The Clockwork Century: Fiddlehead Part 16

His visitor was a young woman. She was familiar, but it took him a moment to place her. He finally recalled her as a member of the housekeeping staff, but couldn't think of her name.

"Mr. President," she gasped, her breath lost somewhere down on the first floor, on another wing. Had she run the whole way? He thought so, from her rumpled dress and loosened bonnet. "It's Andrews."

He was honestly taken aback. Of all the subjects he'd expected to hear breathlessly broached, the old man was not among them.

"Andrews? What of him? He's gone home to his wife by now. Or maybe not; have you checked the kitchen?"

She swallowed hard, shook her head, and only just then noticed the gun. She mustered a "Sir? It's not that," but didn't ask if everything was all right. She knew otherwise, every bit as well as Grant did.

"Then what is it?" he prompted her.

"Sir, it's a terrible thing-him and Helen both, sir. Murdered!"

He nearly dropped the gun on the floor. Only years of training prevented it. It was that training, rather than any conscious instructions he could muster, that guided him as he slipped the gun into his right pocket. "I'm sorry, you'll have to ... what do you mean, murdered?"

Grant heard the p.r.i.c.kling pinpoints of hysteria in her voice when she replied, "Oh, Mr. President, I mean murdered with guns and knives! In their home. Helen made it out to the street for help, but then collapsed." She stepped inside the office and stood there before the door-still backlit, and casting a witchy puddle of shadow on the floor.

It wasn't hysteria that he felt oozing through the surface of his thoughts, but something colder and more numb. Something familiar.

This is what happens when it begins, when the last domino is pushed. When the hammer has dropped. This is the sound when the fuse is lit.

"Andrews," he said the man's name, not really believing it. Not choosing to believe it. Why Andrews? What did he have to do with anything? And how could the White House function without him? The man was an inst.i.tution. "And Helen, too," he added, only then realizing that the woman's name was all he knew about her. He'd seen her a handful of times, coming and going from the kitchen or laundry.

It hadn't always been like that. He hadn't always been the kind of man who knew nothing about the people who managed his life and home. Once he'd been a soldier, hadn't he? A good one. A great one. A serving man of a different sort.

When did it get away from him? Had it been bought with this distancing ease? Too many years riding on the shoulders of others?

"Sir? What should we do?" she asked him.

A pitiful question, yet one he couldn't answer. Send flowers? Console his family? Summon the authorities? A better suggestion, yes. "Have the appropriate authorities been called?"

Fiercely she nodded. "The police, sir. They're coming to talk to you, I think. Almost unseemly, one of 'em said, that they'd bother interviewing the president about a n.i.g.g.e.r, but it was Andrews, sir." The note of pleading nearly broke his heart. "You'll speak to them, won't you? You'll help them find out what happened?"

"Of course I will, and you mustn't hold any questions or ill will against the police. When a man's been murdered-any man-one must always investigate. Especially when he has such ties to ... to government. To the president."

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 sc.r.a.p 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 p.a.w.ns. 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 bas.e.m.e.nt of the Jefferson. He could smell a storm brewing even down there, below the surface; the cold, s.h.i.+fting 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 suns.h.i.+ne, aren't you, Gideon?"

"A very practical ray of suns.h.i.+ne, yes. We should start at the southwest corner," he directed.

"Is that where the worst of the damage is?"

"No, it's where the machine is. The worst of the damage is at the other end of the room, but we're running out of time."

"We'll do the best we can, and it'll be enough," Wellers said, insisting to himself-or maybe to Gideon, who couldn't see him and only halfway believed him. "I'll start unloading. Wait."

"What?"

"Wait," he said again, low and quiet, directed down the hole above Gideon's head. Then, to someone else: "Who goes there, eh? What can I do for you fine gentlemen this ... afternoon, I suppose. Though it looks rather like evening, more so every minute."

