Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 6. Whole No. 766, June 2005

The Barber’s Toe by Edward D. Hoch

Alexander Swift, Revolutionary War spy and amateur sleuth, is one of Edward D. Hoch’s newer series characters, having debuted in EQMM in September ’95 (“The Hudson Chain”). The war over, Swift continues to hobnob with the celebrities of the age in this 1796 adventure featuring Washington and Adams. The incident with the barber’s toe, Mr. Hoch says, “is mentioned by John Adams in his diaries.”

It was with a certain sadness that Alexander Swift called upon President Washington for possibly the last time in September of 1796. He’d seen little of the President in recent months, and Washington’s decision not to seek a third term had set off a flurry of activity among both the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans.

“It is a delight to see you again, Alex,” the President said, greeting him with a firm handshake in the presidential office in Philadelphia. The date was September nineteenth, and he was about to depart for a few weeks at Mount Vernon. “How are Molly and young George?”

“Fine, sir, both of them. I was greatly moved by your Farewell Address in this morning’s newspaper, though I’m sorry to learn of your decision not to seek a third term. Now you will never reside in the new presidential mansion in the District of Columbia.”

Washington smiled sadly. “I leave that honor to my successor. Our new nation does not need another monarchy. Two terms are enough. Adams and Jefferson can battle it out.”

“I understand that John Adams has not been happy in his role as your Vice President.”

“He has complained to his wife Abigail that it is the most insignificant office man ever conceived, and I suppose there is some truth to that. But our nation is still young. I trust that in future generations the office will become more meaningful. Adams has another problem right now. As I understand it, someone from his past has threatened his life. He is quite concerned, and we have no official means of protecting him. I suggested you might be able to help.”

“Of course,” Alex said at once. “I’ll do what I can.”

“It would only be temporary. I suspect the threat will pass after the election.”

“You can’t think Jefferson’s people are behind this.”

Washington shook his head. “No, no — of course not. This is something far in the past. It is a bizarre story, but it is best you hear it from him.”

A meeting had been arranged with Adams for the following day. The Vice President was a small man, especially when compared to President Washington, and he had a small office. His round face was set off by tufts of gray hair on either side of a balding head. More a philosopher than a politician, Adams was known to have resented Jefferson’s drafting of the Declaration of Independence, a document he felt had taken much from his own Boston Declaration of Rights in 1772.

“How is your campaign going?” Alex asked after they exchanged pleasantries.

“It is just getting started, but I fear the Federalists are losing power, at least in New York. Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans are gaining on us. It will be a very close vote.” He seemed a bit weary as he spoke, looking all of his sixty years. “Since presidential candidates do not run for office with vice presidential candidates of their own choosing, it is possible that Jefferson and I might have to take office together as President and Vice President — if we are the two top vote-getters. But whoever wins, the country must come to grips with the increased naval threat from France and Britain. I feel we should avoid war with France at all costs.”

“President Washington said you were having a problem.”

“Yes, yes. A minor thing,” he said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “But he felt you might be of service to me. This all happened eighteen years ago, in March of seventeen seventy-eight, when I was aboard the frigate Boston, en route to France on a diplomatic mission for the Continental Congress. It was a long, rough voyage and I was seasick part of the time. We encountered and captured a British warship and had run-ins with the French as well. We had on board a French barber whose name I have forgotten, if I ever knew it. During one skirmish off the coast of Spain he tried to go below deck, contrary to orders. He scuffled with a sentinel and the man cut off the barber’s left big toe with his cutlass. For a brief time, there was ill will with the other Frenchmen on board, but we managed to calm them.”

“How has this event come back to trouble you?”

“The barber, apparently a man named Pierre Facon, is living in New York. Last week, after rumors of Washington’s impending retirement began to circulate and I let my candidacy be known, I received this threatening message. It was hand-delivered to my office by a street urchin.”

Alex took the message and read it. The handwriting was crabbed, difficult to decipher, and seemed to be in a combination of French and English. The writer accused Adams of having ordered the sentinel to cut off his toe, causing him to go through life with a painful limp. He ended the message with a promise of vengeance unless he was paid an unspecified sum of money.

“The maiming happened during a scuffle,” Adams insisted. “It was not deliberate.”

