At dawn the next day, I left the Franklin House and climbed the path to the foreboding entrance of the Illinois State Prison. By prearrangement, I waited at the imposing front gates for Avocat Daumier. The compact Frenchman glided up a few minutes after I had arrived.
“Is your side ready for the trial, Monsieur Speed?” he asked when he reached my station. Unlike me, he did not seem winded by the steep ascent.
“Absolutely,” I said with more conviction than I felt, even after the long evening Lincoln, Martha, and I had spent crafting our strategy. “Is yours?”
“We have been ready since the moment Monsieur Bingham confessed his desire to kill the unlucky Jones. Monsieur Lincoln’s insistence on time to prepare his defense has given us time to find even more proof of his client’s guilt. We are most grateful for Lincoln’s natural caution.” Daumier smiled infuriatingly.
The Frenchman banged his fist against the prison gate and a small slot opened. “We are here for Bingham,” he said to an unseen guard. “His fate awaits.”
Five minutes later, the prison door swung open and Bingham appeared, his hands bound together, being led by the prison guard Runkin. The change in the artist’s appearance was dramatic. A scraggy beard now covered his previously fresh cheeks; his bright eyes were hooded and haunted. He had lost a lot of weight, and his formerly chubby frame was now closer to the point of gauntness. He stared at the ground as he allowed himself to be led along, and he barely acknowledged me when I called out his name.
Runkin, however, was all too eager to engage. “I was hoping you’d show your face today, Speed,” he called as soon as he emerged from the prison gates. “We didn’t get a chance to talk after the mobbing the other night. I imagine you enjoyed it as much as I did. Hah-hah!”
“That was murder,” I said with a ferocity that surprised even myself. Daumier looked at me with interest.
“That was justice,” Runkin replied, squinting at me through the rising sun. “Justice don’t have to take a long time in every case. Not like with this lot.” He gave Bingham a hard shove in the back, and the artist stumbled and nearly fell to the ground before regaining his footing.
Together, the four of us walked single file down the ravine toward Captain Ryder’s shipping offices, where the trial would take place. “How did you bear your confinement?” I asked Bingham.
“Fine,” he mumbled, his eyes not leaving the rocky ground in front of us.
“He enjoyed it a good deal more than he’ll enjoy the hangman’s noose,” called Runkin gleefully.
“Can the prisoner and I speak in private?” I asked the guard, who still clutched a fistful of Bingham’s jersey in his hand.
“You ain’t his lawyer, are you? No—you can’t. My instructions are to escort my prisoner directly to the judge. No interruptions.”
“He’s not going to run off,” I said. “The poor man can hardly walk after all the time in his cell.”
Runkin started to refuse me again, but Daumier coughed and said, “No harm will come of it, sir. We are only hastening the onset of Monsieur Bingham’s trial and the grasp of the noose.”
Runkin spat onto the ground. “Hold him tight,” he said, placing my hand where his had been on the back of Bingham’s jersey.
As Runkin dropped behind us, I leaned forward and whispered in Bingham’s ear. “We’ve been working hard, Lincoln and I, to locate evidence in your favor. We’ve had some success. I think Lincoln will mount a strong defense on your behalf.”
Bingham nodded, though his eyes still appeared barely alive.
“We found Tessie and managed to convince her to come testify,” I added. He swung around to face me, animation flooding into his features. “She’ll be waiting with Lincoln at the courtroom.”
“I don’t want her to see me like this,” he said quietly. His voice was hoarse, and he punctuated his statement with a violent cough. We’d been right, I thought. There was no way he would have survived the winter at the prison.
“Well, you haven’t a choice. And she’s your best chance at freedom. She and Lincoln, that is.”
“Thank you, friend, for your efforts,” Bingham said. “Whatever happens at trial, at least Tessie and I will be together one last time.”
Rejoining Daumier and Runkin, we walked down one ravine and then up the side of another to Ryder’s building. A long, unruly line of men stretched around the corner and down toward the shore. The circuit clerk plainly hadn’t had difficulty recruiting potential jurors. This did not bode well for Bingham. I suspected a hungering for additional blood lingered in the cold Alton air.
In the distance, I could see the distinctive outline of the War Eagle tied up at the dock. Her stacks were quiet. Captain Pound had made good on his promise to return, and evidently he planned to remain in town for the duration of trial. Another unfortunate tiding for Bingham.
