Death and Glory, page 13
Before we went to the office, I went upstairs to bring her a tray with a cup of tea and some breakfast.
“How are you feeling this morning?” I asked.
“I’m perfectly fine,” she said, sitting up in the bed as I settled the tray on her knees. “I feel silly having worried you last night.”
“Is there anything I can get you? Perhaps I could bring you a book from the library downstairs.”
“I’m sure I should find something on my own, although you really should read some women authors,” she answered. “Our contribution to fiction extends beyond Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters.”
“Give me a list,” I said. “I’ll be sure to order them.”
“As a matter of fact, I will.”
I kissed her forehead and then went downstairs, where Barker was waiting to go to our offices. We donned our hats and went out to hail a cab.
* * *
When we reached our chambers, General Woodson was waiting. He appeared relaxed and in a good mood after the previous night’s festivities. Barker and I shook his hand.
“It’s good to see you this morning, General,” my partner said. “Won’t you have a seat?”
“Thank you, Mr. Barker,” he replied.
The Guv nodded. “What can we do for you today? Were you pleased with the ball last evening?”
“The event last night went very well,” Woodson said. “I came by to let you know we are making arrangements with the Navy Yard in Portsmouth to see the Yellow Rose. I thought you might like to see her for yourself, having been a seafaring man.”
“I would, indeed,” Barker said.
“The Yellow Rose is an odd name for a blockade runner,” I ventured.
“It’s named for a specific flower in Texas,” the general replied. “The envoy, Senator Slidell, had a sense of humor. A gentle name for a weapon that could raid and shell a port city in the night. By the way, the brigadier sends his compliments.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Would you care to come along with us, Mr. Llewelyn?” the general asked. “To see the Yellow Rose for yourself?”
“I’d like that,” I replied. “I’ve never seen a warship.”
“Thomas has become something of a second mate, himself,” the Guv said.
“He means I stoke the boilers when we are under steam,” I explained. “I’m still learning the ropes, the actual ropes, when we go under sail.”
“What kind of vessel is it that has both sail and steam?” Woodson asked.
“It is a lorcha,” Barker replied. “That is, a Chinese approximation of a European vessel. It’s quick to the helm, as you shall see.”
“Your brother told me you have an interesting past, sir,” the general said. “The Ever Victorious Army under ‘Chinese’ Gordon. I am impressed.”
“Don’t be,” Barker said. “I barely knew one end of a rifle from the other. I preferred hand fighting.”
“That reminds me, Zeb Beaufort has shown a desire to visit your boxing school one of these evenings, if that is convenient.”
“He is welcome to join us any time.”
“He’ll be happy to hear it.”
“Tell him I’m looking forward to it,” Barker rumbled.
Woodson stood and shook our hands, taking his leave.
“Do you think Beaufort is much of a fighter, sir?” I asked.
“That,” he said, “remains to be seen.”
CHAPTER 15
“Mr. Jenkins!” Barker suddenly called to the outer chamber a few minutes later. “Could you bring me your book of clippings?”
“Yes, sir!”
Jeremy brought the book and set it in front of the Guv, who opened it to the final page. I came around his desk from the other side and read.
ELDERLY MAN STRUCK BY VEHICLE
Mr. Jubal Slidell, formerly of the Grosvenor’s Pensioner’s Home, was struck down by an unknown carriage yesterday morning around nine o’clock. Mr. Slidell, 92, died immediately as a result of being struck by a cab, which fled the scene. His witness was able to provide local constables the cab number. Mr. Slidell was born in America and was once a senator for the state of Louisiana. He was an envoy for the Confederate States during the infamous Trent Affair, when his ship was boarded by a Union crew and he was arrested and briefly held prisoner, an event which caused an international scandal and which nearly led to war between the United States and Britain. Mr. Slidell is survived by one daughter, Abigail Morgan, and her husband, Bennett. Services will be held in the Grosvenor Chapel on Park Street, at one o’clock on Friday, 6 April.
“Blast,” Barker said. “The service was yesterday.”
“Are you going to solve the old man’s death, as well?” I asked him.
He looked from behind his copy of the London Morning Post.
“If I find the time,” he answered. “However, I’m thinking perhaps the two cases are related. Shall we visit the Grosvenor this morning?”
I nodded and went for my stick. Whenever the Guv says “shall we,” he actually means “we shall.”
The Grosvenor was a block of flats for well-to-do citizens and pensioners, although the building was far too grand to have been built for the purpose. It was a six-story building facing Hyde Park, surrounded by streets on every side. We alighted from our cab and went inside. The concierge stood at a desk in a small kiosk in the lobby. He looked up as we came into the building and set down the book in which he had been jotting notes.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked. From the nameplate on his desk, I noted his name was Ainsby. He could have been a pensioner himself, a man of sixty summers at least, with a mustache and scant hair combed to cover a bald patch.
Barker pulled a card from his pocket and presented it. “We are private enquiry agents, Mr. Ainsby, and are currently investigating the death of Mr. Jubal Slidell. Were you acquainted with the gentleman?”
“Bless me, yes,” the man replied. “He was quite an interesting gentleman and a bit of a celebrity here at the Grosvenor.”
