Читать книгу Case of the Dixie Ghosts - A. A. Glynn - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

A LADY IN DISTRESS

Detective Inspector Amos Twells of Scotland Yard stood outside the vast oaken doorway set in the forbidding wall of London’s Newgate Prison, with Septimus Dacers at his side. He lit his pipe and blew out copious volumes of smoke, as if trying to fumigate his whole person after he had endured the prison’s foul atmosphere.

“Well, now you’ve seen them with chains on their arms and legs and ticketed for the Australian boat, you know that Dandy Jem and Skinny Eustis are out of our hair for good,” he commented. “The colonies underneath the world are welcome to them. I’ll admit I regard you as an interfering busybody, Dacers, as I do all of you so-called inquiry agents. If you wanted to be a detective why didn’t you start at the bottom by joining the force and braving the dangers of the streets as a plodding peeler? But I’ll own you did a capital job collaring that ugly pair of swell mobsmen, especially after Jem came close to filleting you with that huge knife. You’d hardly meet a danger as severe as that even if you were a regular policeman.”

Septimus Dacers, tall, lean, and clean-shaven in contrast to his companion whose face was fringed by muttonchop sidewhiskers, was a few weeks off his fortieth birthday, but he looked on the slightly older Twells almost as a father figure. He chuckled, knowing that the ever-complaining Twells, while a holy terror to London’s wide assortment of villains, had a heart as good-natured as it was lionlike. Twells and his fellow Yard officers might scorn those who set themselves up as private detectives, but they had learned that calling on Dacers for occasional assistance was always a worthwhile move.

Twells noted that his chuckling caused Dacers’ face to reflect a spasm of pain.

“How are the ribs?” he asked.

“Still bandaged but improving. The bandages will be off soon. Luckily, the knife didn’t really penetrate, but I had a bad enough cut along my side.”

“I’d like to shove that knife down Dandy Jem’s throat,” growled Twells. “Still, there’s some comfort in knowing they’ll put him on a hard enough diet in New South Wales. Did old Lady Caroline Braithwaite slip you a handsome reward for snatching her jewels out of the sticky fingers of the mobsmen?”

“She did very handsomely by me,” said Dacers. “Very handsomely indeed.”

“That’s another thing you fellows have over us,” snorted Twells. “You stand to net a pretty tip as well as a fee, where we have to make do with only a policeman’s pay.”

Dacers grinned and answered with mock pity: “Ah, it’s such a shame that tipping a peeler can be construed as bribing an officer of the law.”

The pair walked down gloomy Newgate Street, which was even gloomier than usual under a leaden sky this late February of 1866. Both men felt the satisfaction of knowing that two of London’s most glib-tongued confidence tricksters of the “swell mobsmen” variety had been transported for life. They were caught after some sharp detective work, with Dacers aiding the Metropolitan Police, and with some highly dangerous scuffling at its climax.

“What’s your next move?” asked Amos Twells.

“To take the omnibus back to Bloomsbury”

“Where your ever accommodating landlady, Mrs. Slingsby, will doubtless feed you sumptuously, then you’ll put your feet up while I still have hours of duty before me,” grumbled Twells.

The two parted company, with Dacers going in search of the Bloomsbury omnibus, smiling to himself and reflecting that Twells never changed. He would not be content without something to complain about.

The winter evening was drawing in, and the first wisps of a threatening fog were beginning to appear in the streets. On the pavements, jostling pedestrians were, as usual, hugging the inner portions of the footways, avoiding the kerbs where the wheels of passing carts and carriages were throwing up gouts of horse foulings. The air was increasingly chilly, and Dacers began to look forward to a relaxed evening in warmth and comfort.

When he arrived at the lodgings he had occupied since his first struggling years, he opened the street door to find his landlady, Mrs. Slingsby, waiting in the hall. She was a statuesque widow whose rather severe exterior disguised a tender nature.

“Mr. Dacers, you have a visitor,” she announced. “A young lady, an American, I think. Miss Roberta Van Trask. I told her I expected you to return fairly early, and put her in the parlour rather than have her waiting in your rooms. I made her comfortable with some tea.”