“In any event, why would he blame you, a mere passenger on the ship? It was not as if you were under arms.”

“It is a fact that I was carrying a musket at the time. I sometimes aided our forces by firing at enemy ships during an engagement. This barber may have objected to my actions. It is difficult to remember after so many years.”

Alex turned over the message, seeking an address. There seemed to be none, although the letter had been written on the back of a handbill for a boardinghouse on New York’s Greenwich Street. He knew the city well, having lived there with his first wife at the start of the Revolution. “I could go to New York if you wish, and try to find this fellow.”

“It would put me deeply in your debt if you could remove this threat. With the election looming, Abigail is already concerned for my safety. Offer the man money if he is in need of it.”

“I know it was eighteen years ago, but do you have any recollection of this Pierre Facon’s appearance?”

“A tall man, as I remember. Taller than me, at least. He’d be middle-aged by now. I hadn’t thought of him in years, didn’t even remember his name.”

“I doubt if you’re in any real danger,” Alex told the Vice President. “But I will attempt to find this French barber and deal with him.”

Adams seemed alarmed at his words. “I don’t want the poor man harmed.”

Alex laughed. “I am not a violent man, sir, as I’m sure the President has told you. During the war it was something else, but now I prefer peaceful resolutions to problems wherever possible.”

“When will you leave for New York?”

“Tomorrow. Perhaps a good conversation with Pierre Facon will settle the matter.”

It had been some years since Alexander Swift last visited New York. The nation’s capital had moved to a more central location in Philadelphia, and the city on the Hudson brought back unpleasant memories of his first wife, Amanda. She’d left him for a British officer, Major Jack Jordan, and when he was subsequently killed she’d married for a third time. Now a happily married husband and father himself, Alex had no desire to seek her out. He knew she now lived not far from Greenwich Street and he hoped their paths would not cross.

The coach had brought him to the ferry in New Jersey, and Alex crossed the Hudson River to land at the Cortlandt Street dock in late afternoon. It was only a few blocks up Greenwich Street to the Ring boardinghouse, the place advertised on the handbill in his pocket. It was a large house with three stories plus an attic, and could probably accommodate more than a dozen borders at a time. A wooden canopy stretched forward across the wide sidewalk to a street with a convenient water pump at the corner.

Alex carried a saddlebag with a few necessities in it. When he stopped at the desk inside the door, a middle-aged woman glanced up from her ledger and said, “I’m Mrs. Ring. Are you looking for a room?”

“I was to meet someone here. I’m not certain I have the right place.”

“What’s his name?” Her tone was almost indifferent, as if she didn’t care whether he stayed or left.

“Pierre Facon.”

“No one here by that name.”

“A Frenchman, middle-aged, walks with a limp.”

“Can’t help you,” she said, returning to her ledger.

“He might work as a barber.”

“There is a barber down in the next block,” she admitted. “He would be closed now, though.”

“Is that a place where you left this handbill?” he asked, showing her the printed side.

“It might have been.”

Alex took a room for the night, deciding it was useless to continue the search before morning. He paid in advance and she gave him a key, directing him to Room Seven on the second floor. The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable but he had slept on worse. Mostly he missed the pleasure of sleeping with Molly in their own bed back home.

Alex was up early, breakfasting on the meager fare offered by Mrs. Ring before venturing onto the street. The boardinghouse was quite close to the docks, and even at an early hour there were seamen about, some returning to their ships after a night in town. He spotted the striped barber pole in the next block and headed in that direction. The shop with its sign Dijon Barber was already open at eight in the morning, with a customer in the chair. A gold-headed cane stood against the wall by the customer’s coat.

The barber motioned him to have a seat, but instead he asked, “Is there a Pierre Facon who works here?”

The barber, a grizzled man in his forties with at least one gold tooth, shook his head. “I’m Matthew Dijon. I cut hair as well as he does.”

“I’m sure you do. Where can I find him?”

“Ask Meg Wycliff. Sometimes she takes him in.”

“Doesn’t he work at a barbershop?” Alex was noticing some of Mrs. Ring’s handbills on a shelf next to the door. Facon had picked one up somewhere to write his note to Adams.