The shipping offices were even more chaotic than usual. The chalkboard in the anteroom was now filled not with the positions of Ryder’s fleet but rather the names of men who’d been called for possible service as jurors. The first group of candidates milled about in the front room, noting their attendance with the clerk and trading speculation about the nature of the trial for which they’d been summoned.
All discussion came to a halt as we pushed through their midst. Bingham’s bound hands marked him as the accused, and in his wake, a new conversation arose: eager speculation about the identity of the unknown defendant.
The back room of Ryder’s offices was, if possible, even more crowded. Judge Thomas stood at the far end between the two large windows looking out on the river, his first cigar of the day clenched in his fist and already burned down to a stub. Lincoln and Prickett were pressed together in side-by-side chairs directly in front of the judge, their notes and books balanced on their laps, as there was no such luxury as counsel tables to be had on the circuit. Meanwhile, twelve empty chairs were crammed into the corner to the judge’s left, awaiting the jury, though it seemed impossible that twelve grown men could possibly fit in the space reserved for them.
Several dozen spectators stood or sat two to a chair in the rest of this back room, pressed so close together as to leave no doubt which man had mucked out his pig sty, or eaten onions for breakfast, before coming to court. Nanny Mae was spread out on a chair in the back corner, working her knitting needles and seemingly paying no attention to the tumult around her. Along the opposite wall sat virtually the entire crew of the War Eagle, including Pound, Hector, and Gentry. They fidgeted awkwardly, looking very much out of place even a mere quarter mile distant from the waters on which they lived their lives.
Neither Devol nor the fool was present. I looked around and saw that my sister Martha was absent as well. Good, I thought. Hopefully that portion of our plan would bear fruit.
Our arrival in the courtroom caused a stir, and the judge and the lawyers paused their proceedings while we stepped over, around, and through the crowd to reach the places saved for us at the front. Squeezing us into the room required every man already present to move one way or another, like some giant interlocking puzzle unwinding and then rearranging itself into a slightly different configuration.
Tessie Roman was sitting next to Lincoln. When she first spied Bingham, she drew in her breath sharply at his altered appearance. But by the time we’d made it over to her, she had regained her equilibrium, and she took his bound hands in hers and held them tight and gave him a smile of pure adoration. Bingham beamed.
Once we had settled and everyone else in the courtroom area had managed to return to their positions, Judge Thomas nodded to Lincoln.
“As I was saying, Your Honor,” said he, “I should be able to question the venire about their views regarding the events of the other night. It impacts their fitness to serve as jurors in the present case.”
“Are you telling us, Mr. Lincoln,” said the prosecutor Prickett, “that the murder of Jones bears connection to the fate of the Abolitionist?”
“No, but—”
“Or that Mr. Bingham’s defense to the charge of murder has something to do with Abolitionism?”
“Of course not.” Lincoln glanced over at me, and I understood his unsaid thought at once. Whether or not he had any inkling that a fugitive slave might have been aboard the War Eagle, Prickett was eager to tie Bingham to Lovejoy if Lincoln provided even the slightest opening. Prickett’s calculation regarding the likely views of the Alton jury was the same as ours.
“Then Your Honor,” said Prickett, “such questioning would do nothing but squander our precious time. Mr. Lincoln’s just admitted the one has nothing to do with the other.”
“Surely it’s so, Lincoln,” said Judge Thomas, pulling on his cigar with vigor.
“I don’t agree,” said Lincoln. “We need men who’ll apply the law as you instruct them, Your Honor. Not men disposed to take the law into their own hands.”
“We need men who have no stake in the outcome,” said Prickett. “Nothing more. Since both the victim and the accused were strangers to Alton, the first twelve men we call should be fine. Mr. Lincoln’s trying to make this a good deal more complicated than it needs be.”
As he had no surface on which to strike a gavel, the judge signaled he had reached a decision by clearing his throat loudly. “I will allow very limited questioning on the subject, Lincoln,” he said. “But you’ve represented we can complete this trial in two days, and I’ll hold you to that. If you spend overly long with the venire, it’s coming out of your time. Call the first potential juror, Clerk.”
“Adams.”
