Osgood shrugged. “Well, I suppose so. Mr. Wakefield commented that this type of crime is not uncommon in England, nor on ships.”
“No. But this Parsee man, Herman, he hardly seems like the usual pickpocket, does he?” Rebecca asked. “Think of Charles Dickens's own descriptions of that breed of criminal. They are quite young rascals, desperate and set on quick profit, inconspicuous. Certainly not like him. I should wonder if he is any less than six feet tall!”
A FEW DAYS LATER, the weather was inclement, too soggy to be out on deck, while Osgood, despite his better instincts, sat in the ship's library brooding about Herman. He had found an English edition of
Remembering the maze of halls from the captain's tour, he brought a candle from his stateroom and quietly retraced his steps through the dark halls to the brig. He did not fear for his safety, not with the prisoner chained and the iron bars between them. No, he feared more, perhaps, whatever it was Herman might reveal: some danger that Osgood could not yet anticipate. Prompted by Rebecca's questions, he had begun to wonder just what a man like Herman had been doing in Boston in the first place.
When he reached the lower level of the ship and found the row of jail cells, each one black with iron and metal, strewn with grime and dust, he stopped in front of Herman's. He raised the candle and gasped loudly. The cell was empty but for a dead rat, its head missing, and a set of dangling chains.
Chapter 10
OSGOOD STOOD IN PLACE FOR A MOMENT, PARALYZED BY FEAR and surprise, though he knew he must act quickly. Hesitation could put him in even greater peril-worse, it could endanger his friend Mr. Wakefield or even Rebecca! Herman might be anywhere on the ship, and if he could escape a prison cell built for war, he could also prove far more dangerous than a petty “floorer.”
Osgood dashed though the dark and climbed the stairs two at a time.
“What's the matter, sir?” asked a steward whom Osgood nearly knocked over.
Osgood rapidly conveyed the situation to the steward, and the captain and his staff soon gathered. They divided into groups to search the steamer in all quarters for Herman. Osgood and the rest of the passengers were left in the saloon with an armed sentry to ensure their safety. When the captain returned, hat in hand, rifle under his folded arm, wiping the sweat gathered from the expedition, he reported that Herman was nowhere on board.
“How is that possible, sir?” Rebecca demanded to know.
“We do not know, Miss Sand. He was seen yesterday morning when one of my stewards brought him his soup. He must have forced open the lock and escaped sometime during the night.”
“Escaped to where, Captain?” Wakefield cried, both of his hands engaging in a fierce kneading of his knees.
“I do not know, Mr. Wakefield. Perhaps he saw another ship and decided to swim for it. The winds were choppy yesterday, though: it is unlikely he would have survived if he tried such a mad flight. He has almost certainly perished in the depths, and will sleep soundly in Davy Jones's locker.”
Hearing this grim scenario, the passengers exhaled their excitement and by the time they returned to their staterooms were bored again. After a few days, thoughts of soon reaching England erased those of the escaped prisoner. Passengers packed up the contents of their staterooms into a few small valises and settled up surprisingly high wine bills with the stewards. Osgood likewise attempted to suppress the questions in his mind. Not Rebecca, though.
“It doesn't make sense, Mr. Osgood,” she insisted one afternoon in the library, tapping her fingers busily on the tabletop.
“What doesn't, Miss Sand?”
“The disappearance of the thief!”
Osgood, one hand locked behind his neck in his usual pose of concentration, looked up from his ledger abruptly but quickly resumed his preoccupied pose facing the window. “You mustn't think too much on that subject, Miss Sand. You heard the captain say that the man perished. If we believed otherwise, we might as well believe in sea serpents. And surely they would have devoured the thief, if we believed in them!”
“What kind of a man drowns himself to escape charges of petty theft? What if…?” Rebecca's voice trailed off there, replaced by her tapping fingers.
A few hours later, Osgood could be found pacing the deck alone as he had done the morning of Herman's trap. As they had sailed closer to England, he looked dreamily at the distant vessels with unknown destinies that sat high against the horizon. Osgood thought about the anxiety on Rebecca's face and knew what she had wanted to say earlier in the library:
Second Installment
Chapter 11
Two and a half years earlier: Boston, November 19, 1867
WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED THAT TICKETS FOR THE FIRST OF the novelist's public readings would be sold the next morning, a queue started to form at the street door of the publishing firm. James Osgood ordered Daniel Sand to carry out straw mattresses and blankets for those spending the night in the cold, windy street. Fields had interjected that if they really wanted a happy crowd, the shop boy ought to bring down beer.
By dawn the morning of the sale, the mass of people outside stretched a mile and a half along Tremont Street. Some had brought their own armchairs to sleep in.
The two partners, Fields and Osgood, were watching from a window that had been hastily barred for fear people might climb in for the tickets. They were astounded to see that not only were aristocratic gentlemen shoulder to shoulder with Irish workmen but also that several Negroes could be seen amid the throng… and that three women had taken places in the rowdy line! This last fact was considered so touching by the men waiting in the arctic cold that after a vote, the first of the women was invited to take a position at the head. In honor of the rather English theme of the gathering, tea was brought out-though some of it was mixed with the contents of small black bottles.