Matthew kept the scissors flying as he answered. “Works for me off and on, when he feels like it. If you find him, tell him I could use an extra hand for a few days while the ships are in.”

“Where can I find this Meg Wycliff?”

The barber glanced at his wall clock. “If she’s up yet she’d likely be having breakfast with Prester Gamecock at the Purple Seal.”

“Who?”

“You’re new around the docks,” Matthew remarked. “That’s the name he uses. Prester Gamecock deals in fighting cocks. Everyone bets with him.” He finished with the customer, who paid him, grabbed his coat from a hook, and hurried out to the street.

Alex thanked the barber and went on his way, thinking about Prester Gamecock. He decided he’d been away from the city too long — or not long enough.

He did know the Purple Seal, though, a long-time hangout for sailors off the merchant ships. It was only a few blocks down the street, near the dock where a large fishing schooner lay at anchor. He entered the place casually, well aware that his city clothing immediately set him apart from these dock-dwellers out for a morning’s food and drink. He stopped a barmaid carrying two tankards of ale and asked, “Is Prester Gamecock here yet?”

Her lips tightened into a grim line as she motioned toward a back booth. Alex saw a large man with a mottled face, wearing a blue bandanna around his head. He was seated with a dark-haired, green-eyed young woman who might have been twenty or a bit younger. He must have overheard Alex’s question because his head came up slowly until their eyes met. “Looking for me?” he asked in a rasping voice that seemed to go with his face.

“Looking for Meg Wycliff. They said she might be with you.”

He placed his arm possessively around the dark-haired woman. “How much is she worth to you?”

“I only want to talk,” Alex said, slipping into the other side of the booth. “You are Meg Wycliff?”

“I am,” she announced with some pride.

“My name is Alexander Swift and I come from our nation’s capital. I’m seeking a friend of yours, the French barber named Pierre Facon.”

The woman and man exchanged quick glances. “I know him. He has not been seen lately,” she replied.

“Why do you seek him?” the man called Gamecock wanted to know.

Remembering John Adams’ offer of money, he said, “I might be able to help him if he’s in financial difficulties.”

“He is that!” Meg Wycliff confirmed. “Are you a friend?”

“I’ve never met him, but I bring a message from someone who has, our Vice President. Could you tell me where I might find him?”

It was Prester Gamecock who answered. “We see him on occasion. Perhaps even tonight. I have a prize cock fighting at the Men’s Sporting Parlor in the Bowery, and that usually attracts him.”

“I may come there,” Alex told them. “Where is it located?”

“In Patsy Hearn’s Five Points grogshop. Anyone can direct you to it.”

Alex spent the remainder of the morning searching the dock area and nearby boardinghouses for Facon, without success. Gamecock and Meg Wycliff seemed to be the only leads he had. He prowled the city’s center, stopping to inspect the stocks and whipping posts as well as the nearby gallows designed to resemble a Chinese pagoda. Hanging, he knew, was still the punishment for burglary, arson, and forgery, as well as for murder. Further along he encountered a pair of pigs running wild in the street. Perhaps pigs, like people, were enjoying their freedom from British rule.

By afternoon his travels around the city had extended east to John Street, where he knew Amanda and her present husband resided. He was not especially surprised to recognize her entering a greengrocer’s halfway down the block. Avoiding an encounter would have been easy enough, but he realized that he wanted to see her again after all, to learn how her life had been.

She did not notice him in the shop until he spoke. “It is a bit late in the season for the best greens, Amanda.”

She looked up, startled, and relaxed only when she recognized him. “Alex! What brings you to New York?” She was still a handsome woman, even with the bits of gray creeping into her hair.

“I’m here on business, just for a day or two. I recognized you entering the shop and thought I’d say hello.”

Her face had relaxed now into the smile he remembered. “It’s good to see you again. Are you happy?”

“Very much so. Molly and I have a fine twelve-year-old son named George.”

“After Washington.”

“Of course. We were married at West Point and Washington attended the ceremony. How about you?”

“Roland is a master tanner. He sells leather to shoemakers in the city. I help with his bookkeeping. We entertain at dinner and keep quite busy.” A thought occurred to her. “I’d like you to meet him. Would you be free for dinner tonight, Alex?”

He smiled. “Roland might not appreciate meeting your former husband. Besides, I have an engagement tonight, in the Five Points neighborhood.”

