Final Resting Place

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  Unlike most men in town, Simeon Francis appeared no more disheveled today than he did on every other day. “Lincoln was returned by a comfortable margin,” he said. “He’ll likely end up with more votes than any other candidate for the legislature.”

  “And Stuart against Douglas?”

  The newspaperman gave a gravelly cough. “That one doesn’t look good. Stuart was ahead by a handful of votes here in Springfield, but from what I’ve been hearing Douglas ran up big margins in the northern reaches of the district. A fellow on the Peoria stagecoach this morning told me Douglas was ahead by more than a hundred in Knox County and that he’d heard the margins for him were even larger up near Chicago. All those Irish navvies fell for the Democratic fiction about restarting the improvements scheme. A real shame. Douglas will be even more insufferable as congressman-elect.”

  A few hours later, I returned to No. 4, Hoffman’s Row. To my surprise, Martha was present. She and Lincoln were hovering above the table, and when I came over I saw they were staring at a white woman’s glove. The glove I’d found in the woods the night Lincoln, Miss Owens, and I had gone strolling.

  “Where’d you get that?” I exclaimed.

  “Henry Owens found it in his sister’s room, when he was cleaning it out this morning. It was wedged beneath her mattress.”

  “But how did he—or she—get it back from me?”

  Lincoln looked at me with confusion. I picked up the glove from the table, and I realized it was left-handed.

  “Wait a minute!” I shouted as I ran from the room. I burst into my storeroom, rushed past Herndon as he looked up from the counter, and raced up the stairs to our lodgings. I located the glove I’d found during our walk tucked into the recesses of my trunk. Two minutes later I was charging through Lincoln’s office door again, panting, the glove I’d found in my outstretched hand.

  “Where did that come from?” demanded Lincoln, when he realized I had the glove’s mate.

  “A passing merchant—” began Martha.

  “No, that’s not right,” I said. I explained about finding the glove atop the stump in the woods.

  Martha shot me a wounded glare—for lying to her, I supposed—and turned her attention back to the gloves. There was no doubt they were a set; they featured the identical ink design of the courting couple. They even had similar amounts of wear in the palms and fingertips.

  “I wonder how Miss Owens’s glove ended up in the woods,” said Martha.

  “They weren’t Miss Owens’s,” said Lincoln. “Her brother told me he’d never seen her wearing them.”

  “He probably didn’t realize it,” said Martha. “Men never look carefully at women’s fashions. Especially not brothers at their sisters.”

  “No, he was very sure of it. His sister never wore this glove—these gloves,” said Lincoln, correcting himself as he stared at the two together. For a moment, his eyes widened and I thought I saw a tremor run across his face, but when I looked again it had vanished.

  “Then whose are they?” asked Martha.

  “And could it be a coincidence one was left in the woods, near where a shot was fired at us, and the other in Miss Owens’s bedroom?” I said.

  “It was no coincidence,” said Martha. “Whoever shot at you is the same person who killed Miss Owens. These gloves link the two together.”

  Lincoln suddenly pushed himself away from the table and walked around in a tight circle. When he turned back to us, his jaw was set.

  “I don’t have time for any more speculation. I need to finish preparing for trial, and I’m quite sure these gloves have nothing to do with getting Truett acquitted. I must ask both of you to leave. And take the gloves with you, if you please.”

  His tone brooked no discussion, and Martha and I were soon on the street. A block down, Martha put her hand on my arm and came to a halt.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “There was something about … Lincoln was looking at the gloves in a most peculiar fashion. Did you see?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps?”

  “I’m certain of it,” said Martha. She looked down at the gloves, which were dangling from her hand. “I think he recognized them.” She gave a little gasp, and she turned to face me. “In fact, I think he recognized them as belonging to Miss Rutledge.”

  “Miss Rutledge? But she died three years ago. When did she lose her glove in the woods? And how did its mate get into Miss Owens’s bedroom? There are dozens of other young women, several hundred probably, in Springfield, to say nothing of the rest of Sangamon County. They could be any of theirs.”

  “I think I’m right,” said Martha, shaking her head with conviction. “I know I am.”

