A Study in Revenge: A Novel

by Kieran Shields

  The door to the back room opened, and F. W. Meserve appeared. Though he expected both Helen and Grey, he still looked surprised to see them. He pushed his spectacles up over the bridge of his nose.

  “Ah, there you are, Helen. Is that the material?” He reached for the folder in her hand and motioned toward one of the chairs. “I was just about to enlighten Mr. Grey about the details of our findings on Thomas Webster.”

  “I do have some other work to get to,” Helen said to Meserve as she slid toward the door. “I’m sure you can manage without me. You’re more familiar with the material anyhow. Mr. Grey,” she added with a curt nod before departing.

  Meserve spent the next fifteen minutes going over the historical notes of William Willis’s History of Portland. Behind his thick lenses, his normally beady eyes gleamed with conspiratorial delight. Grey interrupted only occasionally for clarification or to see the documents himself. When Meserve was done speaking, Grey sat silent for a minute with his eyes shut, reflecting on it all.

  Finally he stood and drifted toward the window. “There is only one important question concerning the information contained in these marginal notes. Is it true?”

  “We have no reason to doubt Willis’s veracity. He was known as a most upright individual, a competent and dedicated historian,” Meserve said.

  “Then why didn’t he include the information on Webster in his final historical manuscript?”

  “The family remained prominent. Perhaps he didn’t want to slander the man,” Meserve suggested.

  “Unlikely. Old Tom Webster comes across as perhaps hotheaded or vindictive against Mowat but mostly as an overly fervent American patriot. The only justification for excluding the references is that they are unconfirmed hearsay. If the information was confirmed, however, then it would paint a most mysterious picture of Thomas Webster.” Grey turned away from the view of the outside world and went to the desk. He picked up one paper after another, glancing at each and setting it aside as he continued to speak.

  “Why did Mowat seek him out, only to be taken hostage immediately afterward and have Webster lobby for his hanging? Why would Webster try to kill Mowat with his long-range musket shot at the deck of the Canceaux? Did Mowat purposely forgo other ports and raze Portland strictly to get at Webster? Why did Mowat’s first landing party go directly to Webster’s, and, when there, why didn’t they hunt for the man when he fled? Instead they only searched his house, then burned it to the ground.”

  The flourish of speculative historical questions was too much for Meserve. His jowly face quivered in excitement. “And if Old Tom Webster killed the stranger Clough at the conclusion of the war, that’s twice that men came to Portland, inexplicably looking for him.”

  “He had something they wanted.” Grey’s thoughts turned to the legal offices of Dyer & Fogg. Perhaps it was the thunderstone, the same object that was the focus of such attention now, a hundred years later. Grey recalled Albert Dyer reading the old man’s queerly worded bequest of the thunderstone.

  Meserve’s voice interrupted Grey’s thoughts, a sense of caution now mingling with the historian’s excitement. “Of course, as you said earlier, this all hangs on whether the historical notes are even true. There’s no way to corroborate Webster’s role in the burning of Falmouth. Whatever secrets he had, they went with him to the grave.”

  “Maybe not just his grave,” Grey said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This man, Clough, the one reportedly killed at the end of the war just near Webster’s newly built house. We can’t verify why he came to Portland or what he had to do with Webster, but if we can confirm his death at that time, it would lend some credence to the other rumors swirling around Old Tom Webster. Not proof by any stretch, but a thread.”

  “A stranger to the town—I suspect he’d end up in an unmarked grave.” Meserve stroked one pointed end of his thin mustache as he pondered the issue. “The Eastern Cemetery even had an area designated as the Strangers’ section, for those who died friendless or poor. Buried them two to a grave. Though I’m not sure when that was formally established.”

  “It’s uncertain we could find this man’s marker, but worth the effort,” Grey said.

  “Agreed. Almost like an archaeological expedition—how exciting! I’ll need to check the cemetery records. Though even if he’s unlisted, there might still be a marker.”

  Meserve scrunched up his face into a tight ball of academic curiosity as he hurried out of the room in hot pursuit of the answer. Grey, forgotten in the historian’s wake, showed himself out.

