by Ed Gorman
She was silent and did seem to be thinking about it. “How long has it been since you’ve been in New York, Charles?”
Her tone had softened and the use of his given name told me she would soon be giving him some bad news.
“I don’t remember,” Swann said. “Sometime before my father died. I was a child. Years ago really.”
“Do you remember the muddy streets? Where in the world do you expect your demoralizing wheeled soldiers with their pistols and demon cries to skate?”
His eyes shifted left and right. “On the sidewalks around certain key buildings,” he said loudly. I had to give him credit for thinking on his feet. His gestures became more expansive. “They will work in teams. Yes, and each team will have a carriage and there will be three men. One on skates and two to take him under the arms and rush him across the muddy parts and.…”
But she was laughing now, and I was having a hard time remaining silent myself. I lowered the sash and climbed down off Jones.
“What are you grinning about?” Pinkerton asked.
I couldn’t answer. I knew if I opened my mouth I would laugh out loud. I shook my head and gestured for them to follow me back under the stoop.
I quickly filled them in on what I’d seen and heard.
“It is astonishing,” Pinkerton said, “how little it takes for some men to betray their countries. Now get back up there.”
So Jones and I went back to the window. He boosted me up again and I lifted the sash.
They were drinking tea now. Swann looked despondent. Business must be over and he must have failed to convince her to help him, and now she was giving him tea because a civilized woman would not just tell him no and throw him out.
Swann put down his teacup. “Maybe there is something else I could do?”
“I can’t imagine what,” she said. “Frankly, Charles, you do not have the constitution nor the training for the kind of intrigue involved here. Now if you were a telegraphy expert, or if you had railroad connections or a plausible excuse to travel freely to Richmond…”
“I could do that,” Swann said. I could see him regrouping, coming up with another plan on the spot. I wondered if it would be any better than the last one.
“If you were to supply me with introductions to certain people influential in the new Confederate patent office,” he said, “I might be persuaded to carry other messages as well.”
This was the kind of stuff Pinkerton wanted to hear. He suspected Mrs. Greenhow sent as much information as she could by courier. I forgot my mirth and paid close attention.
“And how do you expect to move back and forth across the lines, Charles?”
He put his box down on the table by his tea and stood up in front of her. This meant his back was to me and I couldn’t see her and I couldn’t see what he was doing.
“Charles?” she sounded a little alarmed.
A moment later she made a sound I can only describe as a squeak.
She recovered quickly and came to her feet. She took his hand. “This way,” she said.
She pulled him out of the room.
I waited a few moments, and then got down off Jones.
“She’s taken him out of the room,” I told Pinkerton. “He’s volunteered to carry messages for her.”
“How the devil is he going to do that?” Pinkerton asked. “I don’t have time for this. Daggett, this one’s yours. Follow him to the ends of the Earth if you must.”
“To the ends of the Earth?”
“I’ll expect reports,” he said. “You know the procedures.” He stood up.
Jones got up, too. I put my hand on his arm. “Help me watch until he leaves,” I said.
Jones looked at Pinkerton. Pinkerton shrugged and nodded and then walked off.
I motioned Jones back to the window, and he boosted me up. I didn’t get up on his shoulders once I saw the room was still empty. “Not yet,” I said.
I could have told Pinkerton about the strange thing Swann did there at the end, but this was my big chance. Once he’d given the case to me, I didn’t want him getting interested and faking it back. I am convinced to this day his decision to assign me to what looked like a trivial case was influenced by his fall backwards into the mud which he no doubt blamed on me.
Jones and I waited there for another half an hour. Every few minutes I got him to boost me up to the window, and finally when I saw them come back into the room I stepped up onto his shoulders.
They were subdued. Swann seemed embarrassed. He was reading something on a piece of paper, but he stole more than a few glances up at Mrs. Greenhow. Fussing with the tea things, she looked both astonished and triumphant.
The talk around the office was that any man she took into the back was probably a spy. If she gave him a goodbye kiss at the top of the stairs, he was certainly a spy.
Swann gathered up his box.
“Do you have it by heart?” Mrs. Greenhow asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course, I do.” He handed her the paper he’d been studying.
“Well, you’d best be off then.”
“Yes,” he said.
I scrambled down from Jones. “He’s about to leave.” I grabbed my boots, and we got under the stoop.
Swann had memorized the information Mrs. Greenhow wanted conveyed to the Confederacy. That was becoming more common even early in the war. So I couldn’t just nab him with incriminating papers on his person. He would have his introductions to powers who could help him with the patent office. Mrs. Greenhow would probably send word about Charles Wyatt Swann by other means. This was his first mission, after all. She would want to test him. His information might be duplicated by another courier. Pinkerton probably would have done it like that.
The interesting thing about Swann now was the method he would use to get himself across the lines to Richmond. I couldn’t guess what that would be, but both he and Mrs. Greenhow seemed confident it would work.
His parting with Rose Greenhow was ambiguous. She detained him at the top of the stairs for a minute. I suppose she might have been looking into his eyes. Finally, she told him to take care. He left and she shut the door.
