A House Divided

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  A HOUSE DIVIDED

  A LINCOLN AND SPEED MYSTERY

  Jonathan F. Putnam

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY JONATHAN F. PUTNAM

  Lincoln and Speed mysteries

  Final Resting Place

  Perish from the Earth

  These Honored Dead

  For my sister, Lara Putnam,

  who’s been helping me keep my story straight for nearly fifty years

  CHAPTER 1

  A dishonest banker brought me to Chicago, and a pickpocket I met there saved my life.

  It was a chilly day in December 1839, and I stood in the drizzle on muddy Water Street. In front of me was the four-story brick block that housed the Chicago branch of the State Bank. At my back was the Chicago River, a sea-green ribbon of tumultuous swells flowing into an endless blue lake under steel-gray skies. Wind whipping off the lake took the water gathered on the brim of my hat and blew it sideways.

  I was waiting for a man named Brown. The bank in this tenuous, boom-and-bust city kept running out of hard currency, with disastrous consequences, but no one could figure out why. After several fruitless investigations, the town fathers in Springfield, the state capital, had asked me to look into the mystery. Brown, the cashier of the bank, was my best lead.

  After I’d been lingering on the street for an hour, a trim man with a shiny black top hat, fully buttoned vest under his frockcoat, and a walking stick came down the stairs and headed toward the lakefront. I fell into step next to him.

  “Brown?” I began.

  “If you’re looking for a loan, the answer’s no,” the banker said without breaking stride. His face bore elaborate whiskers and the supercilious expression common to men of his detested profession.

  “Quite the opposite. I’m looking for a safe place to keep the funds of my general store, A.Y. Ellis & Co., of Springfield. My name’s Speed,” I added, extending my hand in greeting.

  He gave it a quick, unenthusiastic shake and kept walking. “Why aren’t you using the Springfield branch?”

  “I’m expanding my business to Chicago,” I lied, “and need a local connection.”

  Brown came to a halt next to an upright wooden windlass that marked one end of the ferry crossing. A bell tinkled, and the rope attached to the crossbar strained as the ferry left the opposite bank and began its journey through the choppy waters toward us.

  “We accept paper on Mondays and Thursdays,” Brown said. “Come by then, if what you say is true. But we don’t take Michigan money. Or canal scrip. All worthless. Only genuine notes issued by the State Bank of Illinois.”

  The ferry, a flat wooden platform, reached us, and we stood aside as a few men straggled off, bent over against the late-afternoon chill, followed by a double-team of horses pulling a wagon piled high with hog carcasses. The banker stepped aboard and I followed.

  The ferryman, a burly man with a blistered face, stopped me and held out a hand riven by scars and calluses. Spray from the river dripped from the bottom of his thick navy pants.

  “Across and back,” I said.

  “That’s a halfpenny.”

  I pulled my leather purse from the pocket of my greatcoat and handed him a bright silver dime. The ferryman sighed loudly and made a show of counting out my change. Three or four other men came aboard, and the ferryman swung his gate shut and started pulling us hand-over-hand into the river. I turned back to Brown and nearly recoiled at the look of unabashed greed in his eyes.

  “I’ve spoken too hastily, Mr. Speed,” he said. “I didn’t realize you have hard currency to deposit.”

  “I certainly do.”

  “That’s different than paper. A different situation altogether. Not enough silver or gold in this town to support a tenth of its commerce. You come by my branch anytime.”

  I touched my hat to acknowledge his newfound amity. The ferry rocked through the swirling river waters. With a jolt, it reached the north bank. One of the other passengers jostled me as we began to disembark. Glancing over, I felt sure I recognized the man as a young laborer from Springfield who came into my store for supplies now and again. I searched my brain but could not come up with a name to fit his features: lanky frame; long, curly hair tossed by the breeze; and a lean face covered by patchy whiskers. I called out a greeting, but the man was already loping away across the landing platform.

  “I’ll see you soon, friend,” Brown was saying. He, too, started to head off.

