The First Assassin

FOURTEEN

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1861

The bookshop of French amp; Richstein sat on Pennsylvania Avenue, just off Twelfth Street and in the heart of the downtown business district. In addition to books, it sold stationery, pens, ink, and just about anything having to do with the written word. Periodicals were an important part of the business too, especially newspapers from New York. These were generally regarded as better than the ones produced in the capital. They arrived by train each day and went on sale by late afternoon, in time for people to buy them on their way home from work. Yet no papers from New York had passed through Baltimore since the weekend, putting a nasty dent in French amp; Richstein’s revenue flow.

As Philip French unlocked the door to his shop early in the morning, he wondered if a train would make it through before the sun went down. Fewer people had bought books since the start of the secession crisis. Many more of them, however, were buying the daily and weekly publications. These sales did not make up the difference, but they certainly helped. French did not welcome the prospect of these falling off as well.

Lots of businesses had suffered in recent weeks. There had been a flurry of economic activity around the time of Lincoln’s inauguration, when the city swarmed with members of the new Republican Party celebrating their victory and trying to get jobs in the government. Each day since then, the city had seemed a little emptier. There were soldiers, but they were not customers. The departing long-time residents nevertheless provided a unique opportunity for French amp; Richstein because many of them decided to sell their book collections. French’s partner, Norman Richstein, had spent a good portion of the last several weeks appraising and purchasing the libraries of people leaving town. The sellers essentially bet against Washington, or at least Washington’s continued normal existence. French amp; Richstein gambled in its favor. This made Philip French nominally for the Union, though his feelings were not strong. He was perfectly willing to stock secessionist newspapers from Richmond in his shop as long as there were buyers for them. He just wanted to continue selling books, and he was for whatever made that possible.

As the day’s first customer walked through the front door, French hoped the morning would get off to a good start. The tall, sandy-haired man headed straight for the bookshelves and started to examine titles. French became hopeful. This was the best sort of customer for a business that relies on repeat visits: a new one.

French knew that book buyers were often shy people who would rather read a printed word than exchange a spoken one. Strangers made them feel especially uncomfortable. He wondered if his new customer was that sort of person. The man had made only the briefest eye contact when he entered the store. Still, the proprietor wanted to extend some kind of greeting. “Please let me know if I may be of service,” he said at last.

Mazorca looked up from an open volume. “I will,” he said, flipping through the rest of the pages of the book in his hand and putting it back on the shelf. He ran his finger along the spines beside it, settled on another thick tome, and slid it off the shelf. He tested its weight and studied it from several angles. He pulled back the cover and appeared to assess the texture and strength of the individual pages.

French watched Mazorca do this with several volumes. He thought it was one of the most unusual book examinations he had ever seen. It was not obvious to him that his customer had even read the titles of the books. He certainly wasn’t reading the words on the pages. He seemed to be judging the books by their material quality instead of their literary content, which, he thought, was rather like judging the taste of a wine by the shape of its bottle. Yet his customer accumulated a small stack of books under his arm. French was grateful for that.

After about twenty minutes, Mazorca approached the counter.

“Did you find everything?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Mazorca placed five oversize volumes in front of French. Four were in excellent condition. The last one was in dreadful shape, with a cracked binding and loose pages stuffed between its covers. French was a bit embarrassed to see that it had been sitting on one of his shelves. It was a copy of Schiller’s plays and criticism, in the original German.

“Sorry about the condition of this one,” he said as he totaled Mazorca’s bill. “I don’t believe we have another copy.”

“I’ve been looking for it,” came the reply. “I would have taken it in any condition.”

French was a bit surprised by Mazorca’s choices. In addition to Schiller, there were two Bibles, a lavishly illustrated guide to American birds, a novel called The Mysteries of Udolpho, and a copy of the new Dickens book. French liked to comment approvingly on his customers’ purchases, even to the silent types. When he added the Bibles to Mazorca’s tally, he settled on something to say.

“Ah, yes. The good word.”

Mazorca smiled, though French was not sure it was for his benefit. “The last word,” he muttered, looking at the book rather than its seller.

