It had been a long time since Matthew Grand had put on his uniform. To be fair, it wasn’t his now, but one lent to him by his old acquaintance, Henry Rathbone. Henry wasn’t the man Grand remembered. His arm had been slashed by John Wilkes Booth in the Presidential box that night in Ford’s Theatre, the night Lincoln fell beside him with a Derringer slug in his brain. The experience had changed Rathbone for ever. He was nervy, distracted – and, according to Arlette Mitchells, intent on killing his wife.
Even so, he hadn’t asked any awkward questions when Grand had come calling, to renew old acquaintance, chew the army fat and borrow his dress uniform. True, it was infantry blues rather than the more flamboyant option of the Third Cavalry of the Potomac, but the major’s epaulettes glinting at his shoulder almost made up for that. It was also too small and Grand was forced to leave his top button undone. He hoped that Stanton’s minions wouldn’t notice.
Edwin Stanton was a shambles of a man, the greying hair curling in oily ringlets around his ears, and the beard, streaked grey and black, reaching halfway down his chest. His skin, Batchelor noticed, as they stood in his law office off Pennsylvania Avenue that morning, was the colour of parchment, and his clothes hung on him as though they had been tailored for someone much larger. But the mouth was hard and grim and the eyes clear and penetrating behind the gold-rimmed spectacles.
‘I think there must be some mistake.’ He peered at his visitors. ‘I was told there was a message from General Grant.’
‘Grand,’ Grand corrected him. ‘And that’s merely Captain, I’m afraid. Well, just plain Mister to be precise.’
Stanton had not moved from his chair. ‘A captain in a major’s uniform who is not a captain. Do you suffer from delusions of grandeur, Mr Grand? And should I call my security?’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Grand said. ‘Neither would I reach for the pistol you probably have stashed in your desk drawer.’ He patted the holster at his waist. ‘I think you’ll find mine is faster.’
‘Very well.’ Stanton put down his pen and leaned back in the chair. ‘You’re not a major, not even a captain, and I assume you were not sent by General Grant. So, what is the purpose of your visit – and is your friend here mute?’
‘On the contrary, Mr Stanton,’ Batchelor said. ‘Most people seem to find I say too much.’
‘Well, well,’ a smile creased Stanton’s careworn face, ‘an Englishman. How very quaint.’ He picked up the pen again. ‘Unless there is something you wish to say, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I suggest you leave. I’m a busy man.’
‘Precisely,’ Grand said, and sat down opposite Stanton, uninvited. ‘We’d like to know how busy you’ve been. Especially in relation to Lafayette Baker.’
Stanton blinked at the mention of the name. He put the pen down again and took off his glasses, cleaning them furiously with a cloth. Batchelor crossed to the door and locked it. ‘Congress fired Lafayette Baker,’ the former War Secretary said, ‘for exceeding his powers in the context of the President.’
‘Yes, we know.’ Batchelor took a chair alongside Grand’s. ‘He was spying on Johnson, on your orders.’
Stanton’s mouth hardened. ‘I was the greatest President this country never had,’ he said. ‘Andrew Johnson is a drunk and a pardon-seller. Before Congress impeached him, he was all for forgiving the South, restoring the Confederacy’s old powers as if there had been no war. Well, there was one – and I fought it.’
‘So did I, Mr Stanton,’ Grand said quietly. ‘Not from an office in Washington, but from the foxholes in the field.’
‘Well, then.’ Stanton was still riding his high horse. ‘You’ll appreciate more than most that there are times when hard things must be done. Risks must be taken. Baker was a loose cannon. All right, I appointed him chief of detectives; I gave him the power in the first place. But in the end, I confess, he got away from me. He had to go.’
‘Is that why you had him killed?’ Batchelor asked.
Stanton frowned. His glasses were back on his head now and his eyes were cold and cunning. ‘Did you know I used to train snakes, Mr … er …’
‘Batchelor.’
