BENJAMIN P. DOVEHOUSE leaned much further toward the conservative side of the Republican party than his close friend James B. Garrett. He did not believe, for instance, that blacks should have been given the right to vote so soon after emancipation; nor did he subscribe to the idea that free blacks—even the most educated amongst them—were capable of governing themselves. He came from one of the old Brahmin families and was a longstanding member of the American Colonization Society, though his views on the deportation of freedmen had changed considerably since the end of the war. He lived on Mt. Vernon Street in an imposing brick mansion, which contained amongst other relics the dark old portrait of an ancestor who had served as a juror at the Salem Witch Trials.
Dovehouse held secrets—more secrets perhaps than all of the great houses of Boston combined. Decades of circulating amongst the Brahmins had honed his powers of perception to near perfection, and those who had reason to feared him. He could detect a lie in a change of breath, an indiscretion in the shift of an eye, and very few, though they smiled, approached him without caution. Because judgment ran in his veins, so too did an extreme sense of his own “moral duty.” He believed in the sanctified order of things, and the role of great families in maintaining that order. He did not believe in compromise, and he did not believe in ghosts.
For these reasons, Senator Garrett kept his regular dinner appointment with Dovehouse that week—a tradition that had been continuous since they had met in the Porcellian Club some forty years earlier. To cancel on Benjamin Dovehouse, Garrett knew, was to risk the raising of his suspicions. Only Garrett’s calls to Washington ever interfered with their engagements.
“Well, Garrett,” Dovehouse said, “you got your amendment through. More than once you’ve set out to achieve the impossible, and you’ve done it again. Congratulations.”
He was raising his brandy glass toward the uncomfortable senator, and using the other hand to gesture with his cigar.
“My opinion, though,” he continued, “and you know I always give you my opinion, is that you’ve stirred up a real snake’s nest this time. Not that you’ve ever minded doing that, of course. As your oldest friend, I have always been supportive of your endeavors, even when our beliefs have drastically differed. But this business with the voting, Garrett—it will simply never work.”
“It has already worked,” Garrett said. “The necessary states have ratified the amendment.”
“Ratified the amendment!” Dovehouse said. “Only because you forced them into it! If you hadn’t made ratification a condition for reentry, there’s no debating where your fifteenth amendment would have gone—down the steps of the Capitol and straight into the gutter! Which is where, might I point out, many respectable Northerners think it should be.”
He took another puff of his cigar, the smoke forming halos around his head. Like Garrett, Dovehouse had been a great orator and debater at Harvard. His was the kind of voice that filled the room, even when he spoke in whispers.
“You saw what they did to that Dupree man in Mississippi,” he said.
“I saw,” Garrett said.
“Slit his throat and disemboweled him, in the yard in front of his wife. Lawless barbarians. Lincoln should have thrown them all into prison—or better, executed them—when he had the chance. They say they fought for honor, but they have none. It’s abhorrent.”
“We will not return their independence—if we ever do that—until we’ve subjugated every last one of them. They forfeited their right to independence when they rebelled against the United States.”
“There is nothing on this earth like your optimism,” Dovehouse said. “For forty years it has truly astonished me.”
“They will be at the mercy of our laws!” Garrett said.
He was growing impatient, which was not uncommon these days during conversations about the new order of things.
“They will follow the law or they will pay the price,” he added. “I am absolutely sworn to make them follow.”
Dovehouse shook his head in condescending disagreement.
“Do you think those traitors care a bit for your price? They’ve already lost everything they had … except for their land, of course, which Johnson gave right back to them. Disgraceful. But the land must still be worked, Garrett—that you can’t deny. And the negroes are the ones to work it. If they somehow manage to survive down there—and mind you, I do have grave doubts about that—they will never realize the kind of equality that you and your radical friends envision. The traitors will see to that.”
“I will see every last traitor lose even the notion of power—lose it by the freedmen’s ballot!”
Dovehouse again shook his head.
“I take it you’ve read this,” he said, picking up one of the papers. “Your opponents have been quite eloquent of late. ‘A semi-barbarous race of men who worship fetishes and practice polygamy, intent on subjecting all white women to their hot, unbridled lust.’ It’s powerful stuff, old boy, and, though exaggerated, it’s not without some truth. The negroes are little more than children, no matter how much you might insist on their equality. You can’t expect them to grow up overnight, and you can’t expect them to understand the kind of power you’re trying to give them.”
“Oh, Benjamin!” Garrett exclaimed, because they had reached this point before. “You speak with every prejudice of the Democrats, and it causes me great sadness.”