French totaled the bill and Mazorca paid it. “Thank you very much. I hope we will see you again,” said French, really meaning it.

“You may,” said Mazorca, walking to the door. Before stepping out, however, he turned back to French. “By the way, I thought I might try to have the Schiller book repaired by a bookbinder. Can you recommend one?”

“Of course,” said French. “Try Charles Calthrop. He’s just a few blocks away.”

French gave Mazorca the address and directions. A moment later, Mazorca was gone. French did not notice a man with a bushy mustache standing across the street. Neither did Mazorca.

Portia tumbled onto a hard surface-and nothing had ever felt quite so good. After spending the first leg of her journey upside down, she at last lay on her side. She had not planned on comfort while pressed into her small crate, but she had expected the porters at the railroad station in Charleston at least to have seen the words Leery marked on the outside of her box in big black letters: “This side up.” There were even arrows pointing in the right direction in case the loaders could not read. Whether they failed to see Leery’s instructions or simply ignored them hardly mattered now. It just felt good to be off her head.

She knew it was daytime because a thin ray of light streaked though a tiny hole in her box. But she had no idea whether it was morning or afternoon, or even where she was. Leery had told her that she probably would be loaded off and on trains a couple of times before reaching her destination-he had mentioned Wilmington and Richmond, but these names meant nothing to her.

Nelly had raised plenty of objections-starvation, suffocation, and so on-but Leery had an answer for each one. When Nelly finally consented, he packed Portia into a crate with a sack of water, a dozen biscuits, and a pillow. He also bored a few small holes around the box to ensure that she would have enough air to breathe. He even gave her a gimlet in case she needed to create more holes. He sealed the box so that she could open it from the inside.

For Portia, the decision to follow the example of Box Brown was easy. It represented her best chance of getting to Washington in a short amount of time. It carried obvious risks-discomfort, delay, discovery-but so did the alternatives. Portia had heard stories about slaves in places like Maryland and Kentucky running through the woods to freedom in the North, but they really did not have very far to travel. From South Carolina, an overland trek would be long and hard, and the odds of success incredibly slim. Not only would Portia risk getting caught, but she would also risk arriving in Washington too late. A refusal to take chances guaranteed failure. And so she had gone into the box.

Portia could not have been off the train for more than a few minutes when she felt herself moving again. Then her box was lifted and placed down somewhere else. It was not long before she heard a train whistle and felt that same sensation of momentum that she had experienced upon leaving Charleston. She was cramped and sore, and the light through her hole had disappeared. Yet she did not care-this time, at least, her handlers had paid attention to Leery’s instructions. Portia was right side up.

Charles Calthrop knew he was out of place in Washington. Most of the country’s high-quality artistic bookbinders were in New York, where they operated close to major publishing houses and the center of national wealth. For three decades Calthrop had labored among them, restoring frayed family Bibles and designing ornamental covers for the vanity books of socialites who mistook themselves for poets. Work was everything to him, and he was proud of what he did. He often signed his volumes in a discreet place when he was particularly satisfied with a result, as if he were a painter.

By the late 1840s, a growing portion of Calthrop’s business was coming from Washington. It had started with a single senator who wanted to collect several of his own speeches and writings in attractive volumes for friends and supporters. Through word of mouth, Calthrop eventually became Washington’s favorite bookbinder, even though he did not live there. Over time, Calthrop decided to move closer to his clientele. So the gray-haired bachelor moved to Washington and opened a small shop on the second floor of a K Street building, near the corner of Fourteenth Street, in 1855.

For Calthrop, a busy day was when a visitor climbed the stairs to his shop and he also received an inquiry through the mail. That was fine with him. Bookbindery was a lonely occupation that required a tremendous amount of patience. Calthrop enjoyed nothing more than the solitude of several quiet hours spent fixing small cracks and waiting for glue to dry before proceeding to the next step. The arrival of customers often bothered him because they interrupted his work-even though he knew they were the people who provided him with the ability to continue doing what he loved most.

When Mazorca walked into the shop with an armful of books just before lunchtime, Calthrop set down a tiny blade he had been using on an old volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, owned by a cabinet secretary. He hoped this man would be the day’s only business.

