The rains came to Washington that Tuesday and the summer, suddenly, was over. Lightning forked through the darkness, flashing on the dome of the Capitol and outlining the stump of the Washington Memorial. The rain fell vertically, in huge drops that battered the lime leaves along Pennsylvania Avenue and bounced on the sidewalk, bringing down twigs and birds’ nests to litter the ground. Swampoodle became a swamp again and the ladies of the night who haunted Marble Alley and the Division sidled indoors if they could or took shelter under awnings, hiding their wares from the weather.
‘Empire of King Mud, indeed.’ James Batchelor peeled off his boots, caked with a slimy brown. London in the rain was dismal, stinking and grey, but at least the roads were metalled for the most part, and if you couldn’t go dry-shod, at least your boots would survive. Looking at his footwear now, thick with clay and misshapen with the wet, he wondered and poked at them disconsolately with his ever-present pencil.
‘The Willard has people to do that,’ Matthew Grand reminded him. He sometimes forgot that Batchelor had not been born to hotels and boot boys. ‘Just leave them outside the door.’
Both men were tired. The trip back from Knoxville, by riverboat and train, had been long and arduous, with rain threatening in the lowering sky, and the time of the year that Grand persisted in calling the Fall creeping over Maryland. The Willard had retained their rooms, as per Grand’s request, but neither man felt up to the cold ham and chicken on offer in the kitchens, still less the brandy and bourbon in the East Thirteenth Street Corridor. Batchelor opened the door to place his boots out for the boy and saw an envelope lying there, addressed to them both.
‘What is it about this country?’ he asked Grand, opening it up. ‘Is it a colonial thing, leaving notes outside people’s doors?’
‘We’re a new nation,’ Grand said. ‘Hell, for a while there we were two nations. One day we’ll get round to a postal service that works – we’ve only had ninety-odd years practice; we’ll get it right eventually.’ For the briefest of moments, he saw an image of a Wells Fargo Pony Express rider, galloping hell for leather across the open prairielands of Surrey. He shook himself free of it; the journey from Knoxville had been longer than he thought. He looked down at the balled-up stocking in his hand and threw it at Batchelor. ‘And that’s quite enough of the colonial remarks, if you don’t mind, James.’
‘It’s from Tom Durham,’ Batchelor said, ducking automatically so the missile flew past his shoulder to land behind the clothes press. ‘The Star’s star. It’s a list.’
‘Of what?’
‘People who crossed Lafayette Baker.’ Batchelor looked down the column of names. ‘Here in Washington. Good of Durham to help us.’
‘He said he would,’ Grand reminded him, craning across to look at the names, albeit upside down. ‘Anybody we know?’
‘Well, Edwin Stanton’s here, of course. In fact, he’s number one.’
‘Thought he would be,’ Grand nodded, pouring himself an Early Times and another for Batchelor.
‘Ah, Wesley Jericho.’
‘Yes,’ Grand sipped his amber nectar. ‘If I remember rightly, Durham was pretty keen to mention him last time we met.’
‘But we can rule him out, surely,’ Batchelor said. ‘He bought our bluff about Baker being shot.’
Grand nodded. ‘Unless it’s the old double bluff,’ he said. ‘Jericho feigning ignorance of the actual murder method.’
‘Yes,’ Batchelor said, ‘but I’ve been thinking. Jericho’s a gambling man. Would he give a rat’s arse about that? I can still feel the man’s blade at my throat. Seems to me he’s the kind of man who would say, “Yes, I did it. I killed Laff Baker. What are you going to do about it?”’
‘Who else is there?’
Batchelor ran his eyes down the list. ‘There are fourteen names here … Well, well – Caleb Tice.’
‘Really?’ Grand sat up. ‘It’s been crossed out. Durham’s put a line through the name – presumably because he’s dead. He may have been a threat to Baker once, but not recently enough to be his killer.’
‘Except he’s not dead, is he? I’ve met him.’
‘So you say,’ Grand murmured.
Batchelor chose to let the remark go. It had been a long journey.
‘All right.’ Grand could read a withering look as well as the next man; better, when the withering look came from James Batchelor. ‘Let’s assume he is alive. What now?’
‘We need to find him,’ Batchelor said. ‘The point is – how?’
‘Julep was the go-between last time.’
