The night was long, long, long.
Day found me in Chicago at last, and when I walked in the door of the office, I almost cried at the pleasant familiarity. Men bustling about. Cabinets of case files. The empty garments of the costume closet, the shapes of arms and legs hanging hollow, waiting to be filled. The right kind of flag, posted in the waiting room. Here was home.
And here was the boss, reaching his hand out to shake mine, equally welcome.
“Warne,” said Pinkerton warmly.
I shook his hand with all the energy left in my body after the long train ride. “Boss. You said come home.”
“I did.”
“And here I am.”
“It’s good to see you, Warne. Even if the occasion…” He sighed heavily. I was already worried about what he might say, and his reticence concerned me even more.
“I assumed it isn’t good news.”
“Not at all,” he said, instantly somber.
I arranged my skirts, tried to ignore the inch-thick coating of coal dust smeared against my sweaty neck, and waited for the story.
“You know we have our ear to the ground for the railroad,” he began.
“Of course.”
“Well, what we hear isn’t always about the tracks themselves. And this time, we’ve heard something that concerns us a great deal.”
“Don’t give me the story, Boss,” I said. “Give me the facts.”
“Lincoln. They plan to kill him.”
For once, I wished there had been more story.
He sketched out the plan for me with a bare minimum of fuss. Maryland was against Lincoln and against the North. By a quirk of geography, it was also the best approach to Washington, DC, and Lincoln was slated to pass through it two days before his inauguration. Two rail companies had laid track to Baltimore at different times, so travel through the city required an overland switch. Lincoln couldn’t merely pass through and wave from a moving train; he would have to dismount one train and ride via coach to another. That, said Pinkerton, was where they'd surround him and do him in. Rail lines couldn't be laid overnight. There was no way to get him through Baltimore without the overland switch.
“So what are we going to do?”
“That’s for you and me to decide.”
As terrible as the news was and as unsure as I was that we could actually save a man who half the nation seemed eager to kill, I felt a bolt of energy zing through me. Of all his operatives, the boss had chosen me as fellow mastermind. It was the most important challenge of my life so far.
Time was of the essence. I stayed that night in the office, still smeared with coal dust but intent on every word. We talked all night long to determine the plan. No more than five operatives, we decided, all of us based in Baltimore itself. Naturally, the two of us had to go. Without hesitation, I named Hattie Lawton, who would be more than able to adapt herself to any female persona we needed. It was also natural for me to suggest Graham DeForest. More reluctantly, I had to admit that Tim Bellamy was the best among the remaining men, and he would be the natural choice to round out our team.
We needed a married couple and decided that should be Pinkerton and Hattie. In some recess of my mind, I still felt the sting of Joan Pinkerton’s jealousy and still heard operatives jokingly calling me, never to my face, the other Mrs. Pinkerton. I would direct everyone’s activities, which would necessitate running around at all hours. Bellamy would have the flexibility of a single traveler. DeForest would take a position as a porter at the train station and learn all there was to know about the workings therein. Our intelligence indicated there was an abandoned cabin on the western approach to the city both close enough to reach and remote enough to escape close watch; it would make a fine place to exchange secret communications.
The plan finally determined, Pinkerton dismissed me to rest. I went to Mrs. Borowski’s boardinghouse, where she welcomed me warmly and gave me a single room, and after shucking my dress and corset onto the floor without ceremony, I fell onto the bed in my underclothes and slept the sleep of the dead.
The next day, I was on my way to Baltimore. Hattie and Pinkerton would travel together, as befitted their supposedly married state. DeForest and Bellamy would come after, on separate trains. I was the first to go, and I felt it keenly. There would be no one to catch me if I fell.
Upon arrival, I took up residence in the Barnum Hotel, which our intelligence had told us was the most Southern outpost in the city. I laid on a thick Charleston accent and named myself Mrs. Harrington, in honor of the dead woman I had impersonated years before. I still turned when I heard the name and never forgot its associations, so it was perfect for my needs. Sarah Harrington might not have been pleased with the behavior I used in her name—I flirted shamelessly and became known as a bit of a social butterfly—but I thought at least she might be pleased to live on in some way, even such a small one as this.
The Barnum Hotel was a lovely place. Not quite as grand as the Spotswood in Richmond or Willard’s Hotel in Washington, it made up for it in cozy charm. The bannisters were polished to a shine, and there was a neatly arrayed stack of logs in every fireplace, always standing ready to be lit. We had fine sherry in the evenings, not too sweet. The front parlor was papered in large magnolia blossoms, making it the perfect place for Southern ladies and gentlemen to repose in comfort. All the women sported a fanned rose of black-and-white ribbons on their hats, called the cockade, to signal their sympathies. My cockade was the same size and style as all the rest. I would spend a great deal of time at the Barnum.