“May I help you?” sighed Calthrop, not moving from his seat behind a table.

“Your services have been recommended to me. I have a book that would benefit from restoration.”

Mazorca placed the Schiller book beside Calthrop. The old man picked it up and cradled it gently. He flipped it over several times. Then he opened it and studied the pages.

“You have good taste,” he said. “I am a great admirer of Schiller’s. There aren’t many other people in Washington who know much about him.”

Mazorca simply nodded.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” asked the bookbinder.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you speak German? Apparently not.”

“No, I don’t. This book is for an acquaintance.”

Disappointed, Calthrop returned his gaze to the book and sighed again. “Its condition looks worse than it really is,” he said. “A few minor repairs should do the trick. Unfortunately, I’m a bit behind on several projects right now. I’m not sure how soon I could give it attention.”

“I was thinking about trying to fix the book myself. Would you be willing to show me what needs to be done and sell me the tools? I’d be happy to pay you for your time as well.”

Calthrop thought it was an odd request. He did not want an apprentice peering over his shoulder. He did have some spare tools, though. He always had more tools than he needed. Selling them to this fellow might not be a bad idea-and getting paid for a short lesson on top of that made additional sense.

The bookbinder studied the Schiller volume again, this time more intently. “Here is how I would approach the problem,” he said, outlining a strategy that would take three days to complete. For a half an hour, Calthrop described what to do and showed his student how to use several tools. When they were done, Mazorca had a small pile of knives, glue, and ribbon. They settled on a price-one that Calthrop found extremely pleasing.

“Please come back with additional questions as the need arises,” said Calthrop, surprising himself with the offer.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. You’ve told me everything I need to know, Mr. Calthrop.”

“Well, feel free to return.”

“I will,” said Mazorca, turning to exit.

“There is just one more thing, sir.”

Mazorca turned around. From his look, Calthrop could tell his customer desired to leave. But a question nagged him. “Are you from Cuba?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’d wager that you’re from Cuba.”

Mazorca froze. “What makes you say that?”

“I can hear a touch of Spanish in your accent, and specifically a Cuban dialect.”

“You are mistaken,” said Mazorca, coldly.

“Have you at least spent time there, or somewhere else in Spanish America?”

“No.” This time Mazorca was more insistent. “Not Cuba.” He pursed his lips. He looked annoyed.

Calthrop felt a need to explain. “I’m very sorry. I was a musician in my youth, and my ear catches small variations in sound. I would still be a musician today, except that I heard music better than I played it. I’m left with this ability to pick up tiny differences in the way people pronounce words. I’ve made guessing where people are from into a little hobby. I’m usually pretty good at it. I’ll feel better if you tell me you’ve at least spent some time in Cuba.”

“Where I’m from is no concern of yours.” Mazorca’s glare unsettled Calthrop.

“I didn’t meant to offend…”

Mazorca was gone before Calthrop could finish his sentence. The old man was glad this customer had purchased supplies rather than dropped off a book. He did not want to see him again.

“What’s this?” asked Rook, pointing to the stack of books piled next to Springfield on his bench in Lafayette Park. The colonel had slipped away from his sandbagging command for a short meeting. He bent over and looked at the spines. There were five copies of the same book: The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens.

“I didn’t take you for a reader,” said Rook before Springfield could respond. “I took you for a vile and calumnious man.”

Springfield leaped to his feet, startled by the colonel’s comment. “Excuse me, sir?”

“I meant that in a Pickwickian sense.”

“A what?”

“Well, that proves it.”

“Proves what?”

“That you aren’t a reader.”

“I’m confused, sir.”

“Me too. You’re sitting here in the park with five copies of The Pickwick Papers beside you, and you don’t understand an elementary reference to them-a humorous one, I might add. If I say you’re vile and calumnious in a Pickwickian sense, then I mean the exact opposite. I’ve actually paid you a compliment.”

Springfield furrowed his brow. “Thank you, I guess. I haven’t read these books, sir.”

“Obviously not. What are they doing here?”

“I bought them this morning.”