“I speak with every prejudice of an American,” Dovehouse said, “because my forefathers founded this country. Abolition was an economic—even moral—necessity. That I never disputed. But citizenship? Voting? The party’s agenda has gone too far. What’s next for us, old boy—mixing of the races? Mulatto children on every corner? Even the idea of it is unnatural, and threatens the reversal of our evolution. I, for one, do not wish to live to see such a thing, if that is the fate to which your new laws have condemned us.”
“The people have elected me because they believe in equal rights for the negro,” Garrett said.
“Might I remind you that the people do not elect their senators at all—the state legislatures do that job for them. So your ‘people,’ the very same who adore and empower you, are a much smaller set of sycophants than you would like to think.”
Garrett and Dovehouse had been debating such matters for as long as they had known each other—Garrett taking the more radical stance in the years leading up to the war. He knew Dovehouse too well to ever attempt to sway him. In Dovehouse’s Boston, most things were immovable.
“Benjamin,” Garrett said, “might I raise a … delicate matter? I’m afraid I am in need of your assistance.”
Dovehouse peered over his brandy.
“Oh my, old boy,” he said. “Don’t tell me there’s a girl in trouble.”
“No—it’s nothing of that sort,” Garrett said. “It’s Elizabeth … and, well … there is a predicament.”
Dovehouse placed his glass down on the table and took another puff of his cigar.
“She has been,” Garrett continued, “she has been—suffering some difficulties of late. She has had it in her mind to get a picture of William Jeffrey. She has been investigating the possibilities of a spirit photograph.”
“Dear God, Garrett, you can’t be serious.”
“I am. And so I accompanied her to Edward Moody’s, and we sat there for a picture.”
Dovehouse scowled, moving forward in his chair.
“Edward Moody? You went to see that blasphemous imposter?”
“I did, Benjamin.”
“Oh, Garrett, that man should be thrown in jail—and would have been by now, if I had anything to say about it. He’s worse than the Confederates, you know. At least they stand out in the open for what they believe in. But that man lurks about in the shadows, hoodwinking some of the most prominent members of society. They’re the only ones who can afford his outrageous prices, the scoundrel. And he’s got a negro working for him now too, I hear. The whole thing stinks of foulness.”
The whole thing did stink. But Garrett would still open the door.
“And the ‘predicament’?” Dovehouse said.
“There was an accident, and the photograph was spoiled. But Elizabeth is convinced that it was no accident. She is convinced that ghosts are punishing us for any wrong we may have done in the past.”
“Wrong?” Dovehouse said. “According to the papers—well, the decent ones, of course—you’ve only done right, as far as I can tell.”
“She has been unwell since the photograph.”
“Well, I’m sorry for her. When was it?”
“Day before last. Elizabeth was quite upset. We left hastily after the sitting—without the negative.”
“I see. And the picture? What’s on it?”
“It’s the negative, really—no pictures yet, as far as I know. We watched in the darkroom as he developed the negative.”
“And?”
“And there are shadows on it—nothing more. The result of an accident with the chemicals.”
“And you want to retrieve the negative, because you fear he may print pictures and use them to his advantage? I hear he’s getting ten dollars for a dozen cartes de visite, sometimes more. The Spiritualists collect them, you know.”
“Yes, that. And …” Garrett wasn’t sure how to continue. “It would just be best if we were able to retrieve the negative. But I cannot risk drawing attention to myself—or Elizabeth. I was hoping you might have a … connection.”
Dovehouse eyed his friend.
“There is something else, Garrett. Tell me.”
Garrett met Dovehouse’s gaze, but held it for only a moment.
“It is Elizabeth. She has become possessed with the idea of obtaining the negative.”
“I don’t really see the predicament,” Dovehouse said. “Why don’t you just go and ask him for it? He’s nothing but a mercenary. At worst, you’ll have to pay him something.”
“There is something about him I do not trust. My feeling is that he won’t surrender the negative—not willingly.”
“Something you don’t trust? Well, I should think so!”
Rarely had Dovehouse beheld his friend the senator so distressed. Usually Garrett reserved such emotions for politics—or worse, the negroes. There was something more to this situation, something more to Elizabeth’s concerns. Could his friend of forty years have finally succumbed to some secret weakness? Was it possible that he believed in ghosts?
“You know, Garrett,” Dovehouse said after some time, “Bolles has been building a case against him.”
“Bolles?”
“Yes, Bolles—the same whose appointment you helped secure not so long ago. They have apparently been after Moody for some time, waiting to seize on some sort of tangible evidence, but so far they have been unable to procure any. I hear, though, that other developments, so to speak, have been in the works.”
“What’s your meaning?” Garrett said.
“I think a visit to the young inspector might prove to be of some benefit.”