  “Before you go,” I said, “can you assure me the rumors aren’t true?”

  “What rumors?” Brown turned back, annoyed.

  “I’ve been told money flows out of your branch so quickly it’s like you’ve got a hole cut in the bottom of the vault.”

  “There’s no place safer in town to store your hard currency. You have my word.”

  “Who guards the vault?”

  “I have the only key on my person at all times.” He patted his pocket with well-kept fingers. “That way I know it’s secure.”

  I felt certain Brown was my man. Now I just had to find the proof.

  After taking the ferry back to the south side of the river, I walked a few paces to Chicago’s post office. I pushed through the door into a cluttered chamber, lit only by the thin light filtering through two small windows. A middle-aged man with gaudy whiskers straightened as I entered. A handwritten sign resting on the low wooden counter announced, SIDNEY ABELL, POSTMASTER.

  “How frequently does the mail pouch depart for Springfield?” I asked.

  “It’s on the coach for Joliet at two AM daily, Sundays excepted,” said Abell in a squeaky voice. “I’m not certain how often Mr. VanHorne sends his coaches south from there towards Springfield, but your letter will arrive in good time.”

  One of the men who had asked me to investigate the State Bank in Chicago was the fellow I shared lodgings with, a young lawyer and member of the banking committee in the state legislature. I asked Abell for a sheet of writing paper and hastily wrote out a note describing my investigations so far and relating that I hoped to return home within a few days.

  I folded the letter, wrote A. Lincoln, Hoffman’s Row, Springfield on the outside flap, and handed it to Abell.

  “Your Mr. Lincoln will pay the postage, of course,” he said, “but that’ll be a penny for the paper.”

  I gave the man a sharp look; most postmasters were in the habit of giving away writing materials without charge to promote the business of the mails, and the fact that Abell did not could only be a sign of personal avarice. I reached for my purse, but my hand came away empty. I searched each of the pockets of my greatcoat and then, panic steadily growing, of my waistcoat and pantaloons underneath. The change provided by the ferryman jangled in one pocket; otherwise, I was penniless.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve misplaced the thing,” said Abell as he watched my search. “How many times do you think I’ve heard that?”

  “I paid the ferryman for passage not thirty minutes ago. I must have lost my purse since then, along the street perhaps. And it contains something much more valuable than money. I’ve got to find it.”

  But as I turned to leave, Abell’s hand clenched my wrist. “You’ll do no such thing,” he said, his unfriendly eyes hard on mine. “I want my cent. Now.”

  Lincoln had better savor his update, I thought as I offered Abell a penny. The postmaster snatched the coin with greedy fingers and promised that my letter would be on the night’s stage. Then I rushed out in search of the purse.

  That it contained all the money I’d brought on the long trip from Springfield was the least of my worries. The purse contained a priceless possession: the only portrait I had of my youngest sister, Ann, who had passed away last year at the age of eight. I could not bear the thought I’d lost it
.

  But an hour spent searching the darkening, windswept streets produced no sign of my purse, and I was forced to conclude it was gone. I was crushed. I opened the locket containing Ann’s likeness every evening as I prepared for bed. Thinking about my afternoon again, I wondered whether the laborer who had jostled me aboard the ferry had lifted it. If so, at least I’d have a chance of encountering the villain back home in Springfield.

  My only other hope was that someone would find the purse and have the decency to restore it to me. The next morning, I paid a visit to the offices of the Daily Chicago American and used most of my remaining funds to place a notice describing the lost purse and locket and offering a handsome reward for their return. Then I returned to the streets, my chest aching from the loss of Ann’s portrait.

  Chicago was a chaotic place. A throng of rootless men in dingy clothes clogged the streets beside me. Several of the principal roads had been graded, with plank sluices set along the edges to carry surface water toward the river, but the rest of the streets were muddy and unimproved. There was a frozen pond lying at the corner of Lake and LaSalle streets; one local told me that, in the summer months, it was full of belching bullfrogs.

