Honor's Kingdom (19 page)

Let that bide.

I bought a paper cone of Spanish oranges and retreated toward Hyde Park. Oh, I had things to do and visits to make, Sunday though it was. But first I wished to have a little peace. To sit upon the grass and read
The Times
, which I had bought the day before and found no time to open. I did not want to think about the murders and such like, not for a little while yet. For I have learned a man can think too hard. Sometimes, when I have failed to look through things, I find it does me good to have a wander. Then, bursting out of nowhere, the missing bit I need will take its place. Thoughts are like young girls, see, and like to surprise us and come unbidden, though flummox us they do when we pursue them. I do not mean that improperly, you understand.

Then I was wounded, most unexpectedly, though not in the flesh.

The air was fresh and not as sooty, for the manufactories down the Thames did not pour smoke on Sunday, and the breeze kept off the river’s sewer smell. Open carriages streamed along Piccadilly, filled with bouquets of girls and the thorny mothers from whom they stemmed. The street seemed a rolling garden of roses, with parasols for petals and blooms of every hue of dyer’s cloth. I noted that magenta was still fashionable and thought I should inform my Mary Myfanwy, who had undertaken a dressmaking enterprise back in Pottsville. The latest pattern books I would buy her, too, for the ladies of Pottsville like to go in style and think our town the center of the world.

A crisp young man trotted by on a horse as sleek as his master’s boots. Oh, wasn’t there a great tipping of hats and nodding of heads, as gentlemen greeted each other or a nosegay of ladies passed them by in a fine caleche or an elegant britzka with the canvas down? Handkerchiefs fluttered like butterflies strayed to town. And all these society folk were but the few who had not gone to the country for the week’s end.

So gay it seemed! A far cry it was from the pleasures of Eastcheap Street, yet all these things sum up to make a city. And London was the city of them all.

Nor were these hours only for the wealthy. The working poor, got up in their Sunday propers, headed for the parks in family platoons, and strolling pairs of chums tugged their coatsleeves down over worn cuffs. Only, look you. There was ever a timidness to those of lesser fortune, as though the rich might notice them and call a policeman to send them on their way. They always gave way on the sidewalks, the poor folk did, and seemed prepared to flee at any moment. It is a thing of wonder how America changes a fellow’s view of the world. Although our parks are not so fine, they are for every man. And each man knows it, and ready he is to tell you.

With the park spread green before me and half of London sauntering its paths, I spied young Mr. Adams coming toward me. He was bantering with a handsome group of acquaintances, all of them laughing in the quiet way gentlemen do. Then Henry Adams saw me plumb ahead. And didn’t he turn the pack of them onto a side path?

Not once did he look back or hint a greeting. I might have been the serpent in the Garden, the way I worried him.

It saddened me. Now, I am not a grand fellow in appearance, but I keep myself clean and tidy. And Henry Adams was no English lord, but an American. Given his lineage, he should have been a good one. I did not wish to join his swank companions—only to be polite, see. But he would not pass a simple hello with a fellow such as me. Not if his English friends were by to witness it.

Now, you will say: “You should not be so proud. Better to be humble and turn the other cheek, like an honest Christian.” But I will tell you: Each of us has something he is proud of, and I was proud to have become an American. Ours is a splendid country, see, as near to Heaven as this earth allows. And I wish to believe all of its promises, not least that we are equal in our dignities. Yes, I am proud of that. And I have done what I could
for our good country, in war, when I would have liked to stay at home. And that young pup avoided me like a beggar.

Scorned.
That is the word for how he made me feel. I burned inside to give that boy a lesson.

Well, let that bide. His father seemed a good man, and he it was who served as my commander, so to speak. And how the time was running away with every step I walked! Soon enough my Sunday would be gone. I had a call to make, on a business matter, but yearned for a bit of quiet Sunday leisure before resuming my endeavors. I told myself that I might take two hours.

I could not sit upon a bench, for fear of robbing a lady of her repose, should she wish to take it, so I spanked the last rain and dew from a stretch of grass and sat me down. Twas a great relief, for London is large and I had walked enough to bother my leg, which had been annoyed by the scrap in Clobber Alley. My bad leg had not failed in the fight, but now it wanted thanks.

