CHAPTER SIX
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1902
“Right about here.” I had summoned Chief Nicholson to Park Square. “He came at me from … about where you’re standing. With a gun.”
“What kind of gun?” he said.
“I don’t know guns. It looked big.”
“They always do.”
I recounted the rest and finished, “And he knew who I was. That’s what worries me.”
“He never asked for your wallet.”
“I didn’t give him a chance. But no, he didn’t.”
“What did he say, exactly?”
“I’ll tell you exactly: You stay away from this, Hay, or you’re a dead man. That’s it. Words I shall never forget. It wasn’t my valuables he wanted.”
“Had you ever seen this man before?”
“Not that I know of. I hardly saw him this time.” I offered the best description I could, which was pitiful. Height, shape, voice, eyes—taller, wider, gruff, dark. Describing thousands of men in Pittsfield alone.
“Age?” Chief Nicholson said.
“Can’t say. Not too old to run away.”
“You punched a man who held a gun on you.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “Honestly, I forgot about the gun.” Maybe I had been hit in the head too many times.
“His second week on the route,” said Peter C. Dolan, glancing up from the ledger before him.
It was eight fifteen. The office was shabby and smelled faintly of turpentine. The general manager of the Pittsfield Electric Street Railway Company had a round face, suspicious eyes, and two or three chins. My working assumption was that everything he said was a lie. Nothing else made sense. His company was on the hook for nearly killing a president. And here I was, the big man from Washington, popping into his office at an inconvenient time to pose dangerous questions. I understood that the truth posed a risk.
“Why the change?” I said.
Dolan shrugged. “We do it. He asked.”
“He asked? Why would he do that?”
Another shrug.
“When, do you know?” I said.
He riffled through the records but found no refuge. The electric lamp glared off the pages. “A few weeks ago, I guess.”
Around the time that Roosevelt’s schedule had become public.
“On the morning of … September third, did you give permission for number twenty-nine to run its route?”
“That is what … he says.” Dolan bent his head toward Chief Nicholson but did not look at him. “I did nothing of the sort. That’s the city’s job—it wasn’t up to me.”
I turned to Chief Nicholson and said, “And you didn’t, either?”
“I already told you I didn’t,” he replied.
“Then who did?” I said. No response. “And why put Mr. Madden on the route that morning, if he was so new to it?”
“It was his morning on,” Dolan said. “We weren’t shut down for that long—only while the president was here. And then the regular schedule resumed.”
“Mr. Madden has been with you for about a year, is that right?”
Dolan checked back and forth in the ledger. “Fifteen months. Fifteen and a half”—proud of his precision.
“Has he been in an accident before or been cited for any … violations?”
“No,” Dolan said, a little too quickly.
“You are certain,” I said.
“Of course I am.”
“A dependable employee, would you say? Diligent?”
With a show of exasperation, Dolan swiveled in his seat and limped across the room to the banks of files. He tried three drawers before he gave a grunt of approval. The manila folder he extracted was thin. He returned to his desk and busied himself in reading.
“A single complaint, from a passenger he yelled at, and not without reason. The ostrich feather on her hat kept brushing his cheek while he was driving the streetcar and she refused to step away. She happened to be the mayor’s sister-in-law.”
“He has a temper, would you say?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“People have different thresholds,” I said. “Where is his?”
“Couldn’t say. Never saw it.”
Dolan’s jaw was working. I appreciated the spot he was in. Anything that was Madden’s fault would reflect poorly on his employer—and on his supervisors—unless it was so reckless that they could not be held responsible. Except that he, as the general manager, would bear responsibility for having hired a reckless man. I felt sure he was holding something back.
“Did he have strong … political feelings, do you know?”
Dolan stared at the ceiling; the paint was peeling in strips, curled like pigs’ tails. He said, “I will tell you this: the man never stopped whining.”
“About what?”
“Wages, hours, rat droppings in the lavatory—the typical complaints.”
“Did he ever have a point?”
Dolan sat back in his chair and gave me a hard look. “The man is an agitator, pure and simple,” he enunciated, so that even a simpleton from Washington could understand. “He might be a Red, for all I know. Or one of them anarchists.”
