They think it’s All Over

Francis Smalling, Decatur, Illinois

September 4^th 1867

 

“Is that Paul?” I asked, grabbing Emily by the arm, pointing at a man running towards the back of a house. He looked about a hundred yards away, so it was not exactly clear, even in the moonlight.

“I think so,” Emily said. “What’s he up to?”

I started to walk in his direction, but had only gotten a quarter of the way when Paul re-appeared, and took a run at the front door.

I watched as his foot smashed the lock at the second attempt.

I drew my pistol. “Stay back, Emily.” I said over my shoulder, holding my other hand up. “I mean it, stay back!”

Paul dashed inside, and I found myself running towards the house. Lamps inside illuminated a well-decorated living room. I took the three steps to the porch in one leap and ran inside.

A shot rang out, vibrating the walls and deafening inside the house. I turned to the sound, and saw Paul’s dark silhouette in a doorframe, a bedroom beyond. I saw his hand rise slightly.

A second shot.

I saw the flash in the room, my ears ringing with the sound.

Then a third shot, his pistol now extended before him. I knew he’d hit his intended target.

By this time I’d reached his back, my hands propelling him forward into the room.

His reaction was not what I’d expected.

“No!” he roared, as he walked forward. “No!” he shouted again, then turned to me, pushing me back against the doorframe. “Get back, Francis!”

I was instantly puzzled, I looked over his shoulder, looked past his brandished pistol urging my retreat. The Johnny Reb had fallen, and I could instantly see the spreading blood on his face and chest.

I grinned as we fought for traction, he pushing me away, me forcing myself forward, trying to take in as much of the finale as I could.

Then I saw the open, unfocused eyes of the southern gentleman, his body sliding slowly down the wall. His startlingly beautiful eyes.

The eyes I’d seen all my life.

They’d played with me, teased me, cried with me.

Somehow they were my sister’s eyes.

Margaret.

I stopped struggling, my mind trying to make sense of the perversion before me. I know my pistol dropped to the floor.

Dark blood, made almost black by the yellow lighting, stained the wall. Splashes of brain, bone, and then the smear as he continued his incredibly slow progress down the wall to the floor.

His body.

I looked at the eyes again, then his wide-brimmed hat fell forward over his face, and I lost him as he fell to the ground.

I felt myself turned round, pushed along the short corridor to the living room, to be met with the bosom of my wife, her serious concerned face looking from mine to Paul, whose hands insistently propelled me.

“Get him outside.” I heard Paul’s demanding voice.

I suddenly stopped, my resisting feet baulking against my banishment.

Margaret.

I turned felt a rise of bile hit my mouth, where I stymied it’s progress by closing my mouth tightly. Somehow I resisted the temptation to flee along the corridor. I turned again, forcing my way past my partner and looked inside.

On the bed, the terrified victim shook her head violently, screaming into her gag. Her moans were muffled and incomprehensible.

Margaret.

I sighed slightly, shaking my head.

The man, tied onto the chair, the neat rows of rope binding his legs and arms. The figure of Johnny Reb, now slumped on floor, sat with his head rocked to one side, his red-haired wig pulled to one side to reveal… long flowing strawberry blond hair.

I stood, my thought processes stymied.

Margaret had such hair.

Then I looked at her face, or what was left of it, as blood now coursed from beneath the sodden kerchief, down her chin, onto the uniform below.

I stood and looked at my sister, Margaret.

Then the room seemed to swim in a fog of yellow lamps. I felt myself being taken away, sat down.

“Margaret?” I said out loud.

“I know,” it sounded like Emily’s voice, but my eardrums still vibrated from the shooting. I sank my head closer to her warmness, the familiar tweed of her jacket comfortable against my face.

“How did Margaret get here?” I asked, my eyes suddenly finding light again.

“We don’t know anything yet, my love.” Her hands pressed my head closer to her chest. I could feel her breathing coming in sharp jerks, panting against my cheek. “Just stay here right now. Paul will work it all out.”

Paul?

Oh, Paul Chapman, the Pinkerton detective. The man who’d shot my sister.

I jerked upright. “What’s going on?” I gasped, looking around the now crowded room. I felt for my pistol, but I found only an empty holster. “What the hell is going on here?”

Hands pressed at my shoulders, pushing me down on the chair which held me. Strange faces milled around, then the bodies parted and Paul Chapman passed through, walking right towards me.

“I think we’ve worked it all out, Francis,” he began, but I could hardly hear for the blood boiling in my ears. “But there’s grave news for you.”

He paused, obviously uncertain how to continue.

I had no such barrier. “Margaret was the second killer.”

There was no trace of smile, no huzzah as we celebrated the most major breakthrough of the case.

“Yes,” Paul’s voice held no emotion. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

 

 

Paul Chapman, Decatur, Illinois

September 4^th 1867

 

I pushed Francis from the room, the smell of cordite still strong in my nostrils. Propelling him into Emily’s arms, I shook my head firmly, and exchanged a look between us that did not bode well for Francis. “The killer is Margaret, his sister.” I felt confident that he hadn’t heard me, he looked in shock; his eyes were unfocused and listless.

“What?” she gasped. “How?”

“We’ll worry about that later.” I nodded as she pulled him away, past the growing number of deputies in the living room. “I’ve got a crime scene to deal with here. Can you take care of him?” I pointed to Francis.

“I think so.”

