He must identify the other conspirators if he could. He changed position, thus able to see a different part of the interior. A man leaned against the wall that overlooked the river. On each side of him, a large window framed a rectangle of darkness dulled by the grime of the glass. The man was a rough, burly sort, unfamiliar to Orry.
Anxious to see more, he put his palm against the wall and pressed his other eye to the crack. The siding creaked under his hand. Huntoon said, 'Someone's out there.'
Powell ran across Orry's line of vision. Orry scrambled back, almost losing his balance as Powell shouted, 'Put the lanterns out.'
The verticle slits of yellow turned black. Orry lunged up and ran toward the field, bent low. A door rolled back. He heard voices outside the implement building, Powell's the loudest.
'Wilbur? We need you. We've been spied on.'
Orry's chest already hurt from running. Halfway across the field, he heard a horse galloping up the dirt road to the buildings, loud voices again, a confusion of questions and orders. The rider turned into the field, firing a shot.
The bullet slashed through weeds two feet left of Orry. His boot caught the moist earth, and he lost his balance. The shot frightened his own horse, who neighed. Orry slid on his knees, then pushed up so hard he felt a spasm in a muscle in his arm. He ran on, reaching his horse and mounting as his pursuer passed the field's midpoint.
He booted his mount down the lane by which he had approached. Low branches whipped his cheeks and forehead. The man behind him fired a second round. It missed. Orry galloped into the wider main road that curved away from the James. Pulling away from his pursuer and topping a slight rise, he saw the sky glow that identified Richmond.
He breathed deeply of the wind rushing against his face. He was riding away from shock and peril — but toward an inevitable meeting with his conscience. It took place about midnight. Madeline sat on the edge of their bed, arms folded over the bosom of her nightdress, while he paced one way, then other, lumps of mud falling from his boots.
After he told her everything, the first thing she said was: 'How in heaven's name did she become involved?'
'Right away I decided it was because of James. But I'm not so sure. Something bothers me about that explanation, though I haven't figured out what it is. Anyway, explanations hardly matter at this point. I'm the one person with knowledge of a direct threat to the President's life. Other lives, too —'
He seized the bedpost. 'I must go to Seddon with the information. And Winder. The provost can pick up the conspirators quietly — It's the first time I've ever been thankful Stephens failed in his congressional crusade.' In February, despite the politicking of the vice president, suspension of habeas corpus had been reenacted.
'All the conspirators?' Madeline asked. 'Does that include your sister?'
'She's one of them. Why does she deserve special consideration?'
'You know, Orry. I don't like her any better than you do. But she's family.'
'
'I haven't forgotten. It doesn't change what I just said. I know you dislike hearing it, but it's true. There's also this: No crime has been committed as yet.'
'The very most I could do — and I'm damned if I think she deserves it — is refrain from mentioning her name or the fact that I saw her.'
'You would have to do the same for James.'
'I owe him nothing.'
'He's Ashton's husband.'
A long silence. Then a disgusted sigh. 'All right. But that's as far as I'll compromise for either of them. I'll identify Powell and no one else. If he implicates Huntoon or my sister, so be it.'
'We're discovered — we'll be arrested — what in God's name are we to do, Lamar?'
Huntoon's wail sickened Ashton. Outside the implement building, with the others crowding around, Powell shot out his hand, twisting Huntoon's collar. 'The one thing we will not do is cry like infants.' He shoved Huntoon away as the sentry, Wilbur, came trotting back across the field to report.
'Lost him.'
'But you got a look at him —'
'No, I didn't.'
'Damn you.' Powell turned his back on Wilbur, who tugged his farmer's hat down over his eyes and sat silently.
Powell rubbed his knuckles against the point of his chin, thinking.
Another of the conspirators cleared his throat. 'They'll be out here by morning, won't they?'
Huntoon spoke up. 'Perhaps not. Suppose it was just some nigger boy hunting chickens to steal.' He was trying to reassure himself.
'It was a white man. I seen that much,' Wilbur said.
'But maybe he meant us no harm —'
'Are you an imbecile?' Powell said. 'He approached by stealth. He observed us through one of the cracks in that wall. But setting that aside, do you seriously imagine I'd sit and wait to find out whether he's harmless?'
He shoved the humiliated Huntoon aside and strode along the weedy strip of ground beside the implement shed. He scanned the bluff, the field, the other buildings. 'What we require are sound tactics for meeting the situation. If we think them out carefully and keep our heads, we'll come through this unscathed.'
Badly scared, Ashton clung to her faith in Powell's brains and courage. But it was shaken when he returned to them, smiling, and she heard him say, 'The first thing we must do is enlist the aid of Mr. Edgar Poe. My favorite author. How many of you know his tale of the purloined letter?'
'You're the one who's an imbecile,' Huntoon ranted, 'talking of cheap hack writers at a time like this.'
For once Ashton silently sided with her husband. Her lover didn't say a word to explain himself, merely gave Huntoon another insulting push and walked past him, laughing.
At daylight, Orry marched up the high stoop of Secretary Seddon's residence and used the knocker so loudly he was sure he woke the whole neighborhood. Within minutes, grumpy Winder was summoned. When he arrived, he resisted for half an hour — Orry was not, after all, one of his most trusted colleagues — but gave in under pressure from Seddon. He would send investigators to Wilton's Bluff before noon.
'I'll go immediately to the President,' the secretary said. He was by now largely recovered from the shock of Orry's news. 'All cabinet members will be warned. Meanwhile, Colonel Main, yours is the privilege of casting the net for the biggest fish.'
'I'll do it with pleasure, sir.'
A few minutes past ten, a curtained van raced to Church Hill and wheeled into Franklin Street. Orry jumped out and led an armed squad up the front steps. A second squad, dropped off a block away, had already deployed in the garden. Orry quickly found himself reacting as Seddon had when he first heard the story.
The front door offered no resistance. Dumbfounded, he said to his men, 'It's been left unlocked.'
Inside, the household furnishings remained, but no clothes or personal belongings.
Lamar Powell had disappeared.
That evening, a second shock. It came in Winder's sanctum, delivered by the man with the long nose, weedy black clothes, and vaguely clerical air.
'I found nothing. No signs of habitation. And, most especially, no trace of those crated weapons you reported, Colonel. In my opinion, no one's been at that farm for months. The neighbors I questioned agree.'
Orry jumped up. 'That can't be.'
Antagonized, the other man said, 'Is that so? Well, then —' a gesture to the door, derisive '— question the two operatives I took with me. You've heard my report, and I stand by it. If you don't like it, ride back there and make your own.'
'By God, I will,' Orry said, as Israel Quincy stepped to the window and gazed at the sunset.