“That place is a slum, infested with Irish immigrants!”

“It’s business. I’m certain no harm will come to me.”

“Alex—”

“Next time. Perhaps Molly and I can dine with you next time. It was good seeing you, Amanda.” He turned and left her in the shop.

The Men’s Sporting Parlor was in the rear of Patsy Hearn’s grogshop, and Alex found a place to sit on the pine planks that ran around a sunken pit some fifteen feet square. Admission was a mere twenty-five cents, and the man next to him explained that it had cost more before the opposition to bearbaiting had ended that practice in many places. Now there were only the cocks to fight, and an occasional battle between rats and trained terriers. All the events were good for wagering, and Alex joined in by betting a dollar on a ruffled rooster that looked as if it had survived a few previous battles.

He didn’t notice Prester Gamecock until the end of the first match. Alex’s cock had triumphed and a one-eyed sailor brought him his winnings. As he looked up he saw the large man with the blue bandanna seated across the arena from him, along with Meg Wycliff and another man. There were five matches scheduled that night, and when the last of them ended with an explosion of blood and feathers, Alex made his way around the pit to join Gamecock’s party.

“Did you have some winners, Mr. Swift?” the woman asked.

“I won on the first match and quit while I was ahead. How often are these fights held?”

“Whenever we have enough cocks,” the large man answered. “Once a week, sometimes twice.”

The crowd around them had cleared out, and a black man was spreading sawdust over the bloodstained pit. Alex’s gaze had drifted to the third member of their party and Meg Wycliff announced, “This is Pierre Facon, the man you’ve been looking for.”

“Mr. Facon?” Alex asked, extending his hand.

“Yes, that is me,” the man agreed. He spoke English with only a trace of a French accent. He was fairly tall, but seemed a bit young to have been working on shipboard eighteen years earlier.

“Did you work as a barber aboard the frigate Boston in seventeen seventy-eight?”

“I did, sir. Those were proud days, fighting alongside the Americans.”

Alex glanced at the others and decided the rest of the conversation should be between Facon and himself. He thanked Gamecock and the woman for their help and went off with the Frenchman to the front of the grogshop. Once they were seated he ordered two tankards of ale and told the man, “I’ve been sent here by Vice President Adams.”

“I assumed as much.”

“You wrote him about the events on board the Boston.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Your letter could be seen as a threat against the Vice President.”

“I didn’t mean it as a threat,” he replied, suddenly ill at ease. “I just felt I should get some money for what happened.”

“You must realize the Vice President was not responsible for your injury.”

“He owes me something,” Facon insisted. “He might be the next President.”

“As a Frenchman, that should please you. Adams opposes a war with France over the maritime incidents.”

“Aye, he is not a bad man.”

“Are you working? I spoke with Matthew, the barber down on Greenwich Street. He said he could use you for a few days.”

Facon smiled and shook his head. “I made some money tonight on the cocks and I expect some more from Mr. Adams. I don’t need his job, though he has been kind to a fellow countryman.”

“You’d better tell him you won’t be in.”

“I’ll leave a note on his door tonight. What about the money?”

“Meet me for breakfast tomorrow at Mrs. Ring’s boardinghouse. Perhaps I can help you out, if you promise to cease annoying the Vice President.”

“Mrs. Ring’s,” he repeated with a smile. “I’ll be there. About eight?”

“Fine.”

Back in his room at the boardinghouse, Alex considered how much he could reasonably offer the man the following morning. Adams had given him a free rein, but he did not want the exchange of money to seem like any sort of payoff or bribe to keep quiet. The Vice President had done nothing wrong, and any payment must be of a compassionate nature only.

In the morning he decided on an appropriate sum and went downstairs a little before eight to await the arrival of Pierre Facon. But it was Meg Wycliff who appeared at the boardinghouse door, her face twisted with grief. “You must come,” she told him. “Pierre has been murdered!”

Alex quickly followed her down Greenwich almost as far as Liberty Street. “What happened?” he asked as they walked. “Who killed him?”

“We don’t know. He spent the night at a bawdy house.”

She led him to a two-story frame dwelling with shuttered windows. They went up the front steps to the door where a stout older woman waited.

