The lamps glowed in the Lamar House late that night and Grand and Batchelor were closeted in their rooms, poring over the treatise that Belle Boyd had worked on.
‘It’s a code,’ Batchelor said, ‘as we suspected. It’s just that we couldn’t crack it.’
‘But you’ve worked it out now?’ Grand was impressed. ‘How?’
‘Oh, you know.’ Batchelor grinned sheepishly, tapping the side of his head. ‘Application of the old grey matter.’
‘Useful, was she? The old grey matter?’
‘What?’ Batchelor frowned, annoyed that his partner could see straight through him.
‘Come on, James,’ Grand laughed. ‘You spend the day – or was it more? – with an ex-Confederate spy and coincidentally you become an expert code-breaker. I don’t buy it.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Batchelor snapped. ‘Belle may have helped.’
‘What you do in your spare time is up to you,’ Grand said. ‘Right now, I’m more interested in this.’ He tapped the book.
‘All right.’ Batchelor climbed down from whatever high horse he had been about to mount. ‘I won’t trouble you with the sliding substitution, but here, circled letters on page 181, dated 2.5.68.’
‘Hmm,’ Grand nodded. ‘February.’
‘February?’ Batchelor repeated. ‘No … oh, yes, of course. You people write your dates backwards for some reason, don’t you? Linking these disparate letters together, it says “I am constantly being followed. They are professionals. I cannot fool them.”’
Suddenly, Grand was all ears. ‘This is dynamite,’ he said.
‘It gets better – “In New Rome, there walked three men …”’
‘New Rome,’ Grand said. ‘Washington.’
Batchelor nodded, translating on. ‘“Three men, a Judas, a Brutus and a spy.”’
The light of remembrance glowed in Grand’s eyes, ‘Laura Duvall mentioned Judas and Brutus,’ he said.
‘She did,’ Batchelor agreed, and went on, ‘“Each planned that he should be the king when Abraham should die.”’
‘Lincoln,’ Grand shouted. ‘The conspiracy to kill Lincoln.’
‘“One trusted not the other”,’ Batchelor read on, ‘“but they went on for that day, waiting for that final moment when, with pistol in his hand, one of the sons of Brutus could sneak behind that cursed man and put a bullet in his brain …”’
‘John Wilkes Booth,’ Grand said, the hairs crawling on his neck. ‘His father was the actor Junius Brutus Booth.’
‘And, if you know your Shakespeare,’ Batchelor countered, ‘or indeed your classical history, Marcus Junius Brutus was the leader of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar. Baker is talking about the assassination of Lincoln. And it wasn’t confined to the men we know about.’
Grand was impressed, but didn’t show it. ‘What else does it say?’
A sharp knock on the door broke the moment. Grand and Batchelor looked at each other and Batchelor slid the book away under a copy of the Washington Evening Star.
‘Who is it?’ Even in friendly Knoxville, Grand wasn’t inclined to take chances. His pocket Colt was in easy reach.
Nothing.
He clicked open the door. There was no one there and he was staring at the flock wallpaper of the Lamar House’s landing. On the carpet, however, lay an envelope. Grand snatched it up and closed the door, with a last quick look to left and right. He thumbed open the envelope and unfolded the paper. ‘Mother of God,’ he muttered as he read the note, ‘they’ve got Belle.’
‘Who have?’ Batchelor was on his feet, heart pounding, vision blurring with panic. This was no way for an enquiry agent to behave but … Belle …
‘The Klan. The Invisible Empire.’
Batchelor grabbed the letter and read aloud. ‘“Headquarters of the Invisible Empire, Dismal Era, Last Hour. Sir, because you have violated our sacred order and paid scant regard to the sentiments of the South, we have been obliged to engage the services of Miss Belle Boyd of Front Royal. Rest assured that her life will be forfeit if you do not desist in your enquiries and do not quit Tennessee by …”’ He looked up, aghast. ‘Two days. They’ve given us two days. This is nonsense, Matthew.’
‘It is,’ Grand nodded. ‘But this is the Klan we’re talking about. Are they implying that Belle is working with them?’
‘Never!’ Batchelor shook his head, certain as only a man in love could be.
‘Well,’ Grand murmured, ‘you know her better than I do, but she is a daughter of the Confederacy.’
‘Yes, she is, but she decoded Baker’s encryptions for me. Why would she do that while working with the other side?’
Grand snorted. ‘Maybe you don’t know Belle as well as you thought.’
For a moment, Grand expected Batchelor to lash out with his fists, but the Englishman controlled himself. He looked at the note again. ‘Headquarters of the Invisible Empire. Is that Pulaski?’
