Mayne had told Cobb that while he would offer whatever information and support he could, he wanted no part of the case to fall back upon the Yard. They had moved on from Eli Gilman and Winfield Bell.
Thus it was that late that evening, after eleven o’clock, Lenox, Graham, and the American congregated in Lenox’s study—only the three of them. It had been a long day for Cobb, no doubt, but he was sharp-eyed and fresh.
He told them that his trip to Liverpool had been informative. He spoke to both Lenox and Graham, not just the former; Lenox had told Cobb about how integral Graham’s role in the solution to the case was, and Cobb, with that springy democratic reflex Lenox had noticed in the few Americans he knew, had immediately folded Graham into his confidences.
“I went to the docks. Nobody there would speak to me. At last, out of frustration, I went to the army garrison. I had a single letter of recommendation to its commander, from my own superior at the militia. I’d been hoping I wouldn’t need to use it.”
“How do they know each other?”
Cobb took a sip of water. “Well, it was funny. He took the letter, read it—an old man named Whitworth, scars all over his face and hands—and then burst into laughter.” Cobb smiled. “Apparently Brig—my commander, Brigadier General Adams—and this fellow, Whitworth, met in the War of 1812. In battle.”
Lenox raised his eyebrows. “Did they!”
“Whitworth poured me a brandy. Then he recounted the whole thing in perfect detail—as if it had passed not an hour ago. A warm battle, he said, which is how these old veterans describe it anytime they’ve sustained a great number of casualties.”
“And then?”
“He made me promise to pour Adams a brandy. Said he thought they’d fought each other to a handsome standstill—would be happy to shake his hand one day, when they’d both reached the other side of the grave, and relive it shot by shot, maneuver by maneuver. Said he could remember every rock of the field they held. He bet Brig could, too. I said yes, I thought so. After that he dismissed me pretty perfunctorily, but he sent along a man of his, and all at once the doors that had been closed to me were opened.”
“What luck.”
Cobb nodded. “Yes, and I heard a good deal about Tiptree. Shall I read you the exact account of the incident?”
“Please,” said Lenox.
So Cobb read aloud. “Mr. Abram Tiptree, resident of the District of Columbia, United States, arrived in Liverpool on the clipper ship Clarissa 14 November 1855, traveling from New York. He was in the company of his employer, Mr. Eleazer Gilman (now staying Quilt’s Inn, Upper Frederick Street), and their associate Mr. Josiah Hollis (ibid). The Clarissa arrived at Slip 3, Queen’s Dock, at a little after 6:00 p.m. Some passengers from the ship had already debarked in rowboats, including Messrs. Gilman and Hollis.
“Mr. Tiptree waited in the company of their trunks for a porter. Sailors on deck were stowing the ship for dry dock. Mr. Tiptree was alone. At approximately 6:15 there was a loud cry then a thump; sailors rushed to discover that Mr. Tiptree had fallen from the gangway into the water. He was retrieved from the water and rushed to Royal Liverpool Hospital. He lingered in a comatose state, having sustained a wound to the left side of his forehead, for several days before dying.
“No witnesses on the docks or the ship saw anyone unusual. Sailors reported that Mr. Tiptree had been unsteady at sea. The coroner determined the cause of death as misadventure. The case is closed.”
“A loud cry and a thump,” said Lenox.
“Yes. It seems obvious to me that he was murdered. Then again, it’s possible it might have been an accident. One can see the viewpoint of the police and the coroner. There was no reason for them to believe that anyone wished Tiptree any harm.”
Graham had an observation to make. “More than once while in your employment, sir,” he said, “I have been mistaken for you as I stood by your luggage. It may be that the attacker thought Mr. Tiptree was Gilman.”
Lenox nodded. “Yes, and his trunk said ‘E. Gilman’ on the side. Did you see Tiptree’s trunk?”
“No,” said Cobb, “it’s been shipped back to his family, unfortunately. Still, I think Mr. Graham’s theory makes sense. It explains the lag between the attack at the dock and the attack on the train—some time would have passed before Bell and Smith realized that in Tiptree they had killed the wrong man.”
Lenox felt pity for the young secretary—gone so young, and not even the star of his own death. “Shall we take it as a working theory for now?”
“I think so,” said Cobb. He swung his right arm gently through the air in the mimic of an attack. “The left side of his forehead—that is exactly where a blow would have caught him.”
“Yes.”
“Unfortunately, that is the full extent of what I found. The Clarissa has already shipped back out. Still, I was glad to have gone. And I am curious how the two of you fared.”
“Graham?” said Lenox.
“I have discovered little today, sir,” he said, “but I am hopeful that my meeting with Winfield Bell’s common-law wife—the woman known Lady Elaine—will offer more.”
“She’ll talk to you? She wouldn’t give up anything to Dunn.”
“Yes, sir. I offered her a financial incentive. I understand her position as the procuress of the Patriots Abroad may be in jeopardy without Bell. She jumped at the chance to talk.”
Lenox frowned. “Be careful, Graham. They’ll cut your throat and leave you there if they know you have money.”
“I have taken precautions, sir,” said Graham.
No more needed to be said. “Good, I’m glad.”
“And you, sir?”
“I went to the tavern. I discovered two things there.”
“What?” said Cobb.
“The first is that the tavern hasn’t owned a white horse in nineteen months. At least if we believe the account of the bartender there, which I was inclined to do. This brought home to me—how do I put it?—how outlandish it is that we are expected to believe Bell took all that time to disguise who Gilman was, then bolted away on a white horse as an homage to his group of friends, or to his racial preferences.”
“People do foolish things for their politics,” said Cobb.
Lenox nodded. “Yes, no doubt. But then where did he get the horse? Did he hire it? You would have to look around a bit for a white horse—ask here and there, draw attention to yourself. I tried.”
“It might have been worth it to him. It was a grandiose plan.”
“Even if you set aside the horse, there is the second thing I discovered at the tavern. Of that I feel no doubt at all.”
“And what is it?”
“Winfield Bell didn’t fall to his death. He was pushed.”
Cobb’s eyes widened. “Pushed!”
Lenox nodded firmly. “There’s a stone wall on the roof. It came up to my chest. I’m five foot eleven inches without shoes on. Bell was smaller than that—it would have come up another two or three inches on him, say to his shoulder.”
“So he would have been unlikely to fall over because he slipped.”
“It would be impossible,” Lenox replied. “It would have taken me at least ten seconds of serious effort to climb up and hurl myself over. It couldn’t have happened accidentally unless I were—oh, six and a half feet tall, no matter how icy it might have been. He’d have fallen straight back onto the rooftop and picked himself up again.”
“Bert Smith,” Graham murmured, arriving quickly at the conclusion Lenox had spent much of the day reaching.
“Yes. Suddenly he seems to be the crucial figure. Nobody can tell us a word about him. He was a relatively recent addition to the Patriots Abroad—the bartender hadn’t seen him before; at least so he said. And he had no great friends among them except Bell. So who is he?”
“And what were his motivations?” Cobb said.
“I have no idea. But what I do think—what I feel convinced of—is that Winfield Bell was serving Smith’s goals, not merely his own. I would guess that it was Smith who hired a white horse for Bell to flee on. And I would guess that as soon as Bell was caught, Smith shoved him over the edge of the rooftop and disappeared. Now we merely need to figure out who on earth Bert Smith is, and why he engineered this awful scheme.”