and degenerate survivors, among whom the missionaries worked with small results, a vexation to the border towns.’ ”

  The words and numbers on Sears’s note were not a code at all, not technically, but rather an entry in a classification system. A system Grey was familiar with, one that had been invented in this very building.

  “Damnable fool!”

  Grey uttered the condemnation louder than he’d intended as he bolted up from his seat. Edging past his neighbors to the central aisle, he incurred disapproving glares and murmurs the whole way. The ire of the crowd was only partly mollified by the reader plodding on valiantly and by the presence of Justice Holmes, who followed close behind Grey.

  The door to the hall was ajar, and a plump, middle-aged lady standing just outside, listening to the lecture, had to quickly step aside as Grey exited. Grey paused, and Justice Holmes laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “You ought not to get so vexed over the language, Grey. It’s an historical assessment of the character of the Indians after a brutally contested war, not a current indictment of the people. And certainly no need to curse the poor man reading.”

  “What?” Grey faced Holmes with a look of utter confusion that took several long seconds to fade away. “No, I was cursing myself. I’ve been utterly blind when the answer was right before me.”

  Now it was Justice Holmes’s turn to be perplexed.

  “The man whom Deputy Lean and I have pursued from Portland, the one with Professor’s Horsford’s address and a coded note. It’s not a code at all. It’s a call number in the Cutter Expansive Classification system. It’s a book somewhere here in the Athenaeum!”

  [ Chapter 14 ]

  LEAN STOOD ON BEACON STREET ACROSS FROM THE SIDE entrance to the Tremont House. Though the hotel had been thoroughly modernized, it maintained an air of stolid old-time respectability with its plain face of granite blocks and the simple Greek columns. He’d been waiting for Chester Sears for over an hour and was beyond the point where he could ho
nestly say he still felt inconspicuous. He made frequent trips to the corner to inspect the foot traffic there as well as the passengers on the horse-drawn trolley cars that stopped just in front of the hotel’s entrance. Lean didn’t spend more than a few seconds at the corner, since Walt McCutcheon was in the lobby and responsible for the main entrance. A rumble passed through Lean’s empty stomach, causing him to imagine that McCutcheon had by now somehow figured a way to fulfill his monitoring duties while also sampling the hotel’s famously delightful cuisine.

  Lean headed back closer to the side entrance. A fair number of patrons had entered and exited over the past hour, but there was yet to be any sign of Chester Sears. In the fading daylight, Lean contemplated crossing over the street to more closely inspect the faces of the comers and goers. The move would make Lean himself easier to spot. On the bright side, it had been years since he’d had dealings with Sears back in Portland. He trusted that time and the lack of any expectation of seeing a Portland deputy in Boston would dull the man’s ability to recognize him.

  Another minute passed before a man in a dark sack suit carrying a leather case came out of the side door. The man glanced about, and Lean averted his gaze. He thought the man was not so much looking for anyone but instead trying to see if anyone was looking for him. Peering sideways, Lean watched the man move toward the intersection with Tremont Street and decided that it just might be Chester Sears. Staying on the opposite side of the street for a block and a half, he made a vain effort to confirm the man’s identity. Rows of multistoried buildings dropped a veil of shadows over the man, and even when they passed into open spaces, the low glare of the setting sun hit Lean in the face. He crossed over, wanting to stay close enough that if his man hailed a cab, he could quickly land another one passing in the same direction.

  Maintaining a distance of twenty paces, Lean kept up through several turns before emerging on another major avenue that he didn’t recognize. Without warning, the man halted by the curb and waited for an approaching railcar. Lean hesitated, then hurried on, reaching the man just as the horses pulling the trolley eased to a stop in front of them.

  Lean reached out for the man’s shoulder and announced, “Chester Sears.”

  The man flinched in surprise, and his head jerked around. Lean suddenly realized he’d been pursuing a man who was clearly a decade older than Chester Sears.

  “I beg your pardon,” the man said with a look of mild contempt.

  “Terribly sorry, sir. Mistook you for someone else.” Lean tipped his hat to the startled man and turned on his heel. Frustration yielded instantly to the desperate need to get back to his post at the Tremont. He glanced about, trying to get his bearings in the somewhat unfamiliar city. The failing light didn’t aid his efforts. He’d mostly head straight on from the Tremont, though they had moved two or three blocks to the right during the walk.

  After hurrying through a few turns, Lean came to an intersection and saw the green space of the Boston Common. Grateful to have his bearings back, he walked in that direction until he reached Tremont Street again. The tall spire of the Park Street Church shot up directly opposite. He crossed over, knowing that just down the block, past the old Granary Burying Ground, he’d be back at Tremont House. There was still hope. Even if he’d missed Sears in the past ten minutes, McCutcheon still might have spotted him.

  Once past the towering church, he came even with the start of the cemetery’s tall wrought-iron fence that ran the length of its Tremont Street side. Along with a several other solitary pedestrians and strolling couples, Lean made his way beneath the canopies of a series of massive-trunked elms that lined the sidewalk. He approached the cemetery’s tall stone entrance, shaped almost like the Greek letter pi but styled in a manner reminiscent of ancient Egyptian carvings. He noticed that an approaching couple had slowed under the lintel of the entranceway, beneath a pair of hawklike stone wings surmounted by an orb carved in stark relief.