  [ Chapter 46 ]

  LEAN AND MESERVE WENT THROUGH THE GATE OF THE EASTERN Cemetery on Congress Street, passing the granite receiving tomb on their right. Though located at the foot of Munjoy Hill, the cemetery was still raised enough to provide an excellent view looking out over the city’s business district as well as the waterfront and the islands of Casco Bay. The two men proceeded down Funeral Lane, a worn, L-shaped footpath that led into the heart of the graveyard before curving off to exit at Mountfort Street. Lean’s eyes traveled over the ancient burial ground. A fence of granite posts and black wrought-iron spikes wound its way around to form an irregular, almost trapezoidal, shape that enclosed the five acres.

  It was not a modern cemetery, orderly and well planned. This burial ground matched the city it served, all the more interesting for its untidy, haphazard layout. A few trees dotted the cemetery, and the grass was overgrown in most areas. There was no great uniformity to the place. Some of the rows tended to be ragged and imperfect. Tombs, above- and belowground, mixed with headstones of all shapes and sizes. Tall bright marble, rounded granite slabs, and small, rough-hewn fieldstones all mingled with one another, most angled forward or back to one degree or another. Upright pillars stood beside cracked, tilting markers. Lean was left with the impression that a massive haystack of stone markers had been shaken out from the heavens to fall where they might, and his job was to find a granite needle in all this.

  “A lot of markers to look over,” he said.

  “The city more or less ceased burials thirty years ago. Still, there’s over three thousand known graves, hundreds of unknown ones. The earliest official plot on record is 1717, but the graveyard was established fifty years before that. The city’s original settlers are all lost to time. But we do know that they were buried in the southern corner.”

  Lean looked that way, toward the sharp drop-off at the back of the cemetery. Twenty-five years earlier, the city decided to extend Federal Street on through to join Mountfort. A twelve-foot-wide stretch along the edge of the burying ground was cut away and a tall retaining wall set in the name of civic progress. Old bones, marked and unmarked, were simply hauled away and used as fill along the edges of Portland’s artificially widening neck.

  Meserve’s voice rattled on in the empty space of the graveyard. “There used to be a grand old solitary pine there. A low rock wall ran beside the ancient burial ground, to pen in grazing cattle. A dozen Colonial militia were ambushed and killed by Abenakis hiding behind the wall when the town was attacked by a large French and Indian force back in 1690. Their bones were left unburied for two years before the area was resettled.”

  “Speaking of lurking Indians, I expected Grey to meet us here,” Lean said.

  “He did mention something of a prior appointment.”

  “Did he? How convenient.” The man’s ongoing insistence on separate approaches to the investigation continued to irk Lean. There had been messages exchanged and information traded, but Lean couldn’t shake the feeling that Grey was holding back from him. He suspected the man had some conflicting interests due to his secretive side investigation involving the late Horace Webster and the man’s granddaughter.

  “In any event,” Meserve assured him, “we won’t need to search the whole cemetery. I thought we’d start near the plots of Old Tom Webster’s family, in case he felt obliged to bury this man Clough. That’ll be ahead, near where the mower’s w
orking.”

  Lean glanced ahead at a stoop-backed man under a broad hat lethargically pushing a reel mower. From that distance Lean couldn’t tell if the thick-bearded man was elderly or just plodding along at the natural pace of an unsupervised fellow being paid by the hour.

  “If Clough’s not there,” Meserve continued, “then we’ll have to cast about in the Strangers’ section and hope for the best.”

  When they came to the bend in Funeral Lane, Meserve led the way off the path, taking an angle across the grass. As they approached their target, the groundskeeper moved off, with his wheel-driven rotary blades clacking loudly through the grass. He probably figured them for a pair of regular, familial visitors and meant to give them a bit of privacy. It took Meserve only a minute to locate the headstone of Thomas Webster, bearing a winged death’s-head. Close by, in a cluster, stood the markers of his wife, various children, along with their spouses, and a few grandchildren who had died at early ages. Lean and Meserve found, buried amid the family grouping, two apparently unrelated headstones. Silas Martin had died in 1805. The second marker was small enough that it couldn’t bear its inhabitant’s full name. Stacked atop each other on the narrow face were the words HERE LIES N. F. AGEE 1787. The men traded guesses as to the identities of those two: cousins, close family friends, or maybe just solitary men shoehorned in to whatever thin spaces could be found in the cemetery.