‘Two days’ ride,’ Grand nodded.
‘Then we’ve no time to lose.’ Batchelor began circling the room, throwing wardrobe doors wide, then rifling through the drawers.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Grand counselled. ‘The first thing we’ve got to do is to make sure that Belle has actually gone.’
Batchelor looked at him, confused, heart still pounding. What if their meddling had put the woman in mortal danger?
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That would be logical. I’ll do it.’
‘James!’ Grand took the man by the shoulders. ‘It’s gone midnight. If there’s an innocent explanation for this, Dr Boyd – and Belle – won’t thank you for rousing the house at this hour.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ Batchelor asked. It didn’t seem that he was going to like any answer Grand gave him.
‘We wait. We get some sleep. Tomorrow, after breakfast, you take yourself over to the Blount Mansion; you’re paying your devoirs to Belle.’
‘And if she’s not there?’
‘We quit Tennessee,’ Grand shrugged. ‘Get back to Washington, pick up the threads there.’
‘Go to Hell!’ And Batchelor barged past him to wake all Knoxville.
The Blount Mansion looked different in darkness. It must have been nearly one by the time Batchelor reached the front porch. The Boyds’ dog was barking long before the Englishman’s knuckles hammered on the door. Lamplight exploded in a bedroom and a head popped out below the sash.
‘Who the Hell is that?’
‘James Batchelor, Dr Boyd. I must see Belle.’
‘Do you know what time it is, Mr Batchelor?’ the doctor wanted to know.
‘Yes and I’m sorry, but it’s vital I see her.’
‘What’s the matter, John?’ Aunt Susan’s head appeared beside her husband’s. ‘Why, Mr Batchelor …’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs Boyd, but—’
‘I don’t know how you do things in London, Mr Batchelor,’ Boyd interrupted him, ‘but in Knoxville, gentlemen call on ladies during the hours of daylight and then only by arrangement.’
‘I realize that …’ Batchelor toyed for a moment with putting his shoulder to the door but the frame looked stout and he wasn’t sure how Dr Boyd would take to having his porch demolished.
‘Belle’s not here, Mr Batchelor,’ Susan said.
‘What?’ Batchelor was getting a crick in his neck from looking up at them, but his heart was in his boots.
‘She’s gone to visit her cousin Mary for a day or two. Didn’t she tell you?’
‘No, she …’
A sudden wailing cry came from somewhere in the house, echoed by an eldritch screech from towards the rear. ‘Oh, that’s little Grace,’ Susan said. ‘I must go to her. Eliza sleeps like the dead. And now Grandma is awake.’ Her head abruptly disappeared and she could be heard calling the house awake. When Grandma had woken, no one would sleep for long.
‘Belle hasn’t taken Grace with her?’ Alarm bells clanged in Batchelor’s head.
‘No,’ Boyd said. ‘The poor little mite’s got a touch of colic. Better she stays here under my care. Now, really, Mr Batchelor—’
‘Where’s she gone?’ Batchelor persisted. ‘Cousin Mary – where does she live?’
‘I’m not inclined to tell you, sir,’ Boyd said, frowning. ‘Not the way you’re behaving tonight. Or, should I say, this morning?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Batchelor persisted. ‘I mean no one any harm, Dr Boyd, but I have to see Belle, and quickly. It’s a matter of life and death.’
Even in his nightcap and shirt and roused from his sleep, Boyd still had enough bonhomie to chuckle. ‘You journalists,’ he said, ‘even when you have given up the print and ink, you can’t help the dramatic phrase, can you? If I tell you, will you go away and stop bothering honest folks?’
‘You have my word,’ Batchelor promised.
‘Pulaski,’ Boyd said. ‘Cousin Mary lives in Pulaski. It’s—’
‘Oh, I know where it is,’ Batchelor said, and he was gone.
‘Pulaski,’ Batchelor blurted out. He had hurtled round the corner from the Blount Mansion and bumped straight into Matthew Grand.
‘I heard,’ his colleague said.
‘So, let’s go.’
Grand leaned towards him. ‘Don’t look now, James, but we’re being followed.’
‘We are?’
‘And you have been since you left the Lamar. To my left. Back of the cedar. Don’t look!’
Batchelor kept his eyes firmly on Grand’s.
‘Do you know who it is?’ he asked.
‘Personally, no. But it’s my guess it’s one of the Klan Ghouls. Now, do you want to get Belle back safely?’
‘Of course.’ Batchelor was quietly outraged that Grand had felt it necessary to ask that question.