I had an orange, and then another, savoring each burst of juice and the scent left on my fingertips. Finally, I opened up my newspaper.

Temptations aplenty there were. Not only did the International Exhibition spread out before my eyes, just across the Serpentine in the Kensington Gardens, but
The Times
told of a miraculous display at the Royal Colosseum where, for a shilling—which seemed to be the price of everything this side of Eastcheap—a spectator might admire dioramas of London by day and Paris by night, although a Methodist would skip the latter. Much of the news was commercial, rife with cotton worries. Indian prices had been driven up sharply. Of ships departing for India and similar parts, there was a plentitude. I counted eight vessels listed for Bombay, with fourteen for Calcutta—which made my heart come up—and two destined for Madras. Other ports of call included Rangoon and Kurrachee, Colombo, Singapore and Hong Kong, which is in China. Even the shipping lists were evidence of Britain’s might and majesty.

I noted in the business news from America that railway shares were active and gaining value. That buoyed me, for I had holdings in a pair of railroads. Not as speculation, of course, but as honorable investments in the future.

News of our war there was, so much that the volume surprised me. Our English brethren certainly took an interest. I fear we read of war as women gossip, to enjoy the bitter misery of others.

But to the war.

General Halleck’s authority had been greatly expanded in the west, and I hoped that might prove good news for General Grant, who had grit. Beauregard was at Tupelo and disorganized, although another report placed him at Grenada. The Rebels had retreated from Corinth, anyway, burning all that was useful as they left. Shiloh, as I knew, had left them bereft. I hoped that we would strike while we had an advantage, for Beauregard was no more than a peacock, but I read in the following lines that Halleck believed the Confederates superior in numbers to his own force. That was tosh, for I had seen them myself, and a sorry lot they were, if brave in a ruckus. But we had cautious generals by the dozen. The sort who will not lose, but cannot win.

The news out of Virginia was discouraging. McClellan was stymied before Richmond, after taking a great army south by sea.
The Times
said the general “declares that he is not in sufficient force to resume the offensive.” Now, I will tell you what such statements mean: They mean a preening general is uncertain, and that the lives lost up to then are wasted.

I never have understood this business of calculating numbers in a battle. But then I was shaped by India, where you just pitched in and gave the devil to anyone in your way. We had to win, and we knew it. So we did.

In a little country town called Warrenton, a guerrilla party had raided the Union garrison, to great discomfiture. And there was high praise for the Confederate fellow Jackson, who had been marching all over Virginia. Finally, the newspaper
gave grudging applause to Admiral Farragut, who had captured New Orleans for our Union in a masterstroke some weeks before. Twas clear enough
The Times
did not like Yankees, but they would not belittle things done proper.

I was just about to fold up the paper and rest my eyes on the clouds, when a bold-faced advertisement caught my eye. Twas for the Great Northern Railway, reminding travellers of the express train that had been running on the East Coast Route. Leaving King’s Cross Station at ten in the morning, it daily reached Edinburgh at eight-thirty in the evening and Glasgow at ten-thirty. Now, that was a speed near miraculous, and Glasgow had been on my mind, of course. But it was not even the remarkable velocity of modern transport to Scotland that straightened my back and opened my eyes and pierced me.

There was, the advertisement said, “an interval of twenty minutes allowed at York for dinners.”

York.
Where the second agent’s body had been found. I had almost forgotten those murders that had passed before my coming. But now I recalled the bafflement of Mr. Adams, who could not understand how our agent might have found himself in York.

The poor fellow had not
meant
to go to York. His body had been taken there by train! There it was before me, plain as could be: Three agents killed, including Mr. Campbell. One found in Glasgow, at the northern terminus, one at York, where the express paused for dinner, and one in London at the southern terminus.

There you have the good and bad of progress: Men may leave London after breakfast and sleep in a bed in distant Glasgow. And murderers can place bodies wherever they want them, with incredible speed. Face to face I was with modern crime.

