“Did your uncle invest in NCC stock?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
He smiled grimly. Anytime a project of this magnitude was in the planning stages, investors gambled on the outcome. “Plenty of people invested in Nicaragua when it looked like that was where the canal would be built. Now that Roosevelt is backing a Panama route, those investors are liable to lose a fortune.”
“That might explain why someone would want to eliminate all the members of the ICC,” she said. The commission had just endorsed the president’s recommendation for the Panama route.
“You told this to the police, and they didn’t take you seriously?” he asked.
“Sergeant Palmer said he would look into it, but he didn’t seem alarmed.”
Perhaps there were ways Colin could gather information without police help. “What is the nearest telegraph station to your uncle’s house in Saratoga?” he asked.
“There’s a Western Union station at the Saratoga train depot and another at the local pharmacy. I think the messages are coming out of the pharmacy, because whoever is manning that station is an amateur. His transmissions are very slow. He often asks the telegrapher at the law office to repeat words. No one that slow would ever get hired by a train station.”
Colin leaned forward, cracking his knuckles in frustration. He didn’t have time for distractions like this. He had performance appraisals to write, but he desperately wanted to know more about that message. He had to know. Did Stanley delay his quest to find Dr. Livingston until he completed a stack of performance appraisals? Did the reporters who covered the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano wait until the dust had cleared? Or did they roll up their sleeves and pounce on the story, racing to the scene ahead of everyone else to provide Reuters with the scoop that made the agency world famous?
The annual performance appraisals could wait.
“I’m going back to Oakmonte,” he said with resolve.
“You are?” Lucy asked in amazement.
His smile was tense. “As you recently noted, I have agreed to cozy up with a snake. I expect your uncle and his wife will be glad to host me.”
Lucy looked suitably embarrassed, giving him a guilty rush of satisfaction. “Colin, I’m sorry—”
He cut her off. “If this message is what we suspect, I’m not going to let a personal tiff endanger the lives of the people serving on the ICC and perhaps the president himself. Of course I’m going to Oakmonte. Since the message indicates the event will happen in August, I’ve got plenty of time to see if I can uncover anything there that might spur the police into taking these notes seriously. Come to my office at seven o’clock this evening so we can start planning how this will work.”
It was impossible to concentrate after Lucy left. Canceling his dinner plans, he impulsively paid a visit to Sergeant Palmer at the police department. He even used his title to cut straight to the sergeant’s office and hopefully buy a little more credibility.
It was all for nothing. The sergeant’s response was precisely as Lucy had reported.
“Sir Beckwith, it all sounds like idle gossip whipped up by a woman prone to over-emotionalism,” the sergeant said. “You can’t imagine the bizarre accusations I hear on a daily basis from people accusing the government of poisoning their water to suspecting—”
“But Miss Drake is a level-headed young lady,” Colin interrupted. “She is not prone to exaggeration or emotionalism.”
“And her complaint will be addressed in due course.”
The encounter confirmed every one of Lucy’s suspicions that the police were not taking her charge seriously. If a plot against the Panama Canal was brewing at Oakmonte, it was up to Colin and Lucy to smoke it out.
Lucy was grateful to the marrow of her bones that Colin was willing to help her, even if every square inch of his starchy pride indicated he hadn’t forgiven her for the insult at the train station. She stopped at the apothecary shop to buy a box of Hershey’s chocolate as a peace offering before their meeting. No one could turn down chocolate, could they?
Colin could. When she arrived at his office at the appointed time, he peered at the box as though it pained him. “Hershey’s?” he said skeptically. “You really haven’t had chocolate until you’ve had Cadbury chocolate.”
“If I ran out and bought a box of Cadbury, would you accept it?” she asked, even though it ran contrary to her thrifty spirit to spend twice as much on imported British chocolate.
“Probably not. I would urge you to share it with your colleagues downstairs so they could be introduced to quality chocolate. But come, I need to introduce you to my birds.”
Two homing pigeons sat on the perch beside his desk. Colin stood and coaxed one onto his finger. “This is Beatrice, and the other is Bianca. I’ve raised them since they were hatchlings, and they will allow us to communicate while I’m at Oakmonte. Every good spy needs a means of transmitting information, but we can’t trust any telegraph operator near Oakmonte.”
The chocolates were forgotten as Colin spent the next hour explaining how homing pigeons were trained to remember a route. He would have to ride to Saratoga on horseback in order to release Beatrice and Bianca to fly back home and imprint the landmarks in their memory. The birds would instinctively return to their loft in his Reuters office, where Mr. Denby would bring the messages to Lucy. She would then feed them, allow them a rest, and send them back to Colin. Once he arrived in Oakmonte, he would communicate with her solely through the pigeons.
He opened a jar of strange-smelling mash and showed it to her. “Beatrice and Bianca go absolutely mad for dried peas rolled in suet, so this is what I keep in my office. I’ll bring a jar of it to Oakmonte as well.”
“Couldn’t you give it to me so they’ll come straight to the AP office and save your butler the trouble of fetching me?”
A hint of amusement crinkled his eyes. “It doesn’t quite work that way. And how can I be sure your ravenous coworkers won’t devour the seed? They seem to have appallingly low standards when it comes to food.”