  Meserve noticed an even smaller marker, dark with age and with a top corner missing. From where he stood, Lean couldn’t make out any inscription. The pudgy historian got down on his hands and knees to study the face of the stone. A moment later he reached inside his coat and drew out a piece of paper. Lean watched him press the paper to the stone and rub at it with a small lump of charcoal.

  “You certainly came prepared,” Lean said.

  “I had the paper, but the charcoal was just sitting there right on the ground. Rather fortuitous, I’d say, given what it revealed.” Meserve held out the paper.

  Lean took the sheet. The missing section of the stone left the first few letters truncated, but he could identify the name as J. Clough with a 1783 death. “Most fortuitous indeed.”

  There were no other visitors in the whole cemetery. Lean’s eyes landed on the stoop-shouldered man who was slowly pushing his mower toward the Mountfort Street side of the cemetery. He motioned to Meserve and strolled off in the same direction. They made it the majority of the way to the side-street exit when Lean paused. He was trying to study the groundskeeper without being thoroughly obvious. He noticed the three tablelike tombs close at hand along a narrow path. The celebrated occupants gave him an excuse to stop and linger.

  He glanced at the lengthy inscription set into the marble of the center tomb. It began, BENEATH THIS STONE MOLDERS THE BODY OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM BURROUGHS LATE COMMANDER OF THE UNITED STATES BRIG ENTERPRISE WHO WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED ON THE 5th OF SEPT. 1813. The word “molders” stuck in his brain and left him with an uneasy feeling, like having walked through a spiderweb that even after being brushed away leaves a clingy feeling of unease upon the skin.

  Like most Portlanders he’d learned the story as a schoolboy. The young commander of the USS Enterprise had met Captain Blyth of the HMS Boxer in battle, and both captains were hit by cannon fire. Blyth was killed quickly. Though grievously wounded, the American commander lived long enough to secure the victory. After the British surrendered, he was presented with Captain Blyth’s sword, only to refuse it. He ordered that it be returned to his counterpart’s family in England with honor. Then he died.

  The ships had then returned to Portland, where the city hosted a grand funeral honoring both the fallen commanders. The two men were buried side by each, at peace together for eternity. Two years later a junior American officer finally succumbed to the wounds he’d suffered in the battle and was entombed beside the captains. Lines of poetry commemorating the battle seeped into Lean’s mind. A sly grin stole onto his face as he eyed the groundskeeper twenty yards away. Lean cleared his throat and from his diaphragm unleashed the lines.

  “I remember the sea-fight far away,

  How it thundered o’er the tide!

  And the dead captains, as they lay

  In their graves, o’erlooking the tranquil bay,

  Where they in battle died.”

  An exasperated groan issued from the groundskeeper, who announced, “Of course, your young Longfellow was still in short pants when that battle was fought.”

  Lean laughed. “I thought that might be you when we found the charcoal rub. And I knew that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s siren song would lure you from that disguise.”

  “Less a song and more a trampling of history,” the groundskeeper answered. “The tranquil bay where they died was up by Pemaquid Point—Muscongus Bay, not Casco. So he must have had some set of ears on him to hear the thunder of battle so many miles away.”

  “It’s called poetic license,” Lean said.

  “A pretty phrase for something other than the simple truth.”

  “And I have a few more pretty phrases at the tip of my tongue if you care to hear them.” Lean chuckled before noticing Meserve’s perplexed stare.

  “That’s Grey under that ridiculous false beard.” Lean turned to Grey and added, “Is that really necessary?”

  “I’m still being watched,” Grey said.

  “Even now?” Lean couldn’t resist scanning Mountfort and Congress streets for any signs of unwelcome observers.