  “Look, darling, across the way,” the woman said to her husband. “I think I see a man atop the roof there. What is that?”

  “The Athenaeum, I believe. Queer time for roof maintenance,” the man said in a dismissive voice. Unfazed by the strange sight, he picked up the pace again, his wife in tow.

  Lean’s thoughts instantly fixed on Grey’s presence in that building. He stepped into the entrance to the burial ground, his gaze fixed on the distant rooftop. Then came a shout from up high. The words, unmistakably urgent in their origin, acquired a distant, ghostly tenor as they drifted down to Lean across two hundred feet of headstones.

  “Chester Sears! Stop!”

  [ Chapter 15 ]

  THE PLUMP WOMAN WHO’D NEARLY BEEN BOWLED OVER BY Grey at the doorway had been listening and now stepped closer.

  “I’m Mrs. Holden, assistant librarian. Can I be of assistance, Justice Holmes?”

  Holmes paused to consider the question as he watched Grey rush to the front desk nearby to retrieve a pencil and a scrap of paper.

  Grey returned, holding the scrap in his left palm and writing on it as he muttered, “Boy, two, two, horse, seven, eight, dog, ink, sun.”

  “I certainly hope so.” Justice Holmes offered a bemused smile as he answered the woman.

  She reached out to take the paper that Grey handed over. On it was printed “B22H78DIS.”

  “This would be up in our second-floor reading room—on the left, about a quarter of the way along,” she said. “If you care to follow me?”

  Without waiting for her to take the lead, Grey turned and strode ahead to the alabaster-hued statue of Washington that stood guard at the base of the stairs. He pulled aside a velvet rope meant to deny access to the upper floors. The second floor was dominated by the large reading room, built like the rest of the interior in the alcove style. Grey swiped at a series of switches, and several overhead electric lights flickered to life. He moved past the alcoves on the left-hand side of the room, his eyes sweeping along the nearest books until he reached the vicinity of his target. He began a closer inspection of the spines, passing over a variety of volumes, interspersed with occasional thin blocks of wood that were used as placeholders for borrowed books. His fingers slid along the titles until he came to call number B22 H78 D, The Defences of Norumbega. Where B22 H78 DIS should have stood was a gaping space that skipped AHEAD TO B22 H78 L, The Landfall of Leif Erikson, A.D. 1000. Both of those volumes had been written by Eben Norton Horsford.

  Grey turned at the sound of Justice Holmes and Mrs. Holden catching up to him.

  “Shouldn’t there be a wooden space holder here as well?” Grey asked the assistant librarian.

  “Indeed.” She looked around, confused. Grey did the same, and his gaze landed on the long, thin reading table toward the center of the room. A book rested there.

  “How’d that get there?” Mrs. Holden mused. “We go through and reshelve all the books each evening. It couldn’t have been overlooked in plain sight on the table.”

  Grey rushed over and read the title: The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega, by Eben Norton Horsford.

  “He’s been here sometime in the past hour or two.” Grey said before he glanced at the spine. “ ‘B22 H78 DI.’ The call number is wrong. Ends with only ‘DI’ not ‘DIS.’ ”

  Grey brought the book back into the alcove and slid it into place on the shelf. It took up only half the empty space.

  “There’s still a volume missing. He mistook this book for his target and left it on the table after realizing his error. He collected the next and has stolen it. That’s why today’s date was important. All the commotion of the reading produced an opportunity to gain access to the building unnoticed and then slip upstairs.”

  “Impossible,” said Mrs. Holden. “No one came through the front doors after closing time. The entire staff was milling about, setting up chairs and all. And we’ve been greeting the members as they came in tonight. No perfect stranger could have just waltzed on by.”

  “During the reading, then?�
�� Grey offered.

  “I’ve been standing at the doorway. Listening in, I’ll grant you, but I’d have noticed anyone coming in late and creeping by on the way upstairs. That I assure you. And then again on his way back down.”

  “What if whoever took the book is not the same fellow you’ve been trailing, Grey?” Justice Holmes asked. “Perhaps it was taken by one of the proprietors.”

  Grey shook his head. “A member could have taken the book at any time. He wouldn’t have needed to do it on this day, during this distraction. No, he’s here surreptitiously. And if he didn’t come through the front door, then where? Other means of access? There’s a door above, in the picture gallery.”

  Hearing it phrased like an accusation, Mrs. Holden began to justify the existence of the door on the third floor. “Yes, there is the exit out to the small roof area overlooking the cemetery.”

  Grey started back toward the stairs with Justice Holmes right on his heels. Mrs. Holden was obliged to follow after them as she completed her explanation. “But there are two bolts on the door. I locked them myself this evening at closing time.”

  The stairs led to a small picture gallery on the third floor. Inside that chamber, wooden handrails kept visitors away from the portraits and landscapes that hung thick upon the walls inside wide, elaborately embossed and gilded frames. Grey stopped and scanned the nearby wall for light switches but saw none. When Justice Holmes and Mrs. Holden arrived, he motioned them to stand still. The sound of paper being torn came to them from one of the other galleries on this level. With his eyes still not fully accustomed to the dark, Grey hurried forward through a ten-foot-tall entranceway leading into the next picture gallery.