  “But how—”

  “Perhaps it was Miss Rutledge’s ghost. Watching over you on your walk. And watching over Miss Owens on her deathbed.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The following day, trial arrived. In what we could only hope was not an omen of more bad things to come, the morning started dismally. The tallies for the Third Congressional District had finally been collected from all parts of the far-flung district, and Douglas had garnered nearly a thousand more votes than Stuart.

  “Douglas is Elected,” conceded the headline in the Sangamo Journal. The only part of Simeon’s accompanying story that was enjoyable to read was his not-so-private joke of using the adjective “short” a dozen times in his narrative: “the short victory,” the concession from Stuart expected “in short order,” and so on.

  But the effect on Douglas as he strode through the throng of people gathered on the street in front of Hoffman’s Row was anything but small. His chest puffed out, his face glowed, and he even seemed to have grown several inches in physical stature overnight. The crowd surged toward him, men offering outstretched hands and hearty congratulations and women offering becoming smiles and curtsies. I heard four separate men inquire of Douglas about being appointed to government positions within the span of a single block.

  “Some of these same men are going to be on our jury,” said Lincoln as he stood next to me and watched the scene with a sour look on his face. “Do you think they’ll be prepared to judge my client fairly as against him?”

  “Truett was hoping Douglas would win so he’d be granted the land office position,” I said.

  “That was foolhardy. As he should know better than anyone, dead men are ineligible for government service.”

  “I think you’re overly concerned about Douglas. You’ve just prevailed in your election as well. Both sides’ counsel in the trial will be victorious politicians.”

  “There’s quite a difference,” said Lincoln as he stalked off, and in truth there was no doubting he was right. No men surged toward Lincoln as he walked up the street toward the courtroom, and no women curtsied. Almost a hundred men served in the Illinois General Assembly, and the patronage each could distribute on behalf of the bankrupt government of our frontier state was comparatively limited. Meanwhile, Douglas would now be one of only three Illinois representatives to the national government, with its huge natural resources and immense number of offices. The gulf in prestige and power was vast.

  The disagreeable fawning continued inside the courtroom. Judge Thomas nearly tripped over himself in his effort to rush forward to offer Douglas his congratulations. Thomas wrapped his arm around the victor’s shoulders and whispered at length into his ear. Douglas listened intently, his arms crossed in front of his chest, giving a sober nod at regular intervals as if to signal his newfound gravity. I guessed Thomas had his sights set on the federal district court judgeship for Illinois, a position with a generous salary and lifetime tenure.

  Sheriff Hutchason brought Truett into the courtroom. I was glad to see that Truett had managed to scrub the dirt off his face and hands and that his normal set of clothes had been restored to him. But he still wore a haunted look, and his clothes hung uncertainly from his withered frame.

  Seeing the defendant enter the courtroom, Judge Thomas recoll
ected himself and, reluctantly detaching himself from his would-be patron, went to assume the bench.

  “Call the case, Clerk,” directed the judge with one last, longing look toward Douglas.

  My friend Matheny, the court clerk, shouted at the top of his lungs, “The People against Henry Truett on the charge of murder with malice aforethought.”

  “Is the defense prepared, Mr. Lincoln?”

  “We are, Your Honor,” said Lincoln, swelling up to his full height, the top of his stovepipe hat seemingly close to the ceiling.

  “And Mr. Douglas, notwithstanding your recent increase in national responsibilities, you are still willing to undertake the People’s burden in this matter?”

  “I am, Your Honor,” announced Douglas in his deep, sonorous voice. “My sense of duty and patriotism demands it.”

  An appreciative murmur spread throughout the crowd, which filled the small courtroom and spilled far down the street outside, listening through the open windows. From the seats Lincoln had secured for us on the end of the front row, Martha and I turned around to survey it.

  “I think I’m going to be ill,” I said in a not-very-quiet whisper.

  My sister elbowed me in the ribs. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

  “We’ll proceed to select the jury,” Judge Thomas was saying. “In light of the notoriety of the crime under consideration, I’ve asked the clerk to draw up a list of forty-eight potential veniremen, double the usual number. Pull the first name, Clerk.”