No kiss. But if he got no goodbye kiss, what had they been doing back there?
“Tell Pinkerton I’m on it,” I told Jones. I crawled out from under the stairs and took off after Swann.
The weather the preceding week had been dreadful. Huge rainstorms had made the days dim and cold. It had been a mixed blessing, making the hour-to-hour surveillance miserable and wet, but making following anyone who left the Greenhow house easier because he tended to keep his head down and go directly to his destination. I was not so lucky. The weather had turned that day, and it was a bright afternoon.
I immediately crossed the street so it would not be so obvious that I was following. Swann carried his box in both hands in front for a while then tucked it under his left arm for a few paces then took it in both hands again. He was a slender young man in a black suit that was obviously too big for him and a derby. His full beard and long hair made him easy to keep in sight. He moved easily and walked briskly with the gait of a man in his prime.
Several blocks later, he turned onto another street and our paths crossed. He glanced at me, and I looked away too quickly. I was new at this aspect of the detective trade. My experience had been in the rough and tumble side of things in San Francisco, but I was doing ray best. I had not yet met Sara, the woman I would later marry, and was quite without family or connections. I badly wanted to show Pinkerton what I could do.
As I followed Swann deeper into what for me was a strange city, I began to feel both at home and out of place. The neighborhood became shabby and the people looked rougher. I was glad to have the pistol under my coat, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. One thing was certain, though: if Swann did not come to his destination soon, he would surely notice me following him. I slowed down until he was in the middle of a block of rundown buildings on both sides of the muddy stre
et, and then I ducked around the corner. I would hurry ahead and pick him up again at the next intersection. From then I would follow him by allowing him to follow me. I thought the ruse quite clever.
I nearly lost him. I came around the block just in time to see him step into a building. If I had been a moment longer, I would have lost him.
I walked to the doorway he had entered and saw that the establishment was a cheap hotel called Wilber’s. At least the place matched his ill-fitting clothes. I concluded he must be a man who had fallen on hard times. First, he had spoken to Mrs. Greenhow as an equal and she had not objected, Second, she seemed to have been acquainted with his father.
I decided to give him a chance to settle before I continued. I wanted to make sure I knew all the exits before I went in the front door. There was the possibility he wasn’t staying here at all but had spotted me and had walked right through the hotel and out the back way. I walked down the alley to check on that. I found a side entrance, but it was locked. In back, there was a patch of greenery surrounded by wooden fence. I eased open the gate and went in. I hadn’t expected a garden. This one had not been tended in years, but I could see that once it might have been a pleasant place to sit and watch the sun go down. Weeds grew up through old wooden furniture, and there was a small empty pond.
I made my way through the weeds to the back door. The steps leading up to it were broken in two places. It was easy to see no one had come this way in years. I checked the door. It was locked. I walked back around to the front.
I took a quick look into the lobby and saw that Swann was not there. I walked on in. The man behind the desk was reading a newspaper and didn’t look up at me. A deep rumbling sound echoed down from somewhere above. It sounded like someone was rolling a barrel back and forth across the floor upstairs.
I pulled the register over and turned it my way. I didn’t see Swann’s name so I flipped the page back and found it. Three days ago Charles Wyatt Swann had checked into Wilber’s Hotel.
The man at the desk was now looking at me over his newspaper.
“You looking for a room?”
I flipped the register page back. “Yes,” I said. Pinkerton had said to follow Swann to the ends of the Earth. I figured this place probably fell into that category. I didn’t see any reason for a false name at this juncture, so I signed my own, John Daggett, and paid for a week’s lodging.
“What is that noise?” I asked.
“That would be Mr. Swann in number eleven,” he said. “Right over my head. You let me know if you can hear it from your room. He’s very good about stopping when someone complains.”
That was easy. I had gotten Swarm’s room number for free.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
His look told me that he had his suspicions, but he said, “I have no idea, sir.”
I walked up the stairs. I paused and listened at room eleven and heard the rumbling. From here it was easy to guess what it was. Swann must be using his roller skates in there. It sounded like he was going from one end of the room to the other. I walked on to the room next door, number nine, and knocked. There was no answer. That didn’t mean it was empty, but I might be able to get it. I walked on to my own room which was number fourteen on the other side of the hallway. My window faced the street. Knowing my room and Swann’s faced different directions was all I needed. I walked back downstairs and asked if I could change to a room that faced away from the street. There were several rooms available but I manipulated my way into number nine.
I would make some modifications that would make surveillance easier if I were given the time. Swann might put his plans into motion immediately in which case I would have to be ready to simply keep following him. On the other hand he might stay a day or two and I might learn something more.