I quickly got to know the other guests. The silver-tongued Sheffields were the life of the party, always lifting a glass to the health of friends, day or night, rain or shine. Captain Danvers was a sinister-looking fellow with a deep groove in his forehead and brows as thick as my thumbs, but a few days’ acquaintance revealed him to be a kind, courtly gentleman, lonely for his family back in Norfolk. Two middle-aged sisters, Peggy and Patty Gilchrist, strode about fanning themselves as if someone were paying them to do so and refused to talk politics out of politeness, even if provoked. I kept my ears open and my eyes attuned. I did not have to elicit opinions or tease out personalities. People simply revealed themselves to me by being who they were.
Of all the people in the hotel, the barber in the basement, Ferrandini, was among the most talkative. He had a great deal to say about a great many things. He would not talk to me, a mere woman, of all of them. But from things I overheard, I knew there was a local militia forming, and he was urging every young man he met to join up. So, through coded messages dropped off and picked up without seeing each other face-to-face, I let Tim Bellamy know it was time for a haircut.
The next day, we arranged to sit at neighboring tables at a nearby restaurant. We had a quiet, broken conversation with our backs to each other.
“So there is a militia,” I whispered down at my teacup.
“In Perrymansville.”
“Called?”
“The National Volunteers.”
“Dangerous?”
“Absolutely.” Then a minute later, “I need to join.”
“Let me ask the boss first.”
“No.”
“I will ask the boss first,” I said more firmly.
There was a longer pause and then, “All right.”
“I’ll bring word tomorrow at the cabin.” I laid my coins on the table and left, knowing there would be no response. We were both professionals. Even more than asking the right questions and sharing the right information, our safety and success depended on knowing when to keep our mouths shut.
While Bellamy and Pinkerton could not be seen together, Hattie and I could stroll in the park without attracting much notice, and so we did. We interspersed our empty chatter with occasional words of import, and as I walked with her back to her hotel, her husband joined us for a short while. T
hat was when I conveyed the information to him. The secessionist militia. Their location and danger. The barber, who needed to be watched. Bellamy’s need to learn more. While we knew the plot was unlikely to involve an entire formal group of soldiers, we knew these men were passionate secessionists and couldn’t let the opportunity to hear their talk pass. Individual men were not nearly as dangerous as an organized force, and certainly, the most dangerous of them all was an armed one.
Pinkerton agreed with me: Bellamy had to go to Perrymansville, and there was no time like the present.
We met at the abandoned cabin on the outskirts of town the next day. I walked and lurked near the edge of the cabin. Bellamy approached on horseback, and I was surprised at what I saw.
He didn’t have access to his costume closet, but he had still managed to transform himself. He wore homespun pants, a shirt that had seen much wear, and a cap pulled low over his eyes. More importantly, he had changed the way he carried himself. He had never seemed a calm man, but now there was something tightly coiled about him, as if his entire body were a spring. He looked like an angry, ready man. He looked like a rebel.
He rode near enough for me to see and hear him, though my shape was obscured by the outer cabin wall, and no one riding by on the nearby road would know that I was there.
“Am I to go?” he asked the air.
“Yes.”
“I’ll leave word here when I can,” he said and began moving away without waiting for an answer.
No one was there to see him go but me. Perhaps because of this, he saluted. Then he wheeled his horse and headed off down the road at a slow, unhurried trot.
Seeing him go, I felt a twinge in the pit of my stomach. Could he possibly convince these men, these potential evildoers, that he was one of them? He was headed straight into the hornet’s nest.
I hated the feeling that every time I parted company with someone I knew, it might be the last time we saw each other alive. Bellamy wasn’t a friend, but I’d known him a long time, and I respected him deeply. The thought that he might be riding to his death made me ill.
I knew he was the best we had. I just wasn’t sure he would be good enough.
Chapter Nineteen
Plots and Plans
I wanted to introduce Pinkerton to the barber, but I couldn’t do so quickly without inviting suspicion, having already introduced him to Tim Bellamy just two days before. Instead, I placed them in each other’s path, suggesting Pinkerton appear, with Hattie, at a restaurant called Guy’s near the Barnum Hotel. It was very popular with the barber and his ilk. I knew a head-turning young lady like Hattie would draw the barber’s attention quickly. Hattie knew how to flirt just enough. A target would bask in the warm sun of her attention without believing her a fickle mistress ready to turn her back on her husband for anyone at all. It was a talent.
Within three days, Pinkerton had made friends with the barber and learned much. The next time I saw him, he was excited and angry in equal measure.
“He is brazen beyond belief!” Pinkerton said without preamble. I had carefully snuck into their room at the Chesapeake Hotel, my room at the Barnum being far too accessible to the Secesh sympathizers.
“How so?”
“Boasts outright about killing Lincoln. For the sake of the country, he says. Man is a tyrant, he says. Says he’s willing to die for a cause, as many proud Italians have done before him.”
“And the police can’t arrest him for that?”
“That’s the worst of it. The chief of police is part of the cabal.”
“No.”