‘Yes, when I was a boy back in Steubenville. Wormsnakes, hog-noses, earthsnakes, ribbon snakes, garter snakes – it was only the rattlers you couldn’t control. They’re wayward, unpredictable, treacherous. Lafayette Baker was a rattler. I knew that, of course, when I took him on, but … you were there, Grand. You remember how it was. When Lincoln died—’
‘Yes,’ Batchelor said, interrupting. ‘About that. Why didn’t you go to the theatre that night?’
‘The fourteenth of April, 1865,’ Stanton remembered, suddenly very far away. ‘Easter Sunday. Contrary to what you’ve probably heard, gentlemen, I am a God-fearing man. I do not approve of theatres, especially on the Lord’s Day. That baboon in the White House knew that. I’m astonished he had the brass neck to ask me.’
‘You were saying,’ Grand reminded him, ‘“When Lincoln died …”’
‘When Lincoln died, there was panic. Chaos. We all sat in that damned room in the Petersen house and our chief was dying. I took one look at that long, lanky body of his and I knew there was no hope. Mrs Lincoln was hysterical, wailing in another room. The doctors were wringing their hands. I’ve never seen so many ashen-faced politicians in my life. Whatever the grief they felt, whatever they had done or had not done during the war, the common cry that night was “Whatever shall we do?” The house was falling that night, gentlemen. There had been eight plots against Lincoln that I know of, but no one – no one – had ever killed a President of the United States before. Somebody had to take charge. That somebody was me.’
‘So you became a tyrant?’ Batchelor said. ‘John Wilkes Booth thought he’d killed a tyrant. And you took his place.’
‘Welcome to Washington, Mr Batchelor,’ Stanton said. ‘Democracy’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Oh, we pride ourselves on its fairness and we make speeches about the will of the people. That’s why there are still contraband shacks all over Washington and blacks can’t ride inside streetcars and that damned Monument is still unfinished after three decades. There was no place for democracy after Lincoln died. It needed a firm hand. Decisions. Times. Places. People. I called in Lafayette Baker to turn this Gomorrah into a Jerusalem. And it worked for a while. If that’s tyranny, all right, I’m guilty. But the Union has held. The house isn’t falling any more. As to whether it’s still divided against itself – well, we’ll just have to wait and see.’
‘But Baker knew too much, didn’t he?’ Batchelor persisted. ‘Knew where the bodies were buried.’
‘Yes, but he was out in the cold, powerless.’
‘And his book?’ Grand asked.
Stanton laughed. ‘Yes, I enjoyed that. One of the best works of fiction I’ve come across.’
‘What about Booth’s book?’ Grand asked.
Stanton blinked. ‘What book?’
‘The diary,’ Grand said. ‘The one found on his body at the Garrett farm. The one Baker gave to you. The one with eighteen pages missing.’
‘What about it?’ Stanton asked. ‘Am I missing a point here?’
‘It’s all about a third book, really,’ Batchelor said. ‘A trilogy, in a way, which forms a circle. Colburn’s United Service Magazine for 1864.’
‘What relevance has that?’ Stanton wanted to know.
‘It’s not the book itself,’ Batchelor explained. ‘It’s the code contained in Lafayette Baker’s personal copy. It makes it pretty clear that you orchestrated the plot on Lincoln’s life. Booth was just the gunman.’
‘We spent a most useful day in the Library of Congress yesterday,’ Grand said, ignoring Batchelor’s startled glance. ‘Mr Spofford was help itself. He told us, among other things, that you pardoned Private Corbett of the Sixteenth New York Cavalry, the man who shot John Wilkes Booth. Why was that, Mr Stanton, when Lafayette Baker had ordered that Booth be taken alive? Did you slip Corbett thirty pieces of silver to make sure that Booth never lived to testify in court?’
‘Come to think of it,’ Batchelor took up the tale, ‘none of the conspirators testified in court, did they? You wouldn’t want that to happen, in case your name came up. Isn’t that what those missing eighteen pages are all about? When you read the diary, didn’t you find, to your horror, that your name was there, Judas to Lincoln’s Christ.’
