The Technologists (24 page)

While the tailor cornered his customer by the mirror, Marcus stepped quietly into a back room under the eaves. From inside his coat, he pulled out a switchblade. He peered back into the other room, where Bob regaled the tailor with stories of some legendary Phillips Exeter football game. Marcus gestured to Bob with an upward moving hand. Bob saw his drift, pitching his voice louder.

The window under the eaves was partially opened. Marcus lifted it higher and stepped carefully out onto the ledge. His balance was precarious at first on the sloping shingled roof, but he managed to pull himself
completely out and then up to the narrow, flat top. On an ordinary day, the sight of a man standing high on the Old State House would have attracted attention and speculation. He counted on the fact that the laborers spilling up and down the street making repairs in, around, and on top of buildings would sufficiently disguise his activity. Above him, at the height of the tower on the roof, the flags of each of the Boston newspapers rolled and unrolled in the breeze, staking their claims for public attention. It was a clear, chilly day. Below him, he was struck by the many distinct noises he could hear—snatches of conversation, the shouts of workmen, the racket of horses and wagons. But no music, he noticed. No piano playing from any windows, and certainly no organ grinders. These were not welcome among the strict commerce conducted here.

He put one foot in front of another across the center line of the roof until he reached the edge overlooking State Street. Crouching, he leaned over the gold-plated clock that had faithfully kept time for the inhabitants of this crucial quarter of the city—until the day time had ceased. That day, the glass of the clock had melted over its face, obscuring and locking down the hands.

Locking time
, Marcus thought to himself. Lying flat on his stomach, he reached down and carved off portions of the discolored crust of glass bit by bit. He hoped Bob was keeping the tailor busy. If not, the next face he might see would be that of a Boston policeman.

Reaching down, he maneuvered his hand through the melted glass until he could feel the Roman numbers of the clock face and the clock’s hands. He pulled his arm out and mopped his brow with his sleeve.

Retracing his steps over the roof and back through the window into the tailor’s office, he found he had nothing to worry about—he could have crashed through the roof without the old man noticing. Bob had the tailor enthralled, and was now in the midst of rich gossip about the finer Boston Brahmin families.

When Bob saw Marcus had returned, he declared to the tailor that he had to call on a young, pretty, and eminently wealthy young woman and her family to continue a great love affair, the prospect of which the tailor approved heartily.

“Dear me!” the tailor said as they took their leave. “But you never said your name.”

“Many apologies, my good fellow. I am William Blaikie, stroke oar and First Scholar of Harvard ’68. You may add the charges for the suits on the Blaikie credit, of course. To borrow is human, to pay back, divine.”

“Indeed, Master Blaikie!” said the tailor playfully. “And give my regards to the Lowells and the Abbotts at the next mask ball, will you please?”

“Suits?” Marcus asked when they were coming down the stairs.

“Three, for good measure,” Bob said, nodding. “Only the most fashionable for Blaikie for his summer in Newport.”

“I see you had no problem keeping the old fellow’s attention.”

“Did you know the word
respectable
is used in Boston more than anywhere else in the world, Mansfield? Once you know that, you know everything.”

As they exited the building, there was a young boy who had been loitering on their way in, now slumped on the steps to one of the office buildings under repair.

“On with ya!” growled a workman, throwing a brick out a window. Scurrying away, the boy almost knocked into Bob.

“Whoa there, lad!” he said, grabbing the boy by the shoulder. “You shouldn’t hang around while these repairs are made. It’s hard company.”

“What do you know, you blasted swell?” the boy demanded, pushing with both hands against Bob’s strong chest. “I belong ’ere more than you, I bet!”

Bob chuckled and continued down the street.

Marcus motioned with one finger for Bob to wait.

“I thought we were in a hurry, Mansfield,” Bob complained.

“If he believes he belongs here, this is probably not his first visit,” Marcus said. “Did you notice his arm when he pushed you?”