Chief Nicholson stirred beside me and said mildly, “You really think so?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” the general manager replied.
I said, “Do you have any evidence?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
The inquest into the death of William Craig, on the third of September in the year of Our Lord nineteen oh two, had started before I got to the courthouse. Dr. Lung, the president’s physician, was describing the goriest details. I enjoy violence as much as the next fellow, but I wasn’t sorry I was late.
The county commissioners’ chamber was a miniature version of a committee room on Capitol Hill. It had wood paneling and fluted pillars, a dais higher than the witness table and lower than the paintings of Great Men (county clerks of yore, in place of congressional autocrats). The room was empty but for the judge, a stenographer, a bailiff, a streetcar inspector, and a couple of overdressed gentlemen seated below the high windows. The inquest was private, I had been told, although it was not clear to me why. I had gained admission on Chief Nicholson’s coattails; my letter of introduction from the president counted for nothing.
“Thank you, Dr. Lung,” the judge said. The president’s doctor strode from the chamber. From the pomaded hair to the uniform with its braided epaulets to the shoes that shone like onyx, he looked every inch the navy surgeon. No wonder Theodore liked having him near.
“And now, bailiff, if we could hear from…” Special Justice Charles L. Hibbard paged through papers at his desk. He had taken the place of the usual judge, who also served (according to Chief Nicholson, eyebrows cocked) as the trolley company’s president. Ah, a trivial conflict of interest. The solution, however, wasn’t much cleaner. The special justice’s father had been a law partner to one William Turtle, who was representing the streetcar company and its employees. My head spun. “From Mr. Eugene … no, Mr. Euclid…”
Before the judge could finish Madden, the portly man by the window unwedged himself from his seat, like a whale struggling for the surface. “I object, Your Honor!” he rumbled.
“Yes, Mr. Turtle. State your objection.”
“My clients are not ready to testify, Your Honor.”
“‘Clients,’ plural?”
“Mr. Madden and Mr. Kelly.”
“I see. Both men have been arraigned on charges of manslaughter, as I understand it. And they pleaded not guilty. No need to worry. This inquest won’t compromise their trial.”
“Their pleas were provisional, Your Honor.”
“I see,” Special Justice Hibbard said.
I didn’t. Did this mean they might change their pleas to guilty? I wondered if the accused themselves had any inkling. No way to know: they were nowhere to be seen.
William Turtle, on his spindly legs, turned his bulk and crossed the room and exited. By the time I got out to the corridor, he was gone. Across the hall, the unmarked door was swinging shut. I caught it and went in.
The room was crammed with desks, the walls lined with file cabinets. Two women scrambled out the side door. Turtle stood amid the desks like a colossus, feet planted. His square face and handlebar mustache spoke of a solid disposition, one that had earned the support, if not the trust, of voters and politicians alike. His chest and belly vied for pride of place.
“Who are you?” he said, glowering. His tonnage produced a tenor so sweet a hummingbird would have swooned.
I introduced myself.
“I heard you were here,” he growled, “tampering with my client. I don’t take kindly to that.”
“Tampering? Talking is more like it.”
“Asking intrusive questions, without his lawyer present. You consider this ethical behavior? You have no jurisdiction here, Mr. Hay. Or anywhere, from what I gather.”
“I am here representing the president of the United States.” I omitted of America as showy.
“Yes, so? Does this give you the right to enter a private citizen’s home and conduct an inquisition?”
I had to admit (though not out loud) that he had a point. “That is rather an extreme interpretation, Mr. Turtle.” He tilted his head, as if to say, This what I get paid for. “And I was not alone in speaking with your client. The chief of police was with me, Mr. Nicholson, and he had every right to be there.”
“Without notifying a lawyer?”
“Your client had every opportunity to do that.” Only a slight exaggeration. “In any event, it is another of your clients I am interested in now.”
“Mr. Madden.”
“The same. May I speak with him?”
“I can’t see why I should allow it.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Tell me, how could this possibly benefit my client?”
“Which client?”
“Mr. Madden, of course.”
“Not the streetcar company? Speaking of ethics, how can you represent both the company and the motorman? And Mr. Kelly as well?”