Batchelor looked less than enchanted. ‘It’s your turn there,’ he said.
‘Me?’ Grand chuckled. ‘You’re the cute one, according to her. Not so long ago you couldn’t wait to go spooning with the girl.’
‘That was before …’ but Batchelor didn’t finish his sentence.
‘Before Belle Boyd,’ Grand murmured. ‘Take some advice, James, my boy. Let Belle Boyd go.’
Batchelor had not told Grand what Belle had told him, about Lafayette Baker and their child. Like some of the details of their picnic, it seemed an intimacy too close, a truth that could afford to lie hidden – at least for a while; perhaps forever. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said.
‘I understand that the Siren of the Shenandoah didn’t get that name without a reason,’ Grand said. ‘If my limited grasp of Greek legend serves, the sirens were cruel murderesses in the guise of beautiful women, luring innocent sailors on to the rocks and killing them.’
‘As I said,’ Batchelor persisted quietly, ‘you wouldn’t understand. But to get back to the list.’ He waved it between them. ‘Three names we know about – Stanton, Jericho and Tice – and eleven we don’t.’
Grand knew a changed subject when he heard one. He took the sheet of paper from Batchelor. The names meant nothing to him either, until … ‘My God!’ He was on his feet, staring at Durham’s copperplate in disbelief.
‘What?’
‘Madison Mitchells.’
‘Who?’ Batchelor was none the wiser.
Grand sat down again. ‘Look, James, I haven’t been entirely honest with you.’
‘Oh?’ Batchelor was glad to hear that. It meant that Belle Boyd’s secret could stay with him like a ghost at the feast, but with less guilt at its shoulder.
‘You know when we got here first how I had business to take care of, people to see?’
Batchelor did.
‘Well, one I didn’t plan on seeing but who I ended up bumping into was my old flame, my fiancée, Arlette McKintyre. She was with me at Ford’s the night Booth killed Lincoln.’
‘I remember,’ Batchelor nodded. There had been a lot of evenings in front of the fire with no work to do between then and now, a lot of confidences exchanged. The death of Lincoln haunted them both.
‘Well, Arlette is married now. To Madison Mitchells.’
‘My God!’
‘That’s more or less what I said.’
‘Have you met this Mitchells?’
‘No. And from what Arlette has told me, I don’t want to.’
‘What does he do?’
‘Some big hat in the Treasury Department.’
‘Close to Stanton?’ Batchelor was muddling his government departments again, but Grand understood.
‘When Stanton was king of America, yes.’
‘You don’t think cousin Luther’s been right all along, do you? Stanton.’
‘You’re thinking Stanton called in Mitchells to do his dirty work?’ Grand asked.
‘It’s feasible, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ Grand said. ‘According to Arlette, he’s an old man. Not the type to go up against Lafayette Baker with a gun or his fists. But arsenic poisoning, now; that’s a different matter.’
Batchelor took the list back. ‘We need to find out why he’s on the list; come to think of it, why any of them are. We know Stanton hated Baker because Baker knew where Stanton’s bodies are buried. We know Jericho hated him because he was breathing down his neck in the illegal gaming trade …’
‘Although Jericho said he and Baker had an arrangement, that the National Detective Police left the man alone.’
‘And you believe that?’ Batchelor asked.
‘Why, Mister Batchelor,’ Grand was speaking Arkansas again, ‘I do declare this great country of mine has made you a suspicious old cuss.’
‘Guy,’ Batchelor corrected him. ‘That’s the new word, according to Tom Durham. What time is it, Matthew?’
‘I make it nearly midnight,’ Grand said, checking his hunter.
‘Durham’s a senior man at the Star,’ Batchelor was thinking aloud. ‘He’s not likely to be at his desk until nine, perhaps later. That gives us a few hours to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow, we can get Durham to fill in the details on this list.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Grand yawned, tossing back the dregs of his drink. ‘Yes, tomorrow it’ll all make sense. Goodnight, James.’
‘The London Telegraph?’ the boy with the outsize collar was impressed. ‘Well, now, just fancy that.’
‘I did,’ Batchelor said. ‘That’s why I went to work for them. But now, we’d like to see Thomas Durham.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, gentlemen; Mr Durham’s not here right now.’