At the mention of the visitor’s name, Dacers’ eyes widened. “Miss Van Trask, how surprising,” he said. “Thank you, Mrs. Slingsby.”

“You know her, then?” said Mrs. Slingsby, her sharp features brightening. She made no secret of her hope that her bachelor lodger would one day find what she called “a nice wife.”

“I have that honour,” he answered, and his landlady’s face brightened a little more.

He entered the parlour, hoping none of the unpleasant odours of Newgate Prison lingered about his person, and found a woman in her middle twenties sitting in the usual rather awkward position due to the wide crinoline skirts of the period. She wore a trim velvet jacket and had a small hat on neatly braided black hair. Her attractive, open face would have been more attractive still had she not looked distinctly troubled.

“Miss Van Trask, this is a most unexpected pleasure,” he greeted. “I’m sorry I was not here when you arrived.”

The girl smiled rather wanly. “That’s all right, Mr. Dacers, your landlady was very kind to me.”

“And how is your father?” Dacers asked, drawing a chair closer to his visitor and sitting down.

“His general health’s a great deal better than for some time, though I fear all is not well with him in other respects. I called on you, hoping you can help.”

“I will if I can, you may be sure,”

“Mr. Dacers, I know you can be trusted,” she began, dropping her tone as if frightened of being overheard. “I knew that quite instinctively when you first came to our home to escort my father on his mission to Liverpool a couple of years ago, and, of course, Scotland Yard recommended you to Mr. Adams in the most glowing terms. You looked after my father excellently. He still speaks of you with admiration.”

“And I admire him, Miss Van Trask. It was more than a pleasure to travel with so learned and pleasant a gentleman, even though it was the first time I ever carried a revolver on an assignment.”

“A revolver, yes, that brings me to the reason for my being here,” Roberta Van Trask said. “I’m sure what I have to tell you will go no further, but I am very worried about my father. I fear his position with the diplomatic service of the United States may be in danger.”

Septimus Dacers was surprised. He could hardly imagine that a man so manifestly devoted to his country’s well-being as Theodore Van Trask, who held a key position in the United States Embassy under Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, the son of the late President John Quincy Adams, could endanger his standing through any dereliction of duty. He had escorted Van Trask to the US Consulate in Liverpool on a most urgent mission, on which they carried vital documentsb and he had taken the measure of the man.

“Tell me more,” he pressed.

“It concerns a visitor my father had a few days ago,” said the girl. “A rather coarse man and an American—a Virginian. One cannot live in Washington as long as I did without recognising a Virginia accent, Virginia being just across the Potomac River. This man rather pushed his way into our home, demanding to see my father. When my father appeared, he was somewhat frightened and took him into his private room, closed the door and, pretty soon, there was the sound of angry arguing. My father, as you know, had suffered a spell of illness and I became alarmed, fearing he might get too excited, so I intruded, surprising them both.

“The man was standing close to my father quite menacingly and my sudden entry caused him to slip something into the pocket of his coat very hastily, but I saw what it was. It was a gun, a Derringer, the same kind of nasty little weapon John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. I think my father was being threatened with it at the moment I opened the door.”

“Do you know the name of your visitor?” Dacers inquired.

“He announced himself very roughly when he shoved past our butler at the street door. He said he was called Fairfax, but I think he was lying. It’s an old and honoured Virginia name and it just didn’t fit the man. He was obviously no Virginia aristocrat. After my intrusion, he left hurriedly, leaving my father looking very shaken.”

“And did your father tell you anything about the man and the reason for his visit?”

“No. And, ever since, he’s been preoccupied and appearing dreadfully worried. He hardly says a word to anyone. He’s clearly much disturbed, and I fear both for both his health and his position. Mr. Adams places the utmost trust in him, as does Mr. Henry Adams, the ambassador’s son and private secretary. I’m apprehensive that whatever is worrying him will eventually disturb my father’s valuable work at the Embassy.”