Stanton pulled his glasses off again, as though he were suddenly weary of the world. ‘As I told Congress at the time,’ he said quietly, ‘the eighteen pages were missing when I got the diary.’
‘On your honour,’ Batchelor remembered the words.
‘On my honour,’ Stanton repeated. He slid back his chair and shuffled over to the window. His walk was slow and hesitant and Grand and Batchelor hadn’t realized until now how very ill he looked. But Stanton wasn’t looking out of the window at Washington teeming below him. He was looking at a small, oak casket on the sill and he picked it up. ‘Here,’ he said softly, ‘are the ashes of my daughter, Lucy. She died twenty-seven years, three months and four days ago. And there isn’t a day goes by but I don’t think of her.’
He put the box down and turned to face them. ‘I’ll be seeing her again soon, gentlemen, if there is, as I trust, a good and loving God. The doctors tell me I have just months to live. General Grant has promised me a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, but I doubt I will live to see it.’
Grand and Batchelor looked at each other. The arrogant tyrant of a few moments ago, the man who had held the United States of America in the palm of his hand, was suddenly small and old and just a man.
‘Yes,’ Stanton said, ‘Lafayette Baker knew where the bodies were buried, as you put it. But so did dozens of people on the Hill, in the War Office, the Army, the Navy. Have I had them all killed? I did what I had to do when Lincoln died and I make no apology for it. I would do it again.’ He pulled himself to his full height and the effort cost him dearly. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you think I am guilty of the murder of Lafayette Baker, you can send for the police and have me arrested. Hell, why not speed up the process, Mr Grand, and use that pistol of yours?’
Grand and Batchelor stood up and Grand unbuttoned the holster strap. For a moment, Stanton’s life flashed before him – the snakes coiling in Steubenville, Lucy running and laughing in the spring meadows, the marching dead of the great and terrible war and the body of a President on a bier, under the flag they both loved. Grand flicked open the holster’s flap. There was no gun. Whatever retribution Edwin Stanton had to face, for whatever crimes he may have committed, the instruments of that retribution would not be Grand and Batchelor.
Neither man had spoken on their way back from Stanton’s offices. For weeks now they had been starting at shadows, trailing ghosts. One man’s truth was another man’s lie and yet another’s cryptic code. They both remembered the puzzled look on Wally Pollack’s face just before he died, the puzzled look when he heard the name Stanton. And they had both come away from the great man’s offices convinced that, whatever else he had done, Edwin Stanton had not ordered the death of Lafayette Baker.
When they reached their rooms, Grand grabbed Batchelor’s sleeve.
‘What is it now?’ Batchelor asked. He had had enough of Washington skulduggery and there seemed to be no end to it. ‘The last time you behaved like this, our rooms had been—’ He froze as Grand slammed back the door and held his Colt at arm’s length. A beautiful black girl stood there, in their living room.
‘Julep,’ Batchelor said. ‘Why are you here?’
‘And, more importantly, how did you get in?’ Grand added.
Julep half smiled. ‘I’ve been here before, honey,’ she said, waving a nail file in the air. ‘And I’m sorry about turning the place over.’
‘You?’ they chorused.
‘Nobody ever accused me of being tidy,’ she smiled, ‘but now you gotta get out.’
‘Of the hotel?’ Grand asked.
‘Of Washington,’ she said, looking around for the suitcases. ‘Out of the States.’
‘Why?’ Batchelor asked.
‘’Cos it’s over, sugar-plum,’ she said, gathering up what belongings she saw strewn around. ‘You got what you came for. The man who killed Lafayette Baker. He admitted it, back there by the church. Luther’ll be happy with that. And I can tell him. No need for you fellas to bother.’