There was a shuffling in the anteroom, and eventually a slender man smoking a corncob pipe appeared at the threshold of the back room. He began to make his way toward the judge, but his path was blocked, and none of the men in the audience showed an inclination to rearrange themselves again.
“Stay put, Mr. Adams,” said Judge Thomas. “If you’re selected for service, we’ll find a way to move you forward. Any questions for Juror Adams, Mr. Lincoln?”
Lincoln rose, carefully putting his papers and books down on his chair, and looked out across the gallery at the potential juror.
“Will you follow the law as Judge Thomas here tells you it is?”
“Yes, I will,” Adams declared with perhaps too much enthusiasm.
“Now where were you last Saturday night?”
Adams sucked on the stem of his pipe and looked at the judge. “Answer the question,” Thomas commanded. “No one’s going to be held to pay for anything they admit here. It’s all what we call ‘privileged.’”
“I suppose I might have visited a grog shop or two,” Adams replied. The crowd murmured appreciatively, and Adams took out his pipe and grinned like a returning war hero.
“And what did you do that evening for entertainment?” asked Lincoln.
“No different than what my neighbor did. Whatever that was.”
“Well—what was it?”
“Can’t say I remember every last detail.” The crowd laughed, and Adams grinned again.
“I think we can do better,” Lincoln said to Judge Thomas, who nodded. At least he’s trying to give Lincoln a fair shot, I thought.
“Hold on a moment, Mr. Adams,” said the judge. “We may come back to you. Who’s next, Clerk?”
“Ballkins.”
There was another shuffling of persons in the front room of the shipping offices, and a young farmer in blue jeans, with sandy hair and a bright red pimple on the end of his nose, stepped to the fore.
“Are you married, Mr. Ballkins?” asked Lincoln.
“Yes, sir. Newly wed. This past summer.”
“My congratulations,” Lincoln said sincerely, and Ballkins turned red. “May you have more good fortune at it than does the average man.” A few men in the crowd chuckled. “Now I hope you were home with the new Mrs. Ballkins on Saturday night.”
“I was, sir.”
“Good for you. Have you got any particular opinion on what took place in town that evening?”
Ballkins licked his lips and glanced around the room nervously. “I heard they shot and killed Lyman,” he said. “He did some carpentry for my neighbor. Poor Lyman was scared of his own shadow. He couldn’t never hurt no one, not even an insect.”
“No, I don’t imagine he could. We’d be pleased to have Mr. Ballkins, Your Honor.”
“Prickett?” asked the judge.
“I’ve already indicated I’m happy with the first twelve men who wander in,” the prosecutor said. “It’s Mr. Lincoln who thinks only a few of Alton’s citizens are qualified to give his client a fair shake.”
“Stay where you are for now, Mr. Ballkins, but we’ll use you,” said the judge. “Next.”
“Fitzhugh,” called the clerk.
The examination of the candidates for the jury continued for another hour. When it was over, Lincoln had the jury he wanted—or as close to that body as was available to him in the still simmering town of Alton this November morning. But as I watched from beside him, I feared Lincoln’s achievement had come at a substantial cost.
Lincoln questioned every potential venireman on his whereabouts on the night of the Lovejoy riot. No one listening—certainly not the group of prospective jurors, who jostled in the front room of Ryder’s offices and watched as Lincoln questioned their number one by one—could have failed to comprehend that Lincoln was attempting to eliminate men who had participated in the mobbing. As far as I could tell, none of the Lovejoy mobbers made it onto the jury. But it was a fair bet that every man selected either sympathized with or was afraid of those mobbers. And surely Lincoln’s questioning caused them, at the least, to wonder where his own sympathies lay.
Just as Bingham and Jones were strangers to Alton, so too was Lincoln. This was his first trip here with the circuit. The Lincoln who examined the potential jurors this morning was the same lawyer I’d always seen in action in Springfield—tall and a little stooped, a high voice, with his hands clutched behind his back. Yet when he wandered about the courtroom in Springfield, he carried with him the credibility of personal relationships built up over the years he had lived in Sangamon County. By contrast, in Alton he was, as the lawyers sometimes like to say, a tabula rasa.
Lincoln’s questioning of the potential jurors had chalked the slate. Whether favorably or unfavorably we would only learn at the end of trial.