Bob shrugged. “Lame. What of it?”

Marcus turned back to the boy and stretched his hand out. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Theophilus,” the boy said, spitting the word out. “Theo, for short,” he said in a softer voice, belatedly accepting Marcus’s waiting hand and giving it a light shake.

“Theo,” Marcus repeated approvingly. He was studying him. “Theo, my name is Marcus.”

“Come on, Mansfield, what could he know?” Bob urged.

“More than you, I’d wager, you hog in togs!” the boy rejoined, snapping his cap at him.

“Really? And how much would a lad like you possess to wager?” Bob replied.

“This is my good friend Bob,” Marcus interrupted.

“Well, he has a mouth on ’im, bless ’im!”

“Hold on there, you little scamp!”

“He does at that, Theo.” Marcus smiled. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

The boy shrugged, a shadow passing over his haggard face. With a heavy sigh, he looked down at his right arm and began rotating his hand limply. There was a thick band of scars around it. His face contorted into a wince. “Some weeks back now. Wrist hurt bad,” he murmured, holding back a sob.

Bob raised an eyebrow when the boy named the time of his injury. Marcus knelt down to Theo’s level and put his hands gently on his shoulders. “Were you inside one of these buildings when that happened? This one?” he said of the edifice nearest where the boy had been loitering.

Theo nodded. “Best bank porter Front Merchants’ has ever had. Then the glass … My hand got stuck in the window when the glass, because I …” He paused once more, his lips trying to pluck the right words. “I wanted to touch it. Can’t use that hand much now, but the doctors say in a few months, maybe even just three … Not as bad as Mr. Goodnow, who can’t see right much out of one eye anymore after his spectacles melted into it. Well, I’ll be here to claim my position back soon as I’m strong again!”

“Do you remember anything different in those days before it happened?” Marcus asked.

“Different?” Theo asked.

Marcus looked to Bob for help. “Anyone unusual around these streets, for instance?” Bob inquired. “You greeted customers when they came to the bank?”

“Sure I did. Took their hats, that kind of thing,” he said forlornly.

“Anyone who might have been witness to any unusual activity?”

“I ’member someone the day
before
it all happened—a workin’-man repairing the fireplugs—I saw him there that morning, then through the window later in the day at a different plug.”

“If he was in the street that long, the workman might have seen something. Would you recognize that workman if you saw him again?” asked Bob.

“Nah. Didn’t know ’im and didn’t stop to look at ’im closely.”

“Do you remember anything about him?”

“Nah.”

“What about inside the bank? Did anyone leave an impression, or mention anything strange they had seen?” Marcus asked quickly, sensing the boy was growing bored of the interrogation.

“Not too much,” Theo replied, shrugging his shoulders again but still warming to their attention. “Well, Mr. Cheshire, the stock merchant, he was there that mornin’, and I remember he talked to me about the harbor. The compasses.”

“The compasses?” Bob asked.

“Remember,” Marcus said to Bob as he rose to his feet, “the compass manipulation had just been reported in the evening editions the night before State Street. I’m beginning to think the experimenter didn’t want to step on his own shadow. He waited until the city had learned more about what happened at the harbor and was properly terrified about it, before he unleashed his second maneuver.”

“ ’Course, he’s dead now,” mumbled Theo, oblivious to Marcus’s theorizing.

“Who?” Marcus asked. Seeing the lad’s reluctance to continue, he added, “We’re friends now, aren’t we, Theo? Who did you mean?”

“Mr. Cheshire! I ’eard he was trampled to death in the stampedin’ to flee from here. He was as gentle and kind a man—well, not so gentle and not always kind, really, but a rich man, a friend of mine, I’d say, who oftentimes remembered me by name and always gave a coin or two when I served him well. And if a man as great as Mr. Cheshire can be killed, why, all State Street can die.”