She lifted a brow. “And you think a tin of congealed fat is going to tempt them?”
He wrinkled his nose and lowered his voice. “Well, Americans, you know.”
“You’re the one who seems to think it’s a delicacy, London.”
His laughter was reluctant, but warm and exhilarating to hear. She missed the camaraderie they once had.
“Colin . . . about what I said in the train station, I need to apologize.”
As though an invisible wire had pulled every nerve ending in his body tight, he stiffened, and the temperature in the office dropped a few degrees. “What if I am not ready to accept an apology?”
“Then I would ask when you might be ready to do so.” She twisted her hands in her lap. Who he married wasn’t any of her business, but she deeply regretted the remark and had no right to pass judgment on him. “It was an ugly comment, and I wish I could take it back. Since I can’t, only an apology will do.”
A little of the frostiness melted, but his voice was sad. “Perhaps it would be best if we delayed it indefinitely. I find that I . . .” He swallowed hard. “I find it difficult to maintain proper decorum around you.”
Her heart surged, but she tamped it back. “Then why are you helping me?”
He leaned forward to coax one of the pigeons onto his finger again and mindlessly stroked its back. His voice sounded as if it came from far away. “Sometime in the seventeenth century, one of my ancestors won a battle off the coast of Malta and was awarded a baronetcy by a grateful king. All my life I have been the beneficiary of that title, but I did nothing to deserve it. I’m no warrior, and neither was my father or grandfather. I can’t even hear the sound of a gun without suffering a case of the vapors, and my only real friends in America are two overfed birds. So I need to prove myself. Sometimes I feel like my seventeenth-century forefather is looking over my shoulder, judging to see if I’m worthy of the title he earned. It’s part of the re
ason I became a war reporter in the first place. Every instinct tells me that the messages you overheard are plotting something dangerous, and I can’t stand down. I wouldn’t be worthy of my heritage if I could overlook something like that.”
The more time she spent with him, the more impressive Colin became. What an irony that she looked down on his pompous title from the moment he stepped into the building, and yet he had similar misgivings about it.
She met him at the public stables the next morning as he prepared to leave. The cage containing Beatrice and Bianca was secured to the back of his saddle. He would release them to fly back home every fifty miles. The time the birds needed to make the journey and the necessary rest afterward meant it would take Colin three days to reach Oakmonte, but he was doing so without complaint.
“I think your seventeenth-century forefather would approve,” she said softly. “He fought with a broadsword, but you’re fighting with your mind.”
His expression gentled as he smiled down at her. “Thank you for that.”
Why was she so apprehensive about this? It wasn’t as if he were riding off into actual danger. No one at Oakmonte would suspect him of being a spy, but she still couldn’t quell her sense of misgiving. As long as Uncle Thomas was in the picture, it was impossible to know what sort of quagmire Colin might be walking into.
“Will you please accept my apology before you leave?” she asked.
“Apology accepted, Yankee,” he said without a hint of lingering bitterness. “You’ve helped awaken all my old reporter’s instincts, and it will be good to get back out in the field again.” He paused, as though struggling to find the right words. When he finally spoke, his tone was businesslike. “When I return, I’ll report everything I’ve learned to Sergeant Palmer, and then you and I need to go our separate ways. I’m afraid I like you too much to keep playing with fire.”
Her heart turned over, liking him even more for his honesty. “I understand,” she said softly.
He didn’t say anything, just scooped her into an embrace so tight it was hard to draw a breath. He released her, mounted the horse, and then he was gone.
Chapter
Twelve
Colin arrived in Saratoga on the morning of his third day of travel. Before visiting Oakmonte, he had one very important stop to make.
Lucy suspected that the telegrams from the Saratoga Drakes were being sent from the Whittaker Pharmacy on the outskirts of town. Colin wanted to meet the telegraph operator to see if he might be part of the plot or an unwitting stooge. He would make an innocuous request to send a telegram to his secretary at Reuters to announce that he’d arrived. He dared not send a telegram to Lucy. Saratoga was a small town, and the last thing he wanted was for the Saratoga Drakes to learn of his friendship with Lucy. The doors at Oakmonte would slam shut the moment they suspected such an affiliation.
The bow window of the pharmacy was filled with soaps, glass jars of tea infusions, and colorful bottles of medicinal remedies. Most importantly, a small sign at the top advertised Western Union service. This was the place.
A bell jangled as Colin entered the shop, and he was engulfed in the scent of camphor and pipe tobacco. The store was empty except for a balding man behind the counter, reading a newspaper. He straightened and looked up. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Do you mind if I bring my birds inside?” Colin asked. “It’s a hot day, and I don’t like to leave them in the sun.”
If the pharmacist was surprised, he masked it quickly. “It’s not a problem if they stay in the cage,” he said. “I’m Jack Whittaker. Can I help you?”
“I’d like to send a telegram, please.”
The pharmacist frowned. “Floyd is the one who sends messages, and he’s on a delivery right now. He should be back within a half hour. Can you wait?”
“Is he the only one who can send a message?”