Around them, the Star was humming. Harassed-looking men scurried this way and that, carrying copy, chewing pencil stubs, already on their third coffee of the morning. It made Batchelor feel quite nostalgic.
‘When do you expect him?’ he asked.
‘Well, that’s kinda odd, really. Mr Durham’s always in by eight sharp, ready for the column.’
‘The column?’ To Matthew Grand, that was a military formation.
‘His regular “From The Hill” column. He writes it Tuesday night and submits it to the editor Wednesday morning. Now, in fact.’
‘Do you have his home address?’ Batchelor asked.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ the lad said. ‘I couldn’t give out that kind of information.’
Grand toyed with beating it out of him, but he and Batchelor were still effectively working under cover, and leaving teeth and blood on the floor of the Star’s front office was probably the quickest way to expose themselves to all and sundry. Batchelor had a better idea. He quickly read the reporter’s name tag, a little idea insisted upon by Edwin Stanton after Lincoln’s murder so the Press could be muzzled. He leaned forward. ‘Mr A. Cottrell,’ he said, smiling. ‘What’s that? Adam? Abraham?’
‘Aloysius.’ The lad brightened.
‘I’m glad I’ve had this opportunity to meet you,’ Batchelor said.
‘You are?’
Batchelor looked perplexed. ‘He can’t have told him, Matthew,’ he said.
Grand was used to playing along. He shook his head and sucked his teeth, hoping that was the appropriate response.
‘Told him what?’ Aloysius Cottrell prided himself that he was good at sniffing out news stories, reading faces, grasping nuances. ‘Who?’
‘Tom Durham,’ Batchelor explained. ‘He hasn’t spoken to you?’
‘Well,’ Cottrell tried to remember. ‘He says “Good morning” and “Where the Hell’s my coffee”, that sort of thing.’
Batchelor threw back his head and laughed. ‘Isn’t that Tom all over, Matthew?’
‘It sure is,’ Grand smiled.
‘What?’ If this was some sort of joke, Aloysius Cottrell wasn’t in on it. He looked from Grand to Batchelor for some sort of clue.
‘Well,’ Batchelor became more confidential, ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this … and when Tom does, you’re to express surprise, understand?’
‘Er … oh, sure.’ Cottrell nodded, trying to look like the sort of man who expressed surprise every day of his life. It wasn’t difficult.
‘He and I have been looking for some time for a special correspondent; somebody to write, on behalf of the Star, a column for the Telegraph.’
‘The London Telegraph?’
‘Is there any other?’ Batchelor asked, fully aware that there was. ‘The name that keeps rising to the top, whenever Tom and I discuss the matter, is Aloysius Cottrell. Isn’t it, Matthew?’ He turned to Grand for confirmation and he dutifully nodded vigorously.
‘Oh, my God!’ The boy looked as if he were about to faint.
‘But,’ Batchelor was insistent, ‘it’s vital I contact Tom today, this morning. Time is of the essence.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘You understand.’
‘Oh, of course.’ Cottrell frowned, in his new capacity as the most famous reporter on either side of the Atlantic, read and adored by all the crowned heads of Europe. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’ He scribbled an address on a piece of paper and passed it to Batchelor. ‘So,’ he beamed, ‘when should I start writing …?’
But Grand and Batchelor had gone.
They caught a streetcar to West Eleventh and M as the sun began to climb again. The torrential rain of the night had left Washington a quagmire, and the horses slipped in the greasy mud, the driver lashing them and extending Batchelor’s American vocabulary considerably. Thomas Durham’s apartment block compared admirably with the succession of tenements Batchelor had lived in as a London reporter, but then Thomas Durham was the Star’s star. His equivalent back home would be George Sala, and Batchelor knew that that gentleman, doyen of the penny bloods, had a very nice house in Knightsbridge, albeit on the shady side.
‘Mr Durham,’ Batchelor knocked on the man’s door on the first floor. Grand, as far as he was concerned, stood alongside him on the second. There was no reply. It was nearly midday by now. Perhaps the Star’s man had had a rough night, what with the storm and all. Perhaps he’d been wrestling with his ‘From The Hill’ column. Perhaps he’d been out on the tiles or – the most likely possibility – he had been hurtling Star-wards as they had headed to West Eleventh and M. On a whim, Batchelor tried the door and it swung open soundlessly under his weight.
