Chapter Twenty-One

Willie Pilkington was doing his best to look inconspicuous, but since he had never felt like undergoing the rigorous apprenticeship his father expected from aspiring detectives, he attracted a lot more attention being unnoticeable than he would have if he’d just sat on one of the Station’s wooden benches and pretended to read a newspaper.

It was covert attention, of course—everybody else in the big brick-and-stone Pennsy station on the corner of 6^th Street and B Street NW either recognized Willie from pictures in the press, or sensed immediately that he was some kind of Eye, which was enough to make them drift off forthwith to more remote parts of the Station’s waiting room. Willie, meanwhile, with a dark brown bowler pulled down almost to his nose, his dark brown greatcoat swirling around him like a canvas bathing machine, and a deeply sinister pair of brownish smoked glasses, felt sure that he cut a rather dashing, anarchist-flavored figure, while remaining rigorously incognito.

Still, it was going to be July in another couple of days and the Washington heat and humidity were nearly as bad tonight as they had been in the daytime, so Willie was praying fervently for the New York train to open its doors and disgorge its passengers so he could get back to the DPS steamer and shuck off this damned coat before he melted. Ah, there! Thank God the passengers were starting to pour into the waiting room. He inclined his head and pretended to scratch his nose as he peered surreptitiously at the newcomers. Surely Becky and McCool wouldn’t have dared to travel openly by train, but it wouldn’t do to miss the obvious …

“Sir?”

The familiar voice came from Willie’s blind side and startled him so badly that he nearly cried out. Furious at having his disguise pierced, he spun around, teeth bared in a snarl …

“Just what the Devil do you mean by …”

… and deflated just as quickly when he saw that it was Agent McPherson, whom he had taken for some sort of smalltime drummer when he’d passed in the crowd a moment ago, and who now stood examining him with an uncertain smile.

“Sorry, sir,” McPherson said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Ah … hmph … yes, of course I knew you were there, McPherson, I just wanted to see if you were on your toes!”

And, beckoning to McPherson to accompany him, he turned and headed towards the exit.

“Any sign of McCool here yet?” the detective asked with a barely suppressed eagerness that put Willie in mind of a big, mean cat closing in on a mouse.

“Not so far,” Willie said, “but if they’ve come to Washington to make mischief it won’t be long till we have them. Secretary Stanton has mobilized every able-bodied man from here to Annapolis, and he’s printed thousands of handbills with Miss Fox’s and McCool’s likenesses.”

McPherson grinned without a hint of mirth and narrowed his eyes hungrily as he stared at some interior vision; Willie imagined it a bit queasily—whatever the details, it surely involved severe and even gory discomfort for Liam McCool.

“Just remember,” he said sharply as they exited onto 6^th Street, “McCool is yours, as I promised. But no one may lay a hand on Miss Fox and she must be given directly into my charge. The only reason I didn’t have McCool up for murder over those two plug-uglies you hired in Five Points was because they had the temerity to assault her and he acted in her defense.”

“Ah, Mr. Pilkington, dear,” said McPherson, lapsing into a brogue as he continued to savor his vision of revenge, “nivver you mind yer worriting, I’m that grateful to you for calling me in at the finish, I’ll be certain sure to see you right.”

As they stepped onto the sidewalk a horde of black cabbies swarmed around them offering their services, but Pilkington just cursed and shooed them away as a big black steam pantechnicon with the Department of Public Safety’s All-Seeing Eye and its motto “Per Aspera ad Securitas” picked out in gold leaf on its doors pulled up to the curb and its driver jumped out to hold the door open for Willie.

“Where to, sir?” the driver asked.

“I want to check out all the DPS observation posts,” Willie said. “And drive slowly, we’re on the lookout for a couple of fugitives.”

Their helpers in the Underground Railroad had supplied Becky and Liam with a battered old steam caravan that met all their requirements handsomely. First, it had to be too old and decrepit to excite police interest while being large enough to offer a secure hiding place for President Lincoln and his wheelchair. Second, it had to be a vehicle that would offer both Liam and Becky some logical excuse for traveling in it together if explanations were demanded, and finally it had to be one the Underground Railroad wouldn’t miss if for any reason Liam and Becky needed to ditch it.