“Were you aware of his connection to the Trent Affair?”
The concierge nodded vigorously. “He must have told me the story thirty times. It was his favorite subject. Still, he was a genial fellow, so one couldn’t fault him. Always dressed well, helpful to the other residents. We called him the Senator, of course. He was well-spoken for an American, he was. Took a constitutional every morning, rain or shine, snow or wind. He was quite a fellow. We’ll miss him here at the Grosvenor.”
“The service was yesterday, I understand,” Barker continued, brushing his mustache with his hand. “Was it well attended?”
“It was, sir.”
“Were you present, yourself, Mr. Ainsby?”
“I was there for parts of it,” he replied. “I was working at the desk as well, to help residents find their seats.”
“Of course,” the Guv answered. “I assume Mrs. Morgan and her husband attended her father’s funeral.”
“Certainly.”
The Guv nodded. “Did you perhaps note a group of men in attendance, four of them, one with a heavy beard?”
“I saw three men I did not know, sir,” Ainsby replied. “They did not appear to know anyone in attendance, as far as I could see. They were very respectful and brought some kind of flag to put on the coffin. Mr. Slidell would have been proud that his countrymen came to see him off for his service to his country.”
“Were you anywhere near him when the accident occurred?”
Surreptitiously, I slipped a pound note to our witness, if one could call him that.
“I was right here,” Ainsby said, tapping his desk with his hand. “One of the residents came upon him in Grosvenor Street and hurried in to tell me. I ran out and found him just as the man gave up the ghost.”
“Did he say anything to you?” the Guv pressed.
“He mumbled something as I arrived, but I couldn’t make it out,” the man said. “The senator went very quickly, sir. He didn’t bleed a lot, although his suit was sullied by the carriage that hit him. I’d say he died like a gentleman. He’d been declining over the past year, and the way I see it, he’d have preferred a quick death to wasting away in a bed, if you get my meaning. I mean, it was murder, plain and simple, and the cab run off, but he kept his dignity.”
Barker nodded. “I see. Which street was he on when he was struck?”
“Grosvenor Street, sir, by the back entrance,” Ainsby said. “It was most unfortunate. We’d have had a hundred witnesses if it had happened around front.”
“I know this is a delicate question, but it is very necessary that we speak to his next of kin,” the Guv stated. “Is there an address or a postal box where we can get in touch with his daughter and her husband?”
The man’s back stiffened and he frowned, staring at Barker, who deserves staring at. I slid another note across the counter. He reached for a pencil and wrote an address, handing it to Barker.
We thanked him and left the building, turning left and then left again until we found ourselves at the scene of the accident. There was a small rusty stain on the ground and a corner of the back balustrade had a fresh chip in it. Barker lowered himself down onto his haunches and put his palm on the pavement. I’ve tried such a maneuver several times and invariably failed.
“You see this square-shaped mark here, Thomas?” he asked. “It’s where Scotland Yard has measured the distance and angle of the attack. That’s what it was, lad, an attack. The murder of a ninety-two-year-old man.”
“The Americans who attended his funeral were either connected to the Trent Affair, or members of Woodson’s delegation, or both.”
“That is correct,” Barker said. “Otherwise, it would be a coincidence, and you know I do not believe in coincidences.”
He stepped backward to the road. “Look, here’s where the wheels jumped the curb. You can see the fresh grooves. Over here is the place where the vehicle dropped off the pavement. Perhaps twenty feet. The cab pulled off the street, crossed to there, struck the old fellow, pushed him to the wall and partially crushed him, then jumped down into the street again and continued on its way.”
“It would seem that three of the Confederates attended the funeral,” I stated, glancing at the Guv. “Do you suppose he was an old comrade of theirs or was there a more sinister reason? And should we talk to Scotland Yard?”
Barker shook his head. “I imagine Pierce and the Home Office would prefer to keep this matter to themselves.”
“What about the Templars?” I asked. “Are they looking into the matter, or do they even do such a thing?”
“Why do you think I’m standing here?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll conjecture a cabman in this city has lost a vehicle, not to mention an income,” he said. “I believe the delegation stole it and now that it has served its purpose, they won’t want to feed the horse. The cabman will find it soon, wondering about the condition it is in. Let’s visit Mrs. Morgan, then.”
Sixty-six Ferndale Road is a quiet neighborhood in Clapham. The trees were full grown, but although it was an older area, every citizen did their best to keep up appearances. Barker looked approvingly at the line of maples in front of the homes, all obviously planted at once, all of them well tended. We climbed a grassy incline in front of an attractive stone house with a wooden portico in front and reached the door.
“Do you have your pencil, Thomas?” the Guv asked.
Wordlessly, I handed it to him. He pulled another card from his pocket and prepared to write.
“Let me do that,” I said. “No one can read your handwriting.”
He frowned, ready to argue, but handed it over just the same.
“What shall I put down?” I asked.
“‘Concerning your father’s death’ sounds appropriate,” he murmured. “Let’s remove our hats, lad.”
We knocked upon the door. A maid answered and I gave her the card. It was almost a full five minutes before Slidell’s daughter came to the door.