“A good selection. But I hope you realize each copy is the same on the inside-you might have saved yourself some money buying only a single copy. An experienced reader would know that.”

“Right. Except saving money wasn’t the issue. Spending it was. I’ve been gathering information all morning on one of our secessionist friends. The price for some of it was five copies of this book.”

“Perhaps you had better start from the beginning,” said Rook, taking a seat on the bench. He gestured for Springfield to sit down as well, and the sergeant complied.

“You wanted me to learn more about the fellow seen leaving from Violet Grenier’s on Sunday, so this morning I did,” said Springfield. He described waiting for his man outside the boardinghouse on H Street, following him to the bookstore and the bookbinder, and finally trailing him back to the boardinghouse.

“After he returned, I went back and interviewed the storekeepers. He bought five books at French amp; Richstein and some supplies from Calthrop the bookbinder.”

“Did you get the titles of the books he bought?”

“French didn’t want to tell me. He mumbled something about proprietary information, but it turned out not to be so proprietary that he couldn’t be persuaded to share it.”

“You bribed him?”

“It depends on how you define ‘bribe.’” Springfield tapped the stack of Dickens books. “These were displayed prominently near the front of the store, and I’ve heard that Dickens is a fine writer.”

“Very clever. So what did French tell you?”

“He gave me the names of the books our man purchased.” Springfield removed a slip of paper from inside the front cover of the top Dickens book and handed it to Rook.

“Ann Radcliffe is an intriguing selection.”

“I didn’t know of your interest in Gothic novels.”

“That’s not what interests me-what interests me is the range. Our man is an eclectic reader: German plays, American birds, an English novel, and two Bibles.”

“French said the same thing.”

“What about the bookbinder?”

“That’s where our man went next. The owner is an older gentleman named Charles Calthrop. He doesn’t seem to get many visitors-I was apparently the very next person to stop by, even though it had been at least an hour since our man had been there.”

“What did Calthrop say?”

“He didn’t want to say much, and he grew agitated at my questioning. It seems our fellow took a short lesson on how to repair a damaged book-one of the books he had bought from French was in rough shape. Calthrop gave him a few tips on restoring it and sold him some supplies.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Then something weird happened. Calthrop said he thought he detected a slight accent in the man’s speech-a Spanish inflection, and in particular a Cuban dialect of Spanish. So he asked his customer where he was from. The guy clammed up, said he wasn’t from Cuba, and that Calthrop should mind his own business.”

“He likes privacy, though I suppose the behavior is a little odd.”

“More than a little, figures Calthrop. He thinks the man gave him a threatening look on the way out, after what Calthrop describes as an otherwise pleasant encounter.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps innocent. What we seem to have learned is that our man likes to read, wants to fix a damaged book he bought, and doesn’t like people asking about his background.”

“I suppose that sums it up.”

“Have you interviewed the person who runs his boardinghouse? We don’t even know this man’s name.”

“I’m worried that talking to her might strike a bit close to home.”

“Maybe that’s for the best. If he’s stayed with her for a long time, she could be loyal to him, which means she’d tell him we’re watching. Winning her over might cost a lot more than five books.”

Rook wished he knew more about the man, but the resources for surveillance were limited essentially to the time of Springfield and Clark, plus whatever Rook could devote to it. There was also the question of their prisoners.

“For now,” said Rook, “turn your attention back to Grenier. We’ll watch her for at least a few more days, and then we’ll reassess what we’re doing.”

“I think that’s a terrible idea, you ugly lout.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean that only in a Pickwickian sense, sir.”

There was no year. That was the first thing Violet Grenier noticed about the letter.

Sitting behind the desk in her second-story study, Grenier held a single piece of paper dated April 19, with no year attached to the date. It could have been written just four days earlier, a year and four days earlier, or a decade and four days earlier. She might not have spotted the incomplete date on another missive-lots of people left the year off their correspondence-but on this one she had looked for it right away. That was what she did whenever she received a note from Langston Bennett. It was a signal.

The script was familiar and the letter brief. Langston said he was very busy and commented on the passing of a favorite servant. None of it interested Grenier. Everybody was busy nowadays, and she could hardly care less about some slave in South Carolina. If anybody else had written to her this way, she would have wondered why its author was wasting her time with such nonsense. With Bennett, however, nonsense was the furthest thing from her mind.