Becky hesitated to ask her Alexandria hosts how they had managed to come up with the one they found, but it certainly seemed to her to fit the bill perfectly, being an antediluvian Confederate ambulance that had been skillfully converted into a traveling country store packed with all sorts of goods from nails to bolts of calico to a cheap rye whiskey that Liam guessed might do in a pinch for removing paint.

As for the fugitives themselves, the challenge to the younger Miss Duchamp (a prominent player in local amateur theatricals) was irresistible. Despite Liam’s misgivings she trimmed his hair still shorter and fitted him with a gray wig that—according to a giggling Becky—made him look positively venerable, and then dusted his moustache with some sort of theatrical powder that matched the wig nicely. With a suitably distressed-looking suit of the sort fashionable in the days of President Jackson and his dark glasses, Liam had to admit he looked decrepit enough to make an undertaker reach for his tape-measure.

Becky, who had enacted quite a few roles in dead earnest as she traveled to far corners pretending to be anybody but a reporter, entered into the spirit of the thing happily. By the time Miss Duchamp had finished with her, her honey-blonde hair was concealed under a school-marmish wig of gray curls, while wire-rimmed spectacles, a shiny old bombazine dress with yellowed lace cuffs and some discreet India rubber padding created a total effect that made Liam break into helpless laughter and call Becky “Mother Fox” until she threatened to hit him with her cane.

But later on, after a few miles on the road back to Washington, Becky and Liam had pretty well lost the urge to laugh.

“This is bad,” Liam muttered, “we haven’t quite hit the outskirts of the city and we’ve already had to go through two checkpoints. I haven’t seen this many troops around here since the end of the War.”

“What worries me most,” Becky said, “is whether our half-Delta will be able to land and take off again without being seen. It’s been re-set now for four o’clock tomorrow morning, because that’s when you can usually expect most people to be sound asleep. That’s why we picked the Duchamps’ tobacco fields for a landing, because they’re on bottomland below the line of sight of most of the buildings in Alexandria, and we figured that would reduce the chances of a sighting to near zero. But with all these troops galumphing around …” She fell silent, biting her lip worriedly.

Unable to think of anything reassuring that wouldn’t sound irritatingly trite, Liam just shook his head in silent agreement and kept on driving and watching mounted and steam-driven soldiers come and go. He still had his Colt and Becky had the Bulldog, and he’d managed to fill his jacket pockets with cartridges for both in the gun room at the Duchamp estate, but anything involving gunplay at this point would probably be suicidal. Still, better to go down fighting than to give Stanton a chance at putting them in cages so he could play with them.

Becky broke into his thoughts: “Do we need to check with Mike to make sure everything’s in order?”

Liam smiled and shook his head, recognizing the question as the kind of worrying away at a loose tooth you always tend to do when everything’s been planned to the last dot on the i’s and cross on the t’s. He’d been able to talk to Mike on the Duchamp’s voicewire machine last night and he had it all covered. Mike would collect on an old IOU from the Grogan clan, river pirates who’d been involved in the New York area’s river and ocean crimes since the days of smuggling tea and rum under the British.

Becky and Liam and the President would fly directly from the Duchamp estate to the beach just south of Barnegat Light on Jersey’s Atlantic coast, less than an hour in a half-Delta. There were expensive summer homes not far away, but Liam knew from experience that these people were the kind of nobs who didn’t like to get involved with anything outside their own tight little world and even the DPS wouldn’t take a chance on bothering them without being invited.