  Only 350 people had lived in the city a scant seven years ago, but now more than 4,000 called it home. Most had been drawn by the state’s promise to build a canal linking Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and thereby transform Chicago into the essential crossroads of northwestern trade. The Canal Board had encouraged hundreds of Irishmen to migrate here from western New York, where they had recently finished digging the great Erie Canal. But the state’s faltering finances amid a nationwide depression had put an indefinite halt to these grand plans. The troubles of the State Bank had been the last straw. The Canal Board was out of funds and deeply in debt. The canal workers hadn’t been paid in months. No one knew if or when work on the canal would resume.

  That afternoon, I rode my horse Hickory through a coarse growth of oak and underbrush, wet and slushy, to find the canal terminus. I sat astride Hickory on the canal embankment and watched a handful of Irishmen dig away ineffectually at the bottom. After a few desultory minutes the lads stopped working and began arguing with each other over some triviality. Soon the angry words turned to blows and the navvies were rolling around on top of each other, a sorry, muddy mass.

  On our way back, Hickory and I came upon a cluster of lean-tos thrown up for the Irish by the Canal Board. The hovels had been erected without much regard for lines, and they perched uncertainly on a hill. Several children, clothed only by filthy rags wound around their midsections, played in the mud in front of their dwelling. One brave little boy, his face hollow and his ribs nearly sticking out of his chest, came over to greet Hickory. The horse dipped her head and let herself be stroked.

  “If you please, sir.”

  I looked up. A thin woman with the hardship of the times etched on her face stood a few feet away. She held a fussing infant in one arm, while her other hand was outstretched, her fingers cupped and trembling.

  “If you please, sir,” she repeated. She used her forearm to brush a strand of graying hair away from her eyes. “The little ones, they haven’t had anything to eat for days.”

  “The Board doesn’t feed you?”

  “I haven’t seen the Board since last summer.”

  “Your husband?”

  She merely shook her head. The infant in her arms let out a cry, and the woman started humming a lullaby, jiggling the baby up and down. All the while, her desperate eyes never left my face.

  The other children who had been playing in the mud were all gathered around Hickory now, encouraged by the first boy’s boldness, and the horse whinnied nervously at all of the little hands grabbing at her forelegs.

  “Careful they don’t get stepped on,” I said. I reached into the pocket of my coat and pulled out my three remaining pennies. Bending down, I handed them to the woman. Her palm was ice-cold to the touch. “It’s all I have. Truly. I wish I had more.”

  The woman’s eyes flickered from my fine clothing to my well-fed horse and finally to her ragged children on the muddy ground. She turned back silently for the hovel behind her.

  “I’ll be back with more if I can,” I called after her, but the woman gave no sign she’d heard me as she trudged away, her crying infant squirming in her arms.

  CHAPTER 2

  As we trotted back toward the forks, the lake was on our right, a vast mirror shimmering in the pale afternoon sun. In front of us, a thin layer of smoke hovered above the rude procession of shanty chimneys and ramshackle structures that comprised Chicago. The field petered out, slowly replaced by small farms and then an irregular street grid. Hickory was a clever, nimble mare, but even she was unable to avoid sinking down with each step along the swampy streets as we proceeded toward Beaubien’s Sauganash Tavern, hard along the south fork of the river.

  The sleeping quarters at the Sauganash were scarcely deserving of the name. The partitions between rooms consisted of upright studs with bedsheets stretched across them. The inn was crowded with people, both travelers and newly arrived immigrants to the city, who spent their nights sprawled on wood floors, a weary, stinking mass of humanity.

  On account of my reputable appearance, Beaubien had graciously allowed me to sleep in his “private chamber,” a bare room eight foot square, which I shared with three other men of equal stature. He had also agreed to extend credit and accept payment for my lodging and meals at the end of my stay. Ever since I’d lost my purse, I’d taken every meal at his table. I wasn’t looking forward to our conversation on the morning of my departure.

