INSPECTOR BOLLES AMBLED through the streets of Beacon Hill that day, even though walking directly up Pinckney or Mt. Vernon would have provided a more direct route to the square. The senator had been recovering for close to two weeks now, and Jenny had sent word—at Bolles’s request—that Garrett was finally out of bed. What had it been? None of the doctors could say exactly. But the senator’s episode on Washington Street was something that had been troubling Bolles since Moody’s return.
What had the senator seen, and what did he now know?
The trial had progressed with no mention of the senator’s name—which was precisely, Bolles knew, how Senator and Mrs. Garrett wanted it to be. The apprehension around the negative was still at the forefront of Bolles’s mind, as was the fixation of all concerned on finding and punishing Edward Moody. Mr. Dovehouse had been strangely absent since Moody’s arrest—an odd thing given his relentlessness during the investigation. And for Marshall Hinckley’s part … he cared little about Garrett. Hinckley’s main objective was to make an example of the Spiritualists.
The negative, mysteriously, had not made its way into evidence. The negative had refused to go anywhere except for that one final place.
As he walked, Bolles clasped his hand over his coat pocket, unsure of what he was about to do. Something was telling him to hurry, and yet the streets continually interrupted him: Spruce Street and Walnut, Willow and Chestnut. He re-traversed his own steps without realizing what he was doing.
At last he came to the great house on Louisburg Square. In all those years of visiting those houses, he had failed to notice the aggression that characterized them—how, in the tranquility of the manicured square, their rounded bellies pressed away from them, like blisters. It was beautiful, this square, that he had known since he was a boy—and yet something was now making it unsightly.
Jenny answered the door with downcast eyes, and nodded.
“Mrs. Garrett,” Bolles said. “She is not home then?”
“No,” Jenny said. “She won’t be back for some time.”
Bolles ascended the steps to Senator Garrett’s room, for the senator, Jenny informed him, was still too weak to receive visitors in his study. The staircase creaked before Bolles stepped onto the second landing. The hallway was unlit, save for the cracked door toward the end.
Bolles knocked, but there was no answer.
“Senator?” the inspector said.
Again—no answer. Perhaps the old man had fallen asleep.
Bolles pressed the door forward, slowly, as to avoid making any noise, but preventing that kind of thing was impossible in a house such as this. Bolles at once saw the senator—in a chair by the window. A dull gray light was coating Senator Garrett with a soft and luminous glow.
“Senator?” Bolles repeated.
Garrett opened his eyes, and shifted.
“Ah, Montgomery,” he said.
And he breathed heavily, and turned toward the window.
There was a chair near the senator, and Inspector Bolles sat down in it. The attack had ravaged Garrett—it had aged him many years.
“Senator,” Bolles said, “it is good to see you recovering. I understand from Jenny that you are growing stronger by the day?”
“Stronger …” Garrett whispered. “Yes … stronger.”
“Senator, I—”
But that quickly the weakened Garrett held up one of his hands. Even in this pathetic state, he could still command that old power.
“I know why you have come, Montgomery,” he said.
“You do, sir?”
“I do. You have come to arrest me … and it is just as well. This old man has evaded his punishment for far too long.”
“Senator!” Bolles exclaimed. “What nonsense are you speaking? I have come to do nothing of the kind.”
Senator Garrett stared at Inspector Bolles with the glazed eyes of a man who wasn’t there. Then he turned his head again, and cast his eyes out onto the square.
“It was you,” Garrett said. “It was always you.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“The one who would do—right.”
“Not us,” Garrett said. “It could never be any of us. We were all too weak. I was too weak, but you …”
And he stopped, for his breath was beginning to catch in his throat.
“Senator,” Bolles said, “I have come to give you this.”
The glass panes in the old window frame shivered in the wind. The gray light made the rest of the room inanimate and colorless.
Garrett moved his eyes to look at what rested in Bolles’s hands. There it was. At last, by god—there it was.
The inspector did not move … and the senator could not move. For a long time Senator Garrett sat looking at the leather case. It was rough—almost crude. It was an ugly thing to carry.
Finally Bolles addressed him.
“You do know what this is, sir?”
“I do,” the senator replied.
“I have taken great—”
“You have taken a great risk,” the senator interrupted. “Your career, Montgomery … the risk you have taken. I cannot say that I—”
“That is not what I was going to say, sir,” Bolles interjected. “I have taken great pains to see that no one knows about this.”
“No one knows?” Garrett said. “What exactly do you mean?”
“I took it from Moody myself,” Bolles replied. “No one else knows that I have it.”
The senator’s eyes had by this time filled with tears. But of course, there was no chance that he would cry.
“Montgomery, I—”
“Say nothing else, Senator. I do not need to know.”
Garrett made to protest, but Bolles held up his own hand this time. Garrett retreated back into the chair, for at that moment, he had become the child.
Bolles handed the case to Garrett.
“For you, sir,” he said. “To do with as you will.”
Garrett took the stiff object from the young man. How Montgomery had grown from the little boy he had once known. He had changed, this boy. He would be such a fine citizen in this world. Montgomery was the promise of the nation.
“You have …” Garrett said, “You have … brought her back to me.”
He sighed, and lifted one hand to his lips.
“And … you have not judged.”
“Sir?” Bolles said.
And it was only then that Garrett realized that the inspector knew, but did not know.
“Judged,” Garrett repeated.
The case was warm in his hands.
“Senator—” Bolles said, “you should know that nothing else will ever come of this. We are nearing a conviction of the spirit photographer, and all of this will soon be buried.”
“Yes … buried …” Garrett intoned.
But he had already gone far, far away.