The Grogans would be waiting there with the steam launch they’d used for running the blockade during the War, and in no time at all they would have Lincoln and his wheelchair off the beach and on his way to Freedom Party HQ on Shelter Island, another rich folks’ hideaway at the tip of Long Island and as secure from DPS nosiness as the far side of the moon. Maybe fifty or sixty nautical miles from pickup to dropoff, a piece of cake for the Grogans, and the President himself safe and sound so fast after leaving Washington that even Stanton would be left scratching his head.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s honor among thieves,” Liam said with a grin, “but there’s a cast-iron code of correct behavior, and the Grogans will discharge their debt to the Butcher Boys down to the last jot and tittle. I’d rather make a deal with a crook than, say, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher any day in the week.”

Becky laughed merrily, glad of a chance for some humor. “I was catching up on some of the old news while we were killing time at the Duchamps’ and I came across an account of Beecher’s sermon at the Plymouth Church on the significance of the railwaymen’s strike. The best part was where he said that ‘while it was true that wages of $1 a day were not enough to support a man and five children if a man would insist on drinking beer and smoking, a prudent family could live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread at mid-day, and good water and bread at night.’ According to the report at that point there was general applause and laughter among the congregation.”

“It’s been a while since I read Dante,” Liam said, “but I’m sure he had a circle for the Plymouth Church down there somewhere in The Inferno.”

No sooner had he gotten off his little quip than a soldier stepped out into the road ahead of them and waved his arms back and forth to signal a stop.

“Damn!” muttered Liam. Things had been going too well, for sure—they weren’t more than twenty minutes’ drive from the Smithsonian and they’d had clear sailing all the way from the second checkpoint to here. He braked to a stop with a loud and painful screeching from the ancient machinery and turned to Becky: “Time for Mother Fox,” he murmured. He leaned his head out the window and quavered in his best doddering-old-timer voice:

“What can I do for you, young fella?”

The soldier was a tow-headed infantryman with a baby face and a friendly grin. “Sorry, Dad, but we’re under orders to have a look in the back of your caravan.”

“Why sure, youngster, always happy to oblige a Union soldier!” He turned to Becky: “Now then, Mother, you keep a weather eye on the steam gauge, we don’t want Old Betsy to blow us all to smithereens!”

The young soldier looked uneasy: “Say, Pop, is this contraption safe?”

“Safe?” chuckled Liam. “Safe? Say, is a basketful of rattlesnakes safe if you keep the lid on?” He cackled gleefully and then felt a little contrite at the hint of panic in the soldier’s expression. “Aw, sonny, don’t you pay me no mind, I’m just an old fool pulling your leg! Old Betsy will be just fine long’s we don’t keep her standing still but a couple of minutes!”

He walked around the back of the caravan and threw open the door, revealing a treasure trove of useful junk spooled, stacked and hung from the ceiling. The crate of cheap rye whiskey was right by the door and it caught the soldier’s eye as he flashed his lantern around the interior.

“Say, mister, is that whiskey?”

“That’s what the label says, young fella! One dollar a bottle and worth every penny.”

The soldier pulled out a bottle and examined the label by the light of his lamp. “It says ‘Made in China,’” he said dubiously.

“Why, sure enough,” said Liam with a touch of indignation, “that’s why it’s a dollar, you got to pay a premium for the imported stuff!” Noting that the soldier’s frown was deepening Liam said, “I tell you what I’ll do, you buy one bottle for a dollar and you can have another one for free, and that’s just because I fought with the Union at Chapultepec in the Mexican War.”

The soldier grinned: “Now that’s more like it!” He fished a silver dollar out of his uniform pocket and Liam handed over two bottles with a silent prayer that Chinese hooch wouldn’t do the kids any harm.

“Anything else?” Liam asked.

“That’s all, Dad, you can go ahead and let Old Betsy rip!” He waved and took off to join his pals as Liam trotted back to Becky and climbed in. He handed her the soldier’s coin:

“Hang on to that, Mother,” he said in his normal voice, “that’s our first dollar!” As Becky collapsed laughing, he let off the brakes with another tortured scream, engaged the engine and chugged briskly away towards the Smithsonian.