"That it does," came the response. Gideon didn't recognize the speaker. "We're looking for Gideon Bardsley, and have reason to think he might be here."

Wellers hesitated, but only for the briefest of moments. "Gideon? No, he's not here right now. He's back at the Lincoln place, I believe."

"You believe wrong."

"Wouldn't be the first time," the doctor said coolly. "What do you officers want with him? If you don't mind my asking."

Officers? Policemen, Gideon a.s.sumed. Couldn't be good. Why were they here? Could they be charging him with libel, over the editorial he'd written? He smiled darkly, thinking of the piece's reception; he'd heard that countereditorials were being drawn up and printed up even as he stood there. He'd already read one or two. But more than reb.u.t.tals, he saw calls for action. Statements of concern. Demands for answers. And the demands were growing louder with every pa.s.sing hour, much to his grim delight.

"He's wanted for murder."

Ah. Something else then. Something untrue. More untrue than libel, anyway. They weren't supposed to convict a man who spoke the truth, not that it necessarily stopped anyone. And as for murder? Innocent men were convicted every day.

So Dougla.s.s had been right. They were disgracing him, since they couldn't silence him any other way. He might've been flattered if he didn't feel so inconvenienced.

Nelson Wellers replied with a similar disbelief. "Murder? You can't be serious. Gideon never murdered anybody, and I'd very much like to see whatever evidence brings you out here to arrest him."

"Two witnesses have independently and confidently identified him, and the dead man himself wrote *GB' in his own blood, right beside his body. Besides that, part of his laboratory coat was found at the scene-a pocket, torn off in the victim's struggles."

Laboratory coat? Gideon shook his head. He almost never wore a coat in the lab, only the occasional ap.r.o.n or belt for his tools. To call the charges trumped up was to give them more credit than they deserved.

"That's preposterous!" Wellers said with exasperation. "You have no way of knowing whose coat, whose pocket..."

But one of the policemen snapped, "The specifics are none of your concern, unless you're giving quarter to a known fugitive. In that case, it's absolutely your concern, because it's evidence against you, as well. Now, where is he?"

"I surely have no idea."

"According to our sources, he left the Lincoln household with you. To come here. To do ... what are you doing, anyway?"

"You don't care, so what does it matter? You're looking for Gideon, and I haven't seen him. We parted company in town when we realized we didn't have enough supplies to perform our task. You might stop by C. T. Helman's s.h.i.+pping supplies."

"And why would we do that?"

"Because," Nelson said with an exaggerated note of impatience. "That's where we got the waxed canvas over there." He must have gestured at the cart. "And I'll answer your other question truly and on the house: We're trying to prevent damage to the bas.e.m.e.nt level, where some very sensitive scientific equipment is presently exposed to the elements. If you take a look at the sky, you'll see we have some elements pending. Any minute now."

"You've got a point. Maybe we should take a look at all this ... sensitive scientific equipment while we still can. It could be important to the case."

"I a.s.sure you, it isn't."

Gideon thought fast. Getting out of the bas.e.m.e.nt, that was the first priority. On the one hand, he wanted to swear at Wellers for bringing up the machine, but he couldn't stay there anyway, so the sooner he was out, the better.

He glared at the Fiddlehead, source of and solution to so many problems. Could it survive the night without being covered? Maybe. It'd held on this long, hadn't it? A week, plus a couple of days. But there had been no rain, no ice. Water might be the end of it. Simple moisture destroying the most complex machine a man had ever made. He was certain that said something about Mother Nature, or G.o.d, or fate, but he didn't give a d.a.m.n about any of them, so he seethed without remorse and didn't wonder after a deeper meaning.

But he couldn't save the machine if he was imprisoned or dead, now could he?

He seized a bit of waxed cotton canvas-the only bolt he'd brought down. He wrapped his hand in one corner and used it to snap his lantern in half, removing the simple circuitry from the bulb and examining it.