“No police!” she told Meg. “I told you no police.”

“He’s not police. He’s from the government. Alex, this is Mrs. Blithe. She owns this place.”

“Where is Facon?” he asked.

“This way.” The stout woman led them to a second-floor hallway. Girls in nightdresses, barely past school age, clustered by an open doorway until she shooed them away. Facon’s body lay inside and blood from a head wound had turned the rug crimson. He was wearing one-piece underwear and his feet were bare. He had ten toes.

“What happened to him?” Alex asked.

Mrs. Blithe shook her head. “I don’t know. He was in here with one of my girls and she went down the hall to wash up. She swears he wasn’t alone for more than five minutes. She heard a thump and came back to find him like this.”

“His skull was crushed by a hard blow,” Alex said, glancing around for any possible weapon. Nothing likely was visible. “You must know who was up here at the time, Mrs. Blithe.”

“This early in the morning most of the girls are asleep. Anyone could walk in the front door.”

He motioned toward the body. “Is it common for customers to spend the night?”

“Sometimes, if they come late. This man had no wife.”

“Pierre Facon? Was that his name?”

Mrs. Blithe shrugged. “It was the name he used. Down on the docks nobody asks many questions.”

“Where’s the girl he was with?” Alex asked.

She glanced around, finally summoning one of them. “Estelle, come here! Tell this man what happened.”

Estelle was a bit older than the others, with squinty eyes and a hard mouth. “He came in after midnight,” she told them. “After a while he just fell asleep, so I let him be.”

“Was he a regular customer of yours?”

“I guess you could say that,” she admitted. “He always came to me if I wasn’t busy.”

“Then someone looking for him might have come to your room.”

“Maybe,” she admitted with some reluctance.

“Did he ever talk about his past, about his days at sea?”

Estelle’s eyes squinted even more. “He was a barber, not a sailor. What would he be doing at sea?”

“How about enemies? Did he seem fearful of anyone?”

She thought about it. “That man Gamecock. Everyone’s afraid of him. He’s the one should have gotten killed.”

“I thought they were friends.”

“Nobody’s his friend. The girls all fear him, and the men hate him because he takes their money. Some say he even fixes the cockfights, feeding small amounts of belladonna to some of the birds to sicken them.”

Alex considered the possibilities. “Could he have gotten in here this morning without being seen?”

“Of course he could! And anyone who happened to see him would be afraid to say so.”

Meg Wycliff had followed him upstairs and tugged at his arm. “You’re endangering these people with your questions! Facon is dead. Whatever you came here for, it’s over.”

“Perhaps. Where can I find Gamecock now?”

“Sleeping, probably. He sleeps late, especially on the mornings after a cockfight.”

“Where?”

She took a deep breath. “If I told you, he’d kill me.”

“All right. Tell me this — where is the real Pierre Facon?”

“What? In there, on the floor. What do you mean?”

“This man isn’t Facon and I think you know it. When you and Gamecock heard I was looking for him, offering money on behalf of the Vice President, you found someone to pass off as Facon in hopes of making an easy profit. Only I happen to know that the real Facon is missing the big toe on his left foot, and that body on the floor has all its toes.”

“And I happen to know he’s the real Pierre Facon, and there’s no business with missing toes. I’ve known him all my life.”

“The barber, Matthew, said you took him in sometimes.”

“I took him in because he was my half-brother.”

In the downstairs parlor, while Mrs. Blithe poured them tea, Meg Wycliff told her story. “My mother was married to a French trader named Victor Facon. He fought with the colonists against the British and was killed at Trenton in ‘seventy-six. Their son, Pierre, was twelve at the time.”

Alex remembered thinking he’d seemed a bit young to have been aboard the Boston in ‘seventy-eight. “And your mother remarried?”

She nodded. “The following year, to a man named Peter Wycliff, and I came along soon afterward. They moved west to Ohio a few years ago, but I stayed here with Pierre.”

“He was a barber by trade?”

“He worked at the shop with Matthew Dijon for a time, but he was always looking for something else, something that would bring him big money. I think that’s why he wrote the letter to John Adams.”

“Then you knew about the letter?”

“Not immediately. When you came looking for me yesterday he told me what he’d done.”

“He was never on board the ship with Adams?”