“Just keep a good eye on him, he’s just lost his second sister, and this night’s only going to get darker for a while.”

“I’ll keep good care of him.”

I chose one of the deputies at random. “No one passes this point, apart from the sheriff.”

The man nodded, then turned to the mob behind him. “Back off, lads, anyone not involved can get themselves outside now.”

I re-entered the bedroom, giving Margaret’s body just a cursory glance as I flipped my jack-knife open. Slipping my fingers beneath the taught rope I pulled the gag from the woman’s mouth, cutting the binding carefully. I soon had her free. “Stay here, I’ll see to your husband.” She looked fearfully at Margaret. “Don’t worry, he’s dead, he won’t bother you again.” I finished cutting her arms and legs free.

Glancing occasionally in the woman’s direction I cut her husband from the chair.

With a blanket from the bed around their shoulders, and clutched tight against their chests, I led the way from the room, handed them to the waiting sheriff, then returned to the room.

First I retrieved Francis’s pistol, and stuffed it into my trousers, then turned to our new enigma.

Crouching over the slumped body, I pulled the wig from her head, and tugged the blood-sodden kerchief from below her face. My bullet had taken most of her nose away, but there seemed no doubt as to her identity.

I’d spent time with this lady. We’d investigated in Jacksonville together as Francis and Emily had done, paired off together. I knew the lady that lay before me.

Margaret Smalling.

I took off one of her gloves, to find a woman’s hand, opened the bloody neck of her uniform, to see the beginning of cleavage.

I stood up, a tear clouding my eye.

“There never was a second man, was there?” I said to her dead eyes, still open and staring. Then I pushed them closed with my hand.

I shook my head at the new development. Somehow she’d gotten herself so worked up into the case, she’d copy-catted it after its closing. For some perverse reason she’d perpetuated the murders, perhaps unable to cope with the idea that the original perpetrator had been killed.

I walked saddened into the living room. Francis sat in a chair, bent forward, his head cradled by Emily’s hands. He seen me approach, and his head rose, his eyes seemingly searching into my very soul.

I tried for a moment to find the words, knowing that I’d just killed his sister. “I think we’ve worked it all out, Francis,” I paused, swallowing hard. “But there’s grave news for you.”

I fought for a moment, trying to find the correct words to use, then to my surprise, he gave a slight nod. “Margaret was the second killer.”

“Yes,” The word seemed so inadequate. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

“How?” his face looked at me, vainly searching for a quick and complete answer. Then he stopped, an idea obviously forming. I’d worked so long with the young man, I knew him well. “It’s all my fault,” he said, and began to shake his head. “I sent her too many letters, kept her far too well appraised with the case… then I let her join us in Jacksonville.”

“Francis, you can’t blame yourself here…”

He thrust himself upwards, almost knocking Emily over in the action. “If I hadn’t joined Pinkertons!” he raged at me, his words coming through angry snarling teeth. “If I hadn’t been so determined, so God-damned righteous!”

I’m not certain how I’d have dealt with him if he’d gotten any more belligerent, but I needn’t have worried. I’d just witnessed the final throes of his temper, and he crumbled into Emily’s arms, who quickly led him outside.

It was the last I’d see of Francis Smalling for some time.

The next day, I tidied loose ends in Decatur, then decided to ride back to Chicago, and maybe even do it the long way, just to clear my head. I sent Anna a telegram to inform her of my intentions, then set off for Springfield.

The Smalling ranch looked deserted, then a farm hand appeared, rifle butt at the waist.

“I’m looking for Francis?” I shouted, hoping he’d get the idea that I had friendly intentions.

“He’s not here,” the man said, the rifle still held, ready for use.

“Then the foreman?”

The man just shook his head. “He left weeks ago. Him and Miss Margaret had a big fall-out.”

“Fine,” I said, pulling the slow progress of my horse to a halt. “I’ll be on my way then.”

“Maybe best,”

So I rose away from the Smalling farm with a growing question in my mind that might never get explained away. Margaret had argued with her new beau, and he’d simply scarpered? Or had his end been more chilling? Perhaps we’d never know.

Changing direction, I rode directly north, making Buxton House in a leisurely four days; I’d not pressed the horse at all, and certainly nothing had risen in my mind to encourage me do so.

I had one question to be answered.

“Yes,” Colonel Ward at Buxton nodded at my enquiry. “A young lady bought all of Whiteman’s possessions. We needed the money, never thought a thing about it.”

I described Margaret Smalling, and the Colonel nodded. “That was her, sure enough.”

I rode to Chicago, with most of the pieces of the puzzle in place.

Poor Margaret Smalling had survived two performances of Frederick Whiteman’s killing spree, more than any other person.

She’d kept the sword on his second visit to her farm.

She’d been given precise details of the investigation in the letters from Smalling, and her involvement in the Jacksonville part.

Then she’d collected the costume and false hair from Buxton House.

Quite a complicated preparation for her spree.

Then she’d simply gone mad.

She’d thrown herself into Whiteman’s role, and done it until she’d gotten caught; obviously the violent end had also been part of her plan. She’d known that if she’d spaced out her killings like Whiteman’s, we’d have taken ages to catch up with her.

She’d wanted a quick end.

And I’d given it to her.

As I sat at Pinkerton’s old desk in Chicago, I felt great satisfaction in closing the book permanently on the Whiteman case. Then I shook my head and opened the next file.