Blessedly, as they chugged down B Street NW towards their goal they could see that the service area behind the Smithsonian was still dimly lit, despite the sudden proliferation of carbon arc spotlights around the Mall and the Capitol Building. Less welcome was the fact that they’d had to stop two more times, and although Liam managed to oil their way through both checkpoints with liberal applications of Chinese firewater, the process had taken so much time that by this point they had eaten up all their margin for delay and then some.

Now, as if to rub it in, they saw a wink of light as the door by which Liam had entered the night before opened briefly to allow the exit of two burly DPS agents in the standardized black gabardine suits and curly-brimmed bowlers that said “Eye!” to everyone but the blind.

“Oh, oh,” said Becky. “Should we run them down?”

“Certainly not,” said Liam with a grin, “first of all it’s illegal, and second of all when you run down an Eye you have to wash your whole steamer with tomato juice to get rid of the smell. I’ve got a better idea …” He reached forward and played with the steam valve until the engine started gasping and banging alarmingly. “Dear me, Mother,” he said in his codger voice, “we seem to have engine trouble. I expect those clever men over there can help us fix it!”

“Ah!” Becky said. She smiled and adjusted her wire-framed spectacles as Liam pulled off the road and onto the paved area behind the Smithsonian. Immediately the two DPS men hulked towards them warningly.

“Say,” said the first one in a surprisingly high, reedy voice. “This here area is off limits to the public, Grandpa, you better sling your hook before we have to haul you in!”

Liam gave the Eyes a pleading look: “Land sakes, young fella, can’t you hear my poor old Betsy a-gaspin’ and a-coughin’? I was hoping one of you smart youngsters was savvy enough to figure out how to help her.” As the DPS man’s lips tightened with impatience Liam added hastily: “I’ve got some mighty fine imported whiskey in the back, you can have all of it you can carry away if you’ll help me out!”

The Eyes exchanged an avid look. “Show us the booze, old-timer,” the First Eye said sharply, “and make it snappy.”

Liam got out and did his creaky-old-bones turn as he hobbled around to the back, where he threw open the doors and gestured grandly at the remaining bottles of whiskey: “There you go, boys,” he said coaxingly, “if that ain’t the finest drop of whiskey you ever put down your throat I’m a monkey’s uncle!”

The DPS agent pulled out a bottle and examined the label suspiciously. “China? Chinese rye?”

Liam gave him a hurt look. “Say, if you think I’m just funnin’, you go ahead try a slug of that on me!”

The agent gave a why-not shrug, worked out the cork and tipped his head back for a healthy swallow. An instant later his eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline and he broke off his drink, laughing and coughing:

“Whooo-ee! Them Celestials can brew up a mean batch of red-eye! This stuffd take the enamel clean off a stove!”

The other agent stuck out a big paw impatiently: “All right, then, Murph, don’t go hoggin’ it!”

The first agent handed the bottle over and the second one tipped his head back and finished the bottle in one long, gurgling pull, determined to manage it without coughing. As the last swallow went down he straightened up, tossed the bottle to Liam and grinned happily:

“By Jingo, old man, that’s some good stuff,” he said when he finished. “How many of those you willing to part with if we can get your heap running right?”

Liam gestured at the case: “You fix old Betsy for me and you can have the rest of them!”

As the two half-drunk and totally delighted agents leaned forward to pull out the case, Liam moved up next to them, grabbed their heads by the sides and banged them together; then, as the stunned DPS men reeled backwards Liam did his jiu-jitsu nerve pinch on their necks, dropping them where they stood. They started snoring loudly and Liam called out to Becky:

“OK, Mother, let’s tie up Mr. Stanton’s birthday presents!”

As Becky jumped out and ran to join him, Liam pulled one of the big coils of rope down off the caravan’s walls and cut it in half with his pocket knife. “Hands behind his back,” he instructed, pulling the agent’s hands behind him as if for handcuffs, “then do them up good, four or five turns of rope before you pull his heels up behind him and do the same thing with his ankles. You good with knots?”

“Mister McCool!” she exclaimed with an arch lift of the eyebrows.