‘What’s your hurry, Julep?’ A voice made the men turn. And Julep hadn’t looked up. ‘I’m afraid these gentlemen and I have a little business.’ John Haynes was holding a Remington in his hand and it was pointed at Grand. ‘Anything in the holster?’ Grand raised the flap to show that it was empty. ‘The pocket piece, then, Mr Grand. On the table. Now.’
For a moment, Grand hesitated, then he slid the Colt free of his tunic and did what he was told.
‘Now, the Derringer.’
Grand bent over and freed the second gun from the strap under his stocking.
‘Thanks, Julep,’ Haynes smiled. ‘I’ll take over now. Get lost. We’ll settle up later.’
The girl stood there for a moment, emotions raging in her head. Then she swept past Batchelor, pausing just once. ‘I told you to go,’ she whispered. ‘Why didn’t you go?’ And she was gone.
‘I don’t understand,’ Batchelor frowned. ‘Julep works for you?’
‘For me, for Luther Baker, for Wesley Jericho. Even – and I didn’t know this until you obligingly told me about him – Caleb Tice. I expect she gave you the “I work for nobody and anybody” speech. It’s her trademark. In her own little whorehouse way, she’s another Goddamned Sojourner Truth. God save us from black bitches on a crusade.’
‘Why are you here, Inspector?’ Grand asked.
‘Murder, Captain Grand. Good to see you back in uniform, by the way, even if it is someone else’s. You and the Limey here have been poking your noses into Washington affairs since you got here. I could turn a blind eye to trouble on the streetcars, visiting brothels, but Tom Durham was different. And now you go and oblige me by killing Wally Pollack. And that had to be you, Grand, because Mr Englishman here doesn’t carry a gun. Isn’t that right, Mr Batchelor?’
‘So, what happens now?’ Batchelor asked. ‘The precinct house?’
‘Oh, no, James,’ Grand said, a strange smile playing around his lips. ‘I don’t think Inspector Haynes is going to bother with all that this time, are you, Inspector? At best, it’ll be Room Nineteen at the Old Capitol Prison.’
‘And at worst?’ Batchelor wasn’t following the drift of the conversation now.
‘At worst, it will be two bullets – one in your head, the other in mine. And I’ll lay you any odds you like that the calibre of those bullets will be the same as the one Dr Williams will dig out of Wally Pollack.’
‘You?’ Batchelor’s mouth hung open. ‘You ordered Baker’s death?’
‘My God,’ Haynes chuckled. ‘It’s taken you long enough to get around to that. We all know there were no witnesses to Pollack’s death, apart from you two, Julep and his killer. So how else could the dear old Metropolitan Police be involved? It would have taken you minutes to figure that out, if either of you had a brain, that is. Oh, I could probably have kept the pretence up for a while, long enough to take you into custody. After that … yes, you’re right. Room Nineteen. Well, the safety of the country is involved, isn’t it? Can’t have the constitution subverted by a man who resigns his commission and leaves a girl in the lurch. Especially one who consorts with a foreigner. It’s so … un-American.’
‘Just tell us why,’ Grand said, wondering how he could get that gun away from Haynes, ‘why you wanted Lafayette Baker dead.’
‘Revenge,’ Haynes said. ‘A dish, or so the cliché goes, best served cold. Back in the day, I went to see Laff Baker, offered my services with the National Detective Force. He turned me down. Not only that, he laughed in my face. Him! The most deviant reprobate I’ve ever come across. Lining his own pockets, torturing people to death. Know what he told me? He thought my morals left a little to be desired. Well, he’d picked on the wrong cuss to turn down. I bided my time. Watched while he fell foul of Johnson and Stanton, watched while he fell from grace. Then I persuaded that simple-minded idiot Pollack that he was a danger to the nation, that he had secrets which could undermine the state, fragile as it is after the war.’
‘Arsenic was your idea?’ Batchelor asked.
‘Difficult to diagnose,’ Haynes said. ‘I knew Rickards could be trusted to keep his mouth shut. He, like Wally, was bought and paid for.’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘And you bought Luther’s drivel about Stanton. You poor, sad …’ and he clicked back the Remington’s hammer.