“Good afternoon,” she said, a trifle warily.
“Good afternoon, madam,” my partner said. “I am Cyrus Barker, and this is my partner, Thomas Llewelyn. We are private enquiry agents.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “But I don’t need an enquiry agent.”
“I’m not here to offer my services,” he answered. “I want to discuss the Americans who attended your father’s funeral.”
“Oh, them,” she said dismissively. “I didn’t invite them. They just came to the service. I don’t know who they are, or who you are, for that matter. You could be journalists for all I know, or worse. I’m not letting you into my house.”
“That is your privilege, Mrs. Morgan,” the Guv continued. “There is a tea shop down the street. May we buy a cup of tea for you?”
“I can purchase my own tea, thank you.”
She was obstinate, I thought, but then if I saw a man like Barker at my door, I wouldn’t let him in, either.
“I’m here to ask a few questions about the RMS Trent,” the Guv said. “Nothing more recent than that.”
“That I wish had never happened,” Abigail Morgan said, firmly. “It all but killed my father, Mr. Barker. He was never the same afterward. He had his first stroke within a year of the incident.”
We stood and said nothing. Barker might as well have been built from the very stone that comprised the walk and the house.
“Very well,” she said, relenting. “Let me get my coat then. I could do with a cup of tea, I suppose.”
She closed the door in our faces and the Guv and I looked at each other. There was a possibility that she wouldn’t come out again. He could stand there until the neighbors grew concerned and called a constable. However, a minute later, Mrs. Morgan appeared in the doorway and closed the door behind her.
An A.B.C. tearoom was just a street away, and we didn’t talk the entire way there. I tend to chatter sometimes to fill the void in a conversation, but Barker never does. Finally, we entered the building. Mrs. Morgan requested Darjeeling, Barker green tea, and I ordered coffee. I consider tea a kind of soup.
“Mrs. Morgan,” Barker said when we were seated at a table. “How old were you during the events of the Trent Affair?”
“It was a few weeks before my sixteenth birthday,” she replied. “I remember it quite well. It was an emotional time for my family. I’m afraid I engaged in a shouting match with the American captain of the other ship. His name was Wilkes. I called him a pirate, as a matter of fact. My blood was up, and I’m a terror when my blood is up.”
“Was your entire family on the Trent?”
“We were,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “We were going to move to England. After the treaty, my father was supposed to become the Confederate Ambassador to Great Britain.”
“What do you know of the treaty?”
“My father gave it to the British mail agent, who agreed to hide it with some other papers, any one of which could have had him imprisoned,” she replied, turning the teacup in the saucer. “Mr. Mason, the other envoy, was every bit as belligerent as Captain Wilkes of the San Jacinto. The men tried to keep them apart, for if they met it would have only made things worse. My father counseled them all to keep calm, but my mother was hysterical, and I was ready to defend her and my sisters with any weapon to hand. It was the wrong tack, however, because my father came out to defend us and he surrendered. Later, he said it would blow up in Wilkes’s face. He happened to be right.”
Barker set down his cup. “Did Wilkes appear to have known there was a treaty on the ship?”
“No,” she replied. “He just wanted to bring my father and Mr. Mason to port to make himself a hero. He was old, you see, and this was his last chance. No one had ordered him to arrest us.”
“What became of the treaty?” Barker asked, frowning. “I’m speaking of the actual document itself.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “The RMS Trent went on to England without us, since Wilkes and his crew were too ignorant to look in the mail room. It was a Royal Mail ship, after all. It was picked up by some Confederate representatives in Europe.”
“You already had representatives in England?”
“Of course,” she said. “My father had been working for months to forge an alliance with England. When news reached Europe that we had been forcibly removed from an English ship, Britain went mad. The entire country wanted to declare war on the United States. I heard plans were made. Supplies and soldiers, even large weapons, were going to be sent to Canada. Ships in the West Indies would be converted to vessels of war. Australia would send ships to California and England would attack New York and Boston directly. Mexico and Latin America would be taken by the Confederates. America would be surrounded.”
“What happened to stop it?” I asked.
“Cooler heads prevailed,” she replied. “Lord Palmerston’s, that is. He ground every plan to a halt. A major war over one insult to Britain’s honor was ill-advised. My father agreed. It would end, he said, without bloodshed, and it did, just as he said.”
“All because of your father and Mr. Mason,” I remarked.
“Neither of whom did anything to cause this event and never became diplomats, let alone ambassadors.”
“What of the treaty, then?” Barker asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t know, gentlemen,” Mrs. Morgan said. “My father never said. When the war was over, the Americans hated him and so we left for England. I married an Englishman and will never return.”
“What sort of man was your father?” I asked.
She raised her teacup to her lips and then put it down again, forgotten. “My father had a strict sense of right and wrong, gentlemen. My mother always told him he should have been a judge. If there was the least part about the treaty or proceedings he found objectionable, he wouldn’t sign it, and not even Jefferson Davis himself could make him do it.”
“Your father sounded an admirable fellow,” Cyrus Barker said. “Men with the courage of their convictions are rare upon this earth.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barker.”