Grand held up a hand and slid the Colt from his holster.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Matthew,’ Batchelor pushed past him, ‘there’s no need for that. The man’s a journalist. Oh … oh … Jesus!’
Both of them stood looking at what was left of Thomas Durham. The man was still in his nightshirt and it was drenched with his blood. He lay at an awkward angle on the floor, his head thrown back and his mouth open in a silent scream. Instinctively, Grand closed the door, and while Batchelor felt for a pulse in the dead man, he mechanically checked the rooms. The place looked like a battlefield. Drawers were hanging open, their contents all over the floor. Clothes had been ripped from hangers in wardrobes; the mattresses had been dragged from the beds and the pillows slashed, their feathers rising and falling in the breeze of Grand’s movements. All the rooms were the same. In the middle of a stormy night, a tornado of fury had swept through the rooms of Thomas Durham, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.
‘What have we got?’ Grand asked when he got back to the body.
‘Difficult to tell under all this blood.’ Batchelor had knelt in the stuff. It clung to his trousers and fingers. ‘I’d say he’s been hit three or four times with something heavy.’ He looked around the room for a suitable weapon and saw nothing. ‘A cudgel of some kind.’
‘Baseball bat,’ Grand suggested. ‘Billiard cue at a pinch.’
‘Clearly, American sportsmen are a little more violent than the ones I’m used to,’ Batchelor said.
‘He was hit here,’ Grand was following the blood smears. ‘See, spattering all over the wall.’ He was right. A baseball bat would smash a skull, blood and brain tissue flying in the direction of the swing. ‘Two hands, I’d guess.’
‘He’d have gone down there.’ Batchelor took up the tale the blood told them. ‘That puddle on the carpet and skirting board.’
‘Then … what? He got up? Still had fight in him?’
‘It’s possible,’ Batchelor shrugged. ‘It’s amazing what we’re capable of in our last moments. He wasn’t an old man. Strong and mobile despite the drink. He’d have fought back.’
‘We have to report this,’ Grand said.
‘No need for that, mister,’ a voice growled behind them. Two of Washington’s finest stood there in their broad-brimmed hats, pistols gleaming in their hands. ‘You, with the blood on your hands, get up real slow. And you,’ the officer pushed Grand back against the wall, ‘you make one move for that thumb-breaker I just saw you put away and I’ll cover that wall with your brains. Got it?’
Grand got it.
All day, Matthew Grand had been kept waiting at the precinct station house. They brought him something indescribable on a metal plate and left him staring at a wall. As night fell, a policeman had come to light a candle in his cell. He avoided Grand’s questions and was gone as quickly as he had arrived.
‘Where’s James Batchelor?’ he asked the next man to arrive, a large, sandy-haired detective with a rather hangdog appearance.
‘Mr Batchelor is helping us with our enquiries,’ he said. He was leaning against the wall and the metal door had clanked shut behind him. Keys rattled in the lock.
‘Who are you?’ Grand asked.
‘John Haynes,’ the man said. ‘Inspector of detectives.’
‘Why have I been kept here?’
‘Two of my boys found you in a ransacked apartment with the body of a very respected Washington journalist. What did you think, that we’d just say, “Don’t do it again” and let you go?’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘That’s not what Batchelor says,’ Haynes scowled.
Grand leaned back against the rough bricks of the wall. His bed was an iron frame with a thin, damp mattress crawling with vermin. ‘That’s an old ploy, Inspector,’ he said.
‘Ploy?’ Haynes folded his arms.
‘The he said/he said game. You’ve kept us apart so that we can’t compare notes, concoct the same story …’
‘So, you do have a concocted story?’ Haynes checked.
‘I have a story,’ Grand conceded. ‘And it will be the same as Batchelor’s, but only because it is the truth.’
‘See, there’s the problem, right there,’ Haynes said. ‘This truth business. Your friend Batchelor attracts trouble like a moth to a flame. First he claimed to be a tourist and got himself in the centre of our white supremacy transport issues. Next, turns out he’s not a tourist after all. He’s a journalist doing research into espionage in our recent bit of unpleasantness and he’s in a Murder Bay brothel talking to a dead man. You can understand, I’m sure, why I find your friend Batchelor a tad suspect.’