“I see no conflict here, Mr. Hay. Nor do any of my clients. And frankly, this is none of your concern.”
I had him in a corner and kept punching. “Does Mr. Madden know that he will be pleading guilty to manslaughter? Have you told him yet?”
“He will do whatever is in his best interest. Mr. Kelly will, too.”
“And not in the company’s best interest?”
“Mr. Hay, there is no conflict.”
“Why not let me talk with Mr. Madden, assuming he has nothing to hide?”
“Everyone, Mr. Hay, has something to hide.”
“The world shall remain all quiet, no doubt, until my return,” I shouted into the ’phone. “And we need to be discreet here.” I had to assume the hotel desk clerk was listening in.
Margaret Hanna repeated my sarcasm, and Alvey Adee chuckled. “Yes, your reverence, all is calm,” he said. “A bit of fuss in Europe, some in Venezuela and Colombia and always in Nicaragua and, yes, trifles in Asia, east and south. Canada has quieted down, except for that tariff business—isn’t that right, Margaret? Otherwise, all is silent as the grave. Not a squeak out of Australia or Antarctica. And how is Pittsfield?”
“Just ducky. I’ve seen only one gun so far. Pointed at me.” That was for the desk clerk’s benefit, in case he had tipped off the gunman.
“What?”
“Long story—well, fairly short, actually—but a happy ending. I will tell you when I get back. Which I hope is soon. Very soon. Homesick for Washington—who’d have thought? Is there anything I need to know urgently? And again, be—”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Deposited in cash?” I said.
“The bank is making sure,” Chief Nicholson replied. “If it was a check, we can trace it. A new account. And an odd amount. Three thousand one hundred and eleven dollars and seventy-nine cents.”
“That isn’t pigeon feed.”
“Enough to buy a house in Pittsfield,” Chief Nicholson said.
“A mansion, I would guess.”
“No mansions out this way.”
As the police carriage hustled along North street, the storefronts gave way to houses of substance and then to mill homes half the size. Alder street was at the edge of the original village, Chief Nicholson explained, and now was home to janitors, clerks, liverymen—“plain folks.”
The house at 117 Alder street was no mansion. The warped siding might have been yellow once; now it was the beige of too many rough winters without paint. Where on earth would an eighth person sleep?
“You are prompt, gentlemen.” William Turtle filled most of the porch.
“I try to be,” I said.
Turtle’s change of mind had caught me unawares, and I didn’t understand it, which made me nervous. Was he playing a game by rules I hadn’t learned? Or might Euclid Madden, indeed, have nothing to hide?
“Shall we go in?” Turtle said.
The porch creaked under his weight. I followed him with trepidation. If it could hold his bulk, it could hold mine, but not necessarily both. Chief Nicholson was wise to wait.
Turtle turned the doorknob without bothering to knock, and we followed him in. “Wait in here,” he said, gesturing toward what I supposed was the parlor.
The bookcases were filled with classics—Shakespeare, the Brontës, even Aeschylus and Homer. I surmised that the ancient Greeks would appeal to a French Canadian named Euclid. What on earth had his parents been thinking? He had done the same in naming a son of his own—his second son, meaning he’d had time to think it through.
A stunted man appeared in the doorway, and Turtle materialized behind him, like a mountain looming over a shrub. Euclid Madden was short and square, with a hairline retreating like the tide. His face had pleasant, unmemorable features—watery brown eyes, a limp mustache, a receding chin. Hardly the face of a murderer. Not that I’ve seen all that many. Looks don’t usually deceive, but they can, and sometimes they do. Remember, I saw Guiteau once, and he looked as meek as a chipmunk. This time, I thought I saw something sinister in this would-be assassin’s face. Its very blandness concealed … God knows what. An inner cunning, perhaps. Or a deep-running hate. Or merely a stratum of evil, such as all of us possess.
Unless, of course, I was imagining it all. Never trust a novelist—that’s what Henry says, and he should know. His anonymously written novel outsold mine.
“Chief Nicholson wants to ask you a few questions,” Turtle said, nudging the motorman into the parlor. “And Mr. Hay. You need not answer any question you don’t like.”
Either Turtle had coached his client diligently or he did not care if Madden messed up. Or he was convinced of his client’s innocence—or he wanted me to think so.