I wanted to run to Mr. Adams, but he was still in the country, according to his manservant. And yes, his son’s unpleasantness crossed my mind again, for I could not think of one without the other. But twas the father to whom I needed to speak. For here, at last, I had one bit of information that had not been dangled
before me by conspirators. Finally, I had scratched up a hint on my own. I had no other fact that could be trusted entirely, but I knew at last how the corpses had been shunted about. As if they were on holiday, it was.

They, whoever they might be, had placed a body at York because it was an easy way to confuse us, given the speed and convenience of the railway. Kill a fellow in Scotland, and his carcass is still warm when you deposit him in the Yorkshire Dales. That is progress, I suppose. I suspected they had played the same sort of trick with the Reverend Mr. Campbell, dropping him in London to lead us astray. No, the first man had been found in Glasgow, and that was where I wished to take me next. For all three men might have perished in that city.

If any of the dead agents had been left on the spot of their demise, it seemed to me it would have been the first victim, before the conspirators had elaborated their plans and identified engines for their realization. Of the twin teasings I had been given in London—one tempting me to stay, one pushing me to go to Scotland, and one of them surely false—I now believed I had the means to choose between them properly.

I had to go to Glasgow. But I could not go without our minister’s permission. And I feared I might not get it in time to catch that morning train, which would mean another day gone lost. Perhaps, more men, women and children would die for my amusement.

I wanted to go. I needed to go. I
had
to go.

Until that time, I had a call to pay.

THE POMEROY HOUSE WAS a grand affair, but the architecture interested me less than the address. It stood but a pistol shot from the spot in Regent’s Park where the boy’s body had been discovered. New suspicions piled upon the old.

The police at Bow Street station, who had developed a certain awareness of my relations with Inspector Wilkie, provided me with directions and I went by cab. My leg was much annoyed with me, and I with it. Now, I am a capable man. But, somehow
in the scrap I had turned or twisted awkwardly. The aching wearied me, and gave me a temper. How hard it is when our body disobeys us!

The cab was not entirely an indulgence, though, for it saved me a muchness of time. Away from the parks, the streets wore a Sunday vacancy and I reached the Pomeroy house at the hoped-for hour, just after tea, when a young man was likely to be home at his leisure, if not gone out to the country until Monday morning. Twas the lull before such folk put on evening dress to sit them down to dinner or go out.

The hall-porter raised his snoot at the very sight of me.

“Government matters,” I told him quick, and there was a good bit of truth in it. “I must see young Mr. Pomeroy, if he is in.”

The fellow did not like my looks, twas clear. But he merely said, “Shall I take in your card, sir?”

I did not have a card, see. For I am not accustomed to making high visits. Not even in America.

“Tell him it is Major Jones,” I said. “From the American legation.”

“Yes, sir. ‘Major Jones.’ ” He tasted the words and did not like their flavor. But he let me step into the cool gloom of the vestibule. His shoes clapped down the hall, leaving me in the care of an ancient dog that lifted an eyelid but could not lift itself.

Startling me, a door to my right tore open and a thick-cut man burst out. He had the look of a fellow happiest in the country with a horse and hounds or a shotgun, and it took me a moment to note the familial resemblance. And a moment was all he gave me.

He come out all a frightful storm of a man, clouding my view of the interior as he swept past. He liked my aspect less than did the servant.

“Who’re you?” he demanded. “Another damned Jew come after Reggie for money? Well, he won’t have a penny of mine to pay you bastards.”

And the fellow blew out the front door before I could respond. Muttering a monstrous insult to all Hebrews, he gave the oaken door a royal slam.

At first, I was nonplussed to be thought a Jew. For though some Welshmen will show dark, we have a look that would not be mistaken. Then I realized what the fellow meant, for the ways of the world are common. All men after debts were Jews to the elder Mr. Pomeroy. Those of us lower-born had less identity to him than did his hounds. It is a blindness found in every nation. Even in America, I fear.

And the fellow was right about one thing: I had come to collect a debt from his wastrel son, although I had no interest in his money.