‘So, you suspect him of murder?’
‘He’s got Tom Durham’s blood all over his hands and clothes, Captain Grand. But right now, I’m interested in you.’
‘Are you?’
‘What’s an officer and a gentleman doing mixing with lowlife like Batchelor? The man’s an enquiry agent. A private detective. And if you don’t know what we real detectives think of people like that, I’d be happy to enlighten you.’
‘An enquiry agent?’ Grand tried to bluff. ‘Is he really? I had no idea.’
‘Yes, you had, Captain Grand, because you’re one, too.’ Haynes flipped a card from his coat pocket. ‘One of the things my boys turned up at Durham’s apartment. “Grand and Batchelor”,’ he read from it. ‘“Forty-One, The Strand”. You boys are in this together.’
‘In what, exactly?’ Grand asked.
Haynes chuckled. ‘Well, now, that’s the gold nugget, isn’t it? I’m going to let you go, Grand. You’ll find Batchelor in the yard, cooling his heels. Don’t leave Washington. In fact, don’t leave the Willard. We’ll need to talk again.’
Grand got up, glad to leave the fleas behind. He brushed past Haynes and made for the stairs that twisted up to street level. Once he’d gone, a plain-clothes figure emerged from the shadows beyond the cell. ‘I don’t get it, Inspector. You’ve got enough to hang them both, Grand and the Limey.’
Haynes sighed. ‘You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘And if Batchelor wasn’t a Limey, I’d throw the book at them. But the fact is, he is, and I’m not about to have the Justice Department breathing down my neck, bleating about international incidents. There are times when being caught red-handed only amounts to circumstantial evidence. In other words, less than a hill of beans.’
It was the early hours before Grand and Batchelor got back to the Willard. They had decided not to talk about the case – or anything at all – in the cab on the way over from the station house. It was only now, in the hushed corridors of the hotel, that they felt it was safe.
‘So, what did you tell him?’ Grand asked.
‘As little as possible,’ Batchelor murmured. ‘I could hardly play the foreign journalist card. He’d found ours – the real one, I mean.’
‘I trust when – and if – we get back to London, you’ll be giving George Sala a piece of your mind about that. The man’s a tad too free with other people’s information for my liking.’
‘That he is. I gave Haynes some guff about working on behalf of a client who had financial interests during the war.’
‘A client whose name you declined to give, naturally?’
‘Naturally. I steered away from Baker, as if he was just my cover the last time I spoke to Haynes.’
‘You think he fell for it?’
Batchelor sighed, sliding the room key into the lock. ‘Never in a month of … Mother of God!’
Both men stood in their doorway, blinking. The living room of their suite looked the same as the late Thomas Durham’s. It had been ransacked, luggage emptied, furniture strewn about. Even their clothes, newly cleaned and pressed by the hotel, lay discarded and crumpled in various corners. It was the same story in the bedrooms and in the bathroom; both men’s razors and toothbrushes lay in the washbasin, Batchelor’s Macassar oil broken in the bath.
As if in a dream, they wandered through the place; desolation wherever they looked. Batchelor turned over a chair. There were his gold cufflinks, the most valuable thing he possessed. Grand gathered up a pile of shirts and his double-shot Derringer fell out. It took them moments to realize that nothing had been taken; it was all there.
‘Too much of a coincidence,’ Grand was muttering, shaking his head. ‘Whoever killed Tom Durham has paid us a courtesy call too.’
‘To kill us?’ Batchelor didn’t like the way this case was shaping up.
‘No,’ Grand was sure. ‘They were looking for something. Thank God you’ve got Durham’s list.’
‘What?’
‘The list. The fourteen names that Durham compiled for us.’
An odd look flitted across James Batchelor’s face.
‘The would-be killers of Lafayette Baker.’ Grand didn’t feel he should have to explain all this; the shock of finding Durham must have hit the Englishman harder than he thought. Brain fever could set in so easily and have no symptoms until it was too late.
Batchelor muttered something, but Grand didn’t catch it.
‘What?’
‘I said,’ Batchelor stared hard at him, ‘I thought you had it.’
‘What?’ Grand could hardly believe his ears. Perhaps he was the one with incipient brain fever.