Madden chose an oversize armchair that swallowed him. Turtle lowered himself onto a settee, facing his client, within arm’s length. Chief Nicholson took a slat-backed chair, driving his knees into his chin, and nodded at me to begin. I preferred to stand. Rarely did I have the advantage of height.
“Thank you for seeing us,” I said. Madden’s eyes looked up at mine and flitted away. “I would like to ask you some questions about the … events of Wednesday last.” I sounded like a lawyer. “We would like to hear what happened, from your point of view. Nothing you say will be used against you in court.” I hoped this was true. No peep from Turtle.
The motorman told the tale of coasting down the hill with all due care, assuming—no, knowing—he had the right-of-way. Yes, he had seen the carriage, and yes, he knew it was the president’s. But what difference did that make? Was the president above the law? When he realized the carriage was not about to stop, he tried everything he could. He shut off the controller and tightened the hand brake, ratcheting it tighter, as hard as any man could. Then he deployed the sander and pulled on the rope that rang the gong. How many hands did one man have?
“And you were unable to stop,” I said.
“I tried.”
“I understand that your streetcar sat for a good while at the top of the hill.”
“For nineteen minutes. What of it?”
“Why?”
“I was ahead of schedule.” His voice was high and tight. He did not like being contradicted.
“There was no schedule.”
“Of course there was. There is always a schedule. By my watch,” he said, lifting one from his vest pocket, “I was nineteen minutes ahead. It was a regular southbound car and I was keeping to the schedule. If I didn’t, the company would…” His face was turning red. “There’s no telling what they would do. They pay a man next to nothing and they get you for anything they can.”
“Then how fast were you … coasting, would you say?”
No faster than eight miles an hour—on that point the motorman did not budge. He felt bad about the collision, but it was an accident for which he was not to blame.
“Then why are you pleading guilty to manslaughter?” I said.
“I am?” Madden glanced wildly around for his lawyer, who was sitting at his knee.
“We will talk about that later,” Turtle said.
The motorman’s eyes widened, and he seemed to retreat into himself, like a daguerreotype that was starting to fade.
I glanced back at Chief Nicholson and pointed. He said, “You have a savings account at Berkshire Loan and Trust, do you not?”
No response.
Chief Nicholson went on. “Can you explain why you recently deposited three thousand dollars? Three thousand one hundred and eleven dollars and seventy-nine cents, to be exact?”
Madden looked dazed. William Turtle leaned forward in the settee and began the arduous task of rising to his feet. To end the session, no doubt.
His dallying gave me time to hurry another question. “Did Mr. James W. Hull offer you anything?” I said.
The motorman blinked and seemed to wake up. “Tried to.”
“But?”
“Didn’t want it. I give it back.”
“Didn’t want what?”
“Twenty.”
“Oh yes, the money,” I said. “How about this? I found this underneath your seat.”
I drew the map out of my side pocket and unfolded it on top of a thin piece of cardboard I had brought with me. I held it from below and handed it to Madden, who took it with his fingers and thumb. He stared at it and trembled. The map slipped off his fingertips. I saved it before it reached the floor.
“Never seen this before,” Madden mumbled, as Turtle nudged us out. “Never did, never, never.”
That was three too many nevers to sound like the truth.
What a Sherlock I was! I couldn’t help but boast to Chief Nicholson.
“Where did you learn about fingerprints?” he said.
“Life as a dilettante had its pleasures,” I replied. “I don’t know a lot about anything, but I know a little bit about everything. Now that I have his fingerprints on the bottom, we can see if he ever unfolded the map. Especially his thumbprints. That’s how he would hold it, right?”
“And what if he did?” Chief Nicholson said.
“He would know the exact spot where the carriage would be crossing the tracks.”
“He would know anyway,” Chief Nicholson pointed out. “It’s his route.”
“I defer to you on that,” I said. “But I want to know if he opened the map to look at it. Maybe he wanted to make sure of something. And I want to know if he just lied to us. If he lied about that, he might lie about anything.”