“Never on board anything bigger than the fishing boats around the harbor. In seventeen seventy-eight he was only fourteen, still living at home. He told me how he helped take care of me as a baby.”

“Did you ever hear this story before about a toe being cut off?”

“Never.”

“What about you? Were you here when he was killed?”

Her face reddened at his question. “I am not a strumpet, in spite of anything you might have heard. Mrs. Blithe sent someone for me as soon as she saw the body. I remembered Pierre telling me you’d be at Mrs. Ring’s boardinghouse and I came for you at once.”

“All right, I believe you. Now tell me where I can find Prester Gamecock.”

“If I know him, he’ll be collecting his winnings from last night’s match. You might find him in any of the shops along the river.”

The police, always a bit reluctant to deal with bawdy houses, had at last arrived on the scene. Alex managed to slip away, and if any of the officers noticed his exit they no doubt took him for a shy customer eager to avoid questioning. He made his way over to the river and stopped in all the likely shops, asking after the man he sought. But if any of them knew the name Prester Gamecock they were reluctant to admit it. By the time he reached the Purple Seal they told him Gamecock had been there and gone.

Gazing down Greenwich Street, he saw the familiar barber pole at the Dijon shop. It was as good a place as any to try next, and it was a fortunate choice. Alex peered through the window and saw Gamecock collecting some coins from the barber. He opened the door and went in to join them. There were no customers, and no coats or canes by the wall hooks.

“Do you have business with me?” Gamecock asked, obviously annoyed at his presence.

The barber moved off to one side, as if fearful of being caught in the middle. “Pierre Facon was killed this morning at Mrs. Blithe’s house,” Alex said.

“Interesting,” the large man said, weighing the coins he’d just received in the palm of his hand. “You’ll need a new assistant,” he told Matthew.

“Who might have wanted him dead?” Alex asked them.

The barber shrugged. “He probably got rough with one of Mrs. Blithe’s girls and she whacked him. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Alex turned to Gamecock, who had started for the door. “What do you think?”

“I never judge people. There is enough of a challenge in judging fighting cocks.”

He left the shop. Alex started to follow and then changed his mind. Something was wrong, something was missing, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. He let the door close behind Prester Gamecock. “Matthew?”

“Yes?” the barber responded.

“What happened to your gold-headed cane, the one that was leaning against the wall here yesterday?”

“Cane?”

“I thought it belonged to your customer in the chair, but he grabbed his coat and hurried out the door.”

“You mean this cane?” he asked, lifting it from behind a cabinet.

“That’s the one, Matthew. The one you used to bludgeon Pierre Facon to death this morning. Don’t try it with me. I can move a great deal faster than a limping man with a missing toe.”

“I know nothing about his death.”

“You knew enough to say he might have been whacked by one of the girls, when I hadn’t mentioned how he died. You have a cane that could be the murder weapon, and the necessity for a cane in someone your age implies a foot or leg injury. It was you who lost a toe on board the Boston, wasn’t it? You told the story to Facon and he stole it as his own, writing to Adams to ask for compensation. When I told him last night that you needed an assistant barber, he wrote you a note and left it in your door. Whatever he said in that note made you realize what he’d done. In your fury, you sought him out at Mrs. Blithe’s, knowing he’d be with Estelle, and split his skull with your cane.”

“I have no accent, yet you accuse me of being a French barber on board the Boston?”

“Facon described you as a fellow countryman and your name is certainly French. If it’s not you, take off your left boot and let me count your toes.”

He sighed, realizing that further denial was useless. “He stole my story to get money from Adams! I went there full of anger, to beat some sense into him, not to kill him. I never requested payment from the United States and I never would. I am proud to be part of this new nation.” He was silent for a moment, finally adding in a quiet voice, “Now what is there for me?”

“I am not the police,” Alex told him. He considered his courses of action. “I will report back to the Vice President. The decision will be his, but I can tell you he is a just man and a fair one. I believe he will leave the investigation to the local police without involving himself.”

Matthew Dijon nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

Alex touched the hair on the back of his head. “As long as I’m here, could you give me a trim before I leave?”

The barber smiled. “It would be a pleasure, sir.”

Copyright © 2005 by Edward D. Hoch.