“Why do I even ask?” he said with a laugh and the two of them went to work with a will. A couple of minutes later they were done, and Liam took out two more bottles and handed one to Becky. “Give him a good bath,” he said, “just in case whoever finds them might have missed the message.” Becky grinned and baptized her victim liberally while Liam did the same with his. Then they dragged the two snoring DPS men over to the deep shadows next to the coal chute and sat them against the wall to sleep it off with the empties on the ground next to them.

“They’ll be good for a couple of hours now,” Liam said, “and we’d better get a move on!” He trotted over to the door, tried the knob prayerfully and heaved a powerful sigh as it swung open. A moment later they had both disappeared inside, closing the door and locking it behind them.

This time Liam was used to all the twists and turns that would take them to the door of the Chubb-locked storeroom, so he set off at a trot with Becky keeping up easily at his side. Despite all the extra security outside, there didn’t seem to be anything different inside, and Liam was willing to bet that Stanton’s Prisoner in the Iron Mask was the last thing that had occurred to anybody when they were tightening the network of guards. One final turn, and a moment later they found themselves outside the storeroom.

Liam was slightly winded, but Becky didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered. “You’ve got a fair turn of speed for an old lady,” he said to Becky with just a touch of asperity.

She smiled and laid a soothing hand on his arm: “I’m sorry, Grandpa, but those few extra years of yours were bound to take their toll sooner or later.”

Liam rolled his eyes and got out the picks, hoping that this time he wouldn’t have to take so long at it. But he’d only been working at the first lock for a minute or so when he heard the unmistakable eerie thrum of the Lincoln automaton’s rubber vocal cords from the other side of the door:

“Mr. McCool? Liam?”

“Yes, sir!” said Liam excitedly. “Is there any chance you can open it from the inside?”

For answer, Liam and Becky heard first the one set of tumblers clicking and then the second, followed by the clank of Lincoln’s steel fingers on the doorknob and a moment later by the door swinging open to reveal the President himself.

“Thank God for your constancy!” Lincoln said, and turning his head towards Becky with the distinctive squeak of his neck joint: “And Miss Fox, well met! I’d recognize America’s most intrepid lady journalist anywhere, wig and spectacles or no!”

Impulsively she took the cold steel hand and grasped it between her two hands: “Mr. President, it breaks my heart to see you brought to this pass, and I swear to you that my friends and I will do every last thing in our power to set things right again.”

Liam had pulled out his watch and examined it with a grimace. “Mr. President, Miss Fox, we are running dangerously behind our schedule and we’re going to have to catch up however we can. Sir, can you get a tight grip on the arms of that chair?”

Lincoln nodded and grabbed hold of the wheelchair’s arms.

“Let’s go, then, folks!” Liam said, and grabbing the handles of the wheelchair he took off down the hall at a half-run, Becky keeping pace right at his side.

Outside, the two DPS men were still snoring sonorously away as the door opened a crack, and then all the way as Liam pushed Lincoln’s chair out the door and Becky followed.

“We’re going to have a job getting President Lincoln into the back of the caravan,” Liam muttered. “Maybe we can use the rope …”

But before he could finish, Becky grabbed his arm and held up a finger to her lips. A moment later and he heard it too: a powerful and well-silenced steam engine was approaching the Smithsonian. Another moment or two and the vehicle had stopped at the front of the building, idling for a moment before it was turned off, the hum of its turbine purring away to nothing with the polite smoothness of very expensive machinery. A moment later there was the slam of a door, and then the rapid footsteps of two men, plainly audible in the dead stillness of the early morning. One of the men called out:

“Murphy? Beckermann?”

“Good lord,” whispered Becky, “it’s Willie!”

“Pilkington?” whispered Liam urgently.

Becky nodded, frowning. Liam pointed to the President and then made a sweeping half circle towards the van. Becky nodded emphatically, grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and took off rapidly around the van and out of sight, leaving Liam on his own to trot towards the sound of the approaching footsteps.

Pilkington was talking again as he approached the corner on the other side of which Liam stood hidden in the shadows:

“Are you absolutely certain that you’ve done everything in your own and the Pilkington Agency’s power to retrieve Maggie O’Shea’s diary?”