“Maybe he plucked the twenty-dollar bill out and gave it back.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But why not give back the whole packet. Instead, he gave back the twenty dollars—he and Hull agree on that. He didn’t need it, that’s what he told Hull. No wonder. Three thousand dollars just dropped into his lap. But then he stuffed the map into his seat. Why would he bother?”
“Maybe not to trash up the floor? Maybe as proof of bribery, should the need arise?”
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Something, I felt, wasn’t right. If only I could figure out what. Sherlock Holmes could.
“This came for you, sir.”
The carrot-haired desk clerk handed me a sealed telegram along with the iron room key. I was morally certain who had sent it. Who else fired off telegrams wherever I happened to be?
I carried it to the corner of the lobby of this new hotel. The faux marble pillars annoyed me. The sofa was stiffer than it looked. Damn this modern furniture, built for appearances. I gave up on finding an arse-comfortable spot and tore open the envelope.
I looked at the signature first. No surprise.
“THEODORE.”
Then at the text of the wire: “COME BACK. CORTELYOU HAS AN IDEA.”
Oh, crap. That’s all I needed, Mr. Know-It-All’s idea for my investigation. But it was also what I wanted: to come back. To go home. To see Clara.
The next train to New York left at seven forty-five. I had already checked. I was rushing toward the elevator, to pack my valise upstairs, when the desk clerk called, “This came for you, sir.”
“Just now?”
“A little while ago, while I … stepped away. It was left on the counter here.”
The envelope was smudged, and the cursive across the back resembled a child’s.
John Hay.
I returned to the unwelcoming sofa and started to rip open the sealed envelope, until a feeling of … caution came over me. I had to be careful with this. It might be evidence—of what?
My request for a letter opener brought a snicker from the carrot-haired clerk. I carried the weapon back to my seat and needled its nose under the flap and pried it apart. Inside was a rough sheet of lined white paper, torn at one end. Pasted on were scraps of newspaper copy, from headlines and advertisements.
“I was having a hard time,” the carrot-haired clerk explained with a smirk. “If you know what I mean.”
Suddenly, I did. Oh, Lord. This was an alibi I was not inclined to try to disprove, which I supposed was the purpose.
We were jousting in the manager’s office when Chief Nicholson rushed in. His face looked more drawn than usual. I showed him the note.
“I see,” he said.
I wished I did.
If the note was meant to drive me from Pittsfield, it succeeded. Or so I kept commiserating with myself as the train rumbled out of the depot. Coward, coward, coward, in the quickening rhythm of the wheels. Was I? Nah, I was no coward. I had proved that to myself in the ring. Besides, I had every good reason to leave. For one thing, the Secret Service needed to see this note, slathered with fingerprints as it probably was. For another … Well, first and foremost, the president had ordered me to. So here I was, occupying an otherwise empty seat in the almost empty club car, with a scotch over a chunk of chipped ice that tickled my nose.
This left unanswered who sent the note—and why. The first question I delegated to Chief Nicholson and his men. The question of why, that was mine.
As for the answer, I had no damn idea.
Yet.
What did I know? I knew the scotch felt warm going down. I knew there had been a collision. I knew a man had been killed. I had known the man. I knew that another two inches and somebody—or somebodies—else might have shared Craig’s fate. Two inches! And I might have been president. Did God have a hand in close calls?
A longer sip.
What else did I know? I knew that someone in Pittsfield knew who I was and why I was there. And wanted me gone. (And I’d left!) Someone had attacked me and then sent me a note. Why would he—I was assuming it was a he, and that it was the same he—send me a note? To scare me? He hadn’t, though he might be thinking he had. Could Euclid Madden have sent it? I had just left his house; he would have been hard-pressed for time. But possible. Or he might have sent an accomplice—a child, perhaps.
What did I know about Madden? That he was a mild-mannered man who nursed grievances. (Didn’t we all?) That a hunk of money had found its way into his bank account, details to come. That his streetcar had stopped at the top of Howard’s Hill for nineteen minutes, to follow a schedule he had no need to keep. That he had rejected a bribe—or incentive, to be nice—but had stuffed a hand-drawn map under his seat. That his lawyer was bullying him to plead guilty to manslaughter, plausibly at the company’s behest. That the men who controlled the streetcar company seemed to control everything worth controlling in Pittsfield, including the judiciary and possibly the police. Maybe that’s who was behind this—all of it. A political machine protecting itself. Hardly unheard of. But why target the president—or the governor, for that matter? And why would they rely on a marshmallow like Euclid Madden?