Grenier set the letter on her desk and walked to a table by the wall, picked up a candleholder, and returned to her seat. Light poured through the big window next to her desk. She had read Bennett’s letter by it and did not need the candle to aid her eyes. Yet she removed the glass cylinder enclosing it and lit the wick. A small yellow flame began to burn.

Taking the letter in both hands, she held it just above the candle. At first, it looked like she wanted to burn the paper. Then it became clear that she meant to expose it to as much heat as possible without singeing it.

Tan splotches began to appear between the lines of Bennett’s letter. Soon they darkened and assumed distinct forms. More shapes became visible as Grenier rotated the letter above the candle. The faint smell of something burning began to rise up, but Grenier barely noticed. After several minutes of this, she pulled the letter away and blew out the candle. Then she placed it squarely in front of her and read its hidden message between the lines of the original script.

I assume you have met Mazorca by now. Warn him to halt his mission immediately. His existence has been discovered. Future missions like his will be jeopardized if he fails. He must stop at once.

Grenier read the letter several times. Then she set it down and leaned back in her chair. Who had discovered Mazorca? How would Bennett have learned about it? The whole matter was puzzling. Mazorca had revealed himself to her just two days ago. And now Bennett was announcing everything a failure. His letter had been composed before she had even met Mazorca. How could the plan have failed so utterly?

She looked at the clock. It was later than she had thought. She would have to reflect on this message and decide how to proceed. But reflecting and proceeding would have to wait. In the meantime, she had to prepare for an important guest.

After returning to his room at the boardinghouse, Mazorca seethed at Calthrop. He knew he risked something every time he interacted with another person. The old man had gone a step too far with that comment about Cuba.

Mazorca put the encounter out of his mind. The books he had purchased at French amp; Richstein’s were stacked on the floor next to his bed. He removed the beat-up Schiller volume from the pile. The others he lined beside each other, a few inches apart on the floor. They were all a bit larger than the average book. One by one, Mazorca repeated the inspections he had given them at the bookstore, now going over them with greater care. He ran his hands over the covers, checked the quality of the binding, and tested the strength of the pages-everything a person might do to a book short of reading it.

When Mazorca was done examining the five tomes on the floor, he went to his trunk and removed a small revolver plus half a dozen bullets. He dropped the bullets into a pocket and checked the gun’s chamber. It was empty.

He returned to the books on the floor and knelt in front of them. He flipped back the top cover of the first one and placed the gun in the center of its title page. Then he leaned over the book and stared down at it, judging the gun’s distance from the margins of the page. After studying this scene, he took the gun back in his hand, closed the book, and rested the gun on the floor beside it. He lowered his head to the floor and closed one eye, comparing the width of the gun to the thickness of the book. He repeated this process with the other three books. When he had finished examining all four, he removed two from the lineup and put them off to the side, by the discarded Schiller volume.

Mazorca began his inspection all over again with the two books still on the floor, reviewing their covers, binding, and pages, and then placing his revolver on and around them. After several minutes of this, he finally paused. For a little while longer he did not move. He simply gazed at the two books before him. At last he took one and placed it on the pile of other books nearby.

He stared at the one still on the floor, studying the stylized lettering on the black cover: The Holy Bible, written in shiny gold. He remembered his conversation with the bookseller that morning. The last word. It made him smirk.

Mazorca set it back on the floor. He collected the items he had purchased that morning from Calthrop and laid them beside the book. Then he lifted the cover and turned in about hundred pages, partway through Exodus. He positioned the revolver on the open page, with the barrel running parallel to the spine and aiming upward, toward the top of the page. He looked at the gun for a moment, adjusted it slightly, and then looked at it some more. When he was satisfied, he marked the page in several places, removed the gun, and picked up one of the miniature bookbinder knives.