Instead of going on up to my new room, I bought a newspaper and settled into one of the shabby chairs in the hotel lobby and listened to Swann move back and forth on his roller skates. It went on for quite a long time, but finally it did stop. I looked up, and the man at the desk shrugged at me as if to say well maybe it’s over for now. A few minutes later Swann himself appeared. He was carrying nothing, so I decided he was not ready to somehow deliver Mrs. Greenhow’s message to Richmond. He was probably on his way to dinner. This was my chance to get back to headquarters and equip myself. I might even have time to go to my own lodgings and get a few days worth of clothes and necessities. I watched Swann from my chair until I could no longer see him from the front windows of the hotel. Then I stood up and casually walked to the door and watched him enter a tavern. I tossed down my paper and went out into the street. I had hoped to find a cab quickly, but in this neighborhood I had no luck and had to walk several blocks before I found one.
Then it was a simple matter to get back to headquarters and procure the equipment I needed. I saw neither Pinkerton nor Jones so there were few questions to answer. I had time to get some personal things from my lodgings as well. When I got back to Wilber’s Hotel, I once again heard Swann skating up in his room. I smiled at that. He was being very accommodating in letting me know his whereabouts.
I went up to my room and listened to him but learned nothing new. I needed him to leave the room for at least fifteen minutes one more time. It looked like that wouldn’t happen until breakfast. When he stopped skating, I listened until I was reasonably sure he had gone to bed and then I turned in myself.
I woke early the next morning and waited until I heard him moving around. I thought maybe he would skate again since that seemed to be all he did in there, but after a short time I heard him leave the room. I peeked our into the hallway and saw him walking down the stairs, still empty handed, probably for breakfast. My own meal could wait. I quickly took up my drill and made several holes in the wall at places that would afford me good views of his room. I put a stick polished for this very purpose in each hole so light would not give them away. Next, I slipped out into the hall, picked the lock on his door, went in, and quickly swept up the wood shavings from my drilling. It was too much of a risk at this point to conduct a search of the room. I saw that he had a large amount of luggage, two big trunks and several suitcases. The skates were on the sideboard. I picked one of them up and spun a wheel. Amazing, I thought. I put it back down in exactly the same place it had been before.
I slipped back into the hallway and locked his door again and then went back into my own room. Everything was ready. I would now simply watch him until he did something that would indicate how he intended to convey his information to the Confederacy. When that happened, I would arrest him. That wouldn’t be right away. I probably had time for breakfast.
I found a place to eat up the street. I thought Swann might be eating there, too, but he wasn’t. I spotted him again as I walked back to the hotel. He nodded at me as we both entered the lobby and walked toward the stairs. I lingered a little and he was just closing his door when I got to the top of the stairs. I went into my room.
I had carefully drawn the shade to minimize any light that might find its way through a hole when I removed the stick. The holes were very small. Since I had several, they didn’t need to be large. I peeked through one of them and saw Swann in his shirt standing over the basin and looking at himself in the mirror. Perhaps he shaved around the edges of his beard. I didn’t need to watch him do that.
I replaced the stick in the hole and sat down on my bed. It was very lumpy and uncomfortable. I had not gotten much sleep the night before. I hoped Swann would put his plan into action soon.
Perhaps an hour later I was roused from sleep by the sound of him skating again. I sighed. Falling asleep had not been professional, but Swann was making my job easy. He even woke me up when watching him put me to sleep. I got up and stretched and wandered over to one of my peeping holes, plucked out the stick, and peeked in on him.
The sight amazed me, and I made a small surprised sound. It was not Swann, the young bearded man I had been following, who was skating in there. Inste
ad, I saw a young woman. She was tall and wore a plain long skirt and a blouse that buttoned to her throat. She pushed away from the wall by the door and rolled across the floor toward the window. She was very graceful, and just before she might have crashed into the wall, she did an astonishing turn and in a couple of small strides skated back to the door. As I watched there came a knock on her door.
“Just a moment, please,” she called. She sat down on her bed and took off her skates. These she put back into the box I had seen Swann carrying. It was then that I noticed the trunks were packed and closed and pulled up near the door. She got off the bed and opened the door. Two men came inside.
“Yes, thank you, all of those, please.”
The men gathered her luggage and took it from the room.
I had to do something quickly. I didn’t know what was happening yet. I didn’t know who the woman was or where Swann was, but I did know she was leaving and that I should stop her.
I jerked open my own door and ran into the hall. I came to a halt in front of her. Her eyes were pale blue, and her cheeks were very red as if she’d been in a high wind under a harsh sun.
“Mr. Daggett,” she said and smiled at me.
Using my name knocked me completely off balance. Her gaze moved from my face to something behind me. I turned quickly and came face to face with a man holding a pistol pointed at my heart.
TWO
While I wasn’t killed back in Washington in 1861, Mary Swann, although I did not know that was her name at the time, did get away from me. After her man hit me in the head, robbed me, and left me bleeding in the alley to the side of Wilber’s Hotel, I reported back to Pinkerton. Based on my information, and I’ll admit I did not give him all the details, we now knew to keep an eye out for two Swanns, a woman and a man. Neither was seen in the Union again until after the war. We discovered Swann’s father had left a house in Boston, and it was kept under watch, but no one ever came back for it, and creditors eventually took it.