  Beaubien’s public room was slightly more welcoming. Wood beams ran the length of the low ceiling, drawing visitors toward the bar, where the tavernkeeper presided next to an open barrel of liquor.

  “Where’d you go today, Speed?” Beaubien asked as he handed me a clear, brimming glass. The whiskey burned its way down my throat, but it felt warm after the cold day’s ride.

  “Canalport. Those Irish families are in bad shape.”

  Beaubien shrugged. “No one made ’em come here. They can sail for home if they don’t like it.”

  “The ones I encountered didn’t look strong enough to walk a mile.”

  There was a pounding at the door, and the innkeeper looked up. The city’s waterman had arrived to make his delivery of fresh water from the lake. He backed up his two-wheeled cart, laden with four large hogshead casks and pulled by a beaten-down old nag. Then he extended a leathern hose from the base of one of his casks into a large barrel Beaubien kept just inside his front door. When the barrel was filled, Beaubien handed over a few small slips of paper. The waterman looked up in anger.

  “You know I don’ accept canal scrip,” he said, crumpling the slips and dumping them back into Beaubien’s hands. The waterman’s face was lined with age and his eyes rheumy. “No telling when the State Bank will get around to redeeming them. If they ever do. I need hard money or you ain’t getting water no more.”

  Beaubien sighed loudly. “Hear now, scrip is all I get from my lodgers these days. Can’t pay you what I don’t have.”

  “That’s your problem, ain’t it?”

  The men stared at each other impassively. Finally, a nasty look on his face, Beaubien dug into his pocket and counted out six pennies. The waterman grunted in satisfaction, rolled up his hose, and trudged off down the street, whipping his horse mercilessly as he did.

  “Thus, the waterworks of the great city of Chicago,” Beaubien said with a grimace, as he saw me studying the transaction. “You should have seen this place a few years back, Speed, before the Panic and everything else that’s happened. Men came into town on a Monday, bought up three lots along the canal route on Tuesday, and sold ’em on Thursday for a fifty percent profit. They were heady times.”

  The next morning, I set out to prove my case against the larcenous bank cashier. Without a purse full of silver coins, there seemed no point in meeting Brown fa
ce-to-face. Instead, I blended into the crowd and trailed his progress through the muddy streets. He visited Underhill’s slaughterhouse on South Water, Funk’s butcher shop on State, Marsh’s packing house on Carroll, and then went back again to Underhill’s. For a banker, Brown sure spent a lot of time looking at pigs. This gave me an idea.

  After waiting until Brown had disappeared down the street, I ventured inside Underhill’s, a log cabin near the south bank of the river. A good deal of grunting and an overpowering smell emanated from the livestock pens out back. Underhill looked up when I entered. He was a ruddy Englishman, with a full belly and curly light-brown hair, wearing a blood-splattered apron. Rather than greeting him, however, I made a show of walking around his establishment, inspecting the carcasses hanging from the ceiling and the cut-up meats on his counter, murmuring to myself all the while.

  “I’ll just have a look out back,” I said, moving to walk through the door leading to the pens.

  “Who the devil are you?” Underhill demanded, blocking my way.

  “Who I am is unimportant. What’s important is who my employer is. You’ve heard of Tate Brothers of New York City, of course.”

  “I’m sure I have,” said Underhill, his hands on his hips. If he had, that made one of us.

  “Then perhaps you know Tate Brothers is the largest purveyor of pork in five separate eastern states. Six, if you count Vermont. I’ve been sent to Chicago to search for a new wholesale source. A huge source. Someone gave me your name. But—” I looked around critically, clicking my tongue “—I’ve been misinformed.”

  “What do you mean, misinformed?”

  “I was told Underhill’s was a substantial establishment. One that could supply us with a thousand pigs a month.” I shook my head and turned to leave. “I guess I’ll try Marsh’s.”

  Underhill nearly leapt to restrain me. “Hold on one minute, sir. You were very much correctly informed. You’ve come to the right place. There’s no finer slaughterhouse in Chicago. If a thousand a month is what you need, this is the place for you.”