Just as his blade began to touch the page, a few words from the book caught his eye: “Let my people go.” They stung him, but he was not sure why. He removed the gun, flipped a few more pages, and set it down again. This time he read a different line: “There was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.” It struck him as possibly appropriate, but he really did not know what to make of it. The Bible was not something he had ever studied. He did not know its stories or its characters. He certainly did not believe they were anything more than fables. At least, he did not want to believe that they were. Whenever the topic of religion entered his mind, he tried to change the subject-and he always succeeded.

He read nothing more from that page or any other page that afternoon. Instead, he cut.

Working at his books under a gas lamp all day made Calthrop unaware of the night falling outside. Twilight had faded to black before he realized the lateness of the hour.

It was not unusual for the bookbinder to lose track of time, and so he was hardly surprised that he had missed the sun’s disappearance a few minutes before seven p.m. The incident reminded him, once more, of how much he enjoyed his trade. He might have been old and he might have slowed down, but he would not give up what he did until he could do it no more.

Calthrop looked over what he had to do in the morning. He arranged a few items on his desk and rose to leave. He closed the door to his shop, locked it, and descended the staircase. He stepped onto the sidewalk and bolted another door. Light still glowed from the establishment on his immediate left, the one that sat directly below his own little shop. Calthrop knew it would shine for several more hours. The business of Madame Costello, a professional astrologist, began late in the afternoon and ran into the evening. “Reader of the Stars,” said the words painted on her window. “Consultations of Past, Present, and Future Events.”

Calthrop looked to the sky. There were no stars to read. Clouds obscured his view of the heavens.

He walked a block to a small pub and ate a light dinner. By the time he was heading home, the streets were desolate. Parts of the city remained alive well into the night, but he did not pass through them. Once he was away from the pub, he did not see anybody else except for a couple of soldiers who passed him and a man walking in the same direction he was going, but about a block behind him. It was a lonely scene. Only a few of the homes in his neighborhood had their lights on. In the others, people already had gone to bed or nobody was home because the occupants had fled the city.

On the doorstep of his home, on B Street just south of the Capitol, Calthrop struggled with his key. He had to wiggle it around before it finally released the lock. It had been causing too much trouble lately. He would have to get it fixed.

Calthrop opened the door to his home and stepped inside. Before he could close the door, he was pushed into the unlit hallway. He fell down and heard the door shut. Someone was in the house with him, but he could not see anything in the blackness.

“Good evening, Mr. Calthrop.”

“What do you want? Is this a robbery?”

“No, I’m afraid it’s something else entirely.”

“Who are you?”

“You disappoint me. A man with your keen ear and you don’t know who I am?”

“You’re the fellow with the Schiller book. I can tell by your voice.”

“How perceptive. It’s a remarkable ability you possess. A little too remarkable, unfortunately.”

“I don’t understand. If it’s money you want-”

“Money is the last thing I need from you, old man.”

“What do you want, then? I’ve done nothing to you.”

“That’s not quite true. You have done something to me. You learned a piece of information about who I am. It may not sound like much, but we can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I really did enjoy our time together this morning. You were quite helpful. Everything was going well for both of us until you made that remark about Cuba.”

“What are you talking about? You said you weren’t from Cuba.”

“I did say that. Did you believe me? It hardly matters. The fact is you know too much.”

“How can I know too much? I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m called Mazorca.”

Calthrop paused for a moment. It was an odd name. “You didn’t have to tell me that,” he said. “Please, sir, I mean you no harm. What do you want with me?”

“I’ve come to give you a piece of advice.”

“What’s that?”

“You should have stayed in the music business.”

In the dark, Calthrop could discern only the outline of a figure moving toward him. Then he saw a flicker of light in the man’s hand. It was the glint of a knife. It was the last thing Calthrop saw.

“So you say Scott held an emergency meeting Sunday night?” asked Violet Grenier. She thought the pleasantries had gone on for long enough. Now it was time to get down to her business before she let her guest get down to his.

“It was called in a great hurry. Fortunately, I was able to make it.”

“Well, you are one of the sharpest men in town,” said Grenier, staring wide-eyed at the man in the facing seat of the tete-a-tete in her parlor. “What did General Scott discuss?”