As Theo stifled a tear for the lost stockbroker, a man in a sackcloth
suit wheeling a supply of bricks grabbed the boy by the back of the collar. “I told you to scram! I’ll mix you in with the cement, you stay a minute longer!”

“Leave him alone,” Marcus said, stepping between them.

But Theo slipped out of the man’s grasp and dashed down the street.

“Wait! Theophilus!” But then Marcus was grabbed by the same man.

“I’ve seen you.”

“Hands off,” Marcus said.

The speaker, ruddy and powerful, had an oily mustache that could double for the bristles of a blacking brush. “Right—I knew I’d seen that phiz of yours before. At the lighting demonstration. You’re one of the boys from that technology college.”

It was one of Roland Rapler’s unionists. Marcus wrested away his arm but made no reply.

“You must be mistaken, sir,” Bob intervened. “We’re just visiting Boston for the week from New York.”

“Visiting this particular quarter, you are?” demanded the laborer with a taunting air. “You and your school can make all the machines you want, but when disaster happens, we’re the ones to save the buildings, the harbors, the livelihoods of your fathers and brothers. You should be out to help us, not the machines.”

“Good afternoon,” Marcus said.

He and Bob hurried away. Behind them, the man cupped his mouth with his hands and shouted, “Take care of the little lassie helping you, collegey!”

“What did he say?” Marcus said, his face flushed red with anger as he wheeled around.

“Hush, Mansfield—remember what Hammie told you,” Bob said, catching his arm. “They are all brag. Damned agitator doesn’t even know who you are.”

But Marcus started back toward the much larger man. Bob managed to restrain him before he could reach him.

“It was a threat, Bob. To Agnes. He must have seen me with her at the wharves.”

“Take a deep breath now! All brag, right? Remember, they are adept at making people believe they know more than they do.”

Marcus calmed down. Bob was right, of course. The man now returned to his work, muttering to himself.

“So, then,” Bob said when Marcus had grown calmer, and they were on their way again. “So.”

“What?” Marcus asked with pointed irritation.

“That Irish serving girl at Rogers’s. You saw her at the harbor?”

“Yes. After I visited Beal, I happened upon her.”

“Is she your ‘lassie’ now?”

“I would be lucky if I were to say yes. But no, she hardly knows me.”

“She is a biddy. A housemaid!”

“She does what she must, Bob, so she and her family can eat.”

“Take no offense! But you remember that young lady, a Miss Lydia Campbell, I introduced you to in the Public Garden a few months ago. She is not only a stunner; she and her sisters hail from one of the great families. I know you want to make your way in Boston, and a wife is what defines a man in the city. I saw her again recently and was talking you up to the sky.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that, Bob. Tell me, with all your generous advice, why don’t you court one of the fair Miss Campbells, then?”

“I!” Bob asked, titling his head back thoughtfully. “I, you ask? You have ambition, Mansfield. Understand, I was born respectable, and must find my way from it somehow. That rare girl who can mesmerize me is out there.”

“You have met her?”

“No, but I shall find her if I must kiss every pair of female lips in the kingdom of Boston to do so.”

When they reached the next street, Marcus turned in to an alley, where he removed a city directory from the pocket of his coat.

“I’m sure as a gun no one is listening now. What were we looking for at the Old State House?” Bob asked.

“Fourteen minutes past ten,” Marcus said. “The time on the clock above the building.”

“And you didn’t plunge to your death to find it. What does it tell us, though?”

“If my idea works, it tells us our first of many numbers. We have more places to go, Bob, and we’ll need your best foot forward. Come, look this over with me.”

If they had known about another pair of eyes watching them, through the lens of a powerful spyglass, they would not have lingered even in the shadows of the alley.

H
OW HE EVER FOUND HIMSELF
floundering like this, he could not say. Seven years as a policeman in the first and finest department in the country, two years and counting in the role of a sergeant. He considered his varied experiences quite valuable. Yet nothing from his past seemed to apply to what he now saw before his eyes.