To that last question, I proposed an answer: Because he was in a position to do what they wanted without being traced. They had only to pay him.
Implausible, I had to admit. But impossible? No. Some of the most astonishing events in history had been implausible until they occurred. Ask Jules Verne. One day, all of his tales will come true.
But what else did I know? Not much more. Enough with the suppositions and the slipshod connections. I took a heartwarming sip of scotch and reached into my valise. The red and gold cover offered a tactile pleasure. So did the story of the detective who always knew, or who knew when he didn’t know and knew how to figure it out. I was never too old to learn—one of my few saving graces.
I found my place in the story and read of Sherlock accompanying Dr. Watson to the station to send him out to Baskerville Hall alone. Watson’s assignment was to report the facts as fully as he could, anything that might bear on the case, even indirectly. Then he would let Sherlock piece the facts into a theory.
I sighed. This was my job, too—Watson’s and Sherlock’s, both. Collect the facts first, then fashion a theory. The logical order of business. Ha! If only life were logical.
Conan Doyle’s tale was rooted in an illogic, a horror, the Baskerville family curse. Hugo Baskerville, the evil seventeenth-century forebear, had ravished and murdered a maiden, until a huge and hellish black hound with dripping jaws tore his throat out. The mystery unspools with a note spelled out in letters scissored from the Times of London: “As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.”
A note! A chill ascended the nape of my neck.
Still, I had to admire Conan Doyle’s skill at creating a mood, and the easy-to-swallow implausibility of a plot that made even less sense than this mystery of mine. I marveled even more at Sherlock Holmes and his formidable powers of observation, the subtlety of his logic, the fierceness of his brain. These were not my strengths. I could be staring at a tub of lard and (as Clara enjoyed pointing out) see everything except the lard. I was reasonably confident that two plus two equals four and even that twenty-five squared was … I had to think … six hundred and a little more. But I could never match Sherlock in sheer brainpower. Nor did I share Vidocq’s flair for disguises or his talent for infiltrating the forces of villainy.
So what in the hell was I good at? I don’t mean as a husband or as a father or even as a secretary of state. My deficiencies in each of those roles are no secret, at least to me. Nor is the pain that they cause, the clench in my stomach when I make mistakes. Of which I have made more than my share. I’d like to think that comes from reaching so high, trying so hard, but I’m probably just excusing my shortcomings. Am I a perfectionist? Don’t make me laugh. At times I stand astonished at how imperfect I am. Let me count the ways. (Oh no, allow me.) As the chief diplomat for a self-consciously virile nation, I’ve been clever but not as blustery—my stick isn’t as big—as Theodore would like. As a husband … My faults—of the heart, not of the flesh—grind like wet, cold sand.
As a father … My throat clutched. It’s so easy, being a father of girls. You tell them how pretty they are, which is even easier if you don’t have to pretend, and you keep their heads from swelling unduly; you find them husbands, or they find husbands for themselves, and your duty is done. With a son, however, your job is to turn him from a boy into a man. This requires molding and the sort of interventions that any red-blooded boy would resist. Only later would he see the benefit, and surely Del did. He seemed to be happy at the end—he seemed to be—and Lord knows I hoped he was. Until then, I had never felt old.
But this was all beside the point, for the moment. I struggled to resume thinking of the matter at hand—this time, with a spurt of success. As a detective, what was my advantage? Surely I had one or two. My record of success was respectable. Granted, the denominator was small—Willie Lincoln and a smattering of other weird deaths over the decades—but the numerator was no smaller. I had solved them all.
I tried to focus on the mystery—mysteries—before me. Why on earth would Euclid Madden want to kill a president—or a governor? And had he actually tried? How could I read another man’s mind? But that’s exactly what I needed to do. And I was good at it, not incidentally.
Oh yes, that was my advantage. I was skilled at hearing what people didn’t say and at understanding the minds and motivations of men—why they do things, why they don’t. (Women were another story.) From time to time, I even understood myself.