Septimus Dacers nodded. He remembered from escorting her father to Liverpool that U.S. Consul Thomas Dudley and his staff there treated Theodore Van Trask with grave respect. Britain was neutral in the American Civil War, and Dacers learned nothing of the exact reason for Van Trask’s mission to Liverpool. But that port, a major link with America, had played a significant part in the conflict. It was there that the famous Confederate raider Alabama, which wrought severe damage on United States’ merchant shipping, was built in secret. There, too, the sleek and speedy Shenandoah, originally built for the tea trade, was converted into a commerce raider for the Southern rebels. The representatives of Ambassador Adams were constantly trying to track down the elusive agents of the Southern states who organised these menaces to the commerce of the North.

Dacers felt Van Trask’s journey from London to the port on the Mersey must be connected to the Union’s bugbear of hostile shipbuilding. He remembered how he spotted suspicious-looking men lurking around the Liverpool consulate, obviously noting the comings and goings of persons. They frequently displayed signs of transatlantic origins: a hat with a broader brim than usual in England; a pair of American square-toed boots, or evidence of addiction to chewing tobacco, an American habit almost unknown in Britain. Doubtless, these were agents of the Southern Confederacy, keeping an eye on their enemy’s nerve centre in Britain. He tried to recall the appearance of some of them, but could not remember any resembling the one the girl spoke of.

“This man who was threatening your father, Miss Van Trask, what was he like? Did he have any distinguishing marks?” he asked. “I take it you’d know him again.”

“I certainly should. He was tall and powerfully built, with a heavy moustache rather blond in colour, and there was one very noticeable thing about him—he had a blue mark, what I think is called a powder burn, near his right eye.”

“You mean the kind of thing soldiers sometimes have, caused by the flashback of the breech of a musket when it’s aimed from the shoulder?”

“Yes, he looked as if he might have been a soldier at some time, but not an officer. He smelt of whisky and his manner was disgustingly uncouth. That’s why his name of Fairfax didn’t ring true. A genuine Fairfax would certainly be a Southern officer, and they pride themselves on their gentlemanly courtesy. I have to concede that point, though I was opposed to their cause in the late war, but this man had nothing of the Southern officer about him.”

Dacers smiled slightly. “Well observed, Miss Van Trask,” he praised. “London’s a big place and finding one man in it is no easy task, but at least this fellow has characteristics to mark him out in a crowd if you want me to find him and make him answer for his actions.”

The girl sighed. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Dacers, I’m in a dilemma and scarcely know what I want. My greatest desire is to see my father free of this worry, and never to be bothered by an armed ruffian barging in on him again. I keep remembering how, on the day Mr. Lincoln was shot, one of the conspirators charged into the sickroom of Mr. Seward, the Union’s Secretary of State, and tried to kill him in his bed. I fear something of that kind, because these men have something against him and it must be something political. At the same time, I do not want Mr. Adams, or his son, Mr. Henry Adams, or any of the Embassy staff, to get wind of the affair. Nor does my father, who is fearful of anyone connected to the Embassy getting to know.”

Roberta Van Trask sighed again, leaned forward and, after biting her lip as if in doubt about revealing something and dropping her tone yet lower, said: “You see, in the very strictest confidence, I fear my father is mixed up in something. Or, at least, unscrupulous people have entangled him in some intrigue. The Embassy must never know of it, nor the official British police. My father’s illness a couple of years ago weakened him considerably, and I worry that if this mysterious affair, whatever it is, creates a public scandal, it could even cause his death. I came to you because when I first met you, I formed the opinion that you are a truly honest and honourable man, and my father holds the same opinion. I feel you’re the one man in London who can help relieve my dreadful anxiety and, more importantly, my father’s troubles.”

“I could never see Mr. Van Trask involved in intrigue, and certainly not in anything damaging to the United States,” Dacers said.

She shook her head. “Mr. Dacers, you do not know Washington—especially the Washington of those years when civil war was raging. There were plots and counter-plots divided loyalties, spying, counter-spying, and every shade of treason. I remained there when my father was posted to England because I had a good position in the Treasury Department.

“My father became ill in 1863 so, since my mother is dead, I resigned and came here to help in nursing him, but my years in Washington gave me an insight into much double-dealing and trickery. Civil war is a terrible thing. It seems to bring out the worst, even in people who are normally honest, loyal, and trustworthy.

