He wished for Julia again, and then unwished for her. He congratulated himself instead on sending her away. Then his warm confidence faded as he wondered: was Maryland far enough?
Still fidgeting and fretting, the girl added, “They say another colored man did it, sir. ”
He frowned. “I’m sorry, come again?”
“That scientist. I think you know him. Been living over with the Lincolns, I think. ”
“Bardsley…? No, I don’t think so. Not for a moment. They didn’t even know one another, and if they did, there would be no reason … no reason at all for Bardsley to…”
But the story was already arranging itself in his head. No, there was no reason for the scientist to kill an old couple in a small house. But there might be an excellent reason for someone else to raise the question—to cast suspicion, and remove credibility.
Grant had seen the editorial. He’d read it himself, and his skin had crawled. He’d felt it then, too, the coming battle. Gideon Bardsley. The walking plague. Project Maynard. The Fiddlehead. All these things, bubbling together and finding their way into print, into the public. Into the light, for scrutiny.
Readers were talking. Editors were talking. Last he’d heard from Abe, the warning letter was about to run in New York. That’d drum up some real interest, wouldn’t it? A thousand paperboys crying out, screaming the truth on the busiest streets in the world.
Unless.
Unless the truth was coming from a known murderer. Sometimes the answers are so simple.
“And sir? A message. I’m sorry, I almost forgot it. ” She came forward, holding a scrap of folded paper in trembling hands. “A lady gave it to me, and said I should give it to you. She said it was important, but I was so … I heard about Andrews, sir, that’s all. I only just now remembered. ”
“It’s fine,” he lied. He took it from her hands and read.
Even the smallest actions of great men come with tremendous consequences. Now hold still and be careful not to touch anything else. I can take more from you than your pawns. Baltimore isn’t so far off.
“You can’t threaten me,” he said to the note, or to the woman who must have written it.
The serving girl gave him a puzzled look. “Sir?”
“Not you, dear,” he replied without taking his eyes off the page. “Not you. But I want you to do something for me. I want you to tell the agent outside that I’m retiring for the night. Tell him to stay where he is, and his relief should remain downstairs, too, for I’m not feeling well. Then build me a stack of pillows in my bed, and don’t say a word when I leave through the kitchen. ”
Fourteen
“How does it look?” Gideon called to Nelson Wellers from the ruined basement of the Jefferson. He could smell a storm brewing even down there, below the surface; the cold, shifting winds whistled through holes in the floor and spit through the remains of the scientist’s printer upstairs. They rustled the ashes of paper, and scattered the broken press keys like so many pebbles.
The doctor cried back, “As bad as before, if less cluttered. They’ve been taking away the trash, at least. Getting the place cleaned up. ”
Gideon shuttered the lantern and stepped past a pile of cables, a stack of paper, and a splintered set of desk drawers. “Getting dark, isn’t it?”
“Starting to. The weather isn’t helping. Can you see all right?”
“Yes. ”
“How bad is it down there?”
“Bad. ” He looked up through the hole above, and imagined he felt a drop of very cold rain. A second spitting drop very nearly convinced him, but when he didn’t feel a third, he began to hope it was a fluke. “How much waxed canvas did you get?”
“Enough, I hope. ”
“That’s a miserable answer. ”
Wellers sighed. “Fine. It’s … a stack of sheets about a foot thick. Each one is about … I don’t know. Twenty by thirty. Lincoln said it was all Smithy could scare up on such short notice, so it’ll have to do. I’m sure it’ll cover the machine. ”
“The machine, yes. The floor above it … that remains to be seen. ” He performed some rough calculations in his head, and guessed the square footage he could cover. “We can deploy the sheets and weigh them down; might be able to save a few things that way. But we won’t be able to waterproof this lower level. Rain will drain down and pool in the mechanisms. Ice or snow will be heavy, and melt. Then the water will freeze, and smash it apart from the inside. ”
“Always a ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Gideon?”
“A very practical ray of sunshine, yes. We should start at the southwest corner,” he directed.