Читать книгу President Lincoln's Secret - Steven Wilson - Страница 15

The Canadian Northern Railway Terminal

Quebec City, British Canada

Fitz shrugged his cape over his good shoulder and stepped from the coach to the station platform. The vast station was a field of steam floating just over the heads of the crowd. It was the product of a sharp cold that caught a person’s breath, and then tossed it in the air in celebration of winter’s power. The train engines added to the clouds, injecting violent bursts of steam at the feet of passersby. The hundreds of horses that lined the loading dock, waiting for freight to be transferred from the train to the long line of wagons, snorted spurts of steam from their nostrils.

“The bags, Fitz,” Asia reminded him.

“Yes,” Fitz said as a porter with a handcart appeared. The man began loading the luggage without waiting for instructions.

A short man in a fur hat approached them. “Colonel Dunaway?” The man’s thick beard parted in a friendly smile. “Davis Tooke, Assistant Consul.” He bowed to Asia. It was then Fitz realized that the man was portly, not just heavily bundled against the weather.

“Welcome to Quebec City,” Tooke said. “If you’ll follow me we’ll find someplace a bit warmer. The wind comes through this old barn of a station.” He glanced at Fitz and Asia. “If you don’t mind me saying, you may want to find heavier coats. I learned immediately not to underestimate the winters here.”

“Have you been here long?” Asia asked as they trailed behind him.

“Two years,” Tooke said. “Right out of college. Harvard, class of ’60.” They passed an ice-covered girder and veered to avoid a cluster of passengers. Just beyond, Fitz saw the crowd flow around an obstruction, and in the midst of that, a wall of red.

A company of British soldiers, dressed for winter campaigning, formed ranks under the bullfroglike croaks of a sergeant major wielding a swagger stick. The men moved quickly, falling into rank, stiffening to attention, their Enfield rifle-muskets clamped against their shoulders, soldiers and weapons perfectly aligned.

Fitz eyed them appreciatively and realized with a pang of disappointment they paid no attention to him. He would have appreciated the courtesy of professional recognition—one soldier to another.

“Here we are,” Tooke said, stopping at a carriage. He said something in French to the porter. “He’ll take your bags straight to the hotel. We have rooms for you at the St-Denis. I suspect that you’ll want to freshen up.” His eyes flicked to Fitz’s arm. “Do you require any special assistance, Colonel?”

“That is a lovely hat, Mr. Tooke. Did you make it yourself?” Asia spoke before Fitz exploded. She knew the idea that Fitz needed any assistance, at anytime, under any situation, was anathema to him. What generally followed a question like Mr. Tooke’s was a tirade.

Tooke, confused, said, “No, Mrs. Dunaway. It is rabbit. I purchased it.”

Fitz cooled enough to respond. He appreciated Asia’s intercession. “I need no special consideration whatsoever, Mr. Tooke. I wish merely to do as ordered by the president.”

As they took their seats in the carriage and started off, Asia leaned close to Fitz. “I think we would need a whole family of rabbits to make a hat for Colonel Dunaway’s head.”

Fitz pretended to ignore her but he responded with a warm smile. She had told him once that she knew him well—that he ran on emotion, which, despite his reluctance to admit it, often overwhelmed his good sense. But, Colonel Dunaway, she had said to him after they made love, I wonder how well you truly know me? He had no answer.

“What do you know of the circumstances that brought us here?” Fitz asked.

“Everything,” Tooke said. He was, despite his portly frame and slow manner, a levelheaded young man. “Professor Abbott’s disappearance is of the utmost concern to everyone. We have been informed he had a violent argument with the superintendent of the Brooklyn Navy Yard just prior to this latest episode. It is rumored”—his face reddened in embarrassment—“that he enjoys the company of a certain type of woman.”

“Presbyterians?” Asia said.

Tooke, shocked, tried to reply.

“Is he here?” Fitz said, saving the youth. “In Canada?”

“We think so.”

“Think so?” Fitz said.

“Every report places him here,” Tooke said. “That’s what I’ve been able to learn. When he has traveled to Quebec City before, he stayed in various hotels, under assumed names.” He pulled a notebook from his pocket and glanced at Fitz apologetically for the interruption. “I want to be sure of my facts,” he explained, refreshing his memory and continuing. “Just over six feet, heavy set, white hair, in his midfifties, very belligerent and impatient. Very particular about his meals, and prefers the company of—”

“Yes,” Fitz said, “Presbyterians. Where is he now?”

“We don’t know,” Tooke said. “I don’t know. He does have rooms at the St-Denis, but no one recalls seeing him for some days.”

“How long, exactly?” Fitz said.

“That’s just it,” Tooke said. “He was so secretive about his comings and goings that no one is certain.”

“Have you searched his rooms?”

“Yes,” Tooke said. It was clear he found the idea troubling. “I don’t like snooping about another man’s room. It is ungentlemanly.”

“Advance to spying, Mr. Tooke,” Fitz said. “See how you feel about that.”

“Did you find anything of substance, Mr. Tooke?” Asia asked.