“I swear it, sir! I had to make a run for it the minute I heard the explosion that destroyed Mr. Henderson’s house, but before then I had searched every nook and cranny in her quarters!”

Liam felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him. Pilkington’s companion was McPherson!

Willie’s answer came back in a plaintive, accusing tone: “You knew how important finding that diary was to me! That bitch threatened to ruin me if I didn’t…”

As Pilkington spoke these last few words he was within a split second of turning the corner, seeing the caravan and discovering his trussed-up agents, not to mention Liam, Becky, and President Lincoln. But if Liam acted now, as he must the moment the two men came into view, he would never hear the end of Pilkington’s speech and most likely the final clue to the secret of Maggie’s murder.

Later he wondered if it had been a real decision or a reflex. At the moment, it seemed as if all thought flew away the moment he saw the men turn the corner and start past him. Leaping out of the shadows with the speed of a jungle predator, Liam smacked their heads together—perhaps with just a touch more enthusiasm than the move required—and then knocked them out with nerve pinches. As they crumpled to the ground, Liam called out to Becky in a low, urgent voice:

“Bring me some more rope and a couple of bottles of whiskey!”

Without waiting for her to arrive, he quickly set about stripping the two of them, leaving them in their long underwear.

“Liam McCool!” she said from behind him. “What on earth are you up to?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re on the road,” he said grimly, pulling the two men up into sitting positions and placing them back to back before he took the rope from Becky and ran it under their arms and around their middles a couple of good stout turns. “Would you mind finishing them up?” he asked with as much deference as he could muster. “I’m going to run around front and get their steamer.”

“The DPS wagon?” she asked incredulously.

“I promise,” Liam said earnestly, “I promise I’ll …”

“Yes, yes,” Becky said a little testily, “you’ll explain when we’re on the road.” As he nodded emphatically she shooed him away with a whisk of her fingers: “Go on, for pity’s sake, hurry up!”

As Liam sprinted away, Becky set to tying Willie and McPherson up with all the rope in the coil, stifling a slightly hysterical urge to giggle as she went along. By the time she had tied the last set of knots, the two of them were encased in a good twenty-five feet of stout hemp, and there was nothing left to do but drag them over to join the two DPS agents against the wall. Becky returned for the whiskey and picked up their bowlers while she was at it, bathing each of them liberally in a stream of Chinese moonshine before jamming their hats down on top of their heads.

“A very artistic job,” Lincoln rumbled from behind her and she jumped so hard she almost dropped the empty bottles.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” she said, and then gave in completely to her giggles as Liam turned the corner in the DPS van.

A moment later, Liam had jumped out, gone around to the back and let down a ramp that rolled into position with the pleasing snick! of nicely machined metal. As he turned back he saw Becky standing there with her arms folded intransigently across her chest and Lincoln staring towards him with what he took to be equal expectancy.

“Sorry,” Liam said as contritely as he could. “It’s just that we’ve been through all the checkpoints once with the General Store caravan, and we absolutely don’t have a moment to spare on the way back. If one checkpoint has a new set of soldiers standing guard they’ll put us through the whole thing again and that will be that—the half-Delta will have to keep to its schedule and we’ll be done for!”

“And they won’t stop the DPS van?” she asked crossly.

“Are you serious?” Liam said, spreading his hands entreatingly. “I’m willing to bet you our first silver dollar that every single human being between here and Alexandria will melt into the distance the second our DPS chariot rolls towards them.”

“Good thinking, young Liam,” rumbled the Lincoln automaton, “as far as most folks are concerned a DPS van might as well be a truckload of Black Plague.”

“I rest my case,” Liam said.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Becky muttered. As Liam pushed Lincoln up the ramp she gathered up Willie’s and McPherson’s clothes, tossed them into the shadows and ran for the front of the van. A moment later, they were rolling briskly down B Street NW towards Alexandria and the next leg in their journeys.

Little Russia June 30—July 1, 1877