A single shot rang out, shattering the moment. Haynes stood bolt upright, the gun still in his fist. Smoke drifted across the room, but it had not come from the Remington. His eyes crossed and he pitched forward on to his face, blood oozing from the dark hole in the back of his head. Grand and Batchelor looked up. A beautiful black girl stood there, a Derringer in her hand.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said. ‘I forgot to say goodbye.’
Julep worked for everybody. And for nobody. And they worked for her. Nobody in the Willard came to investigate the gunshot on the second floor. And no one noticed when two very large men turned up with sacks and ropes. They took their heavy bundle down the back stairs to a waiting cart. And, after dark, they drove it to the Potomac. And threw it in. And watched it sink.
‘If ever you’re back this way, sugar,’ Julep said to Batchelor, ‘I’d be proud to let you buy me a drink.’
‘If I’m ever back this way,’ he said, ‘I’d consider it an honour.’
She smiled and kissed him. And was, this time for ever, gone.
For a while, the two enquiry agents sat silently opposite each other, over the low embers of the fire. Occasionally one would raise his head and then, seeing the other lost in thought, would return to introspection. A report would have to be written for Luther Baker, but just what it would contain was a mystery. Batchelor thought that Grand – as the one who understood Washington and its people – should write it. Grand was equally certain that it was a job for a journalist. And so the stalemate continued as night came and settled its wings over Washington, waiting for the grey feathers of dawn.
Batchelor raised his head. ‘Did you hear something?’ he asked.
‘James, you must calm down. It’s over. Really over this time. And I really think that you are the man to write this report.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Batchelor flapped a hand. ‘But there was something outside, I know it. Have you got your gun?’
‘That’s not a question I hear often from you, James,’ Grand said, ferreting down the side of the chair and coming up with the Colt in his hand. ‘But I feel I must tell you now that I won’t be going far without it in the future.’
‘Well, come with me while I check outside the door, then,’ Batchelor said. ‘I definitely heard something.’
The two crept across the room, which seemed suddenly to have become very wide and very empty. The door was firmly locked still, so it couldn’t be Julep – and anyway, her goodbye had seemed very final this time. Batchelor turned the knob with glacial slowness, then flung it open, Grand’s Colt levelled at the space beyond. On the carpet lay two envelopes.
‘Really!’ Batchelor said, exasperated. ‘What is wrong with people in this country? Can they not knock?’ He snatched them up and slammed the door. ‘It’s for you,’ he said, passing the bigger of the two envelopes to Grand. It was pale lilac and smelled strongly of violets. The other, smaller and plain white, also had a perfume, one that Batchelor recognized and made his heart beat faster. It was addressed to him.
Each man took their letter to their chairs and read them silently.
Grand dropped his envelope on the floor and folded the letter into six and thrust it into his inside pocket. ‘I find I must go out,’ he said, abruptly. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. We have an early start tomorrow, what with booking our passages and all.’
Batchelor was still engrossed in his letter, although from across the hearthrug, Grand could see it was written on just one side of the small notepaper. Then, suddenly, but with more care, Batchelor also folded his letter, but within its envelope and just one gentle fold. ‘Indeed. I find I have an appointment too. I’ll see you in the morning.’
They both sat there for a few more minutes and then, as one man, got up and strolled nonchalantly for the door.
Grand was gone first, bounding in his usual exuberant way down the stairs, two at a time. Batchelor’s exit was, as always, more circumspect, but it could afford to be; he only had to go three doors down the hall and tap lightly for admittance. The door opened, letting out soft lamplight and a waft of lilies and vanilla, the scent of a woman.
Batchelor smiled. ‘Belle,’ he said.
Grand had further to go, but not much. Savannah was waiting for him outside the Willard, in a fur coat that was more for show than warmth, although the night was chilly. Grand had a sudden wave of homesickness for London, for the damp smell of the river, for the sheets of slippery plane leaves covering the pavements; for the slow advance of winter, with no threat of ice on the Thames.