‘Right. So, now we do it my way. Are you going to play along?’ He waited. No response. ‘For Belle’s sake?’
‘For Belle’s sake,’ Batchelor repeated.
‘Well, they’ve got her,’ Grand said loudly, raising his voice for the first time. ‘And we’re over a barrel.’
‘What do we do now?’ Batchelor asked, equally loudly. He would never have made a career on the stage, but it would suffice.
‘The only thing we can do,’ Grand said, turning back towards the hotel. ‘We catch a riverboat tomorrow morning, first thing. Whatever else they are, the Klan are gentlemen of the South. They won’t hurt a lady as long as we do what they say.’
‘You’re right,’ Batchelor said lamely. When all he wanted to do was to grab the listening Ghoul by the throat and batter his brains out against the nearest tree.
They checked out the next morning, Grand settling up with the clerk by courtesy of Luther Baker, and they made a great show of leaving. Batchelor couldn’t help staring at every man in the foyer, on the stairs, on the sidewalk outside. He even found himself staring at the Negroes until common sense told him that was a rather pointless exercise.
The City of Knoxville belched black smoke and Grand was generosity itself in the tips he gave to the porters struggling with the luggage. The anchor chain rumbled clear and the great paddle wheel drove into the waters of the French Broad, sending spray to catch the sunbeams of the morning and turn them to rainbows. From the rail, both men watched the crowd on the levee and they saw one man standing looking at them until he was a speck that turned and left.
‘So far,’ Grand murmured, ‘so good.’
Beyond the telescope range of the Klan, Grand and Batchelor left the riverboat at the next landing stage and doubled back. They had their luggage sent back to Washington, because whatever happened in Pulaski, suitcases would only slow them down and carpetbags had a connotation of their own.
James Batchelor could ride. It’s just that within the confines of suburban London, there was little call for it. He was not of the social class that rode to hounds; neither did he tip his hat to the elegant ladies who trotted in the Row of a morning. So the sorrel with the hard mouth was a bit of a challenge for him that afternoon as he and Grand rode southwest in search of their quarry. It could have been worse, as Grand kept telling him. At least he was riding a hunting saddle, more or less what he would have found at home. The McClellan was a bitch by comparison and, Grand assured him, he didn’t want to know about a Western rig. Many was the greenhorn who had kissed his balls goodbye.
It was two days’ ride to Pulaski, and Batchelor had to grit his teeth and put up with it. The ride itself, however, was nothing by comparison with the overnight camp. There was no town, no hotel, not even a farmhouse with a barn, and the pair slept under the stars, listening to the crickets and the ripples of the stream that served as their water supply and bubbled over pebbles. By the time Batchelor got up the next morning, he didn’t know what ailed him most – the head that had suffered all night with just his saddle for a pillow, or the back which had bounced around all day on a horse. Come to think of it, it was the legs, reduced to jelly by gripping the sorrel’s barrel for grim death, and his feet, cramped into the leather flaps of the stirrups. His admiration for Grand, the ex-cavalryman, had turned to envious contempt by midday, especially as the pair hardly rode together; Batchelor was yards behind, desperately playing catch-up when he could.
By mid-afternoon on the second day, the heat was unbearable, the horses skittish and jumpy with the clouds of flies.
‘Do you have a plan, Matthew?’ Batchelor asked, and not for the first time. ‘When we get there, I mean, if—’ he tried to straighten his legs and stifled a groan as his muscles complained – ‘we get there.’
‘That depends.’ Grand reined in and Batchelor was delighted to do likewise.
‘On what?’ Batchelor unhooked the canteen and took a swig. It was warm and tasted revolting, but it was wet and that had to be enough.
‘On exactly what part Belle is playing in all this.’
Batchelor nodded. Grand was still singing from the same old hymnbook, but Batchelor knew he had to make allowances. The man had fought the South – Belle Boyd’s South – for four long years, and had seen his President go down to an assassin’s gun. Men weren’t always rational after that, and they were hardly ever forgiving. ‘We’re assuming there’s no cousin Mary?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ Grand shrugged. ‘She may be real enough. But let’s assume for now that she’s not. I only caught a part of what Dr Boyd said to you from his bedroom window. Did he look like a man beside himself with worry? Somebody whose niece had been kidnapped and who has been told to keep his mouth shut?’
Batchelor shook his head. ‘I’d say not,’ he said. ‘He seemed to me to be just like a man whose niece has gone to see her cousin Mary.’