‘I said—’
The American shook his head angrily. ‘I heard what you said,’ he snapped. ‘I gave it to you. The last time I saw it …’
‘It was in the cane stand,’ Batchelor remembered.
He and Grand collided as they rushed headlong towards the brass cylinder. Grand got there first and turned it upside down. Nothing fell out but a solitary spider. ‘I must have a word with the chambermaid,’ he said, absently.
‘I told you to put it there.’ Batchelor was on the defensive. ‘I thought I saw you take it before we went to the Star offices.’
‘And I assumed you did the same,’ Grand fumed.
The silence between them was shattering.
‘All right.’ Grand raised both hands to prevent him from using one of them to loosen a few of James Batchelor’s teeth. ‘At least we know why Durham died. Whoever killed him was after the list. They couldn’t make him talk so they stove in his head and turned his place over. Then they came here.’
‘How did they know we wouldn’t be here?’
‘It’s my guess they were watching us.’ Grand was working it out. ‘Maybe as early as the Star offices, but certainly in Durham’s tenement block. They saw the cops arrive too. Hell, they may even have sent for them. They’d have known Washington’s finest wouldn’t be letting us go in a hurry.’
Batchelor checked the door. ‘No damage to the lock,’ he said. ‘No sign of what we call breaking and entering back home. This could be an inside job, Matthew.’
‘It could,’ Grand agreed. ‘But I don’t want to tip our hands any more than we have already. Let’s get this place put back together. Then we’ll mosey on down to the restaurant and make a few casual enquiries among the staff. And in the meantime, James, we’d better put our thinking caps on and try to remember who the Hell was on that list. Because it’s my guess that one of them killed Tom Durham. And he killed Lafayette Baker.’
If Matthew Grand was right, then another problem had arisen. The murderer had found Thomas Durham’s list, but reason would have told him that Grand and Batchelor had read it. That made them targets and they would have to watch their backs very carefully from now on.
There was one name on the list that Grand remembered very well, and he insisted on following up on this one on his own. In the meantime, Batchelor stayed put in the hotel, his back to the wall, poring over Baker’s edition of Colburn’s book, the one that Belle Boyd had helped him with. As he turned the pages, a fugitive waft of her perfume occasionally rewarded his work, but he tried to put the woman out of his mind and bend that mind to the task in hand. Now that he understood Baker’s code, he could carry on with the man’s hidden message. And it made his scalp crawl.
The Treasury building was sheathed in scaffolding as Matthew Grand’s cab creaked and rattled to a halt outside it. He could have walked the short distance from the Willard, but, like Batchelor, he preferred just now to have something relatively solid at his back. The storm had broken the back of the early Fall heat and the workmen, in their overalls and caps, were grateful for that. They had been building this place for over thirty years; in fact Grand remembered as a small boy being taken to see the giant Greek columns in all their gleaming white granite being lifted into place with pulleys, cranes, snorting horses and cursing men. He remembered, too, in the dark days of the war, that this was yet another government building overrun by soldiers. They had thrown up their canvas tents in the south courtyard and sung their marching songs within earshot of the President at the White House.
‘I’m afraid the Treasury isn’t open to visitors today,’ the clerkly looking man called through the open door.
‘I’m looking for Madison Mitchells,’ Grand said.
The clerkly looking man emerged into the sunlight, squinting to see who had come calling. ‘And you are …?’
‘Matthew Grand,’ Grand passed the man his American calling card. It still opened doors in Washington.
‘Captain Grand,’ the man said. ‘Third Cavalry. Glad to make your acquaintance, sir.’
‘You are …?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ The clerk took off his glasses and cleaned them on a handkerchief. ‘I am Mr Mitchells’ secretary. Well, more of a second in command, I could say, really. Wally Pollack.’
‘Is he in, Mr Pollack?’
‘No, sir, I’m sorry to say he’s not. It’s a busy life in the Treasury Department. Hub of government, you know. Mr Mitchells is in Philadelphia.’
‘Philadelphia?’
‘Yes. As you’d expect, we have offices everywhere. What would America be without its dollars, huh?’
‘What indeed? Perhaps you can help me, Mr Pollack.’