He frowned. The lantern was newfangled twenty years ago, before the electrical models. .h.i.t the market; but now it felt like a Roman artifact in his hands. No matter. He'd work with what he had.

He popped off the bottom, removed the metal base, and then extracted the gla.s.s canister of fuel that rested within. There wasn't much, but it'd have to be enough.

Ducking under a fallen plank, he scooted into the next room over, where it was almost pitch black. That made it hard to see, but even harder to be seen.

He worked fast, using his teeth to tear off the cuff of his s.h.i.+rtsleeve. He stuffed it down into the fuel, making a wick that he hoped was long enough. It had to be long enough, or he'd incinerate himself and the Fiddlehead alike.

There, crouched in the utmost darkness, he pulled a box of matches out of his pocket and struck one. He looked up at what used to be the ceiling, and targeted a pair of feet he could barely see, very near the edge of the bas.e.m.e.nt pit. They weren't Wellers's feet-Gideon was pretty sure that Wellers was facing the other direction.

He listened to the voices for another moment. Yes, he was confident.

With a deep breath and a steady hand, he lit the sc.r.a.p of cotton. It burned too bright, a beacon that would reveal him if he let it. The wick wouldn't last but a few precious seconds, and Wellers couldn't stall the men forever, so he chucked the tiny, slos.h.i.+ng bomb up through the floor as quickly as he could.

It shattered and the fuel ignited, spreading across the beams that remained. But it also spread out across the gra.s.s, a shallow pool of fire that chased the officers backwards while Wellers barked out something in surprise. A laugh? A cry?

Gideon wasn't listening. He was leaving.

Out he went, up the broken stairs and over the wall while the commotion blazed behind him. He hunkered down low, trusting the coagulating shadows and his grandfather's Revolutionary War coat to disguise him. He twisted his scarf around his neck, making it snug so it wouldn't flap or snag. And while Nelson Wellers and the officers stomped and tamped the flames against the damp gra.s.s, Gideon ran back out through the woods.

Yet again.

He was sick of it, but what else could he do? There were two kinds of help he could offer Wellers: one, he could physically a.s.sault the officers in question, thereby negating any murder defense; or, two, he could prove Wellers a truthful man by getting as far away from the premises as possible.

The last vestiges of Wellers's protest faded in the distance. Perhaps they'd arrest him, but it wouldn't be for murder-and there wasn't much Gideon could do about it either way. He had to trust the Pinkerton agent to manage the situation.

He hated trusting other people to take care of things without him. He'd much rather do everything himself.

But aside from absenting himself, the most helpful course of action he could take was to get to the Lincolns' homestead. Old Uncle Abe would probably know what was going on-he had ears all over the District, and Gideon had a feeling that these murders were already far from secret. Murder never stayed quiet for long.

As he dashed through the trees along the main road, he glanced at the sky. Was the air on his face wet, or merely cold? Was his nose running, or just freezing?

Whoever had thought of a murder charge was brilliant, really. When the facts align against you, loudly misdirect. Wonderful strategy. You could undermine anyone by calling them a lunatic or a murderer, especially a colored man whose respectability was precarious under the best of circ.u.mstances.

Even though the sentiments expressed in his editorial sounded outlandish, they were based on rock-solid, irrefutable facts. But all the proof in the world only mattered if it were known and accepted, which was rather unlikely if the proof came from a man accused of murder, especially what sounded like gruesome murders. Vicious, appalling, cruel, sick acts, undoubtedly-with the added lurid detail of a dead man's accusation, written in blood. How else would they call him a lunatic in the papers?

And on what other grounds might they take away his credibility? That he was colored? That he'd been a slave?

That was meaningless in the broad sense, but there were still fools who thought it mattered. Then again, such fools would dismiss him regardless of a murder accusation. No, this ploy was meant to sway the middle ma.s.ses, the men and women who might otherwise be inclined to panic about this creeping leprosy that spread through the soldiers and into the cities.