  Grey shook his head as he continued his charade of mowing the grass. “We’re alone for the moment.”

  “Good.” Lean looked back toward the patch of Webster graves. Grey had left a sloppy, random swath of cut grass in his wake. “Because I don’t think you would have fooled anyone watching you closely. You missed a few spots.”

  “Not the spot that matters,” Grey replied. “Clough’s buried right near Tom Webster.”

  “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, even in death, eh?” Meserve said.

  “So, Grey, you think it’s all true, then?” Lean asked. “Webster had something that Mowat was willing to burn Falmouth for. Later, after the war, Clough came looking for it as well and got himself killed by Webster.”

  “There seems to be at least a grain of truth to the suspicions about Webster’s shady past. Captain Mowat burning Falmouth to get at Webster or something the man was hiding could be a plausible theory,” Grey said.

  “But where does that get us?” Lean asked. “If it was all owing to the thunderstone, then why? It’s just a rounded hunk of granite.”

  “Quartzite,” Grey corrected him.

  “Ah, yes, an important distinction, that,” Lean said. “What I mean is, I can’t swear for Clough, but I’m certain that Mowat was no Indian. If the thunderstone was what he was after, it wasn’t for some absurd Indian ceremony like that Chief Jefferson had in mind. There’s got to be more to it.”

  Grey dabbed the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. “Maybe Professor Horsford was only half off the mark. The symbols on the stone obviously aren’t Viking runes, but they are a sort of coded message pointing to something.”

  “Didn’t the Websters tell you it’s something to do with an old treasure? How about a buried treasure?”

  Grey scowled at Lean, but the deputy plowed ahead with his reasoning. “Someone’s been going far out of his way to dig below all the building sites that Old Tom Webster ever owned. And here’s a little nugget I haven’t told you yet. One of the properties was purchased a few months back. But the new owner must not have found what he was looking for, since he’s already put it back up for sale. And the excavations at Vine Street and at the tailor shop happened afterward.”

  “How can you be sure the owner is even aware of the building’s connection to Old Tom Webster?” Grey asked.

  “The buyer is one Jerome Morse,” Lean said.

  “Jotham Marsh’s flunky,” Grey said as a look of understanding dawned on him. “The same one you punched in the
nose last year.”

  Meserve flinched away from Lean, who assured him, “I promise—the man had it coming.”

  “So now what?” Meserve asked with a feverish look in his eyes. This was clearly the most excitement he’d had outside the confines of a book in quite some time.

  A few moments of collective contemplation followed before Grey broke the silence.

  “We know that Thomas Webster had the thunderstone at the time of his death in 1821. For the connection to Mowat and the killing of Clough to hold up, we need to know he had it as early as the Revolutionary War. Attorney Dyer may know the details. Also, he still has the original will and testament. I’ll need to see the list of other property mentioned therein. Rule out the possibility that there’s something else of value there besides the thunderstone.”

  “You go and confirm it with the lawyer, but I’m assuming all you’ll find is the thunderstone.” A resolve that had been absent throughout much of the discussion now returned to Lean’s voice. “That’s what Frank Cosgrove stole in the first place. So we need to decipher what those symbols mean. If whoever killed Cosgrove figures it before us and finds what he’s after, he’ll vanish without another clue.”

  [ Chapter 47 ]

  GREY SAT AT A TABLE NEAR THE WINDOWS OF THE ATHENAEUM’S second-floor reading room. Justice Holmes’s telegram of that morning had alerted him to the fact that the Boston police had finally returned Eben Horsford’s book. He’d responded with a pair of telegrams to Boston along with the earliest train departure he could find. Now the newly repaired manuscript of the professor’s final book was spread before him. He finished his last sketch of the twenty-four symbols reproduced in the late professor’s treatise. Grey glanced out the window; there was nothing to see except some people passing under the streetlamps and a few lit windows in the nearby buildings. He glanced at his pocket watch. Father Leadbetter’s telegram that morning, in answer to Grey’s, had stated he could meet at nine o’clock. The man was now three minutes late.