He nodded gravely. “He’s ready to step aside when the day comes. He’ll send a small force, but only the minimum, to the Calvert Street Station for Lincoln’s arrival. There will be some sort of diversion, some noise, that causes them to be drawn off. And then the violence will be done.”
“He talks of this in the open? Even though he doesn’t know you?”
“In the company of complete strangers. I shouldn’t have worried that he would censor himself on my account. I almost believe he would say these vile things in front of the president-elect himself.”
I shook my head. “Terrible. But at least we know for sure. No pussyfooting around. There is a plot and no two ways about it.”
“Yes. The threat is real. We need to tell Lincoln.”
“We do.”
“You do, I should say.”
“Me?”
“He’ll listen to you, Warne,” said Pinkerton.
“Will he?”
“He asks after you every time we speak. He was very impressed by what you did in Springfield, says you’re the best agent I have. I have to hope he’ll listen to you. If he doesn’t listen to someone, we’ll lose him.”
“You’ve already tried?”
“I have. I sent telegram after telegram.”
“But in person, surely—”
“Tried that too. He was polite about it, but he sent me on my way. Said he owed it to the people to keep his path and wouldn’t be swayed from it.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. Whether or not I succeeded, I’d be a fool and a coward not to try. “What’s my cover?”
• • •
Ten hours later, I arrived at the Astor Place Hotel in New York. I was sick to death of hotels, truth be told. But our business had to be done where it had to be done. And, I reminded myself, there was no greater business than this.
A large man with a large beard greeted me at the door, and though I hadn’t met him before, I knew Mr. Lamon immediately by description. If Pinkerton was a barrel, Lamon was a cask: larger, wider, and rounder in the middle. He was a good friend of Lincoln’s, acting as his bodyguard on this journey, whether or not Lincoln wished it so.
Lamon ushered me into the outer chamber of Lincoln’s room, which was small but well appointed. I knew Lincoln had been traveling a great deal, and it was our good fortune that he could be intercepted in New York, where a train would bring me right to his doorstep.
When the man himself entered, he looked almost the same; a shock, considering how things had changed since we’d last spoken. The entire world had been rocked on its axis; it seemed incredible that anything could remain as it had been only a few months before. And he, once a local solicitor, now about to be the president—all the more shocking that he, alone among those I knew, would seem like his younger self. He had grown a well-tended beard in the meantime, so his cheeks looked less gaunt, but his eyes, his most memorable feature, still burned with the same intelligence I remembered.
The suite at the Astor contained only us three. I thought to ask Lamon to leave, but as soon as I looked in his direction, Lincoln said, “Anything you can say to me should be said in the presence of Hill here. He is a key advisor.”
I nodded at Lamon, and he returned the motion.
Then I said to him, “Do you believe the Baltimore plot is real, Mr. Lamon?”
“I do not want to believe it,” he said, shrugging and nestling himself deeper into his chair. “But we are here to listen to your evidence. And so perhaps you will make both of us believe.”
It was not what I wanted to hear but no worse than I expected. “And you do understand just how much is at stake here?”
Lincoln said, “My life.”
“Respectfully, sir, it’s far more than that.”
Lamon said, “The future of the nation. Yes, Mr. Pinkerton told us that already.”
“Can you be so cavalier?”
“Mrs. Warne,” said Lamon, sounding impatient. “Day in and day out, everyone speaks in this rhetoric. Everything is the most or the worst or the highest or the best. Even our friend Lincoln here speaks only in high-flown language.”
Lincoln shrugged a bit ruefully. His silence neither confirmed nor denied the charge.
I addressed the silent man. “Sir, you have t
o understand. We’re deadly serious about this.”
“I know you are, Mrs. Warne. But you have to understand me. I keep my promises. I need to be in Harrisburg, and I need to be in Baltimore, just as I said I would.”
“You made another promise. A bigger promise. You said you would be the president of the United States of America. A free country, of free men. Don’t you want to keep that promise?”
He sat back, hands on his knees, too big for his chair. “And you’re going to say I can’t keep it if I’m dead.”
“Yes. But I believe we can compromise,” I said. Consulting the copy of his itinerary Lamon had provided, I pointed to a line of text. “I can get you to Harrisburg day after tomorrow for the noon event as scheduled.”
“Good.”
“Then we leave immediately afterward.”
“No.”
“Damn it, Lincoln.”
“Damn it, Warne,” he replied in the same tone without a moment’s hesitation.
“What do you want?”
He leaned closer, unfolding and refolding his long, spidery legs. He pointed to a line below where my finger still rested. “I have three speeches and a dinner planned in Harrisburg. I’m going to attend all of them.”
“So a dinner is worth dying for.”
He said grimly, “I’m not going to die.”
“We are absolutely certain that there are men in Baltimore who wish you ill.”
“Of course there are men in Baltimore who wish me ill!” He said it as if confirming that the world was round, and for the first time, I believed he did truly understand the danger he was in. There were those who loved him and those who hated him, and he knew it. “But are they really organized enough to do something about it?”
Girl in Disguise Page 16