“He’s in a panic over what happened in Baltimore, and especially over losing the telegraph wires. The general devoted most of the meeting to the defenses of Washington. He ordered the perimeter of the city strengthened and the major buildings barricaded. You’ve probably already seen the result of that.”

“It’s hideous. They’re turning the city into a fort.”

“It’s for everybody’s protection. If we’re attacked, these preparations will be vital to our defense.”

“But people are supposed to live here too. It won’t be long before there’s nothing left to defend-everyone will have gone away.”

“You’re right, Violet. That’s a big problem. Too many people are evacuating the city.”

“What else did General Scott talk about?” she pressed, trying to sound like an excited schoolgirl-inquisitive, but innocent.

“He’s desperate for more troops to arrive-specifically, the New York Seventh. There was also some discussion of what to do with the president in the event of a Southern attack on the city.”

“Was anything decided?”

Grenier’s visitor hesitated. She put her hand on top of his and began to rub gently.

“There is a whole plan,” he said at last.

“A whole plan? To protect the life of the president?”

“We’ve tried to consider every contingency.”

“What is the plan? What will happen to Mr. Lincoln if the city is attacked?”

Again her guest seemed reluctant to answer. Grenier pulled her hand away from his and pouted. “You’re distant tonight,” she said. “It’s not like you.”

“I’m sorry, Violet. It’s just that this is privileged information. We don’t disclose everything to the public, in the interests of security. You must understand.”

“Am I the public? Are you and I together in the public? No, we are not, my love. We are private-very private. This is a discreet relationship. I certainly privilege you. Why won’t you privilege me in return?”

“There’s no reason you need to know any of this.”

“It depends what you mean by need. Now you’ve made it a challenge, and I need you to tell me,” she said, folding her arms and putting on a pout. “I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t.”

“I don’t know, Violet. Your sympathies lie with the South-”

“And yet I lie so often with the North.”

Her visitor understood the pun. Grenier was glad, because sometimes she thought he could be a little dim. She noticed his eyes drop to her low-cut dress. It was not the first time this evening they had done so, but it was the first time she had detected something other than desire in them. There was judgment in them too, as if he were calculating risks and rewards. She raised her hand and began fidgeting with her necklace. The move blocked his view. Her other hand returned to his. She gave it a slight squeeze.

“This is a test,” she said when his eyes met hers once more. “I’ll probably forget it all in a few minutes. But I want you to tell me because I want to know everything about you.”

Grenier removed her hand from her necklace and lowered it a few inches to the edge of her dress, exposing part of her bosom again. Her visitor did not fail to notice.

“Oh, very well. You are right, Violet. There is no harm in telling you.”

Grenier lifted herself off her seat and gave her guest a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m so happy you see it this way,” she said, making sure her breasts brushed his arm. “It makes me feel close to you.” She kissed him again, this time a bit longer, and pulled away. She was ready for the information.

Her visitor smiled. “If the city is attacked and the fighting is intense, the president will be removed from the White House and placed in the Treasury.”

“He wouldn’t flee from the city? Not even in the middle of the night, the way he did when he arrived here?”

“That certainly was embarrassing, wasn’t it?” chuckled her guest. “No, he won’t flee except in the most desperate of emergencies. He felt the sting of criticism in February from some of his friends. I don’t think he cares to feel it again.”

“That makes sense. He definitely seemed like a coward the way he came here.”

“There is at least one member of our council who would have him become a coward again.”

“Really? Who is that?”

“Colonel Rook.”

“The man who was in charge of security for the inauguration?”

“Yes. He’s also been involved in the defenses of Washington, including the personal safety of the president.”

“How would he have Mr. Lincoln become a coward again?”

“At the meeting, he said recent events in Baltimore justified the president’s decision to pass through that city unobserved in February. Today he would practically confine the man to the White House. It’s quite an overreaction, but that’s not even the worst of it. He would additionally have the military wage a major spy campaign against the citizens of this city.”

“A spy campaign?”

“He apparently believes that the secessionist element here presents such an enormous threat that our soldiers should quit guarding the bridges and start monitoring the activities of people like you.” Grenier joined her guest in laughing heartily at this comment. He continued, “To think that he considers you a bigger threat to the republic than Robert E. Lee!”