Grand eased himself in the saddle. He was a born rider, but he hadn’t done this kind of cross-country work for years and he realized how unfit he had become. He took off his wideawake and brushed the sweat from his eyes. ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘This is a long shot, but it may be I know a man who can help us.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Somebody who I’m guessing is a nice man at the end of his tether. You’ll get some good ol’ home cooking and a lot of questions,’ he nudged his horse forward, ‘if you don’t get a belly full of buckshot first.’
The only buildings Batchelor had seen like this were the old Contraband shacks in Hell’s Bottom. Everything seemed broken down, neglected, from the sloping sod roof to the charred remnants of the barn. A few scrawny hens scratched in the dirt and washing hung limp from a line in the stillness and heat of the early evening.
He saw them before they saw him. He crept around the side of the house, past the old pump, clicking his shotgun hammers as he came. This time he was ready for them. This time he had spare cartridges in a belt at his waist and a Bowie knife stuffed into his right boot. ‘That’s far enough!’ he called, and the horsemen reined in.
‘Mr Peters?’ Grand shouted.
The shotgun came up level. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘My name is Matthew Grand. Third Cavalry of the Potomac.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To put my arms down.’ Grand had them out to his sides, as he had not far from here, days earlier, when he had gone to the Klan bake. ‘And not to feel a rifle at my back.’
Batchelor jarred his back with the speed of his turn and he nearly fell off his horse. He had no idea anyone was there but, sure enough, the muzzle of a rifle was poking out from the few uncharred planks of the barn. At the other end of it, scarcely hidden at all now that Batchelor was aware of him, crouched a black boy. He was perhaps twelve, wearing a patched shirt and canvas trousers.
‘Throw whatever you’re carrying ahead of you,’ Peters ordered. ‘Now.’
Grand lowered his arms and hauled the Sharps out of the rifle basket on his saddle. He threw it on to the grass. Next – and he did this very slowly – he lifted the Colt from his shoulder-holster by the trigger guard and threw it after the rifle. Finally, he leaned down and flicked the Derringer out of his boot, sending that through the stifling air to join the others.
‘Now you,’ Peters barked at Batchelor.
‘I’m not armed,’ Batchelor told him, his hands out to the side too. He was praying fervently the sorrel didn’t move or he’d be joining Grand’s guns on the ground.
‘He’s from England,’ Grand said, by way of explanation, and the man gave a grunt of understanding. ‘I’ve just come to talk to you, Mr Peters. And, for all our sakes, I thought I’d come in daylight.’
If Batchelor had been bemused by the table at the Boyds’ and the picnic with Belle, he was transfixed by the fare that Mrs Peters provided. At least the food on offer before had been vaguely recognizable, but this was … clearly food, because of the way the family were tucking in. The vegetables he could manage; he didn’t expect cabbage and boiled potatoes when he was away from home. Biscuits he understood now, and although he had reached that stage of homesickness where he would kill for a garibaldi, he had come to expect a kind of scone. But the meat … what was it? It smelled delicious, he had to admit, but the legs were a little small for even the youngest rabbit. He looked at one of the youngest children, a girl who was sucking the meat off a delicate bone. He raised an eyebrow and she smiled at him, the gap-toothed smile of the seven year old.
‘Squ’r’l,’ she said, and wiped around the plate with a biscuit.
Batchelor turned wide eyes to Grand. ‘Squ’r’l?’ he muttered.
Grand leaned over, his fingers greasy with the dripping. ‘Squirrel, James,’ he said. ‘It’s delicious. Don’t go all squeamish on me now. Where you come from, they pee in the milk or so I understand it, so just eat your squirrel and be quiet.’
‘Pee? Squirrel?’ Batchelor was aghast. But he was also hungry and took a tiny bite. It really was delicious! Probably it wasn’t even squirrel. Squirrel was probably just a Tennessee name for rabbit. Yes, that would be it. He tucked in, grease running down his chin. Grand and the Peters family watched him indulgently. Foreigners! What did they know about the good eating on a squ’r’l?
When the dishes and the children had all been taken to the scullery out back, for a wash down under the pump, Grand passed Peters a cigar, which he turned down politely. ‘I guess you’ve had a few Klan visits,’ he said. He had noticed that the man’s eyes rarely strayed from the front door, which was left slightly ajar.