“Well,” Tooke said, “there is one thing.” He pulled his heavy coat to one side and dug through his clothing. He held up a small, leather-bound notebook, about four inches by six inches. The edges were worn, and the cover was speckled with stains. He handed it to Fitz.

“What is it?” Fitz asked, trying to open it with one hand. Asia took it from him and opened it. As she turned the pages, one after another, Fitz saw on each a wild array of numbers, drawings, and indecipherable notations.

“I have no idea,” Tooke said. “It’s his, Professor Abbott’s. I found it in his valise, but—” He stopped, letting the mysterious contents of the book finish his explanation.

“You found the valise in his rooms?” Fitz asked. “Then he was close by, or had been so recently?”

“No, sir. I had the place under observation. Several of the hotel staff were paid to keep me informed should he return. He never appeared. He abandoned the valise.”

“Was there nothing else in the valise?” Asia asked.

“No,” Tooke said. “Nothing of importance. A few personal things. Books. Newspapers. Unfortunately, Inspector De Brule has the valise.”

“De Brule?” Fitz said.

“The Crown Inspector. I approached him several times to assist us. He was very polite but absolutely useless. He is a very odd person.”

“This adventure is filled with odd people,” Fitz said, prepared to be unimpressed.

“De Brule is quite wealthy, and he counts many influential people as his friends. People say that he has his position because of his ability to gather information, embarrassing information, about high-ranking officials. He is also decidedly anti-Union, and vocally pro-Southern,” Tooke said. “He always appears to be helpful, but in the end it is only an appearance.”

“How did he come to have Professor Abbott’s valise?” Asia asked.

Tooke hesitated. “He took it from me, as I was leaving Abbott’s rooms. It was by good fortune that I had slipped his notebook into my pocket.” Asia was about to hand the book to Tooke, but the young man shook his head. “Please keep it. You might be able to divine some meaning from its contents. I can’t.”

“Do you know the Southern agents in the city?” Fitz asked. “Could they be involved in Abbott’s disappearance?”

The carriage stopped, and Tooke wiped the condensation from the window and looked out. “Here is the St-Denis.”

The carriage bucked as the driver alighted. The door flew open and a blast of cold air announced they must abandon the warmth of the vehicle.

The lobby of the St-Denis was small, Fitz noted, not as luxurious as Willard’s but comfortable, inviting, with a scattering of divans, tables, and surprisingly, given the intense cold outside, potted plants. Fitz was about to ask Asia what kind of plants could possibly survive this extreme weather, but decided against it. She had chided him on his lack of knowledge about flora. In a pique his only reply had been, “I know grass and trees. That should suffice.”

“I’ll see to your rooms,” Tooke said, hurrying to the front desk.

“How are you?” Fitz asked. He had been planning his questions carefully the entire trip, knowing that his efforts to inquire after Asia’s well-being often had ended in disaster. She would lapse into silent periods, sometimes emerge in a defensive mood, and then seeing that he was hurt and confused, become contrite. He had been watching her closely, sensing that whatever troubled her in Washington had made the trip with them. When her attention drifted away from their journey to the passing countryside, he began to develop his strategy. He vowed to keep his temper in check and to mask the irritation that arose when he found himself sinking deeper and deeper into the morass of misunderstood emotions.

Asia Dunaway looked at her husband, surprised at the suddenness of the inquiry. “Well, Fitz. A little tired, of course.” Her smile told him she was aware there was more lurking behind that question. “Why?”

Fitz stepped aside as a cart bearing their luggage passed by.

“You were—” Fitz began. “You don’t seem yourself.”

Her sadness returned. “It is nothing,” she said. “The length of the journey.”

“It was before we came to Quebec City,” Fitz said, trying to keep his thoughts in order. He would be logical about this, he reminded himself, and not let his feelings intrude. “Sometimes I find you as you have always been, but then a cloud comes over you, and I suspect I have done something.”

“It is not that, Fitz. Let us not speak of it now.”

“But when I ask, you change the subject, or—”

“Well, here we are,” Tooke said, suddenly appearing. “Room 221. Your bags should be there now. All we need do is follow the porter. Is something wrong?”

Fitz felt defeated. He was tired and his arm throbbed, and he knew he did not have the reserve to wage a campaign that required delicacy and understanding. And yet here was the woman he loved, at times so distant she might have been a stranger, deflecting his attempts to reach her. He realized he had failed her somehow, and for the first time a thought emerged he had done his best to keep submerged: Was there someone else?

“Perhaps if you retire to your rooms for a brief respite?” Tooke suggested.

“Why don’t you go on,” Fitz said, struggling to remain calm. He was angry at Asia, with her secrecy, with his inability to return his wife to the person she was.

“Yes,” she said, following the porter.

“Let us go to the consul offices,” Fitz said before Tooke had a chance to speak. “I want to know about Southern agents, and I must inform my superiors of my arrival.” Fitz could not stand being at the mercy of doubt. He needed the comfort of acting without hesitation, of bringing a situation to a quick resolution. Doubt was an illness, a creeping, insidious sickness that weakened a man to the point of inactivity. And now, it had a firm grip on him.