“America was a divided house, remember, and in such a place there are many people, and what they do and say are often not what they appear. It was easy to quite inadvertently make an enemy, and fall into some dangerous situation. I fear that something of the kind has happened to my father.”

Septimus Dacers considered that point for a moment then said: “But he has not been in Washington for a long time.”

“We hear that, since the death of Mr. Lincoln, things are even worse in Washington,” said Roberta Van Trask. “Chickens are coming home to roost and all kinds of revenge is being taken. New and often grotesque rumours are flying about, mostly concerning the actions of people during the war. One says high-ranking people in the North were profiteering through illegal trade with the rebel South; another says Mr. Lincoln’s assassin, through an elaborate plot, was not killed by soldiers after fleeing into Virginia and is alive somewhere in Europe. Yet another makes the unbelievable claim that the Northern Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, was in the plot to kill the President.”

“So you think perhaps some new and damaging tale about your father has been concocted in the swamp of intrigue that is postwar Washington?” inquired Dacers.

“Yes, and I worry that these men might continue to harass him to either his ruination or his death,” she said with a half-suppressed sob.

“Miss Van Trask, on two occasions you referred to “these men”; does that mean there were others in this attack on your father besides the fellow calling himself Fairfax?”

“Two others certainly accompanied him, but did not enter the house,” she said. “When he left my father after my intrusion, he ran for the street door and was pursued by our butler, who is elderly and not very agile. I attempted to follow too, but,” she indicated her wide hooped crinoline, “a woman simply cannot run in today’s fashions. He flung the door open and got clean away. There was a brougham, a closed carriage, waiting outside the house. At the reins was a man bundled up in heavy clothing and with his hat obscuring his face. Fairfax leapt into the carriage and there was a third man inside who helped him through the door. I caught only a brief glimpse of him before the driver whipped up the horse and they sped away, but I have a strange feeling that I’ve seen that third man before, a long time ago, but I can’t think where. He was small and, for a moment, he looked at me with notably glittering eyes. I had the impression that he was a hunchback.”

“So,” Dacers mused, “we have your big man with a blond moustache and a powder burn who takes a drink of whisky; one who might be a hunchback, and a driver who, like most coachman in these winter days, looks like nothing but a bundle of clothing. If I locate these fellows, what I can do? You do not want the police involved, but I have no powers of arrest. I certainly want to help you but, at best, I could only warn them off with the threat of police action; after all, this so-called Fairfax did commit trespass and demonstrated threatening behaviour. But a warning might not be enough. A fellow who makes free with a Derringer pistol sounds like a desperate customer, and he might prove tenacious and show up again. There are a few haunts in London where I might find a lead on this crew. I’ll do what I can.”

Roberta Van Trask gave him a hesitant smile. “If that is the best you can do, and it offers some hope of success, then please do it. I’ll be grateful for anything that might take this terrible burden off my father’s shoulders,” she said.

“Very well, Miss Van Trask. Tell me, you arrived here unescorted. How did you travel?”

“By cab. Normally, I would have my maid, Esther, accompany me, but I wanted to see you strictly in private. Although Esther is completely trustworthy, I did not want my father or anyone from the embassy to know I came to consult you.”

“Then let me escort you as far as the cab stand at the corner of the square, and see you safely on your way. Not that I think you are a young lady who is easily frightened, but our ugly friends could have been watching your home and might have followed you.”

The American girl squared her shoulders and set her jaw decisively. “I assure you I am not easily frightened,” she declared firmly. “I’ll stand my ground against any threat to my father, but I’m obliged to you for your courtesy.”

An admiring smile crossed Dacers’ usually grave face, and she noticed how boyish it suddenly made him appear.

It was now fully dark outside and, after he had seen her safely off in a cab, Dacers paced homeward through the evening gloom thinking of the narrative he had heard. There was something deep and potentially dangerous in the happenings at the home of the American diplomat, and, only for the fact that police involvement might spark off the public scandal Roberta Van Trask feared, he would have liked to acquaint Twells with the matter.

“It’s the sort of case old Amos would grab with both hands,” he muttered to himself. “I’m not at all sure where to begin or where it will take me, but a lady in distress must be helped, so some sort of start must be made.”