‘You could say that,’ Peters said. The children would all soon be in bed, tucked up safely under the eaves, and he could relax a little then, especially with Virgil, the eldest, who sat on the porch, his rifle cradled across his lap. There had been a lot of questions. Elijah had wanted to know why the Englishman didn’t talk properly. Suzannah wanted to know where England was and wondered if she would visit it someday. Little Zachariah, the shy one, asked nothing. Batchelor had let him play with his derby hat and the toddler had spent most of the meal with it resting low over the bridge of his nose. The squirrel grease would defy even the ministrations of Mrs Manciple, and Batchelor was glad she wasn’t here to see it. ‘They have a pattern, you know. First, they burn a cross near your house. That’s their calling card. And they killed the dog, too, just to show they mean business. If that don’t scare the Bejesus out of yuh, they call again. Killed my mule that time. Last time, it was the barn. Me and the kids put it out eventually but, as you see, with a summer like this one, we lost most of it.’
‘Is there no help for you, Mr Peters?’ Batchelor asked. ‘The law, for example?’
Their host laughed, but there was no mirth in it. ‘I believe Sheriff McGovern calls himself Night Hawk after dark.’
‘Another pointy head,’ Grand nodded.
‘Oh, they’re all honourable men, Mr Batchelor,’ Peters told them, ‘the knights of the Klan. There’s Freemasons, Presbyterians, Methodists. Lawyers and doctors.’
‘Led by Nathan Forrest,’ Grand said.
‘So they tell me,’ Peters said. ‘The irony is, I believe him to be a really honourable man.’
‘But he calls the tune,’ Batchelor said, astonished at the man’s magnanimity.
‘He’s got a wolf by the ears,’ Peters told him. ‘I’m just a farmer, Mr Batchelor – what do I know? I just get the impression the Wizard of the Saddle’s bit off more than he can chew this time. Remember, he’s not local. In his absence, God alone knows what the Klaverns get up to.’
‘So who do you believe is in charge of these attacks on you?’ Grand asked.
Peters leaned back from the table. ‘I’d put my money – if only I had any – on the Grand Cyclops; Larry Hogan.’
Grand nodded. ‘I’ve met him. Butter wouldn’t melt.’
Peters snorted. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what he done to his slaves.’
‘I didn’t think Tennessee was plantation country, Mr Peters,’ Batchelor said.
‘With respect, Mr Batchelor, you’ve been reading too much Mrs Beecher Stowe. To her – and you’ll excuse the pun – the whole issue is black and white. Believe me, it ain’t. Hogan’s never seen a plantation in his life, any more than Mrs Beecher Stowe had ever seen a slave; but that don’t stop him owning slaves and beating them half to death.’
‘The Emancipation Proclamation stopped that,’ Batchelor reminded him with all the innocence of the ingénue he was.
‘Did it, Mr Batchelor? You’d like to think so. Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I’ll bless Abraham Lincoln until the day I die – although that day may not be too long away now. The problem with the South is that they ain’t good losers. Many of ’em figure they lost some battles, but they ain’t going to lose the war.’
‘Hence the Klan.’ Grand blew cigar smoke to the ceiling.
‘I’m a free negro, Mr Batchelor,’ Peters said. ‘But I was born a slave. How I progressed to be a man with a barn, a mule, some chickens and a few acres is one of the miracles of modern America. And it makes the Klan mad as Hell.’
‘We’re interested in one type of Klan activity,’ Grand said. ‘Kidnapping.’
Peters frowned. ‘That’s a new one on me,’ he said. ‘Black folks ain’t worth kidnapping. No ransom value.’
‘What about white folks?’ Batchelor asked. The phrase sounded strange in an English accent.
‘We believe the Pulaski Klavern has kidnapped a white woman,’ Grand explained.
‘A white woman?’ Peters frowned. ‘Now, why in Hell would they do that?’
‘Assuming they did,’ Grand persisted, ‘where would they keep her?’
‘I don’t exactly know their addresses,’ Peters said. ‘I know McGovern’s office. And I know where Hogan lives. Other than that, the only other place I know – the Den, they call it – is the old Davies place on the hill north of town.’
Grand knew that too. Knew it blindfold.
‘You gonna get her back?’ Peters asked. ‘This white woman?’
‘You can count on it,’ Batchelor said.
‘Mr Peters,’ Grand stood up. ‘You and your family have been very kind, but we must be going.’
‘It’s late,’ the farmer said, the oil lamps flickering on the table. ‘You’re welcome to stretch out here. I can’t even offer you the barn.’
Poor and run-down though the Peters’ house was, it looked like paradise to James Batchelor. There were even cushions, one hundred times softer than a saddle, even if the covers were sacking. ‘We accept, Mr Peters,’ he said quickly, before Grand could disagree.
But Grand had grown a little soft and could do with a roof over his head too. ‘We certainly do,’ he said, ‘thank you. I’ll sit out on the porch awhile, spell young Virgil out there.’ And he waved them goodnight, taking the Sharps with him.