‘Savannah,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘I’ve been thinking a lot since we spoke,’ the girl said. ‘About this and that. About Madison Mitchells and Arlette. Don’t get me wrong, Matthew,’ she grabbed his lapel and pulled him close, ‘I don’t like Arlette, never did, never will. I know my position is … tricky … but if ever our paths crossed, she treated me like something on her shoe. She’s a nasty piece of work and you’re well shot of her. But … well, he can’t be allowed to go on treating women this way. We don’t have much in this Godforsaken place; the least we can do is look out for each other.’
‘Do you know something?’
She leaned even closer and kissed him on the lips, light as a sigh. ‘I know everything,’ she said. ‘Pillow talk, you know.’
Grand looked at her in amazement. ‘So, you and Madison Mitchells …?’
‘Of course.’ She hitched her fur coat closer around her ears and tucked her arm through Grand’s. ‘Where are you taking me, Matthew? Somewhere nice, I hope. I don’t come cheap.’
‘I see.’ Grand’s voice was cold. ‘So this isn’t for the sake of my lovely blue eyes.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Everything comes at a price in this town.’
‘And yours is?’ he asked her.
She leaned in close and whispered in his ear, then pulled back, her head cocked, waiting for his reply. ‘Why, Matthew Grand,’ she laughed. ‘I do believe you’re blushing.’
Grand cleared his throat. ‘I think I can meet your price,’ he said. ‘Is it payment in advance, or …?’
‘Afterwards will do,’ she said. ‘But for now, let’s find somewhere quiet for a chat. Have you got a notebook or something? You’ll need to write this down.’
It was late – very late – when Grand reached the precinct station house. He found it in a state of unusual activity for such a late hour, and reflected that he might be one of few civilians in Washington who knew why. He asked a flurried police officer if he could see Inspector Haynes. It seemed politic to go through the motions of posing as an innocent man.
The policeman looked even more flurried, and hummed and hawed before passing Grand on to a colleague. Who did the same. When Grand had been passed from pillar to post for a good half an hour, he stopped in his tracks and held up a hand.
‘Whoa there,’ he said, in tones as hick as he could make them. ‘There seems to be a problem here, gentlemen, and it’s not my place to ask just what that might be, but if you could just take me to see someone, that would be kind. Then, I’ll be on my way.’
‘Well,’ said the latest policeman, ‘there’s the superintendent, Major Richards. But he’s very busy.’
At last! ‘I won’t keep him long,’ Grand promised. ‘And then I’ll be on my way and leave you to deal with … whatever you are dealing with.’
That seemed a good idea to the policeman, who had already gone past the end of his shift by a full three hours. He led Grand up two flights of stairs and then knocked on a door.
‘Go away!’ a voice thundered. ‘I’m busy!’
‘He always says that,’ the policeman lied. ‘In you go; can you find your own way out?’
‘Surely,’ Grand said, and pushed open the door.
‘I said go away.’ Richards didn’t look up. ‘So go.’
‘I’ll just say my piece and then leave,’ said Grand, undeterred.
‘Does your piece have anything to do with where Inspector Haynes has got to?’ Richards said.
‘No. It has to do with how a Treasury official is a partner in a string of brothels and saloons; how he takes ten per cent off the top of any contract; how he has murdered five wives and possibly one or two of his children and is planning to murder a sixth …’ Grand paused for breath and waited for a reaction.
Richards had still not looked up, but his pen stopped moving across the papers on his desk.
‘Take a seat, young man,’ he said. ‘You have ten minutes.’
The next morning, neither Grand nor Batchelor went into details about the night before; they were, after all, according to their various upbringings, gentlemen both. But Grand did tell Batchelor the bare bones of his visit to the precinct as they packed for their forthcoming voyage. It seemed to put a full stop to their visit to Washington and, if they avoided a certain patch of carpet as they moved to and fro from wardrobe to trunk, it was perhaps coincidental.