  Matheny reached his hand into a square wooden box containing the names of the potential jurors and drew out a single slip of paper. “William Stearns,” he shouted.

  It soon became apparent that even forty-eight potential jurors was too shallow a pool from which to assemble an impartial panel of twelve. Every man selected for questioning knew about Early’s murder, and many admitted to having formed an opinion on the question of Truett’s guilt. Judge Thomas summarily dismissed these men from service.

  Then there was the ever-looming issue of politics. Because of the presence of the poll watchers at the base of the voting stage on election day, the votes cast by each potential juror were public knowledge. As Matheny drew the names from his box one by one, Lincoln and Douglas wrangled in front of the judge over whether the candidate’s Democratic or Whiggish tendencies rendered him unable to consider the evidence fairly. Because Truett was a Democrat being defended by a Whig, who was being prosecuted by a Democrat for killing a Whig, the attorneys not infrequently tied themselves up in knots while attempting to put forward arguments of political bias. On consecutive names late in the morning, Lincoln seemed to argue one potential juror was unacceptable for being biased against Democrats and the next was unacceptable for being biased in favor of Democrats. Douglas’s positions were equally muddled. In the middle of one such tussle, the judge tossed his hands with impatience and called for an early lunch break. Only three jurors had been selected.

  “Which is it?” I asked Lincoln after he, Martha, and I had filed out of the courtroom and found a comparatively quiet spot on the street. “Are Democrats biased in favor of your case or against it?”

  “Both and neither,” he returned, his eyes twinkling.

  “Surely you must have a position,” said Martha, blowing out her breath with frustration.

  “My position is that only certain jurors can be counted on to give Mr. Truett a fair hearing. Anyone else I’m doing my best to keep off the panel. The rules let me strike twenty jurors peremptorily, for any reason at all, so for anyone else drawn whom I don’t want, I need to come up with a reason they should be struck for cause. All the excitement about the election gives me a handy basis to try to find cause. Your friend Mr. Douglas is trying the same tactic, and he’s got half the number of peremptory challenges to work with as me. Inconsistency is an occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Besides, this is nothing compared to the Adkin cases last year.”

  “The Adkin cases?” asked Martha, not satisfied.

  “I think you’ll remember this one, Speed,” Lincoln said, with a sly grin. “It takes the prize. Old Mr. Macon called a fellow named David Adkin a ‘hog stealer.’ Adkin sued Macon, claiming slander—a false statement—and Macon hired me. I defended Macon, proved the accusation wasn’t slander because it wasn’t false, and Macon was let free by the jury.

  “Wouldn’t you know it, but Adkin was indicted by the prosecutor a few weeks later for stealing a hog. He hadn’t any money for counsel, and the judge, having a well-developed sense of humor, appointed me for the defense. What could I do but try my best? A trial was held, and lo and behold I succeeded in obtaining a verdict of not guilty. So within the span of a few weeks, I was charged with proving before a jury that Adkin was and was not a hog stealer.”

  “And succeeded each time,” I added.

  Martha laughed while Lincoln gave a modest shrug. “All in a day’s work,” he said. “I have a few things to prepare for the afternoon. I asked Hay to set up my lunch—only for one, I’m afraid.”

  I told Lincoln we’d manage on our own, and we watched as he pushed through the crowd. The spectators from the trial filled the street and spilled into the town square. Several young women walked about, passing out handbills for the tent meeting and collecting donations no doubt destined for Preacher Crews’s pocket. Over near the unfinished capitol walls I saw Douglas talking in close consultation to a familiar figure: Henry Owens.

  “I wonder if he’s here somewhere,” said Martha, interrupting me before I could figure out what business Douglas could have with the apothecary. “Would he be bold enough?”

  “Who?”

  “The real murderer. Salem’s Ghost.”

  “I doubt you’ll be hearing from him again,” came a nasal voice from behind us. Turning quickly, we saw the haughty figure of the Democrat publisher George Weber.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Martha, her hands on her hips, as I wondered how long Weber had been hovering near us.

