EDWIN HUMBLECUT STOOD IN the dark fastness of Boston’s Old Colony Terminal, a location fragrant with the odors of tobacco juice, stale urine, and rotting fish. He’d taken the same train that the policeman and Joe Greene had ridden just a few days before. There was a good chance most, if not all, of the same employees were at work today, as well.
Humblecut had been untethered from Leng’s other operatives and left to accomplish this task on his own—which was the way he liked it. The Milk Drinkers were excellent at striking fear into adversaries and following through on threats, but Humblecut did not enjoy time spent in their company. Leng kept him on retainer for jobs that were more sophisticated, refined—and secret.
He glanced up and down the platforms, once more going over what he knew. He did not know the name of the policeman, though that hardly mattered—no doubt both he and the boy would be traveling under pseudonyms, most likely as father and son. Munck, however, had been able to provide a decent enough description of him. Leng had told him to assume the man “would appear to be somewhat unfamiliar with this time and place”—precisely what that meant Humblecut wasn’t sure, but it led him to believe the boy would be the one who’d do most of the talking and other necessary business. And it had been the boy, in fact, who’d purchased the tickets to Boston.
The manner in which they’d left the mansion—the trick with the coffin—was clever, but it also had the whiff of having been planned in a rush. This was understandable, of course … but it was also useful to Humblecut. This nemesis of Leng’s, Pendergast—who was probably involved in the planning—had been given very little time to work between Munck’s kidnapping of the girl and the policeman slipping Joe out of the house, no doubt to keep him away from Leng. This rush would work in Humblecut’s favor, because the getaway plans would have been necessarily simple and straightforward. A place, somehow, had been hastily arranged for them to hole up in; any elaborations to or additional precautions for the plan would follow later.
From what he had learned and observed, Humblecut now moved on to speculation. The two might have gotten off at one of the numerous stops; if he found no further trail in Boston, he would backtrack. But instinct told him that the same urgency employed to get Joe out of New York would also send them as far as possible—perhaps even beyond Boston—without making a return too onerous.
The policeman was a stranger, and the boy—while street smart—was young and would have no practice throwing a hunter off the scent. Humblecut had little problem putting himself into either of their shoes and then running through the various actions they might have taken from this terminal.
Straightening his homburg and smoothing down the polished black leather of his long overcoat, he ambled over to the ticket booths, adjusting his hold on his valise so it appeared more like a gift than a traveling case. None of the ticket agents on duty, however, remembered selling tickets to or speaking with anyone that fit Joe’s description.
This did not trouble Humblecut. In fact, even though a single inquiry such as this could not cover every ticket agent who worked at the terminal, it fit the mental picture he was putting together. On the run as they were … however they proceeded from this train station, it would almost certainly be by a different kind of conveyance. That jibed with plans being made in haste.
He looked around slowly, taking in the long wooden benches, the newsstands, the row of ticket booths, the food concessions. Mentally, he put himself in Joe’s position: young, excited by what was probably his first long train ride, but scared at the thought he might be followed … Where would he go next?
Now Humblecut made his way over to the large, ornate gentlemen’s comfort rooms, where shaves, haircuts, facials, nail polishing, shoeshines, emergency tailoring, and numerous other services were available beyond the mere satisfying of the urges of nature. Many and varied attendants were on duty there, and Humblecut was rewarded, after half a dozen unsuccessful queries, with a barber who recalled a stout-looking man fitting D’Agosta’s description who had come in to use the facilities the day before yesterday; his son had asked the barber for directions to the New Commonwealth Dock.
Humblecut thanked the man and returned to the main waiting room, sitting down on one of the long benches to think.
New Commonwealth Dock was in South Boston, not far from Dorchester Heights. The city was a major port; if one no longer wished to travel by train, Boston held many opportunities for traveling by water instead.
Local ferries used the closer wharves on Atlantic Avenue; New Commonwealth Dock was the departure point for more distant realms.
Humblecut was too taciturn to smile, even to himself, but he allowed a small glow of satisfaction to briefly warm his vitals.
Another person might have gone scuttling off immediately. But Humblecut knew there was no rush. It was too late in the day for any ferries—to Cuttyhunk, Martha’s Vineyard, or elsewhere—to set off. Joe and his minder would have spent a night in one of a handful of ramshackle inns near the South Boston docks, probably on Congress Avenue, which Humblecut knew well enough. That gave him plenty of time to visit these establishments, make casual inquiries, and determine the next—and perhaps ultimate—destination.
He put down the traveling valise beside him. The hunt itself was his second-favorite part of this kind of job. Originally, he’d been a member of the New York City Metropolitan Police, but they had always been more interested in fighting rival law enforcement agencies like the Municipals than in catching criminals. After a few years he left to join the Pinkerton Detective Agency, rising quickly in those early days, working directly with Allan Pinkerton and becoming part of Abraham Lincoln’s personal security detail from 1862 through 1864. But the same personal characteristics that made him so good at investigation—Pinkerton himself called them “unhealthy”—had another, darker side that prompted him to leave the agency and become a journeyman. And it was not long after that he found Leng. Or perhaps Leng had found him; Humblecut, for all his perspicacity, had never been quite sure.
Now he rose from the bench, picked up his valise, and made for the nearest exit. One thing he was sure of: Leng did not harbor any priggish reservations about his methods. Nor did he get in the way of what, for Humblecut, was the best part of jobs such as this: leeway to proceed as he saw fit—once the quarry was caught.
It might, perhaps, have been useful if he’d maintained a contact or two at Pinkerton’s—the detective agency was busy assembling the largest collection of what were termed “mug” shots in the country. But Blackwell’s Island would never have bothered to take a picture of young Joe. Besides, Humblecut had very subtly gained two descriptions of the boy—one from the ticket agent, another from the barber—and in their own way, they were better than a photograph.
He left the station and headed for South Boston, his step now slightly brisker.