Grenier roared with laughter. “You delight me with these tales. What did General Scott say to the colonel?”

“He was completely dismissive and was quite sharp with Colonel Rook in front of the whole group. I’m not sure that man has much of a future in the military.”

“Apparently not.”

“This is a real victory for people like you, Violet. It’s no secret that you hope secession prevails. But there is a matter of decency at stake here. Gentlemen do not spy on ladies.”

“So there is no surveillance?”

“No. There is none. Scott has specifically forbidden it.”

“That’s welcome news,” said Grenier. “Shall we retire to my chambers?”

Upon hearing that suggestion, her guest jumped out of his seat. He had a big grin on his face. “What a splendid idea,” he said.

“You know the way,” said Grenier. “You lead and I’ll follow.”

Her enthusiastic visitor was halfway to the next floor before Grenier even made it to the staircase. She paused at a window, pulled back a curtain, and peeked onto the street. It was dark outside, except for a few gas lamps. There, on the corner, she saw him: the same thick-mustached man who had stood outside the day before. He was looking right at her house.

“Are you coming, Violet?”

What a fool, Grenier thought as she let the curtain fall back in place.

“Here I come, dear.”

Even fools sometimes deserved rewards.

If there had been a better way to disguise the murder of Charles Calthrop, Mazorca would have pursued it. Several plans had come to mind, from pushing the bookbinder down the steps of his second-story shop to disposing of him in an alleyway in what might have been made to look like a robbery that turned fatal. But Mazorca rejected these as too hazardous. The astrologer or one of her customers might hear the fall. Anything on the streets involved the risk of discovery. Mazorca had chosen instead to follow the old man home. Seeing that Calthrop lived alone had made the decision easy.

Now he was left with a body-and the problem of what to do with it. Still in the dark of Calthrop’s short hallway, Mazorca weighed his options. The simplest thing would be to leave the body alone. By killing Calthrop, Mazorca had accomplished his main goal. Everything else was secondary. Yet the body would be found at some point, and when that happened the stab wounds would show that an assailant had murdered him. Mazorca wanted to make sure that no investigation into the bookbinder’s death pointed in his direction. He was certain that nobody had spotted him tailing the old man home. The only clues of any interest to the authorities would be found at the crime scene.

How long would it take before anybody came in search of the old man? The bookbinder did not conduct much business. Perhaps several days would pass before his failure to open the shop would draw attention. The next day was Wednesday. Thursday or Friday might arrive before Calthrop’s failure to come to work seemed unusual, and maybe a day or two beyond that before anybody thought it was sufficiently unusual to start looking for him. Arousing curiosity was one thing, and provoking scrutiny quite another. Maybe a whole week would go by.

That was probably too much to hope for. There was at least a good chance Calthrop’s body would be found the very next day, perhaps even by the early afternoon. Mazorca considered how he might confuse the people who would search for Calthrop.

The body lay twisted on the ground, in one of those contorted positions that only a lifeless form can take. The bookbinder’s clothes had absorbed most of the blood. The body could be moved and nobody would be the wiser. Stashing it somewhere in the house entailed the fewest immediate risks. Yet this would not prevent discovery. The house was small, and stink would soon fill it.

Dumping the body somewhere in the wilderness was a more attractive option-Calthrop’s remains might never be found. Yet the risks were far higher. Mazorca did not care to be seen in the company of a bag that was the shape and size of a corpse. There was no way he could cross one of the bridges into Virginia without drawing the attention of a soldier. That left Maryland, which he could enter discreetly, but it did not solve the more fundamental problem of unfamiliarity with the area. He simply was not sure where he could go to get rid of the body and avoid detection. And he knew soldiers were on patrol.

Perhaps there was a closer option. Mazorca was aware of his approximate location just south of the Capitol, but he had not explored this part of the city. He needed to get his bearings. From his pocket he pulled out his small guidebook and consulted its map. He had forgotten about the canal. It was closer than he had realized.

In a bedroom, Mazorca removed a blanket and sheet from a neatly made bed. He wrapped the corpse in them and decided to wait a couple of hours, when the streets would be even more desolate.