  “The fellow, whoever he was, seemed obsessed with judgment day, wouldn’t you say? Well, the election’s come and gone, and the voters have rendered their judgment. And a very good one it was.”

  Weber held up a copy of his new sheet, which carried the headline in large, bold letters:

  Douglas Wins!

  and beneath that, in somewhat smaller letters:

  Whigs, Stuart Fall Short

  “We think ‘Judgment Day’ referred to something else,” I said before I could check myself.

  Weber looked at me with interest. “Do you now? And what, exactly, is that?”

  “You’re the newspaperman,” I replied, “or claim to be, at least. Figure it out for yourself.”

  Weber stared at me for a moment, but when I did not elaborate, he gave an imperious toss of his head and moved away. Martha muttered an epithet in his wake.

  “What do you make of Weber’s remark?” I whispered. In the large, swirling crowd, I realized we didn’t know who else might be within earshot.

  “You think he’s bluffing?”

  “I think it’s very interesting he would tell us S.G. isn’t going to write any more letters. One obvious question is how can he know that, if he claims not to know S.G.’s identity.”

  “And another,” added Martha quietly, “is if he’s merely trying to put us off the scent. Perhaps he realizes we’re getting close to figuring out the identity of his Ghost.”

  “Perhaps.” I paused. “I only wish we knew what he thinks we know.”

  Martha laughed. “Now you’re sounding as confused as Lincoln and Douglas.”

  We located a sandwich hawker with a comparatively short line and joined the queue. Just as we neared the front, I felt a heavy hand fall on my shoulder and a grizzled voice called out, “Lookee here, it’s Mr. Fry Speed.”

  “Good day, Mr. Lincoln,” I said. I saw his stepson lingering behind him. John Johnston’s eyes were averted, and he was busy searching for stones in the dirt-and-gravel street to kick.

  “Th
ere’s quite a line,” Thomas Lincoln said, gesturing to the persons formed up behind us. “Would you mind greatly…”

  “Four ham sandwiches and three beers,” I told the vendor as I handed over several coins.

  The two men accepted their food and drink greedily and started wolfing them down as if they had not eaten in some time. Halfway through his sandwich, the elder Lincoln finally paused and gave me a nod of thanks.

  “Think nothing of it,” I said. “You son Abraham has done me numberless favors in our time living together. The Lincoln name goes a long way in my book.”

  “We’ve been finding that to be true here, haven’t we, Johnnie?” said Thomas Lincoln, in between bites. “Most welcoming of us, your local citizens have been.”

  “Sure enough,” said Johnston. “Some people are fool enough to pay you just to write your name.”

  I had almost missed the import of what he’d said until Martha stepped on my foot and nodded portentously at Johnston. I played his statement back in my mind.

  “Is that so?” I said casually to Thomas. “People paying for your autograph, are they?”

  “Yessir, Mr. Fry Speed,” Thomas agreed. He’d finished his sandwich and was working on draining his mug of beer.

  “Do they usually ask you to sign your full name, or just ‘Lincoln’?”

  “Just ‘Lincoln.’ ‘Thomas’ ain’t nothing special, at least it don’t appear to be so to the folks around here. But some men seem mighty happy to have ‘Lincoln’ wrote down on a piece of paper.” He bent toward us and whispered, confidentially, “Some folks’ll give me a dime just to put my ‘Lincoln’ down. A dime for each one I do. Hah! Like you say, Mr. Fry Speed, my name goes a long way around here.”

  Martha and I exchanged glances, thinking the same thought. We had seemingly stumbled onto the explanation for the forged real estate surveys.

  “These pieces of paper you’re signing,” I asked, “are they blank, or do they have lots of legal writing on them?”

  Thomas Lincoln shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention to that. See, it’s the dimes that hold my interest. Far as I’m concerned, if they want to pay me a dime to sign my name, I’ll sign whatever they put in front of me. I’d sign the belly of a fish if that’s what they wanted.” He finished his beer and set it down. “Not much of interest in there this morning, eh?” he added, gesturing to the courtroom behind us.