“He’s the only telegrapher on this end of town,” Mr. Whittaker said. “There’s another Western Union station at the train depot three miles from here, but I expect Floyd will be back before you could get there.”
“I’ll wait.” Colin casually strolled to the counter. Colorful sticks of peppermints and licorice filled glass jars. To his delight, he saw a stack of Cadbury chocolates in their distinctive royal purple boxes. He impulsively bought a box for Lucy, since he doubted she had a proper understanding of how quality chocolate should taste.
“Have you lived in Saratoga long?” he asked Mr. Whittaker as he paid for the chocolate.
“Most of my life,” the pharmacist said. “I lived in Albany for a few years, but when the owner of this pharmacy retired, I was eager to take it over. I’ve owned it for twenty-two years now.”
Excellent. That meant the pharmacist would be a good source of information. Colin let his gaze wander out the front window. “It seems a charming town. I’ve come for a short visit to the Drakes up at Oakmonte. You know the family?”
There was a slight downturn of the pharmacist’s mouth before he forced a polite expression onto his face. “Goodness, yes. Everyone in town knows the Drakes. Fine people.”
Sometimes words did not match tone, and Colin had just caught sight of it with the pharmacist. The flash of annoyance had been brief, but it was there. Pharmacists knew plenty about people, such as what ailments they suffered and who paid their bills promptly. If there was a man of Jacob Drake’s age living at Oakmonte, Mr. Whittaker would know. As Colin tried to think of a delicate way of coaxing out the information, Mr. Whittaker picked up the conversation.
“You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”
“My Brooklyn accent always gives me away,” Colin joked, and the pharmacist laughed. Colin had spoken a little about growing up in the Yorkshire countryside and school in London when a bell dinged and a young boy came loping into the shop.
“Ah! Here’s Floyd. He’ll be happy to send your message for you.”
This was Floyd? The boy looked no more than sixteen years old. He had a swath of sandy blond hair hanging over his eyes and a gap-toothed smile.
“You want to send a telegram, mister?” Floyd asked eagerly.
“Please.” Colin handed Floyd a card with a brief message to his secretary. The boy vaulted around the counter and grabbed a station directory.
“Where to?” Floyd asked. The eagerness in his voice was endearing. Colin remembered what it was like to live in a rural village and crave a link to the wider world, even if only through a telegraph sounder.
“It’s going to 195 Broadway.” He resisted the impulse to tell the boy the official code, for he needed to hide his familiarity with telegraphing systems. Someone in this pharmacy might be part of the plot.
It took Floyd a while to locate the right code in the directory. Colin affected a casual pose as he leaned against the counter and studied the modest telegraph station. The table had a small Morse sounder and a receiving wire. A training manual with practice exercises lay open beside the sounder, but Floyd closed it.
“I’m still learning,” he said with a nervous smile. “I figure by this time next year, I’ll be ready to apply for a railroad job.”
Colin doubted it. It took years of practice before an operator could master the speed necessary for a railroad telegraph station. Floyd pecked out the code in painfully slow taps, but his eyes were fierce with concentration as he worked through Colin’s message. After the message was sent and the connection closed, Floyd counted the words and calculated the cost, using a chart on the board above his desk.
“Twenty cents, please.”
Colin slid the coins across the counter. “What are the other lists for?” he asked as he nodded to the pages tacked above the table.
“Oh, those are the codes for stations people in town use a lot. You’d be amazed how many thousands of telegraph stations there are in the country. It takes a while to look them up and figure out the right path to send the message, and some people can be so impatient, you know?”
Colin leaned ove
r the counter as far as courtesy permitted, but he was too far away to decipher any of the frequent exchanges on Floyd’s list. He pointed to the call box. “What’s that metal disk?”
Floyd was eager to explain how the call box was connected to the local bank, and how it buzzed when bankers wanted him to come fetch a message to send.
“Can I come around and see?”
Floyd looked to Mr. Whittaker, who nodded permission. Colin moved behind the counter and let Floyd explain the system. It gave him a close-up view of Floyd’s list of frequently used exchanges.
The Moreno Law Office was at the top of the list. He was in the right place.
“So you are the only operator who mans this station?” Colin pressed. “What happens if a message comes in and you aren’t here?”
“I live above the grocery right next door,” Floyd said. “If I’m not here when the machine starts buzzing, Mr. Whittaker bangs on my door, and I come down and open the connection. The original operator is usually still on the line and will resend. I get to split the revenue with Mr. Whittaker, so I don’t mind coming down anytime. I love sending messages. The more practice I get, the sooner I can move to Albany and get a real job with the railroad. And maybe someday even with one of the press associations. That would be my dream.”
He was a good kid. It was impossible to imagine Floyd was anything more than an unwitting accomplice in the scheme.
“And after you receive a message, how does it get sent to the recipient?”
“I personally deliver. Most people give me a nice tip, especially if I have to go a distance or the weather is bad.”
A perfect opening. “I’m heading out to Oakmonte this morning. Are there any deliveries I can take for you on my way out? Anything for old Mr. Drake?”
He addressed the question to the pharmacist. If Jacob Drake was still living at Oakmonte, the pharmacist would probably know.
A Dangerous Legacy Page 13