‘I’ll try, certainly,’ the Treasury man said. ‘Come in out of the sun. Not so powerful now the Fall is almost here, but still, hot enough, don’t you think? Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or something stronger, maybe? I’m partial to a little imported beer myself. Wenlock Oatmeal Stout. Try some?’
‘English beer.’ Grand screwed up his face in disgust. ‘No, thanks. I’ll stick to coffee.’
Pollack went to the door and shouted down the corridor for someone rather lower down the pecking order. He ordered two coffees, make it snappy now and don’t forget the good china. Grand eased himself on to the excruciatingly uncomfortable leather furniture; there seemed to be an actual horse somewhere in its construction, not just its hair. He looked about him at the plush fittings, the oak panelling, the fancy etched glass.
‘Nice, huh?’ Pollack asked, turning back to him. ‘This was part of the suite of offices the President used after Lincoln’s assassination … er … President Johnson, that is. Gave poor Mrs Lincoln time to get the Hell out of the White House itself. Well, it was only right. Deranged old besom had more dresses than I’ve got hairs on my head. Took a wagon train to move ’em. You take sugar?’
‘One,’ Grand said. ‘So, how long have you worked with Madison, Mr Pollack?’
‘How did you say you knew him?’ Pollack asked.
‘I met him at one or two functions,’ Grand lied. ‘Soon after Lincoln was killed, as a matter of fact.’
There was a tap on the door and a lad with almost unbelievably radiant spots all over his face and disappearing under his grubby collar shouldered it open, carrying a tray with the coffee and a plate of rather dubious-looking cookies, which Pollack waved impatiently away.
‘Hmm,’ Pollack nodded, and handed Grand his cup of coffee. ‘They were terrible times, huh?’
‘Terrible indeed,’ Grand agreed.
‘And what is your business, Captain? With Mr Mitchells, I mean? I notice you use his given name, so I am assuming it’s personal. Am I right?’
Grand smiled. ‘You ask a lot of questions, Mr Pollack,’ he said.
‘Sorry.’ The Treasury man chuckled. ‘Goes with the territory, I guess. Before this, I was with the War Department. You could say I used to be your boss.’
‘You could,’ Grand acknowledged, but he clearly didn’t believe it.
‘I was a detective then. Still am, I guess.’
‘Really?’
‘Yessir. Fraud. Misuse of Treasury funds. You know what they say, there’s nothing more certain than death and taxation.’
‘Do they?’ Grand mused. ‘Do they really?’
‘So … er … your business with …?’
‘Is my business, I’m afraid,’ Grand said. ‘Tell me, is it true the old buzzard has a young wife? Another young wife, I should perhaps say. And a new baby? I heard there was a child.’
Pollack looked at him oddly. ‘Why, Captain Grand,’ he said, the smile suddenly gone. ‘I hardly think that’s Treasury business. Or yours.’
‘Touché, Mr Pollack. Out of the goodness of your heart, however, just tell me one thing.’
‘If I can.’
Grand became confidential. ‘Tell me that the new Mrs Mitchells – should there be such a person, of course – is not the Clara Harris I remember from my Washington courting days. I carried a bit of a torch, you understand …’
‘Clara Harris?’ Pollack frowned, thinking. ‘God, no, she married that over-promoted idiot Henry Rathbone. They were both there, in fact, the night Lincoln was murdered.’
‘Get away!’
‘In the Presidential box itself,’ Pollack said, the proud imparter of information. ‘No, if I may say so, Captain Grand, you had a lucky escape there. A real shrew if ever there was one. If I was her husband, I would have swung for her by now. No, Madison – if you don’t mind the familiarity, since we’re talking of family matters – Madison is married to Arlette McKintyre, as was. Did you know her?’ Pollack winked. ‘In your Washington courting days?’
‘I don’t believe I did,’ Grand lied.
‘I haven’t heard there’s a baby, though. Mind you, Mr Mitchells can be quite close about his private life. A very private man, yes, indeed.’
Grand swigged back the Treasury coffee like a man and set the cup down on a pile of audits. It had been as he feared; any coffee that appeared that fast had been simmering on some distant hob for many a long hour and had the bitterness to prove it. ‘I’ll tell you, there are a lot of people I’ve lost touch with over the past couple of years. Madison is one. Clara, of course. And Henry – I knew him too. Oh, and Laff Baker. Whatever happened to Laff Baker?’